Digital products are differentiated from online and offline physical products in important ways. This paper studies the influence of digital products on existing channels and the optimal multichannel management strategy in the context of the book industry. Using individual-level online transaction data and county-level offline bookstore data, I estimate a demand model of book format and retailer choices across genres. I use the estimates to solve for publishers’ optimal wholesale pricing strategy across channels. The demand-side estimates reveal that e-books and offline bookstores appear to compete head-to-head in book genres that serve casual reading purposes such as fiction, science fiction, humor, and biographies, which I categorize as “casual” books. The supply-side results suggest that as local bookstore availability increases, publishers should charge higher wholesale prices in the offline print channel, especially for “casual” books. I find that the e-book channel does not always hurt print channels but can serve as a strategic complement and enhance the pricing power of print channels in some markets and genres; this complementarity does not rely on branding or marketing communication and crucially depends on the relative strength of the channels. Specifically, a new channel can help an existing channel when two conditions hold: first, the new channel is not too weak and can generate enough market expansion effect; second, the existing channel is not too strong and can avoid too much cannibalization from the new channel. I use counterfactual analysis to illustrate the mechanism behind this result and how a multichannel management strategy should account for relative strength across channels.

数字产品在重要方面区别于线上和线下实体产品。本文研究了图书行业背景下数字产品对现有渠道的影响以及最优的多渠道管理策略。使用个人层面的在线交易数据和县级线下书店数据，我估计了跨类型书籍格式和零售商选择的需求模型。我使用估算值来求解出版商跨渠道的最佳批发定价策略。需求方的估计显示，电子书和线下书店似乎在小说、科幻小说、幽默小说、传记等休闲阅读书籍类型上展开了正面竞争，我将其归类为“休闲”书籍。供给方的结果表明，随着当地书店供应量的增加，出版商应该在线下印刷渠道收取更高的批发价格，尤其是“休闲”书籍。我发现电子书渠道并不总是伤害纸质书渠道，而是可以作为战略补充，增强纸质书渠道在某些市场和类型的定价能力；这种互补性并不依赖于品牌或营销传播，而关键取决于渠道的相对实力。具体来说，新渠道能够帮助现有渠道需要满足两个条件：一是新渠道实力不弱，能够产生足够的市场拓展效应；其次，现有渠道不太强大，可以避免新渠道的过多蚕食。我使用反事实分析来说明这一结果背后的机制，以及多渠道管理策略应如何考虑跨渠道的相对优势。