Given the increased purchasing powers in overseas markets and the existence of purchasing agents, international brands may reconsider their entering strategies. In this paper, we use a game-theoretical approach to investigate the strategy of an international brand to carve out a niche in overseas markets with considering of purchasing agents and multinational tax rules. At the beginning, the brand serves the domestic market only, and the purchasing agent acts as a domestic consumer but resells the product to the overseas market. To enter the overseas market, the brand can choose to operate an overseas store itself or sell through a cross-border e-commerce platform, with the existence of the purchasing agents. We derive the optimal strategies for the brand and the impacts of purchasing agents. Our results show that the brand prefers to enter the overseas market once the two overseas strategies are profitable but sticks to domestic market under certain circumstances, which depends on the tax policy and consumers’ valuation discount of buying from an agent. For the optimal overseas strategies of the brand, selling through a platform is more likely to be a profitable option than managing an overseas store. When both overseas strategies are profitable, the brand’s optimal choice depends on tax rules only. Interestingly, the brand does not always have the motivation to drive the purchasing agents out of the overseas market by adjusting retail prices. The existence of purchasing agents may help achieve a win-win situation for the brand and consumers under certain conditions.

鉴于海外市场购买力的增强和采购代理的存在，国际品牌可能会重新考虑其进入策略。在本文中，我们使用博弈论的方法来研究国际品牌在海外市场开拓利基市场的策略，同时考虑采购代理和跨国税收规则。起初，品牌只服务于国内市场，代购者作为国内消费者，将产品转售到海外市场。品牌进入海外市场，可选择自营海外门店或通过跨境电商平台销售，有代购的存在。我们为品牌和采购代理的影响推导出最优策略。我们的研究结果表明，一旦两种海外策略都有利可图，品牌更愿意进入海外市场，但在某些情况下会坚持国内市场，这取决于税收政策和消费者从代理购买的估值折扣。对于品牌的最优海外策略而言，通过平台销售比经营海外店铺更有可能成为一种有利可图的选择。当两种海外策略都有利可图时，品牌的最优选择仅取决于税收规则。有趣的是，品牌并不总是有通过调整零售价格将采购商赶出海外市场的动机。在一定条件下，代购的存在可能有助于实现品牌与消费者的双赢。