Information disclosure: the roles of blockchain and spillover effects on an e-commerce platform with different sales modes

To solve the problems caused by the increasing information credibility issue on platforms, suppliers are seeking to adopt blockchain technology (BT). We consider the situation in which a cross-channel supplier determines BT adoption strategies and a platform chooses sales modes. On this basis, we examine the influence of the cross-channel spillover effect on interaction decisions. We show that the supplier chooses BT to disclose more product information under the agency mode, even if the disclosure cost coefficient of BT is high. Namely, a positive spillover effect leads to higher profit margins and demand in dual channels. However, when the negative spillover effect is salient and the disclosure cost coefficient of BT is low, the wholesale mode improves the position of the supplier that adopts BT, but the supplier discloses less product information to reduce costs. As the product market size and/or spillover effect increase(s), the agency mode not only increases the information disclosure level but also decreases the retail price, which leads to win–win outcomes for firms and multi-win outcomes for firms and consumers. In contrast, since a negative spillover effect and BT exacerbate the DMP (double marginalization problem), firms and consumers achieve a multi-win situation under the wholesale format.