The strategic interplay of information sharing and encroachment: how consistent pricing alters incentives

This paper investigates the strategic interplay between supplier encroachment, pricing consistency, and information sharing in a hybrid marketplace platform with asymmetric demand information. We develop a game‐theoretic model to examine how the supplier's downstream pricing architecture reshapes the platform's vertical information‐sharing incentives. Our analysis reveals that a consistent pricing commitment creates an unexpected commitment trap: the platform withholds information because sharing enables the supplier to condition the wholesale price on realized demand and shift expected surplus upstream. Conversely, under inconsistent pricing, information sharing can become mutually beneficial by enabling demand‐responsive agency pricing, which can generate a commission‐revenue gain for the platform. We further show that the supplier can use the pricing scheme to shape the platform's information‐sharing incentives. Extension analyses confirm the robustness of these mechanisms under alternative strategic sequences, pricing rights, and competitive environments. These findings provide new insights into pricing governance and channel coordination in digital platforms.