We consider an e-tailer's upstream supplier who wants to encroach into retailing to earn additional revenue. The supplier needs to decide whether or not to enter the retail market by either selling to consumers on an e-tailer's platform by paying commission fees (agency encroachment) or opening...

In practice, agency e-commerce is also referred to as e-marketplace, where copycats that have nearly identical “consumption quality” with the genuine products are commonly observed. The e-marketplace may not have incentives to combat copycats, so we observe many brands are using a truly new...