Manufacturer’s Decision as Consumers’ Low-Carbon Preference Grows

This paper investigates five channel structures for manufacturers including three single channels and two dual channels. Consumers’ low-carbon preference is considered to explore how market demands and channel selections will change as it remains stable and grows. To compare performances of the five channel structures, we further get the critical points consisting of construction cost of a platform, revenue proportion through a third-party platform, and offline proportion of total demands. The findings show that, when the construction cost is low, a self-owned platform performs better than a retail channel and a third-party platform. If the offline proportion is high, manufacturers would adopt or add a retail channel. When the manufacturers’ revenue proportion is high, a third-party platform is more profitable. If the consumers’ low-carbon preference grows, dual channels can be chosen to satisfy the increasing online and offline demands. The critical revenue proportion and offline proportion become smaller while the construction cost becomes larger. In addition, numerical analysis is provided to show profit changes and robustness of channel structure. Our findings can provide useful insights for decision-makers to implement low-carbon sustainability.