Combined presale and crowdfunding financing strategy for fresh product supply chains under capital constraints

Abstract

Addressing farmers’ financial constraints in the fresh agricultural product supply chain, this study examines a two-stage supply chain involving farmers and e-commerce platforms and explores a hybrid financing strategy that integrates presale financing and multistage crowdfunding. Recognizing that farmers’ presale revenues through e-commerce platforms often fail to cover production costs, this study innovatively constructs a combined financing model of presale and multistage crowdfunding. First, farmers obtain a portion of their start-up capital through presales on e-commerce platforms. Second, crowdfunding is initiated in stages to address the funding gap (planting, growing, and harvesting periods), with the proportion of investor revenue-sharing in each stage dynamically adjusted to balance risk premiums. This study establishes a dynamic planning model to maximize farmers’ profits. The objective function integrates the production volume decision, multistage financing cost, and investor revenue share constraints and solves the model’s equilibrium solution using the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) condition and the backward induction method. Numerical simulations show that unlike the traditional single presale model, multistage crowdfunding enhances farmers’ financing capacity while reducing fluctuations in investors’ returns through a dynamic revenue-sharing mechanism. When the number of crowdfunding stages increases to three, the overall efficiency of the supply chain improves relative to single-stage financing, which verifies that stage-by-stage financing enhances fund-matching efficiency. This study provides a theoretical basis for addressing the mismatch problem of “short-term loan and long-term investment” in agricultural supply chain financing, and offers reliable suggestions for e-commerce platforms to design financing portfolio strategies.

Keywords

capital constraints / fresh product / revenue-sharing / presale financing / multistage crowdfunding

References

[1] Qingdao Blueberry Industry Base. Experimental report on the application of multi-stage crowdfunding models in fresh agriculture[R]. Qingdao Modern Agricultural Innovation Center, 2023. (in Chinese)

[2] CHEN Z B, LI X, TIAN C Y, et al. Information transmit strategy of e-commerce platform with financially constrained supplier[J]. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 2024, 66: 101415.

[3] JD Fresh. 2022 annual pre-sale data white paper on fresh agricultural products[R]. Beijing: JD Group, 2022. (in Chinese)

[4] Pinduoduo Research Institute. Research report on pre-sale models and capital conversion rates in “Farm Produce Festival”[R]. Pinduoduo, 2023. (in Chinese)

[5] CHEN X F, LIU C J, LI S T. The role of supply chain finance in improving the competitive advantage of online retailing enterprises[J]. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 2019, 33: 100821.

[6] Institute of Agricultural Economics, Zhejiang University. Research report on the effectiveness of financing models for fresh produce farmers in the Yangtze River Delta region[R]. Hangzhou: Zhejiang University, 2023. (in Chinese)

[7] PU Y, FANG S H. The optimal portfolio size of venture capital under staged financing[J]. Procedia Computer Science, 2016, 91: 85-93.

[8] SUN Y H, CHEN Y R, LIN X X, et al. Self-operation or Authorization? Decision structure of crowdfunding supply chains with IP derivative products[J]. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 2024, 65: 101396.

[9] DAI N. Monitoring via staging: Evidence from private investments in public equity[J]. Journal of Banking & Finance, 2011, 35(12): 3417-3431.

[10] DENG L R, YU X W. Optimal financing strategy in a dual-channel supply chain with agricultural product[J]. Mathematics, 2024, 12(18): 2835.

[11] WANG M M, JIANG W W, ZHU X X. Research on the optimization of supply chain financing strategies for fresh agricultural products under the cost-sharing contract[J]. Journal of Yunnan Agricultural University (Social Science), 2023, 17(2): 116-126. (in Chinese)

[12] LU Q H, LIAO C H, XU T T. Financing and coordination of the agricultural supply chain considering government-enterprise guarantee[J]. RAIRO-Operations Research, 2023, 57(5): 2363-2392.

[13] BAI S Z, JIA X L. The impact of the cost-sharing contract on capital-constrained agricultural supply chains[J]. Sage Open, 2023, 13: 21582440231156157.

[14] BI G B, WU Y, XU H. Financing options for logistics firms considering product quality loss[J]. Journal of Modelling in Management, 2024, 19(6): 2158-2194.

[15] TANG R H, YANG L. Financing strategy in fresh product supply chains under e-commerce environment[J]. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 2020, 39: 100911.

[16] YU Z Y, HAFEEZ M, LIU L H, et al. Evaluating the minor coarse cereals product crowdfunding platform through evolutionary game analysis[J]. Sustainability, 2019, 11(5): 1299.

[17] CHEN J, WANG N. Game analysis in crowdfunding supply chain of agri-food considering capital time value[J]. Operations Research and Management Science, 2023, 32(5): 71-77. (in Chinese)

[18] YANG H L, GAO M Y, XIAO Q Z, et al. Ordering and pricing decisions for perishable goods retailer with zero-inventory and capital constraints[J]. International Transactions in Operational Research, 2022, 29(5): 3107-3130.

[19] DU J J. How backers’ behavior affects financing performance in agri-food reward-based crowdfunding: The moderating mechanism of initiator characteristics and project attributes[J]. PLoS One, 2024, 19(7): e0305752.

[20] LI Y K, DU J J, FU W Z. Thirty days are enough: What determines the crowd’s cash time in agri-food crowdfunding?[J]. China Agricultural Economic Review, 2020, 12(3): 553-575.

[21] XUE Y, LI Y. Cohesion of agricultural crowdfunding risk prevention under sustainable development based on gray-rough set and FAHP-TOPSIS[J]. Sustainability, 2022, 14(19): 12709.

[22] QIN H F, KONG Y R, XU J. Suggestions on the development of agricultural products crowdfunding from the perspective of reward-based crowdfunding[J]. Hubei Agricultural Sciences, 2022, 61(21): 240-243, 251. (in Chinese)

[23] LJUMOVIĆ I, HANIĆ A D, KOVAČEVIĆ V. The role of reward-based crowdfunding in farm financing: What characterises successful campaign?[J]. Ekonomika Poljoprivrede, 2021, 68(3): 773-788.

[24] WANG Y, CHEN Y Q, HUANG S. Agricultural supply chain financing strategy with social responsibility consideration under platform financing mode[J]. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 2023, 62: 101337.

[25] CHEN Y T, ZHANG R, LIU B. New product financing decision: Crowdfunding, bank or supply chain?[J]. International Journal of Production Economics, 2022, 249: 108536.

[26] HE Y, ZHAO L D, HE J. Optimal pricing and production decisions in a supply chain with e-marketplace[J]. Journal of Southeast University (English Edition), 2007, 23(S1): 8-14.

[27] FAN J X, ZHANG X M, DAN B, et al. Advance selling of fresh produce e-tailer with uncertain demand and risk-averse consumers[J]. Managerial and Decision Economics, 2024, 45(3): 1702-1717.

[28] TIAN Y, DAN B, LIU M L, et al. Strategic introduction for competitive fresh produce in an e-commerce platform with demand information sharing[J]. Electronic Commerce Research, 2023, 23(4): 2907-2941.

[29] REINDORP M, TANRISEVER F, LANGE A. Purchase order financing: Credit, commitment, and supply chain consequences[J]. Operations Research, 2018, 66(5): 1287-1303.

[30] LIN Q, FU W H, WANG Y J. The internal financing decisions of “Company + Farmer” contract farming supply chain[J]. System Engineering Theory and Practice, 2021, 41(5): 1162-1178.

[31] SHEN Y, ZHONG W J, MEI S E. Influence of consumer information investment on supply chain advertising and pricing strategies[J]. Journal of Southeast University (English Edition), 2023, 39(3): 240-247.

[32] YAN L, LI P P, MEI S E, et al. Effect of advertising targeting fit and consumer privacy protection on the profits of media platforms[J]. Journal of Southeast University (English Edition), 2023, 39(2): 194-203.

[33] WANG X H, ZENG C H. A model of advance selling with consumer heterogeneity and limited capacity[J]. Journal of Economics, 2016, 117(2): 137-165.

[34] DAN B, LEI T, ZHANG X M, et al. Modeling of the subsidy policy in fresh produce wholesale markets under yield uncertainty[J]. Economic Modelling, 2023, 126: 106413.

[35] BELLEFLAMME P, LAMBERT T, SCHWIENBACHER A. Crowdfunding: Tapping the right crowd[J]. Journal of Business Venturing, 2014, 29(5): 585-609.

[36] REN X J, ZHAO L D. Contract stability and default risk control of pig farming in the company and farmer mode[J]. Journal of Southeast University (English Edition), 2022, 38(1): 97-102.

[37] TANG M Z, YOU T H, CAO B B. Comparative analysis of crowdfunding and bank financing: The effect of market uncertainty[J]. International Journal of Production Economics, 2025, 286: 109657.

[38] FERREIRA P, PEREIRA É. Investment decisions under risk neutrality and opportunity cost constraints[J]. Journal of Financial Economics, 2018, 130(2): 345-367.

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China(72071039)