Optimal logistics service strategies in green agricultural product supply chains with E-commerce platforms

Abstract

With the increasing development of logistics industry, an important question arises: which logistics format should an agricultural product seller select? Or when an agricultural product seller does select a certain logistics format? To answer this question, we explore three different green agricultural product supply chain models/scenarios: a self-managed logistics format(N); a third-party enterprise logistics format(S); and a platform logistics format(E). Using the game-theoretic model, we investigate the impact of the cost coefficient on the agricultural product seller's logistics preference under the three logistics scenarios. Our theoretical analyses show that when the cost coefficient is small, the agricultural product seller prefers to cooperate with the 3PL enterprise, but as the coefficient increases, the agricultural product seller prefers to choose her self-managed logistics. Therefore, to optimize the logistics strategy of the agricultural product seller under B2C mode, it is necessary to build a reasonable logistics management mechanism and a perfect logistics distribution system to reduce the logistics service cost coefficient.

Keywords

• Supply chain management
• Green agricultural product
• Logistics service
• Platform operations
• Game theory