关键词: 电商物流模式, 品牌差异, 权力结构, 物流商竞争

Abstract: The rapid development of the Internet has prompted e-commerce to show a rapid development trend. With the popularity of online shopping among consumers, many suppliers have begun to sell through opening online channels or entering large e-commerce platforms. As the differences between products gradually narrow and homogeneous competition between products becomes more and more intense, suppliers begin to shift their focus on improving their service competitiveness. As the terminal link of e-commerce, the importance of logistics service quality in e-commerce has been widely recognized. Many large e-commerce platforms have established their own logistics and distribution systems to provide consumers with high-quality logistics services, thereby improving their competitiveness. For suppliers who are unable to establish a logistics distribution system, they can only outsource logistics services after entering the e-commerce platform. In the past, most suppliers completely outsourced logistics services to third-party logistics providers. However, with the full opening of the platform’s self-operated logistics, some suppliers would also deliver through the platform’s self-operated logistics. In order to meet the growing diversified needs of consumers, e-commerce platforms allow third-party logistics providers to penetrate into the self-operated logistics system, forming a distribution model that combines third-party logistics and self-operated logistics. After settling on an e-commerce platform, which logistics service model to choose is an important issue faced by suppliers.
A high-quality brand image can always win more consumers’ favor, and the brand advantage of logistics companies provides strong support for them in the competition. The brand value of logistics companies will not only affect their own interests, but also have a certain impact on competitors. Suppliers will also consider the brand influence of logistics providers in the decision-making process of logistics service models, hoping to increase sales and revenue through the brand influence of logistics providers. In addition, the different decision-making powers between suppliers and logistics providers lead to different power structures between suppliers and logistics providers, and suppliers’ logistics model decisions also show obvious differences. In this context, studying supplier logistics service model decisions has important practical significance.
This article focuses on the decision-making process of third-party suppliers entering the e-commerce platform to choose logistics service models, taking into account the power structure between suppliers and logistics providers and the brand differences of logistics providers, and establishes 6 logistics decision-making models led by supplier and logistics. The research results show that as competition among logistics providers intensifies, self-operated logistics with brand advantages will always lead to the loss of third-party logistics customers; when the brand difference of logistics providers is large, medium or small, the supplier’s optimal logistics decisions is to choose self-operated logistics, mixed logistics and third-party logistics in order of importance; when suppliers are more dominant, suppliers can obtain more profits and demand, while logistics providers will provide higher levels of logistics services when they are weak. At the same time, the change of dominant position will affect suppliers’ decision-making on logistics service models.

Key words: e-commerce logistics model, brand difference, power structure, logistics provider competition