Demand Information Sharing And Logistics Mode Selection In A Cross-border E-commerce Supply Chain

Under the development opportunities of “One Belt One Road”,“Internet +”,and“Digital Economy”,cross-border e-commerce(CBEC)has witnessed tremendous growth in recent years,which has become a vital channel for accelerating the development of international trade.With the rapid development of CBEC,a fast-growing number of overseas suppliers cooperate with CBEC platforms to enter new markets.Due to the long-distance from the local market,overseas suppliers have less knowledge about the local market demand,and there is significant demand information asymmetry between overseas suppliers and CBEC platforms that are closer to the end market.Demand information asymmetry not only affects product pricing,but also affects overseas suppliers’ resource input in products,which could result in excessive or insufficient resource investment and then reduce the performance of the entire supply chain.To reduce the adverse impact of demand information asymmetry and improve the efficiency of resource input,demand information sharing among the CBEC supply chain members is increasingly important.Moreover,demand information sharing can also affect overseas suppliers’ inventory decisions and logistics costs,and thus may change their logistics mode choices.Logistics is one of the most important factors limiting the development of CBEC,so how to select an appropriate logistics mode according to market demand becomes a critical issue in the CBEC supply chain.In view of these,by using the methods of game theory,decision optimization,contract design,and numerical simulation,this thesis focuses on different CBEC supply chain structures,and studies the optimal demand information sharing strategy and logistics mode selection in the supply chain.Furthermore,this thesis analyzes the impact of key factors such as tax rate,competition intensity,inventory risks,and market fluctuations on chain members’ decisions.First,this thesis focuses on a supply chain composed of a CBEC platform and an overseas supplier that invests in product quality,and explores the demand information sharing issue in the supply chain under tax uncertainty.By conducting the decision-making model before and after the tax rate uncertainty is dissolved,the optimal demand information sharing strategy of the CBEC platform is studied,and the role of demand information sharing under tax uncertainty is discussed.The results show that when the quality elasticity is medium,the platform’s demand information sharing strategy is affected by the tax uncertainty,and the platform could be more likely to share information under higher tax uncertainty.By contrast,when the quality elasticity is high(low),the platform is always willing(unwilling)to share information.Under certain conditions,both voluntary information sharing and information sharing through an incentive contract can mitigate the negative effect of tax fluctuation on the platform’s profit,which provides a new method for CBEC enterprises to deal with the risk of tax uncertainty.Second,this thesis focuses on a supply chain constituted of a CBEC platform that holds market demand information advantage and an overseas supplier.The platform sells its self-owned product and also allows the overseas supplier to sell a substitutable product on the platform.By developing a game model,we investigate the platform’s information sharing motivation.Furthermore,we analyze the impact of demand information sharing on inventory risks and logistics costs under the logistics mode of bonded-warehouse or direct-mail,and examine the logistics mode selection of the overseas supplier.The results show that information sharing can alter the overseas supplier’s logistics mode choice under certain conditions.Specifically,the platform will choose non-information sharing to induce the overseas supplier to select the direct-mail logistics mode when the competition is fierce and the market fluctuation is medium.Otherwise,the platform chooses information sharing to make the overseas supplier select the bonded-warehouse logistics mode.Particularly,a larger market fluctuation can trigger a change in the information sharing equilibrium,and thus the overseas supplier’s profit may increase in market fluctuation.Furthermore,under certain conditions,information sharing and direct-mail logistics mode are more beneficial to both the platform and overseas supplier,but the strategies are not selected under equilibrium(i.e.,a prisoner’s dilemma arises).Finally,this thesis focuses on a supply chain consisting of a CBEC platform,an overseas supplier and a domestic supplier.By conducting a multi-stage game model,we investigate the overseas supplier’s logistics mode choice when faced with competition from the domestic supplier,and explore the platform’s information sharing strategy with the consideration of tax and logistics cost differences between the overseas and domestic supplier.On this basis,we discuss the Pareto improvement of chain members’ equilibrium strategies.The results show that under information sharing case,the overseas supplier always chooses the bonded-warehouse mode.By contrast,under non-information sharing case,the logistics mode choice of the overseas supplier is relatively complex,which is affected by the tax rate level.Particularly,when the tax rate is relatively high,with the increase of the market fluctuation,the overseas supplier first chooses the bonded-warehouse mode with high inventory,and then changes to the bonded-warehouse mode with low inventory,and finally switches to the direct-mail mode.Under certain conditions,it is more beneficial for the overseas supplier to choose the high-cost direct-mail mode when the information is shared,as doing so can help chain members escape the prisoner’s dilemma and thus lead to a “win-win-win”outcome.Besides,there also exist other cases where the equilibrium strategies are inconsistent with the optimal strategies of the supply chain.Under these cases,the platform needs to charge a transfer payment from one of the suppliers(overseas or domestic supplier)and provide an appropriate subsidy to the other supplier to realize a“win-win-win” outcome.