Pricing Strategy Study Of Two-stage Marine Chain On Considering Empty Container Repositioning

Container cargo turnover is a regional or national economic and trade development of the leading indicator. With the increased global trade activities,Marine container transportion volume has been growing steadily over the past decade. As the economic development needs of different regions, trade imbalance and poor container management problems were exposed, Volume of empty containers reposition repositioning accounts for around 20% of the world total container traffic. Inefficient empty container allowed a substantial increase in transportation costs with the transportation of liner companies and reduced the marginal profit. In view of this, the rational use of empty containers to carry out trade and transportation has become topics of common concern between the principal shipping-related companies and academic research.The purpose of this research was to explore in the maritime industry, faced with the certainty and uncertainty of freight transportion demand, as well as the increase in the cost of repositioning empty containers, how carriers and freight forwarders make decisions to maximize returns from the price of the contract capacity, as well as the perspective of supply chain coordination. For the specific characteristics of the maritime industry, the article analyzes in the contract market, in a single market structure, a single leg, a single liner through the two freight market, freight forwarding companies sell forwarding transportation capacity, and purchase at a different level for the amount of contract quantity, how the liner company adjust the imbalance between demand for two freight transport market by pricing in shipping lines, which strategies to circumvent the costs of repositioning empty containers on the bottom line. The study found that :when two cargo demand for the absolute difference is more than or less than a certain value, liner companies will choose to transport empty containers to meet the needs of the two places; and when there is both relative differences in freight demand, the liner companies can balance the needs of the two places by pricing; the demand uncertainty of downstream freight transport makes the freight forwarders to change the order quantity in order to avoid risks, in the full information circumstances, Liner companies are more inclined to balance the transportation demand of the two places.