Chinese Book Industry, Reverse Logistics Research

The reverse logistics of books refers to recycling, reproducing and reusing ofout-of-date books. It also involves the meaning of saving resources and an effectivebooks return system. According to statistics, the average rate of returned books ismore than 30% in major countries worldwide. The reverse logistics of books hasbecome a serious problem in world publishing industry. In 2002, the price of books ininventory of china was more than 40 billion RMB, with statistics of large sums ofinventory unavailable. Therefore, the author makes research on this subject to givesome suggestions on the reform of China publishing industry. The structure of this article is as follows. The author analyzes the reality of chinabooks reverse logistics from five aspects at first. Then some problems and reasons areput forward. The author explains them from three aspects: the special frame work ofchina publishing industry, Bullwhip Effect in publishing industry and the price factor.In the end, this article gives some suggestions on these problems. The author believesthat system reform, marketing strategy as well as supply chain management must bebeneficial to develop the books reverse logistics of china.