Research On Channel Efficiency Of Home Appliance Manufacturers

Construction of distribution channels is the key to win the market which can bringdifferent competitive advantage to the enterprise under the homogenization of market.With more than20years’ rapid development, the difference in brand, quality,technology, service, price show less and less significant. It is valuable for homeappliances manufacturing enterprises to build a rational and efficient distributionchannels. Existing research on distribution channels result from different perspectives,it is rare to find the research which focus on the cost factors of distribution channels. Sothe article researches the channel efficiency base on the perspective of channel cost.Based on the analysis of existing literature of channel efficiency and cost, thispaper make a conclusion of different theories about measurement of the channelefficiency, then choose the “cost efficiency theory” which seems channels cost as themost important factor in channel efficiency. Channel cost can be divided into two partswhich are fixed cost and variable cost. Maximizing the channel efficiency depends onminimizing the channel cost per unit of home appliance. It is not rational for enterprisesto improve the whole efficiency with the method of reducing cost expenditure. Basedon the empirical research on the Shandong market, we verify the positive relationshipbetween channel cost and channel efficiency. In refrigerator market, there are seasonalfactors. Disposable income and share also have a positive effect on the channelefficiency. We propose that constructing flat and integrated channels to reduce cost.However, for the3-4levels markets which have a large expansion space, increasing thecost expenditure is a good choice to improve the distribution efficiency. Throughdynamic analysis, it is concluded that there are time lag effect between channelefficiency and channel cost.Finally, summarize the main conclusions of this paper and promote a series ofpolicy proposals from the two perspectives of the government and enterprises.