The Study Of Inventory Management And Reverse Logistics Of M Electronic Business Platform Of Agricultural Products

The rise of E-commerce inspired many changes in traditional business model. A typical example is the transformation from traditional sales model to E-commerce model of agricultural products. In comparison with the traditional distribution,introducing electronic platforms greatly shortens the circulation process, and realizes direct “producer to consumer” B2 B transaction. It immediately reduces the transportation and labor costs in circulation, and in the same time brings some other benefits for the producers and final consumers in agricultural business. The rapid rise and development of this business model is not only from following the tide, but also an innovation of operation and circulation model in agricultural business. With the development of E-platforms for agricultural products, the research on E-commerce model of agricultural business is also more and more extensive.The operational model of E-platforms of agricultural products determines its fundamentals. Operational model includes management model of its entire supply chain, both forward and reverse logistics. The author starts with the reverse logistics of E-platforms of agricultural products, and further studies the reverse logistics and inventory management of an emerging E-platform of agricultural products called “M”.With the authorization from “M”, the author chose a warehouse in Beijing as a main research location and conducted field research there. The author recorded the M platform’s forward logistics and reverse logistics business processes and drew out a chart. The author visited the driver of the delivery vehicles, recorded the common occurrence and solution measures in reverse logistics process. The author followed the delivery vehicle to target consumers such as restaurants, grocery stores, hotels,studied the receiving circumstance and the cases of returned goods, etc. The author studied and analyzed the management process of its reverse logistics and inventory management, including a detail analysis of “M”’s reverse logistics operations,optimized its inventory management, summed up experience, and put forward some comprehensive suggestions. The author analyzed M platform’s reverse logistics inventory management status and the problems, the direct causes and true causes of reverse stock, optimized inventory management and put forward a comprehensiveproposal.First, through method such as following the field delivery and visiting logistics distribution personnel, the author collected the related information and data of M’s logistics process, and drew out a flowchart. The author pointed out the status of reverse logistics due to canceled orders before or during delivery, and due to refunding application when or after transaction is finished. The author also pointed out issues like chaotic operation site without a clear process specification.Second, goods return is the main component of M’s reverse logistics process.This article optimized the disordered business procedure of M’s reverse logicstics,detailed the SOP flow chart, from requests of refunding, to registrations of refunding reasons, to return of goods, to input information into data base. This article drew up a standard for process control, help establish an unobstructed channel of reverse logistics.Third, the author analyzed the present situation of M’s reverse inventory management, and calculated the probability of goods return, which was 0.5841% in a sale circle, indicating that there were still rooms for improvement. In the meantime,the author summarized problems like uncleared management methods, and fresh vegetable goods had the highest returning rate.Fourth, From direct issues like out of stock, underweight, wrong or delayed delivery, which leads to the occurrence of reverse logistics, the author concluded that the true cause of reverse logistics were goods quality and low customer satisfaction.At last, the author provided some optimization and suggestions regarding to M platform’s reverse logistics management.(1) Through methods like controlling the reverse logistics nodes and establishing an information system of reverse logistics.(2)Through “ABC” inventory management method, using the same tag for the goods from the same supplier in reverse logistics management.(3) Ensure the goods quality of M platform.(4) Improve customer satisfaction therefore reduce the goods returning rate by ensuring goods’ freshness, punctual delivery, and improving service quality.Through these optimization measures, M platform saw a sharp reduction of goods returning rate, from 58.41% to 28.75%, suggesting some of the solutions and suggestions from the author are effective for M platform’s reverse logistics management.