An Economic Analysis About The Changing Functions Of Intermediaries In Chinese City Freight Industry Under The "Internet+",Era

In recent years,China's "Internet+" city freight has developed rapidly,and the city freight platforms,such as Lalamove,GOGOVAN,and Yunniao,have thrown social attention.However,trade disputes and even safety incidents involving human life has occurred with the convenient and low-cost service offered by these platforms,which has triggered the public's voice for strengthening the supervision of the platform enterprises.It can be seen that as the intermediaries of city freight under the "Internet+" era,the functions of these platform enterprises are no longer limited to the traditional information provision and matching,but become more diverse and complex.However,the existing researches in academia focus more on the business model and competition strategy of the city freight platform enterprises,and the lack of concentration on the development of the entire city freight industry and the fundamental nature of the city freight platform in the era of "Internet+",leaves the urgent needs of the current public cannot be explained.Therefore,from the perspective of the intermediation,this paper firstly summarizes the evolution and characteristics of China's modern city freight industry and intermediaries through literature survey and field research,combined with specific case study and the relevant knowledge of platform economics,focuses on the city freight platform enterprises to explore the underlying causes for transformation the evolution of their functions.This paper believes as the intermediary of the city freight industry under the"Internet+" era,the city freight platform enterprises perform direct functions such as protecting rights and regulating behaviors for both cargo owners and driver users,and also have the indirect function of guaranteeing the safety of cargo transportation transactions and promoting the development of city freight market.The first underlying reason why these functions become richer and much more diverse is that when the market is a two-sided market with cross-group network externalities,the number and quality of one-side users will affect the utility of the other side of the platform.This intrinsic property will determine that as a profitable organization,the platform enterprise must first ensure that there are as many users as possible on both sides,in order to reach as many transactions as possible through the platform;Then,the mutual influence of two-side users will become more direct and profound with the advancement of information technology such as the Internet and the mobile Internet;Finally,when the users care more about safety,service and customer experience under the "Internet+"era,the platform enterprise must constantly enrich and improve its functions,meet user needs quickly and efficiently,and avoid any negative impacts that are expanded due to technological advances,thereby maintaining the scale of two-side users and improving utility,promoting the achievement of more transactions.The article uses the Granger test to verify the cross-group network externalities of the two-sided market oriented by the city freight platform enterprises by the example of GOGOVAN,and verify the catalysis of the interactive influence due to the advancement of information technology between two-side users through a questionnaire survey.Finally,this paper offers some suggestions based on the research conclusions,providing valuable reference for the city freight industry,and other enterprises and industries with the characteristics of platform economics.This paper contains 14 figures,15 tables and 71 references.