Research On Express And Pricing Strategies Of Delivery Service Providers: Delivery At Home Or Relay Station Service

In the era of digital economy,the service mode of enterprises is constantly changing.The competition of service-oriented enterprises has shifted from price competition to service strategy competition.The boom in e-commerce retailing and population growth lead to an ever-increasing demand for express delivery services in the last mile.Under the trend of platform economy,emerging third-party delivery platforms(such as Cainiao Station)have become popular.The deliveryman can leave the parcel at a station near the consumer’s home.Compared with Delivery at Home(Da H),the Relay Station Service(RSS)improves the delivery efficiency,but the express service provider also needs to pay a certain relay cost.Therefore,facing the changing market,it is of practical significance to study the delivery and pricing strategy of express service providers.In terms of theoretical contribution,the existing researches mostly focus on the pricing decisions of service providers,and there are few researches on providing enterprises with service strategy decision support and theoretical guidance.In order to study whether express service providers will use third-party station services to improve efficiency under different conditions,queuing models of two delivery modes are established,taking into account the influence of exogenetic variables such as market size,number of deliveryman,relay cost,and the probability of consumers being at home.Considering the optimization problems of express service providers in monopoly market and duopoly market,the goal is to maximize the profit,and the market participation of consumers and the capacity of express service providers are considered,the optimal prices and profits of the two strategies under different market conditions are obtained.In monopoly market,the optimal decision of the express service provider is obtained by comparing the profits under the two delivery strategies.In duopoly market,considering the game of two competing express service providers,a strategy equilibrium is obtained.The results show that in monopoly market,if relay cost is zero,the monopolistic express service provider always adopts the RSS;if relay cost is large or the probability of consumers being at home is relatively high,the monopolistic express service provider always adopts Da H.When the market is large,in the monopoly or the duopoly market,the decision of express service providers is mainly affected by the relay cost and the probability of consumers being at home.If the relay cost is small or the probability of consumers being at home is relatively low,the optimal choice for express service providers is RSS;if the relay cost is large or the probability of consumers being at home is relatively high,the optimal choice is Da H.In the duopoly market,if the market size is medium,there exists an equilibrium in which one express service provider adopts RSS and the other adopts Da H;if the market size is small(meeting the conditions of dominated market),then two express service providers will both adopt RSS or both adopt Da H.The research found that when the market size is medium,service providers should provide differentiated services in order to increase profits in the competition.The success of Relay Station is in line with the economies of scale.When market demand is large,in the monopoly or duopoly market,there is room of profit growth for RSS mode when the market size is large.But only when the service fee of the station platform is low,the platform has the opportunity to participate in the market.