Fresh Food Dual-channel Supply Chain Decision Considering Consumers’ Low-Carbon And Freshness Preferences

With the rapid development of e-commerce and the rise of online shopping,fresh food enterprises add online sales channels to expand sales model and enhance their competitiveness.Therefore,they gradually form the dual-channel sales model which includes offline and online sales channels.Fresh food merchants such as Dolly farm,Pagoda,Fresh Hema,and Super Species have all opened online sales channels.In the future,dual-channel sales model will occupy the mainstream market for fresh food for a certain period.At the same time,low-carbon and sustainable economy’s rapid development makes the public attach increasing importance to environmental issues.Consumers’ awareness of environmental protection is strengthened.Consumers will buy products according to the carbon emission of the products,so,the carbon emission of the products will affect the demand of the products.Considering the perishability of fresh food,consumers have preference for freshness,and consumers may be more willing to buy fresh food with higher freshness.Therefore,under the above background,it is of great value to study the decision-making problem of the dual-channel supply chain of fresh food considering consumers’ preference for low carbon and freshness.In this paper,under the background of consumers’ preference for low carbon and freshness,we consider that the demand for fresh food is affected by sales price,carbon emission reduction and freshness level.In the two-stage fresh food supply chain system composed of a producer and a retailer,three dual-channel sales models,namely retailer dual-channel,producer dual-channel and mixed dual-channel,are constructed respectively.Firstly,the optimal sales price and emission reduction decisions under the three dual-channel supply chain sales models are studied.Secondly,the influences of consumers’ low-carbon preference coefficient,freshness level and channel preference on supply chain optimal decision,demand and profit are discussed.Finally,this paper makes a comparative analysis of three dual-channel sales models.The conclusions are as follows:(1)In the three dual-channel supply chain models,the carbon emission reduction,the market demand and the whole supply chain’s profit in the centralized decision model are all higher than those in the decentralized decision model.Moreover,in the centralized decision model,the growth rate of the carbon emission reduction,the market demand and the whole supply chain’s profit are all higher than those in the decentralized model.(2)The fresh food sales price,carbon emission reduction,market demand,producer’s profit,retailer’s profit and the whole supply chain’s profit have the same change relationship with the consumer’s low carbon preference coefficient and freshness level respectively under the centralized and decentralized systems of the three dual-channel supply chains.(3)In producer dual-channel and mixed dual-channel under the decentralized decision-making model,consumers’ purchasing preferences for retailers’ offline channels increase,will reduce the wholesale prices,carbon emission reduction,market demand,producer’s profit and the whole supply chain’s profit of the fresh food.However,the relationship between sales price and retailers’ profit and consumers’ purchasing preferences for retailers’ online channels depends on the cost coefficient of carbon emission reduction.(4)In the centralized decision model,the carbon emission reduction and market demand of the mixed dual-channel supply chain are higher than those of the single dual-channel models,but the comparison of sales price and profit needs to be specifically determined according to the carbon emission reduction cost coefficient.Under the decentralized decision,the comparison of the sales price,carbon emission reduction,market demand,retailer’s profit and producer’s profit of the three dual-channel models need to be determined according to consumers’ purchasing preferences for retailers’ offline sales channels.In this paper,consumers’ low carbon preference and freshness preference are innovatively included in the decision-making research of fresh food dual-channel supply chain,and we also study the mixed dual-channel supply chain,which is in accord with the reality and has certain practical and theoretical value.