Research On Operation Mechanism Of Logistics Platform In The View Of Two-sided Markets

With the rapid development of the Internet platform economy,a number of logistics platforms with bilateral market characteristics have emerged in practice,such as truck gangs,Yunmanman,Transfar Network,Hummingbird distribution,SD express and Zuixiandao.However,many logistics platform companies have failed to effectively understand the operation of the platform,resulting in the failure of the final operation of the platform.A logistics platform enterprise faces different key operational mechanism problems at different stages of its growth process.In the initial stage,it is necessary to focus on solving business model problems to clarify the platform operation strategy.During the development period,it is necessary to focus on solving pricing strategy issues to agglomerate resources and make profits.During the mature periods,there is a need to focus on quality incentives to ensure sustainable growth of the platform,with no strict boundaries between development stages.This paper takes the logistics platform with bilateral market characteristics as the research object,analyzes its,generating mechanism and motivation,structure and connotation,as well as the growth and evolution path,and studies the key operational mechanism problems such as business model,pricing strategy and quality incentives in the process of growth and evolution.To provide theoretical guidance for the actual operation of the logistics platform.The main contents of the paper are as follows:(1)The paper analyzes the generation mechanism,generating motivation,composition,connotation,service characteristics and growth and evolution path of the logistics platform from the perspective of bilateral market,and analyzes the key operational problems in the process of growth and evolution.It is proposed that the logistics platform is the product of the deepening of the social division of labor.The key to the evolution of division of labor lies in the transaction efficiency.The logistics platform is catalyzed by the rapid development of Internet information technology and policy support.The traditional logistics organization form is difficult to meet the changes of external logistics needs,and logistics organization innovation is needed to cope with this demand change.The logistics platform consists of the platform operator,bilateral market of the logistics suppliers and the demand consumers and other auxiliary entities.It is a special organizational form between the enterprise and the market.The relationship between logistics platform and its dual(multiple)users is relatively loose but long-term partnership.In the Internet era,the logistics platform is centered on the online cloud platform.The logistics platform has service features including services for bilateral services,bilateral user's logistics needs complement each other,cross-network externalities exist between users,offline support,non-standard services,path dependence,etc.The growth and evolution path of the logistics platform is divided into three stages and eight steps.The initial stage includes three steps:finding pain points,building a platform,and agglomerating resources.The development period includes three steps:breaking through the critical point self-organization,quality management,and value-added services.The maturity period includes two steps:cross-border integration and platform ecological prosperity.(2)The paper analyzes the connotation and components of the business model,the existing business model,and the cloud business model innovation and case analysis.The existing business models of the logistics platform are summarized as:information intermediary platform model,transaction matching platform model,fourth party logistics platform model and logistics park platform model.The cloud-based logistics platform business model innovation is proposed.The connotation is that connects related organizations with the logistics cloud platform to meet the uncertain logistics needs of the supply chain based on the "long tail market".With cloud computing as the core to provide cloud services to bilateral(multilateral)users,by designing and applying operational mechanisms,the logistics service entities on the platform can realize resource sharing,value creation,collaborative operation,quality assurance and mutual benefit win-win in the form of self-organization;at the macro level,the whole platform system gradually forms an ecosystem of open logistics platforms similar to natural ecosystems.The paper analyzes the conceptual model of the logistics platform ecosystem,which consists of four populations:leading population,key population,supporting population and parasitic population.The logistics platform provides logistics services to customers in the form of logistics service supply chain.The macro logistics platform can be regarded as a business ecosystem with platform operators as the core.Its operation mode is to use cloud computing(logistics design)as its core business function.Through four links of matching,payment,fulfillment and evaluation,it promotes bilateral customer logistics service transactions,and realizes coordinated operation and alliance management to achieve high efficiency,high quality and low cost of integrated social logistics services.The profit model is transformed from the traditional advertising fee,membership fee,usage fee(or commission,share)to a profit model with value-added service fees and other charging methods,its value creation form is the value ecosystem.Taking the example of Transfar Logistics,this paper analyzes the market positioning,operation mode,and profit model and value creation mechanism.(3)The paper studies the pricing strategy of logistics platform with membership fee and transaction fee as the main charging methods.In the membership fee pricing strategy for foll-time users,the situation of monopoly platforms is first analyzed and extended to the duopoly platform competition.Considering the cross-network externality and value-added service factors,the equilibrium price of the monopoly logistics platform is obtained by constructing and solving the game model,and the conditions for the charges,free and subsidies for the owner and the owner are pointed out respectively.It is found that under the market structure of the monopoly platform,the strength of the cross-network effect and the value-added service income of the platform have a significant impact on the platform's charging strategy.The price of unilateral charges is higher than that of bilateral charges,but the platform profit of bilateral charges is higher than that of unilateral charges.Under the market structure of monopolistic competition between the two platforms,the equilibrium profit of the two platforms and the equilibrium pricing for bilateral users are equal,and both increase with the degree of user differentiation,with the improvement of platform technology and shipments.The decrease is reduced as the cross-network effect increases,and at the same time,the price of the owner decreases as the value-added service revenue brought to the platform increases.In the transaction fee pricing strategy for the part-time users of the sharing economy,the equilibrium prices of the two transaction methods and the multiple transaction fees are analyzed separately,and finally the numerical analysis is carried out.It is found that the returns under the two price strategic equilibriums based on single transaction and multiple transactions are the same.The equilibrium price,profit and platform installation base will increase with the network effect and the value of the platfor,itself.The platform should increase the investment to improve the platform.The value of its own,incentivize the distribution staff to improve the quality of service to improve the network effect,and ultimately improve the benefits of the entire platform ecosystem.(4)The paper studies the quality incentive mechanism of logistics platform based on principal-agent theory.Firstly,it analyzes the particularity of quality problems and incentive problems in logistics platform services,and builds a moral hazard model for quantitative analysis.Since the platform is generally oriented to the uncertainty requirement,consumers and providers are relatively scattered relative to the platform.Consumers have weaker reward and punishment ability for poor service quality.Traditional customer-based punishment is difficult to be reflected in the contract,and is more suitable for incentives way.Then,from the perspective of explicit contract and implicit reputation,the paper analyzes the quality incentive mechanism of logistics platform.The explicit contract analyzes four incentive models:fixed remuneration,fixed remuneration + bonus,linear remuneration,linear remuneration + penalty.The four incentive models are compared and analyzed.It is found that fixed compensation can not provide effective incentives.The quality of logistics service quality is difficult to measure accurately,and the fixed compensation + bonus method is more operational in practice;the implicit reputation mechanism analyzes the reputational incentive mechanism based on the repeated game-based quality model and the agent market-reputation model.It is found that the implicit reputation can be a useful supplement to the explicit contract incentive mechanism.