Interactive Decisions Analysis in an Online Shopping Service Supply Chain Considering Reciprocal Altruism

Abstract

Cooperative relationships and interactive decision behaviors between online stores and thirdparty logistics (TPL) have attracted increasing attention from academics as well as practitioners with the development of the online retailing industry. However, the decisions and performance of each member in a decentralized supply chain are not in line with the actual performance and decision behaviors of them, especially when taking individual altruism preference into account. Hence, without considering the truism of channel members will lead to unrealistic decisions and obtain anamorphic performance of firms and the entire system based on conventional self-interested models. This paper develops an evolutionary bilateral decision-making model to characterize the effects of all members' altruism in an online shopping service supply chain (OSSSC). The model considers different altruism of each member in the supply chain and their changes at various intervals. The decision equilibrium and interactive rules of all members are deeply analyzed based on the evolutionary bilateral decision-model as the change of altruism of each party. Our results identify that: altruism preference impacts the decisions of all participants in the OSSSC system. When the TPL and the online store have high altruism and low altruism, respectively, both retail price and logistics service price tend toward low levels and all participants have high utilities. However, this situation is more favorable for the online store. In this case, changes in the altruism level of either party will adversely impact the utilities of all parties and the performance of the whole system; specially, when the online stores are self-interested while the TPL has altruism that fluctuates within a specific range, improving logistics service level will help to lower the retail price and increase market shares. Numerical experiments are conducted to examine and verify the results and some optimal managerial insights for online retailers and TPLs are provided. INDEX TERMS Altruism, online store, third-party logistics (TPL), online shopping supply service chain, interactive decision.

Impacto Do Nível De Serviço Logístico No Aumento De Pedidos Em Um Varejista Online

“…Um alto nível de serviço logístico pode atrair novos clientes e manter os antigos nos canais online, de acordo com Qin et al (2020). Portanto, a conversão de novos pedidos estudada nesta pesquisa baseia-se nesse preceito.…”

Operational Decision and Sustainability of Green Agricultural Supply Chain with Consumer-Oriented Altruism

“…Liu et al [46] examined a logistics service supply chain and showed that both the altruism of the logistics service integrator and that of a functional logistics service provider could enhance the supply chain profit. Qin et al [47] took a bilateral evolutionary approach to investigate an online shopping service supply chain and illustrated that the bilateral altruism decreases the retail price and service price while increasing the service level. Ma et al [48] analyzed a product-service supply chain in the online-to-offline environment, and found that bilateral altruism between the manufacturer and the retailer is useful for developing higher quality products, better service, and greater goodwill.…”