Impact of Logistics Mode Innovation on Quality Consumption and Countermeasures

2.1 Retail Format Innovation

Since the reform and opening up, the retail format of China has been innovated continuously, and in less than 30 years, the single format of independent stores has evolved to the coexistence of various formats of retail, such as department stores, supermarkets, discount stores, specialty stores, shopping centers, online retail, which has greatly improved the retail supply capacity. In particular, driven by the Internet and information technology, the rapid development of online retail has led to the continuous emergence of new business forms of online and offline integration, which has promoted the matching efficiency of supply and demand, and improved customers’ shopping experience and consumption quality.

In the process of retail format innovation, retail entities have turned to multi-format operation. The main manifestations are as follows. First, the traditional retail enterprises dominated by department stores face the competition of supermarkets and discount stores, and transform to composite formats and shopping centers. On the basis of fully considering the consumer shopping scale, shopping environment and supporting facilities, taking the brand department store as the core, gathering a series of international brands and domestic tide brands as the support, integrating shopping, catering, entertainment, leisure, culture and other elements, the one-stop shopping center with multi-format agglomeration has become a fast-growing and most influential retail format. Second, retail enterprises are transforming to a multi-channel model. With the rapid popularization of mobile Internet and mobile payment, offline retail enterprises actively expand online channels, settle in e-commerce platforms or cooperate with third parties to establish online sales platforms. For example, Wumart launched DMALL app with the same quality and price online and offline, fully combined offline physical experience with online convenience and speed, and realized a new integrated sales model; at the same time, large e-commerce platform enterprises continue to expand offline. While opening offline experience stores, they actively cooperate with physical retail enterprises, such as JD Group’s shareholding in Yonghui supermarket and opening “7FRESH” offline supermarket, Alibaba’s shareholding in Yintai Department Store and opening HEMA fresh supermarket, etc. Third, convenience stores expand service functions. With the help of the online platform, the convenience stores extend the diversified services from the simple sale of physical goods, and carry out value-added services, such as door-to-door delivery, collection and express delivery, recharge and payment, etc., changing from providing commodity convenience to fully reflecting daily convenience. Fourth, the new retail format with user experience as the core has developed rapidly. Under the background of the dominant position of consumer sovereignty, the new retail format centered on user experience has become the development trend. This type of business uses experience and sharing services to drive user demand, uses information technology for user profile analysis, understands potential needs, continuously provides services throughout the product life cycle, and creates value in interaction with users. For example, the Infinitus “oxygen bar” experience store enables tourists to understand Chinese herbal medicine and sub-health constitution through various entertainment activities such as “looking for nourishment” interactive games and solar term puzzles, so as to bring new feelings to consumers.

2.2 Supply Chain Dominance Shifts to Retail Enterprises

The supply chain mainly focuses on the core enterprises, connecting suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers and end users into a network chain system through information sharing, so as to create maximum value for customers with high efficiency and low cost. Traditionally, the core enterprises of the supply chain are mainly manufacturing enterprises, while the retail supply chain or physical service supply chain is mostly non-dominant supply chain. With the improvement of “consumption sovereignty”, retail enterprises have the advantage of direct contact with end consumers and strong response to the market. They can quickly organize production resources, timely meet the requirements of users, reduce the inventory level of the supply chain and improve the turnover rate. Therefore, the pull supply chain dominated by consumer demand has become the mainstream. With the help of retail enterprises’ analysis and prediction of consumer preferences, this model selects manufacturers that match consumer demand to provide product supply, effectively reduce production costs and circulation costs, and avoid the risk of mismatch between supply and demand.

The pull supply chain arranges the production plan according to the actual demand of the consumer. In terms of supplier selection, it emphasizes close cooperation with it in terms of speed and flexibility, and ensures the flexibility and agile response of the whole supply chain with external cooperation network and internal decentralized and flat organization; in terms of product supply, modular design and manufacturing are adopted. Thus, the economies of scale effect of mass production are closely combined with the diversified and personalized needs of consumers to form a supply chain model that can not only provide a variety of customized products, but also produce on a large scale at low cost and high speed, improving the efficiency and quality of industrial operation.

2.3 Multi-Party Collaborative Model Dominated by Social Media

With the rise of social media such as microblog and WeChat, the commercial value of social networks has become increasingly prominent. It is mainly reflected in two aspects. First, enterprises can directly reach consumers through social platform, obtain consumer information feedback and accurately implement brand promotion strategies, so as to establish an efficient marketing ecosystem at a low cost. Second, with the help of social platform, consumers can make purchase decisions according to the evaluation of friends, and drive other consumers to form purchase intention with their own influence, so as to establish communication and dialogue channels between merchants and customers and form an interactive network of value creation. Moreover, the social platform is open, which can continuously obtain new customer groups for enterprises, expand the scale of potential consumer groups, and save customer acquisition costs for enterprises. Therefore, social e-commerce represented by Pinduoduo has risen rapidly and achieved great success, that is, achieving low prices through social relationships, guiding customers to share through group buying, and accurately connecting with price-sensitive consumer groups, so that enterprises can gain flow while concentrating a large number of orders to gain price dominance, thus establishing a core position in the supply chain.

With the continuous development and maturity of social application technology, various models such as community group buying, membership e-commerce and content e-commerce are rising. Consumers are delineated in different ways, and commodity information is provided to consumers in time according to consumers’ personal information and self-formed social networks. In this process, retailers expand social services with the help of social platforms, and carry out personalized push according to browsing records, geographical location and social groups; at the same time, manufacturers and suppliers also integrate their resources and capacity via social platforms. The channel supply of the traditional circulation mode has developed into the platform integration of multiple logistics organizations. Different circulation links realize the reasonable supply and demand matching from design to production and then to sales through the resource integration, information integration and logistics management of the same platform. The advantage of this model lies in its easy access to consumer information, low transaction costs and entry barriers, which improves supply effectiveness and promotes efficiency by breaking the inherent linear model of the supply chain and transforming it into a dynamic collaborative mode of network.

3.1 Logistics Mode Innovation Increases Supply Capacity and Promotes Consumption Quality

Driven by emerging technologies such as the Internet, electronic payment, big data, Internet of things and artificial intelligence, online retail has developed rapidly. E-commerce modes such as B2C and C2C break the space-time and regional restrictions, effectively reduce the intermediate links in the process of commodity circulation, improve efficiency and enhance circulation functions. Under the e-commerce mode, the trading place, time and categories are optimized, the circulation links between producers and consumers are reduced, the frequency and efficiency of information feedback between producers and sellers are improved, the distortion of consumer information feedback is reduced, all of which enable the producers to respond quickly and optimize and upgrade products and services targeted to meet the personalized needs of different consumers and improve the consumption quality; at the same time, the reduction of intermediate channels can reduce the logistics cost generated in the multi-layer commodity circulation, lower the final price of goods or services, and increase consumer surplus. With the wide application of information technology, new modes such as O2O, unmanned retail and community group buying further expand the innovative content of circulation, provide round-the-clock and multi-channel supply, significantly improve the shopping convenience, increase the bargaining power between logistics enterprises and suppliers through large-scale orders, and expand consumer surplus. Especially in C2M and social e-commerce, the information channels between consumers, suppliers and producers can be directly connected. Consumers can directly participate in commodity design, customize personalized products and services, and achieve value co-creation and value sharing, so as to enhance the sense of participation and product identity of ordinary consumers and enhance the user experience.

3.2 Logistics Mode Innovation Improves Commodity Quality Control and Consumption Environment

The logistics mode innovation effectively reduces the intermediate links of circulation and makes the information channels between producers and consumers more unblocked and efficient, which not only forms a strong constraint on the product quality of manufacturers, but also puts forward higher requirements for the quality and safety control of circulation links, so as to better ensure the quality of goods. Moreover, with the help of the advantages of direct contact with consumers and the support of information technology, logistics enterprises can more fully grasp the changing trend of consumer demand and have more say in the product supply chain, including organizing and guiding production and original brand manufacturing, which is conducive to controlling production quality and ensuring the safety of circulation links, reducing the flow of fake and shoddy commodities into the market or ensuring the quality and safety through the quality monitoring at the production end. For example, under the Farmer-Supermarket Direct-Purchase mode, the supermarket will monitor the quality of the production, processing, distribution and sales of agricultural products, and implement a traceability system for the quality of agricultural products sold to ensure the quality of consumer products. Furthermore, in recent years, as an important component of commodity circulation, logistics has carried out automatic identification, transmission, tracking and query for logistics activity information with the help of network communication technology, radio frequency identification (RFID) technology and global positioning system, so as to effectively control the process of goods flow, timely track the status of goods logistics and optimize transportation routes. In particular, Internet of things RFID and other technologies can realize logistics information sharing, ensure accurate and convenient information transmission, improve the accuracy and controllability of logistics services, effectively ensure commodity quality and promote the improvement of consumption quality.

3.3 Logistics Mode Innovation Produces Order Scale Effect, Which Promotes the Decline of Consumer Goods Prices

Logistics organizations have strong bargaining power over commodity suppliers through the platform agglomeration function, especially to obtain price concessions through the mode of social e-commerce with mass orders, which not only reduces the procurement cost, but also realizes reasonable inventory and reduces the shortage cost and out-of-stock cost through the normal operation of the distribution system. The effective connection of distribution centers and the implementation of unified procurement and decentralized sales can reduce the purchase cost and sales cost, thus reducing the retail price of goods and realizing small profits and quick turnover. On the one hand, procurement has the advantage of scale. Through the concentration of branch procurement power, it can have strong bargaining power to bargain with suppliers and obtain price concessions for large-scale purchase. The advantage of scale can not only reduce costs, but also eliminate the possibility of fake and shoddy goods due to standardized operation and protect the rights and interests of consumers. On the other hand, it has scale advantages in warehousing and distribution. Setting up a warehouse on the basis of centralized procurement saves more storage area than setting up a warehouse in a single store does. Selecting the best transportation route through centralized distribution by the headquarters makes full use of means of transportation. In this way, it can not only reduce commodity prices, but also reasonably allocate resources and realize the rational utilization of resources.

3.4 Logistics Mode Innovation Lowers Transaction Costs and Releases Consumption Potential

In the process of logistics mode innovation, the logistics organization presents the trend of merger, reorganization and supply chain integration. The vertical integration and horizontal integration of circulation channels penetrate each other, and large, medium and small enterprises coexist to form a new logistics organization ecology, which greatly reduces the transaction cost; at the same time, a large number of suppliers and production enterprises focus on the logistics platform, and the fierce competition among them leads to the decline of prices and the rise of sales. Especially in rural areas, the network platform has bridged the commodity price gap caused by the unbalanced supply of inter-regional physical logistics enterprises, and further improved the efficiency of online sales and supply by means of pre-warehouse and real-time replenishment supported by logistics technology, which has largely solved the problem of high commodity prices faced by rural residents due to scattered residence, and rural residents’ consumption needs are met to the greatest extent through “channel sinking”. In addition, the innovation of logistics mode has strengthened the control of enterprises over consumption safety, reassured consumers, ensured the health, stability and order of the consumption environment, and effectively promoted the improvement of consumption level. For example, under the Farmer-Supermarket Direct-Purchase mode, the supermarket will carry out quality inspection on the production, processing, distribution and sale of agricultural products, and implement traceability warranty on the quality of agricultural products sold to ensure the quality of consumer goods, so as to release the consumption potential of rural residents.

4.1 Unreasonable Product Supply Structure

As a manufacturing power, China has strong production and supply capacity, which has promoted the structural transformation of the supply side of the consumer market from shortage to easing, and elevated household consumption to a new level. However, the ability of value creation is relatively weak and the dependence on imported technology is high. Many industries are still at the low end of the global value chain. The proportion of products with rough processing and low added value is high, and the proportion of products with fine processing and high added value is low; the degree of product differentiation is not high, and there is no differentiated supply scheme for people at different consumption levels, resulting in a situation of strong overall supply capacity but weak effective supply capacity.

In the service sector, the supply of emerging service products is insufficient. The added value of China’s tertiary industry accounts for about 52.16% of GDP, which still lags behind 70%~80% of developed countries. The traditional consumer services dominated by commerce, catering, stalls, and other business models still account for a large proportion, and the emerging knowledge and capital-intensive services such as information industry, finance and insurance industry, and intermediary service industry still need to be further developed, which makes it difficult to meet the growing spiritual and cultural needs of consumers.

4.2 The Quality of Logistics Supply Is Not High

The logistics mode innovation represented by e-commerce platform has greatly improved the operation efficiency and level of logistics industry and played a positive role in promoting the improvement of consumption quality in China. However, compared with the demand for quality consumption, the development of logistics is still not perfect, the automation, standardization and informatization levels of logistics enterprises are uneven, and the overall service capacity and service level are not high. Despite the emergence of large retail enterprises represented by JD.com in recent years, there is still an obvious gap compared with world-famous large retail enterprises in terms of core indicators such as industrial chain operation efficiency. From the perspective of the logistics industry of China as a whole, its operation efficiency needs to be improved urgently, the supply chain management is inadequate, and the comprehensive competitive strength is not strong, so it is difficult to meet the requirements of the development of new consumption.

Specifically, first, the number of small and medium-sized logistics enterprises is too large, the management level is not high, and the industrial concentration is low, so it is difficult for most of them to occupy the leading position in the upstream and downstream of the supply chain. Vicious competition among enterprises is common, and information sharing cannot be effectively carried out, which affects the overall spillover effect of the supply chain. Second, at this stage, the logistics industry has not formed a unified standard, resulting in the high operation cost of various enterprises. The lack of common information communication and benefit sharing mechanism among logistics enterprises leads to different performance evaluation systems, lack of consensus on benefit distribution mechanism, and great obstacles to the practical operation of supply chain. Third, there is a significant gap in the development level of logistics facilities among regions. The facilities in large cities are perfect, the logistics formats are relatively developed, and the modern logistics mode represented by chain operation is developing rapidly. However, small and medium-sized cities are still dominated by traditional formats, the logistics system in rural areas is relatively backward, the operation mode is relatively extensive, the logistics cost is high, and the logistics efficiency is generally low.

4.3 The Order of the Consumer Market Needs to be Further Improved

Due to the imperfect legal system and policy system, there are still many problems to be solved in the market environment for quality consumption in China. For example, the product quality supervision system is not perfect, the quality and technical standards are lower than those in other countries, the social credit system is not perfect, and there are still some prominent problems in the market environment as a whole. The problems are mainly reflected as follows. First, the overall product quality is not high due to the lack of quality awareness and technical reserves, especially there are certain fake and shoddy products, and the rights and interests of consumers are infringed from time to time. Second, the supervision and regulation system of the market environment needs to be improved, and phenomena such as consumption fraud and false publicity still exist. In particular, e-commerce platforms adjust prices at random in their promotions, which damages the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. Third, the service awareness needs to be improved urgently, which is reflected in the imperfect market service links and the lack of after-sales service, resulting in consumers’ concerns about consumption and lack of confidence in consumption. Fourth, quality consumption does not live up to its name, as a large number of low-level consumer products still exist, and some quality consumer products have not made substantial progress compared with traditional consumption patterns and products.

4.4 Insufficient Reserve of Innovative Talents

Human capital is the core element supporting economic development. Logistics enterprises supported by big data, artificial intelligence and cloud computing have a wide demand for talents who master new technologies. However, in some traditional industries, due to the maturity of traditional industrial technologies, processes and products, the knowledge structure of employees is aging, which makes it hard to meet the needs of the development of quality consumption, and the age structure is on the high side. It is difficult to digest and absorb new knowledge and concepts, which restricts the transformation and development of traditional industries. In terms of new talent training, there is a disconnection between the professional talent training of existing higher education and vocational education institutions and the actual needs of enterprises, and there is a greater shortage of interdisciplinary talents who not only understand technology, but also have insight into industrial development trends and consumer needs. Especially in rural areas, due to the low education level, it is difficult for most farmers to meet the demand of e-commerce for employees, and the excellent talents from rural areas tend to stay in cities for personal development, resulting in a relative lag in developing new consumption patterns such as livestreaming marketing in rural areas.

5.1 Guide Logistics Enterprises to Build a New Commercial Logistics Mode

To realize the innovation of logistics mode, we not only need to follow the development law of business form and service mode, but also guide logistics enterprises to use new technology to achieve the mode construction, actively explore new logistics operation modes, promote the modernization of commercial logistics, shift the added value of logistics enterprises from sales terminals to distribution and production links, further enrich the industrial chain of commercial logistics, and improve logistics efficiency.

Specifically, first, support commercial logistics enterprises to accelerate the construction of platforms including information sharing, resource integration and cross-border e-commerce, and establish a multi-level commercial logistics information platform covering market demand, inventory management, logistics distribution, transaction matching, transaction settlement, credit evaluation and other comprehensive services, so as to realize online and offline synchronization, and improve the service and operation capability of logistics enterprises in all links and the whole process. Second, try to establish an intelligent distribution and allocation platform gradually by using the big data cloud platform, provide information transmission paths and data ports, achieve accurate integration and efficiency improvement in path optimization, storage allocation and capacity scheduling, and improve the matching of logistics supply and demand. Guide and encourage the construction of supply chain integration and sharing platform, improve the overall response capacity of the supply chain through the sharing of information and resources, and promote the integrated development of logistics, manufacturing, and commerce & trade circulation. Third, on the basis of the actual development at this stage, guide and encourage new logistics distribution modes such as self-operated distribution of logistics enterprises, direct distribution of suppliers and distribution with the help of social network, and promote multiple integrated development modes such as the interactive development of logistics and manufacturing and the collective development of the whole industrial chain. In the process of promoting the integrated development of new logistics modes, we should pay attention to the construction of strategic alliances among enterprises with close cooperation, promote quality logistics enterprises to implement standardized management in the whole process, and build an information-based, modern, and systematic distribution system.

5.2 Promote the Supply Chain Innovation and Efficiency of Logistics Industry

The innovation and efficiency enhancement of the supply chain of the logistics industry refers to the overall planning of the existing traditional business model and the in-depth optimization of the information flow and capital flow in the supply chain in order to improve the value-added ability of the logistics enterprises and the overall supply chain, so as to enhance their competitive advantage by improving the relationship between the upstream and downstream supply chains of the logistics enterprises.

Specific measures include: (1) Promote the information sharing in the supply chain of logistics industry. Innovate the information sharing mechanism via the Internet, reasonably define the boundary and information sharing scope between enterprises, establish a benefit distribution mechanism to balance all parties, truly realize information sharing and collaborative operation from the aspects of market information, ordering demand and inventory cycle, avoid or weaken the “bullwhip effect” between enterprises and improve the performance of the industrial chain. (2) Establish a coordinated operation mechanism of the supply chain of the logistics industry. Optimize the cooperation mode of strategic alliance among enterprises in the logistics industry, guide enterprises to integrate and apply relevant technologies, promote the upstream and downstream enterprises to achieve closer cooperation, realize the coordination of various elements such as information on this basis, and improve the operation efficiency between upstream and downstream enterprises in the whole supply chain, so as to ensure the efficient operation of the supply chain. (3) Strengthen the collaborative demand forecasting of the supply chain of the logistics industry. In terms of mechanism design, establish a scientific and reasonable benefit distribution scheme to protect the vital interests of all participants, promote all enterprises in the supply chain to participate in demand forecasting and evaluation, provide accurate basis for production, inventory, and procurement for all enterprises in the supply chain, and improve the overall demand forecasting ability and level of the supply chain of the logistics industry.

5.3 Improve the Law-Based Business Credit Environment and Standardized Market Consumption Environment

The law-based business environment and credit environment are vital to promote the logistics mode innovation. We need to start from the following aspects. First, strictly standardize the market order of the logistics industry. According to the actual development of the logistics industry, innovate the supervision mechanism and mode, strengthen the market supervision in key areas, and create a development environment of fair competition for various market entities in the industrial chain. Second, strengthen the credit constraints on the main logistics entities. Gradually promote the establishment of the information sharing service platform of the logistics industry, comprehensively establish the “blacklist” system, and include into the blacklist all kinds of dishonest behaviors that undermine the order of the logistics market and industry.

At the same time, to better promote quality consumption as a new driving force for high-quality development, we should further build a standardized consumption environment. First, improve and perfect the infrastructure related to consumption, remove the obstacles such as the unbalanced supply of logistics facilities, improve the logistics standards and the quality standards of goods and services, comprehensively improve the level of quality and safety standards, and provide basic guarantee for quality consumption. Second, innovate supervision methods, strengthen the accountability of enterprises, intensify the punishment of violations of laws and regulations in the field of consumption, and increase the protection of consumers’ rights and interests online and offline; build an information-sharing consumer market credit evaluation mechanism and platform, create a strong space for public opinion, so as to ensure worry-free consumption. Third, adopt various ways to safeguard the rights and interests of consumers and promote operators to be more responsible to consumers. Give full play to the supervision and link role of consumer associations at all levels, smooth consumer communication channels, and establish a system protecting consumers’ rights and interests, so that consumers can fully obtain a sense of happiness in a safe and comfortable consumption environment and realize their aspirations for a better life.

5.4 Boost the Implementation of Brand Value Promotion Project in Logistics Enterprises

With the realization of all-round moderate prosperity, and the consumption structure in China has undergone profound changes, changing from “whether there is the commodity or not” to “whether the commodity is good or not”. The demand for quality consumption has become the general trend. Therefore, improving the supply quality of logistics enterprises is vital to the innovation of logistics mode. Specific measures include: First, further guide logistics enterprises to establish brand awareness, aim at higher standards based on the specific characteristics of quality consumption, expand R&D investment, transform the existing product structure, and increase the diversified and high-quality supply of consumer goods market. Second, profoundly understand and comply with the requirements of the intelligent era, make full use of modern cutting-edge technologies such as big data, promote the deep integration of “Internet + logistics”, reconstruct the organizational structure of logistics enterprises, fully integrate resources in fields of design, R&D, production and distribution, enhance the efficiency of internal management, and lay a good foundation for a demand-oriented production system, so as to cultivate a number of high-quality logistics enterprises with a sense of social responsibility and a focus on their own brand value.