With the rapid development of e-commerce, logistics distribution has become the bottleneck of its development. It is urgent to study how to optimize the cooperation between e-commerce platforms and logistics service providers. Based on Stackelberg game theory, this research first studies the decision making of two-stage logistics service supply chains consisting of the e-commerce mall and the logistics service provider without cooperative distribution, in which decentralization and centralization are analyzed, respectively. Then, it is extended to the decision making of three-stage logistics service supply chains consisting of e-commerce malls, express delivery companies, and terminal distributors. The results show that the profit, sales volume, and logistics service effort of the centralized decision-making system are higher than those of the decentralized decision-making system, regardless of the two-stage or three-stage logistics service supply chain. Therefore, it is vital to formulate a reasonable profit distribution scheme based on revenue-sharing contract to achieve the cooperation among the partners of logistics service supply chain, so as to achieve a win-win situation in which all of their profits increase. Finally, a numerical example is presented to verify the results, and some issues are proposed for future research.

With the rapid growth of E-commerce business, logistics service, especially the last-mile distribution, has become one bottleneck, which leads to the rise of coordination complexity of logistics service supply chain (LSSC). This research, based on Stackelberg’s game theory, studies the coordination of a new three-echelon LSSC consisting of an E-commerce mall, an express company, and a terminal distribution service provider and investigates the optimal solutions and profits for each party within the semicentralized and centralized LSSC alliances, respectively. To accomplish this, it firstly shows that the three-echelon LSSC can lead to global optimum under the centralized decision-making scenario and then deploys the contract coordination schemes, including revenue sharing, cost sharing, and unit delivery price contracts, in three semicentralized alliances, so as to achieve the same performance of the centralized decision-making scenario, in which each party in the LSSC can achieve the win-win situation. Finally, numerical examples are provided to illustrate the feasibility and the effectiveness of the proposed coordination strategies. This study enriches the coordination theory in the field of LSSC and provides managerial insights for decision makers in LSSC.

This study applies the partnership quality theory to investigate how the perceived information sharing quality from express delivery service providers can affect logistics service performance for online shoppers in terms of partnership quality (including trust and commitment) and willingness to share information from E-commerce enterprises. Based on 421 samples of E-commerce enterprises in China, the results of structural equation modelling revealed that perceived information sharing quality affects partnership trust, which in turn affects the partnership commitment and willingness to share information. Partnership quality and willingness to share information affect the perceived performance of the express delivery services. Surprisingly, information sharing quality does not play a role in commitment. This study provides a theoretical contribution to E-commerce supply chain research in constructing a cognition, affective, behavior, and conative performance model for further research.

In many countries, the governments support the development of local agriculture through subsidization. Subsidizing the sales of agricultural products through E-commerce channels is a way to support the development of agriculture in China. This study aims to develop a profit model and apply Stackelberg game theory to determine which type of subsidies and decision-making can provide the maximum benefits for agricultural products E-commerce supply chains. The results indicate that for both centralized decisions and decentralized decisions, the subsidizing to the agricultural cooperative is better than the subsidizing to consumers and no subsidization. The sales volume, preservation level, sales efforts, and overall profit of the agricultural products E-commerce supply chain are significantly higher. It suggests that the government should play a leading role to support the development of agricultural products E-commerce. This study contributes to agricultural research by developing a profit model to examine the effects of different government subsidy strategies on each member of the agricultural online shopping supply chain. Recommendations are provided for agricultural cooperatives, E-commerce platforms, and the government to improve the quality and sales of agricultural products through online shopping channels.

Based on the Stackelberg game theory, this paper explores the incentive effects of five government subsidy strategies on agricultural products in e-commerce. A two-tier e-commerce supply chain of one farmer and one e-commerce platform is constructed to examine the impact of five different government subsidy strategies on the greenness of an agricultural product, the wholesale price, the selling price, and the profit of the supply chain. The results show that the effect of offering government subsidies is significant. Also, the direct subsidization from the government to a farmer has the maximum effect on the sales and greenness of the agricultural product. The results of this study provide policy implications for governments in establishing a sustainable mechanism through direct subsidization.