In China’s society today, characterized by the market-oriented economy, there is a great wealth of commodities. The buyer’s market plays a dominant role. In the past, production enterprises priced goods according to market situations. But now, the price is no longer decided by the market, but by the consumers. The enterprises have lost the initiative. Firstly, they should study the affordability capabilities of the consumers and their desired price. Then they need to consider the profit given to distributors and logistics. Finally, they set the factory price of the products.
Paying attention to consumers’ needs
Likewise, logistics services need to change, turning from serving enterprises to serving consumers so as to meet the diverse and individual needs of the latter. Examples are moving companies that offer moving services to city residents; express delivery companies that deliver small-sized parcels, gifts, or golf and ski equipment; warehouses that help keep furniture or valuables for those who are on long-term business trips. Moreover, transportation enterprises are developing more refrigerated vehicles. Warehouse enterprises build more cold stores to create a cold-chain logistics system and thus guarantee the cold and frozen transportation of products such as milk, meat, eggs, marine products, vegetables and fruit. To provide high quality services to consumers is undoubtedly the key to the future development of logistics enterprises.
Focusing on social benefits
To minimize pollution and preserve the ecological environment is a significant issue in today’s society. Therefore, logistics enterprises should abandon the sole focus on economic benefit, but comply with environmental protection regulations and place emphasis on social benefits including reducing waste accumulation, truck noise, and exhaust gas emissions. This is what we call “green logistics”. For the sake of social benefit, some countries have begun to limit truck transportation and encourage railway transportation. Trucks which stop to load and unload cargos in cities must turn off their engines to reduce exhaust gas emissions. In some countries, discarded household appliances like televisions and refrigerators must be recycled by the original manufacturing enterprises.
Pursuing added value
As clients and consumers have increasingly higher demands on services, and the competition between enterprises become fiercer, the costs keep rising and the profits continue to decrease, logistics enterprises have to pursue added value in order to survive and develop. So they expand their business beyond tying price tags and attaching bar codes. Logistics enterprises that only provided transportation, storage and packaging services are now shifting to third-party logistics enterprises to gain more added value.
