A New Business Mode for FTs Chain in an E-Commerce Environment

Xihui Wang, Yonggang Wu and Liang Liang

Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 2014, vol. 2014, 1-12

Abstract:

With the rise in the online demand for fashion and textiles (FTs) along with the development of e-commerce, a business mode called drop-shipping mode has emerged. Despite the fact that the drop-shipping mode has many merits, this method has less earning power compared with the traditional business mode. This study proposes a mix business mode for FTs chains in an e-commerce environment. Traditional and drop-shipping modes are special cases of the mix mode. In addition, a generalized model is built to analyze the profitability of FTs chains. Our study shows that, in most cases, the mix mode improves overall profit of FTs chain. Moreover, we consider the seasonality and the short life cycle of fashion items in analyzing the relationship between the e-retailer's optimal inventory level and demand distribution parameters. The numerical example shows that, by changing their inventory level, e-retailers can address the demand fluctuation using the mix mode. The proposed mix mode employs both business modes to enhance the profitability of a FTs chain. As such, the mix mode is an effective method to address demand fluctuation for FTs in an e-commerce environment.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/MPE/2014/675414.pdf (application/pdf)
http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/MPE/2014/675414.xml (text/xml)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hin:jnlmpe:675414

DOI: 10.1155/2014/675414

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Mathematical Problems in Engineering from Hindawi
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mohamed Abdelhakeem ().