CHAPTER 01: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
In most of the developing economies, e-commerce logistics has played the role of latest big driver of change within the logistics industry and the physical distribution networks. This has basically evolved over the past 40 years. At present, it can be said that e-commerce will continue to grow and most of the companies in various industries will look to evolve through this channel. Multinational companies will specifically look to grow and depend upon the concept. A strong infrastructure will make the situation turn in favor of companies, which will use the new technology.
Electronic commerce is basically a purchase method, which steadily acquires a greater global role compared to its predecessor with the traditional trade. The most notable competitive advantage of electronic commerce is the convenience of shopping online from home or from any other place. It also includes wide range of supply with anonymity and even more competitive prices. These differences have made buyers to choose through the daily modality, which makes them to preferably buy the items through online sources before they actually visit the shop and buy through traditional chain. However, traditional stores have higher success ratio than the e-commerce sites and online purchasing because of the tangibility and reliability of goods delivered to customers. Quite a few efforts have been made along with huge investments to ensure that e-commerce companies get the competitive edge and advantage in the developing industry, which can help them to trade effectively in the industry. It is important to understand and keep a check and balance on competitors in such a tough environment where competitors are looking to grasp every single opportunity that can be utilized to enhance their performance and market share (Baziotopoulos, 2008).
China Post has been the official postal service in China. It is a Bureau of the Chinese society and the owner of China post services within all parts of the country. As it is also a government-owned enterprise and regulatory authority; therefore, it is accountable for various regulations of the national postal industry and the overall management of national postal enterprises in the country.
The postal services in China are quite an old concept, which dates back to the Shang Dynasty. The first post office was established in 1878 by Li Hong Hang due to the suggestion of foreign powers while it also has branches in five of the major trading cities. In March 1896, the customer post office was transformed into the Great Qing Post, which was announced as an independent customer service forum in 1911. The latest postal system or the service of People Republic of China has been established since 1949. It was replaced by the Chunghwa Post in 1949 and the overall Universal Postal Union in 1972. The new postal system or the service, the China Post is now directly supervised by the State Post Bureau of the PRC, which has the responsibility for standard regulatory postal offerings in China. The State Post Bureau is a reporting agency to the Ministry of Information Industry of the Chinese people (Baziotopoulos, 2008).
The United States Postal Service (USPS) is known as the Post Office, United States Mail and the Postal Service. It is an independent agency within the country, United States that is solely responsibly to provide all the postal services to each client within the country. It has been one of the few agencies that are even authorized by the United States constitution. USPS has its roots that date back to 1775, during the Second Continental Congress where the first postmaster general was appointed namely, Benjamin Franklin. The company employed more than 626,764 employees and had a fleet of 211,654 vehicles in 2013. The USPS has been the largest operator civilian vehicle fleet globally. The USPS is officially designated to serve the American citizens, regardless of the geography with a uniform price and optimum quality. The company has not been receiving taxpayer dollars since the early period of the 1980s with quite a minor exception of subsidies for the cost that is associated with the disabled and the overseas voters. The company offers its employees with the prefund along with the employee retirement plans and the pension benefits to the workers, which require an exceeding amount of the government and private organizations that has dropped the revenue with the affect of the recession in the American economy (Leahy, 1995).
The United States Postal Service has recently entered into a deal with China Post and eBay last year. The purpose of this deal is to help the Chinese sellers to send small packages to the United States in less time duration than the normal regular international delivery services and schedules. eBay has revealed that this agreement has led the company to receive 30,000 parcels each day from sellers in China along with package tracking. About 40% of eBay sellers in China have been using the packet service to ship in the United States, while over 75% of items ...............
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