Cheng Xiusheng, Li Wei-an, Qi Anbang and Wang Xiaoming

Research Report No 044, 2002

I. Present Development Status of Socialized Distribution in China

1.The patterns and development status of modern socialized distribution service

Modern enterprises usually use the following four patterns of distribution service:

(1) The client self-service pattern (first party distribution services). With this pattern, a client uses its own distribution facilities to provide services to itself. It is a "self-sufficient" pattern, hardly socialized and specialized, has low economic efficiency.

(2) The supplier distribution service pattern (second party distribution services). With this pattern, a supplier uses its distribution facilities to provide distribution services to its clients. As it can provide distribution services to many client enterprises, this service pattern has higher level of socialization than the first party service pattern, and has higher economic efficiency as well. However, its service targets remain limited within the clients of the supplier.

(3) The third party distribution service pattern. With this pattern, a third party of distribution service enterprise other than the two parties of a transaction uses its distribution service facilities and equipment to provide modern socialized services to the two transaction enterprises. In this pattern, the third enterprise that provide distribution services must carry out operation and certain management tasks for the owner enterprise based on the interests and requirements of the seller or the buyer. It is a pattern of socialized modern distribution service with remarkable efficiency and results.

(4) The fourth party distribution service pattern. This is a broad, integrated management service of modern distribution provided by a fourth service party (which is neither the two transaction parties nor the third party) to the two transaction parties or the third distribution service enterprise. It provides services to the two transaction enterprises, which include system design for distribution and integrated management arrangements for distribution enterprises. It also provides services to the third servicing party, its subcontractors and quasi distribution enterprises, which include integration of distribution services, transportation and optimal storage management, distribution and client service management, and information network management.

To a national economic system, the development of socialised distribution services generally undergoes the following stages:

(1) The stage of traditional service

This is a pattern and stage of socialised distribution service formed and developed as a result of early social division of labour. During this stage, the socialisation of service was based on various specialised services and conducted separately. It is a most primitive pattern of socialised distribution service.

(2) The stage of socialised modern distribution

This is a pattern and stage of comprehensive socialised distribution service. It is based on detailed social labour division in the stage of traditional distribution services and formed through industrial integration. During this stage, a provider of the third party may carry out most of the distribution operation of a client (production or circulation) enterprise.

(3) The stage of integrated and socialized distribution service

This is the highest stage of future socialised modern distribution. At this stage, while the third party provides comprehensive distribution services to client enterprises, the new specialised providers of integrated services (the fourth party of distribution service) provide integrated services to client enterprises as well as to the whole society. Both of them try to realise minimum costs and maximum profits in the whole society, and consequently form the pattern and stage of integrated distribution services for the whole society.

2.The current development situation of socialised distribution services in China

(1) China is in an initial stage of transition from the traditional distribution service to the socialised modern distribution service. The analysis of questionnaire survey and field studies demonstrates that there are still a large number of enterprises that provide traditional distribution service and "quasi distribution" service. However, the number of this kind of distribution enterprises is diminishing, while the number of enterprises providing the third party distribution service is growing. Some traditional large-sized storage and transportation enterprises are giving up their previous simplified service model one after another to turn into providers of third party services. Some of them have already developed into providers of the third party services that can provide comprehensive services. Meanwhile, many enterprises of third party distribution services are being established with new registration and foreign investment. In China, the manufacturing and circulation enterprises continue to adopt the first party distribution as the main service pattern at present, which is supplemented by the pattern of second party service. The proportion of the third party service pattern is relatively small, while the fourth party service pattern is still in the stage of theoretical study and publicity.

(2) Self-sufficient distribution service remains omnipresent among enterprises. The table below shows that many manufacturing and circulation enterprises possess and maintain their own distribution service facilities for transportation, storage and handling, while self-sufficient service remains the major source of distribution services for industrial and commercial enterprises.

(3) There are only a few distribution enterprises that can provide comprehensive, whole-process service. The survey on over 200 distribution service enterprises carried out by the China Material Storage and Transportation Association demonstrates that enterprises providing the third party distribution services in China can only meet less than 5% of the overall demand for comprehensive, whole-process services. Meanwhile, most of the distribution enterprises cannot provide such services. This is one of the major factors restricting the development of China’s socialized distribution services. At present, when choosing providers of the third party services, most enterprises are concerned especially about whether they can provide comprehensive, whole-process services, and then about the factors of quality and charges. Table 2 shows the industrial distribution of 26 listed distribution enterprises in China, which can be divided into nine sub-sectors. On average, there are less than three listed companies in every sub-sector. Only three of them can provide comprehensive services, while most can only provide simplified service with insufficient capacity for comprehensively socialized modern service. Table 3 shows the main services provided by enterprises of third party distribution services in China. The business of most enterprises remain in the areas of goods on agency, storage, warehouse management, handling and trunk line transportation, while very few of the third party distribution services providers can provide comprehensive, whole-process and integrated services. It fully reveals the weakness of China’s modern distribution services with regard to the service, capacity and quality. (4) The overall scale of the distribution enterprises is small. In terms of the incomes scale from the business of socialised modern distribution of China’s listed enterprises of modern distribution, the total incomes from all distribution service business shown in Table 2 was less than US$15 billion in 1999. However, the main business incomes of the UPS of the US alone already reached US$12.5 billion in 1995, while that of Sakawa Express of Japan amounted to US$5.7 billion. Compared with them, the scale of China’s distribution enterprises is obviously very small.

3.The structural characteristics of the socialised modern distribution service

The data in the survey report of the China Transportation Association and in the sampling survey report of the China Storage Association demonstrate that the distribution services currently available to Chinese enterprises have the following characteristics:

(1)The pattern of third party distribution service has just emerged in China and the utilisation rate is far smaller than that in the developed countries.

In terms of the utilisation rate of third party distribution service by industrial and commercial enterprises, there is a large gap between China and the developed countries and regions in the world. This is evident in Table 4.

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*This is the second report of the "Study on the Development of Modern Distribution in China".