Green e-commerce supply chain analysis considering delivery time under epistemic uncertainty based on confidence level

School of Economics and Management, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, P.R. China

^* Corresponding author: 202221702020@stu.hebut.edu.cn

Received: 9 August 2024
Accepted: 21 January 2025

Abstract

Due to the growth of e-commerce and increasing demand for eco-friendly consumption, the green e-commerce supply chain has received significant attention recently. Additionally, the delivery time of products can significantly impact market demand in the online channel. However, due to incomplete historical data, epistemic uncertainty will inevitably arise when estimating the demand for green products. Therefore, by applying uncertainty theory, we propose an uncertain demand function based on greenness and delivery time, thus introducing delivery time into an uncertain green e-commerce supply chain comprising an e-commerce platform and a green manufacturer. Based on the above, chance-constrained models considering the confidence level associated with members’ risk attitude are constructed and solved for five scenarios, including the integrated scenario, the green manufacturer- dominant scenarios under the wholesale sales model and the platform sales model, as well as the cost-sharing scenarios under both sales models. The results show that the increasing cost parameter of green investment and the increasing maximum cost of delivery negatively affect the behavioral performance of the supply chain. Moreover, the choice of sales models by the e-commerce platform and the manufacturer is related to their attitude to risk.