Material Flow Studies
JI Ke-xin, YU Hai-long, CHANG Qing, LIU Jun-hua, ZHU Jing-bo
Journal of Beijing Jiaotong University(Social Sciences Edition).
2026, 25(1):
89-103.
The construction of a rural parcel delivery and logistics system is of great significance for promoting agricultural and rural development, meeting the production and living needs of rural residents, unlocking rural consumption potential, and advancing the process of urban-rural integration. However, the “last-mile” bottleneck problem urgently needs to be resolved. Based on data from case studies including the typical experiences of rural logistics service brands published by the Ministry of Transport, this paper systematically analyzes the challenges, innovative practices, and optimization paths in the construction of China’s rural parcel delivery and logistics system. The study finds that the high requirements of agricultural production and agricultural product circulation for service flexibility and timeliness are compounded by key bottlenecks on the supply side: difficulty in achieving scale effects due to geographical dispersion, insufficient industrial coordination caused by low production organization and standardization, and lagging application of modern logistics technologies that restrict operational efficiency, resulting in weak end-to-end service capacity. To address these challenges, innovative practices have emerged across various regions, represented by models such as “Integrated Development of Passenger Transport, Freight and Postal Services”, “Internet + Fourth-Party Logistics”, “One Network, Dual Flows, Mutual Profitability”, “Cainiao County-wide Co-distribution”, and “E-commerce Platform + Direct Shipping from Origin”. These models utilize basic resource integration methods including transport-post cooperation + post-express cooperation, express-express cooperation, commerce-express cooperation, express-express cooperation, and e-commerce platform aggregation, respectively, with distinct characteristics in organization, links, network and effects. To further improve the construction of China’s rural parcel delivery and logistics system, we should follow the basic logic of “diversified entities – technology-driven – resource integration – coordinated development”, advance implementation by category and in light of local conditions, strengthen the application and innovation of technology, improve the collaboration mechanism between government and market, deepen the integration and sharing of logistics resources, and promote the in-depth integration of parcel delivery and logistics with rural industries.