Rationality of multistage distribution of organic and specially cultivated fruits and vegetables toward E-commerce companies.

The objective of this study is to clarify the distribution process of organic and specially cultivated fruits and vegetables toward E-commerce companies and to examine the rationality of distributors that are interposing between farmers and E-commerce companies. The conclusions are as follows: 1) both organic farming and the market scale of electronic commerce are expanding; 2) the distributors procure fruits and vegetables from farmers, agricultural corporations, farmers groups, agricultural cooperatives, and distributors; 3) with regard to commercial distribution between E-commerce companies and farmers, there are some distributors, but there is a smaller extent of physical distribution compared with commercial distribution; 4) dealing directly with E-commerce companies is more difficult for distributors than for supermarkets and consumer cooperatives because of fluctuations in quantity; 5) the results of analysis of distributors that receive direct and indirect orders from E-commerce companies show that the distributors that receive direct orders face lower risk entailed by quantity fluctuation and sales operations of suppliers including other distributors, while the distributors that receive indirect orders provide products throughout the year and coordinate with farmers for distributors that receive direct orders. Because of the division of labor, multistage distribution is rational