Research on the evolution of express packaging recycling strategy considering virtual incentives and heterogeneous subsidies

With the growth of e-commerce business volume, a large amount of express packaging waste is generated, causing certain damage to the environment. In response to this problem, the China Post Bureau pointed out the plan to strengthen express packaging recycling, and large e-commerce platforms such as JD.com have taken actions. Starting from this background, this paper uses a tripartite evolutionary game model to study the strategies evolution of consumers, e-commerce companies and e-commerce platforms. At the same time, the model considers the influence of platform virtual incentives and heterogeneous subsidies on equilibrium evolution. The study found that with the increase of virtual incentives from the platform to consumers, consumers converge to the strategy of "participating" in express packaging recycling faster and faster. When the assumption of participation constraints for cosumers is relaxed, the virtual incentives of the platform are still effective, but it will be affected by the initial willingness of consumers; when the e-commerce platform uses a single method to subsidize, it can effectively encourage e-commerce companies to use green packaging items. Compared with direct subsidize, the policy flexibility of the discount coefficient is stronger, in addition, moderate double subsidies can also achieve the same effect, and the e-commerce platform can make decisions based on the actual situation. The cyclical fluctuations in the strategies of consumers and e-commerce companies in the case of high additional profit coefficients of e-commerce companies may be the reason why the current express packaging recycling program is not effective. In addition, this article also discusses the influence of other parameters on the equilibrium evolution, and gives targeted countermeasures.