E3S Web of Conferences 235, 01044 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202123501044 NETID 2020 Research on the Influence of Brand Certification on Farmers' Professional Cooperatives Participating in E-commerce Guoqiang Liu1,a, Bizhong Zhang1,b, Xinhong Fu*1,c，Ruixin Zhang1,d 1 College of Management, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu, China Abstract. Based on the microscopic survey data of 100 vegetable cooperatives in Sichuan Province, this paper empirically analyzes the influence of brand certification on cooperatives participating in the e- commerce by binary logistic regression model. The results show that the proportion of Sichuan vegetable cooperatives participating in the e-commerce is generally lower, which needs further improvement. Brand certification has a positive role in promoting cooperatives to participate in the e-commerce, with a marginal contribution of 19.7%. In addition, government sales support has a positive impact on the cooperative e- commerce, which is an important guarantee for promoting cooperatives to participate in the e-commerce. While the difficulty of agricultural product sales has a negative impact on the cooperative e-commerce, and the more difficult the agricultural products are sold, the higher the probability that the cooperative will participate in the e-commerce. Thus, this article puts forward policy suggestions such as actively promoting cooperatives to participate in brand certification, promoting cooperatives to participate in the e-commerce according to local conditions and strengthening government sales support. The government strongly supports cooperatives to 1 Introduction develop e-commerce. In order to actively respond to the "Internet +" action, the 2017 Central Document No. 1 Farmers' professional cooperatives (hereinafter referred to emphasized the promotion of comprehensive docking and as "cooperatives") have important functions such as integration between cooperatives and e-commerce. reducing transaction costs and resolving information However, with the policies promotion in the past five asymmetry[1,2], which can effectively resolve the problems years, there is a certain gap between the cooperatives' e- of agricultural products' sales, and thus have developed commerce practice and theoretical expectations. There are rapidly. According to the official data from the Ministry of still some cooperatives that have not participated in e- Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the number of legally commerce. Why do cooperatives have a different attitude registered cooperatives nationwide amounted to 2.203 towards e-commerce, that is, what factors affect the million as of the end of October 2019, and about half of cooperatives participating in e-commerce? Answering this the rural households entered the cooperatives. question has important theoretical and practical Cooperatives have become one of the most important new significance for resolving the sales difficulties of type of agricultural management entities for the agricultural products and the sustainable development of development of modern agriculture. However, it is cooperatives. undeniable that the cooperative has not fundamentally solved the problem of agricultural products' sales[3], so the sustainable development of the cooperatives also face 2 LITERATURE REVIEW challenges. Higher transaction costs are an important The model and advantages of cooperatives participating in [4] factor that makes it difficult to sell agricultural products . e-commerce have attracted extensive attention from The transaction costs of cooperatives mainly come from scholars. "Production and sales docking" and "production various transaction activities carried out between and consumption docking" are two basic circulation paths cooperatives and other market entities. Cooperatives of cooperatives' agricultural products, from which the e- participating in e-commerce can effectively reduce search commerce is an important form of the former[8]. The costs, negotiation and decision costs, supervision costs, model of cooperatives participating in e-commerce mainly [5] switching costs, etc . In addition, the development of e- includes C2O model, COM model and CO2O model[9]. commerce can enhance the market competitiveness of Similarly, Chen et al. found that the supply and demand cooperatives, improve the level of standardized information release model, the self-operated outlet model [6] management and the quality of members . Therefore, and the entrusted sales model are cooperatives' common Kong pointed out that not only e-commerce needs e-commerce model[10]. Xu and Si explored feasible e- cooperatives, but cooperatives also need e-commerce[7]. [email protected] [email protected] *[email protected] [email protected] © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.or g/licenses/by/4.0/). E3S Web of Conferences 235, 01044 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202123501044 NETID 2020 commerce models for several main types of agricultural found that the chairman's education level, production base, products, namely, food crop agricultural products cooperative registration capital, agricultural product sales adopting the information platform model and the supply channels, whether to sign purchase and sales contracts, etc. and marketing integration model driven by leading have a positive correlation with e-commerce behavior, enterprises, fresh agricultural products using small while whether the cooperative has a fixed education and community e-commerce and the online store model, the training place and incomplete member product transaction specialty agricultural products adopting the third-party records have a negative correlation[20]. platform model and the self-operated platform model, the The influence of brand certification on marketing has economic forest products adopting the agricultural also gradually attracted the attention of scholars. Dorr product auction model and the large-scale procurement found that certified mangoes and grapes increased by 58% model[11]. The advantages of cooperatives in developing e- and 28% per kilogram over uncertified prices[21], commerce are mainly in two aspects, namely, the high respectively. Brands had a significant positive effect on degree of organization and the latecomer advantage[12]. the online sales price, sales volume and satisfaction of Compared with traditional sales in the bazaar, fruits, and the interaction effect between brand and culture cooperatives participating in e-commerce face a larger had a significant positive effect on the online sales price market and stronger premium capacity[13], Yang and Wang of tea[22], while some scholars hold the opposite view, pointed out that cooperatives can reduce transaction costs Bacon pointed out that fair trade and organic certification such as search costs, negotiation and decision-making did not improve the livelihoods of 228 small coffee costs, supervision costs and conversion costs[5], thereby farmers in northern Nicaragua[23]. Jena et al. believed that promoting the sales of agricultural products and the due to low productivity, negligible price premiums and sustainable development of cooperatives. poor access for cooperatives to credit and information, However, the practice of cooperatives participating in coffee cooperatives' certification had little impact on the e-commerce is affected by many factors. Wu and Qiu livelihoods of small-scale coffee producers[24]. Owning pointed out that when operating fresh e-commerce your own brand was a necessary software condition for the platform, the cooperatives lack the management cooperative e-commerce[25]. With the rapid development of consciousness to manage the enterprise with a modern e-commerce applications in China, cooperatives enterprise system, the concepts of Internet integrated developed e-commerce and took the brand path to meet marketing, and the logistics are imperfect, besides, a gap the needs of market competition[26]. in the standard system of agricultural products In summary, scholars have conducted extensive circulation[14]. Cooperatives participating in e-commerce discussions on the models and advantages of the face many bottlenecks such as lack of talents, little cooperative e-commerce, the influencing factors of influence of agricultural products' brands, inadequate cooperatives participating in e-commerce, and the impact logistics system, insufficient consumer information and of brand certification, which have laid the foundation for inadequate policy implementation[9]. Public policy is an in-depth research in this article. However, it is slightly important driver of rural e-commerce development[15]. inadequate. Existed researches mostly have theoretical Kong pointed out that the chairman of the cooperative discussions on cooperatives' e-commerce models or needs to have strategic thinking and take participation in advantages, but lack of empirical research on the e-commerce as a long-term and strategic task[7]. influencing factors of cooperatives participating in the e- Cooperatives' e-commerce cognitive behavior is not commerce. There have been studies examining the affected by the scale of operations, but it is significantly influencing factors of cooperatives participating in e- affected by the type of industry[15]. Zhang found that commerce from the dimensions of the chairman's farmers joining the cooperatives will reduce the characteristic variables, cooperative