1970-01-01 08:33:28
By Zhuang Guangping
Wu Tao, a resident near the third ring road of Haidian District, Beijing, has a personal experience of logistics delivery. In 2001, he purchased 6 books online for the first time, amounting over RMB50 yuan plus RMB10 yuan delivery charges. The most important factor that attracted him to purchase books on line is the low price, but the result of the first-time online shopping surprised him a lot, he had not received the books until the 10th day.
However, by 2008, online shopping has become Wu Tao's major shopping way. As to purchasing books on line, from making an order to receiving books, it usually needs 2 or 3 days with free delivery mostly. Last week, he ordered a set of car mat in taobao.com and he paid over RMB20 yuan for express delivery as the seller lived in Shanghai. Within 3 days, such a big mat with an area of around 1�O had already been paved in his new car. Wu Tao was very satisfied, "The convenience of logistics has fully demonstrated the charm of online shopping."
Wu Tao's experience of online shopping can be regarded as an epitome for the development of logistics system on e-commerce. "In recent years, the development of China's logistics industry has showed a fast speed and quality growth. In 2007, the added value in logistics industry occupied 17.6 percent of that in the whole service industry and the logistics industry has become a backbone industry supporting the whole service industry." Cui Zhongfu, Vice-chairman of China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing, remarked.
Zhang Duo, a commissioner of China Logistics Information Standardization Committee (CLISC) and the president of www.ec21cn.net, stated that, "E-commerce without logistics is an abridged e-commerce. Logistics will directly matter and effect on the transaction volume and amount, as well as the development level of e-commerce. "
Generally speaking, the delivery modes of online shopping come to two types: one is a unified delivery mode utilized in such websites as www.dangdang.com and www.joyo.net; the other type is an optional delivery mode utilized in such websites as www.taobao.com and www.eachnet.com.
As to such two modes, Zhang Duo believed, such e-commercial enterprises with unified delivery mode as www.dangdang.com and www.joyo.com have tackled the logistics challenge for both parties in transaction, which is a progress compared with www.taobao.com and www.eachnet.com. But Jin Renqun, Marketing Director of Shentong Express Group, compared the two modes in terms of the order quantity: www.taobao.com receives 600,000 orders per day while www.dangdang.com and www.joyo.com less than 60,000 orders.
Despite the different opinions, they agreed that both of the above-mentioned modes were born obeying their respective real facts when they began to step into the market: www.dangdang.com and www.joyo.com are business-to-consumer (B2C) websites with fixed delivery parties, so the unified logistics service is available for management; but www.taobao.com and www.eachnet.com are the third-party communication platform and both of the transaction parties are consumers, so the uncertainty makes the platform difficult to establish a fixed logistic service provider for a certain transaction.
With the development of online shopping market, weakness has emerged increasingly in the two modes. For instance, Ms. Li, who lived in Mentougou District, Beijing, tried online book shopping, but the area outside the fifth ring road is not within the express delivery scope of many B2C websites, such as www.dangdang.com and www.joyo.com, so she had to give up. All the time, the suspicion on the competence and delivery scope of the unified management logistics, as well as the credit and safety of the optional logistics become the weak points for the development of the two modes. As the e-commerce market develops, such two modes are increasingly overcoming the weakness and stepping into perfection.
For breaking the development bottleneck, www.dangdang.com and www.joyo.com are increasingly expanding their delivery scope. It is understood that for the moment both of the two businesses can provide around 360 cities with the cash on delivery (COD) service for common express. For those areas that have not been covered, a common postal delivery is a choice. Meanwhile, www.taobao.com begins corporation attempt with some major express groups, and set up recommended logistics on the shopping webpage. Due to the supervision of www.taobao.com, choosing these recommended logistics can realize such benefits as a direct contact with logistics companies on line, a more convenient order track, more favorable compensation and more timely compensation disposal.
As early as the 3rd China International E-Commerce Conference held in the beginning of 1999, Zhang Duo took the lead in proposing that the construction of logistics delivery system under the e-commerce surroundings shall be attached great importance to. 9 years later, Zhang Duo told reporters that logistics challenge was still one of the major bottlenecks cumbering the development of China's e-commerce development.
What is the challenge in the logistics delivery of online shopping? A relative high cost is an accordant perspective for all logistics businesses. Jin Renqun expressed that the online retail aims to individual consumers who need such goods with relative less amount, lower price, small and irregular volume. Moreover, the delivery destinations are scattered and business personnel spends a relative longer unit time. All of these increase the cost of logistic delivery.
In the online retail, it seems that the assessment systems of the buyers and sellers only push the transaction parties onto a platform of credit judgment. In fact, the credit of logistics businesses is of great importance as well. Just realizing such a point, many websites are getting down to researching how to involve logistics businesses into the public assessment system. The transaction information does not only include payment information, but also involves logistics information, all of which shall be transmitted to electronic banks and logistics delivery centers timely to realize an integration and connection between the e-business transaction system and the logistics delivery management system.
However, to integrate and deal with such data as different application systems, implementation environments and programming languages in deed, standards must be followed. On April 16th this year, CLISC established a "Workshop for modern logistics and e-commerce", making great efforts to promote the series standardization construction relating to the connection between the third- party-based public logistics service platform and e-commerce platform.
By then, if you order a piece of article coming from other regions on line, once the article enters into the delivery link, you can directly login the website where you have ordered the article to see about and get to know the delivery status and location of the article in real time.
Source:CE.cn