1970-01-01 08:33:29
With the outbreak of the international financial crisis, many enterprises were in preparation for a "winter economy". However, in contrast E-commerce is presenting a booming prospect: In 2008, the total amount of China's E-commerce transactions exceeded 3 trillion yuan, increasing more than 40% year-on-year. In the third quarter of last year, buyers on the Alibaba's global platform increased 1.2 million, equaling the whole quantity for the previous year.
"The financial crisis provided a rare development opportunity for China's E-commerce industry", said Nie Linghai, deputy director of the information technology department in Ministry of Commerce.
Newly developed E-commerce
10 years ago, Ma Yun, founder of Alibaba went to the US to seek venture capital in Silicon Valley. He wanted to raise several million dollars but encountered many difficulties. This is because at that time, venture investors were not optimistic about the prospects of China's Internet, not to mention E-commerce.
But 10 years later, E-commerce is now playing an increasingly important role in China's commerce arena. Major E-commerce companies Alibaba, Dangdang and Zhouyue have all witnessed increasing annual volumes of transaction. These online business companies are holding leading positions in B2B, B2C and C2C markets respectively.
"Today there are 120 million users of Taobao and 179 million users of iPay. The past 10-years proved that there is huge potential for the development of an e-commerce market in China", said Ma Yun
Looking back on the road of development, China's E-commerce represented by Alibaba created a development path which was quite different from the West.
It was reported that US E-commerce was "business-driven" while Chinese E-commerce was more "technology-pulled". In the US, enterprises' business demand promoted the advancement of the Internet and E-commerce technology, forming the concept of E-commerce. In China, E-commerce started in 1997; the concept of E-commerce emerged earlier than its applications and development. The "torchbearers" of E-commerce practice were IT vendors like IBM. The Internet and E-commerce technology continued to be driven by enterprises' business demands, which promoted the application and development of Chinese E-commerce.
"It is inevitable for traditional enterprises to join E-commerce", said Huang Yongtao, analyst from IDC, an international authority investigation institution.
Outshining others in the financial crisis
Against the backdrop of the international financial crisis, E-commerce has already become a safe harbor for small and medium-sized enterprises worldwide. Relevant statistics show that in the financial crisis, the proportion of non E-commerce enterprises that got into trouble reached 84.2%, while the ratio of E-commerce enterprises bogged down was only 16.8%, there was nearly 5 times difference between the two. The conditions of small and medium-sized enterprises in E-commerce were far better than traditional enterprises.
Why? Compared with traditional business, enterprises using E-commerce have no time or geographical restrictions on their transactions. This can reduce 47% of channel costs and 55% of marketing costs, leading to a 16% cost reduction in total. In 2008, among the small and medium-sized enterprises on the Alibaba B2B platform, every one yuan invest from 25.04% of the enterprises could yield 234 yuan transaction profit.
"We are confident in E-commerce." Said Wei Zhe, CEO of Alibaba B2B Company Group, "Under the financial crisis, buyers needed more efficient transaction methods, which enabled E-commerce to become a mainstream purchasing platform." Wei Zhe believes that E-commerce will enter a period of rapid growth. In three to five years of economic recovery, E-commerce will be transformed from a non-mainstream business platform to a mainstream business platform.
Based on this judgment, Ma Yun strongly advocated employing E-commerce to help more small and medium-sized enterprises get through the crisis. He said, "Alibaba has 15 billion yuan cash, which is enough to get through the financial crisis. Our purpose is to help many other small and medium enterprises to survive. If all the customers on Alibaba go bankrupt after the financial crisis, what could Alibaba continue to do?"
Promote the healthy growth of E-commerce
E-business is in the process of forming an ecosystem, promoting the active participation of banking, logistics, insurance, IT industry and marketing agency to drive the development of peripheral industries. Take the logistics industry as an example. In 2008, Taobao alone brought over a million dollars order forms per day to China's logistics industry.
However, many small and medium-sized enterprises and consumers still have worries about E-commerce. For example, issues about the security of online transactions, the legal aspects of electronic contracts and Internet credibility all became "stumbling blocks" for the development of E-commerce.
All E-commerce service providers are making efforts to remove these "stumbling blocks". Wei Zhe said with full confidence, "E-commerce will bring a new commercial civilization." The high degree of transparency on the Internet made integrity in the new commercial civilization become increasingly important. We should value integrity. Businesses with good credit on Taobao and Alibaba's platforms are also prosperous businesses; they can also get unsecured loans. In contrast, the Internet's high degree of transparency made the enterprises with bad records get banned around the whole world.
Compared to foreign countries, China is still on the initial stage in E-commerce. At present, measures such as business authentication, increasingly perfecting national and local electronic legislations, and the third-party custody of transaction payment as well as the mediation and arbitration on transaction disputes all contributed to the sound development of E-commerce.
By People's Daily Online