An average annual growth rate of 75% is the simplest and most direct way to describe the promising future of China's B2C e-commerce market. According to data analysis provided by Analysys Mason, from 2008 to 2011, the buyer's market size of China's B2C e-commerce will grow at an annual rate exceeding 75%, which means that every two years, the scale of online shopping will double. Online shopping has transformed from a fashionable behavior into a daily habit for many internet users, and a significant portion of them represent the backbone of China's current and future consumer markets.
Not only is the market growing rapidly, but the success of e-commerce platforms such as VANCL, Redbaby, JD.com, and Longyue Mobile Online also reveals that B2C e-commerce has gradually achieved scaled market profitability.
Just like e-commerce, traditional industries' market performance is also booming, but not because of market expansion, rather due to market competition. The increasingly fierce competition in traditional industries forces each business owner to explore new marketing channels and new markets. Besides cost-saving, how can one find opportunities for profit? After all, costs cannot be infinitely compressed!
Thus, the high-speed expansion of new markets and numerous successful examples have made the period from 2008 to 2009 the best time for traditional enterprises to enter the B2C e-commerce field.
"Stay away from what you don't know" or "Dare to explore"
"Stay away from what you don't know" has always been an unwritten rule for starting businesses. In the past, the Internet was hailed as an industry for the young, mainly because compared to relatively mature traditional industries, this brand-new industry offers more new opportunities for the youth.
Compared to the gradually maturing Internet market, e-commerce is still a completely new field, providing both Internet entrepreneurs and traditional enterprise owners with a new fair starting point.
The call for a shortage of e-commerce talents by various media and specialized talent agencies in 2007 well illustrates this point: it's hard to find compound talents who understand both the Internet and business. Without ready-made talents, every company has the chance to become an industry leader.
ProBIZ, specializing in e-commerce research, advocates: electronic plus commerce, mouse plus cement. As the Internet deeply influences our daily lives, the integration of traditional enterprises and the Internet becomes inevitable.
Simplify and prioritize business and speed
There are several points to emphasize:
1. E-commerce is a new marketing channel, a new market, and a new source of income. For most small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), doing e-commerce aims to expand business and increase sales, which is the most fundamental purpose.
2. "Business starts small," so don't overestimate your business initially; you haven't even sold a single product online yet!
3. For our vast SME owners, simpler business models, faster initiation of online business, and network sales as the direct goal make the e-commerce journey less risky and quicker to see results. If B2C e-commerce becomes too complex, it could confuse many traditional enterprises and even .COM companies, leading them astray in implementing e-commerce.
To complicate matters, few companies have the capability to build independent R&D teams or choose professional software companies for project customization development; online marketing differs significantly from traditional channel marketing, with very different approaches to resource utilization and integration; moreover, the operation management of B2C platforms requires time for newcomers to learn and may involve some trial-and-error costs.
Another concern is the transformation of many website construction companies into e-commerce service providers. Recalling the early 2000s when creating a corporate website cost hundreds of thousands of yuan, today's enterprise owners should think more deeply about the implementation and post-implementation operation management of B2C e-commerce.
In summary, SMEs' B2C e-commerce should simplify, focus on core business sales, start low, and steadily expand.
Choose the right entry point!
There are many ways to make money in the e-commerce market: signing foreign trade orders on Alibaba, opening small shops on Taobao with low investment...
Faced with continuously increasing consumer purchasing power, more companies have achieved success by building their own B2C e-commerce sales platforms. VANCL clothing's rise is a typical example of an independent branded B2C online mall.
Let e-commerce simplify, choose product-based B2C e-commerce solutions to smoothly initiate online business, allowing offline businesses to extend online. This is one proven path to conducting B2C e-commerce.
Don't get lost at the starting line when doing B2C e-commerce!
(Source: ProBIZ Boshang E-commerce Research probiz.com)