Once upon a time, new concepts and new nouns driven by the rise of the "website economy" emerged one after another, making people dazzled. From eye economy to online survival; from B2C to B2B... The flying bubbles really make people dizzy overnight "thousands of pear blossoms bloom". However, in true response to the old saying, his rise and fall suddenly. With the "maul" sound of Nasdaq, the website went bankrupt, the CEOs and countless C-Os opened the way, the withdrawal of investors and the addition of cold eyes and the stock index that kept plunging seemed like a bucket of ice water pouring down, catching many people off guard and making many people confused. And the one that has suffered the most is "e-commerce".
1. Is e-commerce just e-shopping?
What exactly is e-commerce and what its exact meaning seems to be ignored in the vigorous hype. Therefore, in people's eyes, e-commerce has become synonymous with online shopping, online purchasing, etc. What are B2C and B2B have become the words for online companies to decorate their appearance. If you ask people from those online companies, they will tell you that B2C is an individual shopping online, while B2B is an enterprise buying and selling goods online. In short, as long as the goods are bought and sold online, it is e-commerce, and it is even considered that this is a revolution in the retail industry in human society. As a result, a swarm of "e-commerce" websites appeared in the blink of an eye. According to incomplete statistics, in the second half of 1999, one or two e-commerce websites were born every day on average. Most of these so-called e-commerce websites use the form of online shopping. Regarding this phenomenon, some people half-jokingly said that they accidentally knocked on a website, which turned out to be an online shopping website.
So what is the strict concept of e-commerce?
According to the most authoritative explanation of the concept of e-commerce by experts and representatives of the International Chamber of Commerce at the World E-commerce Conference, e-commerce (Electronic Commerce) refers to the electronicization of trade activities at all stages of the entire trade process. From the scope of coverage, it can be defined as any form of commercial transactions conducted by the parties to the transaction through electronic transactions rather than by face-to-face exchange or direct interviews; from the technical perspective, it can be defined as: e-commerce is a multi-technical collection, including exchanging data (such as electronic data exchange, email), obtaining data (shared databases, electronic billboards), and automatically capturing data (barcodes), etc. Businesses covered by e-commerce include: information exchange, pre-sales and after-sales services (providing details of products and services, product usage technical guides, and answering customer opinions), sales, electronic payment (using electronic funds transfer, credit cards, electronic checks, electronic cash), transportation (including the delivery management and transportation tracking of goods, and the actual sending of products that can be electronically transmitted), forming a virtual enterprise (forming a company that does not exist physically, concentrating the authority of a group of independent small and medium-sized companies, providing much more products and services than any single company), business methods that companies and trading partners can jointly own and operate and share, etc. American scholars also pointed out in their works that "in a broad sense, e-commerce is a modern business method." The definition of e-commerce given by the European Parliament is: e-commerce is a business activity carried out through electronic means. It processes and delivers data electronically, including text, sound and images. It involves many aspects of activities, including electronic trade and services for goods, online data transfer, electronic fund allocation, electronic securities trading, electronic waybills, commercial auctions, cooperative design and engineering, online information, and public product acquisition. It includes products (such as consumer goods, specialized equipment) and services (such as information services, finance and legal services), traditional activities (such as fitness, education) and confidence activities (such as virtual shopping, virtual training).
It can be seen that e-commerce is not just about e-shopping, online shopping, and online purchasing that we see now. These shopping through the Internet are only a small part of the concept of e-commerce.
E-commerce is ultimately the electronicization of business. It is based on traditional business. Through advanced network technology, it can achieve reasonable allocation of resources and information sharing in a broad sense. The ultimate goal is to improve efficiency, reduce costs and increase returns for enterprises. If we vividly decompose the concept of e-commerce, we call any online purchase and payment activities that are realized through the Internet as e-shopping, and the service activities such as information flow, logistics and capital flow that involve the entire process of the entire business activity and are realized with the help of Internet technology are called "electronic services". It should be said that at present, what we should emphasize is more about electronic services. In fact, service itself can produce benefits. The e-commerce services we realize through Internet technology can definitely help enterprises obtain timely and accurate information and obtain corresponding decision-making support, greatly improve their business management level, reduce their business costs and directly increase sales revenue.
2. Is e-commerce a timely help or icing on the cake for enterprises?
Once you understand the meaning of e-commerce, it is not difficult to see what role e-commerce will play in the development of our business. However, many companies do not fully recognize the true application value of e-commerce.
Because e-commerce requires the use of Internet technology, for many small and medium-sized enterprises, if there is not even a computer in the office, how can we talk about "surfing the Internet"? So many corporate managers will say that when our business develops, makes a lot of money, and buys computers, then consider what e-commerce is going to do. In their opinion, the advantages of e-commerce must first be supported by certain funds. Another group of people wrote about e-commerce into their company's long-term plan, which shows that they are determined to use e-commerce in the future development of the company. On the one hand, this means that they have seen the general trend of e-commerce in the Internet boom, but they are not clear about what actual benefits e-commerce can bring to them, so they are actually just to decorate the storefront and add icing on the cake. In reality, they will explain that they do not need to do e-commerce yet with various reasons.
In fact, today with rapid development of information, mastering first-hand information is a basic requirement for enterprises to be invincible. But where does first-hand information come from? How can I get first-hand information? The above two questions can be answered by using e-commerce methods. First, the Internet without time and space limitations conveys the latest information in the world, which is the source of first-hand information for enterprises; second, the electronicization and networking of business can easily solve the problem of enterprises obtaining first-hand information. Many companies have already realized this, so new concepts such as SCM, CRM, and ERP came into being. They have used their production, punishment, punishment, punishment, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, con Market research shows that a clothing agent with dozens of sales stores has increased its sales by more than 30% after applying a simple distribution management e-commerce solution.
For the current fiercely competitive market, isn’t timely access to information a "timely help" for enterprises?
Obviously, e-commerce is the general trend of the development of the times and a weapon for enterprises to face competition and meet challenges. It is not just icing on the cake, but should be a timely help.
One thing I would like to emphasize here is that in evaluating the development of retail e-commerce, some international authoritative institutions pointed out that there are the following conditions that are conducive to the development of retail e-commerce: First, the enterprise scale is generally small; second, the regional dispersion; third, there are no large monopoly enterprises; fourth, there is already a certain level of internal sales system (that is, what we call MIS/POS system). It is obvious that my country's current retail industry has the above characteristics and conditions, which shows from another perspective that our retail e-commerce is of great practical significance and broad prospects.
3. Is there no way to start e-commerce in the retail industry?
From our survey, we can see that more and more retail companies are now aware of the importance and necessity of conducting e-commerce. However, when asked what the main business managers of these companies have plans for e-commerce, the reply they hear is often "no way to start". In their opinion, e-commerce is indeed very good and has advantages, but how can the current traditional business model be combined with this new product? If you do e-commerce, wouldn’t you change everything that is original? They cannot see the integration point between traditional models and e-commerce, so they naturally feel that they have no idea how to start.
On the other hand, my country's current banking system and logistics system also have many bottleneck problems that restrict the development of e-commerce. How to pay for online shopping? How can the settlement of purchase payments between enterprises be achieved online through banks? How to ensure the security of online banking? How to solve the tax problem? Who should complete the delivery of goods? How to ensure business reputation if face-to-face communication is not possible? …Wait, when there was no good answer to this series of questions, the managers of retail companies really felt that they were "unable to start" and had many concerns.
In fact, retail companies have multiple ways to carry out e-commerce. Even if the above questions cannot be answered well, it does not mean that e-commerce cannot be carried out. Looking back at the previous definition of e-commerce, we found that retail companies actually have a lot to do in conducting e-commerce. Since e-commerce is to "enable the electronicization of trade activities at all stages of the entire trade process", the various business activities of an enterprise can also be completed through the network, and cross-regional and cross-departmental operations, as well as the realization and combination of enterprise resources, thus greatly saving people, finances, and materials, improving efficiency, reducing costs, and more adaptable to large-scale operations.
Judging from the current characteristics of my country's retail department store industry, the introduction of joint venture counters has become increasingly widespread. In some cities, about 90% of the goods in large retail department stores are sold in joint-venture counters. Therefore, on the one hand, the direct operators of goods have gradually transformed from retail malls to brand operators of various commodities, and the latter is truly concerned about the sales, inventory, capital turnover, and customer information collection of goods; on the other hand, although retail malls have MIS/POS systems, the system is closed to the outside world, and suppliers cannot see their operating conditions in retail malls through these systems. This has a problem. According to survey statistics, if a general supplier has more than 4 joint counters, its original manual accounting sales statistics method will be short of money. If the number of counters has increased to more than 10, it has to adopt more advanced processing methods to count and summarize sales data, such as daily fax sales data, and the headquarters sends people to conduct regular inspections, but in this way, these information still have problems of lag and poor accuracy. According to the survey, the most common way to feedback sales information and data is to report to the headquarters (or regional office) by phone every morning and evening. Some shopping guides said that every morning and evening, you can see a long queue in front of the magnetic card phone in the mall, and they are reported on sales at the counters of each joint venture. This approach is difficult for people to feel assured of its timeliness and accuracy. The data summarized using these methods is also difficult to support business decisions, so most suppliers have to make decisions based on their feelings.
However, if e-commerce is used, this problem can be solved easily, and this is the entry point for retail companies to carry out e-commerce. First of all, as a retail mall, it can use a third-party platform to open the data in its MIS/POS system to suppliers indirectly, conditionally and partially. While promoting the business and sales of suppliers, it also improves the business and sales of the entire mall (enterprise). At the same time, these open data can become the business decision-making support of retail companies through some management software. Secondly, for the operators of joint counters, most of them are brand agents. If they have a distribution management system, they can also realize the company's modernization and information management through the Internet. Due to the real-time data transmission characteristics of the Internet, sales personnel do not have to manually fill out various sales reports, and then call or fax it to the company. As long as the sales personnel upload the data after the sales are completed, the company's management personnel can see the sales situation in time. Moreover, compared with unclear handwriting, telephone, etc. and prone to errors, the data generated in this way is more accurate and reliable.
Here, the advantages of e-commerce are obvious, and the application of e-commerce is also practical and feasible. Retail companies can start e-commerce from here and enjoy the benefits brought by this as soon as possible.
4. You must do it yourself when doing e-commerce. Do you not ask for anything?
Traditional Chinese enterprises are often "large and all small and all", and they have to do all systems themselves. Obviously e-commerce is no exception. Of course, your system will definitely meet your needs to the greatest extent, conform to your business model, and be more acceptable to your practitioners.
However, an enterprise must meet certain conditions for fully implementing e-commerce. The first is the technical requirements, which include both personnel and equipment, or software and hardware. In order to adapt to the development of high technology, enterprises must first have a talent team with good business qualities and professional skills. However, in terms of software, for the retail industry, there are currently very few talents who understand the retail operation model and master modern Internet technology; in terms of hardware, a series of information technology equipment must be equipped with a set of advanced information management systems, and the initial investment is also relatively large. However, in terms of business scale and financial capabilities, few of the current retail enterprises in my country have the material ability to develop an information management system themselves. In fact, compared with foreign retail enterprises, the current characteristics of retail enterprises in my country are as follows: serious regional division, the overall management level of enterprises is not high, the quality of employees is not high, and the comprehensive strength of enterprises is relatively weak. These characteristics determine that in the process of introducing e-commerce and informatization, they cannot make a lot of investment in talents and funds, and it is impossible for them to establish their own huge e-commerce and information management systems like large retail companies in Europe, the United States and other countries. Obviously, it is difficult to continue the path of "doing e-commerce by yourself".
However, it is precisely based on the advantages of Internet resource sharing and not being restricted by time and place, e-commerce is no longer an independent behavior of a company, but a common behavior of multiple companies and even multiple industries. From internal management to external management of the enterprise, it can be achieved through the Internet. Due to the intervention of the Internet, things that can only be done in a limited working environment have become a reality in a relatively unlimited environment. In other words, you don’t have to prepare all the software and hardware yourself, but use the public software and hardware environment to achieve management of your own enterprises, and at the same time expand cooperation opportunities with external enterprises. It is this that makes it "no need to do it yourself in e-commerce".
At present, many IT companies are building public platforms (usually called third-party platforms) for traditional enterprises, opening their own space for these enterprises, placing their business data on public platforms, and providing them with various software and hardware services to realize e-commerce in traditional enterprises. After entering the commodity economy society, the social division of labor has become more refined and professional. It is impossible for a person to not ask for anything, especially from the perspective of cost-benefit analysis, so it is even more stupid to do so. People who live in houses do not need to build their own houses. The emergence of public platforms has made e-commerce of traditional enterprises a reality overnight.
5. Do you need to invest high in e-commerce?
As mentioned above, e-commerce requires investment. Nowadays, many people think it is e-commerce and high-tech, and they think it is a very expensive thing. Think about it, IT companies' office locations are generally located in high-end office buildings, and their employees' salaries are much higher than those in traditional industries; the equipment used in high-tech is not ordinary office supplies, etc. These superficial phenomena naturally give people a feeling of "high investment". As mentioned earlier, many companies do not even have computers, so of course they cannot do e-commerce. In their opinion, buying computers, software, and surfing the Internet is a considerable expense, let alone developing an information management system.
So is it impossible to carry out e-commerce now? Or should it be based on high investment? The answer is no.
As mentioned above, the emergence of public platforms on the Internet has solved the bottleneck problem of small and medium-sized enterprises in conducting e-commerce. In other words, a retail company can enjoy customized services provided by professional technology companies through a public platform. Specifically, some third-party service providers with industry experience and Internet technology provide e-commerce solutions to enterprises, tailor information management systems for enterprises, and provide third-party platforms to help enterprises perform information processing and daily maintenance of software and hardware. The positioning of a third party determines that such service providers have no competitive relationship or business conflicts with the enjoying service providers in the industry.
Using a third-party platform, in addition to e-commerce can enjoy the benefits brought by e-commerce to the development of the enterprise in a short period of time, retail companies no longer have to worry about large amounts of human, financial and material investment, nor have to worry about future software and hardware maintenance and upgrades. Renting such a third-party platform does not require high initial investment, and during use, you only need to pay a certain service fee regularly. In this way, it only requires a small investment from the company, which can bring great benefits to the company, which is also very consistent with the characteristics of my country's current retail enterprises.
To sum up, e-commerce is no longer a very distant concept from us, but a very realistic management method, and has unique advantages in the business management of the retail industry. The Internet has entered thousands of households and has become an indispensable tool for people to understand themselves and understand the world in their daily lives. At the same time, it has also become a driving force for corporate development.
1. Is e-commerce just e-shopping?
What exactly is e-commerce and what its exact meaning seems to be ignored in the vigorous hype. Therefore, in people's eyes, e-commerce has become synonymous with online shopping, online purchasing, etc. What are B2C and B2B have become the words for online companies to decorate their appearance. If you ask people from those online companies, they will tell you that B2C is an individual shopping online, while B2B is an enterprise buying and selling goods online. In short, as long as the goods are bought and sold online, it is e-commerce, and it is even considered that this is a revolution in the retail industry in human society. As a result, a swarm of "e-commerce" websites appeared in the blink of an eye. According to incomplete statistics, in the second half of 1999, one or two e-commerce websites were born every day on average. Most of these so-called e-commerce websites use the form of online shopping. Regarding this phenomenon, some people half-jokingly said that they accidentally knocked on a website, which turned out to be an online shopping website.
So what is the strict concept of e-commerce?
According to the most authoritative explanation of the concept of e-commerce by experts and representatives of the International Chamber of Commerce at the World E-commerce Conference, e-commerce (Electronic Commerce) refers to the electronicization of trade activities at all stages of the entire trade process. From the scope of coverage, it can be defined as any form of commercial transactions conducted by the parties to the transaction through electronic transactions rather than by face-to-face exchange or direct interviews; from the technical perspective, it can be defined as: e-commerce is a multi-technical collection, including exchanging data (such as electronic data exchange, email), obtaining data (shared databases, electronic billboards), and automatically capturing data (barcodes), etc. Businesses covered by e-commerce include: information exchange, pre-sales and after-sales services (providing details of products and services, product usage technical guides, and answering customer opinions), sales, electronic payment (using electronic funds transfer, credit cards, electronic checks, electronic cash), transportation (including the delivery management and transportation tracking of goods, and the actual sending of products that can be electronically transmitted), forming a virtual enterprise (forming a company that does not exist physically, concentrating the authority of a group of independent small and medium-sized companies, providing much more products and services than any single company), business methods that companies and trading partners can jointly own and operate and share, etc. American scholars also pointed out in their works that "in a broad sense, e-commerce is a modern business method." The definition of e-commerce given by the European Parliament is: e-commerce is a business activity carried out through electronic means. It processes and delivers data electronically, including text, sound and images. It involves many aspects of activities, including electronic trade and services for goods, online data transfer, electronic fund allocation, electronic securities trading, electronic waybills, commercial auctions, cooperative design and engineering, online information, and public product acquisition. It includes products (such as consumer goods, specialized equipment) and services (such as information services, finance and legal services), traditional activities (such as fitness, education) and confidence activities (such as virtual shopping, virtual training).
It can be seen that e-commerce is not just about e-shopping, online shopping, and online purchasing that we see now. These shopping through the Internet are only a small part of the concept of e-commerce.
E-commerce is ultimately the electronicization of business. It is based on traditional business. Through advanced network technology, it can achieve reasonable allocation of resources and information sharing in a broad sense. The ultimate goal is to improve efficiency, reduce costs and increase returns for enterprises. If we vividly decompose the concept of e-commerce, we call any online purchase and payment activities that are realized through the Internet as e-shopping, and the service activities such as information flow, logistics and capital flow that involve the entire process of the entire business activity and are realized with the help of Internet technology are called "electronic services". It should be said that at present, what we should emphasize is more about electronic services. In fact, service itself can produce benefits. The e-commerce services we realize through Internet technology can definitely help enterprises obtain timely and accurate information and obtain corresponding decision-making support, greatly improve their business management level, reduce their business costs and directly increase sales revenue.
2. Is e-commerce a timely help or icing on the cake for enterprises?
Once you understand the meaning of e-commerce, it is not difficult to see what role e-commerce will play in the development of our business. However, many companies do not fully recognize the true application value of e-commerce.
Because e-commerce requires the use of Internet technology, for many small and medium-sized enterprises, if there is not even a computer in the office, how can we talk about "surfing the Internet"? So many corporate managers will say that when our business develops, makes a lot of money, and buys computers, then consider what e-commerce is going to do. In their opinion, the advantages of e-commerce must first be supported by certain funds. Another group of people wrote about e-commerce into their company's long-term plan, which shows that they are determined to use e-commerce in the future development of the company. On the one hand, this means that they have seen the general trend of e-commerce in the Internet boom, but they are not clear about what actual benefits e-commerce can bring to them, so they are actually just to decorate the storefront and add icing on the cake. In reality, they will explain that they do not need to do e-commerce yet with various reasons.
In fact, today with rapid development of information, mastering first-hand information is a basic requirement for enterprises to be invincible. But where does first-hand information come from? How can I get first-hand information? The above two questions can be answered by using e-commerce methods. First, the Internet without time and space limitations conveys the latest information in the world, which is the source of first-hand information for enterprises; second, the electronicization and networking of business can easily solve the problem of enterprises obtaining first-hand information. Many companies have already realized this, so new concepts such as SCM, CRM, and ERP came into being. They have used their production, punishment, punishment, punishment, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, condemnation, con Market research shows that a clothing agent with dozens of sales stores has increased its sales by more than 30% after applying a simple distribution management e-commerce solution.
For the current fiercely competitive market, isn’t timely access to information a "timely help" for enterprises?
Obviously, e-commerce is the general trend of the development of the times and a weapon for enterprises to face competition and meet challenges. It is not just icing on the cake, but should be a timely help.
One thing I would like to emphasize here is that in evaluating the development of retail e-commerce, some international authoritative institutions pointed out that there are the following conditions that are conducive to the development of retail e-commerce: First, the enterprise scale is generally small; second, the regional dispersion; third, there are no large monopoly enterprises; fourth, there is already a certain level of internal sales system (that is, what we call MIS/POS system). It is obvious that my country's current retail industry has the above characteristics and conditions, which shows from another perspective that our retail e-commerce is of great practical significance and broad prospects.
3. Is there no way to start e-commerce in the retail industry?
From our survey, we can see that more and more retail companies are now aware of the importance and necessity of conducting e-commerce. However, when asked what the main business managers of these companies have plans for e-commerce, the reply they hear is often "no way to start". In their opinion, e-commerce is indeed very good and has advantages, but how can the current traditional business model be combined with this new product? If you do e-commerce, wouldn’t you change everything that is original? They cannot see the integration point between traditional models and e-commerce, so they naturally feel that they have no idea how to start.
On the other hand, my country's current banking system and logistics system also have many bottleneck problems that restrict the development of e-commerce. How to pay for online shopping? How can the settlement of purchase payments between enterprises be achieved online through banks? How to ensure the security of online banking? How to solve the tax problem? Who should complete the delivery of goods? How to ensure business reputation if face-to-face communication is not possible? …Wait, when there was no good answer to this series of questions, the managers of retail companies really felt that they were "unable to start" and had many concerns.
In fact, retail companies have multiple ways to carry out e-commerce. Even if the above questions cannot be answered well, it does not mean that e-commerce cannot be carried out. Looking back at the previous definition of e-commerce, we found that retail companies actually have a lot to do in conducting e-commerce. Since e-commerce is to "enable the electronicization of trade activities at all stages of the entire trade process", the various business activities of an enterprise can also be completed through the network, and cross-regional and cross-departmental operations, as well as the realization and combination of enterprise resources, thus greatly saving people, finances, and materials, improving efficiency, reducing costs, and more adaptable to large-scale operations.
Judging from the current characteristics of my country's retail department store industry, the introduction of joint venture counters has become increasingly widespread. In some cities, about 90% of the goods in large retail department stores are sold in joint-venture counters. Therefore, on the one hand, the direct operators of goods have gradually transformed from retail malls to brand operators of various commodities, and the latter is truly concerned about the sales, inventory, capital turnover, and customer information collection of goods; on the other hand, although retail malls have MIS/POS systems, the system is closed to the outside world, and suppliers cannot see their operating conditions in retail malls through these systems. This has a problem. According to survey statistics, if a general supplier has more than 4 joint counters, its original manual accounting sales statistics method will be short of money. If the number of counters has increased to more than 10, it has to adopt more advanced processing methods to count and summarize sales data, such as daily fax sales data, and the headquarters sends people to conduct regular inspections, but in this way, these information still have problems of lag and poor accuracy. According to the survey, the most common way to feedback sales information and data is to report to the headquarters (or regional office) by phone every morning and evening. Some shopping guides said that every morning and evening, you can see a long queue in front of the magnetic card phone in the mall, and they are reported on sales at the counters of each joint venture. This approach is difficult for people to feel assured of its timeliness and accuracy. The data summarized using these methods is also difficult to support business decisions, so most suppliers have to make decisions based on their feelings.
However, if e-commerce is used, this problem can be solved easily, and this is the entry point for retail companies to carry out e-commerce. First of all, as a retail mall, it can use a third-party platform to open the data in its MIS/POS system to suppliers indirectly, conditionally and partially. While promoting the business and sales of suppliers, it also improves the business and sales of the entire mall (enterprise). At the same time, these open data can become the business decision-making support of retail companies through some management software. Secondly, for the operators of joint counters, most of them are brand agents. If they have a distribution management system, they can also realize the company's modernization and information management through the Internet. Due to the real-time data transmission characteristics of the Internet, sales personnel do not have to manually fill out various sales reports, and then call or fax it to the company. As long as the sales personnel upload the data after the sales are completed, the company's management personnel can see the sales situation in time. Moreover, compared with unclear handwriting, telephone, etc. and prone to errors, the data generated in this way is more accurate and reliable.
Here, the advantages of e-commerce are obvious, and the application of e-commerce is also practical and feasible. Retail companies can start e-commerce from here and enjoy the benefits brought by this as soon as possible.
4. You must do it yourself when doing e-commerce. Do you not ask for anything?
Traditional Chinese enterprises are often "large and all small and all", and they have to do all systems themselves. Obviously e-commerce is no exception. Of course, your system will definitely meet your needs to the greatest extent, conform to your business model, and be more acceptable to your practitioners.
However, an enterprise must meet certain conditions for fully implementing e-commerce. The first is the technical requirements, which include both personnel and equipment, or software and hardware. In order to adapt to the development of high technology, enterprises must first have a talent team with good business qualities and professional skills. However, in terms of software, for the retail industry, there are currently very few talents who understand the retail operation model and master modern Internet technology; in terms of hardware, a series of information technology equipment must be equipped with a set of advanced information management systems, and the initial investment is also relatively large. However, in terms of business scale and financial capabilities, few of the current retail enterprises in my country have the material ability to develop an information management system themselves. In fact, compared with foreign retail enterprises, the current characteristics of retail enterprises in my country are as follows: serious regional division, the overall management level of enterprises is not high, the quality of employees is not high, and the comprehensive strength of enterprises is relatively weak. These characteristics determine that in the process of introducing e-commerce and informatization, they cannot make a lot of investment in talents and funds, and it is impossible for them to establish their own huge e-commerce and information management systems like large retail companies in Europe, the United States and other countries. Obviously, it is difficult to continue the path of "doing e-commerce by yourself".
However, it is precisely based on the advantages of Internet resource sharing and not being restricted by time and place, e-commerce is no longer an independent behavior of a company, but a common behavior of multiple companies and even multiple industries. From internal management to external management of the enterprise, it can be achieved through the Internet. Due to the intervention of the Internet, things that can only be done in a limited working environment have become a reality in a relatively unlimited environment. In other words, you don’t have to prepare all the software and hardware yourself, but use the public software and hardware environment to achieve management of your own enterprises, and at the same time expand cooperation opportunities with external enterprises. It is this that makes it "no need to do it yourself in e-commerce".
At present, many IT companies are building public platforms (usually called third-party platforms) for traditional enterprises, opening their own space for these enterprises, placing their business data on public platforms, and providing them with various software and hardware services to realize e-commerce in traditional enterprises. After entering the commodity economy society, the social division of labor has become more refined and professional. It is impossible for a person to not ask for anything, especially from the perspective of cost-benefit analysis, so it is even more stupid to do so. People who live in houses do not need to build their own houses. The emergence of public platforms has made e-commerce of traditional enterprises a reality overnight.
5. Do you need to invest high in e-commerce?
As mentioned above, e-commerce requires investment. Nowadays, many people think it is e-commerce and high-tech, and they think it is a very expensive thing. Think about it, IT companies' office locations are generally located in high-end office buildings, and their employees' salaries are much higher than those in traditional industries; the equipment used in high-tech is not ordinary office supplies, etc. These superficial phenomena naturally give people a feeling of "high investment". As mentioned earlier, many companies do not even have computers, so of course they cannot do e-commerce. In their opinion, buying computers, software, and surfing the Internet is a considerable expense, let alone developing an information management system.
So is it impossible to carry out e-commerce now? Or should it be based on high investment? The answer is no.
As mentioned above, the emergence of public platforms on the Internet has solved the bottleneck problem of small and medium-sized enterprises in conducting e-commerce. In other words, a retail company can enjoy customized services provided by professional technology companies through a public platform. Specifically, some third-party service providers with industry experience and Internet technology provide e-commerce solutions to enterprises, tailor information management systems for enterprises, and provide third-party platforms to help enterprises perform information processing and daily maintenance of software and hardware. The positioning of a third party determines that such service providers have no competitive relationship or business conflicts with the enjoying service providers in the industry.
Using a third-party platform, in addition to e-commerce can enjoy the benefits brought by e-commerce to the development of the enterprise in a short period of time, retail companies no longer have to worry about large amounts of human, financial and material investment, nor have to worry about future software and hardware maintenance and upgrades. Renting such a third-party platform does not require high initial investment, and during use, you only need to pay a certain service fee regularly. In this way, it only requires a small investment from the company, which can bring great benefits to the company, which is also very consistent with the characteristics of my country's current retail enterprises.
To sum up, e-commerce is no longer a very distant concept from us, but a very realistic management method, and has unique advantages in the business management of the retail industry. The Internet has entered thousands of households and has become an indispensable tool for people to understand themselves and understand the world in their daily lives. At the same time, it has also become a driving force for corporate development.