EC (electronic commerce) refers to the use of simple, fast and low-cost electronic communication, where buyers and sellers conduct various business activities without meeting each other. E-commerce can be completed through various electronic communication methods. Simple, for example, you conduct business activities with customers by phone or fax, which seems to be called e-commerce; However, the e-commerce that people are discussing now is mainly completed by EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) and INTERNET. Especially with the maturity of INTERNET technology, the real development of e-commerce will be based on INTERNET technology. So some people call e-commerce IC(INTERNET COMMERCE) for short.
from the perspective of trade activities, e-commerce can be realized in multiple links, which can also be divided into two levels, the lower level e-commerce such as e-commerce, e-trade, e-contract, etc. The most complete and advanced e-commerce should be to use the INTERNET to carry out all trade activities, that is, to realize information flow, business flow, capital flow and part of logistics completely on the Internet. That is to say, you can start from looking for customers to negotiate, order, pay (collect) money online, open electronic invoices and even electronic customs declaration and tax payment through the Internet in one go.
To achieve complete e-commerce, many aspects will be involved. Besides buyers and sellers, banks, financial institutions, government agencies, certification bodies, distribution centers and other institutions will also be involved. Because the parties involved in e-commerce are physically strangers to each other, the whole process of e-commerce is not a copy of business activities in the physical world. Online banking, online electronic payment and other conditions and technologies such as data encryption and electronic signature play an important and indispensable role in e-commerce.
1. Modes of e-commerce
Generally speaking, as we all know, e-commerce can be divided into two main modes: business-to-customer e-commerce (B2C) and business-to-business e-commerce (B2B).
B2C
When you mention B2C, you may be more familiar with it. It is a business model from enterprises to end customers (including individual consumers and organizational consumers). B2C in the e-commerce era today is a new business model that directly delivers the products and services provided by this enterprise or other enterprises to consumers through electronic and information means, especially Internet technology. Because it is closely related to the daily life of the public, it is first recognized and accepted by people.
One of the most familiar realization forms of B2C mode of e-commerce is a new website dedicated to e-commerce. Now, as if overnight, countless such companies have sprung up, including online stores, online bookstores, online ticket sales, etc., and even some e-commerce websites that do everything and sell everything, which people jokingly call "thousands of goods companies". But in any case, the emergence of these new model enterprises makes people buy goods or enjoy consulting services through the Internet without leaving home. This is undoubtedly a great progress of the times. Among these emerging Internet companies, Amazon is the most representative one.
Amazon was originally an online bookstore selling books through the Internet. Just when almost no one knew where its storefront was, it surpassed countless well-known century-old stores in one fell swoop and became the largest bookstore in the world in just two years, and its market value far exceeded the book sales business itself. Through Amazon's WEB site, users can enjoy great convenience when purchasing books. For example, to find a book in 1 million books, the traditional method may take a lot of time to go to several bookstores, but in Amazon, users can use the search function, just a few clicks, and soon someone will send the book they want home. Another attractive aspect of Amazon is that it provides many value-added services, including numerous book reviews and introductions. Under the traditional sales mode, these value-added services will become very expensive. After "successfully" developing itself into the world's largest bookstore beyond traditional bookstores, today Amazon's business has expanded to audio-visual products, software, various consumer goods and other fields, becoming the largest e-commerce website company in the United States and the world. But its "success" is still quoted, and people question the huge losses it has left to investors while building its own scale and customer base.
when people reflect on the reasons for Amazon's losses, they realize that perhaps the task of establishing B2C in the era of e-commerce should not be all pinned on these self-made websites. The traditional industry-conscious Internet and e-commerce revolution may be more economical, more affordable and more necessary, and will not bring so much pressure and worry to investors and shareholders. Perhaps, only when these two forces are rushing to the same top of the mountain, such an e-commerce world will be more exciting, and the real e-commerce era will come sooner.
The most successful example of traditional enterprises' successful transformation to the Internet and e-commerce is DELL. At first, DELL was just a company selling computers directly by telephone. Although it was also very successful, when the Internet revolution began, it did not hesitate to seize the opportunity, moved all its business to the Internet, and sorted out its original organization and process according to the requirements of the Internet. We have developed an e-commerce system covering the whole process of sales, production, procurement and service, and made full use of the Internet to provide users with personalized customization and delivery services, which greatly improved customer satisfaction, miraculously maintained a growth rate of more than 5% for many years, and became one of the largest computer manufacturers in the world today, which also caused great threats and challenges to other competitors with slow transformation.
There is a big difference between these two ways of realizing B2C. It is difficult for B2C, which started with websites, to develop its own brand products and industries, so it is more like a department store. Of course, the biggest difference with department stores is that department stores are door-to-door users, while B2C websites are delivered to your door. B2C, which is transformed from traditional enterprises, is more likely to be like a specialty store, specializing in its own brand products. Unlike traditional specialty stores, users and manufacturers are more interactive here.
B2B
After talking about B2C, let's talk about B2B. The business model between enterprises is called B2B. The connotation of e-commerce B2B is that enterprises organically link the purchasing business of upstream suppliers and the sales business of downstream agents through internal information system platforms and external websites, thus reducing transaction costs and improving satisfaction. In fact, B2B, which is oriented to inter-enterprise transactions, has a larger scale than B2C in terms of transaction volume and coverage of transaction fields, and has a far-reaching significance for the development of e-commerce.
similar to B2C, there are two main forms of B2B application among enterprises.
one realization of B2B is its application in traditional enterprises. The substantive business of some traditional enterprises is gradually changing to B2B, and more information is transmitted and online orders are realized by WEB, but the logistics mode has not changed much, and it is still from suppliers to their own enterprises, and then from their own enterprises to agents or end customers. Take General Motors as an example. General Motors has established a B2B e-commerce website-TradeX Change, and plans to conduct its annual procurement business of up to $87 billion through this website by the end of this year. Moreover, this website not only meets GM's own procurement business, but also more than 3, suppliers will conduct transactions on this system, and it will charge a 1% handling fee for e-commerce transactions conducted through TradeXchange. Experts estimate that this will bring GM an annual income of $5 billion.
but as I reminded you in the first part, don't just regard the internet and e-commerce as a tool, it may also bring changes to the marketing model and management model, and the second way to realize B2B means this. This kind of B2B company does not serve for the procurement or sales of its own enterprises. It may not produce any products, but it builds a unified WEB-based information platform to match the procurement or sales of a certain type or several types of enterprises. At this time, the logistics mode is very different from the previous one. It is from suppliers to agents directly. For example, the company B that we cited in the first part is a little similar to this company. It builds a bridge between sellers and buyers of computer parts and components, so it has no factory building or even warehouse, but only deploys and organizes supply and sales through information systems, and provides some value-added services, thus obtaining commission or value-added service income. Of course, the key to the success of this kind of company is that it can gather sellers and buyers of this kind of products, and make them willing to trade on your platform through special services, but whether they are willing or not is somewhat similar to the way of choosing department stores or specialty stores mentioned in B2C.
2. The essence of e-commerce
Although it is nothing new today, whether it is B2C or B2B, whether it is the e-enterprise of traditional enterprises or the birth of new Internet enterprises; The stories and models that the stock market requires everyone to tell have almost filled all people's imagination, but can we say that we have entered the century or society of e-commerce? Can't! Because even many of our companies under the banner of e-commerce today have not even understood the full and true connotation of e-commerce, let alone fully realize them.
There is a quiz question: I opened a website selling flowers, and users can order flowers online, so I will deliver them to users, so I am an e-commerce enterprise, right? If right! Then you may encounter the following video.
ok, after laughing, our previous proposition should also have a conclusion. Obviously, an enterprise with only one website cannot achieve the purpose of improving efficiency, reducing costs and improving customer satisfaction in e-commerce. An enterprise without a certain management foundation, including a certain organizational structure, workflow and work norms, is not an e-commerce enterprise; An enterprise with management but no informatization is not an e-commerce enterprise. The so-called e-commerce with only websites but no management and informatization is that expressway is connected with hutongs, and there is no traffic jam.
In fact, it's not only the emerging Internet enterprises today that will see the above scene, but also the challenges faced by our traditional enterprises with low informatization level. Such a challenge is particularly severe for China enterprises that have been operating in the planned economy for a long time, because for a long time we have been following the reverse business model of planned procurement, planned production and inventory sales issued at the beginning of the year, lacking the flexible mechanism and consciousness of changing according to the market and responding at a high speed. Therefore, how to make traditional enterprises e-commerce is also a serious topic.
what kind of enterprises can be regarded as e-commerce enterprises? Of course, it is a basic feature to use the Internet and WEB sites to realize business, but the core is that enterprises must operate on an "enterprise resource planning system (ERP)" based on sound management ideas and workflow.
This resource planning system is the basic platform for enterprises to carry out business. The user's orders enter the system after being filtered by the company's commercial department, and become the main input of the system. The other inputs of the system are the actual situation of current inventory (including materials, finished products, the quantity and geographical distribution of products in progress), transportation resources and cycles, procurement resources and cycles, production capacity and cycles, etc. The system runs once at a fixed time (Lenovo is every two hours) and gets it every time. The user's order confirmation results will be directly fed back to each order user, telling him whether he can supply, the exact time when he can supply, the place of supply, the mode of transportation and other information, which is calculated by the system according to the clear supply priority model and certain boundary conditions formulated by the enterprise. For example, in the example of buying flowers in front, if there is one in the warehouse, then the time of supply is only the time required for distribution (according to different geographical locations); If not, then add the procurement cycle; If an order contains a variety of products, then the delivery time will be the last complete set of time, and so on, which are automatically controlled by the system, reducing the difficulty and difference of manual control, and the satisfaction of users will certainly be improved. However, all the purchasing, production and distribution systems of enterprises are not mechanical and passive work. If they are out of stock, they will buy them, see the finished product warehouse for production, and send them when they are ready. Instead, they will completely follow the instructions of the system plan and act according to the information, in an orderly way. It is completely possible to avoid the scenes appearing in the video in most cases, which is not only the guarantee for users' satisfaction, but also the guarantee for enterprises to reduce costs and improve profits. The system runs once at a certain time, instead of once after every order comes in. The reason is also to make the resources in the enterprise be used more optimally. For example, purchasing may be more economical in batches, and it also reflects the efficiency of people's work, as well as production, and the production process itself also has an information problem. Please watch another video below. This video is basically recorded with Lenovo itself as the background, reflecting how a real e-commerce enterprise is running.
to sum up, the essence of real e-commerce is actually the informatization process of all aspects of enterprise operation, and it is not simply the informatization of past work processes and norms, but the process of changing the old processes according to new means and conditions.
3. Network computing environment for e-commerce
At present, there are three different but closely related network computing modes: Internet, Intranet and Extranet. For most people, the first thing to access is the Internet. In order to be competitive in the Web era, enterprises must use Internet technology and protocols to establish an application network mainly used for internal management and communication of enterprises, which is an Intranet. And all enterprises follow the same protocols and standards, and establish a very close exchange of information and data, thus greatly improving the ability and level of social collaborative production, which is the Extranet. These three computing modes have their own uses in e-commerce.
it is not difficult to find that e-commerce is not only buying and selling, but also information about software and hardware, but also on the Internet and Intranet.