Online trading has made revolutionary progress in "business flow". With the development of online trading based on the Internet, the trading time of commodities has reached what Marx called "equal to or close to zero". Online trading has brought a great revolution to commodity trading, which not only shortens the time, speeds up the trading speed, but also greatly reduces the transaction cost of commercial transactions, especially for commodities with weak personalization, which are mass-produced according to standards in modern economy. Products have strict varieties, specifications and quality standards, which can realize all commercial transactions on the Internet. In this respect, online transactions based on the Internet have great advantages. It should be pointed out that most personalized goods are means of subsistence; Standardized and mass-produced goods are mostly means of production. In other words, online transactions based on the Internet are more suitable for means of production. As far as the type of e-commerce is concerned, this is BtoB e-commerce.
Online trading is more suitable for BtoB, which does not mean that online trading of BtoC has no prospects. In fact, for basic consumers, personalized demand is only a part of their demand. This part can also obtain information from the network, compare and complete a certain degree of transaction negotiation, and can also effectively optimize and support the trading activities of personalized goods. What's more, in the new century, the consumption habits of basic consumers will also undergo tremendous changes, and the standardization and personalization of commodities will be effectively integrated. People may spend more time in pursuit of service and try to save time in buying goods, so as to get satisfaction through service rather than buying goods in person. In this case, the prospect of e-commerce in BtoC form is also very broad.
Therefore, online trading based on the Internet is a revolutionary progress for commercial trading activities.
E-commerce can't be understood only as online transactions.
From the current theory and practice, the role of online trading in commodity trading has been widely affirmed. However, online trading is only a part of e-commerce. As a complete e-commerce process, just like a complete commodity circulation process, if subdivided, it can be divided into four main components: business flow, logistics, information flow and currency flow. The same is true of any commodity circulation process, including complete e-commerce. Now it seems that business flow, information flow and currency flow can be effectively realized through the Internet, and the transfer of commodity ownership can also be easily completed online. But this is a "virtual" economic process after all, and the final allocation of resources needs to be realized through the transfer of commodity entities. In other words, although most problems in commodity circulation can be solved online, they cannot solve the problem of "logistics". For some time, there have been some deviations in people's understanding of e-commerce, thinking that online transactions are e-commerce. The deviation of this understanding is that online transactions do not complete the actual transfer of goods, but only the transfer of "ownership certificates" of goods. More importantly, transfer is the physical transfer of goods accompanied by the transfer of the "ownership certificate" of goods. Only after this transfer is completed, the ownership of the goods has finally changed. In the period of planned economy, this kind of transfer depends on getting goods. Under the condition of market economy, after the market changes from seller's market to buyer's market, this transfer depends on distribution and the network cannot solve it. Therefore, online trading is equivalent to e-commerce, which is a cognitive deviation and it is easy to lead e-commerce astray. According to this biased understanding to guide practice, it is bound to appear the predicament that most e-commerce websites are facing now, and even self-deny e-commerce in turn.
It should be noted that some famous companies in developed countries describe e-commerce as: the network connection of enterprises, suppliers and users. This statement is undoubtedly correct for western developed countries. The reason is that western developed countries have established a relatively perfect social circulation system and circulation service system in the course of decades of development. These systems can effectively provide online trading results with distribution services. Therefore, as long as the Internet is used to realize "network connection", there will be a mature socialized distribution service system to solve future problems. However, in China, this will not work. In China, if the construction of e-commerce does not include delivery service, it is impossible to complete a complete business activity. This is China's national conditions, and it is our punishment for neglecting the construction of the delivery system for decades.
E-commerce is the product of the combination of network economy and modern logistics.
Internet-based network economy is the core of "new economy". Online information transmission and management, online transaction and online settlement are all new economic operation modes relying on the Internet, and they are also important contents of the network economy.
Distribution mode is also a core content of modern logistics, which can be said to be a comprehensive product of modern market economy system, modern science and technology and systematic logistics thought, and it is essentially different from the familiar "distribution". From the perspective of new economy, distribution is an important part of "zero-inventory production mode", which is regarded as a new production mode in the new economy and a typical new economic form mentioned repeatedly in this paper: e-commerce. Therefore, distribution should also be brought into the system of new economy. Of course, the significance of distribution to economic development is not limited to an important part of e-commerce, but more importantly, it is a strategic means of enterprise development. It is also a matter of nearly one or two decades that the general delivery used in history has developed into the delivery of high-tech support as a strategic means of enterprise development. Many countries didn't really realize this until the 1980s. An article abroad mentioned that "this attitude and understanding have changed greatly in the past ten years. The business community generally believes that distribution is the main component of business activities, which can create more profits for enterprises and is a means for enterprises to enhance their competitiveness. "
It can be seen that this new economic form of e-commerce is created by network economy and modern logistics, and it is the product of their integration. If we express the connotation of e-commerce, we can put forward the following formula:
E-commerce = online information transmission+online transaction, online settlement and distribution.
A complete business activity must be composed of four flow processes: information flow, business flow, capital flow and logistics. The particularity of e-commerce lies in that information flow, business flow and currency flow can be mainly realized on the Internet, which is commonly called "mouse", while the other half of e-commerce cannot be realized on the Internet (at most, it can be optimized through the Internet), which is commonly called "wheel", which is also called delivery. Therefore, e-commerce equals mouse plus wheel, which is a popular explanation of the above formula.
Of course, combined with the physical movement of online transactions, it does not rule out that in a certain period of time, especially in the initial stage and early stage of new economic operation, goods can also be picked up and delivered by traditional methods. It is an inevitable process to adopt various applicable economic means and management methods. This is not only aimed at sports, but also includes supplementary or dominant off-network information transmission, off-network settlement and so on. The above formula should be understood as an ideal or theoretical e-commerce formula.
E-commerce's Choice of Logistics Mode
In another paper, the author points out that e-commerce has not been subdivided by economists, and e-commerce is still a comprehensive concept. According to the principle of marketing, according to the different status and leading role of buyers and sellers in e-commerce, it can be subdivided into three types:
The first one is that the seller is an e-commerce, which is a sales-oriented e-commerce and is called the first-party e-commerce.
Under the premise of the buyer's market, the seller is an e-commerce, and its fundamental purpose is to achieve product sales. Strive for buyers through e-commerce, expand sales and occupy the market. E-commerce is a means of seller's marketing and competition.
The second is buyer's e-commerce, which is procurement-oriented e-commerce and is called second-party e-commerce.
On the premise of buyer's market, the fundamental purpose of buyer's e-commerce is to realize supply through procurement, optimize enterprise supply, at the same time greatly reduce supply costs, stabilize supply channels and establish supply chain.
The third is to be an intermediary of e-commerce, a service-oriented e-commerce, called a third-party e-commerce.
This kind of e-commerce can be operated by intermediaries, intermediaries, people's organizations and even the government that communicate with buyers and sellers in the market, or by professional e-commerce enterprises. The purpose of this kind of e-commerce is to establish an e-commerce platform operated equally by buyers and sellers, effectively communicate with buyers and sellers through social forces, reduce the total transaction cost of society, and benefit both buyers and sellers and society.
Obviously, in the first-party e-commerce, under the premise of the buyer's market, the seller must take delivery or distribution as the service means in order to win users and occupy the market. For B2B e-commerce, due to the large sales volume, it is feasible and common to adopt the traditional delivery method. But for B2C e-commerce, if the traditional distribution method is adopted, the distribution cost will reach an unbearable level. In this case, it is necessary to expand the scale of logistics and reduce costs by adopting distribution methods.
The situation of the second-party e-commerce is different. Under the premise of the buyer's market, the buyer's dominant position enables it not only to request home delivery service, but also to obtain this service at a lower cost. This is a very cruel reality for the seller. No matter how much the buyer buys, we must win the buyer with this service form. Although he tried his best to adopt the way of large-scale distribution, it was very difficult to do so. In this case, traditional delivery is essential. Especially in C2B e-commerce, traditional delivery methods are often used.
Third-party e-commerce is the most easily combined with distribution. Because it can co-ordinate the logistics of multiple users and suppliers, it is easy to gather into a larger circulation scale and realize economies of scale, thus creating conditions for adopting distribution methods. This is the advantage of "third-party logistics" respected by modern society.
It can be seen that it is almost impossible for the three types of e-commerce to take the traditional way of purchasing and selling goods and take distribution as the ideal logistics method.
"Logistics Bottleneck" of E-commerce
The bottleneck problem of e-commerce is a problem that has been discussed a lot now. In fact, although many people call it "bottleneck", in fact, science and technology, management and practice have confirmed that these problems are not bottlenecks. More than 0/000 listed companies in China have successfully operated online transactions and settlement of tens of billions of RMB every day for many years, which has proved that these problems are not the so-called bottlenecks. It should be said that the only unavoidable thing is the logistics bottleneck. At present, the logistics bottleneck of e-commerce in China is mainly manifested in: there is no effective socialized logistics distribution system to provide low-cost, timely and appropriate transit services for realizing the physical transfer after online business flow activities. High cost and slow delivery speed are the most dissatisfied problems for buyers who occasionally set foot in e-commerce.
In short, the logistics bottleneck problem can be understood from the following two aspects:
First, the Internet can't solve the logistics problem. We can rely on the Internet to solve business flow and related problems, but we can't solve the main problems of logistics. In this case, most of the future circulation time and cost are occupied by logistics, so logistics will play a very important role in determining and restricting the future economic development. We can say that the level of modern economy depends largely on the level of logistics. However, the particularity of logistics determines that we can't rely on the Internet to solve logistics problems like solving business flow problems. Internet-based network economy can transform and optimize logistics, but it is impossible to fundamentally solve logistics problems. The solution of logistics problems, especially the construction of logistics platform, requires large-scale infrastructure.
Second, the development of logistics itself lags behind. Compared with the development of e-commerce, even the logistics in developed countries can hardly keep up with the development of e-commerce. In China, logistics is a backward part in the economic field, and an advanced e-commerce and a backward logistics, especially in China, have formed a very sharp contrast. The rapid development of network economy and e-commerce will aggravate the role of logistics bottleneck. On the surface, this problem is a logistics service problem in China, and the reason behind it is that the logistics platform operated for logistics service in China can not meet the requirements of development. Therefore, while attaching importance to e-commerce, we need to pay more attention to the construction of basic logistics platform system and distribution service system to support e-commerce, gradually improve China's logistics platform and establish logistics industry.
Coordination and synchronization is one of the laws of economic development. The main reason lies in minimizing the occurrence of constraints and bottlenecks and minimizing the cost of economic development. Although a country's logistics, environmental improvement and logistics system construction can "develop by leaps and bounds", they are basic things after all and need to be built and accumulated bit by bit, so the bottleneck function of logistics is not very short-term or can be easily solved.