三级aa视频在线观看-三级国产-三级国产精品一区二区-三级国产三级在线-三级国产在线

Make me your Homepage
left corner left corner
China Daily Website

Move fast or get left behind in e-commerce

Updated: 2013-12-09 07:35
By Mike Bastin ( China Daily)

China's e-commerce market continues to grow by leaps and bounds. The market grew 120 percent between 2003 and 2011 compared with just 17 percent in the US over the same time, according to global consultancy firm McKinsey. It forecast that China's market could be worth between $420 billion and $650 billion a year by 2020.

More specifically, last year online sales revenue in China was put at between $190 billion and $210 billion, only $10 billion behind the US market and growing much more quickly.

This incredible surge has been aided in no small way by the annual consumption bonanza that takes place on so-called Single's Day, Nov 11. E-commerce companies in China have turned it into the world's biggest online shopping day with a plethora of promotional incentives, including deep discounts.

On Single's Day this year the record for e-commerce sales was broken as early as lunchtime. At precisely 1:04 pm on Nov 11, sales on Alibaba, China's largest e-commerce group, had reached $3.1 billion, around double the sales recorded over the whole of Cyber Monday after Thanksgiving in the US last year.

By midnight on the recent Single's Day, Alibaba's sales had risen to $5.7 billion, a signal that China's e-commerce market is well on the way to bypassing the US and becoming the largest in the world.

As China has been rising to become the world's largest e-commerce market, not a single European competitor has surfaced to challenge the Chinese providers. Why not, and what challenges await European e-commerce players if penetrating China's burgeoning e-commerce market is to be achieved?

China's e-commerce market is dominated, almost monopolized, by Alibaba through its Taobao site, which has a 90 percent market share.

However, Chinese online retailers are also in the ascendancy, and competing with Alibaba on discounts. This trend may represent the market opening that European entrants may seek to exploit.

Recent research indicates that four out of five Chinese have increased the proportion of online purchases they made via business-to-consumer platforms over the past two years, further evidence of a decline in Taobao's dominance.

Another challenge to Alibaba's virtual monopoly is the change in online shoppers' buying from desktop and laptop computers to smartphones and tablets. It is estimated that about one-fifth of Chinese consumers now buy things using their smartphones. About half of all shoppers say they expect that to rise.

In this area it is Tencent, China's biggest Internet group with market capitalization of $100 billion, and the third-biggest e-commerce company in China, that represents Alibaba's biggest rival.

It is precisely this more fragmented business-to-consumer market that offers European e-commerce providers quick market penetration if they can take over one or more of China's smaller providers.

Recent announcements by China's central government, following the Third Plenum, should serve as encouragement generally for European competitors' market penetration in China through acquisition. A more liberal, marketized Chinese business environment appears to be an unstoppable trend.

In the business-to-consumer market, even although Alibaba's Tmall site enjoys a commanding 50 percent market share, smaller Chinese players are emerging from its shadow. 360 Buy, also known as Jingdong, is Tmall's closest competitor, with a 20 percent market share in China.

Further competition is forecast, and only Tmall and two of its competitors are profitable at present.

In addition, Alibaba may soon fall victim to its domestic dominance with its market stranglehold loosened as the government seeks to create a more competitive private sector.

As a result, China's smaller e-commerce providers are ripe for takeover - and the government is less and less likely to oppose cross-border acquisitions.

While growth through acquisition is highly attractive to those in the European e-commerce industry, it is clearly not without risk. Not least of the challenges is due diligence, murky at the best of times. Many of China's smaller e-commerce firms may not yet approach profitability, but future earnings potential and established brand awareness levels should combine to justify sizeable financial value. Quantifying intangible brand value is never easy, especially with a new and emerging industry and a very different cultural environment.

Once due diligence is complete and a takeover bid is proffered and then accepted, the real challenges begin to emerge for very different companies from very different national, and quite possibly corporate, cultures.

So if European e-commerce firms are to succeed in buying smaller Chinese providers, they need to carefully screen and financially value potential takeover targets, then meticulously plan and implement cultural convergence between acquirer and acquired.

An ethnocentric mindset, all too prevalent in many European companies, adds to the likelihood of failure and accounts for the single biggest reason behind most failed cross-border takeovers. E-commerce and technology providers generally tend also to be dominated by extremely savvy technophiles who often lack the required communications and cultural awareness skills necessary to succeed in a multicultural working environment.

Expansion of the European e-commerce industry, especially into Asia and China's very different corporate and national cultural environment, therefore require rapid and intensive cross-cultural understanding and communication training and substantially developing the skills needed to work effectively in very different cultural environments

Skills in managing across cultures are key, but so is a decisive and ruthless approach with speed of takeover and the consequent post-acquisition takeover, crucial if European firms are to exploit early-mover advantage in China's e-commerce market. Takeover targets will not remain ripe for much longer, such are the potential spoils for the aggressive and acquisitive new entrants.

Finally and crucially for Europe's e-commerce companies, it is imperative that technology and technological know-how not dominate in recruitment and selection and, above all, elevation to senior management positions. Expansion across different cultural environments, particularly in China, will require an extremely open mind, patience and genuine passion for understanding different national and corporate cultural environments. Development in this direction and technology know-how are often mutually exclusive.

European e-commerce companies must, therefore, move very quickly not just to screen, value and acquire China's smaller industry players but must also move perhaps even more decisively to recruit, train and promote those natural cultural ambassadors into key decision-making positions.

The author is a visiting professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing and a senior lecturer on marketing at Southampton Solent University's School of Business. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

 
8.03K
 
...
主站蜘蛛池模板: 香蕉视频在线观看国产 | 一级毛片免费一级直接观看 | 欧美亚洲国产激情一区二区 | 亚洲精品ai换脸一区二区三区 | 精品一区二区三区水蜜桃 | 又爽又叫的毛片欧美 | 国产一区二区视频在线观看 | 曰批全过程免费动态图 | 亚洲一区播放 | 国产精品久久亚洲不卡4k岛国 | 国产私拍写真福利视频 | 中文无码久久精品 | 亚洲免费视频播放 | 三级视频网站在线观看播放 | 日韩欧美一区二区久久 | 成人 在线欧美亚洲 | 国产精品久久精品 | 亚洲人人在线 | 亚洲精品综合一区二区 | 免费观看性欧美一级 | 国产美女无遮挡免费视频 | 成人黄色片网站 | 爱爱免费 | 你懂得国产 | 欧美视频一区在线 | 黄色在线视频免费看 | 成人合成mv福利视频网站 | 麻豆小视频在线观看 | 极品美女影院 | 在线观看亚洲精品国产 | 国产河南妇女毛片精品久久 | 91久久夜色精品国产网站 | 国内精品综合九九久久精品 | 久久综合久美利坚合众国 | 美女一级a毛片免费观看 | 黄色中文字幕 | 九九99香蕉在线视频网站 | 黄色在线免费观看视频 | 色综合天天综合 | 久久精品国产亚洲麻豆 | 成人高清视频在线观看大全 |