How far is the distance between e-commerce and the hardware industry?

In October 2007, a shirt brand sold online and attracted many people's attention. A group of IT elites from Excellence, Dangdang, and Jinshan spent two days, combing its business model over again and came to the conclusion: "We should be able to do better than it." So the creation of Vanke Eslite, short After three short years, Vanke Eslite has become a leader in China's e-commerce and has won a variety of honors.

Hardware industry also has many manufacturing companies or trading companies interested in e-commerce, trying to enter the e-commerce, to create the hardware industry's "Customer Eslite." Although the ideal is very full, but the reality is very skinny, so far the electronics industry in the hardware industry has not made much progress. With the development of e-commerce in full swing, the impact of traditional industries like hardware is getting bigger and bigger. Some people say that hardware has entered the ranks of e-commerce is a general trend, and some people disagree that hardware industry is far from the real e-commerce. Don't waste time thinking about it. So how far is the distance between the hardware industry and e-commerce? What are the problems facing e-commerce?

Platforms and mechanisms: It is difficult to build “E-commerce is not an online store. It can be as simple as arranging one person to manage it. It requires an independent operating platform and operating mechanism.” Conner Hardware Sales Manager Hunchun Chung talks about the hardware industry This is what e-commerce says.

Indeed, many people in the industry and even the management of the company believe that the electronic commerce of the hardware industry only needs to build a website, upload product images, and then sign an agreement with a third-party payment platform to realize e-commerce. Even simpler to put some product pictures directly online. This can be far from the truth. E-commerce is not just a simple shop. It is not a place to spread a store. It is essentially business and requires an independent operating mechanism, operating platform, and operations team.

Although the Internet has undergone more than a decade of development, technology, operations, and services have generally made great progress. However, the internal network construction of most hardware companies is lagging behind. It is only using the network to do some simple operations. The design, content, and update of corporate websites are seriously lagging behind. The utilization rate of websites is extremely low and even becomes an empty shell. It can be seen that the importance that companies attach to the Internet has not kept pace with the development of the Internet.

E-commerce is developed by relying on the Internet, and its processes are generally: e-commerce website construction (building an e-commerce trading platform) → Internet marketing of products and services → logistics and distribution (conclusion of transactions) → follow-up services, etc. Platform issues. At present, companies in the industry can be divided into three categories in terms of e-commerce: First, they are still embarrassed outside e-commerce, and they are indecisive; second, companies that have joined e-commerce platforms such as HC Network; Enterprises that build platforms do not have this kind of enterprise. The e-commerce platform is not only the platform for enterprise product sales, but also can serve as the communication platform for enterprise after-sales services. Enterprises can publish various enterprise policy messages on the e-commerce platform, etc., and eventually form an electronic business platform with integrated enterprise operations. The domestic e-commerce is mostly a professional e-commerce platform in operation, the enterprise self-built platform must face the constraints of funds, technology, experience, promotion and many other factors, often have more than enough power, in this case, hardware companies are marching into the In e-commerce, you can choose an independent official online shop or join a professional e-commerce platform as the starting point, and wait until the conditions mature to build your own platform. Of course, after the platform is established, it will also face a series of work such as promotion and promotion. However, if we can make full use of the Internet as a “tool,” we can reduce the company’s operating costs, obtain higher benefits, and truly achieve the ultimate goal of e-commerce. aims.

After solving the platform of e-commerce, it is closely related to the operational mechanism. Many companies are eager to get involved in e-commerce, but they are at a loss as to how to deal with them, such as how to formulate specific operating mechanisms and how to organize e-commerce teams. After all, this industry is for traditional companies such as hardware. It is a very strange market.

Hardware companies entering into e-commerce must have independent teams and an independent operating model, which means that they cannot use an enterprise's original department to act as an e-commerce department. Because the entire operation of e-commerce is different from traditional operations, traditional operations are mainly based on channels, and e-commerce needs to use Internet and e-commerce ideas to position e-commerce management. In terms of product strategy, brand operation, marketing promotion, product supply, etc., they must be separated from traditional operations. They must be operated in the eyes of e-commerce, and they can access traditional advantages, but they cannot copy the traditional channels of operation. There must be specialized teams and talents to work together, because e-commerce has only developed rapidly in recent years. There are not many people who are very familiar with e-commerce and have much experience. Enterprises must pay attention to team building and talent cultivation after entering e-commerce. , simply relying on a few people who have done e-commerce as business operators in the e-commerce sector is not operational.

When testing the water e-commerce, hardware companies can attract Internet elites to the hardware industry, use their network experience to innovate the e-commerce model, and lead the team to work together to drive the development of the company.

Benefits: Conflict with traditional channel dealers "We ourselves promised to cooperate with dealers when we were investing, guaranteeing their exclusive agency rights and protecting their best interests. If our company does e-commerce, customers all over the country are likely to purchase with us. There will certainly be conflicts with the interests of distributors.The influence of corporate brands is largely due to the contribution of distributors, and the amount of corporate products also depends on the support of distributors. If e-commerce is caused, it will cause conflicts with distributors. , often because of small losses." Qi Chun slip.

Most of the hardware companies choose the direct operating or dealer agency system to conduct sub-business, which will have a certain impact on regional distributors. One of the more prominent issues is pricing. Looking at the online quotations of products in various industries, it is often 10%-40% lower than that in physical stores. For example, if a toilet is quoted online at 600 yuan, the quotation after the dealer may be about 900 yuan. Since hardware companies basically choose traditional agents to operate, there are already traditional channel providers. If e-commerce is priced lower than the original channel provider, it will inevitably affect the interests of channel providers, which will trigger the channel providers. Contradictions. If the price of e-commerce is the same as or lower than that of a traditional channel, the price will be much higher than that of e-commerce sites of the same type, and it will inevitably affect the business of e-commerce sites because consumers are choosing e-commerce. The products will also be compared to three.

This issue will not appear for a trade-based e-commerce company because all its channels are online, but it is more difficult for traditional manufacturing companies because it involves agents, channel distributors, and distributors. Intricate relationships such as distributors. As Zhang Xuezhi, vice president of Guangdong Feifan Industry Co., Ltd. said, if online transactions and offline transactions in e-commerce are not handled well, they will not only affect the economic interests of the distributors, but may also have negative effects on the brand reputation.

Then how to solve this problem? Qi Chunshu said that e-commerce can now be used as an enterprise's supporting service or branding tool to develop and assist companies or distributors to sell. For example, if a consumer places orders online, this information can be fed back to the local distributor and the local dealer can follow up.

Dealer's business is good, the company's orders will naturally rise, and profits will increase. Zhang Xuezhi also proposed:

1. Enterprises can specialize in producing products for online sales, which do not overlap with offline products;

2. Establish a reasonable price control mechanism and formulate price levels that are as consistent as possible, even if the online product is slightly higher than the dealer's price;

3, guide the distributor to participate in the upstream e-commerce transactions, by the enterprise unified orders, dealers to accompany the delivery, and establish a reasonable price and sharing mechanism.

Services: The E-Commerce Challenge The services mentioned here include the pre-sale shopping guide and after-sales service. Pre-sales experience has always been one of the problems that are difficult to solve in e-commerce. The pre-sales experience of hardware products is very different from that of electronic products, books, and apparel products. The online purchase of books can be achieved on the Internet or in the library. The content does not generally indicate that there are too many problems. Even if there are minor problems in binding and printing, it is relatively unremarkable and the pre-sales experience is easy to solve. The bathroom products are a kind of functional products. Although the degree of attention is not high, consumers must also shop around when they buy, seeing the truth, especially the size of the product, space matching, installation instructions, function, Whether the flushing function, the scrubbing function, etc. are in place, consumers must personally experience it to understand, not to look at the product description and description on the Internet. In particular, on the issue of collocation, consumers are mostly not professionals. They have little grasp of the collocation effect. They need to communicate with the Purchasing Guide on the spot. They can refer to the purchase guide or other people's opinions. If they buy it directly on the Internet, they will find that the collocation is not good. It is more difficult to withdraw again. After consumers place orders, they send products to consumers' homes. After the consumer experiences and decides whether to buy or not, it is not feasible for the company to have such risks and costs.

“You can use virtual technology to solve the consumer pre-sales experience. You can use online space design software, let consumers do it themselves, choose their own space structure and style according to their preferences, and select products in the product library. ,In the computer to synthesize the assembled product effect chart.You can also use the online product display video to let consumers have a sensory consumer experience.In addition, we can also use the product with the effect chart, through the standard model room. Showcasing the effect picture, the old customers' feelings of consumption, the modern video technologies such as past projects and home use maps to enhance consumers' feelings.” Zhang Xuezhi suggested this.

Toilet is a relatively heavy product, it will inevitably produce a variety of problems in the process of its use, such as leaking water tanks, flushing is not clean, etc., online sales of toilets used after a period of time problems to return or return to the factory warranty does not seem to It is too likely that local dealers are required to follow up after-sales service. The dealers are not very happy to estimate, and it is even more impossible for companies to send people to the door. Then, can this problem be solved with local agents, e-commerce sales to local products, after-sales service by the local agents, according to the situation to the agents to pay a certain fee? Qi Chun-sli said: "There are Agents, companies sell products to local businesses through e-commerce, and after-sales service is followed by local agents. Agents are not willing to be psychologically, because this has a conflict with his interests, even if the agents agree. The cost will be very high and the profit of the company will not be high."

No company or any trading company dares to guarantee that 100% of the products it sells will be guaranteed to have no problems in use. If the after-sales service cannot reach an agreement with local agents or find a better solution, it may become a constraint. Obstacles to the development of hardware e-commerce.

Logistics: The bottleneck of e-commerce In the past period of time, many people referred to network security issues and online settlement issues as the “bottleneck” of e-commerce. However, in fact, current network technologies, management, and operations have all confirmed that these issues cannot constitute e-commerce. Develop real bottlenecks. The only unavoidable is the bottleneck of logistics. The “logistical bottleneck” of e-commerce is mainly reflected in the realization of product transactions on the Internet. There is no effective logistics distribution system to provide low-cost, timely, and appropriate delivery services for products.

Enterprises generally reflect the high logistics costs, especially when it comes to line transit, the logistics costs are much higher. Take Chaozhou and Suzhou as examples. If the logistics company is directly connected to Suzhou, the logistics costs account for about 8% of the cost. To transit, the proportion will increase to more than 15%. In the aspect of corporate logistics, Wu Zhenxiong, the sales manager of Coro Hardware, once told reporters four points:

First, the logistics company calculates the goods on the basis of the vehicle's calculation, scattered by the cubic calculation, if it is a direct destination, the price is fair and acceptable, but if you want to transfer, the cost will be much higher or even higher Doubled, and most of the logistics costs are borne by the distributors, so dealers have relatively large opinions.

Second, the efficiency is not high enough. Generally speaking, logistics companies often have to scrape full vehicle goods before they start. If products cannot be filled up, there will be warehouses of logistics companies, which will result in less timeliness of logistics.

Third, the logistics network is not dense enough, especially in the county-level cities. Many logistics companies in Chaozhou are directly connected to the prefecture-level cities. After many transfers, they can reach the county-level cities. During the transfer process, it is easy to cause damage to cartons and products. Problems, communication and handling are more difficult, and there will be situations in which freight stations and logistics companies will shirk their responsibilities.

Fourth, it is difficult to handle claims for damaged products, because there is no clear contract with the logistics company, the claims mechanism is not perfect when the product is damaged, large logistics companies will purchase the relevant insurance, generally 5‰, small logistics companies did not purchase Related insurance.

In e-commerce, there are companies that calculate the logistics cost to the product, which is borne by the buyer and the company itself. The cost is counted on the enterprise, and the price of the e-commerce product itself is already lower, and the profit space of the enterprise will be reduced. However, the logistics cost is counted on consumers and the consumers are certainly not happy. In Chaozhou, for example, suppose a certain hardware company in Chaozhou conducts e-commerce. A buyer in Xinjiang has a toilet on the Internet. Then the company is connected or not? Then, the logistics cost sent to Xinjiang can be purchased for almost one. New toilets; if not, they may lose potential big customers.

Whether it is a company that does traditional channels or an enterprise that does e-commerce, the logistics issue is a hurdle on the road to enterprise development. E-commerce companies cannot do their own logistics, like Alibaba can never create a logistics company by themselves. We hope to build a better logistics cooperation platform to promote the common progress of enterprises.

At present, the development of our logistics industry and e-commerce does not match, and there are often low-level competitions among logistics companies. Low-level competition is not the logistics delivery service that modern e-commerce needs. In this regard, it was suggested that companies engaged in e-commerce can sign strategic cooperation agreements with logistics companies, make explicit provisions on the prices, time limits, and claims for logistics distribution, and promote mutual development.

Integrity: Heartaches of both sides of the transaction "E-commerce is not bad, but it is a trend of future development, but it also depends on what industry is concerned. At present, the hardware industry is not yet ripe for doing e-commerce, and now the online shopping is false. Too much, China's Internet environment lacks effective and professional supervisory agencies.” When talking about the issue of integrity, Qi Chunshu said.

It is undeniable that the issues of integrity and security are major challenges for e-commerce, and they are also an urgent problem for the Internet. Buyers and sellers still have doubts when they sell face-to-face. The seller is concerned that after the product is sold to the buyer, the balance will not be refunded; the buyer is worried that the product obtained after payment will be defective. Under the line, not only online and online trading parties are often not met, in addition to face the usual integrity issues, transaction security, trade secrets, product quality, network fraud, etc. How to protect? These issues become the parties to the transaction Heart disease.

Although the development of e-commerce is in full swing, but this group of fire not only burned out the prosperity of e-commerce, but also burned out a series of problems in e-commerce, such as some online bad companies use fake company names, addresses, low prices to induce consumers , I do not know the whereabouts of the consumer after he has remitted the money to his designated bank account; he promises that the consumer will deliver the goods within a certain time after shopping, but often cannot deliver the goods within the promised time; after the orders are received online, they are sold. There are problems with the quality of the goods, and they do not even assume the “three guarantees” responsibility. They do not provide after-sales services and push all their responsibilities to consumers. In this type of issue, opening an e-commerce website and looking at the buyer's post-buy comments or comments is not an unnecessary worry for integrity issues in e-commerce.

As for the companies engaged in e-commerce in the choice of payment method, is the first payment after delivery or cash on delivery like Dangdang it? First payment after delivery, consumers have doubts, in case of payment, the company does not ship or How do the goods have quality problems? Cash on delivery, many companies are not willing, if the goods are sent to the consumer is not satisfied, do not pay it? The middle of the logistics costs who is responsible for these problems, look simple is not difficult to solve, and when The development of e-commerce by enterprises may not be a simple matter.

In the face of honest transactions, online consumers often tend to believe that "big brands are trustworthy" and choose brand-affecting website transactions. It can be seen that the development of e-commerce is just like the traditional channel construction, and it needs brand support. There is no shortcut. Only with a down-to-earth approach, can we gradually build corporate brands, credit systems, etc. to achieve long-term development.

E-commerce, who's future?

The recently released "2009-2010 China E-commerce Industry Development Report" shows that in 2009 China's overall e-commerce transaction volume reached 3.6 trillion, an increase of 22.9% over the same period of last year. IResearch predicts that China's e-commerce is in a period of rapid development. It is expected to reach 12.7 trillion yuan in 2013. According to another report, more than 50% of large-scale enterprises in China have embarked on the road to independent e-commerce. Behind the rising tide, more traditional enterprises will begin to enter the e-commerce market.

The brand value established by traditional brand dealers or retailers in more than ten years, decades, and centuries is being invaded or even subverted by e-commerce. E-commerce may be a game in which the company has no choice in the future. Especially as the 80s and 90s gradually climb onto the economic stage, they are becoming the main force in the consumer market. They are accustomed to spending on the Internet. Therefore, some people concluded: Why do traditional companies have to do e-commerce? In fact, it is necessary to meet the needs of consumers, because consumers already have the needs and habits of online shopping, and even have reached this state of "fault" or "addiction."

So who controls the future of e-commerce? Is it the predator of the traditional retail industry or the pure Internet company or the production enterprise? Is the third trading company developed independently or is it cooperated with the dealers?

For the future of the hardware company's e-commerce, Chung Chunshui believes that for the hardware industry, it is not appropriate to develop e-commerce at this stage, but it can be used as a supporting service for the enterprise to develop and expand the sales of the enterprise.

Zhang Xuezhi believes that e-commerce will become an important way for hardware sales in the future. However, due to the nature of consumption, consumers must install and enjoy after-sales services after purchase. Therefore, achieving effective cooperation between offline and online is very important for the development of hardware e-commerce. It is recommended that hardware companies must pay enough attention to e-commerce, but it should not be too mysterious, but should be close to the feelings, according to the specific Situation to take corresponding measures.

In fact, the issues mentioned in the e-commerce mentioned above include the problems not mentioned in this article. It is not only the problems that hardware companies face, but also the problems that all e-commerce companies are faced with. E-commerce is a new business model. With the emergence of each new business model, it is possible for a large number of emerging companies to rise up, and it may also force giants in traditional industries to withdraw from the arena. Just as in the early years, many websites such as Taobao.com, Alibaba.com, and Vanke Eslite have expressed doubts about the rise and development of the website, and even “dismissive”, but today there are not many international companies that choose to cooperate with them. The retail outlets developed by individuals on the Internet have already had several companies with annual sales of over 100 million yuan.

Hardware companies may have a certain distance from the e-commerce, hardware companies may not have e-commerce conditions, but the impact of e-commerce on the hardware industry is gradually approaching but it is an indisputable fact. It can be said that e-commerce is an important one-step strategy for both the traditional industry and the owner of the brand. Whether hardware companies can play an important role in the future of e-commerce depends on the importance that hardware companies attach to e-commerce. And sooner or later.