With the rapid development of information technology and the popularization of the Internet in the 21st century, global e-commerce has achieved rapid development. It has changed the entire economic process from development to production, to circulation, to consumption, to financial operation, and is also changing and refreshing management concepts, theories and methods. E-commerce is subtly affecting and changing everyone’s daily life.
‘E-commerce’ is a new subject which is developing very fast. People generally understand e-commerce as ‘the use of electronic means for a variety of business activities.’ Electronic means cover a large range, can be the telegraph, telephone, fax and other traditional communication tools, can also be a modern computer network. So, I think, the real meaning of e-commerce should be ‘Internet as a platform for a variety of business activities.’
The main roles involved in e-commerce are business and consumers. Therefore, among business and between business and consumers, online transactions constitute B to B (B2B) and B to C (B2C), two most typical business models.
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Although the global e-commerce market scale expands, the electricity industry development presents the obvious regional imbalance, electric dealer market in North America and Western Europe has been relatively mature, relatively rapid development in the Asia-pacific market, and including South America, southeast Asia and other emerging markets, because the electricity penetration is still low, development speed is relatively slow. For this situation, some experts have made a negative comment that the development of e-commerce will lead to a growing gap between developing countries and developed countries, but I support that developed countries and developing countries both will get benefit in E-commerce and it is better for developing countries.
The development of e-commerce has impacted the American retail industry, but promoted the upgrading of traditional retail industry. The census bureau announced in May 2008 that U.S. retail e-commerce sales were $107 billion in 2006, up 22% from 2005. From 2001 to 2006, retail electronics sales grew at an average annual rate of 25.4%. However, according to the Commerce Department’s 2018 report, us e-commerce sales exceeded $500 billion for the first time. The above e-commerce sales figures also include online sales from bricks-and-mortar retailers, such as macy’s, a famous American bricks-and-mortar retailer, but their bricks-and-mortar business has also been affected by e-commerce and has fallen by 49% in the past two decades. But the popularity of e-commerce has given American companies more opportunities to sell their products online.
E-commerce is booming in Europe, and it represents the central pillar of the digital single market. Some countries in Europe recognize that e-commerce can be a key driver of economic development, but others don’t see it as a cause for concern, so it’s not on their agenda or a priority. The leader is the UK, with 86 per cent of online shoppers, followed by Sweden with 84 per cent and Denmark with 82 per cent. In eBay’s annual UK retail report for the first quarter of 2018, 1,065 sellers made more than a million sales on the site and 24 million Britons visit the site every week. Half of adults in the UK shop on the site or at least visit it, while eBay has 175 million active users worldwide. The latest figures for France also show growth, with e-commerce turnover in France maintaining an annual growth rate of about 14 percent in 2017. Total online spending by French consumers was 81.7 billion euros in 2017, up 14.27 percent from 2016. This year, it is expected to reach 93 billion euros. By the end of May, Mediametrie, a French data monitoring company, said that 37.4 million French consumers had shopped online in the first quarter of this year, with the majority of those online shoppers (about 54 per cent) making at least one purchase a month and more than a quarter (about 28 per cent) making at least two purchases a month.
The application and development of e-commerce in China will lay a foundation for its participation in the global economic and trade competition in the 21st century. At present, with the rapid development of various professional networks and value-added networks, e-commerce has been partially applied in China’s foreign trade, customs, finance, commerce and many other fields. Online retail sales in China reached 5.16 trillion yuan in 2016, up 26.2 percent from 2015, more than double the growth rate of overall retail sales, according to China’s national bureau of statistics. The report promises that China’s e-commerce industry will move further ahead of the us. The new sales mode of e-commerce breaks the traditional mode such as salesman selling, or shopping in the mall, now people can shop directly on the Internet, in China, there have been mature e-commerce companies, Alibaba is a typical representative. Alibaba has made significant contributions to China’s economy and ranks 10th on the 2019 Forbes global digital economy 100 list. Alibaba is now estimated to be worth more than $400billion. In 2018, the company’s net income reached 33.052 billion yuan. In 2019, Tmall’s singles’ day transaction volume reached 268.4 billion yuan, far surpassing black Friday in the United States. In addition, Alibaba group contributes a lot to employment and tax payment in China, including 2.1 million people employed in the express delivery industry and countless e-commerce enterprises.
The Indian market has great potential. With its demographic dividend, India has huge potential to become the world’s second-largest Internet market after China. But unlike China, India’s population is concentrated in second -, third-tier cities. Only 8% of India’s more than 1.2 billion people live in first-tier cities. Since its inception in 2005, the Indian e-commerce market has grown by leaps and bounds, reaching $19.5 billion in transactions by 2018, according to KPMG’s India e-commerce logistics report. The growth of new Internet users in India has been driven by strong government support measures, lower handset prices and plans by carriers to roll out data packets. Consumers’ online shopping behavior is also changing, from the initial emphasis on discounts to the increasing convenience of online shopping. The number of online shoppers in India is between 80m and 100m, and will continue to grow as employment rises and Internet users join second – and third-tier towns.
Through the research on the development of e-commerce in developing countries and developed countries, I believe that the development of e-commerce is a transformation and upgrading of physical retailing in developed countries, while it is undoubtedly a great opportunity in developing countries. In the United States, the emergence of e-commerce has dealt a heavy blow to the sales of brick-and-mortar retail, but they have quickly optimized the industry and launched online platforms, which enable local brands to be more widely recognized by people in other countries. Countries in the European Union, such as Britain and France, already have mature e-commerce markets, and the rate of e-commerce penetration is still strong in the rest.
The emergence of e-commerce has made digital wallets the main payment method in Europe, which greatly facilitates consumers’ shopping and brings great profits to EU countries. In China, e-commerce platforms represented by Alibaba are developing at a rapid speed. However, there are still problems in Chinese e-commerce, such as incomplete construction of social credit system and market legal system, which increase the risk of e-commerce. While India has a potentially huge market, the main problems facing the Indian e-commerce market include low Internet coverage, poor logistics infrastructure and a lack of local-language support, which are hampering the growth of online shoppers. And second – and third-tier users and remote towns do not know the technology, order and delivery has become a hindrance.
The popularity of the Internet and the rise of e-commerce have changed people’s original way of life. Compared with traditional business activities, e-commerce shows many advantages. First, the speed of information processing and transmission is obviously accelerated, so that the pace of business activities is significantly accelerated, saving time and economic and other unnecessary expenditures. Second, the scope of information dissemination has been expanded. The Internet has become a borderless medium, bringing the global market together and making it easier for new markets to develop. Third, the cost of information processing and transmission is reduced, and large and small enterprises can enter the global electronic market at similar costs, so that enterprises can compete on a more equal platform. Fourth, the legal and administrative problems faced by e-commerce are completely different from those of traditional commerce. All of these will bring unlimited business opportunities to all organizations related to e-commerce activities.
Generally speaking, e-commerce is being integrated into People’s daily life with rapid development. Has become an important part of national economy and social informatization. Developing e-commerce is not only a major measure to transform the economic growth pattern, improve the quality and efficiency of the national economy, and take the road of new industrialization, but also has very important significance to realize the grand goal of building a well-off society in an all-round way. There is no denying that the markets in North America and Europe are already leading the world, but Asia has a very large potential market and still has a lot of room for development.
References
- Worldwide Retail Ecommerce Sales – Statista
- Global ecommerce sales (2021) | Digital Commerce 360
- E-Commerce – Harvard Business Review
- Econsultancy: Digital Marketing, Advertising & eCommerce Resources
- Ecommerce – Digital Commerce and Marketing Research Topics | eMarketer
- Internet Retailer | E-Commerce | Online Retailing | Top 500 | Online Sales
