The editor is not an economist and can only summarize and talk from practical experience. Although I try my best to be objective, due to different locations, bias will inevitably occur. Some issues and views on e-commerce may be unfair and biased. Please let me know if you have any shortcomings, don’t complain!
E-commerce, as an emerging economy developed from the combination of high technology and new thinking in the real economy, is like a collection of thousands of pets in our country, with strong support. It has created a number of related billionaires such as Jack Ma, Liu Qiangdong, and the capitalists behind them. Deduced one after another of wealth myths.
In a large social family, e-commerce is like a young child in the family. It has been pampered by its parents since childhood and has developed a selfish and willful temper. Otherwise, how would Jack Ma have the confidence to clamor that if the bank does not change, he will change the bank? The heroic words! When restricted by relevant departments, those with vested interests still defended and complained, and even claimed that Jack Ma was trying to force social progress! Completely ignoring the greed and opportunism of Jack Ma and the capital behind him! As a traditional economy, physical stores are the eldest son in the family. They are subject to various controls and constraints from their parents and have to shoulder family responsibilities. They are already overwhelmed. More than ten years have passed, and the young son in the past has now grown up! If the country and society as parents continue to indulge the younger sons and fail to improve the living environment of the eldest son, then the physical store as the eldest son will die young and more and more people will fall!
To distinguish what is right and wrong between e-commerce and physical stores, we cannot act independently and crudely judge and define based on our own interests. As an emerging economy, e-commerce is an inevitable product of technological development and social progress and should be affirmed. But it cannot be allowed to grow wildly and abnormally along with the greed of capital, turning the majority of people into cannon fodder and achieving the interests of the minority. E-commerce should be placed in a fair and healthy environment, complement each other with physical stores, and compete in an orderly and fair manner, so that every link of the entire industry chain is profitable and develops accordingly.
e-commerce is most recommended by consumers because it is cheaper than physical store products. But behind this preferential price, except for a very small part of the factors that reduce the sales channel link, most of them are caused by damaging the ecological environment of the entire industry chain! If this phenomenon is not improved, in the short term, consumers will enjoy the benefits of favorable commodity prices, but in the long term, the entire industry chain will collapse. Physical stores and e-commerce play the role of sales terminals in the entire industry chain. This is the role, but they have very different obligations and responsibilities.
1: A physical store must first face the landlord and pay the rent. The success or failure of the physical store involves whether tens of millions of real estate properties across the country can create the value they deserve. And then whether it can better promote the planning and development of the city. However, e-commerce is faced with a handful of e-commerce platforms. E-commerce platforms are controlled by capital and a few people, so e-commerce can only achieve the success of a few economic oligarchs .
2: In order to fully explain why e-commerce has a price advantage, I will tell you a business secret that is well known to everyone in the industry. If the same product is purchased from an upstream manufacturer and the manufacturer is required to provide a VAT invoice, the price will increase by 7% or even 9%. Mainstream physical stores require manufacturers to provide VAT invoices, but most e-commerce companies do not require manufacturers to provide VAT invoices. Invisibly, the purchase price of e-commerce is 7%-9% cheaper than that of physical stores. What is lost is state tax revenue.
3: Physical stores have been inherited for thousands of years, and the laws and regulations governing tax management, product quality tracking, after-sales service, etc. are very sound. As an emerging economy, e-commerce always takes advantage of its particularity to play sideways. Similar phenomena like celebrities selling fake goods and evading taxes on live broadcasts for hundreds of millions of yuan would be unimaginable if it happened in a physical store. They would definitely be punished to the point of losing their entire fortune and would also have to bear legal responsibility. In the e-commerce industry, after a heated discussion on the Internet, everything will be fine once the limelight passes. Compared with physical stores, the cost of illegal activities in e-commerce is much lower.
4: Physical stores face consumers directly. When consuming, they basically sell rationally based on demand, and the purchased goods can come in handy.E-commerce is different, especially live-streaming of goods, which is completely about passionate and irrational consumption to heighten the atmosphere, expanding publicity, false orders... there are endless means, and the goods that consumers buy back in excitement have a high idle rate, resulting in Unnecessary waste.
5: After a long period of market tempering, each link in the physical store industry chain has agreed upon mature rules for profit distribution, and everyone gets their due profits. This is conducive to the common development of manufacturers and is especially conducive to brand promotion. The meaning of brand is very important to the economy and is a symbol of the soft power of the country and nation. E-commerce platforms dominate the e-commerce industry chain and have unique say. If other links want to develop, they can only cater to and obey the e-commerce platform. The biggest weapon of e-commerce platforms is price. E-commerce platforms use the rules they set to force e-commerce companies to engage in price wars. In the end, in addition to the e-commerce platforms reaping profits, most of the links in the industry chain are losing money to earn money and spend money to buy the future. . If you lose the profits you deserve, your survival will become a problem, and cultivating and developing a brand will be a dead letter. This is the reason why many brands have disappeared since the rise of e-commerce, including many well-known well-known brands. However, with the prosperity of e-commerce, few new well-known brands have been born.
Six: With the continuous updating of e-commerce sales models, various Marketing methods emerge one after another and have developed abnormally. A live broadcast by an Internet celebrity with goods can generate sales ranging from tens of millions to hundreds of millions or billions. There are many problems with the goods sold, including counterfeiting, tax evasion, and flashiness. Driven by huge profits, many entrepreneurs have been attracted to invest in this entrepreneurial dream of getting rich overnight. In fact, the vast majority of them have become the supporting stones of e-commerce platforms.
The era is advancing. Physical stores must keep pace with the times, and e-commerce must also be subject to reasonable restrictions. It is not advisable to sacrifice most of the industry chain to fulfill a small part. If the economy wants to develop, it needs to develop harmoniously!
