E-commerce: Changing Lives In China

E-commerce: Changing Lives In China, Online shopping is changing the quality of life in the more rural parts of China, says Alibaba. Alibaba: E-commerce Changes Lives in China, Talks About Social, Data, and the Future, Alibaba’s chief strategy officer, shared some of his thoughts on how e-commerce has changed lives in China and also business in China. E-commerce has grown so quickly in China, about 100 percent annually according to Zeng.

Thinking of the challenges, Zeng claims that logistics are the “bottleneck of e-commerce” in China. While e-commerce in China grows at 100 percent each year, the national logistics industry only grows at 40 percent annually. Zeng noted that out of 60 million parcels sent in China, 10 million are generated from e-commerce. He also talked about the role of e-commerce in China:

E-commerce is not just online sales, but transforming business in every aspect, step by step. E-commerce in China is revolutionary.
He went on to explain that third- and fourth-tier cities can’t get a good selection of products from brick-and-mortar stores at good prices. But now e-commerce allows folks in those far-flung cities to have an avenue to buy the same products as the people living in Beijing or Shanghai as long as they have at least a mobile phone to access the web.

Moving forward, Zeng believes that the future of e-commerce will be more customer driven, focused more on “built to order” and “mass customization.” He remarked that there will be a shift – from B2C (business-to-consumer) to C2B (consumer-to-business), which I believe is similar to the JIT) (just-in-time) manufacturing process.