Will traditional e-commerce be "eliminated"? New retail quietly rises, or becomes the next outlet.

Since the emergence of e-commerce, great changes have taken place in China's Internet industry and real economy. Many practitioners in the physical industry believe that it has fundamentally destroyed the industry, but some people have responded positively. In the years of endless debate, a brand-new shopping model has quietly emerged in the seemingly depressed e-commerce, and this is likely to become the next vent.

Advantages of e-commerce

Compared with the physical industry, the advantages of e-commerce are very obvious. The most direct thing is to replace the original physical logistics with electronic flow. The exchange of information is no longer bills, bills and all kinds of complicated manual bookkeeping, but all through the network, which directly reduces the cost and loss, and the offline-to-online trading mode also breaks the restrictions on the trading time and place in the physical industry to some extent, thus deriving some other characteristics.

First of all, platform-based e-commerce has a unique openness. Any enterprise or even any individual can open an "online shop" at a very low cost, without warehouse, storefront or even labor.

Secondly, because of the development of e-commerce, the Internet and logistics industries are also rapidly improving. Both individuals and enterprises can almost get the same information resources on the open Internet, which shortens the fatal gap between small and medium-sized enterprises and large enterprises to the greatest extent, makes entrepreneurship easier to some extent, and even has a far-reaching impact on the social and economic structure.

Finally, the reduction of e-commerce costs will eventually fall on consumers. Online transactions enable consumers to compare prices and verify them more intuitively, which can not only supervise enterprises to improve their competitiveness, but also facilitate supervision.

The disadvantages of traditional e-commerce

But it is precisely because of the advantages of e-commerce that it also brings considerable disadvantages.

From the entity level, the development of e-commerce industry has cultivated people's brand-new consumption habits. "Never go out unless necessary" has become the practical action of many consumers. Without the flow of people, the physical industry that relies on shops and needs huge costs will fall into operational difficulties and even close down in large numbers. In fact, many established enterprises have withdrawn from the market because of the development of e-commerce, not to mention some small and medium-sized enterprises, which is obviously not good news.

From the consumer's point of view, although the price comparison between e-commerce companies can theoretically make people spend less money to buy better things, "good quality and low price" itself is a big contradiction. With the improvement of living standards, when people encounter things that are too cheap in real life, the first reaction is often to judge whether they are fake or not, and the convenient platform obviously gives fake and shoddy more growth soil and lower cost.

From the perspective of e-commerce, highly developed e-commerce has actually brought great pressure to enterprises. Large enterprises can attract customers through the price war of "burning money". Small businesses or individuals can't afford to burn, and it is easy to close down, but if they burn too much money, consumers' demand for prices will become more critical. For some large enterprises, this is an extremely headache. Therefore, it is not uncommon for many high-selling products on the market to suddenly disappear or even close down one day.

A brand-new shopping model is quietly emerging.

So since the problem of pure e-commerce is serious and the development can't stop at present, is there any solution? At present, a quietly emerging new model has brought solutions to many enterprises, which is "new retail".

Different from pure e-commerce, new retail has requirements for both stores and e-commerce, which can be said to be a combination of the two. The main performance of the combination is the combination of offline services of retail stores and online stores. The most typical examples are clothing, electronic products and retail.

In fact, retail is the industry that people contact the most. With the blessing of the internet, people can go to convenience stores to buy things without going out, and they can stay at home when they go to supermarkets. As long as they place an order online, people who pick it up and deliver it in the same city will deliver it to others' homes soon. On a large scale, takeaway can actually be regarded as one of them.

The clothing industry can be said to be the industry most impacted by e-commerce. A large number of low-priced clothes are flooding the internet, many of which are fakes or low-quality and low-priced. The number alone is enough to drown many clothing stores. However, in the new retail environment, the clothing industry can give full play to the role of physical stores by selling clothes online and adjusting offline stores. It can flexibly streamline stores and clerks according to passenger flow, and can also meet the needs of the development of large supermarkets to a certain extent.

Not to mention home appliances and electronic products, smart devices and home appliances are now mostly offline experience stores, repair shops and various service shops, which can not only arrange home delivery, but also intuitively display their service support capabilities and corporate brands through the number of shops facing the street and the attitude of service personnel. This is the new development brought by "new retail".

Become the next outlet?

As a result, some e-commerce practitioners began to think, if the new retail really develops in all directions, will it gradually replace the current pure e-commerce as the next outlet? This kind of worry actually seems a bit "alarmist".

If we look at the development of e-commerce, we can find that the physical industry eliminated by e-commerce does not have much real strength and value. Under the support of policies, even in the original environment, individual industrial and commercial households did not say "heavy casualties". Without last year's social crisis, many enterprises are unlikely to close down. So from this perspective, the emergence of e-commerce is actually reminding some "small bosses" in disguise that the development of technology and society is not waiting for people, and has little to do with specific enterprises and individuals.

In fact, the same is true for new retail. People may worry that some large enterprises that take all the food online and offline will gradually crowd out the space of small enterprises and individuals, thus forming a de facto monopoly. But in fact, even in the take-away field where the two are most closely combined, I dare not say that it is completely monopolized. A large number of personal online stores are still active on the Internet, and people even develop second-hand industries in a targeted manner. It can be said that it is impossible for new retail to completely replace e-commerce.

What should I do if I don't want to be eliminated?

However, in the long run, new retail will indeed become the mainstream. The offline platform-based service project model based on online stores will gradually eliminate a number of e-commerce or physical stores that have not kept up with the times. If you don't want to be eliminated, there are still three ways to solve it.

First, timely transformation. "Join if you can't beat it" is a necessary means for the development of many enterprises. After all, the general trend of social development is informatization and digitalization, so the integration of e-commerce and social life is normal. If you don't want to be eliminated, you must enter the market one step ahead of similar competitors.

Second, cooperation. If the new retail is characterized by enterprises connecting online and offline at the same time, it is a good way for some unqualified individuals or enterprises to establish similar new retail through cooperation, and blind box and "linkage" sales in various industries are the most typical ways.

The third point is people-oriented. In the past business thinking, products were the most important. As long as the things are good and the reputation is good, no one wants them. But it's different now. With the continuous improvement of product requirements, the impact of the product itself on consumers, that is, people, has become the key. It is ok not to promote or package, but if you only make products without considering the people who use them, then elimination is inevitable.