Differences of e-commerce strategies between large enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises

In traditional international trade, business activities such as product ordering, sales, distribution, payment and various negotiations are often carried out in different places. Under the condition of network, the business place and operation mode of international trade have undergone fundamental changes. The whole trade activities, including conversation, discussion, information request, negotiation, ordering, commodity exchange, settlement and commodity exchange, are conducted on the computer network, which greatly improves the efficiency of trade. At the same time, e-commerce breaks through the traditional golden flow, gathers other resources on one platform, and realizes resource enjoyment and business reorganization through this platform, thus helping the trading subject to reduce operating costs, speed up capital turnover, improve service management level and enhance market adaptability. In addition, e-commerce can make people use information more widely and fully, understand the business situation and enjoy resources. The transparency and openness of information make the competition among market players more intense, which will certainly help enterprises to broaden the business pattern of service trade based on one-way logistics, rely on network technology to channel logistics, business flow, information flow and capital services in business activities, and promote the improvement of service quality.

In a word, as a brand-new trade operation mode with electronic data exchange as the main content, e-commerce breaks the time and space constraints, speeds up the business cycle, makes efficient use of limited resources, reduces costs, improves profits, and is conducive to enhancing the international competitiveness of enterprises. Therefore, e-commerce is beginning a new revolution in the field of international trade. Its application expands the space and place of international trade, shortens the distance and time of international trade, simplifies the procedures and processes of international trade, makes international trade activities global, intelligent, paperless and simplified, and realizes epoch-making profound changes. These are the reasons for the rapid development of e-commerce in a short period of about ten years, and also the fundamental reason for its possible replacement of traditional trade methods. With the rapid development of network technology, e-commerce shows its vitality more and more, and it will surely become the mainstream of international trade development.

Therefore, this paper focuses on China's small and medium-sized enterprises, analyzes the problems encountered in the development of e-commerce in China's small and medium-sized enterprises, and puts forward favorable measures for the rapid development of e-commerce in China's small and medium-sized enterprises according to the problems.

1 e-commerce overview

1. 1 What is e-commerce?

E-commerce originated from English ELECTRONIC COMMERCE, abbreviated as EC. As the name implies, its content includes two aspects, one is electronic mode, and the other is business activities. E-commerce refers to the use of simple, fast and low-cost electronic communication methods to conduct various business activities without meeting buyers and sellers.

E-commerce can be completed through various electronic communication methods. Simple, for example, you conduct business activities with customers by phone or fax, which seems to be called e-commerce; Now people are discussing e-commerce, mainly through EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) and the Internet. Especially with the maturity of Internet technology, the real development of e-commerce will be based on Internet technology. So some people call e-commerce IC (Internet Commerce) for short.

From the perspective of trade activities, e-commerce can be realized in multiple links, or it can be divided into two levels. The lower-level e-commerce is e-commerce, e-trade, e-contract and so on. The most complete and advanced e-commerce should be to use the Internet to carry out all trade activities, that is, to completely realize information flow, business flow, capital flow and partial logistics on the Internet. In other words, you can negotiate with customers online, place orders, pay (receive) money, open electronic invoices and even pay taxes through electronic customs declaration in one go.

To achieve a complete e-commerce will involve many aspects, besides buyers and sellers, banks or financial institutions, government agencies, certification bodies, distribution centers and other institutions need to join. Because the parties involved in e-commerce don't know each other physically, the whole process of e-commerce is not a copy of business activities in the physical world. Online banking, online electronic payment, data encryption, electronic signature and other conditions and technologies play an important and indispensable role in e-commerce.

1.2 characteristics of e-commerce

Universality: As a new transaction mode, e-commerce has brought manufacturers, circulation enterprises, consumers and the government into a new world of network economy and digital existence.

Convenience: In the e-commerce environment, people are no longer limited by geographical areas. Customers can complete complicated business activities in the past in a very simple way through online banking, such as depositing and withdrawing money from capital accounts, inquiring information all day, etc., and the service quality of enterprises to customers can also be greatly improved.

Integrity: E-commerce can standardize the workflow of transaction processing and integrate manual operation and electronic information processing into an inseparable whole, which can not only improve the utilization rate of manpower and material resources, but also improve the rigor of system operation.

Security: In e-commerce, security is a crucial core issue, which requires the network to provide an end-to-end security solution, such as encryption mechanism, signature mechanism, security management, access control, firewall, anti-virus protection and so on. This is very different from traditional business activities.

Coordination: Business activity itself is a coordination process, which requires coordination between customers and companies, manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers. In the e-commerce environment, banks, distribution centers, communication departments, technical services and other departments need to work together, and often the whole process of e-commerce is completed in one go.

2 e-commerce development status quo

2. 1 application trend of e-commerce in international trade

The rapid development of modern information network technology has brought international trade into an information age, and e-commerce will be one of the most important factors affecting the future direction and development of international trade. E-commerce expands the space and place of international trade, shortens the distance and time of international trade, simplifies the procedures and processes of international trade, and creates good conditions for cooperation in all aspects. World e-commerce based on e-commerce has become the main economic growth point in 2 1 century. Recently, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers led to a long-standing financial crisis in the United States, but as the core country of the global economy, the impact of the financial crisis is gradually spreading to the whole world. As a "new" trade form, it remains to be seen whether e-commerce can promote the development of international trade and save the silent economy.

2.2 the development of e-commerce in China

From 65438 to 0996, it took China nearly five years to complete the construction of the "Golden Gate Project" backbone network and build the China International E-commerce Network. 1998 has built an e-commerce network environment consisting of communication platform, data exchange platform and information platform. 2002 was a pragmatic year for e-commerce. After a cold year of 200 1, China's e-commerce service providers are more intensive, strengthen their own construction, improve the quality of service to users, and begin to pay attention to the construction of "integrity". From B2B to B2C, from online payment to offline logistics, from national policy support to enterprise capital investment, all aspects of construction have made great progress, laying a solid foundation for the rapid development of e-commerce in 2003. In 2008, the transaction volume of e-commerce in China reached 21700 million yuan. It is estimated that 70% of the trade volume will be completed through e-commerce in the next decade, and e-commerce will become the mainstream economic form.

2.3 the impact of e-commerce on international trade

2.3. 1 E-commerce has changed the operating environment of international trade.

E-commerce has opened up a brand-new market space, an open, multi-dimensional and three-dimensional market space through the "virtual" information exchange on the Internet, which has broken through the condition that the traditional market must be based on a certain geographical existence. With the information network as the link, the world has become a unified "market" and promoted the formation of the globalization of the world economic market. The formation of virtual market has gone beyond the previous geographical boundaries, enabling goods, services and other related information to flow fully and accurately around the world, showing the characteristics of openness, integrity and real-time, reducing the information asymmetry between importers and exporters, thus avoiding or reducing the distortion caused by incomplete market information, making the competition between goods of the same quality or similar quality more intense, thus ensuring the full play of the law of value. However, when e-commerce is applied to international trade, the expression, trading mode, trading intention and trading object of traders are all virtual. The emotional clues of traders are partially deprived, the uncertainty of trading process and results increases, and the invasion of cyber hackers greatly increases the credit risk, quality risk and technical risk of goods and services.

2.3.2 E-commerce has changed the main body and mode of international trade operation.

On the one hand, the wide application of e-commerce in the field of international trade has produced a large number of "virtual" enterprises that provide products or services to the world market. Individual companies or enterprises have excellent technology in their respective professional fields. Using e-commerce technology to weave them into a network can provide goods and services to the market more effectively. On the other hand, e-commerce has impacted the structure of international trade intermediary organizations, leading to corresponding changes in the operation mode of international trade. The new intermediary of e-commerce breaks through the traditional operation mode of one-way logistics and realizes a brand-new strategy based on logistics, with information flow as the core and business flow as the main body. It provides import and export logistics services including import and export agent declaration, commodity inspection, warehousing and transportation on the computer network, establishes agent sales networks around the world, creates business opportunities for manufacturers and traders, finds buyers, matches and completes transactions, and provides import and export services after transactions.

2.3.3 E-commerce has changed the cost structure of international trade.

In traditional international trade transactions, the cost mainly refers to the cost of information search, contract conclusion and execution, after-sales service and so on. The application of e-commerce can tap the information potential attached to orders, simplify data processing procedures, shorten the document processing cycle of international trade, reduce the inventory level of enterprises, and eliminate manual intervention in the process of information transmission, thus reducing costs. The application of e-commerce will definitely increase the technical input including software and hardware costs, learning costs and maintenance costs. The virtual characteristics of the network make e-commerce form new risks and security costs.

2.3.4 E-commerce has changed the way of international trade competition.

In the e-commerce environment, the competition between enterprises will no longer be the competition between simple products or services, but the competition between business models and supply chains. Which manufacturer can apply the most advanced technology to products and services at the fastest speed and give the most competitive price to customers, then this manufacturer can win the initiative in market competition. Win in the market competition. More and more import and export enterprises have realized the importance of supply chain management.

2.3.5 E-commerce promotes SMEs to better enter the international market.

For small and medium-sized enterprises with a large area, entering the international market is often limited by manpower, financial resources and material resources, and the development of e-commerce has opened up a broad world for small and medium-sized enterprises to carry out international trade. Small and medium-sized enterprises can carry out international trade in two ways: one is to register on a special e-commerce platform to carry out e-commerce, with less investment and less difficulty; Second, small and medium-sized enterprises build their own e-commerce websites and directly carry out e-commerce. This method is relatively difficult, but the effect is remarkable.

3 the development of e-commerce in small and medium-sized enterprises in China

3. 1 Development Status of E-commerce for SMEs

In recent years, China has made remarkable achievements in the scale and technical level of communication networks, and the Internet infrastructure has developed very rapidly. However, due to the rapid growth of Internet users, the limited service capacity and reliability of the network itself, the network operating cost and tariff system, there are many problems on the Internet, such as slow access speed, high cost and limited Chinese information. As the protagonist of e-commerce, the informatization of enterprises can never be ignored. China's enterprise informatization construction has a history of more than 20 years, and some achievements have been made, but there is still a big gap compared with developed countries in general. The current situation is as follows:

(1) The development of e-commerce in China is still in the primary stage. After more than ten years of ups and downs, although China's e-commerce has begun to take shape, most enterprises or consumers hold a wait-and-see attitude, which restricts the in-depth development of e-commerce. Generally speaking, the development of e-commerce in China is still in the primary stage.

(2) The supporting environment of e-commerce needs to be improved. The supporting environment of e-commerce mainly includes network infrastructure construction, legal environment and market operation environment. Internet-based e-commerce relies heavily on the construction of network facilities. For example, network bandwidth seriously affects the real-time transaction speed of the network; Network security issues involve capital security, information security, business secrets and cargo security. Digital signature is used to replace the traditional handwritten signature in online transactions, and online tax filing is also realized. E-commerce has completely changed the traditional business model, but also brought some economic problems and disputes, which need the synchronous development of relevant laws and regulations. At present, China's market economy environment is not perfect, and market management laws and regulations and social credit system have not been fully established. Therefore, the operating environment of network facilities, legal environment and market environment relying on e-commerce should accelerate the pace of synchronous development, so as to better ensure the smooth development of e-commerce.

(3) Single function. Although e-commerce in China is in the initial stage of development, there are e-commerce websites involving economy and trade in all walks of life. Although the trade industry is complete, its functions are slightly single, mostly advertising, electronic catalogue, electronic inquiry, commodity information announcement and so on. A few of them conduct electronic transactions, use the Internet for business negotiations, sign contracts and exchange texts, so most of them do not really play the role of e-commerce. Due to the weak foundation of national economy informatization and low level of commercial automation, traditional commerce and e-commerce will coexist for a long time.

(4) At the same time, the awareness of enterprise informatization has generally improved. Many large and medium-sized enterprises regard information construction as the key work in the next few years. The development of network has also created favorable conditions for small enterprises to use information to rise rapidly, and their enthusiasm for information construction is very high.

At present, 4.5% of China's export enterprises have extensively developed e-commerce, 3 1.2% have already started, 28.7% have already started, 12% have been considered, and only 23.6% have not. The application of foreign trade e-commerce is far ahead of other fields, and there have been many cases of huge investment in foreign trade websites, such as China International E-commerce Network, Asian Resources Network, China Export Commodity Network, American Business Network Registration, Alibaba, China Trade Network, China Enterprise Network, etc.

3.2 E-commerce plays an important role in the development of SMEs.

3.2. 1 the role of e-commerce in SMEs

In the modern information society, e-commerce can enable enterprises and individuals who master information technology and business rules to systematically use various electronic tools and networks to engage in various e-commerce activities with high efficiency and low cost. From the perspective of application and function, e-commerce of small and medium-sized enterprises can be divided into three levels: display, sales and service. Xiu is to provide e-commerce. Small and medium-sized enterprises publish goods and other information online in the form of web pages, and advertise online. Through the exhibition, small and medium-sized enterprises can establish corporate image, expand their popularity, publicize products and services, find new trading partners, and provide a large number of new market opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises. Sales (transaction) is the whole process of realizing traditional trading activities electronically on the Internet, such as online shopping. Small and medium-sized enterprises can complete the whole transaction process by selling, expand the scope of transactions, improve work efficiency and reduce transaction costs, thus obtaining economic and social benefits. Service refers to all kinds of pre-sales and after-sales services related to business activities carried out by enterprises through the network. Through this online service, small and medium-sized enterprises can improve their e-commerce systems, consolidate their existing customers and attract new customers, thus expanding their business and obtaining greater economic and social benefits. Through e-commerce network, small and medium-sized enterprises can strengthen contact with suppliers and customers, collect information on supply and demand of commodities, improve their coping ability, and use information advantages to accelerate the circulation of goods and funds within enterprises. Especially with the widespread popularization of information technology, the improvement of industry management and the accelerated transfer of technological achievements, small and medium-sized enterprises can put new products on the market faster than large enterprises.

E-commerce promotes small and medium-sized enterprises to better adapt to market changes. The application of modern computer network in enterprise production is combined with manufacturing activities, which makes it closer to market demand, helps to improve the agility and adaptability of enterprise production, combines high-quality and low-price products with timely supply and thoughtful service, and takes time and service as the requirements of enterprise production, alongside quality and cost. E-commerce has also changed the competitive situation of enterprises, so that small and medium-sized enterprises with poor strength can also play their flexible competitive advantages in a wider range. Although small enterprises are weak, their influence and marketing power will be greatly improved through e-commerce, which will make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises to adapt to market changes and help them explore the international market.

3.2.2 Business opportunities brought by e-commerce to foreign trade enterprises in China

E-commerce provides an effective trading platform for foreign trade enterprises.

The emergence of e-commerce has promoted economic integration, and foreign trade enterprises in various countries have accelerated the pace of using e-commerce, and foreign trade enterprises in China are no exception. E-commerce is the product of the gradual popularization of information technology, especially the Internet. With the realization of global information technology, the Internet has become a modern communication channel with multi-directional interaction, multimedia combination and almost no limitation of time and space, which provides a convenient, fast, economical and efficient way for various human trading activities. E-commerce provides a favorable international environment and space for the development of foreign trade enterprises in China and an effective trade platform for foreign trade in China. On this global economic platform, its business contacts and trade transactions are frequent, so it can be said that e-commerce is the development direction of China's foreign trade.

E-commerce reduces the cost of small and medium-sized trading companies.

First, it helps to reduce the dependence of SMEs on physical infrastructure. Traditional enterprises must have corresponding infrastructure to carry out international trade business, while e-commerce can make the operation of enterprises virtual, without the need to build shopping malls, store rental costs and commodity inventory pressure, but with the help of the established supply chain system, complete the global market closely connected with upstream and downstream enterprises such as product design, production, distribution, warehousing and after-sales service, so that enterprises can reduce their dependence on physical infrastructure. Enterprises can conduct business activities 24 hours a day, employees can control their working hours more independently, and they can respond to customers quickly without being affected by the time difference in different places.

Secondly, e-commerce can reduce procurement costs. In the e-commerce environment, small and medium-sized trading companies can choose suppliers in a wider range through the network and deliver commercial documents through the network. Online auction provides an excellent procurement method for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Thirdly, e-commerce reduces marketing costs. Small and medium-sized trading companies can establish websites, publish product introductions, technical information, after-sales service and other information, and promote product image. More importantly, e-commerce has significantly reduced the customer maintenance costs of small and medium-sized trading companies, and e-mail and online chat have replaced the original expensive long-distance telephone charges.

Finally, e-commerce reduces the inventory cost. Small and medium-sized enterprises can reduce the inventory level by establishing good relations with suppliers, and then avoid business risks reasonably. More importantly, through e-commerce, suppliers' goods can be directly provided to customers, or even stored in warehouses, achieving zero inventory, and colleagues can speed up the response of small and medium-sized trading companies to market customers.

(3) Improve the business opportunities and operational efficiency of small and medium-sized trading companies.

The biggest problem of small and medium-sized trading companies is that their business volume is small, and the natural borderless nature of e-commerce will bring them more market space. Greatly expand their own market opportunities, e-commerce simplifies the traditional trade process, enables information to be received, processed and transmitted at the fastest speed, and enables small and medium-sized trading companies to obtain information and materials at the fastest speed and successfully complete transactions. This can not only reduce costs, but also significantly improve the operating efficiency of the company, which is conducive to small and medium-sized trading companies to seize business opportunities and gain advantages in competition, thus improving the competitiveness of the company.

In traditional international trade, all procedures, including signing, negotiation, customs declaration, chartering and booking, insurance and payment settlement, must be completed manually, which has low transaction efficiency, high error rate and large time limit. According to statistics, the delay caused by the traditional way of making documents accounts for 6%, the slow payment accounts for 35%, the excess inventory accounts for 18%, and the business loss accounts for 17%. While using e-commerce to carry out international trade, buyers and sellers can adopt standardized and electronic format contracts, bills of lading, insurance certificates, invoices, drafts, letters of credit, etc. , so that all kinds of related files can be transmitted instantly on the Internet without time limitation, which greatly saves the transmission time of files. In addition, it can effectively reduce all kinds of errors caused by manual repeated data entry of paper documents, obviously improve transaction efficiency and flexibility of business processing, and bring more convenience to customers.

(4) Enterprises use e-commerce to improve their sales ability.

At present, there is a prominent problem in China enterprises: overcapacity and product backlog. In addition to the low quality of products, the poor sales channels of enterprises are also an important reason, which leads to a considerable number of enterprises in trouble. With the help of modern means, e-commerce can help these enterprises to expand their sales channels at a lower cost, improve their sales ability and push their products to the international market, which is very attractive to enterprises. So far, only 17 listed companies have set foot in e-commerce. With the development of related technologies and the integration and globalization of the international economy, e-commerce will be gradually improved, and more and more enterprises and families will join the camp of e-commerce and become a new force in the active e-commerce market. This has brought a batch of fresh troops to the foreign trade industry, injected fresh blood into this industry and provided a broad development space for the development of China's foreign trade industry.

E-commerce is conducive to improving the international competitiveness of foreign trade enterprises.

Foreign trade enterprises can actively publish supply and demand information by establishing their own websites or related foreign trade websites without setting up overseas sales networks or offices. Through the internet, you can easily understand the situation of overseas markets, so that enterprises can cross the obstacles caused by geography and space, carry out production and business activities in any part of the world, establish contacts with consumers all over the world, and sell their products or services to all corners of the world; We can use the Internet to promote corporate image, expand corporate visibility, and gradually use e-commerce as an advanced tool to serve the competitiveness of enterprises in the international market.