[E-commerce 100 Questions 01] Should you do e-commerce? Directly help you analyze the 5 major advantages and 1 fatal disadvantage of e-commerce

The first episode of 100 Questions about E-commerce, directly tell you the 5 major advantages and 1 fatal disadvantage of being an e-commerce business, so that you can make money every day and make money like a god. Because of the impact of the epidemic, everyone is afraid to go out for shopping. In addition to the serious blow to many brick-and-mortar stores, online shopping has also changed from young people's patent to national participation, and because consumers' habits have changed, for merchants In other words, no matter whether you have e-commerce experience in the past, you must think about whether you should start an online business. After all, where the consumers are, the money will be there.

However, it is normal to hesitate before entering the e-commerce industry. This article will help you directly understand the advantages and disadvantages of entering the e-commerce industry, so that you can quickly grasp the opportunities.

What is e-commerce

"E-commerce" is the abbreviation of electronic commerce, which is divided into two nouns, that is, the combination of Internet and commerce. The Commerce Department of the Ministry of Economic Affairs defines e-commerce as: "E-commerce refers to any commercial transaction activities carried out in electronic form". As long as it is a business transaction completed through the Internet and involves four aspects - information flow, business flow, financial flow, and logistics, it can be called e-commerce.

The future growth of e-commerce

When we judge the future growth of an industry, we can first refer to the data and then think from the perspective of human nature. If we judge the growth rate of e-commerce from the data level, according to the statistics and forecast of statista data company, between 2020 and 2023, the global e-commerce will further grow by 56%, reaching as high as 6.5 trillion US dollars, we can expect the e-commerce field There is still great potential for development both in Taiwan and around the world. In addition, we think from the perspective of human nature. Although online consumption is a different experience from going out for shopping, it is possible for consumers to complete the task of shopping. For convenience, the former is far greater than the latter. If the argument of convenience is extended, the overall retail turnover in 2020 will only increase by 0.19% annually, which is the lowest in the past five years. However, the turnover of convenience supermarkets exceeded 360 billion yuan for the first time last year, with an annual increase of 8.9%. The turnover is the highest in the comprehensive commodity retail industry. We can infer that for consumers, the convenience of shopping is what consumers value more. So is there a more convenient way to shop than convenience stores? Yes, it is the e-commerce consumer market, where you can place an order directly to the home with one click, so that you can buy softly without going out.

Advantages of running an e-commerce

We have just analyzed why e-commerce is a major trend now not only from the data side but also from the human side. In addition to being more convenient for consumers, there are also many benefits for stores. We have listed the following five benefits. :

Advantage 1 of choosing e-commerce: no time limit

When a physical store opens, it costs money. No matter whether you do business today or not, the fixed expenses are water bills, electricity bills, air-conditioning bills, employee salaries, etc. Let's talk about the high rent of Taipei's storefronts. For example, when the epidemic is severe, many stores simply do not open stores, but it is also a risk if you do not open a store. If you are selling food or seasonal products, then you will be under time pressure. If you sell, you will lose money, if you don’t sell, you will lose money More. Even if the epidemic slows down, your storefront will be limited by business hours. Generally, the storefront is open from 8 or 9 in the morning to 8 or 9 in the evening. It happens to be two or three shifts, and you need to check this time. Then if you want to last for 24 hours, as Chen Zhihan, the curator of Genghis Khan, said before, he will use three shifts, but because there will be scheduling problems, he must support four groups of people. But there is no time problem for e-commerce. As long as you do everything you need to do, you will have a storefront that can help you make money 24 hours a day.

In addition, many jobs in Taiwan are 24-hour shifts, and many consumers are unable to shop when the store is usually open, and have to wait until the holidays to buy at once. And if you are an e-commerce business, you can receive soft orders whether it is 3:00 in the middle of the night or 3:00 in the afternoon.

Advantage 2 of choosing e-commerce: no space problem

The problem of space is the problem of digging. If you go to run a shoe store with a size of two pings, you can only accommodate two customers at the same time, and then depending on the size of your warehouse, you can store hundreds of pairs of shoes, or you need to adjust the goods with other stores. a few days. But one of the advantages of our e-commerce business is that as long as you can take care of it, you can sell 10,000 items at the same time, and because they are all on the shelves in the background, you can also sell the items first and then replenish. It's like saying that many store websites now open pre-orders directly, so that you can place an order and pay for the products you like when you see them, and then notify you when they arrive in half a year. Or you can put the system on the shelves first, and then adjust the inventory to ship after the consumer places an order, so that you will not have inventory pressure. Look at Europe, it is also selling goods. How much is the rent per ping of a store in Taipei City? The bigger the store, the larger the warehouse will be. But if you do e-commerce, you don't even need a warehouse, you can directly ask manufacturers to ship to consumers. Just like the shopping street of PCHOME, it is sold by the brand of PCHOME and then shipped directly by the merchant. The goods do not even need to go into the warehouse of PCHOME, which saves a lot of cost.

In addition, there is another very important cost saving place, that is, your e-commerce website can accommodate countless people to visit at the same time, just like the shoe store we mentioned earlier can only accommodate two guests at the same time, then you Even if you have a strong business ability and can attract ten guests at a time, but you have no place to greet others, then the other eight people will all run away. God, this is Snowflake's silver, so it's gone. And this is not because of our lack of ability, but because your store is too small for you to have the opportunity to display. But today, if we change the scene to e-commerce, a qualified e-commerce platform will not have traffic restrictions. If you can pull 100,000 people to browse the website at a time, then you have the opportunity to have 100,000 transactions at the same time. Order income, and you don't have to worry about the space affecting your performance.

Table of contents

1. What is e-commerce
2. The future growth of e-commerce
3. Advantages of running an e-commerce
4. What are the disadvantages of running an e-commerce business?
5. Use five questions to help you position your e-commerce business
6. Summary: Doing e-commerce is the future trend, if you don’t keep up, you will lose your chance to make money

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