Community-e-commerce: A possible entry point for newcomers

People distinguish between e-commerce, often divided into business-to-business, Business-to-consumer and Consumer-to-consumer, no matter how differentiated, there are actually three main bodies: buyers and sellers and the site itself.

What role does it play in helping sellers and buyers deal with the site? What value does it offer the seller and what value does it offer the buyer? When providing good service to both sides, the website will also benefit, and the website will easily produce business model.

The following analysis of existing patterns explore from the site to start a business, from the point of view of the site owner of E-commerce, because the platform model and online retailer models have relatively mature service providers, for newcomers, to do a community-oriented e-commerce is a positive way to explore the road and direction.

1. Platform mode

Platform model is the representative of Alibaba and Taobao, profit model to value-added services.

Alibaba's business-to-business is a trading information platform for buyers and sellers, is the platform for business opportunities, buyers and sellers more, the integrity of the transaction, looking for more trading opportunities, such as the need to come up, so, Alibaba naturally can launch the integrity and business promotion, build stations and other value-added services, these value-added services to members of value, Members are also willing to pay, so the premise of this business model is that a huge amount of trading users have been gathered.

This kind of business-to-business Web site, from the point of view of the integrated website, basically the latter rarely have the opportunity to re-enter, and for professional industry sites, business-to-business if there is enough resources still have the opportunity, like later Deliang of the chemical network success is an example.

In E-commerce, although Taobao is Consumer-to-consumer site, but it is more than the consumer website, because there will be more businesses, rather than individuals on top as a seller, and the advantages of the merchant as a seller far more than the advantages of personal as a seller. In the long run, the Consumer-to-consumer Web site will become a Web site for the Consumer-to-consumer.

Taobao has a lot of business shops, the site for these businesses to provide free shops, in the real world of shops rental is required to pay rent, but the existence of Taobao, so that the commercial model of rental shops can not survive, so, shop rental on the site, can not become its existence of the way, but the need for value-added fees. Because Taobao brings together a large number of businesses, businesses must be in many homogeneous businesses stand out, in order to get more trading opportunities, more exposure opportunities, so, naturally have the demand for promotion, Taobao and Ali mother and Yahoo integration, but also based on a more user-friendly set of services needs (advertising, search and E-commerce integration), so , set up Taobao, Ali mother and Yahoo's big platform strategy, one is due to the challenges of big giants, such as Baidu into the field of E-commerce, at the same time through the establishment of the overall service network, forming a very high threshold for entry, for later, this business model is only suitable for the game between the Giants, not suitable for the shrimp into the Even if the Giants enter, they will face fierce competition.

2. Website Mall mode (online retailer)

For the consumer Web site, there are two ways to do things, one is the site as a pure platform, the site to establish rules, the above to stay in many shops, and then by shops and buyers transactions, in this case, the site is the supervisor, platform service provider, this model called the rental shop model. This is the platform model mentioned above.

There is a way, the site itself is a mall, it directly to the buyer, then the site itself is responsible for the commodity itself, inventory, distribution, product quality, collection and so on, is full participation in the information flow, capital flow and logistics, is a website retailer concept. This model is called Network Mall mode, or online retailer mode. The site itself is the seller, the site is not through the rental shops or through value-added services to obtain revenue, the site is to earn sales profits. For example, when, excellence, VANCL, red children, Jingdong Mall and so on. This mode, due to the full access to all aspects of product sales, is the most easy to understand the model, but also the most competitive mode, the threshold is relatively high, not suitable for the beginning of entrepreneurs to enter, unless there are rich funds and unique resources and other conditions.

3. Community-Electronic Commerce

In the Business-to-consumer mode, there is a different pattern, this model is represented by a fence, on the surface, we can see a lot of shops on the fence, but the fence not only provides the platform of the shops, the value of the fence is to give its buyers, ordinary users to buy the quality can be trusted, the price more favorable products, But also for ordinary users to provide a place to communicate with each other, for businesses, there is a considerable number of users with a clear purchase needs. Its starting point is to help users solve the problem of purchase, such as in the decoration, wedding and other purchase process confusion, to provide users with convenient methods of purchase, perhaps in the future can provide users with a set of very trustworthy purchase solutions, rather than direct purchase and sale of the transaction relationship.

Users can learn all kinds of decoration and other knowledge through the forum platform of the website, obtain the word-of-mouth of the merchants, the price/performance of various goods and so on, and ensure their interests through the system of the website. Users go to a line of building materials city, in the face of so many brands and shops, sometimes it is impossible to start, and in the fence, the user has a lot of communication between the products have comments, at the same time, there are interactive platform between merchants and users. Users in the fence to buy in the internet to do big purchases, such as wedding, design, construction, decoration and so have good reference information, is the user to make decisions when it will feel very convenient, at the same time the shop also has the power to ensure quality, shops have also obtained a lot of quality consumers. So for the rookie, fence is very valuable, it is not only a lot of shops, but also more important here can learn a variety of consumer knowledge, to ensure that their interests are not lost, especially when the consumption of things are the house design decoration, wedding products, such as big-ticket items, especially important.

Therefore, to provide users with services, not only product sales, but also provide a user can believe that the platform, a platform can be relied on.

In this way, while both the buyer and the seller gain, the fence will certainly be able to gain, and the fence will be very patient in the selection of the industry and in the consideration of the core users, such as the establishment of their own independent business services and User Service departments. On the fence, these shops pay a commission on the site only in the event of a successful transaction. As a result, the fence is more of an active consumer intermediary service that acts as a regulator and provider of online trading markets. The fence provides a good trading environment and a way of dealing for both parties, and finally realizes its own commercial value.

On the whole, the Fence Network forum is a fence network of the overall service value of a very important part, when we buy things, you can go through the search engine, but the search engine is only to inform the source of information, and community sites have natural advantages, as long as there is value can produce word-of-mouth effect and long-term stickiness

To do E-commerce, for newcomers, you can study the fence. Do E-commerce, especially the various models have a very mature site, entry threshold is high, through the Community model into a field of E-commerce is a way to explore and try, there was a concept called socialized e-commerce, but the term is more abstract obscure, Its core is to build the foundation of the electronic commerce through the community way. Of course, as now all E-commerce sites have their own community, the community is also these e-commerce sites to increase customer viscosity of a way, but the starting point, the results of e-commerce and future potential will be different.

Do the community is not easy, but relative to the capital, intentions are also very important, so, for start-up funds small, want to enter E-commerce people say, is a way to explore the future, once a certain accumulation, the Giants in the one o'clock between the beyond. (Text/Huang Liang)