In the past year, industry websites that mainly rely on advertising as a means of profit are facing development bottlenecks. Due to the slowdown in the growth of advertisers' advertising volume and restrictions on region and membership size, capital's profit expectations for websites in these industries are decreasing. Today, small and medium-sized industry websites are seeking new profit growth points, and the business model that relies on advertising in professional fields as the main source of profit has encountered serious challenges.
Dilemma: scattered resources and single profit model
Question: Judging from the current situation in China, B2B websites are far less popular than B2C. Although the market demand for industry B2B websites is strong, they are faced with the dilemma of large platforms, high thresholds, information being easily overwhelmed, strong professionalism, and difficulty in survival. What kind of mechanism and model can solve the growing pains of China's more than 5,600 industry websites?
Tips: Only by joining forces vertically and horizontally, sharing resources, and creating economies of scale can the right to speak be amplified.
Yang Dong: Nowadays, the most practical needs of small and medium-sized enterprise industry websites engaged in B2B are how to carry out marketing, product promotion, and what aspects can be better done. This requires a guiding company to string them together. There are big differences in the operation of websites in different industries. Industry websites that do well are relatively mature, such as chemicals, steel, and textiles, but there are also industries that lack awareness of online publicity. There are 30 to 40 million small and medium-sized enterprises in China. It is a big problem whether there is anyone to provide industry-specific services to these enterprises.
Zhang Tongming: Industry websites have developed rapidly in recent years. With the listing of Chemical Network and the popularity of e-commerce, more and more companies want to enter the field of e-commerce. There are currently about 5,600 industry websites across the country. As the main platform for gathering industry information and publishing business information, they have become an important way for small and medium-sized enterprises to apply e-commerce. However, websites in various industries are relatively scattered and have a relatively single profit model, and they all face development bottlenecks.
For small and medium-sized enterprises, although they have realized the value of industry websites, they generally do not understand IT technology and Internet knowledge. Faced with many industry websites, it is difficult for them to distinguish the pros and cons. In addition, the promotion expenses of small and medium-sized enterprises themselves are limited, and it is difficult to judge which industry website should invest promotion expenses. Based on this demand, in April 2010, we gathered many well-known domestic industry websites such as China Auto Parts Online, China Machinery Network, China Building Materials Network, China Building Materials Online and other well-known domestic industry websites to form the China B2B Alliance, hoping to integrate high-quality Industry website resources, breaking through the artificial barriers to information in various industry fields, and complying with the development trend of e-commerce specialization. We plan to achieve the union of 1,000 excellent industry websites in 2010, adopt the accounting mechanism, open up the search and information release platforms between these websites, and establish direct connections between vertical websites and customers, so that the majority of small and medium-sized enterprises can use the application alliance's Various services can more conveniently and efficiently enhance its broad exposure in the industry chain. This vertical and horizontal approach also solves the development bottleneck faced by industry websites.
Yang Ruifeng: In June 2004, China's only business platform for the special equipment industry, China Special Equipment Procurement Network, was launched. In terms of comprehensiveness, we cannot compare with Alibaba, Huicong.com, etc. We can only strengthen our professionalism. At present, the threshold for establishing small and medium-sized websites is low, which leads to intensified price wars and marketing wars. Customers often get lost in front of many websites and find it difficult to distinguish the quality of the website, so credibility problems arise. Obviously, how to gain customers' recognition and then gain their trust is a difficult task. In this regard, in addition to investing in services, we have also set up a member review agency in the procurement department, including buyer review and seller review. In addition, if everyone joins together to keep warm, resources can indeed be shared in many aspects. The most direct effect is an increase in traffic and a rapid increase in popularity.
Dilemma 2: Fighting alone, operating costs remain high
Problem: Information flow, logistics, and capital flow are the three core links of B2B operations in the industry. However, for a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises without Internet operation experience, they do not have enough experience and strength to invest.
Tips: Jointly expand the ecosystem among industries to form an industry chain that is as complete as possible. With the help of the alliance, we can discuss cooperation with some companies and jointly conduct certifications to reduce operating costs and increase our voice.
Yang Dong: The traffic of a single vertical portal is not large, and the cost of business negotiation is very high. Therefore, it is necessary to build a platform to work together. B2Bs may initially just build a website to meet the most direct needs, but later on they can gradually form a platform operation of basic services.
Wang Shutong: For overseas buyers, B2B generally operates like this: after selecting a suitable manufacturer online, the other party must complete the shipment in a short time. During the rapid operation, a third party is required to provide integrity guarantee. In this regard, DHgate.com not only provides integrity guarantees, but also enables connection between small manufacturers, traders and retail sellers within the international trade cycle of one or two weeks. For example, if an American hardware store wants to purchase a batch of water pipes, it usually chooses to purchase from a nearby state-level water pipe general agent. However, during the financial crisis, the hardware store finally saw a satisfactory product on Dunhuang Online and downloaded it. Placed the order. A few hours later, they received the detailed parameters and electronic contract for this water pipe product from Dunhuang.com. After confirming the contract and paying according to the online payment method provided by Dunhuang.com, all that was left was to wait for the goods to be delivered. This is the "transaction service B2B" business model of Dunhuang.com, which is very different from the traditional "information service B2B" that focuses on information release and maximizes information promotion.
Zhang Tongming: The future development trend of e-commerce is to provide a complete industrial chain ecological environment, which is a comprehensive spot trade solution integrating spot trading platform, professional internal reference information and supply chain financing. Its greatest value lies in helping customers While looking for business opportunities, you can also achieve safe transactions. Therefore, the most critical thing for current industry vertical portals is to expand the ecosystem through alliances between industries or by supporting dealers, so as to form as complete an industrial chain as possible. The current practices can be divided into two categories: one is a dealer itself, has a supply of goods, and can obtain more customers through e-commerce and expand its own ecosystem; the other is to move from a website to a dealer, such as Dianping.com, That is to first have users and then extend to enterprises. It can be said that whoever has the most complete integration in this field is likely to do the most.
Dilemma 3: Obtaining customers, there is an asymmetric information gap
Problem: Faced with a variety of industry websites and e-commerce platforms, small and medium-sized enterprises often have no idea where to start. Industry websites are faced with the problem of how to let customers find themselves and through which entrances to find them. This information asymmetry directly affects the acquisition of customer sources for industry websites.
Tips: Vertical websites combined with e-commerce models can penetrate into industry customers, allowing B2B websites to win the favor of more companies.
Chai Yueting: The main benefits of e-commerce application platforms established by small and medium-sized enterprises are communication with customers and convenient procurement. The most common applications are in online sales, negotiations, procurement, etc., and these require professional third-party e-commerce transactions and Service platform. Therefore, B2B websites that can penetrate into industry customers will win the favor of customers in the future. In addition, e-commerce services are developing from the current single-link model of information and transactions to the integration of electronic authentication, online transactions, online payments, logistics and credit services; from the current procurement, Sales services are penetrating into related businesses within the enterprise; the service market is evolving from the current chaotic state of small scale, large number, and disordered service companies to an orderly state dominated by brand service companies and standardized service processes. In the future, e-commerce will show a development trend of full e-commerce, integration with tradition, and standardized and orderly development.
Tian Xianju: Beijing Tianchengxing Formwork Co., Ltd. is a company specializing in the production of construction steel formwork. I was once a paid member of a domestic industry website and asked its agent to release product information, but I felt that the information released by the other party was very inaccurate. For example, our company operates steel formwork, but the information released is all wooden formwork. It feels like a unified program release. We have reported it to the other party many times, but still cannot solve it. In addition, we have also done Baidu's bidding ranking and implemented pay-per-click, but we found that the prepaid fees were quickly used up, and we didn't know who ordered them, and the effect was not obvious and the price was expensive. Over the years, we feel that the most helpful thing is a professional e-commerce platform that can really promote products. On such a platform, you can see the results after you finish the work, and customers will actually call for consultation. The problem with this type of website is that it is necessary to try to avoid the inflow of spam information.
Yang Ruifeng: Our website has also encountered some difficulties in customer development. For example, it is difficult to attract customers' attention and establish a solid customer relationship. The approach we take is: first of all, we must strengthen the professionalization of the website. For example, we will strive to develop B2B+C marketing strategies on the original basis, including online payment, procurement, ordering, and the establishment of special equipment malls, etc. We have been doing The direction of our efforts; secondly, in terms of service, we implement a marketing and service method in which one person serves to the end, that is, from customer signing to after-sales service, we have fixed employees complete it, so that customers can be more satisfied. We provide The service will be more efficient. But even if we provide our own services in a solid manner, we still face the problem of how to let customers find us and through which entrances to find us.
Zhang Tongming: In today's B2B industry websites, customers no longer just need a search, product introduction and link, they need an industry expert. A person who is responsible for supply, marketing and purchasing in an enterprise also needs to have some product comparison, research, evaluation and product-related knowledge. The provision of these contents requires a website to integrate them. At present, there are more than thirty or forty vertical websites specializing in door business in China. If I am a door manufacturer, I cannot only rank on one vertical website. In fact, the common practice of most companies that do well in online marketing is to do search engine rankings and buy a large number of keywords. Another way is to register as a member and send messages on various vertical websites. These things require dedicated people to do it and provide timely feedback. However, most small and medium-sized enterprises do not have the energy to do it, so everyone works together to promote it, and the effect is obviously more effective.
Reporter observation
Can allianceization break the situation?
For small and medium-sized enterprises, the need to use the Internet is actually very simple. It is nothing more than buying and selling: finding various raw materials to purchase and realizing the sales of their own products. However, they have a variety of choices, including dazzling search engines, B2B e-commerce platforms, and vertical websites that are difficult to distinguish between good and bad. All of these make the process of companies looking for network channels less smooth.
In fact, industry websites are also falling into the dilemma of customers not knowing each other. Facing large and comprehensive B2B websites, they do not have sufficient competitive advantages in terms of traffic, customer volume or scale. The only way to break the gap is to delve deeply into an industry and provide small but refined professional services. However, for most vertical websites, their influence can only be concentrated in a certain industry or region, and it is difficult to cover the whole country.
Both ends are looking for it, but it is difficult to cross the gap of information asymmetry.
As seen by Zhang Tongming, deputy general manager of Mingwan Information Technology Co., Ltd., most small and medium-sized enterprises in China are industrial enterprises, and they need to use more professional vertical websites to find the information and products needed for enterprise development. But the problem now is that there are too many vertical websites, and companies have no way to start. On the other hand, vertical websites that are purely information-based will also need to work together in the future, because only providing information will cause the user base to be too small and the advertising value to be low. Therefore, these vertical websites should try to extend to other areas, such as cooperating with search engines or operators.
Just imagine, if the on-site search engines of 1,000 vertical websites are connected, the total database and traffic generated will be 1,000 times that of a single website! (Rough estimate, because the scale of each company is different.) Of course, the qualification problem of these 1,000 vertical websites must first be solved. Only when the quality and reputation are guaranteed can the problem of enterprises' difficulty in establishing trust in virtual networks be solved.
When demand exists, there will be a market. In interviews with reporters, Yang Dong also repeatedly mentioned the establishment of mechanisms. For example, Alipay's integrity mechanism has solved the problem of distrust between buyers and sellers. Therefore, for the prospects of industry websites that are numerous and scattered and cannot overcome the bottleneck alone, alliances are the best way to increase their chances of survival, and an operating mechanism that benefits everyone can create a huge market. .
Related
According to the monitoring data of China's B2B e-commerce market for small and medium-sized enterprises in the second quarter of 2010 released by iResearch, the revenue of China's B2B e-commerce market in the second quarter of 2010 reached 2.26 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 44.9% and a month-on-month increase of 8.7%. iResearch believes that based on the current market development, China’s B2B e-commerce industry will present the following characteristics in the future:
First, online foreign trade will continue to become a hot spot in the development of the B2B market. In the second quarter of 2010, Alibaba's AliExpress platform was officially launched. After that, it acquired the American company Vendio to fully develop the U.S. market; in addition, Alibaba cooperated with PayPal to solve the payment problem of online foreign trade; it formed a strategic alliance with UPS. Solve the logistics service problems of online foreign trade. iResearch believes that the online foreign trade industry has a lot of room for development, and the addition of Alibaba and AliExpress will have a huge boost to itself and the entire online foreign trade industry.
Second, core enterprises continue to deeply optimize B2B e-commerce services for small and medium-sized enterprises. In the second quarter of 2010, core operators increased their investment in value-added services. For example, Alibaba, Dunhuang, etc. successively launched small loans for small and medium-sized enterprises to solve the problem of financing difficulties for small and medium-sized enterprises; at the same time, core operators We cooperate with universities to cultivate e-commerce talents for small and medium-sized enterprises. iResearch believes that with the development of B2B e-commerce, core operators will continue to optimize services and enhance user stickiness.