I received a phone call a few days ago. As soon as I got through, I heard a confused sentence: "Cheng Yanan, you have to help me. Old Cheng, you are a professional e-commerce person. You must help me analyze how to do it. It is best to come up with something." Plan, I’ll treat you to dinner.”
Only later did I find out that it was an old colleague and friend of mine from a famous electronics company in China. This guy had been promoted to director of the new channel expansion department. Now the company gave him a new topic: because online marketing and e-commerce are really popular, this offline electronics giant is a little restless and wants to give it a try on the Internet. Of course, such a rising business model must be handed over to young people, so my friend who can barely be considered a post-80s generation (born in 1980) became the inevitable candidate. However, e-commerce is a big challenge for a company that has focused on offline channels for decades. It was really unfamiliar to a large enterprise, so this guy immediately wanted to call me.
It is true that many traditional companies are now involved in e-commerce. The results are both good and bad. Li Ning, Anta, and TCL, which are popular online sales of tens or even hundreds of millions, have also invested tens of millions. As a result, sales were only a few million in a year, and more well-known offline giants are preparing to enter this blue ocean. E-commerce has an increasing impact on traditional sales channels. Both manufacturers and channel dealers love and fear e-commerce.
Speaking of which, I remember a joke I once saw. I made it up a little bit, and the story goes like this:
In an under-inflated hot air balloon, there are three outstanding scientists who are related to the direction of the world:
First: Environmental protection expert, his research may save countless people from facing death due to environmental pollution.
Second place: Nuclear energy expert, he can prevent global nuclear war.
The third place: Food expert, he can grow food in barren land and save tens of millions of people from famine.
At this moment, the hot air balloon is about to fall. One person must be thrown out to relieve the burden so that the other two people can survive. Which scientist should be thrown out?
The answer is: the fattest one
For traditional enterprises, traditional channels, retail chains and e-commerce are just like these three "scientists". They are all important. Focusing on one of them means harming the other two. More and more consumers are smart enough to go to stores to see samples, try them out, and listen to explanations (with a strong sense of user experience). Order online (the price is cheap). If the manufacturer directly does e-commerce, it will make the channel dealers an enemy. If the channel dealers do e-commerce, they will become enemies of the retailers. But if even the terminals are doing online shopping, why don't the manufacturers come out and do it themselves? Woolen cloth? At least it can better control the price system and occupy the "last mile".
I would like to take this opportunity to express my views on traditional enterprises entering the field of e-commerce and how they can do a good job in marketing and promotion on the Internet:
1. Establish a qualified company website and start doing some online promotion and word-of-mouth maintenance.
When people born in the 1980s have collectively entered the 30-year-old mark, if someone still says that the Internet is a niche channel, then I can only sneer at him. First of all, you have to make your products and services somewhat exposed among the 477 million Internet users. At least you can find some positive information on search engines, right?
2. Analyze the market environment and determine whether the products and services produced are suitable for online sales. Generally speaking, standard products are suitable for online shopping, while customized products and services are not suitable for e-commerce online sales (but are suitable for online promotion).
3. What is the gross profit of the products sold? Can profits support the team's basic operating expenses? Loss is a torment for every company that operates normally; can product models and price systems be completely separated from offline channels? If not, will it cause cross-selling? And a strong rebound from dealers?
4. Is there a passionate and interested team to engage in this extremely hard and boring daily e-commerce promotion and operation work? Simply paying employees and issuing orders cannot solve the problem. The most important thing is to look at the enthusiasm of the team and the principle of profit distribution.
5. Go to Taobao and open a mall store. There is no better platform than Taobao for starting an e-commerce business in China.
6. If you want to play B2C, you have to see how much money you have to burn. It is best not to play B2C if you don’t have tens of millions of funds. In 2011, too much hot money entered here, mainly group buying websites, and a lot of them took VC money, raising the price of online advertising to ridiculous prices. In the past, big portal business companies called us to invest in advertising, but now I called the website to ask for an advertising space. The bubble was too big.
PS: It is best to find one or several practitioners who really understand e-commerce and online promotion to provide some professional assistance (there are too many unreliable guys claiming to be experts these days)
The above is my summary of some online and offline marketing and promotion experiences. I hope it will be helpful to friends in traditional industries who want to enter e-commerce. If you have different opinions, welcome to discuss.
This article comes from Cheng Yanan’s e-commerce blog www.chengyanan.net. Please indicate the source when reprinting.
Thanks to cynwlms for your contribution