US Eastern Time 9:30am, on the September 19th, 2014, the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group officially announced the landing of the New York Stock Exchange. There are eight customer representatives, two of which are Taobao shop owners, one courier, one user representative, one electricity supplier service providers, one online model, one customer service, and as well as a farmer from the United States named Peter Verbrugge. Peter Verbrugge is an owner of cherry orchards in Washington, and these fruits are sold by Tmall on the other side of the world to China.
Video: Interview for Jack Ma the day Alibaba Group went Public by Bloomberg Business. (Video from YouTuBe)
According to TechWeb News, after the Alibaba Group went public, Jack Ma became the richest man in China with 29.8 billion dollars on August 27th. He became successful because of Alibaba. He created a brand new E-commerce system in China, which was named Taobao.
Photo: Alibaba went public in New York in September 19th. (Photo from Tengxun News)
What is the Taobao Online Mall? Taobao is the first advanced personal e-commerce platform, which was founded in May 2003 by Jack Ma. It is financed by the best B2B website Alibaba, which is the biggest online retailing business in China. Taobao Mall is based on honesty, the safest and most convenient e-commerce platform. People can find everything on Taobao, such as digital equipment, make-up, clothes, furniture, books, food and so on. Also, they are lower priced and higher quality. Taobao makes the world so small; people can buy everything, even they are from other countries. What’s more, we can easily communicate with each other in WangXin Chat, and pay safely with its own payment system. So people can trust each other on this website easily.
Video: Introduce Taobao Online Mall and its ancillary products. (Video from YouTuBe)
In addition, people not only can buy stuffs in Taobao, but they can also sell stuff. Right now, it’s free to set up an online store on Taobao. It’s really helpful for those small and medium-sized enterprises, which have no money to advertise their products. They can sell products online for free and earn more money. Moreover, people also can sell stuff, which they don’t want any more in the Taobao Second-hand Mall. Sometimes people might meet some friends and discuss how to earn more in Taobao.
Picture: Click and shop! (Photo from Tengxun News)
Online shopping becomes more and more popular in China. All Chinese people know Taobao, and most of them have experience in shopping on Taobao. Why didTaobao develop so fast in these years? Convenience and cheap items are the main reasons. First, the modern pace of life make people have less and less time to physically go to stores for shopping. Traffic congestion and more shopping malls extend people’s shopping time and effort. So people urgently need a new, quick, and convenient way to shop and service. Second, the fierce market competition forced manufacturers and retailers to continue to seek cheaper commodity costs, shorten cycle times way. E-commerce catered to this demand. At the same time, consumers don’t need to go to the physical stores, so that they would not waste time in traffic. Consumers can get cheaper products and better service in online shopping mall.
Picture: Shop online or in store? That’s a good question. (Picture from Tengxun News)
But is physical store really dying? Guofu Ye, who set up the MINISO, said people just didn’t find a right way to run physical stores.
Guofu Ye has run chain stores more than ten years. Before he set up the MINISO, he founded AIYAYA brand, which focus on selling accessories. Three years ago, when he traveled in Japan, he found there are boutiques stores everywhere. Also, most of products from those 200-yen shops are made in China. “Two hundred yen equal how much in China? Just 12 Yuan.If people can buy such good quality things with 12 Yuan in China; everyone would stop and buy them. In this case I think I can do something like this in China.” Guofu Ye said.
Guofu Ye founded the first MINISO in China in November 2013. Now, in less than two years, he has more than a thousand stores in China. MINISO seizes the opportunity of the credit collapse of Chinese e-commerce, and has opened up a new area of consumption. Ye Guofu said that the secret of success of the MINISO canbe grouped into “three high three low”, which is high quality, high efficiency, high technology, low cost, low margin and low prices.
Photo: The first store of MINISO. (Photo from Tengxun News)
Why do we have such a huge e-commerce company as Taobao in China? That’s because of the huge profits of the physical stores. For example, for one T-shirt in physical store in China, people sell it with ten times of its purchase price. So Chinese people start shopping online because that way it’s cheaper. Now, MINISO sell good quality products, but charges as cheap as the online shops. That’s the main point why MINISO attracts so many people.
Picture: The advertise in MINISO official website. (Picture from MINISO)
In China, physical stores would not die; also, e-commerce would continue to develop. The only thing to keep their development is keeping innovation. People should tap the consumer potential constantly, and find unique ways to develop business in China.
♥ Shuting Jiang ♥ 