Countercurrent 1982

Chapter 1980 American E-Commerce
Just in 1994 in his previous life, Jeff Bezos was keenly aware of the possible business opportunities in e-commerce, so he resolutely quit his job on Wall Street and started his own business in his garage.Although there is evidence that Bezos wanted to build a "everything shop (The Everything Shop)" at the beginning of his business, so that consumers could buy everything they wanted on his website, but at the beginning of his business , but he only chose the niche market of books as an entry point.

In the United States, the total size of the book market is considerable: it was estimated to be about $1994 billion in 190, and the average American spent $79 a year on books.At the same time, such a huge market is not dominated by monopoly giants.Although there were two major chain bookstores in the United States at that time, Barnes & Noble and Borders, their total market share was only 25%, and the rest of the market share was scattered in the hands of small independent bookstores.Therefore, if you choose to enter this market, you will not encounter too many obstructions from incumbents.With this in mind, Bezos focused Amazon's initial business on books.

From today's perspective, Amazon's sales method was very primitive when it started: it mainly received orders through the mail, purchased books from book wholesalers according to the orders, and then sent books to readers through the postal system.From the perspective of the value chain, this is no different from traditional bookstores, which are all channel sales.

However, because the Internet has broken down the boundaries of geographical markets, Amazon has achieved greater demand than any traditional bookstore, and these demands have successfully supported its initial growth.

Through initial operations, Bezos and his team found that consumers were more inclined to complete the entire transaction on the website than in the mail.In order to adapt to this preference of consumers, the Amazon website was officially launched in July 1995.This move has been fully affirmed by consumers. One week after the launch, the daily turnover of the website reached 7 US dollars, and it further reached 12000 US dollars in the second week.

Although the application of online thinking helped Amazon achieve early growth, competitors quickly learned these "routines."As traditional bookstores also enter the e-commerce field one after another, Amazon is under increasing pressure.In order to keep its own market, Amazon had to engage in a price war with its competitors, and the result was that while the sales volume was rising steadily, the profit situation did not change for a long time.

In order to get rid of this predicament, Amazon began to expand its business and sell products other than books.At first, Amazon still chose the self-operated model, purchasing and selling by itself.In order to match sales, Amazon also began to build its own warehousing and logistics system.However, the problem with this model was quickly revealed: due to the limited financial resources of Amazon at the time, it was difficult to provide consumers with enough categories of goods, which limited its appeal.Purchasing more products is of course a feasible solution, but the storage and logistics costs it brings are clearly unbearable for Amazon.

So how can this impasse be broken?One idea is to change the business model from a pipeline to a platform, allowing merchants to enter Amazon to sell products.

In 1999, Amazon turned this vision into a reality.It opened up its website to merchants and self-employed people, allowing them to sell their wares on it.For those merchants with more frequent transactions, Amazon will charge monthly fees and transaction commissions, while for those merchants and individuals with low transaction frequency, only transaction commissions will be charged.After the merchants reach a deal on Amazon, they will send the goods to the customers themselves, and Amazon will help them charge the buyers and remit the balance after deducting the commission to their accounts.

This move by Amazon has been welcomed by small merchants, which allows them to rely on Amazon's word of mouth and channels to let more consumers see their products.As a result, a large number of merchants have concentrated on the Amazon platform.For Amazon, its gains are even greater than these small merchants: it means that it has successfully solved the problem of small product categories, enough to make Amazon as a whole more attractive, more attractive to consumers, and better able to promote its own business. business growth.More importantly, this strategy of developing consumers not only requires a small investment, but also can obtain considerable monthly fees and commission income.

In fact, it is the best golden stage to enter online e-commerce at this time, because there is no similar business model in the United States. If it can be successful in the early stage, then it will be able to obtain a strong first-mover advantage and resources, and because of this, Duan Yun thought of me creating an e-commerce network in the United States.

Once this e-commerce network platform is successful, it will not only be able to expand the business of Tianyin Group in the United States and obtain huge profits, but also rely on this platform to allow its own company's DVD and other products to be sold to any corner of the country. This is equivalent to establishing a business network covering the whole United States.

Moreover, compared with the overwhelming financial resources and advantages of Duan Yunyou, the founder of Amazon who is still selling books in the garage, when Amazon was first established, it had less than US$10 in principal and few technical personnel. The problems caused his early development to be slow, so that it was not until two years later that Amazon, which made some money, made a leap forward.

However, if Duan Yun wants to develop an e-commerce network in the United States, he can spend up to hundreds of millions of dollars in funds, and he already has his own R&D center in Silicon Valley, which has many excellent software talents. Develop corresponding e-commerce websites and shopping software according to Duan Yun's requirements. If there are no major problems, it is almost a certainty to surpass Amazon and become the largest online e-commerce company in the United States.

It’s just that Duan Yun also knows in his heart that as a Chinese company, if he wants to become an e-commerce company that dominates the United States, he will definitely face many tangible or intangible obstacles. It is almost impossible, and the only solution is to become an e-commerce company that Duanyun When the development reaches a certain scale, it is necessary to join in the capital of Wall Street and give up part of the cake to the American consortium. Only in this way can some unnecessary risks be reduced.

And because Duan Yun has not been in the United States for a long time, he must find an American employee who is capable of taking charge of the project, and Brown Jones meets Duan Yun's requirements in all aspects. It is precisely because of this that Duan Yun invited him today. Have a meal.

"Boss, it seems that your success in China is definitely not accidental. Your ideas are more mature than mine. If my company could have received your guidance, it would have really succeeded..." After listening to the paragraph When Yun told the story, Brown Jones showed a look of admiration on his face. It was obvious that he was very shocked and admired by Duan Yun's business plan just now. Brown Jones did not expect that Duan Yun not only knew American mulberry leaves very well, but also He is also very professional in some technical issues of business, which made him completely change some of his previous views on Chinese people...

(End of this chapter)