Do you have an experience of shopping online? I believe majority of people’s answer to this question is “yes”.  According to Statista.com,” the worldwide business to consumer e-commerce sales amounted to more than 1.2 trillion U.S dollars in 2013.”  However, the explosive-pace expansion of e-commerce intensifies the competition between online retailers. As the growth of e-commerce, consumers also intend to be more impatient—they want to receive their order fast. So despite the quality and diversity of products, online retailers also need to work on improving the delivering speed. For online retailers, it is a race for time with its’ rivals.

For example, in U.S, many retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Macy’s etc. are competing for delivering the online orders to customers faster.  So how do they improve their shipment efficiencies?

Online retailers’ strategy is to build more warehouses to meet customers’ demand. Large warehouses enable retailers to manage and deliver packages in an efficient way. To be more specific, more warehouses can store more items and its advanced sorting facilities allows retailers to manage orders effectively. I also want to note that Amazon is using about 30,000 robots in 13 warehouses to save packaging time.

What’s more, retailers also use sophisticated software and algorithms to help them make decisions. Software can calculate the cheapest, quickest way to deliver online orders. And when I was shopping online, I saw online retailers provide several shipment choices (e.g. free shipment for 5-7 days, if you want to get your package, you need to pay extra fees). This is a wise idea which can satisfy different customers’ needs and reduce the pressure of delivering. Another good thing is that many retailers provide services to help customers to track their order.  They upload tracking information to let customer know the precise location of their packages, and therefore minimizing customers’ impatience.

The coming Christmas holiday is a new challenge for online retailers, hopefully they can deliver holiday gifts faster this year.

Resources:

U.S. retailers race to deliver holiday gifts faster this year

“E-commerce” http://www.statista.com/markets/413/e-commerce/

E-books are popular among young people because they’re easy to carry and convenient to get access. When I am walking around compass, it is easy to see people are reading e-books on their smart phones, laptops, kindles etc. But today, I am shocked by a report says e-book’s sales fell by 10% and print books are successfully fighting off digital competitors.

Actually, compared with digital books, print books have a lot of disadvantages. E-books have competitive price to be purchased (they are cheaper than print books) and can be delivered instantaneously.  What’s more, digital can also be printed if necessary. So when e-books emerge at the market, people talked about the demise of physical books as if it was only a matter of time, but now print books still is a big chunk of the business.  So what’s the reason behind the decline sales of e-books?

The emergence of e-book brings potential threat to print book industries. In order to be more competitive, book publishers are working on lowering print books’ prices. They managed to wrest pricing control and as well as seek for cooperation with e-commerce business to ensure print books can be delivered quickly. Meanwhile, print book publisher emphasizes that traditional physical books offer a tactile experience that most other forms of media don’t. And finally, print books protect its’ status successfully. So what we can learn from this is that when a company is facing competitive rivals, it is very important to set up its strategy and recognize its uniqueness. Print book publishers understand that physical books have unique tactile experience for readers, so they can successfully fight off digital competitors.

resources:  http://www.canadianbusiness.com/innovation/print-books-are-successfully-fighting-off-digital-competitors/

On September 30,2015, Apple Music launches in China with discount price.

I just read an article titled “Apple music faces tough audience in China?”,which analyses the difficulties for this company to enter China’s market. Firstly, customers in China prefer local companies. Compared with several local companies with good reputation and customer loyalty, Apple music is somewhat a late entrant in this competition. (As the chart below shows, Kugou and QQ Music already occupied more than 50% of the local market.)

(https://atlas.qz.com/charts/N1Ukg4DY)

Secondly intellectual property issue in China is a serious problem. The truth is customers in China have already got used to download music for free, though new government regulations made some improvements on protecting intellectual property, customers still need some time to adapt themselves to truth of no more free-music.

However, I think launching China’s market isn’t a bad idea for Apple Music because China has the largest smartphone market and iPhone is significant successful there.  So Apple’s strong band recognition will attract a large number of users. Just as this article has mentioned, “Customers in China love the App Store and have made it the largest market in the world for app downloads”. Besides that, I noticed that Apple Music made some innovations to fit China’s market so I personally believe that Apple Music can launch China successfully.  For example, the pricing of the Apple Music service ($1.57 a month) is significantly below the U.S. Since customers in China are very sensitive at price, Apple Music’s low price will drive more users to get access to this service. Meanwhile, Apple Music made a wise strategy–launching Apple Music both on iOS and Android . Since Android phones are popular in China, this strategy will bring more potential demands for this company.

As for me, I like the news that Apple Music is available in China no because I prefer Apple Music’s design style and it is simple to use.  On the other hand, I have to say Apple Music has competitive price in China. So once I come back to China, I will download Apple Music definitely.

resources: Apple Music faces tough audience in China by Leslie Shaffer <http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/30/apple-music-heads-to-mainland-china.html>