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There is an idiom says misfortune may be a blessing in disguise, which has been wide spread for hundreds of years in China. The story tells us that no matter fortune or disaster happens, it could turn to the opposite.
The financial crisis, which has shown us its tremendous collapsing force, also contains possible opportunities on the other hand. Especially for electronic commerce, the global financial crisis might be an activator for its evolution at the moment.
Most people believe that the financial crisis which comes from local America will affect its domestic big enterprises and purchasers much more than small and medium ones in China, some e-commerce expert points out, because of the high fixed cost of big enterprises, they are likely to be in the red or even collapse when orders decrease, while smaller companies could change itself and avoid troubles more easily, which means a good opportunity to small and medium suppliers and purchasers as some orders would leave big enterprises for them. And online market will be a port for them to escape from financial storm.
1. Online market requires much less sales cost. During the period of financial crisis, many companies would face the problem of capital shortage, therefore difficult to hold on the existing business to run smoothly. However, if suppliers turn to the online market instead, it can reduce a lot of human and material resource cost, as they would need less staff to operate and certainly less cost of salary and rent of show rooms or stores or large offices, and so on.
2. For buyers, it cost them less to purchase online too. As survey shows, global expenditure on business travel and negotiation reaches 370 billion US dollars every year. While purchasing online could save most of these expenses, especially at this serious moment, cutting cost is really essential. If purchasers make full use of the advantages of e-commerce, it would save them a lot of time and money on traveling and trade shows. Also, there is usually discount for buyers when shopping online.
3. Meanwhile, management cost can be reduced for companies by e-commerce. Obviously, online business is helpful for cutting down cost of transaction, data managing, human resource, volume of stock, and so on. What a large sum can be saved and used in some other imperative fields! So you can imagine how many buyers will turn to online markets as well as suppliers.
It is therefore a good chance for small and medium enterprises in the financial crisis, because most of them have abundant experience in online markets, and now, it becomes a great advantage for them in this increasing fiercely competing environment. As a majority of online market participants comes from small and medium enterprises, financial crisis is not a whole disaster, it also brings hope to e-commerce.
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