CRI听力:Traditional Business Enters E-commerce

China Sinopec Guangdong recently launched its online gasoline purchase website: enjoy365.com and another comprehensive online shopping website. Consumers holding China Sinopec cards can register on the site and purchase gasoline and other products online.

Currently the gasoline purchase service only covers 8 provinces and cities including: Beijing, Shandong, Shanghai, Yunnan, He Nan, Sichuan, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Hubei.

After charging, consumers use the card to pay for the gasoline, and there's no need to queue to pay for their gas fees. One Sinopec customer says purchasing gasoline online is convenient.

"Using my card this way is convenient. We don't need to queue at the cashier any more."

Currently, Sinopec Guangdong's online shopping service covers more than 2,000 gas stations and 1,900 convenience stores in Guangdong province.

In recent years, opening b2c platforms have been pretty prevalent for many traditional sellers, ranging from electronic home appliances like Suning to shoe brands like Daphne. But sales aren't always as good as they should be.

Daphne launched their online shopping site in 2009, but in the first half of 2012, Daphne's e-commerce sales volume only occupies 5 percent of their total revenue.

Similar failures also occur with delivery and supermarket services.

Wan Xingdong, director of the Internet and Society Research Center at Zhejiang Media Institute, says that failures to satisfy both traditional customers and e-commerce consumers is a major reason why these outsider e-commerce trials fail.

"The biggest barrier for traditional enterprises entering e-commerce that is they can't balance their service between traditional and online customers, which occupy 95 and 5 percent of the total customers respectively. This is because the two types of customers really require totally different pricing systems, operating systems and services."

Wan Xingdong says that building your own online shopping brand is difficult, so using the third party e-commerce platform can be a viable choice. But he adds that they should also have long-term goals.

"The risk may be very low if the dealers can make the best use of those existing online shopping platforms, but it's really hard to build your core competence."

Experts point out that cooperating with other mature online shopping sites like Taobao and DangDang may enhance their e-commerce performance.

For CRI I am Li Dong.