Future Prospects of the Chinese SME B2B Market

    WUHAN, CHINA, October 31, 2014 /24-7PressRelease/ -- According to data, the trade volume of the Chinese e-commerce market was 1.6137 trillion US dollars in 2013; a year-on-year increase of 21.3%. In the segmented industrial structure of the e-commerce market, B2B e-commerce accounts for 77.9% (large-scale B2B accounts for 26.2% and SME B2B accounts for 51.7%). SME B2B e-commerce remains the largest field, with total operating revenues of 3.426 billion US dollars in 2013, up 25.8% from 2012. Total revenue in SME B2B e-commerce will continue to grow by over 20% over the next few years and is expected to reach 7.982 billion US dollars in 2017.

China's domestic and foreign trade environment has improved gradually since 2013. The Chinese B2B market is expected to develop steadily in the coming three to four years and SME B2B e-commerce operators will continue to develop in the fields of platform trade, value-added service and platform-based big data. (Data source: iResearch)

Future Prospects: Focus on platform trade, enhanced value-added service competitiveness through big data mining

Focus on promoting platform trade: In foreign trade, renowned Chinese foreign trade e-commerce platforms alibaba.com and dhgate.com released the policies of 'Pay for Performance' and the 'Comprehensive Open Platform for Foreign Trade' in 2013 to pioneer platform transformation. In domestic trade, all operators successively launched online trade platforms to promote online trade in 2013. The comprehensive promotion of China's B2B online trade calls for the perfection of supporting services such as payment systems, authentication, guarantees and supply chain financing on the one hand; and on the other needs to spend a long time cultivating users' online payment practices. Thus, the profiting modes of China's SME B2B e-commerce platforms will continue to be membership fees, trade commission, advertising fees and value-added service, but the share of trade commission will expand and become the focus of B2B platforms.

Implementation of big data mining: Previously, as most SMEs concluded transactions offline, B2B platforms could only collect basic information such as industrial and commercial registration information and the time of an enterprise's authentication on platforms; trade data were scarce and big data were of little value under the circumstances. With the popularization of B2B trade platforms in the future, operators will be able to collect more valuable enterprise trade data to implement big data mining so as to offer enterprises more accurate, intelligent and customized services.

Future Development Trends: Operators develop towards resource integration platforms in an accelerated manner as the industry accelerates its transformation

Some Chinese B2B operators conducted important business expansions in 2013 such as the expansion of online trade and online financing, which are of great significance to the SME B2B e-commerce industry.

B2B e-commerce enterprise transformation and trade platforms have positive influences on all SMEs and operators. For SMEs, as communication and guarantee tools, online trade can save the cost of pre-trade communication and avoid trade risks. For operators, participation in the full enterprise transaction process can transform profit modes, expand the scale of revenue, and also enable the acquisition and accumulation of the underlying data of enterprises, laying the groundwork for big data mining and application.

As an integral part of B2B trade, supply chain financing based on B2B e-commerce has broad market space and development prospects. Numerous Chinese SMEs have micro and short-term financing demands, but there are problems such as high loan thresholds, a complex auditing and approval process, and long periods under the traditional bank credit scheme, making it difficult to meet SME demands. The emergence of B2B e-commerce financing guarantee services may be able to meet some of these demands and thereby resolve the financing difficulties of SMEs.

Following the development of China's SME B2B e-commerce industry over the past decade, some operators have gradually shifted from information service platforms to trade service platforms. According to analysis, beginning in 2014, services provided by B2B enterprises will extend from pre-trade services to in-trade and post-trade services and from information services to various services such as online trade and financing, thus gradually becoming platforms for corporate online resource integration. In the future, trade platform development, supply chain financing guarantee services, and platform-based big data accumulation and use in the Chinese SME B2B market will be inseparable from each other and form an enclosed loop.

In this context, a communication platform is needed to bring ideas together and discuss the current and future trends of e-commerce. The China International Electronic Commerce Center and the China Electronics Chamber of Commerce held the 2014 China (Yiwu) International Electronic Commerce Expo in association with the Yiwu Municipal People's Government this April as China's first e-commerce exposition integrating e-commerce platforms, service industries, applied technologies and high-quality online goods. Based on the actual needs of e-commerce development, the exposition set up four key exhibition zones: the zone for e-commerce platforms and model bases (enterprises), the zone for e-commerce application enterprises, the zone for the e-commerce service industry and the zone for trade of high-quality online goods, to bring together and exhibit the world's latest e-commerce R & D and application results, the latest technologies and products, as well as e-commerce enterprises in the whole industry chain including e-commerce platforms, financial payment, logistics & express delivery, technical support, data services and high-quality online goods.

Following the exhibition of the new achievements, technologies and concepts of global e-commerce in Yiwu, Wuhan will hold the 1st Optics Valley Cross-border E-commerce Forum this November 11, which will focus on how SMEs accomplish cross-border e-commerce. Renowned e-commerce platforms from over 30 countries and regions around the world, upstream and downstream enterprises in the cross-border e-commerce industry, as well as global top e-commerce experts will be invited to explore the new opportunities for global e-commerce development.

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