When the Internet changes trade

With sales of nearly $ 700 billion in 2005, estimated at more than $ 1,000 billion by 2012, e-commerce (E-commerce) has greatly changed the look of international trade.

Meanwhile, there are more than 97% of Vietnamese enterprises still standing on the sidelines of e-commerce, according to new survey results published in a seminar organized by VCCI in March 2006. In order to step firmly on the way of integration, Vietnam cannot help to build a development strategy in this field soon.

In 2005, e-commerce in the US increased by 28% over the previous year, while in France increased by 44%. For 10 years, e-commerce has always maintained a double-digit annual growth rate and no known crisis. Although e-commerce still occupies a modest position in the economy (2.4% of retail sales in the US in the fourth quarter of 2005 and less than 1% in France), but analysts recommend against calculating the impact. The Internet's market is based solely on the above figures.

At the beginning of popularity 10 years ago, the Internet gave rise to hopes in neoclassical economists that Leon Walras' theory of perfect competition eventually came true. The Internet seems to be an ideal market where countless suppliers and customers meet freely, openly and everything is transparent and clear.

Ten years later, the trading method has changed for only a few years and many new factors have emerged that occupy active agents. In France, with sales of more than 3 billion euros in 2005, online travel accounted for 45% of total e-commerce sales across all sectors. In the US, in the field of tourism, online transactions accounted for one third of sales and this rate is expected to be more than 40% in 2007 according to Cuswright consulting office. According to other statistics, 63% of US air tickets are sold online and in Europe the rate is 24%.

Time of new intermediary factors: Google

A few years ago, it was often said that the Internet would vibrate a common bell for intermediaries, because sellers and buyers would have a direct relationship. But in fact, the opposite is happening: The Internet is facilitating the emergence of a number of new, global centers.

Search engines such as Yahoo, Google or MNS of Microsoft play an increasingly important role and are constantly evolving to become central elements of the electronic economy. Today, the capitalist value on Google's stock market goes far beyond the fixed value of many old economy actors: with an estimated total value of over $ 100 billion, Google's value in the financial market. even more than Verizon, the second largest telecommunications service provider in North America.

What made Google's magic success? This is because investors are aware of the intermediary role of this growing information network. In early 2004, when Google was at its peak, Google handled over 80% of the search information on the Internet. And unwilling to be content with meeting online keyword search needs, Google is entering the market for books and music and videos online with the promise of building the largest digital library in six years, with the introduction of Online 15 million works from four major English language libraries around the world.

The iPod culture upset the cultural industry

According to GFK Institute data, in 2005, nearly 1.3 billion files were downloaded from the Internet, including 1 billion music files, 160 million software files, 120 million movie files and about 30 million video game files. . These are dizzying numbers. However, it is worth noting that downloading paid files only takes a very small amount: out of 1 billion music files, only 20 million paid files are downloaded, ie about 2%, and this is not surprise.

This phenomenon is pleasing to many people, especially Apple, which dominates the iPod music player market: from 2001-2005, 40 million sets of iPods were sold worldwide. Internet access providers also have the same joy when witnessing a boom in subscriber demand. But the music and film business is falling into the fray. In France, they are the strongest advocates for the promulgation of copyright laws on the Internet.

Amazon - online bookstore

What makes the difference between Amazon, online book and disc dealers with street bookstores? First of all, it's the ability to adapt to providing each customer. The Internet can make personalized marketing without tangible trade. And, 'who thinks it's possible to market more successfully, believe I can sell more expensive' .

Amazon is one of the pioneers in CRM (Customer Relationship Management), managing customer relations: for example, online bookstores can post customer comments online about the work they buy, exploit customers to market to them the products they care about most.

The development of e-mailling (customer exploration via email) is also in this logic. Although the cost in this area in 2005 (40 million euros) is still just a fraction of the 5.2 billion euros advertised on television, it is clear that many traditional advertising channels such as newspapers and correspondence are lost its advertising market share.

Ebay: the explosion of C2C formulas and the market of second-hand goods online

With the Internet, the second-hand goods market has changed dramatically. The success of the Ebay auction network, which celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2005, is a testament.

As the world's leading e-commerce network, Ebay is a business with no stockpiles. Ebay's online goods will go directly from consumers (old) to consumers (new). With 150 million registered customers worldwide and a total of 44 billion transactions in 2005 and 5 million items in more than 50,000 sectors sold, Ebay is the largest store in the world today.

According to eBay's own statistics, in 2004 in the US, 430,000 people lived entirely or partially thanks to the profit gained through this online business. EBay's success was quickly embraced by many other networks that also specialize in selling second-hand products online such as Priceminister, 2xmoinscger or Amazon or Alapage .

T.GIANG