Because I have been in the e-commerce industry for 6 years, and my work in these 6 years involves traditional e-commerce, O2O, catering, tourism and other industries. I have some views on the development of the e-commerce industry in the next two years. Let me sum it up and share it with you. It is also to leave a bottom for yourself, so that you can look back at what you predicted two years later. If it is inconsistent with the forecast, you can help yourself adjust it in time.

The following are four specific views:

The following is explained from four aspects.

Traditional e-commerce has been done for many years, and the needs of existing users have been deeply explored. It is difficult to grow in this area and find new large-scale growth points.

If you want to do large-scale growth in the future, you can consider two directions. One is to explore new people, people who have never used or rarely used e-commerce shopping before, and strive to cultivate their habits of e-commerce shopping and contribute new growth points to e-commerce in the future.

Another direction of large-scale growth is to consider which goods were bought less before, and now they are more and more accepted by the public. Digging deep into the industries corresponding to these commodities is also a growth direction.

1) The growth brought by generation Z population is limited.

For the new crowd, some of them are young people of generation Z, and they gradually grow into a new group with purchasing power. For this group of people, mainstream e-commerce can basically meet their shopping needs. In the specific industries with special preferences, it is necessary to carry out specific tilt and targeted transformation for this group of people.

For example, some cool, trendy and unique products are designed according to their preferences, or according to the characteristics of young people who love to share and need spiritual companionship and recognition, there will be some corresponding emerging industries. However, the above are the growth and trends of a single industry, and it is unlikely to form a joint force of multiple industries. Moreover, once the scale becomes larger, it will lose its uniqueness, which many young people cannot accept, so it is not considered as a large-scale overall growth point of e-commerce.

2) The sinking group of middle-aged and elderly people is the focus of future growth.

Another important part of the new population is the sinking population. Different from the way we used to divide by region or purchasing power, this sinking group mainly refers to the people with higher age groups.

These users are older, and their background and living habits make them generally more sensitive to prices. Although users with different purchasing power levels have different absolute prices, they all require the best price under the same quality. They are willing to spend a lot of time and energy on price comparison. After all, time may be the most important thing for them. How to make these users understand and recognize that the price of a platform is generally lower than that of other companies, which is what every e-commerce company that wants to seize this group should try its best to do.

In addition, due to their age and poor learning ability, these users should pay attention to the system mode and interaction design, and try to simplify them. Instead of following the previous wave of mobile internet, they can only do some simple high-frequency operations with their smartphones, such as communicating with their children and friends on WeChat, watching news and watching short videos. With the development of internet e-commerce, it has reached the time when these users have to touch the internet deeply, otherwise it is difficult for e-commerce to find such a large number of blank market groups.

In addition, driven by the epidemic, people's dependence and acceptance on smart devices and mobile payment has reached a new level, prompting many aunts and grandmothers to learn to use Alipay to display health codes and fill in personal information. All these make the time ripe. In the future, a large number of middle-aged and elderly people will learn to use e-commerce software and use e-commerce shopping at high frequency under the guidance. The middle-aged and elderly market will be a market with greater growth in the future, and the share of this field is variable. For any family, it is almost a new attempt, and everyone has a chance. Of course, at present, the advantages of pdd based on WeChat social chain are relatively large.

For the commodity side, with the improvement of people's living standards, the sales of some goods that they could not afford and were unwilling to buy before will be significantly improved.

For families who have been at a well-off level, the rising trend of consumption is mainly concentrated in the fields of overseas imported goods, luxury goods and other consumer goods, as well as tourism, education, real estate and other fields.

Of course, the education industry is affected by the policy, and the consumption pattern may be adjusted. Before, everyone was generally optimistic about online education on the Internet. After this road is blocked, there may be other ways to guide people to pay for education and knowledge, but it will also be controlled by policies.

The situation of real estate is similar, mainly referring to improved real estate investment and consumption, because only improved real estate can match the upward consumption of well-off families, but it is also limited by policies. It can only be said that the demand for improved real estate and surrounding facilities will increase, and whether the specific market develops on a large scale depends on whether the policy allows it and to what extent it is regulated.

For overseas import and export business, it can be said that it will definitely usher in spring. Because with the improvement of people's living standards, the influence of the country is growing, and both China people and foreigners are in great need of each other's goods to make up for the shortage of goods in their own markets to some extent. People in China urgently need goods of higher quality than before, including clothing packaging, daily diet and so on.

Foreigners also need to import small commodities with good quality and low price from China to make up for the problems of high labor cost and insufficient supply-side capacity abroad. The demand of both sides has led to frequent import and export trade, even under the extremely special background of the epidemic. At the very least, the unilateral market is developing well.

In addition to many industries mentioned above, there are some industries that will develop better and better with the special background of the times.

For example, the fields of medical health, insurance and nursing are developing with the aging.

There are also beauty-related industries, from medical beauty and plastic surgery, three beauties (beauty salons, nail art) and slimming, to the rise of minority aesthetic trends such as national tide, second element and JK. All belong to people's exploration of trying to meet the spiritual needs of beauty after being satisfied at the material level.

In addition, there are two major sectors: branded domestic products and domestic high-quality agricultural products. Brand domestic products are mainly aimed at users in the sinking market, and they will gradually shift from low-end white brands to buying domestic brand goods. This logic actually corresponds to the above-mentioned imported commodity market, and imported commodities are mainly aimed at users in non-sinking markets.

Regarding this part of agricultural products, in fact, no matter whether it is high-quality or domestic, as long as it is agricultural products and daily-use fast-moving consumer goods, there will be a situation in which purchases are transferred from offline to online. Most of them are not absolute increments but shifts, but for the e-commerce industry, it is an incremental market that everyone wants to seize.

The pressure on domestic low-end electrical appliances and consumer goods will increase, mainly in import trade. We have to admit that the design and manufacture of many electrical appliances and high-end goods are ahead of us because of the early industrialization abroad. With the improvement of people's spending power, it is inevitable to buy more high-end and high-quality goods, and the domestic low-end electrical appliances and consumer goods industries will face no small challenge.

Because it conforms to the rapid growth of the above-mentioned e-commerce industry and the growth point of the industry, it can be used as a brand-new business model, which can further improve the efficiency of the supply chain and is generally more efficient than traditional e-commerce and offline supermarkets.

The mode of community group buying is aimed at users in non-first-tier cities who are old and price-sensitive. Compared with the traditional offline shopping, the mode of community group buying is to exchange time for space and price, to replace time with the next day's arrival, and to obtain goods at low prices and close to home.

This mode can only be aimed at users in non-first-tier cities who are not demanding time, and users who are older and have plenty of time. Even if others want low prices, they will give up this model because they can't meet the minimum requirements in time.

At the same time, due to the main shopping business of community group buying, the main target group has the business characteristics of high-frequency trading, which can better educate these users to learn to shop online and form habits, so as to meet the extremely high-frequency needs of this group of people, which has never been seen in other Internet changes.

Because from the perspective of supply chain, it is through the certainty of the sales side that the certainty of all links in the supply chain is obviously increased, thus improving the efficiency of the supply side including logistics.

1) Compared with traditional e-commerce, the mode of community group buying is mainly to significantly improve the efficiency of logistics.

At the level of user perception, it will arrive about 2 days after placing an order, and it will become the next day. No matter what goods are transported, logistics efficiency can be greatly improved and logistics cost can be reduced if the goods can be organized in advance in the dimension of receiving place.

What's more, the main business of community group buying is daily fast-moving goods such as buying food and fresh food. The loss of transporting these goods in the logistics link is very large. In this way, the loss can also be significantly reduced, and the cost saved can also be reflected in the sales side. The price of this channel can be further reduced, squeezing other inefficient channels, grabbing their sales share and realizing a positive cycle.

2) Compared with offline supermarkets, it mainly reduces the efficiency improvement of supply chain brought by distribution links.

Offline has always been a form of multi-level distribution. Suppliers at all levels bear the corresponding logistics storage costs and losses, and at the same time obtain profits corresponding to the costs. Large suppliers have high costs and high returns, while small dealers have low costs and low returns.

Community group buying concentrates users' needs in the hands of several large Internet platforms through online sales, so that small and medium-sized suppliers can be skipped to get lower purchase prices, and then the goods can be finally delivered to users through the above-mentioned efficient logistics, so that the saved costs can also be subsidized to the sellers to complete the same positive cycle.

Because although the community group buying industry is crowded with giants and fierce competition, there will be no monopoly price increase after the war, but prices can be reduced. This result is definitely welcomed by the country.

In fact, the biggest risk is that in the process of expansion, in order to compete for user share, there may be some chaos, resulting in the living space of offline supermarkets being quickly squeezed in a short time.

But at present, the government has issued a series of policies, which can be said to be basically preventable and controllable. In fact, if the community group buying business is finally completed, there will be many new job demands in terminal sorting and distribution, warehousing and logistics. As long as the work price is reasonable, the impact on small vendors and business personnel is limited.

Many people compare community group buying with the declining education industry, and their prediction of community group buying is pessimistic, which I don't quite agree with. I think there is a big difference between this industry and education. The main difference is that parents' demand for teaching and training can be said to be unlimited to some extent. As long as marketing and publicity are in place, parents will even borrow money to educate their children. The entry of capital will make this industry expand rapidly.

However, the demand for food is basically certain, and it is a transfer from offline to online, and it is the distribution of interests among various roles within the industry. As long as the income of basic vendors and hawkers has no great impact, the efficiency of the supply chain is improved, and ordinary people can buy cheaper vegetables, personally, the state should not ban the development of this industry.

At present, after several regulatory policies, all families are more disciplined, and the interests of small traders and vegetable farmers are guaranteed in the short term. Everyone has changed from barbaric growth and land grabbing to optimizing the back-end supply chain, focusing on accumulating more grain and opening more positions.

After this continues for a period of time, the supply chain construction will be completed, and the final effect should be that the producers in the fields will go directly to the consumer's table, and some vendors will remain. As the staff of terminal service users, they will change from distribution to pure service, lose some profits and work for giants. The chain can continue as long as the price is reasonable. Under the new model, there will also be a large number of jobs in the field of logistics and warehousing, and there will be new demand while eliminating some jobs, similar to the take-away industry.

At least so far, we can see that the country still allows the development of the Internet industry, but we should be careful not to move the interests of the general public and do things that aggravate the gap between the rich and the poor. Community group buying is more about adjusting the supply chain, so there is still room for development.

There are two main points:

1) The quality of goods purchased online is difficult to control, and it is difficult for people to feel the quality difference online.

Over time, it is easy to form a situation that low-priced and low-quality goods sell well online and high-quality goods can only be bought offline. Once users form this kind of cognition, it is unfavorable for the long-term development of online e-commerce.

2) Personalization and lack of temperature at the sales end make it difficult to satisfy the long-tail products in the fresh food field.

The shelves and supply of online goods are controlled by all platforms, and there are standardized processes, which will easily lead to the homogenization and sameness of goods on the sales side. If users want to buy some uncommon and scarce ingredients, they may still have to go to offline familiar stores. At this time, because of the online purchase of high-frequency fresh fruit, the cost of offline sharing will become higher, and people who want to buy the same goods will only become more and more expensive.

In addition, if you miss the warm experience of picking a bunch of vegetables to buy a bunch of vegetables and the shopkeeper gives you a few onions, that scene may only be gone forever.

This risk is mainly to sink the market. The monopoly and harvesting attempts of any group or scene in the future will be restricted by policies, especially those industries that affect people's livelihood or national foundation.

There are three relatively minor impacts:

In addition, the Internet can intervene in industries that affect people's livelihood, such as education, tourism and medical care, but it is impossible to try to expand the monopoly market in disorder by introducing capital. What the Internet can do in these industries can only be to guide the masses to do what the government wants to see by displaying information, such as popularizing some correct knowledge and transmitting information. In addition, it is also the limit to do some service work for the surrounding small scenes at most, and get some commission from it.

Providing services and collecting commissions for large-scale and high-demand scenes will inevitably be strictly supervised and controlled, which is a thankless thing. If you still want to charge a high service fee as a commission, don't even think about it. I also call on all walks of life to behave themselves when doing business. Today's Internet is different. Under the background of pursuing fair development and narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor, you can only achieve long-term development if you do less evil.

Mainly import and export trade, involving more import and export industries. In the foreseeable future, China and the United States will always play a game, and both sides will introduce new policies at any time. If it is engaged in the import and export trade of the whole industry, the risk is relatively controllable. In this era, it is unlikely that there will be a complete break-off and non-communication of trade. This is an act that hurts the enemy by 1000, and it is more likely to introduce policies in important key industries to restrict the import and export trade of such industries. For such an industry, the policy risk is indeed very large.

Fourth, we are not optimistic about short video platforms, content platforms and major pan-entertainment companies to help realize traffic by increasing e-commerce business.

The judgment mainly considers three points:

At present, the advantage of short video and content platform as e-commerce platform compared with e-commerce platform is that video and content platform captures some sinking users with poor learning ability with simple interaction and free content.

However, as these users have been in contact with the Internet for longer and longer, and with the guidance of various e-commerce platforms, these users will be able to learn to skillfully use smart phones and various software sooner or later. By then, users will have more choices to share the browsing time of video and content platforms, which will lead to the growth of new e-commerce services on content platforms, and it will become more and more difficult to realize the existing advertising traffic.

It is necessary to know that the content platform has two important disadvantages in doing e-commerce. One is the current short board-supply chain. How long will it take to complete the supply chain This is a very important question. After all, other e-commerce companies are also synchronized and will not give video companies too much time.

When people have a clear desire to buy, they tend to go to more professional shopping platforms to choose goods. The higher the unit price, the more so. If the customer's unit price is high enough, even online can't satisfy him, but also go to the offline field to see and touch to place an order with confidence. In this way, only some scenes with low unit price and unclear intention are left for the video and content platform, which is difficult to support a large volume.

In addition, the importance of the performance link of e-commerce will become more and more important in the future, and the offline ability will become more and more important. Because online sales ability is a relatively easy ability to establish, for various Internet companies, this ability is easier to fill quickly, and it is not easy to open the gap. Then the key to help open the gap and win the competition lies in the supply and performance links that are difficult to fill quickly.

In these two aspects, the shortcomings of video and content platforms are obvious. Unlike established e-commerce, they accumulate more, so it is difficult to win. Among the mainstream e-commerce, Meituan and Ali have accumulated relatively more. These two companies can consider further building a moat in the supply and performance links to widen the gap with other companies.

Author: Pang Hu, micro signal: huhahuhahmh, official account of WeChat: Pang Hu Run (ID: hupangrun)

The title map comes from Unsplash and is based on CC0 protocol.