中俄 B2C电子商务的影响因素研究

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Research background

E-commerce is appearing to  be  one  of the  driving  forces  of  development in today’s world of information and globalization. In the developed countries the volume  of  electronic  trade  is  increasing  constantly.  For  instance, European e-commerce reached $427bln by the end of 2012 with the growth rate of 19%.

The volume of e-commerce market in the developing countries is relatively smaller.  However  the  growth  rate  is  rocket hi gh.  Estimated  B2C  e-commerce sales in Asia-Pacific in the year 2013 is $384bln, in the year 2014 the estimated volume is $525bln, which makes a growth rate to be 36% per year. That can tell about the huge potential of the e-commerce market in developing countries.

On the other hand, international electronic trade is relatively less developed. According  to  the  statistics,  very  little  number  of  firms  is  able  to  engage  in international  trade  and  among  them  are  mostly  large  firms.  There  are also findings  that  the  number  of  export  destinations  is  also  limit ed  and  on  average does not exceed 3-4 destinations.

There a lot of reasons for this phenomenon, including infrastructure barriers, sociopolitical barriers and cogniti ve barriers. The influence of these factors on the market in the developing countries is even more severe.

Two  of  the  most  interesting  markets  of  electronic  trade  among  developing countries are China and Russia.

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1.2 Research purpose and scientific contribution

1.2.1 Research purpose

The main purpose of this research is identifying the main factors influencing B2C e-commerce market between Russia and China and developing strategies to overcome the main barriers. In order to complete this research we should answer to the number of sub questions:

(1) What  is  the  development  history and  current  status  of  B2C  e -commerce market between Russia and China.

(2)  What are the  main  Influencing  factors  in the  development  of  electronic trade in B2C sector between two countries (including factors influencing Chinese companies and Russian consumers, political environment, infrastructure systems, etc.) and their impact on the development process.

(3)  What  strategies  can  be  implemented  in  order  to  eliminate  main obstacles? 

1.2.2 Scientific contribution

There  have  been  done  a  lot  of  research  on  electronic  trade  development. However,  a  lot  of  research  still needs  to  be  done  concerning  specific  B2C electronic  trade  markets  and  interaction  between  countries  engaging in international  e-commerce.  The  theoretical  significance  of  this  research  is, through  the  study  of  the  e-commerce  between  Russia  and  China,  to  explain  the characteristics  and  patterns  of  B2C  in  developing countries,  to  find  the  barriers which  prevent  the  development  of  e-commerce  in  B2C  sector,  to  analyze  their impact and significance and to develop strategies to eliminate these obstacles.

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Chapter 2 Qualitative analysis of the B2C sector of e-commerce in Russia and China

2.1 Definite features of development of B2C e-commerce in Russia

2.1.1 History of the development

The  beginning  of  Russian  electronic  trade  was  in  the  1995.  First  years  of e-commerce  were  characterized  by very  slow  development.  In  the  1998,  the number  of  registrated  on-line  shops  in  Russia  was  estimated  to  be 46,  the monthly  turnover  of  those  shops  was  about  1.5  mln  rub.  However,  after  the economic  crisis  of 2000, the  market  began  to  develop  tremendously.  By the  end of  2000  it  accumulated  800  on-line  shops,  everyone tried  to  occupy  the  niche place.

There are  many reasons  for a  quite  slow  development  of  the  market  on the early  stage,  in  comparison  with American  and  European  market  of  electronic trade.  The  most  important  are  slow  Internet  penetration, computer and  Internet illiteracy  of  the  majority  of  population,  lack  of  the  infrastructure,  including logistic  and  payment systems.  The  process  of  integration  of  Russia  with  the global  economy,  technology  development,  and  political support  of  the  market development,  all  these  resulted  in  the  revolution  in  the  industry  started  in 2008-2009. By the year 2009 the market share of electronic trade made up 1.6% of the country’s GDP ($9.5bln). In 2011 in Russia has been registrated more than 30000  on-line  shops,  their  audience  was  estimated  to  be  14mln  people  (29%  of Russian  Internet  users).  One  year  later,  in  2012  the  volume  of  electronic  trade made up $13bln (3.7% of Russian GDP) with number of internet shops of 48000. Cross-border  e-commerce  is  less  developed.  By  2012  only  million  Russian customers bought goods from foreign on-line shops.

By  the  end  of  2013  the  market  share  of  physical  goods  in  the  electronic trade  was  67%.  The  most  popular categories  of  goods  are  household  appliances &  electronics  (107  bln  rub),  clothing  &  footwear  (76  bln  rub), computers, notebooks and computer parts (56 bln rub). You can see it in Table 2 -1.

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2.2 Development of B2C e-commerce between Russia and China

2.2.1 History of the development

Russia  has  always  been  rich  in  natural  resources,  but,  due  to  misbalance d economic  system,  it  is  experiencing shortage  of  food  products,  household appliances  and  day-to-day  goods.  Whereas  China  has  always  experiencing shortage in natural resources. In this case, Chinese revolutionary development of manufacturing  sector  makes  two countries  perfect  for  successful  partnership  in the sphere of cross-border electronic trade. 

This  partnership  is  very  young.  It  started  only  a  few  years  ago  with  the opening  of  first  B2C  on-line platforms  like  AliExpress  and  Osell.  At  the  same time,  many  small  regional  web-sites  began  to  appear.  Those web-sites  basically translated  catalogs  from  Taobao  and  Tmall  and  posted  offerings  of  Chinese sellers. 

2.2.2 Current status

The  situation  on  the  cross-border  e-commerce  market  is  changing  rapidly. Due  to  the  economic  crisis  in  Russia at  the  end  of  2014,  when  ruble  had  fallen nearly 40 percent against the euro, European companies are losing their share on the Russian  e-commerce  market.  As a result China is taking  the  lead.  East -West Digital  News  (EWDN) found  that  about  70  percent  of packages  shipped to Russian  consumers  from abroad  this  year  came  from China  (only  40  percent in 2013).

The main reason is that with the ruble having fallen tremendously this year, Russian consumers became ever more conscious abou t the price of goods that has always  been  one  of  the  main  competitive  advantages  of  Chinese retailers. However,  even  as  they  dominated  by number  of packages  shipped,  Chinese players'  relatively  cheaper goods  took  only  50  percent  of total  revenues  in the cross-border sector this year.

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Chapter 3 Quantitative analysis of the influencing factors in the development of China-to-Russia B2C e-commerce trade ............ 31

3.1 INDEX .......................... 31

3.2 RESEARCH MODEL .............. 35

3.3 QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN  .................... 36

3.3.1 Customer survey questionnaire design ............... 36

3.3.2 Sampling for the Russian customers .................. 37

Chapter 4 Discussion on the research results and strategic recommendations .... 53

4.1 DISCUSSION OF RESEARCH RESULTS .............. 53

4.1.1 Demographic factor................... 53

4.1.2 Language barrier factor ................. 54

4.1.3 Searching engines .......... 54

4.1.4 Cultural factor ............... 55

Chapter 4 Discussion on the research results and strategic recommendations

4.1 Discussion of research results

4.1.1 Demographic factor

4.1.1.1 Customers’ survey results

In  our  research  we  investigated  4  demographic  factors  of  the  customers: gender, age, monthly income and education level. According to these factors, the demographic portrait of a common person who buys on -line from a foreign shop is  a  woman  20-30  years  old  with  a  monthly  income  from  30  to  100  thousands rubles  and master’s degree. Men are a little less engaged into on -line  shopping than  woman. People  younger  than  20  years old probably  do  not  have  sufficient money to shop from foreign stores and people older than 50 years old are not so good with  internet  technologies  and  the  process  of  buying  on-line,  not mentioning the lack of proficiency in foreign languages.

Monthly  income  is  an  important  factor  as  well,  which  says  that  people whose monthly income is less than 30 thousand rubles do not tend to spend it on on-line shopping. Whereas the more they earn, the more can be spent on -line.

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Conclusion

On-line  shopping is  developing tremendously  these last  years,  especially in the  developing  countries.  Russia  and China  become  key  strategic  partners  in many  spheres  and  international  e-commerce  is  one  of  them.  However this partnership  is  very  young  and  a  lot  of  problems  can  stop  it  from  successful development.  So  the  main purpose  of  this  research  was  to  identify  the  main factors  influencing  development  of  China -to-Russia  electronic trade  in  B2C sector and develop strategies I order to overcome the main barriers.

In this  research  scientific  papers and  statistical reviews  on the Russian and China-to-Russia  e-commerce  B2C market have  been  analyzed,  in  order  to identify  the  factors,  influencing  different  aspects  of  market  development.  The model of factors has been created.   The  model  consists  of  7  groups  of  factors: social  (age,  education,  and revenue),  cultural  (cultural  differ ences,  language barrier),  infrastructural  (searching  engines,  marketing  tools, payment  systems, delivery  systems, internet  coverage), legal (government regulations and  customs procedures), personal  (trust  issues,  experience),  geopolitical  (government agreements  and  political  situation),  economic (economic  situation  in  the countries). 

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