However, more than dangdang’s impending acquisition, some online book retailers, led by Dangdang, seem to be struggling under the power of e-commerce giants such as JD.com and Tmall.
Silicon steps to thousands of miles: book e-commerce wins, many platforms help
In recent years, both offline physical bookstores and online book retail market, book sales pattern is quietly changing. China’s online book sales totaled 36.5 billion yuan in 2016, surpassing the 33.6 billion yuan of offline bookstores for the first time. This phenomenon is not accidental. From 2012 to 2016, the code of the domestic book retail market has been changing quietly. The code of the online book retail market has been rising year by year, but the growth of the physical bookstore market has been flat or even a downward trend.
All this is due to the rise of online bookstores. Dangdang, as the representative of online book retail, and some medium-sized self-operated online bookstores such as Interactive publishing network, 99 Reader, etc., as well as jingdong and Tmall, which integrated e-commerce into the office, jointly support the domestic online book retail market.
Dangdang, for example, was officially launched in 1999 and stole the limelight of online book retailers at that time. The lack of competitors do not say, but also go to the vertical book e-commerce this step. There were many glorious moments when I counted them. At the end of 2010, it successfully went public as the leader of book e-commerce, and has long occupied the title of the largest self-operated book e-commerce in China.
And enter the office books e-commerce market, dangdang’s success cannot leave three advantages. The first is to seize the barren period of domestic book e-commerce. At that time, the book e-commerce market was still in a blank period in China, dangdang seized the opportunity and took advantage of the opportunity to harvest many Internet users who had just come into contact with online shopping. And in the process of growth, Dangdang has become the first choice for many user groups to buy books online. Secondly, the low price of books quickly attracted the attention of many users; Finally there is the proprietary model. Dangdang’s self-run books have won the favor of many users, in the eyes of users, “self-run” means that the product has a guarantee of authenticity, and more thoughtful service. With the support of these three advantages, Dangdang has rapidly developed into a giant of domestic book e-commerce.
Take interactive publishing as an example. This is a medium-sized self-run online bookstore, founded in July 2000, the bureau time is earlier. As a more vertical online book retailer, Interactive publishing is mainly aimed at professional readers, founded by professional publishing companies.
More than ten years after entering the office, interactive publishing network has established itself in the field of professional education books at home and abroad by virtue of its natural advantages in traditional publishing genes and in the book e-commerce market, which is still in a blank period. First, interactive publishing network has rich resource advantages, and is committed to cooperating with a number of traditional publishing companies, opening up a new mode of cooperation between the network and the traditional publishing industry, and enhancing their comprehensive strength in book resources. Information shows that interactive publishing network has established cooperative relations with more than 500 publishing houses at home and abroad, covering more than 90% of the Chinese and English book market.
Second, interactive publishing networks provide readers with professional value-added services to meet the psychological demands of professional readers to acquire knowledge and improve themselves. Under this premise, INTERACTIVE publishing network has accumulated millions of professional users, which is enough to show its strength for a book e-commerce enterprise whose book products are heavily vertical.
In general, both Dangdang, which has grasped the opportunity to grow rapidly, and Interactive publishing, which comes out step by step, are the epitome of online book retailers. These e-commerce platforms aiming at online book retail have formed a collective of book e-commerce, and finally gained strength recently, successfully crushing physical bookstores and sitting on the throne of “the king of book retail”.
But then again, for dangdang this book e-commerce giant and in the e-commerce market is not too prominent interactive publishing network, in recent years the day is not so good. Under the pressure of the giants who enter the book field by comprehensive e-commerce, the disadvantages of these book e-commerce are gradually exposed to people.
There is a shadow under the light: the pain points are exposed when the giants are crushed
Although they jointly support the huge online book retail market and gradually overwhelm offline physical bookstores, from the reality, under the shadow of jingdong, Tmall and other latecomers of book e-commerce, these online book self-operated stores also have unspeakable “difficulties”.
According to Analysys, in the third quarter of 2017, the top three online retail book market shares were jingdong (36.2%), Dangdang (35.1%) and Tmall (17.5%), among which, Jingdong “crushed” Dangdang for the first time and became the first online book retailer. It can be seen that Dangdang, which once started as a book company, has gradually lost its advantage after the reshuffle of the Internet, and is being gradually pushed by large e-commerce platforms. Interactive publishing networks, which have been marginalised, are no longer big players in the retail market, let alone have much market share
Throughout Dangdang, not only the book business has been squeezed, but also the comprehensive e-commerce business that the business has expanded into has long been eaten by JD.com, Tmall and other branches of the vast majority of market share. Dangdang’s “pain” can be divided into the following points.
First of all, there is no initiative to explore new markets, no industry barriers. Although Dangdang originally aimed at the book market, but its business only around books, did not develop a larger market, so that now even the main book business has been left behind, quite a “short-sighted” meaning. Now dangdang, platform influence is not as good as before. Although Dangdang has been trying to reform its business and started to enter the field of comprehensive e-commerce, its development is obviously not as good as that of e-commerce giants and it is “eclipsed”. Few people remember that dangdang is also a comprehensive e-commerce now. Moreover, when Jingdong, Tmall and others have entered the logistics, finance and other fields, dangdang’s book business is too thin. And when people mention when, the first thing that comes to mind is only “online bookstore” this once proud business.
Secondly, the worrying privacy policy system is not perfect. A recent evaluation by southern Metropolis Daily of 100 popular shopping platforms in China showed that only 10 met the standard. Surprisingly, Dangdang, which has been established for many years and has a certain number of users, ranked at the bottom of the evaluation, and the degree of privacy policy is not proportional to its popularity. As a matter of fact, dangdang has been suspected of disclosing customer information in many cases during its operation. Moreover, dangdang has slacked off in handling such cases after complaints from customers, causing great losses to customers and losing its good image built up in consumers’ mind over the years.
Moreover, genuine advantage gradually lost. It should be noted that dangdang has been relying on the “genuine” advantage since entering the bureau, now it seems that it is no longer an advantage. After all, now almost every e-commerce company’s self-owned goods are genuine. For Dangdang, the advantage of genuine goods has gradually lost its voice under the pressure of other e-commerce giants.
Look at interactive publishing network again. After entering the market for more than ten years, few people know about it, which is a “fatal” blow to the online e-commerce platform which relies heavily on word of mouth. The inadequacy of interactive publishing network still depends on the following two aspects.
First, “success” is also vertical, “failure” is also vertical. Undeniably, interactive publishing network wins on the verticality of products, such as in science and technology, science and technology books and other professional fields, interactive publishing network appears some authority. However, its products are too vertical. After all, as an e-commerce platform specializing in selling professional books, INTERACTIVE Publishing has no strength to compete with other book e-commerce giants, so its existence is rarely known. It’s not easy to get people to stop on the Internet when there’s so much information available every day. Therefore, under the shadow of giants, interactive publishing network has not even gained the opportunity to cut a figure, it will “die” in itself is not well-known book e-commerce name.
Second, the ecosystem is thin. It has to be said that many e-commerce companies have the problem of too thin ecological system. As a senior player of book e-commerce, interactive publishing Network still has a thin ecological system, lacking logistics and storage construction, and even website development is three points “amateur” than other companies. In this way, interactive publishing network successfully “hide” itself. It should be noted that sometimes comprehensive strength is also the key factor to attract users.
Therefore, under the strength of the comprehensive e-commerce giants, Dangdang and Interactive publishing are not as big as the comprehensive e-commerce, and their vitality seems to be weaker than the comprehensive e-commerce. These lingering pain points stand in the way of both.
After the storm there is still darkness: it is hard to pick up the momentum and slow down
In general, the book e-commerce market has unlimited potential, but in this e-commerce market where the law of the jungle is the law of the jungle, the lack of comprehensive strength makes Dangdang and Interactive publishing “neglected”. Both of them have their differences, but also face the fate of being “hidden”. In the current book e-commerce market, the long operation time of the website is hardly an attractive factor to retain users. Maintaining freshness as always is the key to attract users to stop. In other words, book e-commerce should not only rely on strength to speak, but also build a strong market credibility, so as to gain a firm foothold in the book market.
However, when the Internet demographic dividend disappears, when it is too late to develop comprehensive strength, dangdang and Interactive publishing, except sigh, the other path seems not so easy to go
Since its launch, Dangdang has successfully gone through a cycle, from vertical e-commerce to comprehensive e-commerce and then to vertical e-commerce. Dangdang seems to have come back to the origin, and this origin is not as brilliant as before, but lost its luster under the shadow of giants, and has no ability to fight back. And the interactive publishing network, which has never been “prominent”, has “retreated from the background” before tasting the sweetness. The reasons behind this are that the pace of business development is too slow, and the negligence of the powerful Internet shuffling ability.
In the future, it will become another weight for enterprises to further expand the market by integrating the upstream and downstream industry chain with content publishing. But it can be foreseen that dangdang, interactive publishing network and other books e-commerce road, will only be in the occupation of giants, slow down, difficult to move forward.
Liu Kuang, meditation on the Internet, wechat official account: Liukuang110