"Digital and real integration" has become an accelerator for the future development of e-commerce

E-commerce is an important part of the digital economy and the real economy, and an important force
to promote national economic and social development.
From January to October 2022, the national online retail sales of physical goods increased by 7.
2% year-on-year, driving market sales growth by more than 1.
5 percentage points, and online consumption and offline retail showed a steady growth trend
.
According to the "China E-commerce Report (2021)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") released by the Ministry of Commerce, in 2021, the national e-commerce transaction volume reached 42.
3 trillion yuan, and the online retail sales of physical goods accounted for 24.
5% of the total retail sales of consumer goods, and China maintained its position as
the world's largest online retail market for nine consecutive years.
The report believes that e-commerce has achieved remarkable results in helping to stabilize growth, promote consumption, ensure employment and benefit people's livelihood, while new models such as instant retail are driving the sustainable growth
of e-commerce.

Stimulate consumption vitality

Scan the QR code to see the traceability information of agricultural products at a glance; Walking into the live broadcast room, you can visit small shops across the country without leaving home.
.
.
The "Report" shows that in recent years, major e-commerce companies have increased investment in technology, accelerated the pace of technological application innovation, and effectively promoted the comprehensive innovation
of science and technology in the commercial field.
This innovation means that e-commerce can bring consumers a multi-layered, personalized shopping experience
.
Innovations in formats such as instant retail are constantly stimulating consumption vitality, driving the quality and upgrading of online retail, and helping to build a unified national market
.

In the early years, Ouyang Min, who lives in Wuhan, Hubei Province, was always not satisfied
with the flow of online shopping.
"In the past, when buying something online, you had to reserve four or five days of logistics and delivery time
when placing an order.
Nowadays, logistics has improved a lot, online shopping can view the order progress and express location in real time, some logistics companies have also built intelligent warehousing systems, using robots to improve the efficiency of goods sorting, many things arrive in two or three days or even the same day
.
Ouyang Min said
.

For Jin Fengying, a retired teacher who lives in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, the age of 70 does not prevent her from becoming a regular online shopper
.
"After retiring, I studied mobile shopping
at the University of the Elderly.
Initially, I mainly used the 'big print' feature
launched by e-commerce platforms for the elderly.
Now, many e-commerce platforms have launched the elder mode and intelligent voice function to serve the elderly, and if you encounter any problems, you can speak directly to the mobile phone, and the intelligent assistant can basically solve the problem, and online shopping has become
smoother.
She said
.

Ouyang Rihui, deputy director of the China Internet Economy Research Institute of the Central University of Finance and Economics, believes that instant retail is born from demand, rooted in local physical offline retailers, local manufacturers and local brands will usher in new opportunities
.
In short, the just-in-time retail model leaves demand, supply, and fulfillment all locally, leaving traffic and benefits to physical stores
.

Innovative consumption scenarios

"Internet +" stimulates new momentum in the service industry, breaks the time and space restrictions between the supply and demand sides of service consumption, and accelerates the release of the growth potential of the service consumption market
.
The report shows that the popularization and application of various new technologies has enabled e-commerce to more accurately reflect consumer demand, provide products and services more quickly, and more effectively connect consumption and production
.

Under the trend of "takeaway and delivery", more and more physical stores increase revenue
through instant retail.
The front-end of real-time retail connects consumers, and the back-end connects offline physical retailers or self-owned front-end warehouses, meeting the immediate needs
of consumers through an efficient distribution system.
According to the Report, as of December 2021, the scale of China's foreign sales users reached 544 million, accounting for 52.
7%
of the total netizens.
Instant retail services represented by fresh food, supermarkets and pharmaceuticals have developed rapidly, the proportion of various non-catering take-out businesses is expanding, and the take-out platform has also developed from a platform based on catering delivery to a platform for "everything delivered to home"
.
According to data from retail platform Meituan, the transaction volume of convenience stores and supermarkets on the platform increased by 54% from January to July this year, of which the increase in mom-and-pop stores was as high as 110%.

According to Li Mingtao, chief expert of e-commerce at China International Electronic Commerce Center, the large online market that maintains stable growth provides a good development environment
for manufacturers, brands, distributors and other enterprises.
At the same time, with the support of digital technology, e-commerce shows the characteristics of communityization, data, and speed, and can also enable the suppliers of products and services to have a more accurate insight into user needs, so as to realize customized production of products and improve the flexibility of the supply chain, so as to maximize the role
of promoting high-level economic development.

The growth potential is huge

As an important part of the digital economy and the real economy, the role of e-commerce in economic development is becoming increasingly prominent
.
According to enterprise investigation data, as of November 25, 2022, there were more than 13 million e-commerce-related enterprises in the country
.
From the perspective of the registered address of existing enterprises, Haikou has the largest number of registered e-commerce-related enterprises, reaching 673,000, ranking first in the country; Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Jinhua, Longyan, Shanghai and other cities also have more existing e-commerce-related enterprises, all with more than
500,000.

The "Report" shows that a series of central and local policies and measures to promote the standardized, healthy and sustainable development of e-commerce have provided strong support
for releasing the vitality of "digital and real integration" and promoting the development of e-commerce.

For example, the "14th Five-Year Plan for E-commerce Development" issued by the Ministry of Commerce and other departments specifically gives specific measures
to support the innovation and development of e-commerce in many aspects, such as strengthening technological application innovation, creating new scenarios of digital life consumption, enriching new supply of online life services, meeting new demand for offline life services, promoting the digital transformation of supply chains, and promoting the high-level development and utilization of data elements.

Another example is that Heilongjiang has formulated standard documents such as the "Specifications for Credit Evaluation of Live E-commerce", which has effectively promoted the rapid development of new e-commerce formats and models; Zhejiang promotes the digital transformation of the life service industry and drives the iterative upgrading of residents' online consumption; Shanghai has promoted Yuyuan Mall and Xujiahui Business District to build comprehensive large-scale digital business district scenes, and initially built sub-scenarios such as smart shopping guide and precision marketing; Gansu actively encourages the transformation of traditional commercial enterprises, and gradually forms a digital business circulation system covering the upstream and downstream of the e-commerce industry chain and cross-industry integration.
.
.

The relevant person in charge of Douyin e-commerce said that with the deepening of the integration and development of the digital economy and the real economy, the role of new e-commerce formats such as short videos and live streaming goods in the process of industrial digitalization and digital industrialization has become increasingly prominent
.
With the support of relevant policies, Douyin e-commerce is systematically and large-scale through the "Industrial Growth Plan" to help small and medium-sized businesses in the industrial belt and enhance the popularity of
local characteristic products.
At present, the plan has covered 68 regions
in more than 20 provinces across the country.
"In the past year, Douyin e-commerce has helped 2.
83 billion agricultural specialties to be sold across the country, and 31.
95 million hours
of agricultural products have been explained in the e-commerce live broadcast room.
" The person in charge said that Douyin will continue to promote "digital and real integration" and strengthen the e-commerce business
.

"Judging from the data of Singles' Day, business and social systems are now moving towards comprehensive and deep real-time digital interconnection
.
Through years of practice, we have accumulated a set of digital capabilities covering consumption decision-making, transactions, payments, and fulfillment, making business resource scheduling more efficient
.
For example, Alibaba's systems such as 'Lingyang' and 'Soaring Elephant' are digitally interconnected with merchants and third-party systems in real time, which can optimize the whole process experience of consumers and improve the efficiency
of merchants' operations.
Cheng Li, chief technology officer of Alibaba Group, said that making good use of various support policies to better integrate the digital economy and the real economy through technology is an important direction
that Alibaba is constantly working on.

Li Mingtao pointed out that e-commerce has created rich scenarios and strong impetus
for the integration of the digital economy and the real economy.
Promoting "digital and real integration" has always been an important direction
of policy.
In the future, on the basis of setting up a "traffic light" for the development of e-commerce, we should fully tap the capabilities and potential of e-commerce enterprises in cloud computing, big data, warehousing and supply chain facilities, distribution services, etc.
, and continuously expand new space
for the high-quality development of China's economy.

(Gao Na comprehensive collation)

China Food News(Version 07, December 09, 2022)

(Editor-in-charge: Gao Na).