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Last-mile Barriers Cripple E-commerce
Although China's Internet players are rushing to promote e-commerce as a creative business mode for the new economy, few of them can break through the last-mile barriers against on-line purchasing.
These barriers have been attributed to the lack of a standard credit system and an effective express network, two critical elements for the operation of on-line shopping and business transaction.
"The difficulties really exist, but we can not take an inactive attitude of waiting and seeing,'' said Chris Wong, chief executive officer with iLastMile.com Corp.
"The fast-changing Internet applications will contribute more to the country's economic development only if you utilize these applications to their full capacity.''
Wong said that e-commerce applications will greatly cut enterprise procurement costs and bolster the efficiency of business operations.
However, low-level computerization and inferior e-commerce infrastructure reduced Internet contributions to China's mass enterprises.
A recent report from the State Economic and Trade Commission (SETC) showed that although 70 per cent of the country's enterprises have connected with the Internet, most of them simply opened a homepage and an e-mail address.
The small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are primarily left out of the Internet accession, said the report.
"The SME's first benefit from the Internet is to obtain favorable business information and opportunities,'' said Wong.
"It's crucial to sharpen their competitive edges, especially those without Internet accession.''
The Internet benefits feature two main terms of unlimited information communications and e-commerce applications.
Wong's Website is designed to provide the last-mile services to help China's SMEs enjoy e-commerce benefits without necessarily logging onto the Internet.
"We know that the Internet is not available to many of the country's SMEs and our service is designed to achieve their last-mile accession to e-commerce,'' said Wong.
The iLastMile.com provides classified business information collected from both domestic and international sources for China's mass SMEs.
Wong said the website serves as an information bridge to help the SMEs find valuable business opportunities.
"Our registered customers do not necessarily need to surf the Internet, and we can offer their required information by the traditional ways of fax and mail express,'' said Wong.
The company is establishing a nationwide service network and will provide value-added services by extending information coverage to the international market.
Wong said that the business information on the website is usually updated by more than 2,000 items a day.
While many domestic e-commerce operators claim they will make profits in a few years, iLastMile.com seeks immediate profits.
"We will collect charge over every information we provide to our customers, so we're confident to make profits soon,'' said Wong.
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