1Introduction
In the 1990s, the development and application of computer technology and Internet technology gave birth to the new trade model of e-commerce. The emergence of e-commerce has effectively improved the efficiency of negotiation, contracting, transaction, settlement and logistics of trade business between countries, broadened the collection channels of international market information, and played an important and positive role in the development of international trade of each country. Of course, the rapid development of e-commerce, while promoting the rapid development of trade in various countries, has also brought challenges to the development of traditional trade. How to take effective measures to give full play to the advantages of e-commerce in the increasingly competitive international trade market has become a key topic of research.
2 Analysis of the current situation of e-commerce development in China
2.1 Infrastructure
In simple terms, e-commerce is essentially a trade and business activity based on the medium of electronic devices and the use of Internet information. China’s relatively mature network information technology and Internet technology application system has promoted the rapid development of e-commerce in China. Data show that the total number of websites in China has surged since 2006, and the total number of domain names in China has reached 277,000 by 2019, and the number of IPV4 addresses and cell phone users has also increased exponentially, which shows that China’s Internet infrastructure is improving continuously and provides a strong guarantee for the development of e-commerce in China.
2.2 Practitioners
With the continuous development and maturity of e-commerce in China, more and more people have started to engage in e-commerce industry, and the number of practitioners in China’s e-commerce industry has been increasing. Data show that by 2015, the direct staff engaged in e-commerce in China was nearly 2.5 million, and indirectly created nearly 20 million jobs, which shows that the vigorous development of e-commerce in China has an important positive role in alleviating the pressure of employment in China, and its role in promoting the healthy development of our national economy has become more and more prominent.
2.3 Transaction scale
Against the background of the development of world economic integration, the transaction scale of e-commerce in China has been expanding. Data show that by the end of 2015, the market scale of e-commerce in China was nearly RMB 13 trillion, an increase of 23.34% year-on-year, after which the transaction scale of e-commerce in China grew steadily, with an average annual growth of nearly RMB 2 trillion. In addition, according to the survey data of the number of people using cell phones for online shopping in China, by the end of 2016, the number of people using cell phones for online shopping in China was 25 million; by the end of 2019, the number of people using cell phones for online shopping in China has grown to 23,000,000, especially in 2017, 2018 and 2019, the number of people using cell phones for online shopping in China has grown rapidly, and the usage rate of using cell phones for online shopping has grown from 37.8% in 2016 to 55.70% in 2019.
3 Analysis of the impact of e-commerce development on China’s foreign trade
3.1 The role of e-commerce on the main body of foreign trade
Under the traditional transaction mode, the trade subjects between countries mainly obtain the difference in trade resources by meeting each other’s resource needs, and then obtain trade profits. However, with the continuous development and improvement of e-commerce, the application of foreign trade has become more widespread, and more enterprises have chosen to use e-commerce as a trade model to provide online marketing services to their customers in order to reduce operating costs. The use of e-commerce business model not only improves the quality of the enterprise’s own services, but also enhances the economic benefits of the enterprise.
3.2 The impact of e-commerce on foreign trade
The trade mode of e-commerce has revolutionized the form of China’s foreign trade. Under the influence of e-commerce mode, the form of China’s foreign trade has changed in terms of the communication mode and payment form. Under the traditional trade mode, the participants of trade mainly use letters and agreements to complete communication and transactions, but under the e-commerce mode, the participants of trade mainly use network information technology to realize communication and transactions, and the participants of trade can complete the communication and transactions of the whole trade through new forms such as e-mail, which greatly improves the communication and transaction efficiency of the participants of trade and is helpful to reduce It has a positive effect on reducing the cost and improving the economic efficiency of all trade participants.
3.3 The impact of e-commerce on the budget of foreign trade enterprises
The effective control of cost is an important step to enhance the economic efficiency of foreign trade enterprises in China when they apply the e-commerce platform. First, in traditional foreign trade, foreign trade enterprises need to use different ways to obtain trade resource information, but in the e-commerce mode, foreign trade enterprises can use the network technology to quickly collect the effective information needed by the enterprises, which greatly improves the efficiency and quality of obtaining effective trade information and is of great significance to reduce the operating costs of foreign trade enterprises. Secondly, in traditional foreign trade, trade participants need to determine the form of trade payment when trade is conducted, to ensure the smooth conduct of trade, often also requires the trade parties to pay a certain fee, and the use of e-commerce platform, for the trade parties to save a lot of negotiation costs, to effectively control the foreign trade enterprise budget, costs, etc. has positive significance.
4 E-commerce for China’s international trade development to bring new advantages
4.1 Significantly reduce the cost of international trade
International trade, compared with domestic trade, requires a large number of documents, and the processing of these documents often cost a lot of money. For example, information shows that in 1996, miscellaneous expenses in the form of paper documents accounted for 7% of the total world trade, nearly $350 billion. The use of e-commerce platform for international trade activities, you can reduce about 90% of the document processing costs, and help to improve the efficiency of the delivery of documents and settlement of foreign exchange, for enterprises, but also effectively improve their own capital turnover rate, which is conducive to control trade transaction costs.
4.2 Significantly improve the efficiency of the transaction
In the traditional international trade, the two sides of the trade from the communication to the completion of trade payment, are required to complete manually, a link to complete the need to spend a lot of time costs, and once a link error, will directly affect the completion of the entire trade time. The use of e-commerce platform makes the trade participants can use network technology to transmit and sign various electronic documents, which not only improves the efficiency of trade completion, but also avoids the probability of errors generated by manual input and improves the efficiency of transactions.
4.3 All-weather business operation to improve customer satisfaction
All-weather business operation is an important feature of the e-commerce platform that is better than the traditional international trade model. Under traditional international trade, enterprises need to spend high costs to provide customers with 24-hour services, but the use of e-commerce platform makes it possible for enterprises to provide real-time services to customers in every country in the world around the clock with the help of e-commerce platform. It can be said that the number of orders obtained by enterprises and the efficiency of transactions are significantly improved under the e-commerce mode.
4.4 Reduce trade barriers and increase trade opportunities
The openness of Internet technology helps reduce trade barriers and expand trade opportunities. The emergence of e-commerce trade model is of great significance to promote international economic integration. Domestic enterprises, through the application of e-commerce platform, constantly broaden the international market, strengthen the communication and cooperation with foreign enterprises, and create a broader space for the development of enterprises.
5 Main problems of e-commerce in China in the process of foreign trade development
5.1 Insufficient awareness of e-commerce
Although China’s foreign trade enterprises have invested more efforts to enhance the application capability of enterprise e-commerce, some of China’s foreign trade enterprises still have the shortcoming of insufficient awareness of e-commerce and still adopt the traditional trade model, but build an effective international e-commerce platform, resulting in the increasing competitive pressure on enterprises.
5.2 The application environment is not perfect
From the perspective of China’s foreign trade enterprises, many small foreign trade enterprises are difficult to apply e-commerce platform due to the lack of sufficient funds and talents. From the national level, China’s laws and regulations for international trade are still not perfect, and it is difficult to define the illegal and irregular problems that appear in some international trade. For example, in the e-commerce trade model, the identification and use of the authenticity of e-commerce documents used by both sides of the trade has become a problem for foreign trade enterprises.
6 Countermeasure suggestions
6.1 Enrich the function of e-commerce platform
From a macro perspective, the government should promote e-commerce, and as foreign trade enterprises, they should also strengthen their own application of e-commerce platform. By building an effective e-commerce platform, the application function of e-commerce platform is constantly expanded. For example, through the application of information technology to circumvent the drawbacks of traditional foreign trade management; the use of ERP system to save enterprise procurement costs, etc., to give full play to the advantages of e-commerce platform and enhance the economic benefits of enterprise international trade.
6.2 Build a humanized international system
The construction of CRM can not only reduce the dependence of foreign trade enterprises on business workers, but also broaden the collection of trade information based on the system to complete the communication with customers’ product management and marketing information, thus providing better services to customers. In addition, the construction of CRM is of great significance to the implementation of enterprise development strategies. In international trade, enterprises face more complex situations, differences in language, culture, customs, etc. intensify the communication between foreign trade enterprises and international customers, and the construction of CRM allows enterprises to fully respect the realities of each country, the premise of the enterprise’s own advantages, to provide customers with high-quality services.
6.3 Strengthen e-commerce security
Strengthening e-commerce security is an important step to give full play to the advantages of e-commerce trade. On the one hand, the security of e-commerce can be gradually improved by upgrading the level of electronic technology. For example, the use of digital certificates to determine the identity of both sides of international trade, the use of asymmetric secret key cryptography to enhance the security of trade information transmission. On the other hand, the risk awareness of practitioners can be strengthened by enhancing the professionalism of practitioners. In addition, government departments should improve laws and regulations to provide a good practice environment for e-commerce trade.