An exploratory study on business-to-consumer electronic commerce in China

International businesses have utilized the Internet with innovative strategies to expand their market and customer bases. Electronic Commerce (eCommerce) is profoundly impacting and changing how business is conducted. It presents enormous opportunities for businesses and consumers throughout the world [1]. While Business-to-Consumer eCommerce has become an important issue with the rapid growth of Internet users, there are insufficient empirical research efforts concerning its status in China. This paper presents an object-oriented model for studying Business-to-Consumer electronic commerce activities and strategies in the Internet market environment of China. The model consists of four business activities (information, ordering, payment and delivery) which form the basic infrastructure for specialization in on-line retailing. It takes into account not only players in the current electronic market environment, but also core activities in the retail business process. This object-oriented model provides a foundation for analyzing not only the on-line retail but also the value-added services in the four phases forming the business-to-consumer electronic commerce value chain. In addition, this model illustrates the key factors in business-to-consumer eCommerce strategies. This paper presents an efficient approach for analyzing business-to-consumer activities and the key factors in these strategies under the current economic conditions of China. 8848net, an on-line retailer in China, will be used to demonstrate the analytic utility of the object-oriented model.