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 (e-commerce) is profoundly impacting and changing how business is conducted. It presents enormous opportunities for businesses and consumers throughout the world. While business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce 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 B2C e-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 online 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 online retail but also the value-added services in the four phases forming the B2C e-commerce value chain. In addition, this model illustrates the key factors in B2C e-commerce strategies. This paper presents an efficient approach for analyzing B2C activities and the key factors in these strategies under the current economic conditions in China. 8848net, an online retailer in China, is used to demonstrate the analytic utility of the object-oriented model.