How to reduce the transaction cost of e-commerce

I. Costs incurred by enterprises in implementing e-commerce The costs incurred by enterprises in implementing e-commerce are the costs incurred by enterprises in building, applying and operating e-commerce systems. Without these costs, enterprises will not be able to implement e-commerce and gain the benefits of e-commerce. These costs should include: 2. The cost of purchasing and maintaining hardware and software. Enterprises must have certain computers, servers, switches, networks and other hardware as carriers to implement e-commerce; You must also have relevant e-commerce software to complete its functions. Hardware can usually be purchased from computer companies. Software can buy mature commercial software, or entrust other units or their own organizations to develop their own characteristics. After the operation of e-commerce system, the hardware and software must be maintained daily to ensure its normal operation. Nowadays, the upgrading of computer technology is faster and faster, and the hardware equipment configured by enterprises will soon become obsolete and be replaced by new hardware with stronger functions, faster speed and better compatibility. At the same time, the functions of computer software are becoming more and more convenient and powerful, and the standards followed are getting higher and higher. In order to catch up with the trend of the times and seize fleeting business opportunities, enterprises must update their e-commerce systems in time under the influence of information system path dependence. 3. Systematic human capital investment. After the implementation of e-commerce system, it is necessary to equip relevant personnel and establish relevant institutions to be responsible for the daily operation of the system. These people need to spend selection costs when recruiting, receive education and training after entering the enterprise, and need to pay wages. 4. Transaction costs. Enterprises also need to generate costs when conducting business activities with other enterprises through e-commerce system, which mainly consists of three parts: (1) the costs incurred to ensure the validity of the contract before signing the contract, such as the investigation expenses of the other party; (2) The expenses incurred in the process of signing the contract, such as the expenses incurred by both parties in the process of bargaining, drafting the contract, negotiating the terms of the contract and finally signing the contract; (3) Expenses incurred in supervising the execution of the contract after signing the contract. 5. Protection cost of e-commerce system. Nowadays, more and more enterprises have established e-commerce systems, and the degree of information enjoyment among enterprises is getting higher and higher. However, in order to ensure their competitive advantage, enterprises have their own proprietary technology and information. The difference between proprietary technology and information and non-proprietary technology and information lies in their exclusivity. The open network environment provides a convenient door for business spies and hackers to steal corporate secrets. Therefore, after establishing its own e-commerce system, enterprises must establish special systems, special equipment and software to prevent the information in the system from being stolen and leaked. The higher the confidentiality of the system, the higher the corresponding cost. Second, the cost that enterprises should avoid in implementing e-commerce is the cost generated by enterprises in the process of establishing and operating e-commerce systems, which is a direct occurrence. But there are still some costs, which are not obvious and belong to indirect costs. Enterprises must prevent and avoid these indirect costs. L, the negative cost of institutional path dependence. Enterprises will not change easily after establishing a good e-commerce system. If the technology is updated, it will only take the path of similar technology. The positive effect of systematic path dependence on enterprises is to help enterprises accumulate experience and win in the competition. However, the path dependence of the system also has negative effects, that is, it is inevitable to resist the new, more effective and different technologies of the original system. This is not conducive to the introduction of new and more effective technologies, and is actually an automatic abandonment of new efficiency. This is an opportunity loss, which constitutes the indirect cost of the enterprise. Because if the competitors of enterprises adopt this technology, they will have a higher competitive advantage. 2. The cost of operation technology does not match. Undeniably, the informatization process and information technology level of enterprises in China are mixed, and there is a big gap. Even in the same enterprise, there is a problem that different grades of operating systems and management methods are mixed. Some enterprises have quite advanced equipment, but they don't adopt corresponding management methods, which makes a lot of work still stay in manual mode, which is a typical sign of the gap between China enterprises and foreign advanced enterprises. In this case, enterprises will inevitably lead to double pay: first, because the treatment methods are primitive and backward, the advanced system is buried in the old operation mode, and the original input becomes sunk cost; The second is the management difficulty brought by different treatment methods, and the extra coordination cost brought by this difficulty. 3. Make up the cost of information flow trap. The information flow trap is a special reflection of the asymmetry of information supply and information demand in enterprises. With the development of modern information network technology, more information flow channels are opened and the supply of information is greatly increased. Due to the lack of effective information demand, there has been a flood of information. At this time, if the enterprise does not have corresponding information processing methods, it will cause the information liquidity trap: on the one hand, the strong market information demand of the enterprise is faced with a large number of information that is flooded, inapplicable or unusable; On the other hand, enterprises have a strong sense of demand for market and technical information, but their information consumption capacity is insufficient, which affects the transformation from demand awareness to actual demand action. Third, the changing trend of the cost of implementing e-commerce in enterprises With the continuous emergence of new technologies, the pace of Internet development is getting faster and faster, so that the cost of implementing e-commerce in enterprises has the following changing trend: 1, and the absolute amount of e-commerce cost in modern enterprises has an increasing trend. The trend of increasing the absolute amount of e-commerce costs means that the total amount of e-commerce costs is much faster than other costs of enterprises. This is because with the increase of enterprises implementing e-commerce, economies of scale have emerged, and e-commerce has brought more and more benefits to enterprises, and its cost-benefit ratio is higher than the average cost-benefit ratio of enterprises, that is, the increase of the total cost of e-commerce will not affect the improvement of enterprise income, but will help improve enterprise efficiency. 2. The hardware input cost of e-commerce is relatively low, while the software input cost tends to increase. Due to the progress of technology, the performance of hardware has a trend of continuous improvement, while its price is declining. The relative reduction of hardware input cost means that the absolute value of hardware input has increased compared with the past, but the cost of software input has not increased as fast. Software input cost mainly refers to the expenses related to e-commerce such as software and information services, information exchange, and personnel information processing ability training. When doing business with enterprises, customers are exposed to software, but what is hidden behind it is hardware. So now software is the key to determine whether an enterprise's e-commerce system is effective or not, and its position in the e-commerce system is getting higher and higher. The increasing trend of its cost not only means the absolute amount of software input cost, but also means the increasing trend relative to hardware. 3. The cost of correction, protection and upgrade tends to increase. Correcting the cost expenditure in e-commerce system can prevent information flooding and false information, thus making the information reliable and true. When enterprises introduce external information into their operations, it is inevitable that there will be deformities or even mistakes, and then they need to pay the cost of correction. Nowadays, there are more and more excessive and false information on the Internet, which requires enterprises to increase the cost of error correction. The competition between modern enterprises is becoming more and more fierce, and the competitors of enterprises always try their best to collect or even steal the confidential information of enterprises. In order to prevent the confidential information of enterprises from being stolen and leaked, enterprises must strengthen the security of e-commerce systems and increase the expenditure of security costs accordingly. In order to make e-commerce system more powerful, faster and more compatible, enterprises must pay the upgrade cost. The development of modern information technology is getting faster and faster, which makes the pace of enterprise e-commerce system upgrade faster and faster, and the corresponding upgrade cost expenditure also increases. In a word, the e-commerce cost of enterprises tends to increase, which directly affects the cost composition of enterprises and determines the benefits of enterprises. Therefore, it is necessary to carefully analyze every cost of e-commerce system and reduce expenditure as much as possible. Only in this way can we better improve the efficiency of enterprises.