E-commerce: Double-edged sword in security market

Although the security industry started late in China, the development has been very rapid, especially in the past decade, it is even more unstoppable. Of course, the development of any industry to a certain extent, the bottleneck is inevitable, the problem will come one after another.

Recently, security industry experts have conducted fierce discussions on the “distribution” model. Some people believe that in addition to monitoring and access control systems, there are still many areas in the security industry that have been operating in direct sales, such as parking. There is no distribution model for field and building intercom. There are also some people who hold different opinions and believe that agency dealers exist regardless of the field.

Regardless of whether or not there are agency dealers, we believe that the current distribution model should break the traditional model. So, how can we expand the impact of corporate branding so that products can be widely advertised? To address this issue, some people mentioned e-commerce.

Discussion and development here, the development trend of e-commerce in the security industry, will inevitably become a hot topic in the event again.

Before talking about e-commerce in the security industry, let's talk about a little digression: It is reported that Taobao Insurance Channel was formally launched in early October 2011, and it has achieved online insurance premium calculations, purchases, payments, complete insurance and other Function, has a variety of service systems such as member system, point redemption, website alliance and so on. Moreover, there are already many insurance companies involved in the Taobao website, including Taikang Life, Sunshine Insurance, Huatai Insurance, Ping An Insurance, PICC P&C and so on.

Through this example, it was suggested that even the insurance industry can open up e-commerce marketing models and openly sell on the Taobao platform. Why can't the security industry?

Having said that, Xiao Bian thinks that the development of e-commerce in the security industry still faces many problems.

Problems faced by e-commerce development in the security industry Although many security devices are available on Taobao, security equipment is different from the general merchandise. After the completion of payment and confirmation of receipt, the transaction is over. To put it plainly, place an order, receive goods, confirm payment, this is only a small part of the security product transactions, and the next installation and maintenance is the most important part of the security equipment transaction process.

The traditional marketing model of the security industry is that the engineering firm directly connects with the user and is responsible for the product installation work. The maintenance is the responsibility of the manufacturer's after-sales service point. Therefore, for online transactions, the installation and after-sale maintenance work will bring certain difficulties to the development of e-commerce.

In addition, for the building intercom system and parking system, there are not many products appearing on Taobao. Xiao Bian analysis, this is because the difference between the monitoring and access control products, parking system and intercom system engineering vast, and many ways to solve the solution, even in the traditional marketing model, the phenomenon of single sale is rare, Coupled with the installation and maintenance issues, it ultimately constrains the development of the parking system and intercom system on the e-commerce platform. However, although it is difficult to develop, as long as we find a suitable entry point, strengthen corporate branding, increase brand awareness, and continue to innovate e-commerce models, any industry can achieve better development through the e-commerce platform.

E-commerce helps market transparency Since the introduction of security in China, for the entire security industry, security companies have kept their prices and core technologies secret. For this phenomenon, public companies are unaware of each other, which directly leads to market price confusion. The competition between enterprises is infighting, and the price war is one after another. There is no industry standard.

The emergence of e-commerce has broken this tradition. The open comparison of product prices not only benefits the user's choice, but also makes the security industry market transparent from another perspective, attracting the company's attention to product quality and marketing channels. on.

Security industry e-commerce development of several major advantages of e-commerce is only to provide businesses with a platform to display goods, breaking the previous security industry channel model, so that the marketing channel flat, so that between businesses and businesses, or between businesses and consumers can " Zero distance" contact. Compared with traditional channels, this marketing model has the following advantages:

First, end users benefit directly.

Due to the flattening of the marketing channels, the transparency of commodity transactions has increased, and the cost of sales has also been reduced. As a result, the purchase price of end users will fall.

Second, compared to physical stores, e-commerce is not limited by regions.

E-commerce breaks the gap between regional markets, but at the same time it does not change the way products are distributed. This has won the market for the enterprise. Enterprises can rely on their own strength to sell goods directly to users. This not only accelerates the sales process of the products, but also realizes the globalization of product sales.

Third, e-commerce is conducive to the stability of market prices.

The price of goods sold by modern enterprises on the Internet is transparent. Consumers can choose their own products that are more satisfactory by comparing the prices of their products. For consumers, they have a certain degree of initiative and selectivity, which not only ensures the consumers’ Benefits, but also companies can analyze the sales of goods to establish a reasonable price, so as to guide the company's product management.

Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages. Due to the special nature of security products compared to other products, it makes online transactions easier to install and maintain. As a result, another question arises: After the success of online trading, who will pay for the installation and maintenance of security products?

Security industry e-commerce trend who pay for after-sales?

Whether it is the horizontal B2B model or the vertical B2B or B2C model, the entry point for e-commerce development by security companies cannot be separated from the installation and maintenance of equipment.

Combining the globalization of e-commerce platforms, security companies are still in need of setting up service points throughout the country while conducting online e-commerce development. Only in this way can they be installed in place, maintained in time, and provide consumers with satisfactory quality services.

To sum up, the installation and maintenance of security products have been reasonably resolved, and it is the time for e-commerce development in the security industry.

Although the conclusion is that e-commerce is an inevitable trend of future development, it is also a gradual process. Security vendors should weigh the strength of their own companies, while doing a good job of off-line marketing channels and gradually start exploring the online marketing channels. If you act too rashly, you may not only fail to bring any benefit to the company. Instead, it will backfire and cause the company to fall into a predicament.