The Expanded Edition of Marco Gervasi’s East-Commerce, with a New Chapter and Fresh Content Offering a Rare Glimpse of E-Commerce in the East
China’s technological, and perhaps even industrial development, have been driven by models from the West. The last few years have seen a dramatic change in how products are developed. As Chinese corporations mature, they begin to look deeper at consumer needs, and become very adept at evolving existing business and technological models into new business models that look very little like their Western counterparts.
East-Commerce: A Journey Through China E-Commerce and the Internet of Things tells the compelling and instructive tale of how China has created a super connected world that is now taking over Asia, Africa and will soon influence the West. Written by Marco Gervasi, an expert on China e-commerce and Internet of Things (IoT), the book takes readers behind the scenes of how e-commerce and IoT revolution unfolds in the East and tells the story of how a country and its underdogs bet on themselves, developed ideas, assembled teams and launched the next big thing.
In the book, Gervasi points out that despite Western assumptions, Silicon Valley’s Internet and e-commerce startups are no longer the sole sources of business-model disruption. For the first time, they are about to be challenged by a new non-Western model: China e-commerce.
China is now the biggest Internet and e-commerce market in the world with over 650 million users (almost three times the number in the United States). It has also become the biggest hardware producer and consumer in the world, and is poised the Internet of Things revolution.
“Internet and e-commerce are so important to China despite how much the GDP will grow,” Gervasi writes. “They have become part of this new consumers’ culture, enhancing their life through virtualization and have brought an irreversible change.”
East-Commerce includes many interesting observations from the author’s perspective. Most importantly, it addresses a pressing question that relentlessly concerns investors and markets: “Is China’s e-commerce massive growth sustainable?” or in other words, “What happens if the economy stops growing?”
The new chapter entitled “The Connected Brand” includes fresh topics mainly, offline-to-online (O2O) trend; discussing how flagship stores combine with online sales, and cross-border e-commerce; detailing its issues and opportunities.
Readers will find the book accessible and simple. It covers a brief history of China’s e-commerce, its ecosystem and business models in a nutshell. Through a firsthand and insightful story, the book offers fascinating observations suggesting why Chinese e-commerce is unique. Other highlights include, China’s e-commerce flash selling, which focuses on luxury products and how social is embedded in the business models.
This eye-opening treatment allows readers a rare glimpse into how China will shape the global online world for the next decade.
East Commerce is based on more than 200 interviews with Asia’s e-commerce entrepreneurs and their biggest investors, including: Tencent, Alibaba, Xiaomi, Yihaodian, Cogobuy, Kuaidi Taxi, Rocket Internt, Snapdeal, Tokopedia, DST Global, Credit Suisse, UBS, and many more.
East-Commerce: China E-Commerce and the Internet of Things is now available at all major bookstores and online retailers.
Marco Gervasi is one of the world’s leading experts on China e-commerce and IOT. He is the founder and managing director of The Red Synergy, where he provides management consulting assistance to leading international and Chinese companies, venture capital funds, and Internet platforms investing both in and out of China. Marco has over twelve years of senior corporate management experience in China. A graduate of Singularity University in Mountain View, Ca. where he earned a degree on Exponential Technologies, he also advises leading Chinese companies on how to become exponential organizations. Marco is a keynote speaker at international conferences on technology, a guest writer for various newspapers and magazines both in Asia and Europe, and an active technology blogger (www.marcogervasiwrites.com). He has a dual degree in Law and Chinese Studies from Università Statale of Milan. He lives in Shanghai.
Melissa Connors, Publicity Manager
WILEY
mconnors@wiley.com