The Research Of Market Structure And Competitive Behavior Of Group Shopping Via Internet In China

Along with the popularization of Internet, the change of people’s consume concept and the perfection of e-business ecosystem, the online shopping having been into the people’s life gradually. In November2008, Groupon was established in Chicago, depending on the clear model, it have got a success quickly, and become a new business model of online group-buying. The31st Development Statistics Report of the China Internet shows that, by the end of2012, China’s users of online group-buying have been83.27million, the utilization rates have up to14.8%, and compared with the number of the end of2010-18.75million, it has growed with229.7%. China Electronic Commerce Research Center provides the Detection Report of China Online Group-buying Market’s Data, and it shows that by the end of2012, the scale of our country’s online group-buying market has reached34.885billion yuan, the statistics showed a year-on-year increase of61%sales. Many scholars have a growing interest in the online group-buying, they have studied the business model, the industry chain, the present situation of development, the consumer behavior, but no one has yet studied the industrial structure of our country’s online group-buying.Firstly, the article analysises the development course of group-buying of our country, and divide the development process of China’s group-buying industry into three stages. The first stage (September2002-Deccmber2009) is the embryonic stage. The second stage (January2010-July2011) is the cognitive stage. The third stage (2011August) is the growth stage. Then the article analyses the mainstream group-buying process of real goods and services in our country. Afterwards the paper analyses the competitive environment of the group-buying industry of our country witli the " Michael Porter’s Five Forces Model".and what the present situation of the competitive environment is.This study summarizes the experiences of the study of group-buying industry and the study of other industry with the Structure-Conduct-Performance Modcl.Then the article studies the market structure and competitive behavior of the group-buying industry in our country with the experiences.Market structure is the concept that reflects the relationship of market competition and monopoly. It is the basic factor that can determine the formation mode of the price and the competitive nature of industrial organization. When research the market structure, we chose three indexes, the market concentration degree, difference and entry and exit barriers. The conclusion is that the market structure of the group-buying industry in China also exists the possibility and space for further optimization. In the research, it analyses the price behavior and non-price behavior of the group-buying industry to study the competitive behavior. Especially in the non-price behavior, it mainly studies the financing behavior, advertising behavior, merger behavior and difference behavior. The competition of the industry is fierce, the competition means are similar, the internal regulation of the industry is poor. These lead to be excessive competition and poor profit space in the industry.Basic on the research of market structure and competitive behavior of our country group-buying industry, this article studies the relationship between the two and market performance. The study shows that market structure and competitive behavior have a significant effect to market performance of China’s group-buying via Internet industry.Finally, in view of the existing problems, the article puts forward the policy recommendations, in order to promoting the healthy development of group-buying industry.