Francis > I am doing some market research about how electronic commerce is > conducted between big retailers in the States and Europe and East Asian > suppliers. My understanding is that many of the Easy Asian (Chinese) > suppliers are realtively low-tech (computer-wise). I'm wondering how > order/shipment processing between those suppliers and the large > retailers is done now (we certainly are able to get our fair share of > Chinese goods in the States). Do people think there is a market > opportunity for a product to be used by small Chinese (for example) > suppliers to help them better hook to electronic documents required by > the big boys?
IMHO, no. All of my clients who import from China and ship to North American retail chains are already handling whatever EDI requirements that their Trading Partners are asking for.. They don't need to push those requirements back to China. Most of them visit the factories in China once or twice a year. The rest of the time, they use fax & email. Lead times on shipments from China are very long - weeks or months. Once the goods are on the boat, there's not much that can be done. That pretty much wipes out one of the main advantages of EDI - rapid response. The large retailers who are doing business with China already have whatever lines of communication they need in place. Of course, I only see the relationship from my clients' point of view.. There may be others, in different situations. Earl Wertheimer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.spe-edi.com ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <font face=arial size=-1><a href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12hsdr7gj/M=362329.6886308.7839368.1510227/D=groups/S=1705005582:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1123629935/A=2894321/R=0/SIG=11dvsfulr/*http://youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=1992 ">Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click and talk back!</a>.</font> --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> . Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix: <SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC> Access the list online at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
