O2O Expo focuses on how such businesses benefit people's lives

 

A new wave of Internet companies, working on an online-to-offline (O2O) model, has been driving China's new e-commerce boom, and the government is eager to encourage them.

"By comparison, the current new wave of Internet commerce is more realistic than the previous one that happened in 2000, since technologies, such as Big Data and cloud computing, have been created and become more mature," said Lu Wei, secretary-general of the Internet Society of China (ISC), on Thursday, during the ongoing 2nd World O2O Expo held at the China National Convention Center.

Guests talk at a panel discussion of 2nd World O2O Expo held at the China National Convention Center on June 18, 2015 in Beijing. [Photo/Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

According to Lu, the policies implemented by the government to develop the Internet, mobile Internet and O2O aim to contribute to the economy and benefit people's livelihood.

According to the statistics revealed by Internet data service provider TalkingData, as of June this year, the O2O user scale has reached 750 million, or 65.2 percent of the entire mobile Internet population in China.

"In May, we've just announced that the number of house decoration foremen that registered on our 'Seek Foreman' O2O platform has reached ten thousand. We'll soon become the number one by turnover in the market," said He Yinyu, CEO of leju.com, a Chinese O2O real estate agent.

"The annual orders taken by the nation's largest home decoration company may reach thirty thousand, while we'll soon surpass this volume with our platform."

The firm recently launched the O2O platform named 'Seek Foreman', which created a bridge of communication between decoration workers and home residents via a mobile app. By using the app, the residents can monitor the entire home decorating process.

"We accessed the market by focusing on the 'last-mile delivery' for e-shoppers. For those who are not available when the delivery workers knock on their doors, we worked with convenient stores, laundries and community pharmacies close to the users to provide parcel-collection services," said Xu Jianwei, CEO of shouhuobao.com.

The event, jointly hosted by World O2O Organization (WOO) and Guanghe Capital, is one of the most influential O2O expos globally, and will attract more than 15,000 visitors and 2,000 companies from 15 countries in the world.

According to the organizer, with the theme of Innovation, Connection and Livelihood, the event will help international small and medium-sized O2O entrepreneurs succeed, making O2O benefit everyone's lifestyles.

Through Apps selection, large-scale exhibitions, investment and acquisition discussions, O2O EXPO will deeply analyze the industrial development and provide a new business arena and green ecological chain for Chinese entrepreneurs.