Big data to make the difference for online businesses

Using big data for precision marketing and offering personalized customer services will be the way forward for companies in China's highly competitive e-commerce industry, according to Yu Gang, former chairman of online retailer Yihaodian.com.

"The Internet boom has changed people's mode of thinking and the way they do business. In the initial stages, e-commerce platforms mainly relied on competitive prices to attract more consumers. But with increasing customer flows, e-commerce platforms have started to offer more diversified products and services along with wider geographical coverage," Yu said.

"With the further development of e-commerce platforms, it is now clear that data plays an important role in success. For example, when a provider or a brand plans to launch a new product, it is hard for a traditional market channel to know who will buy the product, purchase frequency as well as behavioral habits. These data are very important from a marketing perspective," he said.