Can E-commercialization of Paper Media Be Successful?

Written by Joey Wang

Facing the challenges from the expanding new media, traditional media especially the paper media are looking for a breakthrough to isolate its current bottlenecks. Being digital is no longer an innovative way for the survival of paper media as such a simple transition is still not efficient enough to catch eyeballs. Then here comes a new strategy called e-commercialization of paper media, which has already been conducted among several influential newspapers such as Beijing News, Guangzhou Daily and Shanghai Morning Post, etc. in China supported by Taobao early this year, aiming to save paper media’s downturn. So, how does it work and will such an e-commercialization be successful?  It is worth thinking and even doubting.

Find something mentioned in the newspapers interesting but have no idea about where to buy, most of people will choose to search online，which means the attention will be distracted or shifted immediately as the newspapers fail to fulfill readers’ demands. Therefore, once turned readers directly into consumers through a way，newspapers could get benefit theoretically.

Print the QR code of Tmall’s selling information on the newspapers and once a scanning behavior carried out by readers that Taobao would pay newspapers money, which is so called the e-commercialization of paper media. On the surface, it seems that the long-term built credibility and influence of newspapers and their brand effects could help guarantee the quality of the recommended products and earn the readers’ trusts. On the other hand, the low-cost printing QR code will help enrich the content of newspapers and improve the service function of newspapers. However, as the recession of paper media is an indisputable fact, it is inevitable to consider its limitations towards its process of e-commercialization and the potential negative effects therein.

First，the e-commercialization of paper media may lead to a reduction of the newspapers’ credibility as it will make the content of newspapers become more market-driven and profit-driven instead of being independent. For example, when newspapers would like to attract readers to scan the QR code, there must be related contents matching, which means the newspapers may be full of soft advertisements instead of the real valuable information. In other words, such an e-commercialization may affect the essence of newspapers from being information dissemination channels into a tool or springboard to serve the e-commercial websites. Besides, with the development of new media, the number of paper media readers shows a downward trend. The original readers are growing elder while the younger generations are reluctant to read newspapers anymore as they have better substitutes. Thus, when the majority readers of newspapers are the elders who have no awareness or needs of shopping online, let alone scan the QR code using a smartphone, then it will be more difficult or even useless to conduct an e-commercialization. On the other hand, precise advertising reach can also become a problem as different readers have separate needs that cannot be satisfied by only a few QR codes, which means that the recommended products may not cater to readers’ interest and even results in waste of resources.

Overall, although potential risks of the e-commercialization of paper media exist, such an attempt is worth encouraging. As at least it proves that the traditional media never give up the hope of surviving and still look for more breakthroughs, while being e-commercialized is just one way of them and may its development has more clear positions or directions and more room for the growth.