Cross-border purchasing agent retreats, some people's income has shrunk by 80%, some people are transforming to live broadcast
can not go out
In 2020, the new crown epidemic spreads around the world, and the overseas purchases of daigou are forced to stop.
Commodities can only be shipped directly internationally, and freight rates have risen continuously and the mailing cycle is too long, and customers have gradually lost. In the past two years, their income has plummeted.
Can't come back
Lost customers went to the live broadcast room-"Experiential shopping is more attractive." The development of live broadcast e-commerce has led to the reduction of the price advantage of Daigou cosmetics, and the endorsement of the anchor and the brand is also squeezing the living space of Daigou.
Strong supervision
In January 2019, the "E-commerce Law of the People's Republic of China" came into effect, stipulating that online sellers, including WeChat Merchants and Daigou agents, need to file for registration, pay taxes normally, and explicitly include new forms of online transactions such as WeChat Merchants and Daigou agents into supervision.
The gray age of purchasing is over.
Before the epidemic
Fly if you want
An agent frequently flies from Beijing to Seoul and Jeju Island, flying on average twice a month.
Is the purchasing agent in your circle of friends still there?
Since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic in early 2020, cross-border purchasing agents have had to "stop".
An Yi (pseudonym), who has been working as a "Han Dai" for 9 years, told the Red Star Capital Bureau that after the epidemic, daigou agents are facing the dilemma of reduced income and loss of customers, and their counterparts are also changing industries in large numbers.
Li Wen, who has been a cosmetics agent for 4 years, said that the customers in the hands of the agent have gradually flowed to the live broadcast room.
Now, Li Wen, whose daigou business has been blocked, has also begun to transform to live broadcast e-commerce.
When interviewed by the Red Star Capital Bureau, he was attending a live broadcast e-commerce training class of an organization to learn how to live broadcast goods.
In addition to the boom in live broadcast e-commerce, domestic cosmetics brands that have sprung up like mushrooms are also taking the market from Daigou.
Anyi told the Red Star Capital Bureau that some of its peers have transformed into distributors of domestic brands.
"Russian generation" Wang Nuan (pseudonym) also said that while working as an agent, he also took the agency of two small domestic brands.
With the tightening of supervision, the outbreak of the epidemic, the live broadcast and the rise of domestic products, cross-border purchasing agents are slowly withdrawing from the stage of history.
Cross-border purchasing agents who can't get out
The annual income is less than 500,000 yuan, and a large number of purchasing agents switch to another industry
In the ninth year of Anyi as a daigou, he clearly felt some changes, "income is reduced, peers change businesses, and customers are slowly losing."
Anyi, who lives in Beijing, entered the purchasing agent industry because of a trip to South Korea during college.
“When I traveled to Korea in 2013, my classmate’s mother who worked for Sulwhasoo under Amore’s brand gave me half a box of cosmetics. I actually sold it for more than 2,000 yuan when I brought it back to my country. I think it’s quite profitable.”
Since then, Anyi has frequently flew to Seoul and Jeju Island in South Korea, counting on average twice a month, becoming a professional "Handai" and rushing to the cosmetics counters of major duty-free shops in South Korea.
He showed the route map in the mobile app to the Red Star Capital Bureau. Because of flying too many times, the route from Beijing to Seoul and Jeju Island changed from blue to purple.
Such as Anyi, who personally go abroad to purchase agents are called "human flesh agents." Profits come from the difference in product pricing, exchange rate differences, and rebates and discounts from local duty-free shops.
The cost of a purchase includes visa fees, air tickets, meals and hotel fees and so on.
2016 and 2017 are the best times for Anyi’s business. According to him, after removing costs, he can earn about 600,000 yuan a year.
The turning point occurred in 2020. The new crown epidemic spread across the world, and Anyi's overseas purchasing agent business was also forced to suspend.
The homepage of Anyi's Moments reads: "Flying has been suspended due to the epidemic, and now it can only be returned by direct international mail."
In the past two years when there was no way to go abroad to buy on behalf of others, An Yi's income plummeted.
"Now I send 5 to 10 packages a day. In the past, I could send 100 packages every time I returned from abroad." An Yi said that the reduction in orders caused his income to drop by 80%. "
In the past two years, the professional "Han Dai" around Anyi has changed careers.
"Some people went to buy women's clothing, and some people took the examination of public institutions." An Yi counted, and now there are not many friends who still insist on doing shopping.
Also feeling the change is Liu Si (pseudonym) who lives in Shenzhen, a full-time agent.
Before the epidemic, Liu Si's purchasing agent footprints spread across many countries and regions, including Seoul, Tokyo, Bangkok, Dubai, etc., and the frequency of purchasing overseas purchases was 2 to 3 times a month, mainly purchasing cosmetics.
After the epidemic, Liu Si, who was unable to go abroad, had to try international mailing, but the order volume was far lower than before.
"Not only the orders have decreased, but the profit per item has also decreased," Liu Si said.
Wang Nuan, who has been purchasing cosmetics in Russia for 5 years, told the Red Star Capital Bureau that he could not go to Russia after the epidemic, so he used international mail to return the goods. However, the freight charges even increased in price and the mailing cycle was too long and other factors affected his business.
“The international freight has increased by more than three times. I try to stock up when there are discounts in Russia, and then reduce some profits to stabilize the price. I will replenish the goods when they are sold out. Sometimes I will wait for a long time.” Wang Nuan said.
Now, Liu Si and Wang Nuan's purchasing agent business is also turning to domestic, such as Macau, Sanya duty-free shops and so on.
However, due to repeated epidemics and changes in the isolation policy, it is becoming more and more difficult to do the daigou business. “There are fewer people who are still doing daigou.” Liu Si said, the customers accumulated by the daigou are also gradually losing.
Customer loss, price advantage no longer
Daigou began to learn to live and bring goods
Where did the lost customers go?
--"Studio".
Li Wen, who has been a cosmetics agent for 4 years, gave the Red Star Capital Bureau the answer: "It's not all because of the epidemic. Customers are now going to live broadcast rooms to buy things. Experiential shopping is more attractive."
Four years ago, Li Wen, who worked in Shenzhen, started to work as a purchasing agent.
Now because of the impact of the epidemic, Li Wen can no longer "deal with human flesh" as before. If he chooses overseas direct mail, the freight costs are high and he must bear certain risks. Li Wen feels that his purchasing business has reached a bottleneck period.
When the Daigou business stagnated, another industry ushered in explosive growth.
In 2020, the epidemic has pressed the fast forward button for the development of live delivery.
Take the Taobao platform as an example. As of the end of 2020, Taobao Live provides more than 100,000 live content, users can watch more than 500,000 hours a day, and nearly 100 million products are on the Taobao live broadcast room; the number of live broadcast anchors has also increased significantly. This is an increase of 661% compared to 2019.
Data show that in 2020, the average daily active users of Taobao live broadcast will increase substantially, a year-on-year increase of 100%.
Among them, the live delivery data of beauty cosmetics and skin care products is very eye-catching.
According to data from ECdataway-Live Insight, in 2020, the total sales of cosmetics, perfumes, and beauty tools on Taobao Live will exceed 9.43 billion yuan.
He Mei (pseudonym), a consumer who loves beauty, told the Red Star Capital Bureau that after the epidemic, the purchasing agents in the circle of friends have gradually "disappeared", but they are used to buying cosmetics in the live broadcast room.
He Mei said: “There are now many official flagship stores of brands that are also broadcasting live, which is more reassuring than purchasing and the price is cheaper.”
It can be seen that the development of live broadcast e-commerce has led to the reduction of the price advantage of Daigou cosmetics, and the endorsement of the anchor and the brand is also squeezing the living space of Daigou.
Liu Si told the Red Star Capital Bureau: "Nowadays, many cosmetics are sold live, and the prices are very low. We have no profit." Li Wen also realized this: "Now everyone has a lot of shopping channels, and the prices are chaotic. ."
Now, Li Wen, whose daigou business has been blocked, has begun to transform to live broadcast e-commerce.
When interviewed by the Red Star Capital Bureau, Li Wen was attending a live broadcast e-commerce training course for an organization to learn how to live broadcast goods.
He sent a photo of the live classroom to the Red Star Capital Bureau. Each student was equipped with a selfie stand in front of him. Some students were demonstrating the live broadcast scene on the podium, and the live video of the students was playing on the big screen behind them.
Speaking of the reasons for the transformation, Li Wen said: "If you are a daigou, there is too little private domain traffic, and the live broadcast audience is wider, the market can be opened up, and the money will be more." In addition, Li Wen felt that the past daigou experience is also correct. His transformation is helpful, such as the control of channels, product knowledge and professionalism, collection of feedback on usage, and how to select products correctly.
According to Li Wen, many of the purchasing agents around him have transformed into live broadcasts, but few of them can persist.
"Live broadcasting is an emerging industry with extremely low thresholds, everyone can do it, but it is also an industry with extremely high thresholds, because the elimination rate is more than 90%. It is not too early to switch to live broadcasting at this time, and it has not caught up with the first wave of trends. , But it is still an opportunity. It may take time to verify whether it is correct or not." Li asked.
Domestic cosmetics brands that have sprung up like bamboo shoots are also taking the market from Daigou.
The CICC research report pointed out that a number of outstanding domestic product pioneers such as Perfect Diary, Colorkey, and Huaxizi have emerged in domestic beauty cosmetics; in the field of functional skin care, domestic brands represented by Winona, Yuze, and Runbaiyan are also increasing. Speed continues to lead.
After the “Korean makeup” in his hand did not sell well, Anyi told the Red Star Capital Bureau that some of its peers had transformed into distributors of domestic brands.
"Russian generation" Wang Nuan also said that while he was also working as an agent, he took the agency of two small domestic brands.
After the epidemic
Mencrofinch
70% of the sales of duty-free shops at Incheon Airport in South Korea came from Chinese tourists. After the outbreak, Lotte and Silla withdrew from the main terminal of Incheon Airport.
In the "grey area"
Smuggling, sentence...
Daigou is withdrawing from the stage of history
In January 2019, the "E-Commerce Law of the People's Republic of China" came into effect, stipulating that online sellers, including WeChat Merchants and Daigou agents, need to file and register, pay taxes normally, and explicitly include new forms of online transactions such as WeChat Merchants and Daigou agents into supervision.
This means that the gray age of daigou is over.
Before this, Daigou had always been a profession wandering on the edge of policies and regulations.
Some insiders commented on the Red Star Capital Bureau: "Overseas purchasing agents are cheaper than counters, so they are sought after by consumers. Where does the price difference come from? In addition to national (regional) pricing and currency ratios,'tax' should be one of them. One of the big heads."
There are also many examples of being held legally responsible for purchasing agents.
Just a month ago, the People's Procuratorate of Zhengzhou City held a hearing on whether overseas students’ overseas agents were suspected of smuggling.
According to a report from Chinanews.com, Xiao Xu, a graduate student in a Spanish university, will open an online store on an online platform from August 2020 to sell luxury brand bags, shoes and hats from Spain to China through a logistics company. Smuggling goods into the country and then selling them for profit.
Between August and November 2020, more than 190,000 yuan of customs duties were evaded.
Prosecutor Ding Mingyu introduced that the criminal suspect Xu Mou violated customs supervision, smuggled ordinary goods into the country, and evaded the tax payable. His behavior violated the provisions of Article 153 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China and should be regarded as smuggling. Criminal responsibility for general cargo crimes.
According to a report from Xinhua News Agency in November 2014, the two tour guides in Zhejiang took advantage of the convenience of traveling abroad to purchase cosmetics at overseas duty-free shops many times, and carried the cosmetics purchased overseas with them, and chose the no-declaration channel when entering the country. Clearance.
The Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court judged that the two tour guides evaded customs supervision in order to seek illegal benefits and smuggled various cosmetics by carrying them with them without truthfully reporting to the customs. The amount of tax payable was relatively large, which constituted the crime of smuggling general goods. .
On November 21, 2014, both were sentenced to three years in prison, suspended for four years, and fined 230,000 yuan in the first instance.
At the same time, legal and compliant cross-border e-commerce platforms are becoming mainstream.
According to the "2021 China Cross-border Overseas Shopping Industry White Paper" released by iResearch, in 2020, cross-border import retail platforms have become the most commonly used overseas shopping channel for Chinese consumers, accounting for 58.3%.
The proportion of individual purchasing agents is only 3.4%.
With the tightening of supervision, the outbreak of the epidemic, the live broadcast, the rise of domestic products and other factors, cross-border purchasing agents are slowly withdrawing from the stage of history.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News reporter Yu Yaoqiang Yaxian