Listening to the cross-border e-commerce business is expected to accelerate through more Chinese "top goods" going overseas

　　The total value of imports and exports was 31.11 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.9%-Recently, foreign trade data for the first three quarters was released.

Net exports of goods and services contributed 32.0% to economic growth, driving GDP growth by 1.0 percentage points.

China's foreign trade has once again shown resilience and vitality.

　　However, with the changing international situation and the increasingly complex development environment of foreign trade, many foreign trade people feel "not easy".

Wang Shouwen, an international trade negotiator and vice minister of the Ministry of Commerce, said not long ago that "the slowdown in the growth of external demand is the biggest uncertainty facing foreign trade at present."

　　Under the challenge, a group of foreign trade enterprises took advantage of the "Dongfeng" of cross-border e-commerce development to explore the international market.

China's cross-border e-commerce has also continued to move forward: an increase of 25.7% in 2020, an increase of 18.6% in 2021, and the same growth rate this year.

　　"Garage economy", "lazy economy" and "outdoor economy", on some cross-border e-commerce platforms, overseas buyers even bought a lot of "new trends" and "new climates".

Recently, AliExpress summarized the "trend of domestic products going overseas" in the second half of this year, and found that creative pet products and smart small appliances made in China are popular overseas; outdoor sports products such as camping and fishing are sold all over the world; foreign countries who love hands-on Man, there's an extra set of Chinese drills in the garage...

　　How to explore more business opportunities for cross-border e-commerce business?

Some practitioners recounted their experiences.

From apprehension to confidence:

A large number of small and micro entities have become operators of new types of trade

　　A small screwdriver is sold all over the world, with an annual sales of 2 million sets.

　　The protagonist of the story is HOTO, a Chinese electric gadget brand.

Renovating the house, renovating the furniture, repairing the garden... Due to the high labor costs and other reasons, many overseas consumers like to do maintenance and care by themselves.

The categories of power tools represented by electric drills, electric saws, and electric scissors have always been popular when going overseas.

The Xiaohou Technology team seized the opportunity of "smart technology household tools" to enter the overseas market.

　　At the beginning of 2021, the official flagship store operation of AliExpress will be opened, which is the first stop of the Xiaohou Technology brand to go overseas.

"I'm actually very nervous, and I don't know how well overseas users will accept the product," said Liu Lidan, founder of Little Monkey Technology.

After the discussion, they chose to directly listen to what overseas consumers had to say through research.

Thousands of overseas users participated in the questionnaire survey they conducted on the AliExpress platform, which helped them find three major directions of development: design, quality, and experience.

　　In a big promotion that year, Xiaohou Technology's intelligent rangefinder became a "dark horse" in sales, with tens of thousands of orders, and the annual turnover of a single product exceeded 600,000 US dollars.

　　This research experience also made the Xiaohou Technology team find that most of the buyers participating in the survey are users who love technology and the Internet, have a relatively high level of education, have a certain purchasing ability, and are willing to buy high-quality products with good experience. buy order.

　　"We hope that through continuous innovation in R&D and design, we can climb both ends of the 'smile curve' and make high value-added products." Liu Lidan said.

　　From a traditional point of view, the production supply of domestic manufacturers and the actual needs of overseas consumers are "far apart from mountains and seas", which will inevitably make businessmen less confident, but cross-border e-commerce allows the two to communicate "face-to-face". .

　　Some power tool brands have developed electric drills within one kilogram for Korean female consumers, which are light in weight, low in noise, and have a softer design. The proportion of female consumers has increased to 30%.

Because of the high quality and affordable price of some products, customers come directly to them and put forward mass customization requirements, allowing brands to discover more hidden business opportunities.

There are also cross-border e-commerce overseas brands that even directly focus on customized fashion products, winning the favor of consumers with baseballs with avatars and jewelry with names engraved on them.

　　"By creating a flexible supply chain with agglomeration of elements and fast response, enterprises can better meet the personalized and customized needs of overseas consumers." Sheng Qiuping, Vice Minister of Commerce said, "Cross-border e-commerce has greatly reduced the specialization of international trade. The threshold will enable a large number of small and micro entities who cannot do, cannot do, or cannot do it to become operators of new types of trade.”

From foundry to brand:

Overseas markets have become an important breakthrough for brands to break out

　　Cooking "smart" air fryers, cleaning sharps, washing machines, home helper coffee machines... Smart small appliances are still "hot" in cross-border e-commerce.

Only in July this year, the overseas shipments of smart home appliances on AliExpress increased by 150%.

　　HiBREW is a Chinese coffee machine brand that has stood out on cross-border e-commerce platforms in recent years.

They have developed a multi-capsule universal system on the coffee machine, which not only adapts to various brands of coffee capsules, but also uses coffee powder, which is very popular among overseas users.

But at the same time, HiBREW is also a typical sample of "from foundry to brand".

　　"Most of the companies I worked for were OEMs for Italian companies. We gradually mastered the technology and found some problems during this process," said Zeng Qiuping, founder of Hibrew.

He first came into contact with capsule coffee machines more than ten years ago. At that time, there were almost no private enterprises producing and developing capsule coffee machines in China.

Relying on a little bit of "stupid kung fu", they not only achieved technological upgrades, but also created differentiated products, which were successfully sold overseas.

　　With the advantages of high performance, high appearance, and small size, many small household appliances made in China have quickly become popular on cross-border e-commerce platforms. Behind it, a group of Chinese small household appliance companies have collectively promoted their own brands to go overseas.

　　Many industry observers believe that, for a long time, China's small household appliance companies have done more OEMs, relatively few independent brands, and relatively weak competitiveness.

However, in recent years, with the changes in the consumption environment and concept, enterprises have paid more attention to independent research and development, the domestic small household appliance market has ushered in rapid development, and the overseas market has become an important breakthrough for brands to break out.

　　The data shows that in the past three years, the number of branded sellers on Amazon in China's Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, Haixi Economic Zone and other regions has achieved 2-3 times growth; while in North China, the central and western regions, the number of branded sellers has increased. 5 times.

　　Peng Jiaqi, vice president of Amazon China, said: "Many sellers in China's advantageous industrial clusters have shown great potential and vitality in R&D design, product innovation, brand building, and global expansion."

　　"Cross-border e-commerce can directly face end consumers, which helps China's small, medium and micro enterprises to establish and cultivate their own brands, improve product quality, and form new advantages in international competition." Wang Shouwen said.

　　Take Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, where China's first cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone is located. In the past seven years, 49,000 e-commerce sellers have been cultivated, more than 2,000 overseas registered trademarks, and 23 leading enterprises with a value of more than 100 million US dollars. The import and export volume of e-commerce exceeds 100 billion yuan.

From high-quality products to stable services:

More China's "top-notch goods" are expected to speed up

　　A fishing line can lead the industrial chain and gather industrial clusters.

China is a big exporter of fishing gear, backed by product advantages, how to do cross-border e-commerce business?

　　In 2013, a young man from Shandong, Shi Hongxiang, had just graduated from college for two years. He resolutely gave up his high-paying job in a foreign company and plunged into the cross-border business of fishing gear. "I must try it and see what the result is."

　　Nine years later, he exported Chinese fishing gear to more than 200 countries and regions around the world; the company's annual turnover of Hangzhou Fishing and Hunting Technology reached tens of millions of yuan.

　　Shi Hongxiang and his team have been researching fishing gear for a long time, and constantly debug and optimize the products to control the quality.

At the same time, they also found that the stable output of products depends not only on product quality, but also on a complete supply chain and contract performance capabilities.

For example, by entering overseas warehouses, the logistics speed and operating efficiency have been greatly improved.

"Currently, it takes 10-60 days for cross-border delivery, and about 3-7 days for overseas warehouse delivery. We generally do three months of inventory stocking." Shi Hongxiang said.

　　Logistics timeliness used to be a major pain point for cross-border e-commerce. With the rapid development of overseas warehouses for cross-border e-commerce, more and more overseas consumers can experience stable services from Chinese brands and are more willing to pay for Chinese products. .

　　Many cross-border e-commerce companies have experienced this transformation.

In the past, the average delivery time of enterprise products to overseas users was 15-20 days. After entering overseas warehouses, it was increased to less than 5 days.

The person in charge of a cross-border e-commerce company said, "It's unbelievable, it arrived so quickly. There are even customers who leave a message saying that the goods will arrive in 2 days or 3 days. The product comment area immediately changed."

　　In terms of outdoor products, in the context of the epidemic, the enthusiasm of consumers in various countries for camping continues to rise.

On AliExpress, outdoor camping supplies have grown by more than 50% for three consecutive years.

　　Jin Hai, director of the General Administration of Customs, introduced that from January to August this year, cross-border e-commerce B2B direct exports and cross-border e-commerce exports to overseas warehouses have grown rapidly, and the two types of trade have increased by more than 60% since the second half of the year.

　　In the future, overseas consumers can also expect more high-quality Chinese cross-border e-commerce services.

The recently issued "Several Policies and Measures to Support the Stable Development of Foreign Trade" clearly proposes to introduce policies and measures to further support the development of cross-border e-commerce overseas warehouses; accelerate the introduction of tax policies to facilitate cross-border e-commerce export returns and exchanges.

　　For cross-border e-commerce, companies and local governments are motivated, and the national level also attaches great importance to it.

In order to give full play to the potential of cross-border e-commerce, China has approved the establishment of 132 cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones in six batches, covering 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities across the country.

It is understood that in the near future, China will add another batch of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot areas, and more Chinese "top-notch goods" are expected to go overseas.

　　Li Jie

　　People's Daily Overseas Edition

Li Jie