1. Cross-border e-commerce industrial chain can be divided into front-end (users), back-end (suppliers) and intermediate channels (source organization, warehousing and logistics). Start-ups can choose different links to enter the industry according to their own resource advantages, and gradually extend to the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain on this basis to control the supply chain to the maximum extent.
2. The competition between cross-border e-commerce focuses on three aspects: capital, traffic and user marketing ability. Among them, capital and flow determine the ability to control the supply chain, and the user's operational ability enables the platform to transform the advantages in the supply chain into final sales.
3. After the giants enter the market, the competition for resources based on B2C model will become more and more fierce. At this stage, B2C model is no longer suitable for ordinary startups to get involved easily. Existing B2C entrepreneurs can start with market segments and users or occupy a place.
4. Platform players still have a certain time window. Personalized consumption and scene consumption are important trends, which will eventually form a mixed mode of C2C+M2C.
5. It is also a direction to abandon C-end users and make B2B supply chain service solutions. Giving people who are good at traffic acquisition and operation can focus more on the supply chain, which is the source of profits.
First of all, participants in the cross-border electronic commerce channel.
1, new dividend in e-commerce market
When the pattern of e-commerce industry has been set, and four or five big e-commerce companies headed by Taobao and JD.COM have completely carved up the existing market, entrepreneurs have not given up looking for new opportunities in the Red Sea of e-commerce. Where is the "next blue ocean" in the e-commerce industry? From the perspective of trade policy, consumers, entrepreneurs and capital, this blue ocean is undoubtedly a "cross-border e-commerce", and many practitioners think it is also the "last piece of fat" of the e-commerce industry.
According to the statistics of the General Administration of Customs and China Electronic Commerce Research Center, in 20 14 years, the scale of Haitao users reached180,000, and the transaction scale was14 billion. It is estimated that in 20 18 years, the market scale will reach trillion level. The Global Trade Pattern Report released by the Ministry of Commerce shows that the annual growth rate of the cross-border export e-commerce market remains above 30%.
Behind the huge market dividend of cross-border e-commerce is the consumption upgrading trend of young consumers. Consumers' consumption concepts and demands, mainly those born in 1980s and 1990s, have changed. Safety, high quality, diversification, personalization and excellent service have become the core demands of users in the process of consumption upgrading. At the same time, the number of outbound tourists in China is increasing year by year, and consumption abroad will enhance domestic users' awareness of overseas brands and stimulate cross-border consumption after returning home.
At the same time, since 20 14, the government has continuously released the benefits of cross-border trade, which has also promoted the accelerated improvement of cross-border e-commerce infrastructure. First of all, the Announcement on the Supervision of Inbound and Outbound Goods and Articles in Cross-border Trade E-commerce issued in July, 2065438+2004 recognized cross-border electronic commerce from the policy level, and also recognized the prevailing bonded mode in the industry. Secondly, from the establishment of a free trade zone in Shanghai and the implementation of cross-border RMB settlement to the "Free Trade Zone Movement" in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Zhengzhou, Ningbo, Shenzhen and Tianjin, it is a process of rapid improvement of cross-border e-commerce infrastructure construction.
2. The existence and competition of entrepreneurs and giants
20 1 1, Ocean Terminal has transformed from a cross-border logistics service provider to a cross-border e-commerce market. It is the earliest startup company in China that started to set foot in cross-border e-commerce business and has developed smoothly to this day. Starting from 20 13, there are many startups doing cross-border e-commerce, including Honey Bud Baby, Honey Amoy, Little Red Book, Stupid Bird Haitao, Honey, Street Honey, Onion Amoy, Paramita and so on. Of course, the entry points and gameplay of these startups are different, such as honey scouring, honey bud baby and onion scouring in B2C cross-border self-mining mode; C2C buyer mode for ocean terminal and honey; Xiaohongshu extends from the community to the e-commerce business; Stupid birds Haitao and street honey cut from logistics; Paramita cut from live video, etc.
Clustered startups undertook the early user education work, and the cross-border e-commerce market was quickly torn apart. When the policy dividend and market dividend gradually became clear, many roles such as e-commerce giants, logistics service providers and large Internet companies began to enter the market one after another. Give a few examples:
2065438+In February, 2004, Tmall launched Tmall International and copied a Haitao version of Tmall Mall.
20 14 12, Jumei launched its cross-border e-commerce channel "Jisu Duty Free Shop". Different from Tmall, Jumei adopts the self-operated mode of overseas direct mining to avoid falling into the storm of selling fake goods again by controlling the supply of goods.
2065 438+2005 65438+ 10, Netease and SF successively set foot in cross-border e-commerce: Koala Haibao and SF Haitao, respectively, from the content and logistics.
2065438+April 2005, JD.COM officially launched "Global Purchase", taking B2C as a self-operated cross-border e-commerce, continuing the gene of JD.COM. COM's own e-commerce business.
Amazon is also actively deploying cross-border electronic commerce for the China market. Since 20 14, we have launched a number of businesses, such as direct mail, overseas purchase, direct import and international boutique, to match different models for different types of goods and users.
E-commerce giants and entrepreneurs have different traffic base, brand base, financial strength and supply chain control. The entry of giants will have a great impact on the market that entrepreneurs have already won. For entrepreneurs, how to find a suitable market entry point and a sustainable business model in this competitive environment is the key to survival.
3. Cross-border e-commerce industry chain
Cross-border e-commerce industry chain can be divided into front-end, back-end and channels between front and back-end. Among them, the front end is the user; The back end is the supplier; The middle channel is to get through three links: supply organization, warehousing and logistics at both ends of supply and demand. Therefore, from upstream to downstream, the basic chain of cross-border e-commerce can be described as: suppliers (brands, traders, distributors, supermarkets, buyer teams, etc. )-supplier (direct purchase or investment)-international warehousing and logistics (self-construction or cooperation)-bonded customs clearance-domestic logistics-user traffic (traffic acquisition and traffic conversion)-after-sales (return and exchange, etc.). ).
Among them, the downstream user traffic largely determines the e-commerce platform's right to speak in the upstream suppliers and control the supply chain. The platform's ability to get goods in the upstream and sell goods in the downstream also affects the design of warehouse logistics scheme in the middle section (mainly affected by cost). Therefore, this is an interlocking industrial chain. Startups choose different links to enter the industry according to their own resource advantages and team genes, and on this basis, they gradually extend to the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain to control the supply chain to the maximum extent. This paper will also analyze the strategies and business logic of cross-border e-commerce players from different industrial chain nodes.
Second, the front-end traffic: to be a community
E-commerce platforms such as Tmall, JD.COM and Jumei have natural traffic advantages. When they are doing cross-border e-commerce business, they already have a considerable number of e-commerce stock users, and what they have to do is "traffic conversion". For startups, their biggest trouble on the traffic side is often that they don't know who and where the users are, so their primary task is "traffic acquisition". Moreover, catching users does not mean that goods can be sold, and "traffic operation" is very important. It can be said that traffic acquisition, traffic conversion and traffic operation are inseparable from high-quality content, especially relying on high-quality UGC content in the community. The best case of "attracting accurate users with content, generating stickiness and guiding consumption" is "Little Red Book".
1, using communities to create user stickiness
One of the greatest values of the community to e-commerce is to obtain accurate and sticky potential consumers. The earliest overseas shopping strategy made by Xiaohongshu was still a blank market in 20 13, so Xiaohongshu quickly gathered a group of accurate users interested in cross-border shopping.
However, the strategy means that Xiaohongshu needs to make its own content in advance. This relatively static information flow is not the most suitable content form for overseas shopping, and it can't produce instant and continuous interaction with users. As a result, Xiaohongshu quickly adjusted its product form to a mobile shopping and printing community. Through the design of product rules and mechanisms, good content naturally rolls and precipitates in the community while maintaining the activity of users.
In terms of content, Xiaohongshu has done several things: First, the content form is mainly pictures, attracting users with scenes and visual effects closest to offline shopping; Second, the content is presented in a structured way, so that each presented product has a name, place of purchase, price, user experience and so on. To ensure the integrity of the content; Third, pay attention to the content, not the people who share it; Fourth, according to the brand, label, crowd and other factors that users pay attention to, I want everyone to push the content accurately.
On the client side, in the view of Zhai Fang, co-founder of Xiaohongshu, the attributes of the sun-single community naturally meet the information sharing needs of women who love shopping. Here, bread contains feelings such as participation and existence, so the platform is not worried about the activity and stickiness of users who stay in the community. The data given by Xiaohongshu is that its users open the application more than 50 times a month on average.
Many cross-border e-commerce entrepreneurs said that the biggest difficulties facing their own operations are user retention, user repurchase and brand communication. If a cross-border e-commerce platform can operate a community with high-quality content and active users at the same time and do content-based e-commerce, then the problems of user retention and brand communication can be alleviated.
2. Use the community to get traffic conversion
For B2C cross-border e-commerce, the pressure of product selection is even greater. Most overseas brands have no online or offline historical sales data in China market, which requires the purchasing team to be very sensitive to "what is the explosion". At this time, the e-commerce platform with community genes will benefit from it-UGC content in the community will bring a lot of data based on user preferences, which will provide the most direct basis for platform selection.
Therefore, the community not only solves the problem of user acquisition and user stickiness, but also can more easily solve the user operation and transformation from "seeing to buying" compared with other e-commerce platforms. Since the problem of product selection has been solved, it is the best business model to deeply control the supply chain of limited SKU through B2C mode. Little Red Book is like this, so is the logic between Dingding (Haitao Sun Dan Community) and Onion Amoy (B2C cross-border e-commerce) from a team.
The value of the community to e-commerce is clearly visible, but at this stage of cross-border e-commerce, it is difficult and takes time to copy the path and model of Little Red Book, but the window period of the industry is almost over. Therefore, some cross-border e-commerce companies have taken the opposite path to Xiaohongshu: first e-commerce and then community. In September this year, Ocean Terminal announced to enter the community and establish a sharing and communication platform between consumers and overseas sellers, with the aim of further eliminating the information asymmetry between buyers and sellers. Moreover, unlike Xiaohongshu's practice of "focusing on content", Ocean Terminal's "focusing on buyers" is directly related to its C2C model relying on overseas buyers.
Third, the supply chain: self-mining and platform
The source of goods is located at the most upstream of the supply chain. For a cross-border e-commerce platform, the main factors to control the supply are its BD ability to overseas suppliers and its ability to organize the supply. Regarding the latter, there are usually several ways for cross-border e-commerce, including self-operated direct mining, investment promotion, buyer procurement, agency operation/procurement, etc. Among them, the agency operation/purchasing mode is gradually losing its competitiveness, and the first three cover most of the current cross-border e-commerce solutions at the source.
1, supplier role
Overseas suppliers can be roughly divided into several categories: brand manufacturers, traders, distributors, supermarkets, individual buyers (or buyers' teams).
Almost all cross-border e-commerce companies want to directly sign contracts with brand manufacturers, invite them to settle in or purchase goods directly, which can shorten the supply chain to the maximum extent and reduce costs. However, most brands have their own mature sales system and brand image, which requires higher sales ability of cooperative e-commerce platforms. In addition, it is necessary to maintain and spread brand image and word of mouth. For those e-commerce platforms that like low-priced promotional products, the willingness of brands to cooperate will be greatly reduced.
The most upstream link that most cross-border e-commerce platforms can reach is traders, who then dock multiple brands. The advantage of traders is that they have a large number of rich SKUs in their hands, which saves the negotiation cost of e-commerce platforms and brands. Therefore, even if it can be collected by brands, the e-commerce platform will maintain long-term cooperation with traders.
Dealers, supermarkets and other channels are relatively easier to cooperate, but buying goods at retail prices in supermarkets will undoubtedly raise the supply chain cost of e-commerce platforms. However, the advantage of Shang Chao lies in its abundant SKUs, which can make a good category supplement for the platform.
When cross-border e-commerce was still in the early "purchasing" era, individual buyers or buyer teams were the most important suppliers, and now it is the source of cross-border e-commerce in C2C mode. The advantage of cooperating with individual buyers is that categories can be enriched and personalized, but the problem is also prominent-it is difficult to manage the buyer team, which directly determines the user's shopping experience.
2. Cross-border direct mining
Control of supply chain is the core competitiveness of cross-border e-commerce. Therefore, among the domestic cross-border e-commerce platforms, the platforms that organize goods through cross-border direct mining account for the largest proportion, including JD.COM, Jumei, Xiaohongshu, Honey Tao, Onion Tao and Honey Bud Baby. The advantage of cross-border direct mining is that the platform directly participates in the supply organization. If we can cut off the intermediate links as much as possible in this process, we can gain the cost advantage. Moreover, most cross-border direct mining platforms adopt the mode of "flash purchase+direct mail", which can better control the inventory turnover time and ease the pressure on the supply chain.
Cross-border direct mining also puts forward three basic requirements for the platform: first, it needs to have its own overseas BD, product selection and procurement capabilities; Second, it is necessary to deal with the category management and financial pressure brought by its own inventory, especially the financial pressure; Third, there is good flow and the ability to digest flow. Faced with the pressure from capital and flow, most cross-border direct mining platforms adopt the method of "flash purchase+direct mail", which can better control the inventory turnover time and relieve the pressure on the supply chain.
However, faced with the financial pressure of procurement and the difficulty of negotiation with many suppliers, cross-border direct mining is more difficult in category expansion and scale expansion. In addition, at present, e-commerce giants with capital and flow, such as JD.COM and Jumei, have stepped in by means of cross-border direct mining, and they will absorb most of the resources in the case of limited choice of overseas suppliers, which will form a higher threshold for startups. Not only is it difficult for new entrants to gain an advantage in cross-border direct mining, but existing startups are also facing a great impact. Therefore, B2C e-commerce, represented by Onion Amoy, Honey Amoy and Honey Bud Baby, all cut into a subdivision category (such as maternal and child products) or market (such as Japan and South Korea) at the purchasing end to obtain relatively subdivided user traffic and establish barriers through categories or markets.
3. M2C investment
M2C is one of the platform modes, that is, inviting international brands, retailers, duty-free shops and other business roles to settle in the platform. Typical players include Tmall International and Ocean Terminal. Among them, Tmall International is a pure M2C platform, fully adhering to the logic of Tmall. Ocean Terminal started with C2C, now it is M2C and C2C***, and M2C will be the main one in the future.
The M2C investment model mainly tests the overseas BD capability of the platform. If you can sign an exclusive contract with overseas brands, it will become the resource threshold of the platform, but this requires the e-commerce platform to have obvious advantages in traffic and sales. Therefore, Zhongtian Cat International, as a participant in M2C investment promotion mode, will have obvious advantages.
Most M2C platforms invest in internationally renowned brands, explosive brands (such as Flower King) and small brands with certain user groups. Among them, there are brands that need to operate in the China market, and the e-commerce platform will provide or dock third-party TP operation services for them. However, the agency operation service will raise the cost, which will lead users to bear higher prices. In addition, merchants will also bear high advertising costs, which will be reflected in the final price, which is a disadvantage compared with cross-border self-mining. In addition, the platform's ability to control brands is also weak.
Although the platform's ability to control suppliers is limited, M2C mode can at least guarantee the authenticity at the source. On the one hand, settled businesses need to provide business licenses, overseas retail qualifications and other certificates; On the other hand, almost all goods are mailed directly from overseas. Of course, both Tmall International and Ocean Terminal make more layouts in the warehousing and logistics links of the supply chain, and make up for the defects of the platform model by opening up information systems in all links or even building their own, which will be analyzed in detail later.
Xie Tao, the founder of Honey Tao, revealed that they have the idea of transforming into a platform model. "It is impossible to understand the overseas supply chain only by the financial ability of a startup. In the end, it may be inevitable to introduce more overseas suppliers through attracting investment. " Facing the problems of supplier management and operation, Xie thinks that the cross-border e-commerce platform based on B2C mode has a system that can connect all links in the supply chain, and the service quality will be more secure than the platform that directly makes M2C.
4.C2C buyers
Merchants on M2C platform have different ways of attracting investment. All the products on C2C platform are purchased by overseas buyers, who can open stores on the platform and do live broadcasts of overseas products from time to time. Typical players include Ocean Terminal, Taobao Global Purchase, Dried Rice, Street Honey, etc.
The buyer system has its own obvious advantages: first, the categories are rich enough, especially the SKU coverage width of non-standard products, which can not be achieved by cross-border self-purchase; Second, it can provide enough personalized goods to cover the long tail market, especially buyers can quickly adjust their product selection ideas from the feedback of user orders; Third, by shaping the brand of buyers, we can promote effective communication between buyers and users, and form a "talent economy", thus creating user stickiness at the traffic end, similar to the purpose of doing community at the front end.
At the same time, however, the buyer system, which is in the same strain as purchasing, still faces the problem of "difficult to distinguish between true and false", which makes the traffic conversion rate of such platforms generally low. Therefore, the most important thing for C2C platform is to eliminate the distrust caused by overseas buyers. Take the ocean terminal as an example, its practice is to do strict buyer authentication: confirm the overseas identity of the buyer, or at least live overseas for a long time; Conduct random spot checks on buyers, including checking warehouse goods, storage conditions, inventory authenticity, etc. Evaluate the buyer's credit status by communicating with upstream suppliers or partners.
In addition, a single buyer will also cause instability in the supply chain and unstable service quality. For the former, the platform needs to introduce enough buyers, provide enough quantities and categories of goods, and hedge the instability of the supply capacity of some buyers; For the latter, the platform not only sets the entry threshold for buyers with certain service standards, but also needs to train buyers. No matter overseas brands, retailers or individual buyers, most of them have great room for improvement in the matter of "providing localized services for China consumers".
Fourthly, logistics supply chain: warehousing and logistics.
Logistics supply chain is responsible for connecting suppliers and users. It is a key link in the cross-border e-commerce supply chain, and it is also the link with the highest barrier at present, including warehousing, logistics and customs clearance. Among them, technology, capital and government resources all play an important role.
1, gradually do heavy logistics
Many practitioners believe that logistics is the biggest constraint for cross-border e-commerce. How to open up the logistics channel from overseas suppliers to domestic users, minimize intermediate links and smooth information as much as possible, thus improving efficiency is a difficult problem faced by all cross-border e-commerce.
Cross-border logistics solutions have always been transshipment and direct mail, and transshipment is divided into overseas warehouse transshipment and bonded warehouse transshipment. Among them, the way of collecting goods from overseas warehouses and transporting them back to China is long and uncontrollable. In addition, there are many intermediate links, which are more prone to problems such as wrong orders and lost orders. Although the direct mail transportation speed is fast, and the point-to-point logistics will minimize the links in the channel, the customs clearance efficiency of scattered direct mail goods is generally low, and the logistics cost of individual goods is high.
Although overseas transshipment and direct mail logistics solutions are still widely used, with the rise of bonded warehouses in various places, the hottest logistics solution at present is to mail goods to domestic bonded warehouses, then clear customs from them and deliver them to users through domestic logistics.
Whether it is e-commerce or O2O, when it comes to logistics, it will definitely mention "making the model heavy". Although we all know that self-built logistics can make the supply chain more controllable and win in the user experience, not all cross-border e-commerce platforms have such financial strength.
At present, there are several ways for cross-border e-commerce to do overseas logistics: e-commerce platform cooperates with third-party logistics service providers, similar to the cooperation between Taobao and "four links and one access"; Only do the logistics link of cross-border supply chain, and optimize the efficiency level of existing logistics services with technical systems, such as stupid bird Haitao; E-commerce platform builds its own logistics system, such as Beihai International in Ocean Terminal; Cut into cross-border transportation from its own logistics resources (shipping, shipping resources, etc.). ), such as SF Express and Dayun.
The first two methods are relatively light. The platform cooperates with third-party professional operators in cross-border transportation resources, including FedEx, DHL and SF. On this basis, the platform itself opens up overseas warehousing, logistics, customs clearance and other links through self-built information systems and technical systems. On the one hand, it monitors the whole logistics link, on the other hand, it improves the efficiency of the whole logistics process by making the information docking and circulation of each link smoother.
However, some practitioners believe that this is not enough. In such a cross-border scenario, only by focusing on the logistics link can the user experience be guaranteed. Therefore, Beihai International, a self-operated foreign terminal, has been involved in overseas trunk line transportation and cross-border shipping and shipping from the beginning. On the one hand, establish your own freight vehicle system, enhance the ability to collect goods, and ensure that the delivery can be completed on time; On the other hand, by flexibly arranging flight delivery, the speed and cost of logistics are balanced. Recently, Haitao, a third-party transshipment logistics service provider who cut into and integrated the existing logistics resources from the logistics business management tools, also said that it will start to tilt towards heavy assets, increase the optimization of air transportation and customs clearance, and establish trunk transportation networks in various countries.
It is worth mentioning that all cross-border e-commerce platforms are strengthening customs clearance optimization and actively connecting with customs clearance systems, hoping to change the traditional manual operation mode and improve efficiency through electronic customs clearance. For the B2C platform with bonded warehouse in China, when an order appears on the platform, the commodity information of the order is directly connected to the customs clearance system by the system to complete electronic customs clearance. For those goods that use direct mail, declare in advance is the key to improve efficiency before the goods are delivered. However, ocean terminals are more involved in the customs clearance process. It accompanies the whole customs clearance process through its own personnel, forming a closed channel in the customs clearance process to avoid the exchange of goods and parcels.
2. Layout of domestic bonded warehouses and overseas warehouses
At the beginning of the rise of cross-border e-commerce, most e-commerce platforms solved the warehousing problem by renting warehouses and services from overseas professional warehousing service providers. However, with the emergence of bonded warehouses in seven pilot cities of cross-border e-commerce, domestic bonded warehouses have become the first choice for cross-border e-commerce.
From the perspective of ownership, bonded warehouses are divided into two categories: one is an independent warehouse, that is, an e-commerce platform packages the entire warehouse; The other is a public warehouse, that is, multiple e-commerce companies share a warehouse.
From the perspective of operation mode, there are two types: one is to operate the warehouse on behalf of the platform, that is, the warehouse and the staff in the warehouse are rented by the platform, but the platform does not intervene in the operation; The other is a self-operated warehouse. Although the warehouse is also rented, the planning of the warehouse area, the design of the storage electronic system, and the sorting and packaging are all done by ourselves.
The problem of public warehouse is that when the order volume increases, all e-commerce platforms will be constrained by the order processing capacity of public warehouse, which will not be flexibly adjusted, and the logistics information presentation of users will also lag behind; The problem of agent operation is that the controllability and standardization of all links such as picking goods, goods management and packaging are weak. These will affect the final shopping experience of users. Therefore, B2C cross-border e-commerce companies are competing for independent bonded warehouse resources everywhere. If the capital and technical strength allow, the self-operated mode will be given priority.
Cross-border e-commerce companies competing for bonded warehouses are led by B2C players. Thanks to its own mode, B2C platform can connect procurement, warehousing, logistics, payment and other systems to the bonded area, and then connect with the customs system to realize the planning and control of the whole supply chain. At the same time, bonded warehouses also prefer B2C e-commerce, because of their large cargo volume and higher customs clearance efficiency. Taking Zhengzhou Free Trade Zone as an example, Jumei's bonded warehouse is the largest, followed by Xiaohongshu, all of which are self-operated.
While laying out domestic bonded warehouses, some cross-border e-commerce platforms hope to continue to move upstream in warehousing, and can directly open warehouses overseas. For example, bonded warehouses and ocean terminals such as Honey Tao and Xiaohongshu extend from self-operated logistics to self-operated warehousing.
In addition to undertaking some goods that are not allowed to enter the domestic bonded warehouse, the e-commerce platform has also started to build warehouses abroad in order to further improve the efficiency of the logistics supply chain. The B2C platform can directly store the purchased goods overseas, which means that the platform can start selling and generate orders when the goods are still overseas, which will speed up the inventory turnover. The supply of C2C or M2C platforms is more dispersed. Opening warehouses in overseas cities allows suppliers or buyers to directly store goods in corresponding warehouses nearby, thus improving the efficiency of overseas logistics. Of course, this will bring about an increase in costs.
Verb (short for verb) Opportunity in cross-border electronic commerce.
1. Deepen the supply chain
Although the cross-border e-commerce market has become the Red Sea, there has not been a situation in which several giants such as Taobao and JD.COM share the world, and both giants and entrepreneurs have opportunities. If the early development of the industry depends on factors such as policy dividend, demographic dividend, low price advantage and category width, then cross-border e-commerce will eventually return to the competitive points that e-commerce needs to face-supply chain and service.
Most entrepreneurs who entered the cross-border e-commerce market in the early days were doing bulk purchasing business or optimizing purchasing mode. The former is a typical Taobao global purchase, while the latter includes honey scouring (transformation), sea 360, sea cat season and so on. Although the entry threshold is low and the mode is light, it is easy to form a scale in the early stage, but it will inevitably encounter bottlenecks when it develops to a certain stage. In the words of Xie, the founder, the purchase mode has been optimized, providing users with a better Haitao experience. However, due to the lack of voice in the source of goods and warehousing logistics, the improvement of experience is still limited.
Therefore, the focus of cross-border e-commerce still needs to return to the supply chain and services. Specifically, it is: contact enough suppliers, strive for bargaining power and obtain pricing power; Establish your own inventory with a certain inventory depth; There is a controllable logistics channel, including warehousing, logistics and a set of technical system that can get through all links of procurement, warehousing, logistics and customs clearance. For the above points, entrepreneurs should have a targeted layout according to their own business model, resource advantages and financial strength.
2. When giants enter, B2C players should be "small and beautiful"
Since the supply chain is the key to cross-border e-commerce, is B2C the most promising model at present? Not exactly. JD.COM, Jumei and other giants entered the cross-border e-commerce with the attitude of all-category B2C platform, and they also had a highly recognized brand like Honey Bud Baby in the maternal and infant market. At this stage, B2C model is no longer suitable for ordinary startups to get involved easily. If you want to do B2C mode, you need to do it more skillfully, and the positioning of "small but beautiful" is easier to find.
segment market
It is very difficult to do all kinds of self-operated cross-border e-commerce on a global scale: on the one hand, the supply chain maturity of Japan, South Korea, Australia, the United States and other countries is different, and it will be very difficult to negotiate one by one; On the other hand, all-category self-employment means huge funds, which are unbearable for ordinary startups. Therefore, starting from a certain market or category and then extending business around this point has become the choice of some startup companies. For example, honey amoy is now positioned as a full category in the Korean market, and onion amoy is positioned as Japanese and Korean beauty cosmetics.
Subdivided population
Xiaohongshu has captured a group of users with obvious characteristics, grasped the needs of this group of users through the community and provided them with what they need. Since the users of Xiaohongshu are mostly people who are good at discovering foreign goods, the positioning of Xiaohongshu Welfare Society is not a big-name explosion, but mainly a small number of long-tail categories, which is not easy to directly compete with e-commerce giants.
Honey bud baby has also caught a segment of the population, but unlike Xiaohongshu, maternal and child products are highly standardized products, and the test of the supply chain will focus on the price. Once the giants enter, it is also the category that is most likely to set off a price war. Therefore, it is very difficult to do B2C cross-border e-commerce from the maternal and child market.
Although the traffic of a large e-commerce platform is large, the traffic is not necessarily accurate and the traffic conversion rate is not necessarily high. Market segments or categories can help the platform find segmented users, tap the needs of these users, provide them with services that are easily overlooked or unable to be provided by the "big and comprehensive" platform, or let the B2C platform find its own living space under the pressure of giants.
3.C2C players still have certain time windows.
When B2C platform is caught in a similar resource competition situation, C2C platform is faced with an endless and infinitely rich market. The resources in the upstream of the supply chain are scattered enough that it is difficult to be controlled by one or two platforms in a short time. At the same time, a large number of long-tail non-standard categories on C2C platform can meet the individual needs of users and quickly form a scale in the early stage.
In addition, users' consumption on the mobile terminal presents more and more obvious scene characteristics, and buyers on the platform can create real shopping scenes closest to offline. Ocean terminal uses pictures and texts to do live scanning of goods, and B2C paramita also cuts in from live video to do the consumption scene of "scanning goods while watching live broadcast". Although anyone can do the "consumption scene", it can undoubtedly provide users with a richer scene experience by doing it through buyers scattered around the world.
However, for the sake of supply chain stability and service quality control, it is inevitable that C2C platform will gradually introduce overseas brands or retailers and become a comprehensive platform of C2C+M2C, which can refer to the development path of foreign terminals. Once you embark on this road, you will inevitably face the competition of Taobao Global Purchase+Tmall International.
4. Give up C-side operation and become a B2B supply chain service provider.
The cross-border e-commerce market also has a role. They are good at acquiring users and operating users, and they are "traffic owners". However, due to the small scale of its own e-commerce business and limited funds, there will be problems in supply chain management, such as going to the kitchen, aunts, and stacking sugar. , and a large number of WeChat services. Although these platforms are small in size, they are long enough. Therefore, providing them with supply chain solutions is also an important direction.