2019 is almost over, which is also the 20th year for foreign trade dealer Wu Wenlan to export foreign trade. This year there is a key word in Wu Wenlan’s heart-“difficult”. It is common for the international trade situation to rise and fall, but in the past two years, Wu Wenlan has obviously felt the strain, because the orders are less and smaller than before. The changing situation and industrial upgrading forced him to re-examine his single traditional foreign trade mode and how to break the situation.
Zhang Qingshan, who is also mainly engaged in foreign trade, has a different feeling. “Opportunities are always reserved for those who are prepared. Fortunately, a new attempt a few years ago has kept our business strong in the changing situation.”
Zhang Qingshankou’s attempt is to export e-commerce. In his view, perhaps he is grasping a new wave of export dividends, “compared with traditional foreign trade, this is a brand-new business model, allowing us to directly face overseas consumers.”
“As a result, pricing power and brand premium power are in our own hands; Two. Individual consumers on the terminal line are less sensitive to price than large trade customers, which gives us more room to play and will naturally be less affected by the situation. ”
Indeed, in recent years, China’s export e-commerce industry has developed rapidly under the favorable influence of policy support and perfect industry environment. Many traditional foreign trade factories and traders, as well as domestic brands, have keenly captured this wind outlet and are seeking “electric shock”. One by one, the story of sailing is quietly unfolding.
Only by identifying the trend can we be in an invincible position.
Cross-border e-commerce is the future trend Zhang Qingshan has a foreign trade factory in Shenzhen that produces horticultural products. With more than 20 years of ODM OEM experience, customers are all over European and American brands and large-scale supermarkets. Due to changes in the trade situation this year, many of Zhang Qingshan’s customers have not heard anything for the time being, but one of them has performed very well. He is not someone else, but another unexpected group of people-C-end individual consumers.
In Zhang Qingshan’s words, it was “totally unexpected”. He sighed, “Foreign trade is a rapidly changing business environment. It is very important to identify trends and seize opportunities. Only in this way can we be in an invincible position. Doing foreign trade 20 years ago was an act of convenience. To become a cross-border e-commerce company in 20 years is also a matter of convenience. ” The Internet has accelerated the globalization of trade, while cross-border e-commerce has further shortened the trade chain, making it possible for enterprises to go directly to overseas consumers.
Zhang Qingshan recalled the opportunity to go to sea, but also traced back to the bottleneck encountered by the factory in 2014. The total number of orders and the size of individual orders continued to decline. Although many methods have been tried, they still have little effect. Until his son returned from studying in the United States, he suggested that he might try to export e-commerce.
“I went to study in the United States only to find that their online shopping is also very developed, their daily life can not be separated from Amazon, and many Chinese products. This is a big trend. People can sell it. Our products are so good, shouldn’t we give it a try? ”
Zhang Qingshan was awakened by his son’s words. In this way, he started the road of cross-border e-commerce with the mentality of giving it a try and found a way to combine the advantages of his own factory with the needs of overseas consumers through continuous “small steps and quick walking”, and his performance began to double continuously.
The most important thing is, “once we are on the right track, the investment is not as large as we expected. when the annual sales amount is 4 million us dollars, there is only an operation team of my colleagues and I. Because here, the product is the absolute reason for all success. ”
Direct and quick locking of transactions Take the bargaining power into your own hands.
In the past, because orders were attached to upstream foreign traders or brand dealers, Chinese foreign trade enterprises lacked bargaining and pricing power. However, “Cross-border e-commerce allows us to directly and quickly lock in transactions and let bargaining power be in our own hands. With the initiative, changes in the trade situation will not be so passive and restricted. ” Zheng Duoduo, who owns an outdoor goods foreign trade company in Zhejiang, laments.
“Traditional foreign trade transactions are largely not up to you, because you don’t directly face consumers and you don’t have pricing power. But now, I can use overseas e-commerce websites such as Amazon to quickly target high-quality customers from different countries and hold the bargaining power in my own hands.
On the other hand, individual consumers are sometimes not particularly sensitive to prices. They value the quality, cost performance and delivery time of products more than just low prices. We have confidence in these points. ”
Not only that, Zheng Duoduo is now more confident to communicate with customers. In the past, they were more passive in receiving orders. Now they will try to communicate with customers in advance and even request to sign an order intention to prepare raw materials and accessories as soon as possible.
In three years, from the beginning of the launch of existing products to the creation of a flexible supply chain, the rapid design and production of products based on consumer feedback, to now there is a team specialized in the export of cross-border e-commerce business from research and development, production and operation. Zheng Duoduo frankly said, “the road is getting wider and wider, and the mind is becoming more and more alive.” Recently, he also discovered the growing demand for small household appliances as a sub-category, so he also began to do market research on small household appliances, and prepared to expand his category a little more.
When it comes to the future, Zheng Duoduo also has his own ideas, that is, to create a brand of his own. “We have been cooperating with foreign brands for many years, and we know that we can’t avoid the word brand if we want long-term development. With a brand, your product will have recognition, premium, loyal customers and repeat purchases … We believe in the strength of the brand and have confidence to build a brand that belongs to us and is trusted by overseas consumers through years of precipitation. ”
Top leaders’ decisions are very important.
Don’t put eggs in the same basket.
Zhou Hang in Fujian was also one of the first companies to try cross-border e-commerce. The reason for his “electric shock” at first was very simple, because some friends around him did it well, and the annual sales volume doubled 10 times in the second year. Of course, Lao Zhou is not blindly following the trend. He has his own ideas.
“My business structure has always been relatively single, that is, traditional bulk foreign trade. But putting eggs in one basket at any time is very dangerous and must be dispersed to ensure a stable business structure and strong anti-risk capability. ”
Zhou Hang’s company mainly focuses on the export of beach resort clothing and accessories. Previously, due to seasonal foreign trade orders, there were always light and busy seasons in a year.
In the busy season, overtime work was required to deliver goods on time, while in the off season, work could be suspended for several months. However, the problem is that no one can guarantee that orders in the busy season will be sufficient. Therefore, how to share the risks brought by the light and busy seasons has become a problem that Zhou Xing has been considering and solving.
“Export e-commerce has added an export to my business. Different from traditional foreign trade, cross-border e-commerce companies directly sell their products to overseas consumers. We can not only actively judge the market demand without waiting passively for orders, but also make full use of the off-season of factories to organize production. Reduce risks and improve resource utilization while killing two birds with one stone. ”
Zhou xing smiled and said that after so many years of foreign trade, for the first time I felt so close to foreign consumers. “In the past, consumers used to look at gauze separated from customers. Now they have a magnifying glass, which can first-hand understand trends and consumer preferences.”
He cited an example, before receiving customer orders, long cycle and slow response; Now there are regular meetings every day and every week to track sales reports and comments in real time, so as to quickly adjust clothing fabrics, styles and colors, and at the same time to quickly feed back to sales. Another advantage of doing cross-border e-commerce is the formation of a reverse force mechanism. Consumers are a mirror, which forces us to improve our research and development and design capabilities, supply chain improvement and quality control.
Looking back on the first year of opening the store, Zhou Xing did not spend less time and energy, running the factory during the day to watch the goods and browsing the buyer’s comments backstage at night. Cross-border e-commerce is still relatively new to many foreign trade people, so it is necessary for top leaders to have the determination, and all the good friends around me do so. At present, several products of Zhou xing have become explosive models and have long been on the TOP list of the same category.
Cross-border e-commerce is still in the air As long as you want to do it, it will never be too late.
Looking back at Wu Wenlan, the hardware moulds produced by his family were originally supplied to the local brands and traders in the United States with the advantages of complete categories, perfect supply chain and fast response speed. But even so, in the face of changes in the trade situation, it still faces challenges such as reduced orders and forced landing of prices. A few years ago, he didn’t know about cross-border e-commerce, but he didn’t dare to try because he didn’t understand it. After experiencing the general mood of the roller coaster, Lao Wu had only one thought in his heart-it could not be delayed any longer!
As Zhang Qingshan said, “In fact, cross-border e-commerce is not as difficult as people think. The reason why we don’t act is because we don’t understand. If we understand more, we will naturally have confidence. Just like doing foreign trade 20 years ago, at first everyone didn’t understand it. They crossed the river by feeling the stones. The reason is the same. Cross-border e-commerce is still a hot topic. It’s not too late to think about it. ”
Original Artical，Author：China Trade Agent，if repost，please give references ：https://offers-bg.com/foreign-trade-breakers/
