Cross-border e-commerce platforms are a product of the development of the Internet to a certain stage, and we have also redefined the customers in cross-border e-commerce platforms. The characteristics of customers in cross-border e-commerce platforms are different from those of traditional customers.
1. Uncertain characteristics
In traditional international trade, the source of customers we usually contact is exhibitions, and the biggest difference between exhibitions and cross-border e-commerce platforms is that almost every customer in exhibitions has met the seller, that is to say, in traditional international trade, the transaction that the buyer and seller may eventually reach is actually based on the premise that the two parties have had preliminary contact.
In cross-border e-commerce platforms, the characteristics of the Internet determine that the vast majority of buyers and sellers in the platform have never met, so we cannot judge the customer’s information before the transaction is finally reached, or even before establishing substantive communication with the customer. Of course, cross-border e-commerce platforms provide many methods and channels to help buyers and sellers identify each other, but these methods and channels are also based on the Internet. Therefore, the genes of the Internet also determine that we still cannot determine the background, real information and other necessary factors in the transaction behavior of both parties in the most intuitive way.
2. The characteristics of variable positioning
In the early days of the Internet, there was a very classic saying: “If you don’t say it on the Internet, no one knows whether you are a person or a dog.”
This sentence reflects from the side that your position on the Internet depends on your subsequent behavior. When we go back to the transaction process and re-understand this sentence, we can quickly realize that the identities of buyers and sellers on the Internet are actually interchangeable. When will such an exchange occur? This depends on the changes in transaction conditions. In other words, when the transaction demand changes, this exchange of identities between buyers and sellers is natural.
Combined with the customer resource pool mentioned above, in the resource pool created as a seller in the initial stage, the seller itself is actually a “customer”. The reason why it is a seller is that it is a seller at the moment when the resource pool is established. When the transaction conditions change, who can say that the seller cannot be instantly converted into a buyer?
3. Platform customer stickiness
In traditional international trade, how to establish customer stickiness is a very complicated process. I will not elaborate on it here, but the question of why to establish customer stickiness needs to be explained.
In business, a single transaction only brings a single value to the business, or a single transaction only brings a single profit to the buyer and seller. In order for the buyer and seller to continuously obtain continuous profits through transactions, it is necessary to use some method or means to create a strong stickiness between the buyer and seller. This is not only a continuous manifestation of value, but also an increase in value, because this stickiness then generates new values such as brand value and service value that are unrelated to the transaction itself.
The difference between customers in cross-border e-commerce platforms and customers in traditional international trade is that its uncertainty and positioning variability have brought us a lot of trouble in establishing customer stickiness. So, how can we establish stickiness with customers only under this possibility? This requires us to consider it based on the foundation of the cross-border e-commerce platform.