The founder of Anker is a post-80s named Yang Meng. He worked at Google in his early years, but he gave up his stable and high-paying job and returned to China to start his own brand. Today, his company and products are still rising steadily. Hunan Haiyi E-commerce Co., Ltd. has become a leader in the industry.
Registered brand, entered Amazon
Yang Meng is from Changsha. He was admitted to the Computer Department of Peking University in 1999, studied in the United States in 2003, and joined Google in 2006 as a senior search engine engineer. He won Google’s highest award “Founder’s Award”. However, in July 2011, Yang Meng gave up his stable, decent and lucrative job and returned to China to start a business from scratch.
Foreign shelves are full of foreign brands, and Made in China is labeled as low-end and cheap. Introducing good Chinese products to foreigners is Yang Meng’s motivation for starting a business. He has lived abroad and understands overseas consumption habits. He believes that if Chinese-made products with distinctive designs, leading consumer experience, and good quality and low prices are directly promoted to European and American consumers, there will be huge business opportunities.
The traditional foreign trade model, whether online or offline, is mostly B2B (for foreign buyers), and most of the profits of the products are taken away by foreign buyers and distributors. How to shorten the sales chain and compress the middle links? Yang Meng chose to open an online store on the American shopping platform Amazon, cutting out the middle links and selling goods directly to European and American consumers. Moreover, the shortcomings of the goods can be quickly fed back to the production link, greatly improving the speed of improvement. Why choose to open a store on Amazon? Yang Meng said: “There is no threshold to open a store on Amazon, but to enter the store of Best Buy, the world’s largest electronics giant, the cost is at least 100,000 yuan.”
In October 2011, Yang Meng established Hunan Haiyi E-Commerce Co., Ltd. and registered the brand Anker globally. He cooperated with an American company and relied on the American storage center and logistics network. European and American consumers only need to take a picture of Anker products and receive them in 1 to 3 days.
In fact, it is not uncommon for foreign trade e-commerce companies to open stores on foreign shopping platforms in coastal cities, but few have registered brands like Yang Meng. In the early days, opening an online store on Amazon tested more about language skills and understanding of foreign websites and foreign laws, but to expand and develop in the long run, good products and trustworthy brands are the key. Therefore, Haiyi invested most of its profits in product research and development, and has established research and development bases in Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Anker “becomes popular” in overseas markets
On the Amazon website, it is easy to find Haiyi e-commerce products by searching for Anker. Anker’s products are mainly consumer electronics, including laptop chargers, rechargeable batteries, keyboards, mice, etc. An Anker laptop battery costs about $30, while Dell’s similar products cost $80 to $100. In addition, with fast logistics and localized after-sales service, Anker’s sales have soared, and it has received orders of 100 million yuan in just one year, with consumers in the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and other countries, and its net profit has even exceeded the industry average of 2% to 3%.
European and American consumers prefer black products, while domestic consumers prefer white products. This is the difference in consumption habits between China and foreign countries. In terms of shopping mode, Amazon is also different from Taobao in China. There is no pre-sales service on Amazon, which means that the process of bargaining with the store clerk before purchasing is omitted. Just place an order if you like it, which is similar to the model of JD.com in China. However, foreign online shopping has stricter requirements on product quality. If there is a quality problem, a transaction of tens of dollars may result in a fine of nearly ten thousand dollars. A rechargeable battery of Anker’s competing brand once smoked when used by a customer, resulting in the customer replacing the carpet, repainting the walls, and dry cleaning all the clothes, all at a cost of nearly ten thousand dollars. Because it was indeed a product quality problem, the brand merchant could only accept the fine.
E-commerce helps more Chinese products go overseas
Talent is the most important resource in the IT industry. At present, the average age of more than 70 people in Haiyi’s Changsha headquarters is about 26 years old, responsible for product procurement, after-sales service, marketing, and operations. Four of Haiyi’s five core team members have worked for Google. President Zhao Dongping was once the general manager of Google’s online sales and operations; Senior Vice President Gao Tao was once the director of Google’s commercial customer solutions department.
Due to logistics and supply reasons, Haiyi’s products are produced in the Pearl River Delta and exported through the Shenzhen port. According to Wang Yingping, Secretary General of Changsha E-Commerce Association, 3C, clothing, jewelry and other domestic products are more popular on foreign e-commerce platforms, while Changsha’s exports are currently less suitable for export through e-commerce channels.