The site of a cross-border e-commerce platform refers to the website that the cross-border e-commerce platform opens to sellers in different countries or regions for selling goods. Therefore, sellers registering and using different sites means facing different national markets. Different sites will cause the language and prices of goods on the negative side of the website used by sellers to be different. Understanding the site situation of the Lujing e-commerce platform will help sellers to correctly and reasonably choose the target market. At present, the cross-border e-commerce market and operation system of the four stations of the Amazon platform, namely the North American Station, the Japanese Station, the European Station, and the Australian Station, are relatively mature.
Amazon’s North American Station includes three stations: the United States, Canada, and Mexico. By studying these stations, sellers can understand the overview of each station in the North American Station. The following first introduces the overview of the North American Station and then explains the respective characteristics of the US Station, the Canadian Station, and the Mexican Station.
1. Overview of the North American Station
Amazon has always been the starting point for many Chinese sellers to start their cross-border e-commerce journey, and the North American Station is the overseas station preferred by Chinese sellers. After the seller is stationed at the Amazon North American Station, he can switch the site in the seller’s backend, and then divide the sales of goods to the three countries of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
2. Characteristics of the US site
The US site is aimed at the US market. Its main characteristics include large market capacity, strong market acceptance, market focus on product quality and strong market seasonality.
(1) Large market capacity
The US is the largest consumer goods market in the world with a large market capacity. The average annual income of US residents is high, and their consumption awareness is strong. They update daily consumer goods quickly and buy more frequently. In addition, the labor cost in the US is high and they do not engage in production activities themselves. Therefore, many daily necessities of US residents are imported from other countries. Therefore, its market capacity is large and it is easy for Chinese sellers to enter this market.
(2) Strong market acceptance
The US market has different ethnic groups and clear class levels, and the market acceptance capacity is strong. The US is an immigrant country composed of multiple ethnic groups. Secondly, because the gap between the rich and the poor in the US is large, the high, middle and low income groups constitute different levels of consumer groups and specific markets at different levels, and the scale is considerable. Therefore, high, middle and low-end products from all over the world are in great demand in the US.
(3) Market focuses on product quality
The US market focuses on quality and brand, and pays special attention to product quality and safety. The meaning of product quality in the US market is different from that in my country. It is not limited to whether the product has powerful functions or the life of the product itself, but also includes the quality of instructions and after-sales service.
(4) Market seasonality
The seasonality of goods sold in the US market is strong, mainly including spring (January to May), summer (July to September) and holiday season (January to December). Each season has a sales peak when goods change seasons. For example, Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States is the peak sales season for goods. The sales in the month of Thanksgiving usually account for one-third of the annual sales.
3. Characteristics of Canadian sites
The Canadian site is aimed at the Canadian market. Its characteristics mainly include large development space for cross-border e-commerce and diversified buyers.
(1) Large space for cross-border e-commerce development
Canada has a high Internet penetration rate, but the development of local e-commerce is relatively slow. In recent years, due to the crowding out of traditional retail by e-commerce platforms, traditional retail companies have begun to carry out online activities, but there are still few e-commerce companies that sell goods entirely through e-commerce platforms. The sales of local e-commerce in Canada account for about 55% of the total market, and nearly half of its e-commerce market is occupied by cross-border e-commerce, so cross-border e-commerce has a good development space in Canada.
(2) Diversified buyers
Canada is a typical immigrant country with a high immigration rate, which leads to a relatively complex social structure and a relatively weak concept and consciousness of its country and nation. In addition to the multi-ethnic population structure, Canada also uses English and French as official languages, which has led to the diversification of national culture and is affected by the special environment of multi-ethnicity and multi-culture. Buyers’ purchasing needs also tend to be diversified.
4. Characteristics of the Mexican site
The Mexican site is aimed at the Mexican market, and its main characteristics include an open national economy, strong buyers’ advanced consumption concept, and great cross-border market potential.
(1) National economic openness
Located in the heart of the Americas, Mexico is a must-go place for land transportation between North and South America and is known as the “Land Bridge”. Mexico is a major Latin American economy and one of the most open economies in the world. It has always been the largest export destination for Chinese goods in Latin America.
(2) Buyers have a strong concept of pre-consumption
Mexican residents have a strong concept of pre-consumption and tend to pay in installments when buying larger amounts of goods in shopping malls.
(3) Great cross-border market potential
Mexico is a free market economy country with a total population of 130 million and an Internet penetration rate of 56%. There are more than 70 million Internet users, of which 38 million are online shoppers. However, in Mexico, cross-border e-commerce has only been around for a short time, so the market potential for cross-border e-commerce is relatively large.