With the rapid development of domestic e-commerce, domestic residents’ e-commerce consumption habits have gradually formed. In the field of import cross-border e-commerce platforms, the e-commerce market has been basically divided, and the e-commerce industry structure has become increasingly stable.
From the perspective of the delivery of import cross-border e-commerce, it can be mainly divided into three types: bonded stocking mode, overseas direct mail mode and collection direct mail mode. Each cross-border e-commerce platform has made differentiated improvements based on the needs of buyers and combined with its own advantages. Among them, the mainstream modes are divided into the following four categories.
13.2.1 Overseas direct supply mode: Tmall Global, Suning Overseas Shopping
The overseas direct supply mode is a typical platform-based B2C mode. Through the cross-border e-commerce platform, overseas dealers and buyers are directly connected, reducing the intermediate agency and resale links.
The cross-border e-commerce platform formulates transaction rules and cross-border transaction consumption processes suitable for imported products to create a good shopping experience for buyers. The main profit method of the cross-border e-commerce platform is the seller’s platform entry fee and the commission during the transaction process.
The overseas direct supply model is fundamentally different from the traditional purchasing and resale model, because the overseas direct supply model is based on a certain scale of buyers and sellers, so the overseas direct supply model has relatively high requirements for the platform’s own traffic and the platform’s own services.
The overseas direct supply model generally requires sellers to have overseas supplier qualifications and brand authorization, and they need to provide local after-sales services at the place of sale. This model provides buyers with more overseas product choices and a global shopping environment.
Products are generally delivered to domestic buyers by overseas direct mail. The control of brands and the reduction of supply chains are the main directions of the development of the overseas direct supply model. Representative companies include Tmall Global and Suning Overseas Shopping.
13.2.2 Overseas Preferred Model: NetEase Kaola, Xiaohongshu
The overseas preferred model is mainly B2C, and the e-commerce platform will directly participate in the source organization, logistics warehousing and sales process. The overseas preferred model enables e-commerce sellers to better control the product end and supply chain and purchase products in batches.
E-commerce sellers generally use bonded stocking methods to ensure the timeliness of logistics and provide buyers with a higher consumption experience. The preferred model requires e-commerce sellers to control market consumption demand and have higher requirements in product selection, because the premium model also limits the richness of products and requires fewer products.
E-commerce sellers will be occupied by a lot of funds in the purchase of goods, so achieving increased product sales, ensuring that goods in the warehouse are not overstocked, and that goods can circulate quickly is the direction of the preferred model. Therefore, this model usually holds promotional activities such as limited-time special sales or direct mail flash sales to allow products to circulate quickly and reduce the pressure of supply chain stocking.
Xiaohongshu is an e-commerce platform with an overseas preferred model. It is a well-known platform with community attributes. The creation of Xiaohongshu originated from the forum community, mainly focusing on social C2C and B2C. The community model, that is, the UGC (user-generated content) model, brings together people with common interests and hobbies through the sharing of original overseas shopping experiences between users.
The characteristics of platforms like Xiaohongshu, on the one hand, can help users solve the problem of what to buy and help users accurately select products from a large number of commodities; on the other hand, based on its community function, the user behavior data and rich product information resources generated can push more suitable product information to users, provide a fast and efficient shopping experience, and help users solve product supply problems.
Compared with other import cross-border e-commerce models, the community model has the characteristics of strong user stickiness. Different from other comprehensive platforms, because its information content is completely spontaneously generated by users in the community, it is a new import cross-border e-commerce model driven by user demand. With the rise of e-commerce with social attributes, this celebrity economy and consumer opinion leader model has been sought after by consumers. Representative companies include NetEase Kaola, Xiaohongshu, etc.