Overseas shopping in a broad sense includes individual import forms such as cross-border direct mail, purchasing agents, overseas customers, and cross-border e-commerce online shopping, but it mainly refers to the B2C model of overseas online shopping. The B here can be an overseas brand or online shopping platform. Simply put, this is a shopping method in which domestic consumers go directly to foreign e-commerce websites to shop, and then mail the goods back to their country through transshipment or direct mail.
Except for some categories that can be directly mailed, most overseas purchases rely on transshipment logistics to complete cross-border receipts. Transshipment logistics, as the name suggests, is a middleman. When overseas e-commerce companies do not provide cross-border delivery, consumers use the transshipment logistics company’s overseas warehouse address as the order delivery address. After the transshipment company receives the goods on behalf of the consumer, it then uses a third party or The transshipment company’s self-operated cross-border logistics sends the goods to the Chinese port, and then distributes them within the country after customs clearance. This approach means you can shop around the world without being bound by the website’s international shipping terms.
A few years ago, it was not as convenient as it is now for people to do cross-border online shopping. They relied on circumvention and translation software to understand foreign websites, and they had to use dual-currency credit cards to pay and buy things back. It’s not easy either. You need to fill in the warehouse address and your account number when placing an order, and wait for the logistics company to collect a batch before packing it and shipping it to the country. It takes ten and a half days to arrive at the port, and you may have to be stuck in customs for several days. If you are unlucky, you will have to provide your ID card, shopping receipts and other declaration information, and pay taxes and fees.
If after receiving the goods, they find that they are not satisfied, or there is any damage during transportation, consumers can only consider themselves unlucky, because the cost of return and exchange is too high. Obviously, the threshold for such overseas shopping is too high. Even if you know that online shopping from overseas is cost-effective, most overseas shopping is still limited to a niche area.
Transshipment logistics companies play an important role in overseas shopping. The entire process of transshipment logistics can meet the needs of most users in 2 to 3 weeks. The fastest transshipment in Japan and South Korea has been within 1 week, and after receiving All aspects of cargo, packaging, transportation, customs clearance and distribution are reliable, and the main profit points are processing and transportation fees. In addition, the “tax rate” is an important indicator for overseas shopping groups to evaluate transshipment companies, which depends on the logistics channels and customs clearance methods they use. Excluding some desperate “gray customs clearance”, there is actually little difference in normal customs clearance.
For personal postal items, the tax rate for postal parcels is more favorable and the process is simpler. However, the customs cannot support the huge volume of inbound parcels. False declarations and false declarations exist, and the recipients need to declare and pay taxes on their own; Express shipments and cross-border direct purchases require electronic mandatory customs clearance, with full information transparency and transparent customs clearance of parcels. The difference in taxation is: cross-border comprehensive tax 11.9%, personal postal tax mostly 15%~30% (tax amount less than 50 yuan is exempted).
At present, most users have insufficient understanding of cross-border online shopping, resulting in a low proportion of cross-border overseas shopping users among the overall online shopping users. 27% of online shopping users have conducted “cross-border online shopping” in 2015. Shopping”, the overall proportion is small. PayPal’s 2015 cross-border e-commerce report shows that the United States and China have become the top two destinations for overseas shopping in the world, accounting for 25% and 19% respectively.
“Best-selling products” have given way to cross-border bonded imports. What is left in overseas shopping is to meet users’ “purchase on demand” or niche needs. Users are concerned about the price difference between domestic and foreign brands. New products and promotions, price differences between overseas distributors and domestic agents. The price sensitivity of “non-standard products” is slightly lower. Overseas shopping will still be inevitable in the next few years, and problems such as unguaranteed quality, unguaranteed logistics, and the inability to return or exchange goods will also be improved.
With the addition of more foreign brands, cross-border e-commerce, technology-based purchasing agents and transshipment logistics, novices can join overseas shopping more easily. For example, transshipment logistics directly cooperates with overseas online e-commerce, Chinese shopping page, quick ordering and transshipment, mobile payment, automatic declaration and transshipment process tracking, the shopping experience is completely localized, and logistics and customs clearance are completed by professional companies.
The alternative of overseas shopping is the upgrade of overseas shopping. In a narrow sense, bonded imported products bought on domestic e-commerce platforms have become personal purchasing agents, merchant purchasing agents, commercial purchasing agents, overseas shopping tools, etc. Not overseas shopping. Overseas online stores will also actively promote direct mail for overseas shopping. After all, allowing consumers to come for overseas shopping is the first channel for a large number of overseas small and medium-sized brands to obtain domestic consumers.