In the Internet field, those who claim to be self-operated rely on burning money, while most of those who claim to be platforms are attracting investment, and those who promote themselves to be ecological are cross-border hybrids. In recent years, imported cross-border e-commerce has grown rapidly, and self-operated B2C is the main driving force, continuing the domestic e-commerce purchase and sales model.
If we talk about the differences, they are mainly in the supply chain and logistics. Most of them are based on “self-operated direct procurement + bonded stocking”, supplemented by “overseas warehouse consignment + direct mail”. For example, some of Amazon’s self-operated import companies have set up warehouses in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone to stock goods under bonded conditions and sell their products domestically across the country; Xiaohongshu, jackfruit, etc. are also bonded and direct mailed, and are sold in Hong Kong, China, Japan, South Korea and other places. Overseas warehouses are set up; comprehensive e-commerce companies such as JD.com and Suning have dual channels of trade duty-paid import + cross-border e-commerce import.
Competition among self-operated cross-border e-commerce has become increasingly fierce in the past few years, with all the big gods and small fairies fighting for their skills. Both the front-end customer acquisition and the back-end acquisition of goods require a large amount of funds to support, “financing – burning money – “Financing” has become the path that has to be chosen.
Let’s start with heavyweight players such as JD.com and NetEase Kaola. “Wealthy companies” are much stronger than entrepreneurial companies in terms of capital, traffic, supply chain, etc., and have their own advantages in procurement, logistics, payment, etc. A system. A lot of money is invested in the team, supply, and logistics. Whether it is bonded warehouses or overseas warehouses, the source of the goods is relatively close to the brand owner. You can also get the goods from the agent without authorization. The quality of the goods is strong, and the category is also good. Spread horizontally, it is easier to enrich sales lines.
In the early days, they all adopted a subsidized shopping strategy to attract customers with popular products and bring related traffic to other products. Entrepreneurship gangs under the same routine PK have also begun to try to avoid too long fronts and enter from vertical fields. The biggest advantage of the vertical category is its understanding of specific groups of people and in-depth services, as well as its product selection capabilities and high conversion rate. However, the pain points are also very painful. The categories are limited and can only focus on hot-selling standard products. The gross profit margin of hot-selling standard products is large. The current situation is extremely low and the financial pressure is huge. It requires money to handle the upstream supply chain, logistics and bonded warehousing, marketing, and price wars to subsidize users, and it especially relies on continuous capital injection.
Vertical self-operation will focus on certain specific fields, such as maternal and infant, clothing, cosmetics, etc. The maternal and infant category is the easiest to win the cross-border incremental market. It has the characteristics of rigid demand, high frequency, and large traffic. It is the starting point for most family units to contact overseas shopping products, and it is also an essential category to attract converted traffic. For example, Miya’s GMV grew rapidly in the early stages, with a monthly repurchase rate as high as 70%°.
However, due to the single category, it is greatly affected by policies, it is small, and it is difficult to cooperate with suppliers. The upstream supply chain is unstable and prices are transparent. In the end, it all loses money. As a last resort, independent cross-border e-commerce platforms must find new ways to start differentiated competition in different directions and look for high-margin or spot categories. In terms of product selection, large platforms mainly produce standard products and are not flexible enough to create personalized hot products.
The independent platform has a keen sense of non-standard products and has advantages in user experience, operational flexibility, product display and form innovation. For example, in terms of demand acquisition, Darling’s “direct procurement + self-operated + buyer-made” method selects “new and unique” products, and uses technical means to capture the most popular and popular products at major communities, forums, post bars, e-commerce and other websites. The most popular products or keywords are compiled into a list and sent to overseas professional buyers as one of the basis for their product selection.
Judging from the annual “Double 11” sales data, maternal and infant products are still the backbone of overseas purchase sales. On major import platforms, such as Dangdang, Jumei, Xiaohongshu, Baobaozi, Xiji, etc., hot-selling products account for a large proportion of sales, while non-standard products and non-hot-selling categories have not yet developed, and the market still has Many unexplored areas are more suitable for in-depth and precise operations, and are also the last window period left for start-up companies.
Although the competition in imported e-commerce is fierce, the pattern has not yet been finalized. By racing to enclose the territory, outlast your opponents, and draw your sword to see who can compete with you, the market will be yours, and “the leftover will be king.” Therefore, the winner-take-all curse of the Internet has appeared again. “Big guys” have stepped in, raised the threshold, and relied on burning money to seize the market. The model is too heavy. Entrepreneurs should not enter the market easily unless you find something that cannot be easily solved with money. flaw.