You can’t afford to be too early without profit. Large groups are taking the lead in cross-border e-commerce, and other merchants must plan for their own future. It can be said that cross-border e-commerce platforms have now played a super role, and doing business in these major “markets” is “unsatisfactory”.
Looking at the financial reports of listed companies such as Cross-border Tong, Youkeshu or Bestex, the gross profit margin is as high as 50% to 60%, but the net profit margin drops to single digits year by year, all of which are covered by platform commissions and logistics costs. The three major sectors, employee compensation and employee compensation, have been swallowed up, and platform monopoly has gradually become a reality.
So how does the platform make money? Commonly known as “traffic monetization”: building a self-built small online store is like setting up a stall on the roadside. Whether you can meet customers and gain trust depends on luck; and entering the platform means having a presence in the mall. A counter looks formal and popular, but you still have to spend money to find a good position (exposure); of course, when an independent website grows bigger, it will become a street specialty store, and if it is well run, it will not lose to the platform. After entering the platform, store rent, transaction fees, publishing fees, advertising fees, special function fees, etc. will come to you.
The reason is that the excess and redundancy of Internet information has made traffic increasingly scarce. Too much information push has made consumers feel that there are barriers to choice. It seems that information asymmetry in economics does not exist. , in fact, information matching is still difficult to resolve. Compared with traditional foreign trade, relying on the rules and credit of the platform, the communication process of cross-border e-commerce is greatly reduced.
The main indicator for evaluating the size of an e-commerce platform is GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume), which is positively related to the number of user visits to the platform.
Cross-border e-commerce is not like Taobao, which is the only one in China. All major cross-border e-commerce platforms have been developed for many years, each with its own characteristics. Different platforms have different customer base viscosity, especially their targets. Due to differences in market countries and target customers, the strategy of choosing multiple platforms to operate at the same time must be specific. The Five Hegemons of the Spring and Autumn Period, the princes of various countries, every platform that can be counted today is a book, and every founding is a story. According to the survey, the vast majority of online sellers sell through multiple channels. Not only are foreign e-commerce platforms diversified, but independent brand websites also have a large share.
Amazon is the preferred sales channel for private brands. Even so, 73% of Amazon sellers still open stores on eBay, and nearly one-third have their own independent websites.
“Platform economy” has been very popular recently. Everyone wants to build a platform and become a star, even rising to the perspective of industrial economy, dominating the “life and death” power of sellers, and influencing the ecological economy. Reshape the distribution of benefits in international trade flows. In fact, opening an online store is quite similar to a farmer’s market stall, and there are many similarities in marketing, management, and operations. It has to be said that many fundamental things (methods of making money) have not changed on the Internet.
The cross-border e-commerce comprehensive trading platform integrates online trading services, sales and after-sales, supply chain and logistics, financial insurance, and transaction guarantee mechanisms. The biggest feature of “platform delivery” is that it integrates commodity trade and circulation Service separation, through platform integration and delivery of service resources, creates economies of scale and reduces transaction costs, while more derivative services open up the internal management functions of traditional enterprises.
The platform mainly focuses on data. The transaction and evaluation information accumulated by buyers and sellers becomes the most powerful proof of commercial credit. The ranking and credit system improve order acquisition and merchant financing conditions. An e-commerce platform is a supply and demand bazaar, a small market ecology, with its own rules for operation and management, and a platform competition mechanism of “survival of the fittest” is established.
Investors are happy to make quick money, but only by following market rules can they last long. The same is true for doing business on the Internet platform. If you play by the sidelines, take chances, or lack integrity, you will have to pay the price sooner or later. When major platforms are flooded with all kinds of “Made in China” goods, both good and bad, the “rectification campaigns” launched by the platforms come and go. Inadvertent harm to innocent people is inevitable. Everyone who can fully prove their innocence also knows this. bright.
Perhaps this is the positioning, unlicensed imitation goods, following the popular trend, low quality and low price. It can be said that if there is a disagreement, the store will be closed. It is obvious that to support the transformation of brand manufacturing enterprises, platform rules tend to be sharper.
Amazon has strict merchant management and high-quality customer experience, which is suitable for high-quality, branded products. Thanks to its focus on branding and FBA logistics system, it has maintained double-digit rapid growth in recent years, but opening a store The cost is not low: eBay, as the originator of cross-border e-commerce, has begun to enter single-digit crawling growth and has been overtaken by the former.
The profit model of eBay and AliExpress is similar. It relies on building stores to gather traffic to earn transaction commissions and advertising fees. The competition for low-end products is fierce and is more suitable for the sale of cost-effective products; Wish has emerged as a new star and relies on The algorithm brings accurate push capabilities, and more than 90% of sales are completed on the mobile terminal; after Alibaba’s listing, AliExpress has accelerated its development and is rapidly seizing the online market.
Multi-platform management, some sellers may think it is easy, just update the slightly modified product information on several different platforms. In actual operations, it often takes time to rely on tools such as foreign trade ERP and customer service. Otherwise, sellers will face risks such as oversold, untimely service response, and suspension of sales rights. There are ebbs and flows on different platforms and at different times, as well as different customer groups and target market segments on each platform.
With the ups and downs of the Internet, emerging third-party e-commerce platforms are blooming in different regions. “I saw him building tall buildings, I saw him feasting on guests, I saw him…” Multi-platform operations must not only prevent the platform’s own risks, but also Go with caution, for example, Ensogo was founded in 2010 and positioned as a social e-commerce platform. It suddenly closed down five years later when it was at its peak. In fact, when emerging platforms enter and operate in advance, they are afraid of missing out on the next cash cow.