North American market
North American e-commerce started early and is highly mature. In addition to the well-known Amazon, AliExpress, eBay, and Wish platforms, well-known local retail brands such as Walmart, Newegg, Bestbuy, and Overstock also All have e-commerce platforms.
The North American market has long been dynamic and has strong purchasing power. North American buyers like creative products and don’t like things that are static. They pay attention to the quality and packaging of goods. The quality of packaging should be at the same level as the quality of the goods, or even higher. North Americans pursue life experience and like outdoor sports, gardening, pets, DIY, etc.; in terms of clothing, they mainly focus on comfort and leisure.
Whether it is online or offline, the North American retail industry has its peak sales season from February to May, July to September, and November to December every year. The six major holidays (Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween) every year are shopping peaks. “Black Friday” after Thanksgiving is a traditional shopping spree with retail discounts and promotions. In addition, various large-scale events every year will also drive the sales of peripheral products, such as the Super Bowl, NBA, Major League Soccer, Oscars, Grammys, etc.
In North America, the social attention of these activities is very high, everyone will gather together, and the sales of related theme clothing, props and food will increase significantly during the activities.
North American society is full of rich culture and trends. Consumers are willing to pay for the culture and trends they like. Sellers in the North American market should always pay attention to the social hot spots and cultural trends in North America to explore business opportunities and create Hot item.
European market
The European countries with strong e-commerce purchasing power are the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, followed by Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, etc. The British like to shop online the most, with the highest number of online shoppers and per capita online shopping spending in Europe; the French like to shop for high-quality fashions, bags, accessories, and perfumes online; and the Germans have high requirements for product quality when shopping online. , German buyers also have the highest return rate. If you want to meet the requirements of German buyers, both product quality and outer packaging must be of high standards. Although there are many countries in Europe, each country has a small population. More than a quarter of people regard cross-border e-commerce as their first choice for shopping. Cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, AliExpress, eBay, and Wish are highly popular in Europe. In addition, there are many local e-commerce platforms in Europe, such as Cdiscount, Otto Fnac, and Zalando.
Cdiscount is the largest e-commerce platform in France. In France, its buyer acceptance is second only to Amazon. Its products cover daily necessities, food, electronic products, household appliances, maternal and infant products, boxes, etc. Chinese sellers are open to entry
Otto is the largest e-commerce platform in Germany. In Germany, its buyer acceptance is second only to Amazon. Its advantageous categories are clothing and daily necessities. The platform’s buyers cover about 45% of German households, and it was opened to Chinese sellers in 2019.
Fnac is a well-known offline retailer of cultural products and electrical products in France. It launched online sales in 2009 and is currently the second largest e-commerce platform in France.
Zalando is the largest fashion e-commerce platform in Europe and the second largest local e-commerce platform in Germany.
Southeast Asian Market
E-commerce in Southeast Asia will develop rapidly in the next few years due to its large population and young population structure. The rising usage rate of mobile Internet provides a good development environment for the e-commerce industry. More than a dozen e-commerce platforms, including Lazada invested by Alibaba, Shopee invested by Tencent, Carousell, a local platform in Singapore, and Tokopedia, a local platform in Indonesia, are rapidly exploring the Southeast Asian market in their own ways.
Southeast Asia includes 11 countries including Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Among them, Indonesia has the largest population. In 2017, the GMV (transaction value of the website) generated by Indonesian buyers online reached US$1.566 billion, making it the main consumption force in the entire Southeast Asia region. The difficulty in developing e-commerce in Indonesia is that there are many logistics delivery islands and scattered residents’ residences, which increases the cost of logistics delivery. As the most important financial center and international trade transit station in Southeast Asia, Singapore has a small population, but it has a developed economy, strong consumption power, and extremely high Internet and smartphone penetration rates. It is the most mature e-commerce market in Southeast Asia.
The following is a brief introduction to the main e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia.
Lazada was invested by Alibaba in 2016 and is now the leading platform in the e-commerce market in Southeast Asia. Lazada
is an online department store and trading market. Its product range covers all categories, allowing retailers including China to open their own stores to sell products on the platform.
Shopee is a latecomer in the e-commerce industry, but it has its unique advantages in social media and mobile e-commerce
Qoo10 was founded in South Korea and sells women’s products and fashion products. Strengths, especially Korean products and Korean clothing.
Qoo10 occupies a large market share in the Singapore e-commerce market. Female consumers account for 75% and the average age is 27 years old.
Carousell is a local e-commerce platform founded in Singapore. Its original intention was to help people sell second-hand goods easily.
It is the Southeast Asian version of “Xianyu”. Carousell’s slogan is “Sell now, buy now, send a private message”. Sellers use their mobile phones to take pictures of the goods and upload them directly to the platform. Buyers can communicate and negotiate directly with the sellers. The process of selling and buying is simple and convenient.
Tokopedia is headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia. It is a C2C online sales platform currently focusing on
the Indonesian market.
Latin America Market
The main e-commerce markets in Latin America include Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, etc. Brazil is the largest country in Latin America, with the largest population and the strongest e-commerce purchasing power. It was once one of the largest purchasing countries on the AliExpress platform. Brazilian women like to buy sexy clothing and exaggerated accessories, and bikinis are the hottest items in Brazil.
MercadoPago and Boleto are the two most commonly used payment methods by Brazilian buyers. MercadoPago is an online payment platform owned by Mercadolibre similar to Alipay. Mercadolibre is the largest e-commerce platform in Latin America. It mainly targets mid-to-high-end consumer groups and currently covers 18 South American countries including Brazil, Mexico, and Chile. If your Brazilian buyer chooses Boleto payment after placing an order, you will receive a payment notification within 7 days. Boleto’s payment process is that the bank sends an invoice to the consumer, and the consumer can pay at a nearby convenience store, ATM, post office or bank.
When doing cross-border e-commerce in Brazil, you will encounter the problem of low logistics efficiency. After Brazilian buyers place an order on the AliExpress platform, they usually have to wait 1 to 3 months to receive the goods. The reason is that the speed of parcel clearance at customs and the delivery speed after customs clearance are very slow, and the package loss rate is very high. high. Brazil is one of the most difficult countries in the world to clear customs. Brazilian customs regulations stipulate that the number of items sent to local private individuals cannot exceed 3 items of the same type. Otherwise, the customs will refuse customs clearance and return the goods to the place of origin. All costs incurred will be borne by The consignor is responsible. If the quantity of the same product exceeds 3, it can only be sent to companies, not individuals, and must be imported with formal customs clearance.
Argentina, another country in Latin America, was also a strong purchasing power on the AliExpress platform before 2014. However, after 2014, Argentina introduced regulations restricting citizens’ online shopping of foreign goods, stipulating that everyone The number of goods purchased from abroad by a person per year shall not exceed 5 items, the amount of each item shall not exceed US$999, and the number of items purchased shall not exceed 3 items of the same item.
With the global development of e-commerce, the logistics and payment situation in Latin America will improve. I believe that we will soon see the Latin American market become a new blue ocean for cross-border e-commerce.
Russian market
Russia’s domestic light industry is underdeveloped. Cross-border e-commerce provides Russians with a convenient choice for purchasing daily necessities. More and more Russians like to shop on foreign websites. , AliExpress has been one of the favorite foreign shopping websites for Russians since its launch.
Russia’s local e-commerce platforms include Yendex, Mymall, Umka and Joom. Yendex is the largest search engine provider in Russia. It also provides services including e-commerce, news, maps, email, etc. The reason why Yendex’s e-commerce business occupies a leading position in Russia is inseparable from its search engine market share. . Mymall is the cross-border e-commerce platform of Mycom, a subsidiary of the Russian Mail.ru Group. Mycom also owns VKontakte (VK), the largest social platform in Russian. The orders brought from the social platform give Mymall a high market share in Russia. . Both Yendex and Mymall have opened registration to Chinese sellers.
Russians like to purchase goods through social channels. Russia’s largest social platform is VK, and a large proportion of orders for the Russian e-commerce platform Mymall are generated from VK. AliExpress sellers can also choose to market on the VK platform when promoting to the Russian market.
Middle East Market
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the main buyer markets for e-commerce in the Middle East. The Internet penetration rate in the Middle East Gulf countries exceeds 90%, the penetration rate of smartphones exceeds 65%, and the urban population is mainly young people; the local area is rich in oil, the country is wealthy, and the national consumption power is high, but there are few types of domestic products for ordinary consumers to choose from , therefore, cross-border e-commerce provides consumers in the Middle East market with more diversified choices, and the e-commerce industry has huge room for development. However, the proportion of buyers in the Middle East who use online payment is low, and buyers have low trust in new platforms. They like to choose Cash On Delivery (COD), which is currently supported by mainstream e-commerce platforms in the Middle East. COD.
The main e-commerce platforms in the Middle East market include Jollychic, Soug, Noon, and Namshi. Jollychic (Chinese name: Zhuiyu) cross-border e-commerce platform was founded by a Chinese company. It mainly sells Chinese goods in the Middle East market and currently has a high market share in the Middle East. The Jollychic platform is a self-operated model and is differentiated by category. Chinese suppliers who want to sell products on the Jollychic platform can upload Chinese product information in the background, and the platform will unify translation, operation, promotion and warehousing and distribution. After the customer places the order, the supplier will send the goods. Send it to Jollychic’s designated warehouse, and the platform will be responsible for international logistics.
AliExpress began to build the Middle East market in 2018. In the first round, it focused on operations in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Cainiao Logistics launched the “New Middle East Worry-free Consolidation Line” to improve buyers’ delivery Try to reduce the seller’s logistics costs while experiencing it. If sellers join the “Middle East Petroleum Plan” of the AliExpress platform, they can open the COD payment method and participate in the marketing activities organized by the AliExpress platform for the Middle East.