Cross-border e-commerce during the epidemic: Which platforms are winning the market
As the global COVID-19 epidemic continues to spread, the economies of many countries have been affected to varying degrees. For cross-border e-commerce, this period presents both challenges and opportunities. This article will explore which emerging platforms have grown rapidly during the epidemic, and analyze the specific problems that e-commerce platforms need to solve during the epidemic.
The rise of emerging platforms
Korea e-commerce platform Coupang
Recent data released by a market research company shows that Coupang became South Korea’s largest online retailer in the first quarter of 2020. Coupang’s sales increased to 7 trillion won (approximately US$5.71 billion) in 2019 from 4.42 trillion won (approximately US$3.61 billion) in 2018. Especially during the 2020 epidemic, Coupang’s daily order volume doubled, reaching a peak of 3.3 million orders on January 28. Since then, the platform has delivered an average of 3 million orders per day.
Indonesian e-commerce platform Bukalapak
Although the epidemic has dealt a huge blow to the Indonesian economy, the transaction volume of the Bukalapak platform has surged during the new crown epidemic. Bukalapak co-founder Fajrin Rasyid said sales of video games, kitchen and fitness equipment have increased significantly as Indonesian residents adapt to home life. To this end, the Bukalapak platform has launched a Chinese investment channel at CCEE Shenzhen Station, aiming to jointly explore the Indonesian electrical product market with Chinese partners.
Alibaba South Asia Platform Daraz
As an upstart in multinational e-commerce, Alibaba’s Daraz platform covers Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Nepal, with a market of more than 500 million people. Daraz APP is very popular locally, with more than 85% of orders coming from mobile devices. With the strong support of Alibaba, multinational sellers only need to send the goods to the Chinese warehouse for scanning within 5 calendar days, and then they can track the status of the package in the sellercenter backend. Currently, Daraz’s E2E expiration date is 17 days.
Challenges faced by e-commerce platforms
Update relevant information about target markets
E-commerce platforms should clearly communicate with consumers around the world whether online shopping is open to them and provide a streamlined, localized customer experience.
Launch promotions and discounts
Promotions and discounts are an effective way to convert traffic into sales, helping to increase customer conversion rates.
Adopting a multi-carrier model in international logistics
Due to border closures and home quarantine measures, international cargo flights have been significantly reduced, resulting in delivery delays in some markets. The multi-carrier model can help merchants avoid delayed deliveries, mitigate the impact of the epidemic on cross-border e-commerce logistics, and improve customer service quality.
Communicate openly with global consumers
E-commerce platforms must maintain transparent communication with consumers around the world, clearly inform them of possible delays in delivery of goods, and provide real-time tracking of orders. In addition, the return process needs to be simplified and the return policy adjusted to give consumers more time to return goods.
To sum up, although the COVID-19 epidemic has brought unprecedented challenges to the global economy, it has also given rise to a number of emerging cross-border e-commerce platforms. These platforms have achieved rapid growth during the epidemic by continuously innovating service models and improving user experience. For e-commerce platforms, if they want to stand out in future market competition, they must actively respond to various challenges and continuously improve their competitiveness.