In recent years, cross-border e-commerce has emerged. From the opening of JD.com Overseas Shopping, Alibaba Tmall Global, and AliExpress cross-border e-commerce platforms in 2013, to the launch of the global group by No.1 Store and Ymatou, e-commerce giants have relied on big data to set their sights on cross-border e-commerce. Data show that in 2013, the transaction volume of China’s cross-border e-commerce market was 3.1 trillion yuan, an increase of 28.8%. In the first half of 2014, the growth rate of cross-border e-commerce imports and exports also exceeded 30%. At present, first-class e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and Alibaba are vigorously developing cross-border business, which has gradually intensified the competition in the blue ocean market of cross-border e-commerce.
There are two common types of cross-border e-commerce platforms: self-built platforms and third-party platforms. These two types of platforms have their own advantages, and the corresponding product types, business strategies, customer service requirements, and suitable user groups are also very different. One emphasizes “professional because of specialization”, and the other emphasizes “all department stores and groceries are caught in one net”.
For sellers, third-party platforms are a once-and-for-all option. As long as you register a store, you can operate a variety of products and adopt a diversified business model. Spending the same amount of time can produce more benefits. Relatively speaking, with the same results, less effort is required, which is a more labor-saving option.
The situation with self-built platforms is just the opposite. You can be very professional in a certain field or even a sub-industry and form your own characteristics. Self-built platforms rely on the strength of the team to achieve one-stop collaboration in marketing planning, product positioning, sales strategy, product listing, store decoration, order processing, purchasing, delivery, after-sales, etc. Because if you really want to become bigger and stronger, you still have to be professional, team-based, and scaled, otherwise you will always be small-scale and self-sufficient. However, this model requires strong financial, technical, and personnel support, which is difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises and individual sellers.