The newly established Pomelo has become the biggest dark horse in the import cross-border e-commerce industry with its unique interactive video live broadcast model. Pomelo’s actual business has been in operation for less than half a year and has been valued at US$200 million. This strange thing that happened in the capital winter is really thought-provoking. So why is Pomelo Global Shopping so popular?
There are two factors: a unique model and excellent founders and teams.
First, a unique model.
In the import cross-border e-commerce industry, there are many entrepreneurs, and many models derived from this, such as the community-based Xiaohongshu, the O2O-focused Meiyue Youxuan, and the C2C model of Yangmatou.
However, the pain points in the industry, such as counterfeit goods and opaque prices, still exist. Entrepreneurs often clamor to solve the pain points of customers, but few can really do it.
Pomelo’s model is aimed at the pain points of the industry. If consumers are worried about fakes, then we can directly live stream the video. What you see with your own eyes is what you will receive: If consumers are worried about sellers raising prices too much, then we can directly shoot the store prices in the supermarket and sell as much as the store sells. It can be said that Jackfruit has simply and roughly solved the two major pain points in the overseas shopping market.
Although this model cannot be called disruptive innovation, it is at least unique – different from other import cross-border e-commerce companies. Of course, more importantly, this is a valuable model – it solves the pain points of consumers. Therefore, Jackfruit is loved by consumers, with sales exceeding 10 million in the second month of its launch, and a conversion rate of up to 20%.
Second, excellent founders and teams.
Excellent founders gather a strong founding team and implement a good idea without compromise. If this is achieved, the project is half successful.
Zhang Zhendong, the founder of Jackfruit, is a veteran of the mobile Internet. The Android Market Alliance UUCUN he founded previously has more than 200 million users, and was later acquired by Baidu. With such a brilliant and successful entrepreneurial experience, it is of course easier to attract excellent entrepreneurial partners, just like Lei Jun built a luxurious Xiaomi team.
There are two Japanese in the team, Yuya Mizuno and Hiroyuki Miura. The former is Zhang Zhendong’s long-time work partner and friend, a product expert, and the latter was the CEO of a Japanese listed company and is now responsible for the supply chain business of Pomelo Japan. Chen Shaochun, general manager of Pomelo Japan, is the former head of Ctrip Japan. It is no wonder that Pomelo has managed the Japanese supply chain in just a few months.
Now, Pomelo Korea Station is also online. The person in charge of Korea is Li Donggu, the former legal representative of Huace Group in Korea, who helped Pomelo sign dozens of cooperative brands and quickly established a local storage model system and anchor team. It took Pomelo less than three months from the establishment of the Korean team to the launch of the Korean station.
Relying on such an excellent founder and team, Pomelo completed two rounds of fundraising before it was officially launched, one for 3 million US dollars and the other for nearly 10 million US dollars. This shows that venture capital highly recognizes the founder and team of Parami.