Traditional enterprises used to focus on large OEM orders, with long delivery time and large transaction scale; in contrast, the characteristics of product procurement in the era of cross-border e-commerce are multiple small orders and short delivery time. The difference in procurement methods requires enterprises to break through the constraints of traditional transaction thinking and adapt to the characteristics of product procurement in the e-commerce era. For example, many Zhejiang enterprises still insist on a minimum order quantity of more than 3,000 when facing inquiries from e-commerce enterprises, which obviously fails to accurately grasp the procurement characteristics of the e-commerce era.
In fact, many successfully developed e-commerce enterprises have experienced the process of product procurement mode transformation from small orders to large orders. The initial small orders are to test and explore the market, while large orders are market expansion and value returns after grasping the market characteristics and accumulating marketing experience.
There are still many traditional enterprises that, although they have not established a dedicated cross-border e-commerce team, online store or website, have taken large sellers as their target customers and have also obtained good profits; at the same time, these traditional enterprises have also changed their transaction concepts, such as adapting to the characteristics of multiple small cross-border e-commerce procurement and providing services for small sellers’ small wholesale business.
Traditional enterprises have R&D advantages, but they are relatively backward in the perception and grasp of market changes and end-customer needs, and are far less flexible and sensitive than retail channels. Therefore, when traditional enterprises enter the cross-border e-commerce market with products, they should focus on product research and analysis on the basis of ensuring product quality, so as to accurately perceive market changes, grasp customer needs, and provide highly optimized products that better meet market needs.
Product research content includes product performance, competitive product situation, main target market, foreign local competitors, customer product experience, shortcomings and selling points of similar products, etc.
From the perspective of product operation, Amazon, which adheres to the value concept of “customer-centric”, is one of the best platforms for traditional enterprises to transform into cross-border e-commerce. Amazon encourages customers to describe their own product purchase and use experience on the product sales page, so as to form word of mouth, and then shape the corporate brand image through word of mouth communication.
Excellent product quality is the guarantee for forming a good reputation. At the same time, if in the cross-border e-commerce model, the company’s products have both high-quality and user-centered functional pain points of similar products, it is obviously easier to build the core competitiveness of the product.
For example, the American company C&A Marketing has many categories and buyers, and each buyer is responsible for a sub-category. When the company engages in cross-border e-commerce, it collects customers’ personalized and diversified demands for product functions through various channels such as Amazon and social media to achieve product upgrades and resolve functional pain points. For example, waterproof Bluetooth speakers fully meet users’ demands for music experience while taking a bath.
Therefore, traditional companies that transform into cross-border e-commerce companies should actively collect target customers’ demand information for products through various channels such as cross-border e-commerce platforms and Internet social media while maintaining their product research and development advantages, upgrade product functions around user demand pain points, and promote their own smooth growth with highly optimized products.