1. First acquaintance with cross-border e-commerce
Until now, some friends still ask me why I gave up my job as a real estate marketing director and went into cross-border e-commerce? This story started in 2013, which was the turning point of the real estate market. With the deepening of the country’s macroeconomic regulation and the increasing accumulation of real estate bubbles, I realized that the real estate market would eventually return to rationality, and what the country needs now is a new economic growth point. My sensitivity to the macroeconomic environment prompted me to pay attention to various business opportunities. Paying attention to CCTV’s financial information and major financial BBS became my daily compulsory course. I found that cross-border e-commerce was the word with the highest “appearance rate” in major financial news. At that time, I felt very unfamiliar with cross-border e-commerce, but I found that this would be a new opportunity. So at the end of 2013, I decisively quit my job in real estate and devoted myself to the unfamiliar industry of cross-border e-commerce.
Because I was a layman, I had to learn from the most basic knowledge. The Fob Foreign Trade Forum became my first teacher. After a period of study, I gradually understood this industry. SKU, sales rate, keywords, conversion rate, click-through rate, gradually replaced the real estate vocabulary such as volume ratio, premium rate, greening rate, and apartment type in my dictionary. I began to know that this industry is far from being as simple as the transformation of traditional foreign trade into B2C. And choosing a cross-border e-commerce platform that suits me became my first problem.
2. Get to know Wish
After a deep understanding of cross-border e-commerce, I found that there are people in this industry who have been doing it for many years, with rich experience and strong capital. As a newcomer, I have to start from scratch. If I want to overtake on the curve, I must either discover new products or new platforms. At that time, the mainstream platforms could not meet my two core needs. It was not until May 2014 that I saw an advertisement posted by Wesley, the investment manager of Wish, on the Fob BBS. The two pieces of information in it attracted me greatly: the first mobile e-commerce platform! Use push mechanism to distribute traffic! This is exactly what I need: the first mobile platform brings “blue ocean” opportunities, and the push mechanism eliminates the gap between me and large merchants. Everything depends on the product! I immediately contacted Wesley and chatted with him online for more than an hour. He introduced the relevant policies of Wish in detail, which further confirmed my judgment. At the same time, he provided me with an important news: Wish’s director Mr. Fang and investment manager Bank were coming to Qingdao for promotion. So I had the opportunity to directly contact Wish for the first time. I met with Mr. Fang and talked for two hours. The professionalism and affinity of the Wish team deeply impressed me. The push mechanism with thousands of faces and the mobile-based operation mode made me feel refreshed, which determined my development direction for the next two years. That is to use the Wish platform as a battlefield and start my cross-border e-commerce journey!
3. Set sail
Just do it! After that meeting, I immediately registered my own Wish store and started learning to upload products. I have to admire the power of dreams. I used to rely on the alarm clock to get up, but I could wake up naturally at 5 o’clock. This kind of excitement and motivation from the heart allowed me to upload more than 200 products in the first 10 days. Hard work will be rewarded. My first order came from an American customer who bought a bracelet 5 days later! This is my first transaction since I entered this industry. Until now, I will never forget the sense of accomplishment brought by the first order. Then I was busy arranging the shipment. I worked for half a day for this order, confirming the address, arrival time, and product details over and over again. I only sent it out when I felt it was foolproof and uploaded the order number. Now think about it, there is an inexplicable touch. Facing my first order, I had a pious sense of ritual. Isn’t this sense of ritual the original intention of cross-border e-commerce people? I hope that my team can continue to have this original intention in the future development, with high quality and speed, and use services and products to exchange for traffic and conversion rate.
With the first order, there will be the second and third orders. Because of Wish’s traffic bonus and my own efforts, by the end of July, I can already do more than 20 orders per day. With the increase in the number of orders, the problem came. I could no longer take care of product updates, uploads, and high-quality shipments, which would inevitably become a hidden danger in the future. Thanks to my experience in leading a team in the original industry, I spent half a month to form a startup team, and our Wish journey also ushered in the first take-off.
4. Team strength
In August, I started to build a team. Due to the pressure of initial funds, I could not give my team members too good treatment at the beginning. Looking back now, what may have impressed them was this sentence: “Cross-border e-commerce is the best opportunity for young people of this era. We may start from scratch and create huge value. The platform we are now working on is the first mobile platform in the cross-border e-commerce industry. It is a ‘blue ocean’ platform in the ‘blue ocean’ industry and the best choice among the best opportunities.”
In any case, they came with an entrepreneurial mentality. We started in an office of a friend’s company, developing products, uploading products, and contacting suppliers. I sat with everyone. We started with 4 to 5 people. By the end of the year, we had developed into a team of 8 people. Basically, everyone did not get off work before 9 o’clock in the evening. After returning home, we discussed products, stores and data. At the end of 2014, we achieved an average of 700 orders per day!
We rented our own new office, and the office area expanded from more than ten square meters to more than 200 square meters. We also have a dedicated warehouse and built an ERP system, and everything started to develop in a good direction. Thanks to our team that year and the friends who provided us with the venue at the beginning. The power of the team brings a multiplier effect. Now looking back on that period, we actually did every detail well, from product selection to pictures to descriptions to logistics, and did the best we could. A strong team configuration is the basis for doing all this, so now I often recommend that merchants who are just starting to do cross-border e-commerce business, if conditions permit, must build their own team at the beginning. Competition in the cross-border e-commerce industry is becoming increasingly fierce. Only by working together with the team can we go further.
5. Growing pains
After the team stabilized, the company developed steadily. In less than a year, we moved three times because of the increasing scale. While the performance improved, I became more and more worried that the size of the team could no longer support the company’s continued development. However, it was difficult to expand on the existing model, and the vague division of labor among team members became the key to the problem. Everyone can do everything, but they are too busy to do everything, and they cannot cover everything when the number of orders increases and the scale expands. So we calmed down and started to think about solutions, and division of labor and cooperation became the solution. We divided the team into several small groups, carried out detailed division of labor within the groups, and team expansion was achieved by adding more small groups. This not only continued the company’s previous business model, but also solved the problem of expansion. This fission-like development also brought us our second take-off. By the end of 2016, our team had expanded to more than 20 people, with a peak order volume of 2,000 orders per day!
Along the way, we have encountered difficulties and setbacks, and have been confused and helpless, but we persisted, and the biggest secret of doing Wish is persistence, persistence in developing products, persistence in optimizing data, and persistence in adapting to Wish’s improvement rules. When Wish first entered the Chinese market, there was a slogan: “Silicon Valley mobile e-commerce Wish: taking Chinese merchants to ‘go overseas'”, since we have chosen to follow Wish to go overseas, let us be better sailors!