Many factories in my country integrate production, R&D, manufacturing and design, but they have no channels in the European and American markets and can only do OEM work. Sellers know everything and have channel resources, but they don’t have products. The core requirement for product selection is to be able to sell. How to generate orders quickly? The investment manager will tell novices “nakedly” that on Amazon, they just follow the sales.
Following sales is imitation, that is, “Chinese-style purchasing thinking”. This method has made many well-known companies such as QQ, ZARA, Handu, Xiaomi, etc. In every field, there are some companies that rely on “follow-up sales” to achieve innovation. For small sellers, they sell whatever is easy to sell, rely on high-speed turnover to sell goods, and rely on their eyesight to select goods. They require small capital and low operating costs, and operate more on third-party platforms.
“Follow-up” does not have clear category or brand requirements, it is just for selling goods. This kind of follow-up sales is to complete sales according to the popularity of the market, hit hot products, and only sell hot products. The categories are mainly large categories. Sellers usually have multiple stores in each category.
Hot items are products that sell very hotly. High traffic, high exposure, and high order volume are its specific manifestations. It may seem easy to follow the sales, but in fact, the turnover requirements are quite high, and the reaction must be quick. Once a popular item is discovered, it is necessary to rush to buy the goods, rush to put it on the shelves, and rush to promote it. This kind of operation method is not possible in larger companies.
It may take 1 to 3 days for a large company to discover a popular product and start selling it on the shelves. This is the “point” for small sellers. Usually they do not prepare goods and go directly to the market to grab the spot. For new products that have just been launched on the market, the supply chain is temporarily out of stock, and the slow response of large companies is the space for these small sellers to exist. The biggest advantage of follow-up sales is to reduce the warm-up of the market and use the popularity of other brands to quickly make users aware of the product.
Following sales does not mean making imitations. It is a relatively default competitive strategy in the industry. Whether it is the clothing industry or the 3C industry, there are imitations, and some carry out micro-innovations or improvements and upgrades. For example, mid-to-low-end wedding dresses are fighters among non-standard products. The products are light in weight, have a strong sense of design and fashion, and have low minimum order quantities, making them a long-lasting gold-attracting category in the foreign trade market.
Hot-selling products that are blindly copied imitate or even copy popular products in terms of function and shape, with only slight changes in appearance design. However, this approach is very risky. Mature foreign e-commerce platforms have strict regulations on product intellectual property rights and piracy infringement. Companies may receive complaints from imitated companies due to infringement and have their products removed from the shelves or even be mired in lawsuits and penalties. , there are countless lessons, and big sellers especially cannot afford it.
Another motive for follow-up sellers is to compete on price. The more similarities there are, the harder they will “kill” each other. The more they hope to increase sales, the more they will “kill” low prices, resulting in many follow-up sellers losing money and making money. .
The more standardized products, such as electronics, auto parts, home furnishings, and sports equipment, are the hardest hit by follow-up sales. Especially with the current high marketing and operating costs, sellers have repeatedly tested around the sales price range of the market. Under the same conditions such as titles, keywords, pages, pictures, local delivery, etc., except for the different performance of each competing account, In addition, the only thing everyone can do is to see who has the lowest operating expenses.
If you want to do a good job of follow-up selling, you need to have a comprehensive understanding of the brand, supply chain, and intellectual property products. Depending on whether the target you want to follow-up has brand protection, you can change the design and promote the product, and avoid it in every link. Address infringement issues of brand merchants to ensure that legal risks are controllable.
Objectively speaking, following a sale is like following a long-distance race. It has nothing to do with right or wrong. The market is just like that. You just need to be cautious about such a strategy. If you just follow the sales blindly and ignore the sales capacity, you are likely to fall into the trap. If you don’t pay attention to products and focus on marketing, putting the cart before the horse, it will be detrimental to the development of the industry.