Some friends believe that the current era is an era in which “small and beautiful” is popular and can flourish. Some friends believe that the environment faced by “small and beautiful” is extremely harsh, especially in the next three years from 2017. It may be an era in which large sellers hold capital hostage and quickly strangle “small and beautiful”. Friends who are optimistic about “small and beautiful” companies believe that the platform is becoming more and more perfect, the size is constantly increasing, and there will be more and more new opportunities. Friends who are not optimistic about “small and beautiful” believe that the subsequent living space of “small and beautiful” may become narrower and narrower, their bottlenecks will gradually become prominent, and the strangling ability of large sellers is rapidly showing.
It is not optimistic to hold on to “small and beautiful”. I want to climb through this stage desperately and dare not be satisfied with the so-called “small and beautiful” stage. At least we must expand the scale quickly. Even if we cannot reach strong, we must accumulate a certain scale and complete the initial talent and technology reserves.
In the process of external competition, it is obvious that large-scale enterprises join hands with capital. The power of the “small and beautiful” team can easily squeeze the “small and beautiful” team. They can easily take away your talents, get your resources, and crush you on price. Even if there is no cost advantage, they can strategically crush you with price. They are vulnerable to their squeeze in almost every link.
Many times, new opportunities are often discovered by “small and beautiful” companies, such as a regional market, a category, or a more creative idea, but we harvest the first 1/3, and the next 2/3 may be harvested by “big and strong”. It is conceivable that this situation will only get worse. Sellers who are still in the “small and beautiful” state should never be satisfied with the status quo, never think that the status quo is not bad, and don’t think that there are still millions of profits every year, financial freedom is close, and it will be okay to maintain it next year. This idea is very terrible, and it will miss development opportunities and even lose future living space.
When things are still good, it is urgent to invest money to optimize the talent structure, optimize and expand the product line, establish your own valuable brand, consolidate the regional market you are good at, consolidate the supply chain and strengthen the product development capabilities in the categories you are good at, expand new sales platform channels, and quickly maximize the scale. The e-commerce industry has always been an industry with a particularly obvious oligopoly effect. Before many “big and strong” companies are really strong, it is the safest way to quickly expand their size. Don’t forget that “big and strong” has been eyeing the market share of “small and beautiful”. Of course, in the process of expansion, we must avoid blind expansion, avoid shocking ourselves, and avoid some traps in expansion.
Of course, from another perspective, it is also a good thing that “small and beautiful” has been paid attention to by “big and strong”. Many “small and beautiful” are acquisition targets that big sellers are interested in. Of course, the premise is that your “small and beautiful” beauty is valuable and can be continuously consolidated and developed over a certain period of time, although this is becoming increasingly difficult.
In short, the waters of cross-border export e-commerce are still very deep, and there are many things to learn. It is not as simple as imagined. It is not that you can sell well by moving good products over, and it is not that you can maintain it in the future if you are good this year. I suggest that those friends who are still in the “small” stage or the “small and beautiful” stage should make more friends in the circle, collide with more interesting ideas, and avoid risks more.