The first batch of foreign trade factories that joined AliExpress’s full-management service began to receive a surge in orders

In 2023 , with the changes in the global consumption structure, the era of breaking down foreign trade orders into small pieces has arrived , which has also led major e-commerce platforms to start a " crazy rush " to attract factory investment. TEMU, SHEIN, AliExpress, more and more e-commerce platforms have extended olive branches to factories.

Is it a good way out for foreign trade factories to transform into cross-border e-commerce? More and more factories are getting their own answers by personally joining the game.

Unexpectedly, a factory restocked twice in a row and still sold out instantly

Before joining AliExpress, how to get more orders for factories was a question that Song Qianghua, the head of Shenzhen Huanuoda, had to think about every day.

More than a decade ago , this small factory was founded by Song Qianghua from scratch , and then gradually grew to a team of dozens of people and scale. The factory mainly produces specific lighting equipment, such as bicycle lights, outdoor flashlights, etc. Before joining AliExpress , as an ordinary small factory in the local industrial belt, like all the surrounding factories, Huanuoda's main business model in the past was to supply major foreign trade companies.

Figure: Huanoda Optoelectronics' factory production line

Small factories like Huanoda are scattered across many industrial belts across the country. They are the blood vessels and pulse of the huge body of "Made in China", but in the industrial structure of the manufacturing industry, they are at the bottom of the "smile curve" with thin profits. They earn the hardest money but cannot reach consumers.

The biggest characteristics of small factories are limited production lines, relatively single products, and lack of expertise in opening and operating toC stores.

However, compared with other peers, Huanoda 's production and operation methods are more flexible. It has opened stores on multiple e-commerce platforms and registered its own brand. However, although it has connected to cross-border e-commerce early on, there has been no improvement in its operations.

The reason behind this is that toC cross-border operations are too complicated for factory merchants .

The turning point came at the end of 2022, when Xia Yuan, an industry clerk at AliExpress, found Xiao Zhi, the person in charge of Huanoda's online sales channel. After several rounds of telephone communication and understanding of Huanoda 's situation, the AliExpress clerk gave two core suggestions on "new ways out".

First, AliExpress launched a full-hosting service suitable for factory-type sellers.

Second, you can try to develop new products.

The question was whether to do it or not . After Xiaozhi reported the situation to his superiors, several leaders of Huanuoda discussed it and Song Qianghua decided to do it!

However, in order to be safe, they decided to develop new products to test the waters. Huanoda is a small factory, but because of this, the production method is very flexible . Soon, visual smart ear picks were continuously produced on the factory production line . Huanoda chose this direction because of the years of technical accumulation of lighting small appliances and because the market price of personal care small appliances abroad is higher than that in China.

Picture: The anchor is showing Huanoda 's smart visual ear pick

On specific molds, the built-in blue light high-definition lens can help consumers accurately find the location of earwax, and it is also equipped with a lighting function, so users can immerse themselves in ear digging while looking at their mobile phones.

On the eve of the Spring Festival, the first batch of 1,000 smart ear picks produced by Huanoda were sent to the preferred warehouse under the full management of AliExpress. After setting up the products , Xiaozhi, the person in charge of online sales, felt that the 1,000 orders should be able to be sold until the end of the Spring Festival .

Unexpectedly , the ear picks were sold out just a few days after being on the shelves , and there were still several days left before the Spring Festival holiday .

Xiaozhi didn’t expect that AliExpress would sell out so quickly. In order to ensure that he could be a “ hands-off boss ” during the Spring Festival , Xiaozhi urgently communicated with the waiter to replenish the stock .

Soon, thousands of newly produced smart ear picks entered the warehouse . Xiaozhi thought that this should be enough, but the result surprised him again. Before the second day of the Chinese New Year, the second batch of thousands of smart ear picks were sold out again .

" I didn't expect the orders to explode again! " This time there was no way out, because the workers had gone home for the Spring Festival. Although they missed more opportunities to "earn money without doing anything" during the Spring Festival, it strengthened the determination of several leaders of Huanuoda to invest in AliExpress. Xiaozhi and his colleagues in the factory spent the New Year in excitement and anticipation. After the beginning of the new year, they rushed back to the factory without stopping, upgraded the machines, and immediately invested in the production of full-service supply for AliExpress.

" The full custody service launched by AliExpress is really suitable for factory sellers. We didn't have to take care of the goods after they entered the warehouse . I really didn't expect that the goods would sell so quickly . " Xiaozhi exclaimed.

During the Spring Festival , over 10,000 orders were made without any effort, and merchants lamented that cross-border business has become easier

Like Huanoda , Cao Min also joined the full trusteeship at the end of the year and achieved "passive income" during the Spring Festival .

Unlike his peers, Cao Min attaches great importance to branding and registered the brand Zeblaze for his smartwatch early on . However, as a domestic smart wearable device, it is really difficult to develop a brand under the shadow of big brands such as Apple.

Last November , when Cao Min first heard the waiter introduce the AliExpress full hosting service, his first reaction was worry and doubt. " At first, I was worried that the low price would affect the sales of the main store. Later, the waiter said that the price could be set according to the brand's price system. So we decided to give it a try. "

Cao Min tried to prepare hundreds of Zeblaze smart watches in AliExpress's fully managed warehouse. Unexpectedly , it became a hit, and the sales and exposure of his own brand store also began to increase . This gave him confidence and he began to be optimistic about AliExpress's fully managed service, which is suitable for factory sellers.

Before the Spring Festival, Cao Min prepared 10,000 smart watches in one go to the fully managed warehouse based on the sales volume of the fully managed backend in the past 30 days.

" We did not hesitate when preparing the stock this time , considering that we would not be able to ship the goods for half a month during the Spring Festival." As a result, the sales volume exceeded Cao Min 's expectations. Before the Spring Festival was over, all 10,000 smart watches in the warehouse were sold out.

Picture: Smartwatch brand Zeblaze stocked 10,000 watches on AliExpress before the New Year, and they were sold out within a few days .

In January 2023, the cumulative GMV of Zeblaze's self-operated stores and fully managed stores exceeded US$250,000, and more than 50% of cross-border e-commerce orders came from AliExpress. "It's been a long time since I felt such a hot sale. Seeing that each SKU was sold out, it's too easy for factories to do cross-border e-commerce now, which was unimaginable before . " Cao Min said .

Foreign trade factories flock to the "Four Little Dragons"

For factories, the operation of cross-border e-commerce has become increasingly simple in the past two years.

In the past, traffic and operation were two huge challenges for any platform. But now, there is no need to do promotion and operation, but the platform will do it. Logistics and warehousing are also undertaken by the platform , and even foreign languages ​​are not needed. Factories only need to provide goods and competitive quotations to open online stores.

As domestic Internet giants have flocked into the cross-border e-commerce track , the four major Chinese platforms known as the "Four Little Dragons Going Overseas" such as S HEIN, AliExpress, Temu , and Tiktok have soared overseas . Factories from China are the important role in supporting their development!

Back to the original question, would it be a good way out for foreign trade factories to join these platforms and transform into cross-border e-commerce?

Perhaps for foreign trade factories, this wave of cross-border e-commerce is like " Little Horse Crossing the River ". Only those who seize the opportunity and bravely try will get their own answers.

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