Moving factories into live broadcast rooms, nearly 20,000 Chinese-made products begin to "show" on Alibaba International Station

"The length of time overseas buyers stay in the showroom has increased by 40%, and the store conversion rate has increased by 1.5 times year-on-year." Chen Xiaoqiang, the boss of Yiqiang Plastic Co., Ltd. in Quanzhou, Fujian, likes to use data to prove the benefits of traditional industries' transformation to digital foreign trade.

On July 24, the 5th Digital China Summit was held in Fuzhou, Fujian. Yiqiang Plastic Co., Ltd. participated in the exhibition as a representative of Alibaba International Station platform merchants. "In the same second, 2,000 buyers squeezed into our online exhibition hall, which was the number of customers we got in the three days of "practicing" at the Canton Fair."

What amazed Chen Xiaoqiang was not only the numbers on the surface, but also the benefits behind them. Quanzhou Yiqiang Plastic Co., Ltd. was established in 2011 and is a company that produces disposable environmentally friendly food plastic containers. In Chen Xiaoqiang's own words, in the traditional industry that is "extremely competitive", going overseas has long become their moat.

Caption : Since the VR Showroom function was launched on Alibaba International Station in 2021, nearly 20,000 foreign trade merchants have used this service.

In 2011, Chen Xiaoqiang transformed and entered the plastic industry. When he saw the environmentally friendly plastic take-out boxes from abroad, he suddenly had the idea of ​​starting a business. In addition, with the rise of the take-out industry, he believed that disposable and environmentally friendly plastic take-out boxes would definitely have a market in the future.

"At first, plastic packing boxes sold very well, and trucks from all over the country that came to pick up goods had to line up in front of the factory gate." However, the good times did not last long. Chen Xiaoqiang said that by 2014, there were thousands of domestic manufacturers of disposable plastic packing boxes.

"The industry started to roll back inwards, and we were basically 'forced' to go overseas. We had to either continue to fight price wars domestically or improve our technology and go overseas." Chen Xiaoqiang and his company chose the latter, a path that seemed difficult and few people took at the time. "Before 2014, we had done very well in domestic trade, with annual sales of more than 40 million. But we felt that we still had to walk on two legs."

In 2014, Quanzhou Yiqiang Plastic Co., Ltd. began to gradually turn to foreign trade and engage in cross-border e-commerce through Alibaba International Station.

"In 2019, our online sales reached 20 million RMB. After that, we continued to grow at an unstoppable pace, with an annual growth rate of 50% or even doubling. In 2021, the online GMV reached 100 million." Chen Xiaoqiang introduced that their customers now spread across the United States and Europe, and their products account for 60% in the French market.

In Chen Xiaoqiang's view, in the traditional plastics industry, the moat of his company is digitalization and overseas expansion. Because of digitalization, they have accumulated first-mover advantages and seized the overseas online market; and because of overseas expansion, they have avoided the internal competition in the industry and found long-tail customers overseas.

"In 2021, we were the first to launch the VR Showroom function on Alibaba International Station." Chen Xiaoqiang believes that VR Showroom is the future, it is the metaverse. The epidemic has changed the way the world connects. Whoever transforms earlier and embraces digitalization earlier will have more food. Today, Chen Xiaoqiang is more worried about the uncertainty of the future, but digitalization can make the future more certain. "There are 40% more buyers, this is certain."

Alibaba International Station VR Showroom (VR Real Scene Exhibition Hall) is a combination of Alibaba International Station's leading spatial reconstruction technology with the DAMO Academy XR Lab. It uses XR Lab's self-developed scanning equipment to automatically build a three-dimensional space model, and superimposes interactive functions such as virtual human explanations and smart route guides to provide merchants with a digital VR real-scene factory and product viewing solution. 100% real-scene restoration of offline factories.

Since the launch of the VR Showroom function on Alibaba International Station in August 2021, nearly 20,000 platform merchants have used this service to build online exhibition halls, effectively reducing more than 2,000 cross-border offline factory visits. In the past, visiting factories and inspecting goods was basic work for foreign trade people, and it usually took 14-21 days to travel around the world to visit factories and inspect goods. Nowadays, not only can you save air tickets, but entering the VR Showroom can also experience the details of Made in China in person. Data shows that among customers browsing the VR Showroom, overseas medium and large buyers account for about 50%, and the browsing time has increased by 3 times. Coupled with the 24-hour multi-language professional explanations of the virtual shopping guide, it completely breaks the barriers of time and communication.

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