Alibaba International Station upgrades platform measures, and high-quality growth of foreign trade enters the "service" competition stage

For domestic merchants and overseas buyers, obtaining certain one-stop comprehensive services and " end-to-end " logistics fulfillment has become the current growth engine for China's manufacturing exports.

On March 17 , Zhang Kuo, President of Alibaba International Station, announced the platform's new fiscal year initiatives online. Providing one-stop B2B services to a wider range of merchants going overseas has become a special highlight of the international station upgrade this year. Merchants who are not members of Alibaba International Station can also enjoy the credit insurance, financial flow, and logistics services of the international station at any time, reflecting that the current service demand for Chinese manufacturing going overseas has reached the main position for merchants to gain new growth potential.

1. From transaction to service

In the past few years, Alibaba.com has undergone a major change, from a matchmaking platform to a trading platform. From last year to the next few years, Alibaba.com will build on this foundation and deepen the platform value for buyers and sellers.

For buyers, the International Station provides a platform with abundant supply, reliable services, and safe and convenient services . For sellers, the International Station helps merchants upgrade from the original relatively single service to marketing, capital, and circulation, providing an efficient and complete operation process.

Overseas buyers get deterministic services on the international site, and Chinese merchants get one-stop solutions on the international site.

The upgrades and changes of Alibaba International Station have strengthened the platform's exploration of comprehensive service platforms. In the third quarter of Alibaba Group's fiscal year 2022 , Alibaba International Station's platform transaction orders and overseas buyers both achieved double-digit growth. The transaction volume of foreign trade companies on Alibaba International Station increased by 50% year-on-year . In addition, due to the international station's more value-added services such as international logistics and transaction credit guarantees provided to foreign trade companies. Alibaba International Station's value-added service revenue increased by 43% , driving the overall revenue growth of the international station to 29% .

In terms of the overall market, the total export value of Chinese merchants overseas is 10 trillion RMB. Of the 10 trillion RMB, the financial flow is 100 billion RMB and the logistics is 15-2 trillion RMB .

From the perspective of the overall market structure, overseas services have evolved from a single dimension to a broader service scenario. The core issue that Chinese merchants need to solve for their overseas business is not only the acquisition of business opportunities. Services have become the main growth force of the overseas business, and they have also become a breakthrough for Chinese merchants to go overseas and tap into higher overseas market value.

Facing the accelerating changes in the global market, Alibaba International Station, as a platform, actively creates conditions to outperform the changes with the industry and create a favorable environment for small and medium-sized enterprises to go global. Overall, the main theme of this year's changes is to expand into overseas high-end markets by serving this industry element that has risen to core competitiveness.

2. Welcome the era of high-quality growth

In the second half of 2021 , there was a significant change in China's exports: an increase in the value of goods per kilogram. There are several reasons for these changes:

First, the commodity structure has changed, from small items to large items, from low unit price to high added value. The export share of 3C digital home appliances is increasing; the export share of large machinery and equipment has increased significantly.

The second is changes in the external environment, rising costs and exchange rate fluctuations.

Third, the fluctuations in sea and air freight prices have led overseas buyers to prefer purchasing goods with higher value when placing orders, thereby driving up the unit price per customer.

All these point to the structural growth of China's exports: high-quality growth.

These changes are reminding the industry that the businesses that can truly survive in the future overseas trade must be very competitive businesses, with all-round competitiveness in supply chain, manufacturing, branding, marketing, service, etc.

The overall upgrade of Alibaba International Station for buyers and sellers is also changing with the structural growth of China's exports.

In the past two years, due to the epidemic, Alibaba International Station has ushered in a period of rapid growth, and has also accelerated the process of upgrading the international station from a " matching to transaction " platform to a service platform.

Currently, the global epidemic is still in a fluctuating stage, but overseas work and production have resumed. To this end, Alibaba International Station will build core channels based on target customers and stratify valuable buyers to achieve targeted growth and solutions.

Simply put, actively promote China's overseas industry to embrace the high-quality era of digital foreign trade.

In fact, there is still a lot of room for high-quality growth of overseas buyers. For those buyers in developed countries, Alibaba International Station will carry out targeted tiered management of merchants. It will conduct targeted recruitment on the merchant side according to different buyers, and accurately match different merchants with different overseas buyers.

In terms of financial flows, Alibaba will build a more abundant and flexible funding network. In terms of logistics, it will upgrade from previous resource docking to 4PL end-to-end logistics.

Chinese merchants going overseas are in great need of warm and reliable services.

3. Dual-wheel drive of overseas user growth

The changes in the needs of overseas buyers have always been of great concern to Chinese merchants. How to make different tiers and tiers with different rights and interests will be the main upgrade actions that Alibaba International Station will make on the overseas buyer side this year. For overseas buyers, whether they are retailers, wholesalers, or manufacturers, Alibaba International Station will make differentiated designs for different overseas buyers, bringing merchants higher requirements for the acquisition and retention of overseas users.

Zhang Kuo said that the buyers and sellers of Alibaba International Station need to be defined more finely and have an accurate match of " equal status " .

How to allow buyers and sellers to obtain more realistic scenarios, let overseas buyers see accurate products and merchants, and let domestic products and services be more realistically presented to overseas buyers has become one of the pain points for overseas buyers to purchase Made in China. To this end, Zhang Kuo said that Alibaba International Station should manage the certainty of buyers obtaining online products and services, just like managing drunk driving. Once the platform finds that the merchant's products and performance dimensions do not meet the promise, the platform will take negative measures.

To this end, Alibaba International Station has made more content upgrades in multimedia strategies, allowing buyers to establish more efficient communication methods with suppliers based on a one-stop workbench. It has launched multimedia means such as video, audio, and telephone conferences to create a full-process, full-scenario communication system. Alibaba International Station hopes to bring real interaction and smooth communication through these communication systems, and extend the full-scenario extension to overseas buyers, thereby promoting the activity and retention of overseas buyers.

In 2021 , the impact of logistics has left a deep impression on Chinese merchants going overseas. This year, Alibaba International Station will allow overseas buyers to feel the certainty of the arrival of goods at the designated location at the front desk in terms of logistics timeliness. Arrive on time, and be compensated for late arrival. At present, the International Station is step by step ensuring the arrival of goods in the core 10 overseas markets.

In fiscal year 2022 , the international site will have several growth categories: machinery, new energy, auto parts, and building materials. These non-consumer categories will then provide " end-to-end " solutions. For example, the core solution for the machinery industry is the after-sales problem of local services; the auto parts industry needs to make precise matches based on the specifications of different countries' models; the building materials industry needs to provide customized services for buyers' solutions.

During the March New Trade Festival, Alibaba International Station launched a factory search channel. Through the dual-track service of " finding products and finding factories " , the needs of two different types of buyers are met. The services of these OEM factories highlight the manufacturing capacity advantages of China's supply and stimulate the diversified needs of overseas buyers.

For consumer categories, Alibaba International Station will more accurately strengthen deterministic goods and services based on the different gross profit margins in different overseas regions.

Overall, by stratifying and grouping high-quality buyers, recruiting targeted merchants in different industries based on different populations in different overseas countries, and providing diversified services, Alibaba International Station will form a continuously upgraded layout for global supply.

4. Create targeted “ end-to-end ” logistics

Digitalization is the consensus in today's foreign trade industry.

There are different levels of digitization. The digitization of product display is at the first level, the digitization of capital flow is at the second level, and only the digitization of logistics is the most complex.

Today, Chinese merchants going overseas still face many pain points in logistics services, including the lack of air express with abundant capacity and guaranteed timeliness, the lack of ocean freight with certainty of capacity and service, and the lack of the ability to cope with strict supervision.

Alibaba International Station is going to launch an " end-to-end " logistics service, packaging the previously scattered transportation capacity into a complete solution. For buyers and sellers, it means turning the previously very segmented freight forwarding and logistics services into a targeted " end-to-end " service that meets customer needs.

To this end , Alibaba.com launched a logistics brand : Alibaba.com logistics . This new logistics sub-brand : Alibaba.com Global Delivery will provide digital cross-border logistics solutions for all cross-border small and medium-sized enterprises. Even those companies that are not members of Alibaba.com can enjoy the logistics services of the international station at any time.

The logistics services of Alibaba International Station can be divided into the following four points to learn in detail about the solutions to the logistics pain points of current Chinese overseas merchants.

First of all, [Good logistics, convenient everywhere] can meet the transportation needs of merchants in one stop, and provide industry solutions through the platform's professional capabilities, complete transportation capacity, and diversified transportation methods to realize the global delivery of goods.

Secondly, [good logistics, efficient and visible] digital infrastructure capabilities, the entire online logistics chain is opened up, breaking through the information gap in traditional logistics, making nodes and information fully transparent and visual, and what you see is what you get.

In addition, [good logistics, worry-free and guaranteed] in terms of logistics services, we were the first in some bulk freight security industries to propose: high-quality industry standards such as guaranteeing cabins and containers, compensation for lost containers, and compensation for late arrival.

This is a restructuring of the logistics structure for foreign trade exports, and it is also a very large growth in the foreign trade industry this year. In this regard, Alibaba International Station particularly emphasized that these logistics services are to be open to the whole society. Companies that are not members of Alibaba International Station can also enjoy these services, which also helps the digital transformation of local areas and industrial belts.

5. One-stop service and overseas compliance operations

The constantly growing and flexible platform feature of Alibaba International Station is to deeply understand the development path of Chinese merchants going overseas and provide diversified business services. For merchants going overseas at different business stages, whether they are merchants switching from domestic trade to foreign trade, traditional foreign trade merchants, medium and large cross-border merchants, or brand merchants going overseas, Alibaba International Station will also provide a package of services such as website building, marketing, business opportunities, and customer management ( CRM ) in terms of acquiring and converting business opportunities.

In terms of digital transaction fulfillment, we provide open services for capital and logistics. In terms of sustainable compliance and healthy operation, we provide taxation and financial services. This includes building industry-leading digital Class B large trade payment and collection capabilities. This includes global cross-border acquiring and collection, capital accounts and global remittances, cross-border payments, capital compliance and risk management, etc.

As Alibaba International Station explores the global supply chain and overseas high-end markets, compliance is becoming an increasingly important issue that Chinese merchants going overseas need to face.

As Alibaba International Station has been in business for 23 years, it will build a " cloud + terminal " layout for business risk control and compliance this year, and will establish local compliance and risk control " terminal " teams in Europe and the United States to strengthen the dynamic identification of the external regulatory environment of key countries / businesses / risks, as well as risk warning capabilities.

If service is an important growth force for Chinese overseas merchants in the future, compliance with regulations will become an important soft power for Chinese merchants in the globalization process.

Zhang Kuo said: " Ali International Station's deepening operations on the entire transaction side this year will be a change for all small and medium-sized enterprises going overseas. Moving from a marketing platform to a service platform will be our choice to continue to improve this year. "

Alibaba

International Station

Upgrading the platform