How did he double his sales within a year and easily buy a house with his year-end bonus?

Xiao Huang took a photo with the eBay team

From 2009 to 2021, twelve years have passed in a flash. Xiao Huang has also grown from a young college graduate to a senior practitioner in cross-border e-commerce, leading the team to achieve one brilliant achievement after another that shines in the industry.

From Shenzhen to Hunan, from traditional foreign trade to cross-border e-commerce, Xiao Huang has witnessed the process of cross-border e-commerce from its inception to its rapid growth and rapid development, and found a career that allows him to display his talents and realize his dreams. His experience is not only a history of his personal struggle, but also a summary of the development of cross-border e-commerce in recent years.

Going south to Shenzhen and connecting with cross-border e-commerce

The company's office is located in Shenzhen Qianhai Shimao

On the eve of the Spring Festival in 2009, Xiao Huang, who had just celebrated his 20th birthday, boarded a train to Shenzhen. At that time, he had not yet realized that Shenzhen would become the starting point of his career and a hotbed for his youth, passion and sweat for a long time to come. Shenzhen at that time was a city where Xiao Huang could change his destiny through hard work. The natural geographical advantages and talent structure created an excellent foreign trade environment and were deeply imprinted with foreign trade genes. This was an incomparable attraction for Xiao Huang, who majored in international finance and English.

After a month of job hunting, Xiao Huang got a job as an eBay customer service representative in an e-commerce company . In 2009, cross-border e-commerce was still in its infancy. Selling high-quality and low-priced domestic products abroad through international e-commerce platforms was still a new thing in China. Xiao Huang cherished the hard-won job opportunity very much and quickly absorbed all the information about cross-border e-commerce and eBay platforms. He found that this emerging foreign trade model of cross-border e-commerce reduced the many intermediate links of traditional foreign trade. For example, through international e-commerce platforms such as eBay, it is easy to reach consumers around the world, and this industry is developing rapidly. It was this job that lasted for half a year that allowed Xiao Huang to have his first contact with cross-border e-commerce.

After many attempts, I finally fell in love with cross-border e-commerce

Our office in Shenzhen

After getting comfortable with the "customer service" job, Xiao Huang wanted to learn more about all aspects of cross-border e-commerce. So half a year later, relying on his knowledge and understanding of this emerging form of foreign trade, Xiao Huang quickly joined a newly established cross-border e-commerce department of a foreign trade company that mainly operates in traditional b2b, and worked on eBay operations. The new role transition from customer service to operations requires new professional knowledge and skills, including understanding and mastering the entire process from product selection to listing, from logistics to after-sales service. Xiao Huang quickly got involved, not only seriously participating in company training, but also actively "mingling in circles", frequently interacting and communicating with industry insiders in cross-border e-commerce, learning by doing, and constantly enriching his cross-border e-commerce knowledge reserves, and soon became an "expert".

Xiao Huang said:

This job has allowed me to accumulate more practical and specific skills, such as what to pay attention to when listing products, how to do better in logistics and after-sales, how to solve problems with accounts, etc. Although I keep encountering problems, the process of solving them is very challenging and tiring, but I feel very fulfilled.

However, due to the company's strategic adjustment, Xiao Huang had to switch to traditional foreign trade business. He still remembers being sent by the company to the Canton Fair, where foreign customers placed orders for a full container of goods worth $120,000 on the spot . After that, he was sent by the company to various exhibitions in Hong Kong and Germany. Participating in exhibitions, negotiating, and signing orders were his ideal traditional foreign trade business. He should have been very proud of himself, but a trace of uneasiness came over him: "You will personally feel that the space for traditional foreign trade is getting smaller and smaller. The speed of developing new customers is far behind the speed of losing old customers. There are many links in the middle, which greatly limits profits."

Time quickly passed to 2011, and the cross-border e-commerce industry also underwent many changes. In this year, eBay introduced the eTRS rating standard, and improving the buyer experience became the only way to get an excellent rating as soon as possible. Xiao Huang, who has been paying attention to the development of cross-border e-commerce, keenly captured the deep meaning of it: "This is a reshuffle in the (cross-border e-commerce) industry. Those accounts with bad buyer experience will gradually be marginalized, and it is likely that the traffic will become less and less in the future." It was also in this year that the eBay platform's promotion of overseas warehouses reached an unprecedented level. Overseas warehouses refer to the establishment of storage centers in overseas destination markets, where goods are first shipped to overseas storage centers by sea, and then shipped directly from the warehouse after local customers place orders. By using overseas warehouses, domestic sellers can ship goods locally in the destination market, which not only greatly improves the logistics timeliness, but also makes returns and exchanges more convenient, and buyers' shopping experience is naturally better. Vigorously promoting overseas warehouses shows that the platform attaches great importance to buyer experience. "Many peers will find that after using overseas warehouses, the performance of accounts will indeed be greatly improved."

This series of changes made Xiao Huang realize that "cross-border e-commerce has truly entered the 2.0 stage of pursuing development quality. There will be broad room for development in the future. Using overseas warehouses is the only way for the future development of cross-border e-commerce." Therefore, after two career choices, he finally "fell in love" with cross-border e-commerce and decided to make a big splash in the cross-border e-commerce industry. His expectations for his next job are also clearer, "The company must have e-commerce genes and overseas warehouse layout strategies."

Overseas warehouse + refined operation, deepening cross-border e-commerce

The company's office in Changsha

Because of his clear goals, mature ideas and accumulated experience, Xiao Huang was soon appointed as the eBay business manager of a cross-border e-commerce company .

After joining the new company, Xiao Huang started the "sponge mode" and worked hard to absorb all kinds of professional cross-border e-commerce knowledge, skills and ways of thinking from products, operations to logistics. The boss at that time gave Xiao Huang great support, "He was very willing to talk to us and teach us", and what benefited him the most was the thinking of accurate product selection and refined operation .

"Product selection must be considered comprehensively from the perspectives of consumer trends, consumer preferences and product features." He would discover and refine products that may be recognized and loved by consumers from Google's technology news, and after careful research and verification, he would focus on developing peripheral products related to these products. In this process, he gradually formed his own product selection ideas: to win high profits through differentiation. This idea has also been verified in practice: the company's sales performance has been rising steadily, from RMB 800,000 to RMB 900,000 per month to RMB 3 million per month in less than two years . During this period, Xiao Huang also made a hit product - a leather case for the Samsung P3110 tablet stand. "At the peak, the monthly shipments of this product exceeded 30,000 pieces."

With the hit product and soaring performance, Xiao Huang can be said to have ushered in the second "highlight moment" of his career. However, he was not overwhelmed by the joy. Instead, he began to reflect and re-examine the company's product structure and strategy from the perspective of industry trends . "We should not only pay attention to sales data, but also continue to pay attention to the actual profit situation. Sometimes the profit seen on the surface is not necessarily the actual profit situation." Refined operations also became the focus of his attention at this time, "putting more energy and resources into products that can really bring profits."

At that time, inspired by the eBay platform's push for overseas warehouses, the company took the lead in setting up overseas warehouses in the UK, which soon brought a large amount of traffic and orders to the company's eBay store. "But GMV did not grow in the same proportion, which shows that there is a problem with our product structure." He led the team to sort out the product structure and found that products below US$30 accounted for 30% to 40%. These products had meager profits, but consumed a lot of manpower such as shelves and customer service. He acted decisively and used peak season promotions to quickly clear the inventory of these products and remove them from the shelves. After some optimization, while maintaining the company's GMV stable growth, the SKU was streamlined from the initial 800 to about 500, and the operational efficiency was greatly improved.

Each listing can be carefully polished, the customer service and warehousing departments are not so busy, the response to customer needs is better, and more energy can be spent on optimizing the management of the warehousing and distribution process, which greatly reduces the error rate and provides a better buyer experience.

The most direct benefit brought about by this is that the return rate has dropped significantly to 3%, and it is also easier to get a good rating in the eBay store assessment. "The whole company has entered a virtuous circle."

The experience of the third job allowed Xiao Huang to quickly accumulate experience in product selection and operation, but he also discovered the key constraints to the company's development: lack of control over the source of goods and supply chain, and no own brand and core technology. This also prompted him to "choose a job" again , and he came to Shenzhen Lianke Technology in 2015 to be responsible for the company's eBay platform business.

Vertical boutique + self-operated brand, embracing cross-border e-commerce

The company's office in Changde

Around 2015, cross-border e-commerce was undergoing a transformation. With the development and maturity of overseas warehouses, the sales of high-value and heavy goods began to grow rapidly, and the categories of goods exported through cross-border e-commerce also expanded from electronics and fashion to auto parts, home gardening, and industrial products. Because the exported goods are more expensive and complex, this puts higher demands on customer service and after-sales service. The previous large-scale search and distribution methods are unsustainable, and it has become a general trend to deepen and refine vertical subcategories to gain consumer recognition. All this means that cross-border e-commerce has entered the 3.0 stage of winning with vertical boutiques and brand influence.

Many powerful vertical category manufacturers have entered cross-border e-commerce and realized their overseas dream through this emerging channel. Lianke Technology, where Xiao Huang works, is one of them. Founded in 2010, Lianke Technology is a global operator of automotive maintenance and tool products, engaged in cross-border e-commerce operations and product development of automotive maintenance products. "Different from the model of finding and distributing goods, Lianke has always focused on the vertical category of auto parts and has taken the route of high-quality products. When I joined, the company had a small number of products on sale, but they were all high-value products with a unit price of more than US$300."

To match this, Xiao Huang also put boutique operations into practice, nearly tripling the company's GMV in one year.

——In order to better showcase products and provide services , for each product, I will ask the product manager to conduct internal unified training, explaining the product functions, highlights, customer groups, and market advantages, so that every operation-related partner can be familiar with the product, thereby preventing after-sales disputes to the greatest extent and ensuring good account performance.

——For product keywords and adaptability , I will lead my operations partners to carefully organize product information before listing, so as to compare with market competitors, analyze their own highlights and advantages, and fill in the product's structured data truthfully and accurately. At the same time, in order to better obtain exposure and platform traffic, the display requirements for each product on the eBay platform are more refined, and each listing is carefully polished in order to fully, fully and perfectly show the characteristics of the product to buyers.

——In the customer service link , the company has attached great importance to it. Every customer service representative must undergo training and examinations to ensure that they can take up their posts only after they have sufficient understanding of the platform, products, and processes. At the same time, the company will collect user feedback on a weekly basis, and hold meetings to summarize the R&D, business, and product ends, provide improvement and optimization plans, and strive to make the product the best.

——The support of the eBay platform is also crucial. Category managers provide regular data analysis reports, site category development trends, and data analysis to support our category sales forecasts and expansion. Account managers regularly provide us with seller account analysis reports, account performance analysis, and make improvement suggestions to ensure the safe use of our accounts. We have participated in the "Thousand Sails Plan" and received exclusive traffic and fund support. The eBay team will also visit us from time to time, communicate in depth with the company team, understand the difficulties we face and our development plans, analyze the current sales status of the company's accounts, and provide solutions based on actual conditions.

As the company developed and expanded, a cross-border e-commerce operation center was established in Changsha, Hunan. Xiao Huang then came to Hunan to manage the company's eBay platform. Over the past twelve years, every step he took on the road of cross-border e-commerce has brought rich rewards to Xiao Huang - he bought a house in Changsha with his year-end bonus, and he will continue to move forward steadily towards the next twelve years in cross-border e-commerce.

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