The new wave of cross-border industry, only by seizing it can you survive the storm!

In recent months, many sellers have been unable to sleep peacefully, fearing that they would wake up and find their accounts blocked. From May to now, countless sellers have been blocked by the platform for illegal operations, including some big sellers. At present, the platform's cleanup does not seem to be over in the short term, and sellers who have not been affected are also panicking.

In fact, the platform's cleanup of sellers with illegal operations is not unique to this year. The tightening of cross-border e-commerce platform operating policies has already begun to show signs in the past few years . It's just that the cross-border e-commerce industry was too hot last year, so new and old sellers temporarily forgot the "tight ring" that had been on their heads.

The industry turmoil has caused large, medium and small sellers to panic and start thinking about a question: as the operations of major cross-border e-commerce platforms become more and more formal, the risks of operation are also increasing. The slightest carelessness in operation may lead to disaster . In this context, how can we reduce our own business risks?

Reduce cross-border operational risks

From this wave of account blocking crisis, sellers should have understood that compliant operation is the most basic rule for survival on the platform. Do not touch any red lines of the platform, immediately stop all non-compliant operations, and be a seller who abides by the platform rules.

On the other hand, this incident also suggests that the greater the dependence of cross-border sellers on the platform, the greater the uncertain risks they face. Therefore, sellers should prepare more "spare tires" for themselves, based on their own advantageous categories, open up more platforms, deploy more channels, increase sales and improve risk resistance.

In particular, during this account suspension incident, multiple stores of Guangzhou Damai were closed and funds were frozen . However, since the seller did not rely entirely on a single platform, even if the account on one platform was suspended, he could still make money from stores on other platforms. Obviously, the multi-platform operation strategy made Damai more capable of resisting risks.

Of course, multi-platform operation does not mean blind expansion. Products are still the core of sellers' operations. Multi-platform operation is based on the sellers' advantageous products and the selection of appropriate platforms.

The core of multi-platform operation is to choose markets with development potential

The first step in multi-platform operation is to choose a high-potential market. The high-potential market here refers to a blue ocean market with a good level of e-commerce development and a certain growth rate.

Poland, one of the EU countries, meets the definition of an emerging blue ocean market . Because Poland is located along the Belt and Road, it is a core country for Eurasian connectivity and the first country for the China-Europe Express to enter Europe. In addition, Poland is also one of the fastest growing economies in Europe . As early as 2019 , the country's GDP reached US $595.86 billion .

In fact, not only is GDP growing rapidly , but Poland's e-commerce is also growing very fast. Data shows that in 2019, the market size of Poland's e-commerce reached 12.8 billion US dollars, and experts predict that by 2023, the scale will grow to 15.3 billion US dollars.

It is worth mentioning that Amazon also officially opened its Polish site to sellers this year, which shows that it is optimistic about the development of the Polish e-commerce market. In general, Poland is a blue ocean market with great development potential. Sellers who are doing business in the European market can also choose to expand into the Polish market in Europe when planning multi-platform operations.

The Polish market has huge potential

After selecting the target market, you need to choose a platform that has an advantage in this market. According to a survey, 72% of Internet users in Poland choose to choose Polish local e-commerce platforms when shopping online, and only 30% choose other international e-commerce platforms . Therefore, for the Polish market, localized platforms are a better choice. This also applies to all other cross-border markets. Localized platforms are more easily accepted by buyers.

Allegro, the largest e-commerce platform in Poland

Allegro is the first and currently the largest e-commerce platform in Poland , witnessing and influencing the development of the Polish e-commerce market. Allegro was founded in 1999 and listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) in 2020 with a market value of more than 9.8 billion euros . As a listed company, Allegro not only has a strong ability to resist risks, but the platform itself is also very reliable. Sellers who choose this platform can completely eliminate the concerns of being cut by unreliable platforms .

The following data can help sellers understand the platform more intuitively :

The number of visits in January ranked first in Europe and among the top ten in the world (data from Similar web);

21 million monthly active users;

1.5 billion searches per month;

l 14 million daily homepage visits;

5.1 billion page views per month ;

Allegro , the top ten in the world in terms of monthly visits

In addition to its outstanding strength, Allegro is also highly recognized in Poland . 86% of Polish netizens rated Allegro as their favorite shopping place, and 90% of users regularly shop on the Allegro platform. This year, Allegro was also selected as the most trusted brand in Poland and won the honorary title of 2021 Super Brand.

The survey shows that the reason why Allegro has been recognized by more and more Polish people has a lot to do with its perfect service system. The Allegro platform has its own payment (Allegro Pay) and delivery services (Allegro Smart! program), which not only make shopping more convenient for consumers , but also help sellers develop their business more quickly .

Chinese sellers have achieved excellent results on the Allegro platform

Allegro has always been very optimistic about the Chinese market. Since it reached a cooperation with ESG in 2019 , it has started the road of attracting investment in China. At present, its investment attraction has spread across the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions of China. Allegro has also successfully recruited many Chinese sellers, and these Chinese sellers have also achieved very good sales results on the platform.

The success of programmer Mr. Du is a good example. Tired of working from nine to five and earning little, Mr. Du switched to the Allegro platform to do cross-border e-commerce. He opened two stores within a year of joining. One of the new stores ( opened in August 2020 ) had a monthly sales volume of more than 25,000 euros in just four months .

Real seller case

In addition to his own efforts, Mr. Du's success is also inseparable from the traffic boost from the platform's big promotions . It is reported that the Black Week promotion in November 2020 was the largest shopping festival in the history of the Allegro platform. Chinese sellers who settled in the platform also achieved excellent results during this promotion, and the number of orders placed by successful sellers was 2.5-3 times that of normal days .

At present, more and more Chinese sellers have achieved success on the Allegro platform, and the platform has also launched a number of support measures for Chinese sellers. For example, Allegro has been connected to the ERP that suits the habits of Chinese sellers ; its official school has also launched free Chinese tutorials and training materials on multiple topics ; in addition, Allegro has also launched an automatic translation function, which allows sellers from outside Poland to translate the offer content, thus solving the language barrier.

In addition , sellers do not need to worry about fees, because it is free to open a store on the Allegro platform, and there is no charge for listing products in most categories . Sellers only need to pay sales commissions after selling products. Moreover , the platform has prepared generous welcome benefits for new corporate users, with sales commission discounts of up to 10,000 zlotys, and new sellers have the opportunity to enjoy free ranking promotions and monthly subscription services.

For Chinese sellers, the Allegro platform has another very attractive feature: the vast majority of sellers on the platform are Polish companies, with a total of about 130,000 sellers on the entire platform, so competition is relatively small. On the Allegro platform with huge potential, as long as sellers find products that meet market gaps, business opportunities are within reach!

Finding a market gap for Allegro

Although Allegro is a full-category platform, there are some products that are in particularly high demand.

Among them, the six major categories of home and garden, health and beauty, clothing, shoes, electronics and home appliances are the fastest growing key strategic categories on the Allegro platform. Especially electronics and clothing, they are the two most popular categories among buyers. During the 8- day promotion of Black Week in 2019 , the platform sold an average of one smartphone per second. In the clothing category , more than 175,000 pieces were sold every day throughout 2020 , and the demand is also huge!

If sellers are doing these categories, they might as well list Allegro as the first stop for multi-platform operations. In addition, the platform also regularly holds various promotional activities and supports a variety of promotional methods, so sellers don’t have to worry about lack of business opportunities.

Allegro also welcomes sellers with advantageous products to join. For sellers who can provide products that Allegro needs, the platform has launched a special plan - Bestsellers. Sellers who meet the plan will receive fee reduction support, and even the sales commission can be reduced to 0.5%.

Multi-platform layout will gradually become the latest trend in the cross-border industry. If sellers want to continue to develop in the industry, they cannot ignore this development trend, but should timely deploy multiple channels based on their own category advantages to make their cross-border business development more stable. For sellers who are doing business in the European market, the Allegro platform, which has the largest traffic in Europe, is very suitable as one of the channels of the multi-platform operation strategy, adding bricks and tiles to their cross-border territory.

A new wave of cross-border e-commerce has arrived. Going against the tide is certainly courageous, but going with the flow may make better use of existing resources and create more wealth for yourself. Have you thought about what to do?

Europe

Cross-border

Poland