What is LightInTheBox & LightInTheBox Review: Features, Pros & Cons, and Best Use Cases

LightInTheBox is a Chinese foreign trade B2C website with its main markets in Europe and North America. It mainly sells clothing, electronic communication equipment, spare parts and accessories, home gardening and other products.

About LightInTheBox

LightInTheBox is headquartered in Beijing, with branches in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Seattle, USA.

LightInTheBox.com and MiniInTheBox.com support 23 languages ​​and serve customers in more than 200 countries. The company has more than 500,000 unique products, with core categories including wedding dresses, men's and women's apparel, home life, outdoor sports, shoes and bags, 3C electronics and various accessories.

·As of 2010, LightInTheBox is the leader of China's cross-border e-commerce platforms. In June 2010, LightInTheBox completed the acquisition of 3C e-commerce Oku.com.

Business Scope

LightInTheBox covers 14 categories including clothing, electronic products, toys, accessories, household goods, sporting goods, etc., with a total of more than 60,000 products. The company's annual sales exceed RMB 200 million. After several years of development, the company's procurement has spread all over China, with a large number of suppliers in Guangdong, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Fujian, Shandong and Beijing, and has accumulated a good reputation. Many brands, including Newman, Patriot, Founder Technology, Yadu, Shenzhou Computer, etc., have also joined the LightInTheBox sales platform and become the company's partners or suppliers.

Main Business

LightInTheBox mainly sells domestic wedding dresses, home furnishings, and 3C products. The gross profit margin of these products is relatively low. Although the business volume is large, the profit is small. This is the case for most domestic foreign trade B2C companies that sell ordinary products. Its profit mainly comes from low manufacturing costs and price differences.

Lightinthebox mainly brings together domestic suppliers to provide the "long-tail procurement" model to the international market. The website is located in Chaoyang District, Beijing, with good rankings and traffic. More than 1/8 of the IPs are from the United States. The style, payment and delivery methods of the entire site are also completely international. Since 2006, the website has become a leader in foreign trade e-commerce websites, changing the way people buy worldwide, providing goods to customers in 208 countries around the world, and it is still growing.

From its founding in 2006 to 2010, LightInTheBox has developed into one of the best websites in the domestic foreign trade export B2C industry, and is the object of imitation for other foreign trade export B2Cs. The company has been established for four years but has developed rapidly. By October 2010, it had more than 300 employees and is still expanding. It has its own procurement (in Shenzhen) and logistics.

Company Mission

"One World One Market" - LightInTheBox's mission is to provide an Internet-based global integrated supply chain for small and medium-sized retailers around the world. Through its innovative business model, leading precision online marketing technology, world-class supply chain system, and global partners including Google, eBay, and UPS, it has quickly attracted tens of millions of visitors from more than 100 countries, and tens of thousands of individual consumers and corporate customers. The global economic crisis has caused more people to turn their attention to online shopping, which has provided LightInTheBox with an opportunity for leapfrog development. From its founding in 2006 to 2010, it has achieved a 50-fold sales growth, and has obtained top venture capital from Silicon Valley and China, and has been reported by world news organizations such as CNN and Reuters.

Talent View

LightInTheBox's talent perspective is: "Discover you, shape you, and achieve you. We seek those pioneers who stand out from the crowd, and we also look forward to those who persevere in striving for excellence; we will train you in the 'physique and will of triathlons', and teach you the 'aerodynamics of flying'; and what you will achieve is a glorious and ambitious dream, a passionate and happy journey, and a harvest that will benefit you for a lifetime."

Qualifications

LightInTheBox requires platform sellers to provide three corporate certificates: business license, tax registration, and organization code. Electronic products must provide category safety certification, and brand products must submit brand qualifications, trademark registration certificates or brand authorization.

Open a shop

1. Store opening process

Create a LightInTheBox Global Seller Platform account online. During the registration process, you need to provide relevant qualification information, mainly including:

(1) Business license

(2) Organization code

(3) Tax registration certificate number

(4) Bank account opening license

After obtaining your contact information, the Lanting investment manager will contact you to discuss the cooperation model and confirm the cooperation relationship. After the qualification review is completed, new products can be uploaded.

2. Cost

LightInTheBox does not charge platform entry fees or service fees from platform sellers, but will charge a 15% commission and a 3% transaction fee.

Storage fee: A storage service fee of $0.4 is charged for each item. You can send the goods to the Lanting warehouse, and Lanting will complete the delivery of the order, saving merchants costs and improving customer experience.

3. Account Period

Platform sellers can view settlement details in real time in the seller system, and Lanting will complete the settlement payment of the previous month before the 10th of each month.

4. Product image requirements:

The images must be free of watermarks and infringing patterns.

· Except for clothing, which can be street photos, the main photos of other products must have a white background.

Image format: JPG; no smaller than 35K and no larger than 3M.

Main image: must be larger than 500 x 500. The image must be square.

Founding Team

1. Guo Quji:

Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of LightInTheBox, joined the company in 2008. Prior to joining the company, he served as Chief Strategy Officer of Google China and Special Assistant to Kai-Fu Lee, President of Google China, from 2005 to 2008, and previously worked as a product manager at Google in the United States; in 2004, he participated in the acquisition of Joyo.com in the Amazon business development team; from 2001 to 2003, he worked as a software design engineer at Microsoft headquarters. He graduated from the Junior Class of the University of Science and Technology of China in 1999, received a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois in 2001, and an MBA from Stanford University in 2005.

In June 2018, Guo Quji, Chairman and CEO of the company, voluntarily resigned from the position of Chairman and CEO of the company to pursue other personal careers.

2. Literary mind:

Co-founder, director and co-president of LightInTheBox, responsible for the company's marketing, product management and user experience since 2007; responsible for product development from 2007 to 2010. Former founder of BlogPower, created China's earliest blog service platform (the company merged with BlogChina in 2005); later served as vice president of BlogChina, responsible for the company's overall product and business development.

3. Zhang Liang:

Co-founder, Director and Co-President of LightInTheBox, responsible for procurement and supply chain since 2007, and responsible for company operations from 2007 to 2009. From 2001 to 2006, he founded Zhongrun, a supplier to large Chinese e-commerce companies such as Dangdang.com and Amazon China. From 1999 to 2001, he served as a marketing manager at NetEase, and from 1998 to 1999, he served as a project manager at Samsung Electronics. In 1998, he received a bachelor's degree in business administration from Nankai University.

4. Liu Jun:

Director and Senior Vice President of Operations of LightInTheBox, joined the company in 2009. Founded Feloo.com, an educational information website, from 2005 to 2009; held various senior management positions at Joyo.com from 2002 to 2005, including Vice President of Marketing and Operations; worked as a senior software development manager at Dangdang.com from 2000 to 2001; worked as a software development manager at Bertelsmann China from 1997 to 1999. Participated in the acquisition of Joyo.com; worked as a software design engineer at Microsoft headquarters from 2001 to 2003. Graduated from the Junior Class of the University of Science and Technology of China in 1999, received a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois in 2001, and an MBA from Stanford University in 2005.

Development History

-In 2007, LightInTheBox was established in China with a registered capital of US$3 million. It is currently the number one foreign trade sales website in China.

-In March 2008, LightInTheBox registered a company in the Cayman Islands as the company's ultimate holding company.

-In June 2008, Shenzhen Lanting Huitong Technologies Co., Ltd was established.

-In October 2008, Lanting Jishi registered a wholly-owned subsidiary, Lanting Jishi Trade (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd, in China.

-Lazada won the "2008 Most Innovative Company Award" from Paypal and other honors.

-In 2009, LightInTheBox tried to introduce wedding dress products and launched French, Spanish, German and Italian versions of the website.

-In December 2011, Lightinthebox established Beijing Lanting Gaochuang Technologies Co., Ltd in China.

-On June 6, 2013, LightInTheBox went public on the New York Stock Exchange with an issue price of US$9.5 and raised approximately US$78.85 million.

-In March 2016, Zhuoer Group issued an announcement, announcing its investment in the cross-border e-commerce company LightInTheBox, becoming the largest shareholder of LightInTheBox.

-During the 2016 Singles' Day holiday, LightinTheBox sparked a shopping craze among European and American users.

Financing

In December 2007, when the company was first established, it received an investment of US$200,000 from angel investor Zhou Zhe.

In October 2008, it received a USD 5.1 million Series A investment from United Venture Capital and angel investor Xu Xiaoping.

In June 2009, it received USD 11.27 million in Series B investment from United Venture Capital and GSR Ventures.

In October 2010, it received an investment of US$35 million from United Venture Capital, Trustbridge Capital, and GSR Ventures.

In March 2012, it received USD 8 million in Series D investment from United Venture Capital and GSR Ventures.

On June 6, 2013, when LightInTheBox was listed, Zhixin Capital, United Venture Capital and GSR Ventures subscribed for 1,368,420 ADSs of LightInTheBox at an issue price of US$9.5 per ADS, with a total investment of US$11,499,940, acquiring a 2.47% stake.

On June 11, 2015, OKAN International spent USD 77.3445 million (approximately RMB 480 million) to acquire 25.66% of the shares of Lanting Jieshi, a US-listed Chinese company, becoming the largest shareholder of the latter.

Acquisitions

In June 2010, LightInTheBox completed the acquisition of 3C e-commerce company Ouku.com.

On January 6, 2014, Lightinthebox completed the acquisition of Ador, a US social e-commerce website headquartered in Seattle. The asset acquisition was completed in cash.