Yiwu's exports from January to July reached 335.97 billion yuan. Alibaba International Station AI has become a "new weapon" for small and medium-sized businesses to go overseas

Recently, Yiwu Customs released the latest data, showing that Yiwu's exports from January to July this year reached 335.97 billion yuan, up 18.5% year-on-year, and global trade is entering a new round of explosive growth. The reporter observed that Yiwu, which has always been known for being a pioneer , is using AI to become a "new weapon" for Yiwu's small and medium-sized businesses to go global.

Currently, Alibaba International Station is helping small and medium-sized foreign trade merchants to fully apply AI. At the "Digital Wave Grows with AI " merchant conference held by Alibaba International Station in Yiwu on August 22 , many Yiwu foreign trade people shared their stories of "startup partners" with AI .

(Photo: Alibaba International Station’s “Digital Wave Grows with AI ” Yiwu Merchant Conference)

"Using the latest AI to ship products is 30% better than expected." Feng Lingya, general manager of Yiwu Kiwi Bear Home Furnishing Co., Ltd., has recently been obsessed with using AI to help him improve efficiency. "Now that the preliminary preparations are done, using AI business assistants to ship products, plus inspections, it takes about 10 minutes to ship a product, which is at least 8 times more efficient for me."

Feng Lingya, born in the 1990s, is a pure second-generation Yiwu Trade City owner. From Taizhou to Yiwu, her parents have been rooted in Yiwu Trade City for 16 years, forming a self-contained store group. However, after graduating from university, Feng Lingya did not follow the expectations of her elders and join the already mature family traditional foreign trade business. She "escaped" for 10 years until June 18 this year, when Feng Lingya settled in Alibaba International Station and started a different foreign trade business from her parents.

As a "newbie" in foreign trade, Feng Lingya is a native of AI foreign trade, and AI is their natural "startup partner". Before AI Business Assistant, she had used ChatGPT. In comparison, she felt that AI Business Assistant has 25 years of foreign trade experience on the international site, and is constantly learning the latest foreign trade trends every day. "Every profession has its own expertise, ChatGPT is more universal, but AI Business Assistant does understand foreign trade better."

Before using the AI ​​business assistant, Feng Lingya was actually worried about the heavy operation of online foreign trade, because she now has two legs, an online store on the international site and an offline store in Yiwu Trade City, and she is the only one who actually runs these two stores. Her parents' attitude towards her experiment was "giving you freedom", but success or failure depends entirely on her own ability.

After using AI, Feng Lingya felt that a person can also be a super individual, which made her more determined to adopt a parallel online and offline operation strategy. In her opinion, this is a perfect closed-loop scenario. "In the trade city, you can get in touch with the needs of foreign customers in a very timely manner. They can give you effective information feedback directly face to face, and you can have insights into user trends and needs. On the international site, you can make up for the problem of insufficient traffic in your offline stores. The two seem to be opposing modes of online and offline, but in fact, as long as they are used well, they can complement each other and allow the business to achieve the desired results in a shorter time."

Last August, Zhang Kuo, president of Alibaba International Station, launched the first full-link AI product in the B2B foreign trade field in Yiwu , and at that time established the AI ​​application standard of "not showing off, but solving practical problems" . Yiwu's small and medium-sized businesses are even closer to the water and have become the first batch of Chinese foreign trade users to use AI overseas. One year later, many of them have tasted the first wave of dividends from AI foreign trade.

(Photo: Alibaba International Station’s “Digital Wave Grows with AI ” Yiwu Merchant Conference)

In March this year , Du Si, a post- 90s girl from Yiwu , decided to start her own business on Alibaba International Station. Before that, she was just an ordinary foreign trade clerk. According to her friend's advice, she needed to complete the listing of 100 product links before the store went online to prepare for the subsequent order placement. According to the workload, it would take more than a month for one person to list 100 product links.

However, after the actual launch, she found that with the efficiency improvement of AI business assistant, more than 100 products were launched in one week. At the same time, combined with the products selected by AI, a novice entrepreneur with almost no basic knowledge successfully achieved a hot start of the store. With the advice of AI, she leveraged the Christmas business in the summer, and finally one person rushed into the top 50 in the industry in 60 days.

If we say that foreign trade people born after 1990 are natural trendsetters in the AI ​​era, then the veteran foreign trade captains in Yiwu have made bold moves in the field of AI , using AI to revitalize tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of businesses , which is even more amazing.

Xu Jingqian, general manager of Yiwu Deyang Machinery Equipment Co., Ltd. , is a veteran foreign trader born in the 1960s. As the owner of an old foreign trade machinery factory, when the company first switched to online operations, Xu Jingqian took the lead in implementing full-staff operations. However, the effect of full-staff product selection was not ideal: generally, only about 10% of the ten products were successfully tested . The various positions in the team did not focus their energy on the most appropriate places.

"Art designers get annoyed when they have to look at data; and sales staff are kept in meetings and discussions all the time, which delays the sales champions from discussing business." When employees are upset, Xu Jingqian, the boss and operator, can only feel aggrieved.

However, the explosion of AI technology is rapidly revolutionizing the chain of the foreign trade industry. On November 1 last year, Alibaba International Station’s AI “Business Assistant” was launched, and Xu Jingqian, a machinery foreign trade boss born in the 1960s, was the first to “take the lead in AI”.

For example, a screw compressor product has a large number of visitors in the US market, but few inquiries. Xu Jingqian made adjustments based on the almost "customized" suggestions of the AI ​​business assistant to make the product details more in line with the needs of American buyers. The product's inquiry conversion rate also increased from the original 4.5% to 9.38%.

Another natural gas compressor used an AI business assistant to perform precise operations in the product launch process, such as keyword optimization, for the Indonesian market. Less than 50 days after the new product was launched, Xu Jingqian received an order for its intended use . "If we can win the entire livelihood project, we can get nearly 110 million yuan in business, equivalent to 15 million US dollars."

Xu Yang, a foreign trade salesperson born in the 2000s under Xu Jingqian , successfully got his first order in the machinery industry, where it is difficult for novices to place orders, with the help of an AI business assistant.

(Photo: "Xinwen Lianbo" reported that Yiwu 's post- 00s foreign trade salesperson Xu Yang used an AI business assistant to take orders)

After using it for a few months , Xu Jingqian was deeply impressed by AI. He said, "Without AI, the company would 'capsize'. I used the AI ​​business assistant to break the old foreign trade vicious circle of 'it's hard to turn a big ship around'. With AI, the company can turn around. My new employees quickly got started with professional large-scale machinery foreign trade using the AI ​​business assistant. When it comes to the use of AI, we should 'not accept old things' and 'not be afraid of new things'."

Alibaba International Station

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