A couple with a monthly salary of 50,000 yuan quit their jobs and went to Yiwu to work for Amazon

Cross-border e-commerce has been booming for many years, and some say that the trend has slowed down or stopped in the past two years, and the myth of making people rich will never happen again. But data may refute these "pessimistic" statements.

As for the province with the most popular cross-border e-commerce, according to a report by 21st Century Business Herald , there are now more than 200,000 cross-border e-commerce related companies in Guangdong , and the market size has increased from 14.8 billion yuan in 2015 to 843.3 billion yuan in 2023, a 57-fold increase in 8 years.

Marketplace Pulse research shows that the number of Amazon sellers has surged by nearly 5 million since 2018. Under the trend, countless people are flocking in.

A couple with a monthly salary of 50,000 yuan quit their jobs and went to Yiwu to work for Amazon

“I may not be able to become extremely wealthy, but I think I can give it a try.”

Ivan and Delia are both operators of the same cross-border enterprise. In 2019, after graduating from university, they came to Shenzhen and their first job was to operate a cross-border e-commerce business.

"We used to operate on eBay, Wish and many other platforms," ​​Ivan said. "At that time, cross-border e-commerce was very popular and many platforms were doing very well. So many cross-border companies with a little money would expand their scale and invest in various platforms."

Then in 2020, an epidemic trapped consumers in their square homes, consumption shifted from offline to online on a large scale, and cross-border e-commerce became extremely popular.

According to Ivan and Delia, they basically worked from home that year, and since they were in operational positions, the impact was not significant. But perhaps it was this experience of working from home that planted the seeds for their later startup Amazon.

From operations assistants to operations and then to boutique operations, Ivan and Delia have accumulated four years of cross-border experience, which has given them the experience and confidence to work independently in cross-border businesses.

"As everyone knows, the market has not been good in the past two years. My wife and I have been 'optimizing' our company since the year before last. The office has been reduced from 200 square meters to 100 square meters, and now only 60 square meters. The base salary has been reduced, the commission has also been reduced, and the income is more than a quarter less than before , " said Ivan.

Ivan revealed that he and his wife Delia's monthly income was basically stable at 50,000 yuan, "but it has been decreasing since last year because the products are not selling well. The company's products are not high-consumption products, so consumer demand is not that frequent. In addition, after the consumption downgrade, our company's products are even harder to sell, and the boss doesn't promote new products. The more we work, the less hope there is."

Resign or not? Ivan and Delia were torn between these two choices every day . Last September, they were informed of a pay cut, so they decided to resign.

Should one person quit first or both of you quit together? What do you want to do after you leave? Change careers or continue to work in operations, or become your own boss?

All of these needed to be planned in advance. Ivan and Delia decided to take a gamble, so they resigned together and left Shenzhen.

Ivan said, "Although Shenzhen is the base camp for cross-border trade, it is actually very saturated and the cost pressure is also high." So they evacuated Shenzhen and started their own cross-border business in Yiwu.

Today, the couple has officially entered the business for 4 months. "Although we haven't experienced a surge in orders, and haven't even started to make a formal profit, the number of orders is slowly increasing, and cross-border business is still worth doing," said Ivan.

Quit my job with an annual salary of 200,000+ and start my own business

Like Ivan and Delia, there are many people who quit their jobs and choose to start their own businesses. Two years ago, Caleb, who had many years of cross-border experience and had worked in operations, procurement, and logistics, also quit his job in Shenzhen and chose to work alone in cross-border business.

Coincidentally, Caleb is also doing cross-border business in Yiwu.

"I can't stand it anymore," Caleb described the days when he was working for others. He also experienced salary cuts and layoffs, which have been the norm for cross-border companies in the past two years.

Due to too much pressure, Caleb proposed to resign in May 2022, but based on his previous successful experience in operations, his boss did not let him go immediately.

Caleb said, "After I left my job , I started being promised big things every day , including but not limited to promotions, salary increases, company dividends, vacation benefits, etc. After this went on for half a month, I decided not to waste time ."

So he quit his cross-border job in Shenzhen with an annual income of over 200,000 yuan, and then moved to Yiwu to start his own business.

According to Caleb, the products he makes are highly seasonal and he also considers holiday demand, focusing on a rhythm of increasing product quality as market heats up.

For example, before the Spring Festival, he would put Spring Festival couplets and other New Year products on Amazon. "There are actually quite a few people selling them, so we must try our best to find styles that are not available on the platform, so that they can become popular products. This is also the most basic product logic. Differentiation is feasible everywhere."

Caleb made a small profit by selling New Year products during the 2023 and 2024 Spring Festivals. "With a cost price of 5 or 6 yuan, I can make a lot of money by adding the exchange rate on the platform. Wholesale in Yiwu is really cheap, and the demand for quantity is not high. "

Today, Caleb prepares high-demand products for the next season well in advance before each season changes. In his opinion, even if the regular seasonal products don't become a big hit, they will still see a wave of sales growth due to the surge in consumer demand. However, he also has his own views on the current phenomenon of widespread low-price involution.

" Lowering the price of one or even a few products can actually boost sales of other products in the store. Anyway, you can also make profits by attracting customers . You won't lose much and will still make money in the end. "

"Not as good as the best, but better than the worst" is Caleb's summary of his current situation. For him, working alone in cross-border business does not require him to squeeze into rush hours in the morning and evening like before, does not have to waste too much energy internally, and does not have to worry about his career destiny being controlled by others. Although financial freedom is still far from being achieved, hope is always better than working for someone else.

In conclusion:

Cross-border business is still very attractive, but in recent years, more and more cross-border entrepreneurs have moved from Shenzhen to second-tier cities, such as Yiwu , known as the "World Supermarket" .

In the years when e-commerce was popular, many entrepreneurs flocked here, and even many quit their jobs in large companies . At that time, "quitting from large companies and starting a business in Yiwu" became a hot topic on many social media platforms .

The popularity remains high.

Data shows that as of the first quarter of this year , the total number of market operators in Yiwu reached 1.0841 million, of which 637,700 were e-commerce operators, accounting for about one- third of the total number of e-commerce operators in Zhejiang Province . In the first quarter , about 41,500 new e-commerce operators were added .

In 2023, Yiwu's e-commerce transaction volume reached 442.367 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.22%.

It can be said that Yiwu, as one of the largest e-commerce product supply bases in the country, has created fertile ground for e-commerce, including cross-border e-commerce .

There is a joke : " To predict the US election, look at Yiwu . " Although it is meant to be sarcastic, it is also a reflection of Yiwu e-commerce sellers ' keen sense of smell for hot products . From suppliers to sellers, from production to sales , many industry insiders believe that Yiwu already has a complete and efficient " cross-border hot product industry chain . "

Whether in Yiwu or other second- and third-tier cities, there are more and more cross-border entrepreneurs, but it is more difficult than before to gain something in this fiercely competitive market.

Entrepreneurship

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