Another group of “big names” are bravely entering the cross-border circle!

Bigwigs from all walks of life gathered in the cross-border circle.

Cross-border e-commerce has been noticed by more people.

" Domestic sales have been transformed into exports, bicycles have become motorcycles, and Yadea has become Audi ... As the growth of domestic e-commerce has reached a relatively obvious ceiling , obtaining orders from overseas has become the key growth target for domestic e-commerce players in the next stage. "

It can be observed that in 2024, batches of newcomers have poured into the cross-border circle. Among them, in addition to small and medium-sized players, there are also many leading players. The well-known live broadcast companies such as Oriental Selection and Three Sheep have all set their sights on the popular platform TikTok e-commerce.

Under the current macroeconomic pressure, the development momentum of the cross-border e-commerce industry remains strong, and it has gradually become an important driving force for the development of China's foreign trade. At present, many domestic companies have expanded their overseas sales channels through cross-border e-commerce business, providing more possibilities for the company's revenue.

In fact, in recent years, there are far more people than the above-mentioned group who have set their sights on the cross-border export track. Breaking down this group of new faces, we can basically divide them into these categories: senior executives of large companies , traditional foreign trade companies, rich second-generations who have money and free time and want to invest to make money ... Some of them may have some e-commerce operation foundation before, and some people are simply attracted by the development prospects of cross-border e-commerce and hope to realize the value of generating income in this land.

On the one hand, industry leaders from all walks of life are rushing into the cross-border circle. On the other hand, favorable national policies have helped cross-border e-commerce achieve more possibilities. The latest proposal is to promote the healthy development of new formats such as cross-border e-commerce and optimize the layout of overseas warehouses. However, the development of cross-border e-commerce is changing rapidly, and the business environment has undergone tremendous changes. The era when merchants simply sold goods by distributing goods has completely passed. They have realized the importance of building brands and developing supply chains. From the beginning, Amazon platform was the main sales channel, and it has developed into a multi-platform parallel model. The early idea of ​​focusing on the European and American markets as the main gold-digging holy land has also changed. Emerging blue ocean markets such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East have become the new favorites of cross-border e-commerce ...

"Cross-border e-commerce has gradually transformed from an emerging niche industry to a well-known traditional industry, or in other words, into an ordinary sales channel . "

In the great changes of the times, against the backdrop of the continuous influx of high-end talents and hot money, who will ultimately be able to survive the fierce industry competition?

Well-known domestic bigwigs bravely enter the cross-border circle!

As a time-honored Chinese enterprise, Zhang Xiaoquan has a history of nearly 400 years. It mainly produces and sells household kitchen products, personal care products, garden and agricultural products, hotel kitchenware and other products. Recently, Zhang Xiaoquan publicly stated that the company will focus on using cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, participate in international exhibitions, and enter the supplier system of major customers and seek cooperation with brand agents to continuously enhance the company's brand influence around the world.

The space storage brand Meizhigao has a product line that covers a variety of application areas, including home scene applications, industrial scene applications, and commercial scene applications. It is one of the few brands in the international industry that covers all application areas. Recently, Meizhigao also stated that it is actively expanding new foreign customers and cross-border e-commerce business. At present, the company has formed an overseas online independent brand team and set up its own store on Amazon. In the future, it will focus on the online market with platforms such as Amazon, eBay, and Pinduoduo's overseas Temu. In 2024, the company will vigorously develop cross-border e-commerce and open up new growth points for foreign trade.

Domestic sales and exports are developing simultaneously. In addition to Meizhigao and Zhang Xiaoquan, in 2024, many well-known domestic brands will focus on cross-border e-commerce, hoping to find the second growth curve of the company's revenue in this track.

Prior to this, many pioneers have joined the cross-border e-commerce overseas army and have initially achieved excellent results. Henglin Co., Ltd. is one of them.

Henglin Co., Ltd. mainly develops, produces and sells healthy seating products such as office chairs, sofas, massage chairs, furniture, etc. Its cross-border e-commerce business is mainly focused on selling its own products on overseas e-commerce platforms (such as Amazon and TikTok). Its brand NOUHAUS has created many best-selling products on the Amazon platform with more than a thousand reviews and monthly sales of more than 200.

Yienjun learned that as early as 2019, Henglin established Nouhaus to start cross-border e-commerce business. At that time, the main products sold were massage chairs, and it achieved a revenue of 9.84 million yuan. In 2022, this figure rapidly expanded to 355 million yuan.

From the initial entry into cross-border e-commerce to the present, in recent years, Henglin Co., Ltd. has gone through three stages: agency operation mode, development to independent operation mode, and team building to focus on independent brand operation. It has continuously upgraded the construction of the cross-border e-commerce team and worked hard to improve the online channel coverage and market share. In 2023, the cross-border e-commerce business continued to grow rapidly. After H2 expanded its business to TikTok, the brand has long been at the forefront of the US sales list.

Tianyuan Pet mainly deals in pet beds, cat climbing frames, pet toys and other products. It is also a typical company that focuses on both domestic and foreign trade. Unlike Henglin Co., Ltd., which has richer e-commerce genes, Tianyuan Pet mainly enters the international pet market by selling private label products, but it is obviously unwilling to hide behind the brand all the time, and has also been trying to develop its own brand in recent years.

At the end of 2022, Tianyuan Pet publicly stated that the company conducts cross-border e-commerce sales on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon North America, Amazon Japan and Amazon Europe . The product categories sold mainly include cat climbing frames, dog beds, pet ladders, pet toys, etc. The brand of cross-border e-commerce export sales products is made4pets, which is still in its infancy. The latest news shows that although the sales revenue of Tianyuan Pet’s cross-border e-commerce exports currently accounts for a small proportion of the company’s total operating income, the company is optimistic about the export track and will continue to deploy other platforms in the future.

Tianyuan Pet is one of the many representatives of traditional enterprises going overseas. In 2024, whether it is factories with many years of experience in OEM/ODM of various products, or foreign trade companies engaged in traditional B2B foreign trade, more and more "change seekers" are embarking on the road of cross-border overseas expansion, or launching an impact on branded operations, or unwilling to miss this booming industry.

Dai Xuefei, global vice president of Amazon and executive president of Amazon Global Selling Asia Pacific, said that the global consumer sector has entered a new era dominated by brand power. Brand not only means customer loyalty and sales conversion, but also can bring long-term and sustainable value to enterprises. Chinese enterprises going overseas have a unique manufacturing foundation, supply chain advantages and favorable cross-border policy support. Adhering to the strategic direction of building global brands and leaping to the upper reaches of the global value chain is the only way for the future development of overseas enterprises.

High-end talents from ByteDance, Huawei, etc. prefer cross-border entrepreneurship

There are also many wealthy people who go overseas to seek gold. For example, some people come from very wealthy families and want to find a project to invest in in their spare time. Cross-border e-commerce has become their main consideration. Of course, some former senior executives of large companies with an annual salary of over one million or even higher are also tempted. Elites from large companies such as ByteDance, Alibaba, Baidu, Huawei, Lenovo, etc. have all devoted themselves to the overseas business in recent years.

Not long ago, Yien published an article: "Even more competitive! Cross-industry talents are pouring into cross-border e-commerce", which lists several typical cases of senior executives of large companies switching to cross-border business, including Swedish Chinese Pei Yu (founded the consumer technology brand Nothing), former NetEase Kaola CEO Zhang Lei (founded the cross-border fast fashion brand AHA SELECTED, benchmarked against SHEIN, mainly men's and women's clothing, etc.), former ByteDance's virtual reality business PICO Vice President Ren Lifeng (founded the independent website Shumei Wanwu, a global shopping platform), former ByteDance employee No. 4 Zhou Jingjin (founded the women's DTC fast fashion brand Commense, ranked 19th in the "2023Q3 TOP30 E-commerce Overseas Brand Social Media Influence List").

These are just some of the executives at large companies who work in cross-border business.

Chen Hang, the "Wu Wei" father of DingTalk , has been exploring the cross-border track since he left his job in July 2021. He first launched a pair of luminous headphones, and then founded the independent site 7sGood. In 2023, this independent site won the second place in the Japanese market download growth list.

After Yao Li, global vice president of Lenovo Group and general manager of the Smart Connected Devices Business Unit, left the company, he founded Cozyla, a smart home brand focusing on the North American market in 2022. In its first year, Cozyla received 40 million yuan in angel round financing.

Peng Zhen, former head of Huawei's Middle East supply chain , founded his own cross-border e-commerce company , Hayataal Hongmina, after leaving the company, mainly selling beauty products in the Saudi market. Hayataal's internal beta will be launched at the end of 2022, and the Hayataal vertical e-commerce APP is scheduled to be officially launched in Saudi Arabia at the end of 2023.

Qihoo 360 executive Ding Zhen founded Zhiling Technology after leaving the company in 2020. It mainly sells smart home products such as video doorbells, indoor PTZ cameras, etc. In June 2023, it completed a round A financing of tens of millions of RMB, which is the fourth financing completed by the company since its establishment.

It can be observed that the entrepreneurial track chosen by many of them is closely related to their previous work experience. For example, Zhou Jingjin used to be CTO of Starlink Technology. In 2021, ByteDance's affiliated companies invested in the cross-border retailer Starlink Technology. The relationship between the two can be described as very close.

They have accumulated a lot of product and market experience in their previous jobs, which undoubtedly saves a lot of trouble for starting a business. In addition, their excellent experience in large companies can first gain the favor of capital. As an insider said: many founders of cross-border brands that have successfully obtained financing in recent years have backgrounds in large companies. At the same time, former executives of large companies are not short of money or resources. Compared with ordinary people, they can be said to have obtained a "fast ticket" to open the cross-border market.

Overall, whether it is well-known companies such as Zhang Xiaoquan and Henglin Shares going overseas, or former executives of large companies digging for gold in the cross-border track, it has undoubtedly raised the entry threshold of the cross-border e-commerce industry and promoted the entire industry to move rapidly towards branding and capitalization ...

A single live broadcast topped the list, and the domestic live broadcast giant is making efforts to enter the overseas market!

In the field of cross-border e-commerce, another phenomenon that cannot be ignored in the past two years is live shopping. Many sellers joked that the end of cross-border e-commerce has become live streaming sales ...TikTok e-commerce, which is closely related to live streaming, has become a hot topic.

"If you don't join TikTok's e-commerce now, you might end up missing out on the opportunity, just like you didn't join Taobao when it first started." Currently, industry insiders are generally optimistic about the accelerated commercialization of TikTok, and it is expected to grow 10 times in the short term starting this year. Everyone wants to seize the opportunity, and they have set up teams, hoping to work hard to create miracles.

The cross-border giant Savi Times has publicly stated that the company is closely following the development of new channels such as TikTok, and has currently assigned a dedicated team to conduct contact and actively study and test the platform rules and traffic conditions of such channels.

According to Lechuang, Lechuang's overseas warehouses are actively developing in-depth cooperation with various e-commerce platforms, and many orders currently come from the TikTok e-commerce platform. In addition, the company is already exploring the development of TikTok live streaming.

Yibai Network is also increasing its investment in TikTok. News shows that the company has completed the acquisition of Aplysia Technology. Yibai Network will absorb Aplysia Technology's TikTok operation team, and the two parties will jointly operate the TikTok project in the future. As for the reason for the acquisition, Aplysia Technology disclosed that in the past few years, Aplysia Technology has achieved remarkable results in the TikTok field, ranking among the best in Southeast Asia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, becoming a top merchant on TikTok. As a listed cross-border e-commerce company, Yibai Network has excellent performance, stable cash flow, and a strong operation team and technical support. After the acquisition, it will continue to empower Aplysia Technology in terms of funds and supply chain. On February 23, the Aplysia Technology team moved into the Yibai Building for office.

As TikTok's e-commerce continues to grow overseas, the live streaming e-commerce giants that have been popular in China for a long time have also started their overseas journey.

Some time ago, there were rumors that Dongfang Zhenxuan might cooperate with TikTok in overseas supply chain. Now it has been confirmed that the news is true. Yu Minhong, the helmsman of Dongfang Zhenxuan, said, "You may have seen that we are recruiting TikTok operators online. In fact, it is just a test."

When you open the recruitment website, you can find that Oriental Selection has started recruiting for relevant positions, including Oriental Selection TikTok overseas store operations, Oriental Selection content operations manager (TikTok), Oriental Selection business manager (TikTok), etc.

Oriental Selection’s overseas expansion has actually been planned for a long time. As early as January 2023, Sun Dongxu, the former CEO of Oriental Selection, mentioned that Oriental Selection has registered the EASTBUY trademark in many places and is preparing to expand its business overseas.

Crazy Xiao Yang also had the idea of ​​going overseas as early as 2023.

In April 2023, "Crazy Little Brother Yang" stated in a live broadcast that he would open an e-commerce platform on TikTok to "earn money from foreigners." In October of the same year, the Three Sheep IP completed the construction of a content matrix with 0 to 2 million fans in Southeast Asia.

On January 17, 2024, Three Sheep launched its first overseas live broadcast in Singapore, Southeast Asia, and cooperated with local influencers in Singapore to conduct a live broadcast. The products sold were mainly Chinese local brands. The single live broadcast ranked No. 1 on TikTok's sales GMV ranking in Singapore and set a new record.

Next, Three Sheep will start its second overseas live broadcast in Malaysia.

Before Three Sheep and Oriental Selection, leading domestic live streaming organizations such as Make Friends (Luo Yonghao), Qianxun Culture (Viya and her husband), and Yaowang Technology have already bet on going overseas.

Among them, "Make Friends" launched its overseas business as early as 2020, mainly involving three businesses: marketing, distribution and agency operation. At the end of 2022, relevant persons in charge revealed that the growth rate of Make Friends' overseas business was very fast, with monthly revenue increasing by 50%-70% month-on-month, and reaching 100% in some months. It is expected that the overall revenue in 2023 will reach 100 million yuan.

"For the same product, the profit margin on TikTok is higher, generally several times higher than in China." An English anchor expressed high praise for overseas live broadcasts.

The domestic live streaming e-commerce market is close to saturation, but the overseas live streaming e-commerce market is still blank . The vigorous development of new foreign trade formats such as cross-border live streaming e-commerce has become an important driving force for domestic live streaming players to deploy overseas battlefields.

Live streaming not only provides domestic e-commerce live streaming companies with new development ideas and directions; it also becomes an important way for overseas sellers to obtain orders and promote their brands overseas , thereby increasing product exposure and sales.

Data shows that more and more overseas consumers are starting to pay attention to products and place orders through live broadcasts.

According to data from Alibaba International Station, since 2023, the number of overseas buyers watching cross-border live broadcasts online every day has increased by 127% year-on-year, and the business opportunities brought to foreign trade merchants have increased by 156%; as of June 30, 2023, the number of TikTok store live broadcasts accounted for 69% of the total number of TikTok live broadcasts; the live broadcast sales of cross-border e-commerce platforms such as AliExpress and Shopee have also performed well.

Accelerate the reshuffle! Cross-border e-commerce elimination round

What are the new changes in cross-border e-commerce?

In terms of the market, sellers used to focus on the European market, but now they are starting to adopt a multi-market strategy. According to news reports, the average growth rate of e -commerce in the four major regions of Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa is as high as 20% , and the growth rate of per capita GDP is even higher than the global level. With the release of e-commerce consumption potential in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, players who are desperately looking for incremental markets have successively sown seeds in these fertile development soils.

The big sellers have already been planned.

According to data disclosed by Anker Innovations , in the first half of 2023, the country/regional markets that contributed the most to the company's operating income were North America/Europe/Japan/Middle East/Mainland China, accounting for 46.55%/20.09%/15.06%/5.78%/3.83% of the total revenue respectively.

In terms of platform layout, bid farewell to the single Amazon platform model and add multiple sales channels. At present, China's cross-border e-commerce "going overseas" has achieved initial results. Both Temu and TikTok Shop are popular platforms for sellers to settle in . In addition, cross-border sellers are also looking at the local leading platforms in various regions, such as the Polish giant Allegro.

As cross-border e-commerce continues to develop, new ways of playing and new markets continue to emerge, and new challenges are also coming one after another. Many international organizations predict that the global economic growth rate in 2024 will still be lower than the historical average, and the pressure of declining external demand is still great.

On the other hand, globalization has become a must for Chinese companies. If they do not go overseas, they may be eliminated . When Chinese companies must go global, they must go through deeper globalization, penetrate industries and supply chains into major national target markets, and establish localized business capabilities, so that they can win more share in the global business.

The process from "going out" to "going in" is difficult and full of obstacles, but overall, the industrial foundation, factor endowments, and innovation capabilities that support the development of foreign trade are constantly increasing, and export commodities are climbing up the value chain. In 2024, the new changes in cross-border e-commerce will inevitably accelerate the elimination of a group of players with no competitive ability, and of course a group of powerful players will stand out.