More exciting! Talented people from different industries are flocking to cross-border e-commerce

In the past year, many cross-border sellers have found it increasingly difficult to operate their business. Unlike previous years, they can no longer maintain a considerable profit by simply following the routine. The rules of old platforms such as Amazon have become more stringent, and emerging platforms such as Temu are rampant, making the growth curve of sellers precarious. They need to upgrade to become all-rounders and examine multiple platforms to build a more effective sales network.

Sellers feel that cross-border business has become more difficult. In fact, against the backdrop of a global trade economic downturn, the industry is still growing and attracting a large number of high-quality cross-border talents, including senior executives of major Internet companies. They are optimistic about this industry and enter the industry after leaving their jobs to find a "second spring" in their careers. Some projects have already received financing, such as consumer electronics brand Nothing, fast fashion brand Commense, AHA SELECTED, etc.

The continuous influx of high-end talents has caused a sense of crisis among veteran sellers.

The surge in high-level talents has caused cross-border sellers to panic

Although cross-border e-commerce is no longer the hot spot it was a few years ago, it still has a lot of potential and is a good entrepreneurial project. Therefore, many people from other industries come here to join, and there is no shortage of high-quality talents. Sellers have found that high-level talents are increasing rapidly, and they are worried that the industry will reach new heights.

"Cross-border e-commerce really started to take off in 2024, because many talented people in other industries have set their sights on the cross-border e-commerce market," said an old seller. Other sellers also said that some of their outstanding friends who used to work in other industries have now entered the cross-border circle, after all, other tracks have already taken off.

It is not scary for newcomers to enter the market, because cross-industry operations may not work, and the platform's crackdown will naturally eliminate batches of them. But the sellers who have entered the market now are obviously well prepared. Some sellers have noticed: "Recently, a wave of sellers have come in who are very good at using software, can select products, understand keywords, and are even better at drawing pictures."

Even veteran sellers with several years of experience can’t help but feel pressured by these new waves of accurate moves. Domestic companies are collectively looking to overseas markets, and cross-border e-commerce is also considered to be the next domestic e-commerce. With reference to platforms such as Taobao, the involution of the cross-border circle has just started, and the track will become more and more crowded in the future.

The trend is irreversible, and sellers need to accept the change and consolidate their foundation. "How can we hold on to our existing territory? The only way is to dig deeper into categories, build barriers in the market segments, and improve our competitiveness," said a seller.

These anxieties are not without reason. Compared with the long accumulation of ordinary sellers, high-quality newcomers are indeed more sensitive to information and data and have the opportunity to stand out quickly.

Executives of major companies have turned to cross-border operations, with significant results

The most typical example of talented people crossing borders is that in recent years, senior executives of major Internet companies have entered the cross-border e-commerce industry and then built many high-rise buildings.

Nothing

In the fiercely competitive consumer electronics industry, the Nothing brand has emerged.

The brand's founder, Carl Pei , is of Swedish Chinese descent. Before founding Nothing, he was the co-founder of OnePlus and was mainly responsible for OnePlus' overseas markets. In 2020, Pei left OnePlus and founded the consumer technology brand Nothing in London.

Image source /Nothing official website

Its current product line includes mobile phones, Bluetooth headsets, etc., with a transparent design as the main feature, which differentiates it from other brands. Nothing has the attributes of an Internet celebrity, and has many creative marketing ideas, such as cooperating with many well-known artists, and attracting user participation and attention through limited sales and lucky draws , and has already achieved brand awareness.

In mid-2023, Nothing completed a new round of financing of US$96 million, led by the well-known European fund Highland Europe, followed by Google Ventures and Swedish fund EQT Partners . After the financing, Nothing's cumulative financing amount has reached US$250 million.

AHA SELECTED

The cross-border fast fashion brand AHA SELECTED imitates SHEIN 's model, and its company also has a great background.

The operating entity of the brand is Hangzhou Ahaha Aha Technology Co., Ltd., and the executives are former Internet executives. Although the legal representative is Liu Rongguang , the industry believes that this is a new entrepreneurial project of Zhang Lei, the former CEO of NetEase Kaola . Liu Rongguang was Zhang Lei's old subordinate at NetEase Kaola and served as the head of supply chain management.

According to the latest information from Qichacha, Zhang Lei is currently the major shareholder of Ahaha Aha Technology, holding 69% of the shares, while Liu Rongguang holds 30% of the shares.

AHA SELECTED mainly sells men's and women's clothing. Its products include sportswear, swimsuits, underwear, jackets, skirts and other clothing. It has also expanded into jewelry accessories and nail beauty products, which is similar to SHEIN's route of extending from women's clothing to more related categories.

The beauty of numbers

In January 2024, news broke that Ren Lifeng, vice president of PICO, a virtual reality business under ByteDance, had resigned . He was one of the founding team members of Douyin and was regarded as an important contributor to the rise of Douyin. After leaving, Ren Lifeng also chose to enter the cross-border e-commerce industry.

Ren Lifeng founded the cross-border e-commerce company Shumeiwanwu. The company was established in early January 2024 and received investment from Sequoia China and IDG at the end of January, with a post-investment valuation of over 50 million US dollars. The project is still recruiting, and this financing provides sufficient funds for Ren Lifeng's entrepreneurship, which will help him gain a foothold in the cross-border e-commerce market .

Commense

After SHEIN became popular, fast fashion category became the hottest track, and Commense was a very outstanding player.

Commense is a women's DTC fast fashion brand under Xinchao Wuxian, which was founded in 2021. According to information, Zhou Jingjin, the legal representative of Xinchao Wuxian, is the fourth employee of ByteDance and was also responsible for the construction of Starlink's digital system. The company's members also come from leading Internet companies such as ByteDance and SHEIN, the apparel industry chain and cross-border e-commerce professional fields. Commense has taken a shortcut and has a high starting point.

Soon after its establishment, Xinchao Wuxian received a $100 million Series A financing from ByteDance and Sequoia Capital, eliminating the worry of funding. The company mainly targets 18-24-year-old boys and girls in Europe and the United States who are keen on fashion trends. It hopes to present the most fashionable products to customers at the most competitive prices. The products include tops, bottoms, dresses, suits, etc., with a simple style and a high-end positioning.

Commense focuses on its brand independent website. According to Similarweb data, its average monthly visits are generally over 700,000. In less than three years since its establishment, it has accumulated a large number of loyal customers, and 63.41% of its traffic comes from the United States.

In 2024, cross-border e-commerce will be more competitive

Compared with ordinary sellers who work one step at a time, the talented people from large companies have high-quality entrepreneurial resources and are highly sensitive to the Internet. This kind of collision of huge disparity in strength will inevitably make sellers nervous. And these positive cases have made more employees of large companies optimistic about cross-border e-commerce, and even plunge into it.

Just before the Spring Festival, an employee who had worked in a large company for three years officially resigned and decided to go all in on cross-border e-commerce . " I feel like a bungee jumper standing on a cliff, excited and nervous at the same time. " But he only has some scattered cross-border e-commerce strategies, and it is hard to say what the future holds.

In 2023, my country's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reached 2.38 trillion yuan, an increase of 15.6%; Shenzhen's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports exceeded 300 billion yuan for the first time, and the export volumes in many places reached new highs: the number of cross-border e-commerce export declarations at Shanghai Airport Port reached 440 million, an increase of nearly 2 times year-on-year; Qingdao Customs supervised a total of 110 million cross-border e-commerce export lists, an increase of about 80% year-on-year; Ningbo achieved cross-border exports of 201.32 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.4%.

The impressive growth figures mean that more talents will join this industry to seek gold in 2024, and competition in cross-border e-commerce will continue to escalate.