From "selling nationwide" to "selling globally", sellers use SHEIN to impact the world as Black Friday approaches

"I didn't expect that domestic pet clothes would sell so well abroad , and we can place orders as soon as new products are put on the shelves! " Yang Yi, a pet clothing e-commerce seller from Guangzhou , told reporters after participating in Double 11 for several consecutive years and "Black Friday" for two years .

In fact, it is not just Yang Yi. As soon as the Double 11 shopping festival ended , a large number of sellers immediately threw themselves into the ultimate overseas consumption competition of " Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday" . With cross-border e-commerce at the forefront , domestic sellers now have more opportunities to make money overseas and go overseas easily , and the peak sales season has been greatly extended.

This year's overseas year-end consumer carnival "Black Friday" is scheduled for November 24, and many cross-border e-commerce platforms have launched pre-events since mid-November. It is understood that before the peak season starts, many Chinese sellers even entered the battle preparation state two or three months in advance.

Opening stores abroad , pet sellers catch up with the new era of going overseas

The promotional festivals such as "Black Friday" and "Cyber ​​Monday" originated from overseas markets such as Europe and the United States. Compared with the domestic consumer carnivals such as "Double 11 " and " 618 " , they are more famous . For global consumers , this means discounts, carnivals, and grand shopping games before Christmas. For sellers, it is necessary to test the strength of the enterprise and dig into the vast market , hoping to reap the highest profits of the year before the Christmas shopping season.

Yang Yi believes that the cross-border business that suits him is not to win by making basic products, but to require products that can reflect a certain texture and characteristics. Although it is clothes for cats and dogs, he has high requirements for fabrics and workmanship, using pure cotton for the inner and outer layers, and even some cotton yarn used for baby clothes. The buttons are custom-made copper buttons, and other hardware parts are often made by themselves. With such high-quality products, Yang Yi's products have almost no worries about sales during the more than ten years of operation. They have been sold well through domestic online stores, high-end pet stores, offline industry exhibitions and other channels.

Joining SHEIN In June 2020, the domestic market was affected by the epidemic, and the poor logistics and the sharp decline in exhibitions had a great impact on Yang Yi's business. At this time, Yang Yi received an invitation from SHEIN buyers and chose to join immediately to learn while joining. There were many things he didn't know when he first joined, and he uploaded a little bit of the products according to the hands-on guidance of the platform employees. The night before, Yang Yi and his team completed the product upload, and the order was placed the next day. The price of the first order was more than 1,000 yuan. The next step is to prepare stocks, launch new products, produce new products, and prepare some styles for shipment.

"How can this effect be so good?" Soon Yang Yi confirmed some ideas. The pet industry is a niche category in China, but it is a blue ocean when it goes overseas. Christmas, Halloween and other festivals overseas are associated with consumer crazes, and the demand for pet toys and pet accessories from foreign buyers will also increase. The products Yang Yi started to sell on SHEIN were not cheap. A heavily embroidered piece of clothing for small dogs could be sold for thirty or forty US dollars.

In addition to being pleasantly surprised, Yang Yi gradually discovered in the daily operation of the SHEIN platform that the foreign market should be differentiated from the domestic market. On the one hand, affected by the foreign inflation environment, the price of products sold overseas can be relatively low. In addition, from the perspective of foreign consumer demand, their demand for high-quality products no longer requires too much design superimposed on them. Therefore, Yang Yi also made some subtractions in product development and made some improvements suitable for cross-border use.

Studying the different consumer preferences between different categories is a science. "I will base new styles on existing demand. The product craftsmanship will not be as complicated as in China, and I will no longer insist on developing and selling many heavy-duty styles." Yang Yi also simplified his shooting visual style to match the aesthetic needs of overseas consumers. Yang Yi said, "This is related to the category. I feel that overseas consumers also like fancy nail art or tableware. I don't like some complicated patterns, but some sellers still sell them well."

Another cross-border seller, Zhou Weiliang, has a family that has been engaged in clothing production in Yiwu, Zhejiang. For him, his factory has recently entered the pet market, changing the pet bed pads from textile clothing to textile cat and dog beds and quilts, but the materials and processes of production are areas that Zhou Weiliang is very familiar with. Compared with the fiercely competitive and highly saturated clothing industry, the overseas expansion of pet accessories has given Zhou Weiliang a new opportunity to use mature experience to do a newer business.

Since joining the SHEIN platform, Zhou Weiliang has demonstrated his familiarity with many skills in the manufacturing industry. For example, the first step to go overseas is to make basic models. Zhou Weiliang told reporters: "Basic models are the lifeline of the factory, and we must make long-term competitive production." The basic models have mature craftsmanship, high production efficiency and quality, which is the advantage of Zhou Weiliang's self-operated factory. However, he will plan to reduce the price of small sizes and put the profit space on medium, large and extra-large pet bed mats. The number of large dogs in the overseas market is much greater than that in China - this can not only ensure the basic production of the factory, but also squeeze out production capacity for new model development. The "small order fast response" model is very useful to Zhou Weiliang.

Zhou Weiliang believes that the advantage of the SHEIN platform lies in its help to the digitalization of production-oriented sellers: "The operation logic and sales data of the seller page are very clear. On other platforms, I don't know how much I have sold at all and have to calculate manually, but SHEIN's agent operation is very considerate of the sellers and is more in line with my reality." It is reported that according to the characteristics and needs of different sellers , the SHEIN platform provides two different modes : " independent operation " and " agent operation " . For brands with independent operation experience, SHEIN uses the platform's resources and brand building experience to help the brand further develop and expand its brand influence and popularity. For sellers who have no experience in going overseas , choosing "agent operation" can achieve easy overseas expansion : the sellers themselves only need to focus on the product links they are good at, and let the SHEIN platform complete a series of services including product operation, warehousing, logistics, customer service, and after-sales in one stop .

Zhou Weiliang's factory will arrange about 50 pieces for the first order, and will try to develop multiple styles at the same time. As long as one style is successful on the platform, additional orders will be placed and production will be arranged according to sales trends. The delivery time of the first order usually only takes about a week. The overall supply and demand matching is very timely and agile. As long as it is based on the selection and popular trends, hot styles can often appear and drive production. In addition to ensuring the timeliness of production, quality is also Zhou Weiliang's long-term focus.

In recent years , in addition to "experienced" and "top students " like Zhou Weiliang who have run manufacturing factories for many years, there are also many new cross-border people like Yang Yi who choose to participate in both the domestic Double 11 peak season and the overseas consumption peak season. According to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, more than two-thirds of domestic companies have carried out various cross-border businesses with overseas. Among them, cross-border retail sellers, who are looking at trends, launching new products, and busy with domestic and overseas business, have become the group of people who know how to seize opportunities in the current wave of globalization .

Cross-border trade drives the upgrading of domestic manufacturing industry

In March, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released data showing that China has been the world's factory for 13 consecutive years, which provides strong supply chain support for overseas retailers. Overseas sellers' market share is being taken away by Chinese sellers. Marketplace Pulse statistics also show that Chinese third-party sellers' market share on overseas platforms such as Amazon has been increasing. Actively participating in global business can indeed help some sellers find future development space.

9.12 billion US dollars, this is the consumption performance of consumers in the US market during the "Black Friday" last year, breaking the previous online sales record. According to sellers who participated in Black Friday, most of the seller friends around them have more or less obtained hot products, and the sales of some single products have even increased by more than 10 times. At the same time, the sales of Cyber ​​Monday last year were much higher than in previous years, reaching a record of 11.3 billion US dollars. Made in China is still the first choice for overseas consumers, and the prospects for conquering overseas are broad.

The increasingly mature development of the cross-border e-commerce industry has also effectively offset the insufficient growth of domestic sales of some sellers, so that merchants do not have to stick to the existing market and work hard to find incremental sales. Cross-border platforms such as SHEIN and Amazon have become good partners for domestic sellers to go overseas. Some media reported that the overall customer unit price on SHEIN is currently around US $100 . In addition to high-quality and low-priced women's clothing and fashionable and fresh gadgets , some high-priced products can also sell well . The reporter saw that on the SHEIN platform, some items with a unit price of more than US$ 300 or 400 can sell thousands of pieces per month.

This year, the manufacturing industry has also shown a new look. Some sellers have expressed that they do not want to be "enterprises behind the platform" or "businessmen outside the eyes of consumers", and have set their sights on improving their own product brands. The vast global market provides new brands with very friendly opportunities to overtake others. For example, the SHEIN platform has gathered a large number of young and fashionable user groups aged 18-44, which is a treasure trove that many overseas sellers want. Choosing to start here is also easy to form the confidence and potential for product and brand premium.

Chang Ruoran, a women's bag seller, believes that brand is the cornerstone that allows her designs to have a long life cycle. At the beginning, Chang Ruoran's job was to travel around to participate in international exhibitions and communicate with foreign customers as a translator. Soon, she found that although Guangzhou's luggage industry is very mature, OEM processing is still common; on the other hand, in her exchanges with overseas customers, she heard many entrepreneurial stories of foreign girls. They are about the same age as herself, but they can confidently tell the design concept and brand story, and have the right to speak in international business. After a few years of entrepreneurship, with the reduction of foreign trade orders and the lack of fashion attributes of the cross-border platform originally chosen, the bags designed by Chang Ruoran were not immediately recognized in the overseas market. She began to look for a more suitable platform, and SHEIN came into her sight.

"SHEIN platform can help sellers build their own brands" is the first question that Chang Ruoran confirmed with SHEIN buyers. Compared with the market size and expected sales, she cares more about whether she can present her own ideas on the SHEIN platform as an independent brand. Chang Ruoran has her own brand store in SHEIN, and her logo is printed on every picture of every bag. SHEIN not only welcomes independent brands to settle in, but also becomes a fast lane for new brands like Chang Ruoran to enter the "fashion circle".

"In the past, when we were doing orders for other customers, we might only make 20 styles in one or two months, and we didn't need so many new products. When I went shopping in Australia, I found that he was still selling styles from two or three years ago," said Chang Ruoran. In the past, offline customers have low requirements for update speed, slow product feedback and limited order volume, making it difficult for Chang Ruoran to judge whether the product has the potential to be bigger and better.

The fashion trends provided by SHEIN buyers have added to her ideas for creating new styles. Chang Ruoran can now develop bag styles more specifically, starting with a small order of 50 pieces, and then deciding the number of return orders based on sales trends, thus achieving rapid style testing in a short period of time.

Since the SHEIN platform itself started out as a fashion retailer and has been deeply involved in overseas markets in more than 150 countries and regions for many years , it has become a perfect platform for sellers to test the success rate of new products. In addition, the platform users have a high pursuit of design sense, and a large number of girls from all over the world can give Chang Ruoran the "user feedback" she wants in a very short time , helping her to polish her products and designs to become more mature.

"We may test 30-40 models on the SHEIN platform in a month, and they can cover different countries and regions. It attracts us to continuously innovate new styles." After entering the SHEIN platform, Chang Ruoran constantly adjusted the products to adapt to the preferences of consumers in different regions. Even for popular models, she would continuously optimize the bulk products, such as whether the opening of the bag is big enough, whether the hidden buckle is tight enough, whether the shoulder strap can be longer, and even the color of the edge oil and zipper cloth, which will be adjusted according to user reviews. With the on-demand adjustment, optimization and upgrading of products, the road to growth is full of joy. Chang said: "SHEIN users have a very avant-garde understanding of bags. In addition to being a daily companion, it is also an accessory and a highlight in the outfit. This is recognized by overseas fashion girls." Therefore, the repurchase rate of bags in her store is also very high.

Shiling Town, Huadu, Guangzhou, is also known as the "Chinese Leather Goods Capital". It is the world's largest distribution center for raw materials and accessories for luggage and leather goods and the luggage production base with the most complete industrial chain. More than 300,000 industrial workers make their livings by making men's bags, women's bags, backpacks, and children's bags. Every year, more than 700 million bags of all kinds are shipped from here to all parts of the world. The industry scale exceeds 30 billion, becoming the source of waves behind the global luggage fashion trend - this is the headquarters of Chang Ruoran's company and brand, and it is also the origin of many of Chang Ruoran's peers going overseas. During the interview, it was learned that many sellers are willing to pay attention to sustainability in a broad sense and regard it as the key to building a brand with endurance. Sellers have consciously stated that although there are many more cross-border platforms in China and going overseas is simpler than before, they must grasp the rudder of going overseas and go overseas safely to continue to gain a foothold in the overseas market and form innovation. After these are stabilized, they can make plans for long-term operations with peace of mind and receive more orders.

When domestic sellers transformed themselves into cross-border sellers, some troublesome things that were previously only seen in news reports became more specific. For example, when Chang Ruoran designed a new bag or customized a set of new accessories, she often found that sellers on other platforms launched similar imitations or even stole her model pictures. Chang said: "The management of the SHEIN platform is very strict in controlling infringements and is very protective of sellers. But if it happens in other places, in addition to actively defending our rights, what we can do is to keep running ahead, keep creating, and maintain our competitiveness."

While overseas traditional retail giants are closing stores in batches, Chinese local sellers are making rapid progress. The large-scale rise of cross-border e-commerce platforms since last year has accelerated the establishment of global trade scenarios . Relying on China's mature industrial foundation and policy support, more and more Chinese sellers are tearing off their old labels, boldly transforming to cross-border trade by entering the platform, and showing their rich and colorful product concepts to the world.

China is the hub of the global manufacturing supply chain, and the SHEIN platform is also an ideal platform for sellers to go global. According to the news released by SHEIN, since the launch of the "Xiyou Gravity" million sellers plan in May this year, the company expects to help 10,000 merchants around the world, including China, to exceed US$1 million in annual sales in the next three years, and help 100,000 small and medium-sized merchants to reach US$100,000 in annual sales. Since September, SHEIN has announced cooperation with 500 industrial belts across the country, increasing support for industrial belt sellers, assisting brands and high-quality manufacturing to go global, and looking at development from a global perspective.

After interviewing more than a dozen cross-border sellers, the reporter learned that the consensus reached by domestic sellers is to focus on high-quality products, eliminate simple low prices, carefully develop products according to the needs of consumers in key overseas markets, and carry out diversified innovations in order to form barriers and create their own opportunities. As Chang Ruoran said: We don’t want to be the runner-up in this industry. We want to run in the front and run in our own way.

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Black Friday

Seller