China's foreign trade under the new situation

Renminbi appreciation, rising raw material prices, labor shortages, and the rise of many emerging low-cost countries... In 2013, almost all foreign trade companies were faced with changes in their cost systems.

When China's export products no longer have a price advantage, can foreign trade companies still rely on other advantages to survive? What is the future competitive advantage of Chinese enterprises?

As a leading company in the B2B industry, Global Sources has always been committed to creating the highest value for both buyers and sellers. Based on the current situation, Global Sources has specially launched a series of forums on the export of wisdom & wins in the future, inviting industry experts, business leaders, and buyer representatives, Share insights and work with exporters to find strategies to win the future.

At the Ningbo sub-forum of the Zhisheng Future Series Forum, Ms. Ren Lifeng, Vice President of Global Sources China's Domestic Trade Development Department, and the guests discussed the way of foreign trade promotion under the new situation of export and foreign trade enterprises.

Actually, I think everyone who runs a business knows very well where are the challenges and opportunities we face, especially the challenges we face. Today, when we go to Uniqlo or some stores, or buy some sports shoes, we will find that it is not "Made in China" written on it, and the clothes sold in China may say "Made in Bangladesh". So whether the advantage of low price can still attract the world's top brands to China for processing, or whether Chinese companies can still attract foreign orders with price, may not be the same as before. We all know these factors. The appreciation of the RMB, especially in recent weeks, one or two months, has been quite astonishing. It also makes us feel a bit uneasy like riding a roller coaster. This problem still occurs in many parts of the country. It is no longer the same as before. Many people line up to see work. The largest human resources headhunting company is not headhunting for high-end talents, but the most profitable headhunting company for workers. I saw a factory owner who said that whoever can introduce a worker to work here for three months, I will reward him with fifty yuan per head. This business is good, but it is not easy to make money. It is true that every company is recruiting people, and they are all putting up banners and slogans, and they also put the advantages of accommodation and order stability in their advertisements, but even this is not necessarily recruiting people. Labor is a key factor.

And our neighbors, low-cost countries are changing, reforming, attracting foreign investment, and these are also more or less competitors of Chinese manufacturing.

The other is the market, the traditional European and American markets, the European economy is not very optimistic, the US economy has passed the fiscal cliff, but the recovery is still lower than people's expectations, a little slow, especially because some economic or political Due to the above factors, some manufacturing industries in some European and American countries have relocated, and this kind of event keeps appearing in the news headlines.

There are many uncertainties in the consumer market. China's market, China's suppliers, China as a market for suppliers, a supplier market for supply sources, also has its advantages, but the question is how can we play this Advantage.

The third challenge is the change in buyers' purchasing behavior. A boss once told me that I used ten lines to make one variety, but now I use one line to make ten varieties. I used to have ten cabinets for one variety, but now I have ten varieties in one cabinet. Anyone who does business knows that the cost and complexity of loading ten cabinets for one variety is different from that for one cabinet containing ten varieties. In the past, bulk purchases, now the production cycle of new products is continuously shortened, the competition of retail products is also intensifying, and the orders of buyers are also shortened and divided into many batches, which requires better cooperation from manufacturers to be able to compete in the competition. survive. The problem is, when we want to meet the buyer's multi-batch small order, the price that the buyer gives us has not increased, our cost has increased, but the price that the buyer has given us has not increased, which is a reality.

The requirements of buyers are also higher than before. Five or ten years ago, as long as we said that it was made in Ningbo and China, many buyers would come to buy our products. Now buyers are more concerned about the quality of the products. Requirements in all aspects are also constantly improving. Buyers need more creative products, not just what I want you to produce now. He may need more designs and better services to meet his needs. . There are two words here: customization. The buyer is looking for some special products, because he also has to compete with his own competitors; at the same time, the buyer pays more attention to the ability of the supplier. When I tell you my ideas, you can realize my ideas, you must have the ability in this regard.

In the first half of this year, CEConline Magazine conducted some surveys on the current situation of Chinese manufacturing. The survey was conducted on Chinese export enterprises in February this year, and 613 responses were collected. The purpose is to analyze the competitive advantages and development directions of Chinese enterprises in the post-manufacturing era. Among them, 67% of the enterprises are small and medium-sized enterprises, with an annual export volume of less than 10 billion US dollars; 62% have been engaged in export business for more than 5 years, and 66% of enterprises have promoted their brands overseas. This is the group status of our survey.

The result of our survey is that buyers are more active in purchasing, that is, 54% of the suppliers in the survey said that the total number of buyer inquiries has increased compared with three years ago, and more than half of the suppliers reported that Buyer secondary recovery rates also increased. Why is the purchase volume not as large as before, but the enquiry volume has increased? Behind it is that buyers have more requirements in choosing suppliers, they will be more cautious, and they will find some optional partners for selection, and buyers' purchasing behavior is more active than before.

Another result of the survey, 81% of the buyers surveyed said they would increase their orders this year to meet the market demand. From the buyer's point of view, 81% of the buyers surveyed believed that there would be an increase, because the previous two years It is a trough. This year, Europe, the United States and developing countries will have a recovery process.

The problem is, the buyer has to decide who to buy from. He needs to buy things, but who does he want to buy from. When we communicated with suppliers and buyers before, the buyer did not lack suppliers at all, he did not lack , it is not difficult for a buyer to find a supplier, as long as he searches on Baidu and Google, a lot of suppliers will appear, but from the perspective of both buyers and sellers, as today's buyers, it is more difficult to find a good supplier than before. . We are suppliers, and many suppliers also report that it is more difficult to find good buyers than before.

When both buyers and sellers have many choices, I think that as a supplier, we need to have more wisdom and more innovation ability in order to have more competitiveness in the market. Therefore, when each company is competing with each other, each buyer has different requirements, and whether each type of buyer can match the situation of your company is also different. When you are big, you may feel that some small orders are expensive for you. When you are very young, you cannot eat some large orders. Every company has to make some trade-offs. Who is the most ideal in our mind? buyer.

B2C e-commerce line, if we want to take this road, some companies are already taking this road more or less. We are more aware of the domestic market, and some companies in the foreign market are also doing the same, doing B2C e-commerce There are also many challenges. It is difficult to build your own brand on the Internet. We asked most of the companies and said that we have. Most of the time, the brand of the company is a LOGO, a brand, and it can’t be called a brand. How to start your own brand? , is not an easy task. In addition, the competition for similar products online is very fierce, there are after-sales service and inventory risks, it is difficult to grasp the needs of overseas customers, there is also small batch production, and there is product pricing on the Internet. The pricing is also quite knowledgeable. If your customers have Some are e-commerce. You have your own platform to do B2C e-commerce sales. At the same time, you have sold your goods to these retailers. These retailers will find that you sold me for ten dollars, but in your own It only sells for nine dollars on the website, so how do you want me to sell it, so conflicts between different channels will also occur from time to time, and it is also a test of everyone's wisdom, how do we balance each channel well.

You can refer to the data in 2011. In 2011, China's foreign trade online transactions increased by 24%, and the growth rate was very high, accounting for less than 0.2% of the total export value. The development of B2C is faster than that of Europe and the United States, because our labor costs are relatively cheap, the logistics development is quite fast, and Chinese consumers are too impatient. They want to get orders in the morning and get them in the afternoon. It is not possible to get the goods in three or five days. Every e-commerce company is pursuing to deliver the goods several times a day, and it even takes a few hours to deliver the goods to the customers. The development of e-commerce in different environments is still different. But in general, e-commerce only accounts for less than 0.2% of total trade exports, and most of them still focus on bulk exports.

In the end, what strategies should Chinese-made enterprises have in the future to meet this challenge? The following are some for your reference.

The first is to clearly define who I am, the second is what kind of buyers we are looking for, the third is to attack those markets, and the fourth is to define our own advantages and what is our selling point, maybe in this room today Fifty out of the 300 or so entrepreneurs may have the exact same product you make. These 50 companies are supposed to be lining up for a buyer to choose, which in fact is the case, because the suppliers in the next two rooms are Talk to suppliers one by one to find out what our competitive advantages are. Finally, around these advantages, there is a small market we want, how to promote your selling point and let buyers know. When we communicate with many successful entrepreneurs, we find that finding our strengths is not an easy task. Getting each of your employees to communicate this advantage is not an easy task. But in a competitive market, if we want to get out of the ocean of competition and have more different forms of expression to let buyers take a fancy to us, then we must really think about our advantage.

First, we must start from ourselves and change our concepts. In the past, price was the absolute advantage of Chinese manufacturing. When Global Sources first entered the Chinese market more than 20 years ago, it only needed to write it in the magazine advertisement, because most of the promotions through Global Sources were Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korean companies. Write down what product is made in China, and that's it. Because at that time, there were not many Chinese companies actively promoting it. People thought that I, you are a Chinese company, and you can do things well. Needless to say, the price is definitely cheap. Price has been an important advantage for us in the past. Now labor costs, the wages of workers in Ningbo are only 100 yuan lower than those in Shenzhen, and their living standards are similar. So the low price advantage is becoming less and less. How can we explore our own competitive advantages and let the enterprise develop continuously? This is the situation today.

This is even more true in the future. When we have no other advantages, if your competitive advantage is only price, everyone knows that there is no cheapest product in the world, only cheaper products. There is no cheapest product in the market, only cheaper products. , there must be cheaper than you. If we do a survey in the room and ask if your product is the cheapest in this room, many people dare not say this, especially if we ask it all over the country. Therefore, the price must not be our advantage, but a very important competitive element cannot be our advantage. Besides price, what else can we offer buyers?

First of all, you must transform yourself, from price to value, and your service, creativity, and quality can only be valuable.

Second choice for buyers. We have told many bosses what is the most important thing in doing business. More than one supplier said that it is necessary to choose good customers and buyers. There are many factors in choosing a good buyer. Do you get along well and are sincere to each other? There is enough strength, whether the buyers are very concerned about quality and innovation, whether everyone conducts business negotiations on an equal and mutually beneficial relationship, these are very critical. If a buyer asks if you can give me a cheaper, three-dollar or two-dollar product, when the price keeps going down, we need to know exactly what the buyer wants, or what you want Does it match the direction of your business development? If your direction is high-end positioning, doing very cheap short-term business may not be what you want. So choosing the right buyer is very important.

Global Sources buyer community. To communicate with you, our buyer community is not just a number, we will count the active buyers. At present, there are more than one million active buyers, that is, in the past 12 months and 24 months, we have a data , these buyers have sent inquiries on the Global Sources website or have come to our exhibitions. There are more than 210,000 verified buyers. We have indeed met this person. He is indeed a living person. Shake hands, this is a verified buyer. Classified by industry, there are 18 industry segments, mainly large importers and exporters. Many people ask what is the difference between Global Sources and other websites. Global Sources is doing bulk business and bulk trade. Many other websites may operate small orders and small amounts. This is a big difference. What is the direction of development, is it to do high-volume or small-volume, or retail? Choose your promotion platform based on this. The strength platforms are all the world's top 100 retailers. More than half of the buyers in the world's top 100 have cooperated with Global Sources to find the suppliers they want through Global Sources.

Third, identify our target market. Europe and the United States are still a large consumer group, and North America is also a large share, as well as other parts of Asia, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe. We may not understand the markets of these developing countries today. Maybe you have never been to this place. You haven't watched the movies of the country, and we don't know the language spoken by the people of this country, but we can't ignore the business of this country and region, maybe it can become our target market with great development hope.

The entire consumption in Europe and the United States still accounts for a very important share, and the balance between traditional and emerging markets is very important. One is foreign traditional markets and emerging markets, as well as export and domestic markets. The balance of business is very important. Everyone knows that eggs cannot be put in one basket. It is very simple, but it is not easy to do. As long as there are emerging markets, it is impossible to say that I am looking for Brazil today, and there will be several Brazilian buyers coming tomorrow. We There may be many behaviors, such as going to participate in the exhibition, you have to attract the Brazilian market, you have to understand what special needs are in Brazil, we have to understand, so that we will be more targeted to attract buyers from this place .

Global Sources' buyer community is spread all over the world, and the layout of global trade is quite similar. North America has a 21% share, Europe has 17%, Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States 4%, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Central South The Americas have a certain proportion. Although they are not as large as Europe and the United States, the stamina of these developing countries and regions is very strong. Many successful entrepreneurs are now diversifying their market layout step by step.

Fourth, identify your own strengths. This is actually the hardest, the easiest to say, and the hardest to do. Let's talk about one of them. For example, what is your reputation? What is your reputation? Let's first clarify the concept letter. The scale of the company, mine is not very large, what do you think of large and small? In fact, the word scale is a neutral one. There are also delivery time, product quality, experience, product performance, whether the design meets environmental protection standards, export experience, production equipment, and after-sales service, all of which are related. I suggest this myself. We have also organized workshops with many companies. We sat down with the boss of the company, his management personnel, and the foreign trade team to do a brainstorming. Considering the competitive advantage of our company, I think every company has It's worth spending a few hours with our employees to find our competitive advantage. If none of our own employees have found our competitive advantage, how can we get buyers to find our competitive advantage? Maybe we are the only thing left in the eyes of buyers. We didn't tell him anything about the price. We only quoted him one price. When the buyer asked us the price, we replied that the product was two dollars, so we only quoted one price, so we don't have to blame the buyer. We only know the price and not our competitive advantage. It is worth taking the time to discuss with our employees three or five main competitive advantages. Everyone is doing this workshop. It is very simple. You have to ask everyone, if we compare our company with other companies, what reasons are there for buyers to choose me? If we still don’t understand, you can ask the customer you are working with now, if there is no customer who cooperates with you, he will not tell you, you can ask the customer who cooperates with you, such as Mr. Zhang, you can tell me why you cooperate with me , why choose me. Find out what buyers really think, maybe not what you think. This forum is also an opportunity. Later, the buyer will tell you how he chooses suppliers, but when negotiating business, the buyer will not be so open to tell you, I choose suppliers one, two, three, four, a few Article tells you. I suggest you all think about it. Where is your selling point, be sure to find this out, because this is the foundation of our success.

The last one, after we have defined our own market, our buyers, and our advantages, the following is how to tell our buyers where my advantages are and how to promote it.

There are several aspects, and doing foreign trade is nothing more than the following: Participating in exhibitions, websites, and doing search rankings on search engines, the effect may be different at different stages. When obtaining sales leads, the exhibition may come faster, and customers may I rolled my eyes as I passed by my booth, and I could ask him for a business card, which was relatively straightforward. In terms of building your own brand, at the exhibition, your booth design is more shocking and more intuitive to promote your brand. In terms of obtaining orders, buyers will be more impressed when they arrive at the exhibition. So from this perspective, the exhibition really plays a very important role. But the exhibition only lasts for three or four days. How can we get the attention of buyers uninterruptedly? At this time, the role of the website will be reflected. And your corporate website, there are many competitions on the Global Sources website. The method of advantage, for example, under each company name, I hope that each supplier will write your competitive advantage. We only ask for one sentence, only one line. How to write this line is indeed a test of the supplier's wisdom. Let's find a way together Summary Discover your competitive advantage. Different combinations, how to combine different promotion methods, if only one method is used now, it will not work, how to combine my funds with multiple methods, and how to match your needs according to your different products and business forms Well, this is also a very important question. Different companies have different ideas, and our staff will also communicate with you about what combination is the best.

More than half of suppliers will increase their promotion budget this year, 37% will increase, 32% will remain the same, and 11% will decrease. This survey is also beyond our expectations. If the environment in Europe and the United States is not good, everyone should reduce it, but the survey found that more than half of the companies will increase. We also understand the thoughts of these suppliers. When everyone thinks that the market is not good, there are only two The choice is life or death. If I choose to retreat, the company will close; if I want to move forward, I have confidence in my products and the company. If I want to move forward, I will keep letting buyers know about me. , increase participation in exhibitions, increase online investment, let buyers know my competitive advantage, let him know that I am alive, and I am alive and well. Buyer confidence is often the difference between this idea. We have a supplier friend who was talking about participating in the Hong Kong exhibition for two times before. Now you are also holding it, and the TTC is also holding it. I will participate in four exhibitions. I said you can choose two exhibitions. He said no, because the buyers came here. For those who ran away, we hope to appear under his nose, to let him see that we are living a healthy life and actively promoting the market. Therefore, the promotion efforts of many enterprises are increasing.

There are also three channels for increasing the budget: exhibitions, websites, and advertisements in trade magazines.

Strategies to deal with challenges, contact buyers through various channels, many of which are to improve the ranking of website search results, increase the use of B2B foreign trade websites, develop emerging markets, participate in more exhibitions, improve booth design, and strengthen brand. Building, exploring more business opportunities in the existing market, increasing the use of B2C websites, and improving the ability to handle buyer inquiries are all strategies we use to meet the challenges.

Different channels have different influence on buyers. Only by integrating multi-channel promotion methods can we have better control over the future. Websites, magazines, meetings and exhibitions held in several rooms next door today, Combining various ways, we can deliver our advantages to buyers in a three-dimensional and all-round way. The question is are we ready today? Maybe everyone here said this, I seem to know a little bit, whether we are ready to recognize the present and underestimate the future. Now, we must repeat it again, we cannot rely on the low price advantage, our low price advantage is no longer there.

Second, Internet information is flooded. Buyers are not finding suppliers, but there are many suppliers. The problem is that they cannot find good suppliers; He released an advertisement on Ningbo TV station saying what product I want to buy. I can guarantee that the queue can be very long on the street, but these buyers can't find what he thinks is good. He wants the most economical and effective means. A way to help him find a good supplier.

See the future clearly: First, see the advantages clearly, how to transition from price advantage to value advantage, and how to have a better selling point to reflect our value. These two words appear a lot in public media. It is very important to pay more attention to the embodiment of value when doing business.

Global Sources provides a face-to-face approach. The channels of the website and magazine are all to help suppliers and buyers. The two parties meet here and can have better communication here.

Global Sources Series Purchasing Fair 2013 will hold more than 40 annual events, including Hong Kong, India, Dubai, New Delhi, Johannesburg, Sao Paulo, Miami. It is not easy for an exhibition company to hold exhibitions in so many places around the world. In order to allow customers to have various channels, we have websites, magazines, and exhibitions, which can be combined to have more promotion.

Especially on the website, we have also made a lot of new functional changes. We mentioned many times just now that buyers have a lot of information, there is a lot of information on the website, the most important thing is what he wants, do Buyers in overseas markets pay more attention to the strength and background of the company. As for whether the styles produced by the company are what they want, the buyers may not be most concerned about it at the first time, so the biggest point of our reform on the website is a supply There is a line of business, and the unique selling point of the supplier is placed below the supplier. There are several small pictures below, which are matched with his most important product pictures, because we know that buyers are interested in the background and strength of the supplier.

From the perspective of star queuing, you can also see the strength of suppliers. Whether you are looking for large-scale or small-scale, different buyers are looking for different suppliers. There is no best, only the most suitable , just like our marriage.

In addition to print magazines, we also have electronic magazines, which can allow buyers to read more quickly and easily, and also send inquiries.

Finally return to the center, find our target buyers, and use related services to get more exposure on the website, exhibitions, and one-on-one meetings around the occasions where the target buyers appear, which can make buyers Pay more attention to us, and at the same time, we can also choose what we like, know what buyers want, and show the advantages of your company to buyers accordingly, so that we can win the future and face more challenges. More challenges and more victories.