Cross-border e-commerce recreates the new advantages of Made in China

Cross-border e-commerce is like a spring breeze, bringing new vitality to Made in China. In the current situation where the cost advantage is exhausted, China's manufacturing industry is struggling to move forward and urgently needs to be transformed and upgraded. As a new boost to export and foreign trade, cross-border e-commerce can bring greater benefits to Chinese manufacturing enterprises, help Chinese manufacturing to transform and upgrade to Chinese brands, and regain its former halo on the international stage.

Cross-border e-commerce facilitates the transformation and upgrading of export manufacturing enterprises

More and more Chinese manufacturing enterprises are beginning to use cross-border e-commerce to transform and upgrade. In the survey of "cross-border e-commerce export business of Chinese manufacturing enterprises" held by "CEConline" from January 9 to 20, 243 companies participated in the survey, of which nearly 70% of the respondents said that Cross-border e-commerce export business has been deployed (see Figure 1).

Cross-border e-commerce has brought unprecedented benefits to Chinese manufacturing companies. Among them, the biggest advantage is to lower the threshold for entering the global market and improve brand awareness; the second is that cross-border e-commerce has low operating costs, large profit margins, and easy insight into consumer needs due to direct exposure to overseas consumers; and A small number of Chinese manufacturing companies realize that the cross-border e-commerce market has higher quality requirements, which is conducive to improving product quality (see Figure 2).

Chinese manufacturing enterprises that use cross-border e-commerce to transform and operate their own brands can move from the low end of the value chain to the high end, and can solve problems with low added value. The status quo, increase the brand premium. With the help of the influence and traffic of e-commerce platforms, Chinese manufacturing companies can target a wider range of consumers and increase brand awareness. In addition, as an online channel, cross-border e-commerce can eliminate intermediate channels and reduce operating costs.

Transforming manufacturing companies are learning how to stay grounded. In the past, Chinese manufacturers have been passively accepting the needs of buyers behind the scenes to make products. Now, they are actively developing products, but they have repeatedly hit a wall because they do not understand the needs of the end market. Through cross-border e-commerce, Chinese manufacturing companies have stood in front of consumers for the first time and accepted feedback and evaluations from consumers. Enterprises can directly learn the most real thoughts of consumers through consumer reviews, so as to know whether existing products meet market demands. Unmet demands can be regarded as development opportunities for enterprises, which can become the basis for future product development. Orientation and discover market trends. Of course, consumer reviews are like a double-edged sword. If you use them well, they will become a word-of-mouth effect. If you use them badly, they will become a sharp blade that stabs at the door of the enterprise, making the enterprise unable to recover. Therefore, for companies, consumer reviews should not be underestimated (see Figures 5 and 6).

In addition, consumers' supervision and feedback also help Chinese manufacturers to continuously improve the quality of their own products. For a long time, China's manufacturing exports have faced the problem of "three lows", namely "low quality, low added value and low technology content". "Foreign consumers value product quality more than price, and only by improving product quality can they gain more users," concluded Noah Herschman, general manager of Yangbo E-commerce Alliance. Cross-border e-commerce is reshaping the face of Made in China. It not only helps Made in China enter the global market, but also helps Made in China realize its brand dream. Through the transformation of cross-border e-commerce, Chinese manufacturing enterprises will turn around.

Current situation and challenges of export manufacturing enterprises operating cross-border e-commerce

In the process of operating cross-border e-commerce, Chinese manufacturing enterprises are exploring and advancing.

In this survey, most of the Chinese manufacturing companies surveyed have more B2B business than B2C business in their cross-border e-commerce export business (see Figure 3). However, e-commerce giant eBay believes that cross-border e-commerce will still be dominated by retail, because this is an excellent opportunity for traditional Chinese enterprises to take advantage of its transformation and upgrading. According to the analysis of Fengrui Capital, in the specific structure of export e-commerce, the B2C market transaction volume is small, but the growth rate is relatively fast, showing a new format of B2C proportion increasing and B2B and B2C coordinated development. Industry insiders suggest that in order to accelerate their own iterative upgrades, Chinese manufacturing companies should make good use of the tool of cross-border e-commerce and appropriately increase the proportion of B2C business.

In terms of platform selection, most of the interviewed Chinese manufacturing companies choose to open stores on third-party cross-border e-commerce platforms (such as Amazon, etc.). There are also some companies that have built their own cross-border e-commerce (see Figure 4).

It is understood that the advantage of the third-party platform lies in the improvement of its various processes and systems, such as credit system, shopping process, and helping enterprises maintain the platform and promote it. Usually such platforms also have huge traffic, and customers come from all over the world. Of course, this also means that there will be many companies competing on the e-commerce platform, and it will be difficult for companies to stand out. change, etc. The advantage of self-built e-commerce is that there are no relevant fees for entering the platform, the website pages are not controlled by others, and the scalability is strong. However, the initial investment cost of the self-built platform will be relatively large, and the promotion is difficult, and the credibility needs to be improved. Whether choosing a third-party e-commerce platform or a self-built platform, enterprises should choose a platform for development according to their own specific circumstances.

Among the series of problems that cross-border e-commerce cannot avoid, most of the interviewed companies believe that the lack of professional talents is the most troublesome problem for Chinese manufacturers when operating cross-border e-commerce; logistics supply chain Management is the second biggest pain point for export manufacturers. Encountering intellectual property barriers, complaints and lawsuits also cause headaches for Chinese manufacturers (see Figure 5).

For enterprises, only with professional talents can they achieve a higher level, which requires the brewing and development of the industry, and also requires enterprises Have an eye for identifying talents. Faced with the current serious shortage of cross-border e-commerce talents, some training institutions are rapidly emerging in various places. Enterprises can find suitable training institutions to train employees, or cooperate with relevant institutions to supply suitable talents for enterprises.

The logistics system of cross-border e-commerce has also been criticized. Enterprises have been trying to break the ice. Due to the bottleneck of cross-border e-commerce logistics, the business of some enterprises has always been "small and troubled", and it is difficult to improve. It is understood that a large part of the order complaints on cross-border e-commerce platforms are caused by logistics, which also seriously affects the shopping experience of consumers.

In addition, Chinese manufacturers have repeatedly stepped on the "landmines" of intellectual property rights. Overseas, especially in European and American countries, intellectual property management is very strict, while Chinese manufacturers have weak copyright awareness and widespread plagiarism, which often leads to complaints and prosecutions. In this regard, enterprises should take the initiative to raise the awareness of intellectual property rights, and try to cooperate with professional institutions to actively build their own intellectual property competition barriers.

Although the blue ocean of the cross-border e-commerce market is emerging, the operating environment is very complex. Under the circumstance that the requirements are getting higher and higher, Chinese manufacturers must gradually clear the fog and constantly find a path suitable for their own development. .

Nearly 30% of export manufacturing enterprises still maintain the status quo

In this survey, about 30% of the interviewed enterprises have not deployed cross-border e-commerce, and seven of them Successful companies indicated that they would expand their cross-border e-commerce business in the next six years, while the remaining companies indicated that they would not consider it for the time being (see Figures 1 and 7).

The most important reason why Chinese manufacturing companies that have not yet deployed cross-border e-commerce, the most important reason for maintaining the status quo is that they do not have sufficient conditions and Operational concerns, such as lack of professional talents, insufficient logistics supply chain management capabilities, and long sales receipts. Respondents who chose the "Other" option mostly believe that their product features are not suitable for cross-border e-commerce, and only a few companies think they do not need it (such as small online orders, existing offline export business, etc.), because there are traditional These enterprises are tired of doing cross-border e-commerce, and have insufficient understanding of the benefits of cross-border e-commerce (see Figure 6).

For Chinese manufacturing companies that want to get involved in cross-border e-commerce in the next six years, their main operation method will also be in third parties. Open a store on a cross-border e-commerce platform. It can be seen that for most enterprises, choosing an e-commerce platform is a generally accepted operation model, which can bring more benefits and operational convenience to the enterprise. In addition, only a very small number of interviewed companies are willing to hand over to an agency. The reason for this is that the effectiveness of the agency operators on the market has yet to be verified, and very few companies surveyed dare to take the risk (see Figure 8).

In fact, the concerns of some respondents who have not yet operated cross-border e-commerce are basically the same as those of Chinese manufacturing companies that are operating cross-border e-commerce (see Figure 5). It shows that challenges do exist, but they are not enough to hinder the transformation process. There are also a small number of enterprises that are not suitable for developing cross-border e-commerce due to their own product characteristics, such as customized products, and have not yet deployed cross-border e-commerce. It can be seen from the survey that online consumer reviews can effectively tap opportunities for customization (see Figure 2). Among them, only a very small number of companies do not consider operating cross-border e-commerce, which shows that there are still some Chinese manufacturing companies that are not willing to transform or have insufficient awareness of cross-border e-commerce. Generally speaking, manufacturing enterprises that have not deployed cross-border e-commerce can choose whether to transform into cross-border e-commerce according to their own development conditions. For enterprises that dare not take risks, they should try different methods to speed up the pace of transformation and upgrading. continue to grow and grow.

Figure / Devin