How to deal with the new trend of foreign trade?

The international trade environment is not what it used to be. "Made in China" urgently needs to be transformed. How can foreign trade companies create their own development strategies? Global Sources and its "CEConline" continue to create a series of "Wisdom & Win the Future" export forums, providing an excellent exchange and learning platform for foreign trade enterprises. The following is a keynote speech by Kewei Pei, President of Corporate Affairs, Global Sources and Publisher of CEConline, at the forum on new trends in foreign trade companies:

Kewei Pei: I am very excited to have the opportunity to share some of the export-related issues that have just been completed. Enterprise research. The survey found that:

1, the interviewed export companies are still relatively optimistic, and many companies also achieved a relatively large increase in export value throughout the year last year;

2, in terms of export profits, last year I I have been hearing a lot of complaints. For example, export companies will say that although export profits have increased, their profit margins are under pressure;

3, one-tenth of export companies were able to achieve a profit growth of more than 10% last year. Encouraging, another tenth can achieve 10% to 25% growth.

If we look back on the buyer side, we do have to admit that the buyer's purchasing behavior has changed dramatically:

1, the days of placing large-scale orders may be over, last year, or the last few days Month-to-month, buyers are increasingly looking for small, flexible, personalized orders, and small orders in batches. I think it may also be because they are looking for unique products;

2, we 74% of the buyers interviewed would describe themselves as not just “seeing the picture” to purchase, but looking for a product that is not in front of them, but looking for the overall capability of a supplier. He hopes to find a partnership and work together Develop a more unique product.

The survey also addresses the challenges faced by "Made in China" this year. We have asked similar questions before, but today we found new factors in it:

1, cost control is the main challenge;

2, the second is market development,

3, the third is Mastering the market demand may also mean that the products unique to buyers just mentioned may mean that exporters must quickly grasp these needs and changes of buyers;

4, the fourth factor is to improve production efficiency , this may be related to the first cost control;

5, the fifth is the first human resource challenge this year, how to retain talents suitable for your own enterprise, or cultivate these talents;

6, the sixth and first time, the challenges of enterprise management, I have come into contact with many suppliers, I also found that these difficulties faced today may be more complicated than before, because it involves transformation and improvement, So of course there will be some new problems in management

7, and the seventh is the challenge of corporate financing.

So how? To sum up, I will mention these three points:

1, the first step is to figure out, or actively choose your target market, your target buyers, this depends on your own positioning, You have to figure out who you want to be, and then find the right buyers for your positioning;

2, the second I have to decide how I tell these buyers a selling point that can attract them, to figure out my Where is the competitive advantage;

3, the next step is to promote, I want to figure out how to use some channels to promote myself.

Some buyers are fast-moving buyers, targeting small quantities or even one-by-one purchases, and some are big companies and big retailers. So every company has to figure out what kind of objects it wants. Anyway, from the perspective of Global Sources, our buyer community is very clearly positioned. It is some professional buyers who are imported in batches and directly imported in batches.

Then the other hand is the market selection in this region. We found that Europe is the first, the United States is the second, followed by Asia, including Southeast Asia, and some are in emerging countries, so I think emerging countries It is a rapid growth, but each enterprise should put its positioning in the first place, and then decide what its market distribution is.

The next step is to find your own unique selling point, such as product quality, or customer service, or research and development capabilities, design capabilities, or the overall strength and experience of the company. So how do you discover your unique selling point?

You will definitely have some customers who have worked with you for many years. You can directly ask them why you choose to buy my products instead of my competitors, and he will give some reasons. Then ask for the second and third time in a row, when you hear the same answer, maybe you have found your true unique selling point from the buyer's point of view.

With this unique selling point, it may be possible to refer to other people's unique selling points. After our research results obtained this month, we found:

1, the first is the product quality;

2, the second is to actively develop the market as a marketing method;

3, the third is innovation ability, product innovation;

4, the fourth is customer service;

5, the fifth is Improve the ability to accept small orders;

6, next is the brand advantage or design ability;

7, the last is the low price advantage, and it is estimated that this low price advantage is becoming more and more rare.

Then the next step is to start talking about marketing strategies. We found that:

1, the most popular and common strategy is to participate in more exhibitions;

2, the second is multi-channel integrated marketing ;

3, the third is B2B foreign trade websites;

4, the fourth is only 19% of public relations activities.

The reason why the exhibition ranks first may also be because when you lose the price advantage, you will need more time to explain why the other party wants to buy your products. When you are not the cheapest, there may be more and more face-to-face opportunities more important. But I am not advocating that you only do exhibitions, 37% of the companies surveyed also do that kind of integrated marketing, and for Global Sources, we have always advocated multi-channel marketing, because we have a lot of media, we think today's world There are so many new methods, but we still have to use them all.

When you use it all you are responsible for the information expressed in each channel can look consistent, because you are playing your image, your layout during your participation in the exhibition, your design and the online Advertising should be linked, and there must be a consistent image.

Especially for buyers who import in bulk like Global Sources, we do not sort the search results by product, we sort by type of company, each company will have a sentence summarizing its positioning, because our buyers are searching for The ability of the enterprise as a whole, not just to catch one of the products. When I say this unique selling point summary, I talk about the main cooperative buyers and the buyer list of this cooperation. Through this method, many of our customers can obtain good buyer leads that were not available before.

Of course, there are also our traditional print magazines. Besides print magazines, there are also electronic versions, because magazines also have its function. It can express information by using the space of one page, leaving people the first impression, a general impression. . Maybe a magazine is not as good as a website where it can't take a closer look at many products, unlike a product catalog, but it can convey an overall image to each other.

In addition, we are holding a series of special purchasing meetings for buyers. These are tailor-made one-on-one meetings. We collect information on some products that larger retailers want to buy, and then we prepare a list of suppliers. As a reference for these buyers to choose who he wants to meet. Opportunities to hold one-on-one meetings in different areas.