New knowledge, new insights and new opportunities, start the enterprise upgrade war under the dual cycle

In the past two years, the global market has shrunk, the epidemic has repeatedly attacked, and the foreign trade situation has been complex and changeable. Taking advantage of the crisis has become the premise for the high-quality economic growth in various regions of China.

As one of the most dynamic and internationalized regions in China, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area plays an important role in the process of building a "dual circulation". At the same time, as the most complete and largest industrial gathering place in China and an important consumer market with a vast scale and diverse needs, the Greater Bay Area is facing severe external challenges.

How to take advantage of the changes in the global trade pattern in the post-epidemic era, actively promote the transformation of foreign trade competitiveness, and carry out industrial upgrading from the supply side and the demand side at the same time has become the focus of various industries in the Greater Bay Area.

A few days ago, at a foreign trade forum titled "New Knowledge, New Opportunities", the CEConlines of Global Sources and its management media invited industry experts, industry pioneers, buyer representatives, and high-quality enterprises The representative discussed in depth how enterprises can seize changes to open up new situations and create broader development prospects under the "dual circulation" policy of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Cross-border trade platform positioning change

Although the new crown is raging, among the three carriages of "investment, consumption and export" in China's economy, export is still the most potential. According to data released by the General Administration of Customs on August 7, in the first seven months of this year, the total value of my country's foreign trade exports reached 13.37 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.7%; among which, imports and exports in July increased by 16.6% year-on-year, which has continued since May. The growth rate of foreign trade continued to pick up, making positive contributions to stabilizing the macroeconomic market.

Looking back more than a year, the foreign trade industry has experienced different sufferings under the transcripts presented: fluctuations in global commodity prices, shock waves of Amazon store closures, and bottlenecks in the international shipping supply chain Policy influences such as the “double carbon” goal, the dual control of energy consumption, etc. As things gradually pick up, we have also seen the changes and far-reaching impacts that these difficult journeys have brought to China’s manufacturing industry. Innovation is scattered in every link of the industry chain, and the most concentrated and intuitive performance is in the foreign trade platform.

Global Sources was established in 1971 and launched worldwide in 1995 The first B2B platform for cross-border trade, and in 2011, it established an industry standard and established a buyer system.

"We have witnessed China's reform and opening up, especially the development of the manufacturing and foreign trade industries. We are very fortunate to have participated in this period. In 2008, we experienced the global financial tsunami and the sub-prime mortgage in the United States together with many companies. Crisis, etc., had a profound impact on China's manufacturing industry at that time. Today, we may be facing great changes unseen in a century, but we know that we must move forward and keep moving forward to have a chance." In "New Knowledge and New Views" New Opportunities" Forum, Sam Zhang, Vice President of New Business Development, Global Sources, delivered an opening speech.

The spirit of innovation kept Global Sources from stopping during the epidemic. The company invested heavily in rebuilding the entire B2B trading platform, as well as promotion and operation. In January 2022, a new buyer website was launched, and in July 2022, the online exhibition was launched with version 1.0. The new platform brings four major scenarios and six artifacts, realizing the exhibition method of promoting digital entities and integrating online and offline.

“The new exhibition model in the post-epidemic era is not only through on-site physical display, but also through the latest digital means such as cloud exhibition, online, APP synchronous live broadcast, etc., to meet the urgent need of global buyers to access new products. demand, so that our exhibitors and buyers have a better experience." said Ryan Chen, Director of Digital Product Strategy and Development, Global Sources.

Located in the Greater Bay Area with domestic and international "two markets, two resources", Global Sources has continuously upgraded its business in an all-round way, and has tried new models and new exhibitions.

On the B side, the Hong Kong exhibition represents its business upgrade. As a large-scale exhibition in the field of electronic procurement, the Hong Kong exhibition in autumn 2022 will be a three-in-one exhibition model. The exhibition includes 12 categories including consumer electronics, mobile electronics, smart home and home appliances, gifts, home furnishing, quality life, and fashion life, with over 50,000 products on display.

At the C-end, it will launch the To C-end exhibition "Trendy Life Show" in Shenzhen. Lisa Wang, who is in charge of the domestic exhibition project of Global Sources, introduced: "In our trendy life show, we present clothing and food. We hope to create a scene-based communication platform for domestic and foreign fashion brands through this online and offline omni-channel approach.”

"Fashion Life Show" enriches and inspires the trend experience of Shenzhen consumers, gives fashion brands more opportunities to display in Shenzhen's business circle, and helps Shenzhen to nurture a fashionable urban culture, and at the same time promotes the development of Shenzhen's manufacturing industry to diversify . Global Sources will take this opportunity to promote the development of the "dual circulation" in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Following the value chain and the upgrading of the consumer market

The development pattern of "dual circulation" puts forward higher requirements for enterprises, which requires enterprises to change from traditional price advantages to technology, standards, The comprehensive competitive advantage with quality, brand and service as the core has been transformed. The forum put forward valuable opinions on the innovation and upgrading of enterprises based on the changes in consumer demand and value chain in domestic and foreign markets.

The consumer electronics industry is very important to both domestic and foreign markets. Steven Wang, Category Management Director of eBay's International Cross-Border Trade Division, shared his interesting observations on the changing needs of different categories due to the impact of the epidemic in recent years: Tablets have found a new entry point and returned to the mainstream consumer market; wireless charging and others are experiencing explosive growth ; With the help of intelligent interconnection, the life cycle of home appliances can be extended.

Global Sources has sorted out the general trends and directions of different consumer electronics markets in the latest white paper on strategic research, such as listing the hot search terms for consumer electronics products in eight markets, so that sellers can focus more , get a more substantial return.

Global Sources Exhibition Strategy Manager Zheng Guangpeng pointed out in the "Analysis of the Future Development of the Consumer Electronics Industry" that there are three major development trends in the entire foreign trade industry: The first is supply chain transfer, mainly from some coastal areas. Some Southeast Asia, and then from some coastal areas to the mainland, such as Sichuan; the second is the simplification of the procurement chain, the rapid development of the Internet has made many transactions go online, and the sellers of cross-border e-commerce cross many links in the middle, resulting in the entire procurement chain. Simplified; the third is the blurring of online and offline procurement scenarios. In the face of these changes, Global Sources also gives targeted advice to customers.

The current era is the era of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity). What is the buyer's purchasing behavior in this era? Charlie Xu, former general manager of BestBuy Asia Pacific, explained how sellers deal with changes by analyzing the behavioral logic behind buyers.

He said that to be a good manufacturer, there are three latitudes of the smile curve: R&D, production and marketing. All of them are indispensable. However, Chinese manufacturers often focus on production and R&D, but ignore marketing. Chinese companies must make up for their marketing flaws in the VUCA era. As for how to carry out content marketing and how to make the brand more high-end, Chen Yu from Maimai Media Marketing also shared some experiences and experiences of the brand going overseas, and how Maimai helped Chinese companies avoid the minefields on the way to the sea.

As carbon neutrality becomes a hot topic in global supply chains, how can companies get involved, pay attention to their own energy consumption, and organize their production more leanly?

Carbon Enterprises CEO Fan Hong gave a speech. Carbon Enterprise is mainly committed to helping the global supply chain, especially the suppliers of some brands, to carry out the accounting of carbon emissions at the company level, and to carry out a series of follow-up services for energy conservation and consumption reduction in the future. Fan Hong pointed out that low-carbon procurement has become an important product focus of foreign customers in addition to quality, price, design and other factors.

Global Sources said in its founding manifesto in 1971: We firmly believe , Only by promoting trade between Eastern and Western merchants, can material enrichment be realized, thereby realizing the ideal of world peace. In the current dual-cycle development pattern, our eyes are shifting from trade to transaction. We can see that only by innovating and meeting consumer demand can companies gain the right to speak in the big market and win the changing new battlefield.