Cross Border Electricity Providers Will Usher In A Large-Scale Industry "Fuse" Situation

It is understood that two weeks ago, Li Xiang, a responsible person in charge of an electronic business platform for cross-border business, found me.

He told reporters: "we (self based cross-border e-commerce platform) may not last for a month, we have to lay off the pformation."

It sounds alarmist enough that I feel unbelievable.

However, after verification of various e-commerce platforms, bonded warehouses and logistics companies,

The reply is: the situation is basically true, cross-border electricity providers will soon usher in the industry's large-scale "melting" of the situation.

From the "wind tunnel" of venture capital to the "storm mouth" of the new policy, cross-border electricity suppliers encountered roller coaster in a month.

The change is so intense.

The cause was jointly issued by the relevant departments.

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Under the new deal, everyone is depressed.

Even a friend who always has a personality has become low-key.

When he got the last round of financing, he had "bombed" too many media. Just a few months ago, he was full of aggressiveness. "Investors say I am a bit crazy."

Now, although his overseas direct mail business has not been greatly affected, he is still a little worried. "The future of this industry is not so sure."

According to Li Xiang's statement, according to the requirements of the commodity import and export policy of the cross border electricity retail business introduced in April 8th (hereinafter referred to as the "New Deal"), the goods shipped must be provided according to general trade requirements, and cosmetics, health care products and other commodities must be registered at the food and drug administration, which has resulted in over 95% of the bonded products being imported.

The current cross-border electricity providers can only rely on existing inventory to maintain sales.

Generally, in order to avoid inventory backlog, the electronic business platform will control inventory within a month.

This also means that the cross-border e-commerce will begin to appear on a large scale in mid May.

An emergency policy

"Never seen such a pressing policy.

The new tax reform announced the white list on the eve of the announcement, and many data at the front end of the front desk should be modified. The stock preparation before it may also cause greater losses.

Li Xiang said that because the time of the new deal was too urgent, no pitional period was given to all electronic business platforms, which had a huge impact on the existing mode of cross-border electricity providers.

The cross-border electricity supplier's new deal has been rumored for a long time.

But from communication with the electronic business platform to the introduction, only two months before and after.

Beginning in February 2016, a number of cross-border electricity supplier international trade departments including honey buds, Xiao Hong Shu, jumei.com and so on have received initial communication from customs, confirming that they will levy taxes on cross-border electricity providers starting in April.

In March 24th, the relevant three ministries and commissions issued a new tax system for retail sales of cross-border electricity suppliers.

On the evening of April 7th, a few hours before the "New Deal" came out, the Ministry of Finance posted the list of retail imports of cross-border e-commerce on the official website.

This batch of positive lists includes 1142 8 tariff products, covering some food and beverages.

Household appliances, and some cosmetics, diapers, children's toys, thermos cups and other commodities.

In April 8th, the Ministry of Finance announced that the value of single paction was raised to $2000 from the postal tax policy to $2000 while the retail tax on cross-border e-commerce retail goods was imported. At the same time, the personal annual paction limit was set at 20000 yuan.

Invalid and helpless response

At the beginning, people paid attention to the tax rate. The key point of the discussion is, when the price of cross-border electricity suppliers is rising, will consumers still be so keen on buying overseas products?

In response to the impact of price, jumei.com, which has started overseas cosmetics business in the past two years, has also set up a response team.

However, with the first batch of lists, the electronic business platform found that many categories were not allowed to be sold.

In the first list, a number of hot products, including liquid milk, fresh food and health products, were not included.

Worried about cross-border electricity providers, vice president of a cosmetics business platform in the circle of friends ridicule: in 2011 to do business, 2016, died.

"Let's not sell" became the focus of discussion at that time.

As the head of the government's public relations, Li Xiang actively communicated with the relevant government departments, and the government departments also gave a positive response.

A week later, on the night of April 15th, the 13 departments of the Ministry of finance, the development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce jointly issued the second batch of positive lists, which added 151 tax products, and explained the vague "medical device related products", "health food related products" and "special medical use formula food related products".

According to Li Xiang's remarks, the relevant departments counted the categories of cross-border e-commerce in 2015, so they made up second lists.

After the second batch of positive lists came out, the vice president deleted the previous circle of friends and had an optimistic attitude towards the new deal, waiting for further adjustment by the government.

Soon, they found themselves too optimistic.

After the second batch of positive lists came out, the policy adjustment seemed to be temporarily suspended.

Li Xiang communicated with the relevant departments. The other party's reply is: have not solved the problem of public opinion reaction?

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The key issue is "general trade".

"Taxation and inventory are not the key issues. The key problem is that, according to general trade import requirements, our goods simply can't get through."

Li Xiang said that the company's warehouse inventory is generally controlled within a month, so by mid May, the company will be faced with mass failure.

Over the past two years, cross-border electricity providers have entered a blowout development based on policy and demographic dividend. Cross border electricity providers such as honey bud, ocean pier and Xiaohong book have completed many rounds of financing in the past two years and have stepped into Unicorn clubs.

And Tmall, Jingdong, jumei.com and other business tycoons are also actively distributing global business.

According to customs statistics, in 2015, the total electricity consumption of cross-border electricity providers in 7 pilot cities totaled 15 billion 500 million yuan, 14.5 times 14.5 times that in 2014.

In 2015, Chinese consumers spent 1 trillion and 200 billion yuan abroad, an increase of 43% compared with 2014.

According to the plan, cross-border electricity providers will become an important source of China's fiscal revenue.

Before the implementation of the new deal, Li Xiang had communicated with the relevant departments to ask whether it would affect the import of policies, and the other side's reply was "no problem."

However, the actual operation has had a major deviation from the plan.

Li Xiang said that for cross-border electricity providers, the real crisis is hidden in the regulatory requirements for goods shipped after April 8th.

According to the new regulations, the goods shipped after the 8 day of April must be provided according to general trade requirements. Cosmetics, health care products and other commodities must be registered at the General Administration of food and drug, resulting in a large number of bonded products that can not be imported.

The "customs clearance" that cannot be obtained.

As the key "customs clearance form", that is, the entry customs declaration form, refers to the certificate issued by the entry-exit inspection and quarantine authority authorized by the State Administration of quality supervision, inspection and quarantine in accordance with the law, which is included in the catalogue of inspection and Quarantine Law, and the consignee or agent of imported goods, which has not been included in the catalogue of inspection and Quarantine Law, but is subject to the laws and administrative regulations clearly adopted by the entry-exit inspection and quarantine organ.

The goods involved in the inspection (under the regulatory code of A) need to be submitted to the state inspection department for inspection and fill in the "entry cargo inspection report".

Take cosmetics as an example, we need to provide more than 10 foreign trade documents, namely, certificate of origin, contract, invoice, packing list, pick up (Transportation) list, imported cosmetics label inspection (cosmetic label in Chinese, foreign language original label and plation parts and cosmetics ingredient ratio), national food and drug Administration's import cosmetics hygiene license (record keeping certificate), and inspection report letter.

After completion of the inspection, the customs inspection department will issue a customs declaration form (no customs declaration is issued after customs clearance), and then declare it to the customs.

When customs declaration is made in QP (customs clearance system), if there is no customs clearance, the goods involved in the legal inspection will be returned.

In the 2015 version of the "inspection and quarantine law inspection directory", there are 4562 categories for entry to the legal inspection, while 1293 of the two batch list of cross border import electricity suppliers, 99% of them need legal inspection and issue customs clearance.

Li Xiang pointed out that

Two major difficulties will be encountered in actual customs clearance.

First of all, the original cross-border electricity supplier entry, there are also submitted customs clearance, but basically provide the accompanying documents are packing list, contracts, invoices, bills of lading and other documents.

However, due to the fact that all categories of general trade need to submit the accompanying documents, the important way of cross border electricity suppliers is the "sweeping" mode, which is to purchase large quantities of local consumers at overseas shopping malls and shops. It is difficult to provide the certificate of origin and other takeaway documents for the goods acquired by the sweeping mode.

"If we can get the general trade customs declaration, then we will directly engage in general trade instead of cross-border electricity providers."

Li Xiang said, according to the relevant policies, the general trade import commodities are mostly collected according to the weight, but the goods involved in cross-border electricity providers need to collect taxes according to the quantity and unit price, which is much higher than the general trade tax.

Secondly, the general trade cycle cycle is too long. Taking health products as an example, at present, there are only more than 700 enquiries in the food and drug administration, and the application time for new products is 1-2 years, which is obviously not conducive to the aging mode of competition.

In order to reduce inventory risk, the past cross-border e-commerce procurement usually used a lot of small quantities of procurement methods, but now, health care products each SKU filing costs of 500 thousand -100 million, so that the electronic business platform feel powerless.

The bonded area is already laying off workers.

Statistics from the cross border electricity supplier comprehensive test area (hereinafter referred to as the comprehensive test area) show that from April to 8 in April 15th, the import volume was hit by the first wave, and the import volume in Zhengzhou, Shenzhen, Ningbo, Hangzhou and other comprehensive test areas decreased by 70%, 61%, 62%, 65%, respectively.

After the 15 day of April, with the import of goods shipped by the General Administration of customs before April 8th, the import volume of each pilot area rebounded, and the import volume in Zhengzhou, Shenzhen, Ningbo and Hangzhou returned to 55%, 62%, 65% and 71% before the new deal, respectively.

"Although the import volume is far from being restored to the level before the new deal, import tax has begun to increase significantly, which has led the relevant departments to mistake the negative impact of the new deal being eliminated."

Li Xiang said that the rise in import volume was based on cross-border electricity suppliers selling inventory commodities, and some electricity providers were worried about policy changes, and even issued promotional measures to clean up inventory.

Due to the strict implementation of the new regulations by customs and quality inspection in all parts of the country, the goods shipped after 4 May 8 months later, except for a few illegal products such as diapers, pillows, cups, bottles, etc., more than 95% of the goods were already unable to import, and a large number of containers began to backlog in the docks and airports.

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The decrease in imports directly affects the various bonded areas, and some of the comprehensive test areas begin to lay off workers.

Taking the Zhengzhou comprehensive test area as an example, the number of front-line staff in the district's electric business enterprises dropped sharply from the top 6000 before the new deal to about 700 people. The packaging lines of large enterprises decreased from 4 to 1, and the small businesses basically stopped working, and the matching express, warehousing and pportation workers were in a semi closed state.

According to Xinhua news agency quoted the Hangzhou entry exit inspection and Quarantine Bureau, the new cross-border electricity supplier policy implemented a month, the entire cross-border e-commerce comprehensive test area in Hangzhou imported 1 million 381 thousand and 200 packets, shipped 46 thousand units a day, a decrease of 57%, the impact of the larger.

I hope to have a year's buffer period and a good pformation.

Electronic commerce platform, bonded area, warehouse distribution and other links into the electricity supplier have felt the pressure of life and death.

This pressure also allows these rivals to compete with each other in all aspects. In mid April, the cross-border business platform represented by jumei.com, honey bud and Xiaohong book, bonded area represented by Zhengzhou Free Trade Zone, sent rookie logistics to senior and even founders to attend a closed door meeting in Shangri-La.

Different practitioners have different attitudes. Some people advocate more radical communication with parts, and others are relatively conservative.

Li Xiang said, "we soon find that we can't eat anymore."

The situation is still uncertain, and the electronic commerce platforms are also seeking pformation and self-help.

Direct mail is a way out.

But it is said that the rents of overseas warehouses have begun to rise, and the Hongkong (bonded) warehouse has increased by 30% to 50%.

The rate of package inspection of direct mail packages has also increased significantly, affecting the speed of direct mail.

Another part of the cross-border e-commerce platform began to try to pform the high-end tourism route.

But for those giants who have already passed the unicorn class, it is not easy to complete pformation in a short time.

"Such a big company does not mean that pformation can turn around. We need time."

Li Xiang said that if the current rules remain unchanged, the outcome he can think of is massive layoffs of existing bonded areas and cross-border e-commerce platforms.

As for the cross-border shopping demand of consumers, it is either the old way of purchasing, or the platform like Amazon will form a monopoly.

"The relevant ministries and commissions should clarify the role of cross-border B2C platform in the industry, and we all hope to give us at least one year's buffer period."

Lin Lin, a person in charge of a cross-border e-commerce platform who just got the C round of financing before the new deal, also said.

It is said that because of the impact of the new deal, the valuation of the electricity supplier has been cut down within a month, and investors are also frustrated.

However, there is still a glimmer of hope for policy adjustment, and we hope that the policy will continue to readjust.