Can Cross-Border Electricity Providers "Get Rid Of The Clouds And See The Sky"?

Gone through several years of triumph, Tmall international, honey bud, Pea Princess, 55 Hai Tao and other traditional retailers, both at home and abroad.

Giants and supply chain distributors have completed their entry and accelerated their horse race.

However, by 2016, the policy fluctuated frequently. China's imports of cross-border electricity providers seemed to fall from a rapturous platform to a muddy depression overnight, marking the formal implementation of the new cross-border electricity tax reform in April 8th, and cross-border electricity providers began to enter the roller coaster style of rapid climbing and plunged into a period of ups and downs.

Now that the dividend policy is coming to an end, cruel competition and uncertain external environment are coming. Can cross-border electricity suppliers "get rid of the clouds and see the sky"?

On the eve of tax reform, cross-border electricity providers have been enjoying a dividend policy.

However, without the asylum of the policy, the cross border electricity supplier "ship break and meet the top wind", no matter which mode is faced with a similar situation.

The first target of the new deal is the import B2C mode.

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NetEase, koala and other comprehensive platforms are naturally the first to bear the brunt. Nowadays, this mode seems to be a master of Arts and flowers, but every platform is not easy.

1, these comprehensive platforms seem to have built their own unique models on the basis of their own core strengths. For example, the ocean terminal is a direct / direct pportation platform, the Amazon sea is purchased, and the 1 sea purchase uses self operated B2C mode. The NetEase koala adopts self run direct mining mode, and Su Ninghai buys it as a "self run + investment + contract production line + bonded shop" and Jingdong's overseas direct purchase mode overseas.

But they all have their own weaknesses. For example, Amazon has global high-quality supply chain logistics system and rich SKU, but cross-border electricity providers will eventually have to compete in the territory to pform sales capabilities and grasp the needs of local consumers. Amazon is still a green hand in this regard.

2, several big tycoons in the first camp have encountered "trouble". The runner up in the two or three camp is more difficult to relax.

For example, Tmall international, although the open platform to enter, but most of the international brands are TP generation operation, the price is high, Tmall's control of the brand end is also weak.

Although it is known as "the largest cross-border e-commerce platform in mainland China", Tmall international has not announced its turnover, but it can only be understood as "it is really impossible".

For example, Jingdong, Ju Mei, although they can directly participate in the supply chain organization, logistics and warehousing and trading process, but is still limited by category, and relies heavily on explosive products, and is also faced with tremendous financial pressure.

Although NetEase koala's proprietary business is running smoothly, but the supply chain is too heavy, the reaction is slow, self reliance is too dependent on cash, resulting in more SKU, high financial pressure and too much reliance on domestic bonded warehousing.

The most regrettable thing is that the honey wash net has not yet been mature until this model becomes a martyr.

Looking back at this former benchmark, Xie Wenbin, who was born in Tmall, created a platform for purchasing agents and shopping guides after he founded his own website. After that, he positioned the "overseas brand limited time special sale website", and launched price wars in various fields, calling for Tmall Jingdong.

In short, the comprehensive platform is only suitable for those big Mac with strong capital and traffic volume, but it is also very hard to see Big Mac at present.

Apart from solving the problems of traffic, capital, supply chain and so on, it is necessary to deal with the conflict between the sea business and the original business.

The vertical electricity supplier is probably the most telling story of cross-border electricity providers. From mother to baby, furniture to luxury goods, women, to Europe, America, Japan and Korea, each market segment is crowded with entrepreneurs.

Before 2015, it was highly concerned about capital, but in 2016, this trend did not weaken at the beginning. For example, in 2016 February, baby grid financing was 52 million yuan; the "Pea Princess" who focused on Japan's B2B2C mode and got the VentechCapital led million dollar A round of financing in February 2016, got another $10 million A+ round of financing in May, including Itou Tadamori, real fund, MTG company and VentechCapital; and the mother and baby electric provider Beibei network also received 100 million yuan D round financing.

But after careful calculation, we will find that the average single chip financing in 2016 is up to 33 million 300 thousand US dollars, which has shrunk by nearly 57% compared to 2015.

However, the new tax policy is also a direct and far-reaching impact on the vertical e-commerce platform, especially cosmetics, maternal and child health care products, light luxury products and other categories. This is a devastating impact on poly America, Xiao Hong Shu and darling, and so on, and Beckham net, which has roots in mother and baby, has lost its price competitiveness because of the increase of 12%.

On the contrary, the "Pea Princess" escaped from the sword. Weng Yong bum, a continuous entrepreneur, founded a Japanese search company in 2000 with the then 3721 and Itochu trading company: now JWord, and then acquired by YAHOO and GMOInc.

In March 2005, Jinshan Group joined the Jinshan Group to set up Jinshan, Japan, and focused on the Japanese Amoy market. The Japanese brands such as LOFT and Akasugu were introduced into the market. The authenticity of the goods was ensured through the introduction of the local well-known brands and the signing of exclusive brand agents.

Of course, in the mother and infant category, Beibei, honey bud and a few other development momentum is also relatively strong.

For example, Beibei has established overseas subscription channels in addition to establishing a circle mode, and has launched cross-border e-commerce business.

Recently, Beibei announced the completion of the $100 million D round of financing and three business figures: in 2015, GMV (total paction volume) was broken 4 billion yuan, monthly live users exceeded 10 million, accounting for 70% of the market share of the vertical electricity supplier industry, but such beautiful results could not stop the outside world from questioning it.

In short, the vertical mode of cross-border electricity providers is struggling to move forward in the face of questioning, abuse and accusation.

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Such representatives, such as Hai MI, excellent box and street honey, take the form of C2C, which is the overseas buying system. From the perspective of category, it is mainly the long tail non-standard products. It is a form of economic model. Every buyer is KOL and has his own temperament and preferences. They get approval and share through their strong sense of fashion and influence, and complete the commodity paction after establishing the personal trust mechanism.

For the industry, their contributions are widening the width of the supply chain and the selected products, and re constructing the new commercial retail logic: from brand business to consumer dominance, from producer simplification to diversification, and the core competitiveness of commodities from scale to individuation, and emotional attribution.

And compared to the traditional PC terminal providers, this consumption mode pays more attention to the consumption scenario and strong social attachment.

However, they also had to face the cruel reality: they still did not get rid of the traditional profit pattern of advertising and rebate, and the control of service experience was also poor. Personal purchasing now still has legal and policy risks. The implementation of the new tax reform is also a serious blow. The pformation of the buying platform is also low, generally only 2% less than now, and traffic and sales are also "28 principles", focusing on those high quality KOL. Most people need to answer questions such as how to get traffic, improve pformation, and how to accumulate opinion leaders.

Even the big brother Taobao global purchase (currently merged with Amoy) also needs to solve the problem of genuine and fake commodities, and to get consumers' trust.

So it looks like a good mobile business provider.

Four, community electric business: how many people are happy?

And overseas buyers system pays attention to information sharing, and there are similar community electric business models, such as Xiaohong book, spicy Mama gang and so on.

They can guide consumption through content sharing / community information, and complete natural pformation. Their advantage lies in the natural overseas brand cultivation base, which has high user stickiness, strong consumption ability, precise crowd, and the platform has tonality and culture.

Because social networking is a circle, which is built on the basis of a specific group of users.

But community electric business is innate with the "two laws" effect, that is, the user activity is high, the electricity supplier will weaken, the electricity supplier attribute is strong, the activity degree will drop.

Moreover, the competition barriers of their products are weak. Once the platform content is better and the form is more three-dimensional and innovative, users may "run away collectively".

In addition, there are 55 Hong Kong, and what is worth buying and so on behalf of the rebate shopping guide, generation operation mode.

They hope to generate pactions through information shopping, but in reality, outdated rebate mode and poor conversion rate are hard to convince people that this is a big business.

What is even more embarrassing is that the vast majority of cross-border e-commerce platforms are built with mirage, and they will end up in smoke.

Because their profit margins come from the difference between products sold at home and abroad, and the lack of overseas brands' sales channels in China.

This actually robbed the profits that originally belonged to overseas distributors and domestic agents.

Once the brand manufacturers build their own channels, and the platform has not established a new core capability, they can only become one of the many sales channels of the brand, or be abandoned by the brand.

Today, the world is flat and crowded, and cross border e-commerce platforms will only be short-lived "spring dreams" by using information asymmetry and other factors.

Although the cross-border electricity supplier has been "running away from home", there are still some unavoidable "pain" before the arrival of the cross-border electricity supplier.

1, fake risk

Not long ago, the China Electronic Commerce Research Center released the "2015 China e-commerce user experience and complaint monitoring report", which showed that in 2015, China's e-commerce complaints and rights protection public service platform received a total number of consumer complaints related to the electricity industry. The number of complaints related to e-commerce increased by 3.27% over the same period in 2014, of which third of the third complaints were complaints from cross-border e-commerce.

These fake problems focus on brand authorization and purchase channels, especially the problem of selling fake milk powder, diapers and health products.

2, language and other geographical barriers

This is mainly manifested in products, for example, products directly cross border from Japan are all Japanese. Chinese do not understand. In case of misuse or mistake eating, who will bear the responsibility?

In addition, many consumers also feedback that there are many differences between the commodities purchased through cross-border e-commerce platforms and overseas counterparts, such as the inconsistent shape, the lack of digital signs in the presentation of goods, and the inconsistency of production companies.

3, supply problems

It is understood that most cross-border e-commerce platforms are unable to get the direct authorization of all the merchandise they sell, and even some brands are quite repelled and directly linked to the platform.

So the platform can only be purchased directly from the local shopping malls, but this not only increases the risk of counterfeit goods, but also increases the instability of the supply chain.

Weng Yongbiao also admitted to herself: "every factory has a limited number of products. It will definitely give priority to Japan and then distribute it to China, and in this way, the stability of our supply will be very risky, especially if we can't get more downstream."

In addition, the supply chain of Shanghai's foreign goods supply chain is long, the links are complex, the cultural and business environment in different regions is different, and the legal risks that may arise from the problem of trademark applicability in the country are aggravating the problem of supply.

Therefore, the path of the domestic electricity supplier mode has gone wrong, and there is no shortage of cross-border electricity providers.

Cross border electricity business has become a hot potato from the beginning of the trend.

The Jedi counter attack, these or become the symbol of salvation.

Now, when the dividend policy has been gradually closed to the door and the advantage of cross border e-commerce is lost, these three moves may be the chance of "scenario reversal".

First, bid farewell to high cost and enable "live + business".

Perhaps as Weng Yong Biao said, "the core of cross-border electric business is information cross border, because you do not know this product, do not know where it is good," and how to break the barrier of information asymmetry is the top topic of every platform.

According to data from the consulting firm, the acquisition cost of new business customers in 2015 has reached 400 yuan. The cost of obtaining customers is bringing huge pressure to cross-border electricity providers.

Therefore, cross border e-commerce platform should be changed into passive and active access to new users.

In fact, in addition to the United States, other cross-border electricity providers have begun to try, such as mogujie.com announced that it will invest 300 million yuan to support its artists; NetEase koala purchase will be broadcast operation as one of the three major strategies in 2016; Weng Yong Biao, in addition to the "Pea Princess", also launched the front end category Instagram's "Wonderfull" in the Japanese market, jackfruit's main video live broadcast, Amazon has made the "live password live" live program.

Although they can be divided into two modes of live broadcast and interactive live broadcast, they are all based on UGC or PGC. They use live broadcast to create rich and novel contents, drain the platform, improve the opening rate and purchase quantity. This is different from the pure live broadcasting platform such as MEAP and pepper, and the electricity supplier + live broadcast is for the purpose of selling goods.

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Two, farewell to exploits the standard model of goods, attach importance to the long tail effect.

At present, most cross-border e-commerce platforms rely on explosive products and standard products to open the market through activities such as "low price" and "explosive money", especially the category of mother and infant, so that milk powder and diapers have become synonymous with overseas shopping.

However, as time goes by, explosive products and standard products will no longer be applicable.

1, users who rely on explosive products and standard products have no loyalty. Once the price war is returned, users will also lose a lot. For the platform, they will neither enhance the control power of the brand side supply chain nor enhance the continuous service ability to the terminal consumers.

2, the domestic electricity supplier's explosive strategy is not applicable to cross-border electricity providers, because the logic of the SKU volume and the profit margin of the long tail SKU are based on the fact that most sales brands have better cognition in the minds of consumers.

Nowadays, most overseas brand consumers do not have much consumer cognition. Once the platform side overuses the price system, consumers will not be able to form the correct price recognition and brand recognition. The platform side can only play the price war without cultivating normal sales of other products, and finally fall into a dead end.

3, sales hotspots are shifting.

Data show that: compared with the sales of mother and baby and health care products last year accounted for more than 50%, this young luxury goods and clothing category occupy the mainstream position of "black five" domestic sales. Nutriment and high quality single products will become new favorites, and the three or four line brand will have more opportunities, because the brand will recognize the platform and give more support.

4, consumer demand has changed, and after 90's rise, it has become the main consumer of overseas products. They pursue value sensitivity rather than price sensitivity, and are more inclined to represent overseas products of their consumption proposition.

Three, get the big customers of the brand business and get the supply chain.

In fact, the biggest bottleneck of cross-border industries is the supply chain. For example, several brands of explosive products such as Hua Wang, and so on, can not directly sign contracts with suppliers, but even if the platform uses compound supply chain to maintain the supply of goods, there are still problems such as instability of upstream supply chain, price based pparency, no gross profit and so on.

So we see that the major platforms are using all kinds of skills, such as the ocean terminal, from the very beginning, to build Beihai international, to intervene in the trunk line pportation and cross-border shipping and shipping links, so as to enhance the capacity of cargo collection.

The Pea Princess directly cooperated with Itou Chuwa MTG Co., Ltd., and the former was founded by trade. It is one of the five major Japanese businesses. The latter has brand names of beauty and health equipment such as refa and style. It also works with Hacci, Huatian ranch and other high-end brands in the food industry. In addition, it also establishes a cooperative relationship with the brand side, such as "one price," "wholesale price" and "exclusive sale in China," and uses containers to be sent to China.

Xiaohong book, honey bud, jackfruit, stupid bird Hai Tao and so on are actively distributing domestic bonded warehouses and overseas warehouses. Tmall international adopts two modes of bonded and cargo collection to enhance the effectiveness of the supply chain.

Despite the different ways, the standard of success or failure is user experience.

In short, if we want to survive the cold winter, we need to assess the situation, find opportunities in change, and accelerate the establishment of our own competitive barriers before we can safely pition to spring flowering.