How much do you know about cross-border e-commerce (how much do you know about cross-border e-commerce)

From 20 16 to 20 18, the transaction scale of China cross-border electronic commerce continued to rise, from 6.3 trillion yuan to 9. 1 trillion yuan, and this growth trend is expected to continue.

First, cross-border e-commerce?

Cross-border electronic commerce refers to an international business activity in which transaction subjects belonging to different customs reach a deal, make payment and settlement through e-commerce platform, and deliver goods and complete the transaction through cross-border logistics.

How do individuals do cross-border e-commerce?

1. Distinguish between foreign trade and cross-border e-commerce.

Although foreign trade now uses the Internet, it can be understood as foreign trade e-commerce: but the whole foreign trade transaction process has not changed much, including inquiry, quotation, ordering, production, transportation, chartering and booking, customs declaration and commodity inspection, and verification of foreign exchange settlement. Foreign trade e-commerce transactions are offline.

Cross-border e-commerce is sold through the third platform, just like domestic sales on Taobao. The difference is that with the help of foreign platforms or domestic sales platforms, cross-border e-commerce is completed directly online. Compared with traditional trade, single orders of cross-border e-commerce are mostly small batches or even single pieces.

2. What cross-border e-commerce platforms are there? What can an individual do?

The mainstream is Amazon, Yi Bei, wish and AliExpress; There are lazada and shopee in Southeast Asia.

At present, most platforms require enterprises and individuals to do cross-border e-commerce. What individuals can do now is Amazon, Yi Bei and wish.

3. Market choice

Bian Xiao thinks that we must look at the market before choosing products. Although many people think that there is no single order to do lazada now, most people's main battlefields are America and Europe, but Bian Xiao thinks that the potential markets such as Southeast Asia, India and Africa are relatively large, but now if you specialize in two places, it seems a bit like supporting yourself, so it is better to take care of Southeast Asia and Africa for the time being!

4. Choose products and open stores

It is recommended to open a shop with a company. Like trademarks, it is a trend. I feel that a few people can still open stores, and maybe they will have a company in a few years! We'll be in trouble then. You can pay more attention to the hot-selling products of some platforms, or pay more attention to their markets and develop your own products!

5. I won't elaborate on logistics, collection and operation. In addition, the value-added tax in various countries is also a more important one!

Second, choose products! ! !

Choice: always the first step in marketing.

Product selection has always been the most talked about topic and the core topic of cross-border e-commerce. For the product selection of different platforms, the core is to understand the platform before making a choice. The same product can learn from each other in different platform marketing methods, and refined product selection thinking is the core! Let's give an example to illustrate the product selection idea of amaon platform.

Oman's choice

When it comes to Amazon, the first thing that comes to mind is that it is suitable for branding, high gross profit and so on! However, for many of our sellers in China, the route that Amazon left us to sell products was just "following the listing" and "self-built listing"; The way of self-built listing is suitable for the brand and pseudo-brand strategy that everyone is keen on at present; Of course, if it is a simple OEM, this route is actually very tired.

So, in this environment, how should we China sellers choose products?

Third, warehousing.

Warehousing: Pay attention to the risks of overseas warehouses.

Here Bian Xiao talks about this matter from three aspects: shelf space specification, commodity information management specification and process design, of which the first two are infrastructure construction and the latter is system application.

1, specifications of existing shelves in storage space

Shelf location information refers to arranging the storage locations of inventory goods according to their locations, numbering them with unified signs, and making obvious signs. Scientific and reasonable shelf information is beneficial to the scientific maintenance of inventory goods. In the process of goods in and out of the warehouse, the operation is completed quickly, accurately and conveniently according to the shelf information, which improves efficiency and reduces errors.

When compiling shelf information, we should ensure that the shelves in the warehouse are numbered in the same way, so as to facilitate the search and processing.

2, commodity information specification

The commodity information specification here mainly refers to the systematization and clarity of SKU information, commodity specifications and sizes, and Chinese and English customs declaration information. The standardization of commodity information is conducive to the scientific management of inventory goods, and reasonable SKU coding is conducive to the realization of refined inventory management, as well as timely and accurate picking, improving efficiency and avoiding picking mistakes.

Among several items of commodity information, commodity specifications and sizes, Chinese and English customs declaration information can be slightly improved as existing data, and commodity SKU, as the smallest inventory unit of commodities, is the most important and basic data in commodity management. However, because it is not the existing information, many sellers are not perfect without SKU or SKU.

3. Process flow design

The process here does not refer to 4S or 5S, but refers to the sequential connection of each node in the process of order, purchase, sales and inventory management under the above two standardized conditions.

In short, the daily back-end management of cross-border e-commerce sellers can be roughly divided into: order acquisition, order distribution, invoicing distribution and inventory maintenance. As for how these whole processes can be connected in series to maximize efficiency, it is a long story. Here I will talk about how ERP on the market circulates this series of work.

Order acquisition, automatically importing platform orders into the management system through the official API interfaces of Yi Bei, Amazon, AliExpress and Wish platforms;

Order distribution, access to the mainstream international logistics channels in the market, through the user-defined distribution rules, all orders are automatically assigned to the corresponding warehouse distribution, corresponding logistics picking list and tracking number according to the rules;

Order distribution, the order automatically obtains logistics information according to the rules and generates the face sheet and tracking number, and the picking information is also printed synchronously with the face sheet; Simple package, you can sweep the goods and make a bill;

Inventory maintenance: the system automatically maintains the inventory according to the delivery situation of the order, and automatically generates purchasing suggestions according to the inventory quantity and recent average daily sales combined with the purchasing cycle.

When the purchase comes back, it can support continuous orders, and the process forms a closed cycle.

As for overseas warehouses, overseas warehouses are suitable for those goods that are expensive, bulky and fragile and cannot be taken away by traditional logistics channels.

To be an overseas warehouse, we also need to consider the financial strength and anti-risk ability of the merchants themselves. Because overseas warehouses have a characteristic, it is easier to send them out than to come back. The returned goods are imported, and in many cases the cost of freight and customs duties will be much higher than the value of the goods themselves. This product sells well in this country, but it is not widely sold. Unsold goods will cause inventory losses.

Fourth, the platform

Platform: Trilateral platform+self-built shopping mall is ingeniously combined.

For businesses that have just set foot in cross-border e-commerce, it is recommended to choose a third-party platform first. Third-party platforms have mature rules, which are based on the platform's long-term experience. First, it can best protect the interests of buyers, and then maintain fair competition to the greatest extent.

For sellers, the advantage of the third-party platform is that the traffic can be free, and the disadvantage is that the bigger you play, the greater your strategic hidden danger. It's hard to say that one day, you made a casual mistake and closed your shop.

These hidden dangers do not exist for cross-border B2C of self-built shopping malls, because self-built shopping malls do not seek traffic but endorse brands. If users can search your brand online, they will feel that your brand has a foundation, which is conducive to remembering and trusting your brand. The significance of self-built shopping malls can never be simply understood as sales, because online means being in the state of promotion and information dissemination, so the first function is information dissemination, and the second is trading.

We also see that many merchants have made a clever match between the third-party platform and the self-built B2C mall: put a leaflet of B2C mall in the delivered package, which also realizes the free promotion of their own mall.

Verb (abbreviation of verb) promotes

Promotion: The foundation is to have good products.

There are five main types of product promotion:

For different products, different platforms should choose one or two suitable methods, so I won't go into details here. If it is drainage outside the station, recommend an article written by blues. This article is profound in thought and high in realm. This is the best article of its kind that Bian Xiao has read so far, and I am deeply moved.

Sixth, logistics.

Logistics: Choose the right logistics company from four aspects.

Mainly from four aspects to measure whether this logistics company is suitable for you.

1, look at the company history

2. See if the company's service channels are comprehensive.

Different goods need to choose different logistics methods, for example, there is a limit of two kilograms for small bags. Logistics companies have a wide range of channels, so merchants do not need to look for other logistics companies to make judgments. Besides, the more deliveries you make in a logistics company, the more services you can enjoy.

Step 3 look at the price

Logistics costs will erode the seller's profits, so the price is the seller's greatest concern. But blindly lowering the price will bring serious consequences, such as abnormal operation, packet loss, unstable delivery time and so on. Pursuing only economic benefits will inevitably damage the customer experience. The vast majority of sellers will only understand if they have suffered losses in this respect.

4. Look at the overall strength of the company.

For example, whether the dot distribution is wide enough and whether there is a seamless upstream and downstream system.

Seven. collect?money?

Assemble: do the last level.

The safety of funds is the first priority. If the security of funds is not guaranteed, the channel will not be easy to use. The more money you receive, the greater the risk. Just like PP, it is very convenient to use, but there is capital settlement risk, and the safety of funds is not guaranteed.

Secondly, the stability of the channel, channel problems every three days, will greatly affect the collection, especially during peak hours, not to mention the delay of one hour a day will lose a lot of orders.

Third, the success rate of the channel, because the success rate is directly related to the actual conversion rate of orders, the higher the success rate, the higher the actual conversion rate. Others, such as account opening fee and annual fee, are secondary. On the contrary, the more attractive those conditions are, the greater the risk.

Don't limit yourself to one collection channel. For yourself, the safety of capital turnover is important, and the online shopping experience of customers is more important. Therefore, this issue should not be too entangled. At present, cross-border RMB collection is the choice of many foreign trade e-commerce. Because the payment page is fast, it also conforms to the shopping habits of foreign consumers. Cross-border e-commerce should always pay attention to these, and users can enhance their value experience, which is conducive to stabilizing foreign trade market share.