The five misunderstandings of "cross-border electricity quotient" make you less detours

How far can cross-border electricity dealers go? Early warning, misunderstanding and how to reduce detours
In the tenth year of 2014, when Amazon, the global power Trader, entered China, its in the Chinese market to take the offensive, fully stationed in Shanghai from the trade zone, through Cross-border through this platform, bypassing the import trade agents, save the domestic distribution channels, directly facing consumers, ready to roll up their sleeves to do a big fight. On the other side, China's leading power trader Alibaba, before landing in the NYSE, is launching a shopping platform 11Main jointly built by U.S. subsidiaries Vendio and Auctiva, which is officially exerting the U.S. market to challenge Amazon.

Cross-border electricity business is in full swing, but English proverb has cloud, a Dr. Tide lifts all boats, meaning when the tide comes, all the ships are by the tide, here has the obvious warning meaning: Although the ship is high, not the ability of the ship, also does not mean you can brave the wind and waves. With Alibaba's successful listing in the United States, the tide of Cross-border electric power has reached, clear and correct. Just, the tide receded to know who is swimming naked. In the tide of cross-border electricity business period, perhaps we see will be "thousand boat sink base sail, million tree disease withered several wood spring", the Game of life and death, few successful, naked swimmer Chen Corpse will be all over the beach after the ebb.

Rectification of cross-boundary Electricity dealers

Cross-border electricity dealers are just red, but what is the cross-boundary power supplier? To the author's observation, the vigorous "cross-border electricity quotient" tide, the biggest misunderstanding lies in the industry concept is vague, the enterprise positioning is not allowed. E-commerce in English commerce in the birthplace of the United States more refers to the "E-commerce retail", that is, the domestic often said that the consumer, Taobao, Cat, when are the most typical example, this is the narrow sense of the electrical business. As for the so-called business-to-business, in fact, today almost difficult to find a bad internet business companies and models, so the broad sense of the electricity quotient can be said to be all-inclusive, but at best they only through this way to promote the traditional business activities of the function and efficiency of the improvement. Therefore, in the business sector, the reference to E-commerce, in fact, refers to the "E-commerce retail."

Understand what is the electricity business, the interpretation of the cross-boundary electricity dealers will be solved, that is, international e-commerce retail. Since it is international, of course, both export retail, but also imports of retail (the so-called sea Amoy is imported retail), the object is consumers (including small owners), logistics are often used by the formation of Third-party Courier. The concept of the industry is clear, the positioning and strategy of the enterprise is easier to grasp, will not easily go into the wrong, even if you really walked in, also have time to come out alive.

E-commerce subversive consumer behavior

When it comes to retailing, we will have a variety of shops in our minds, and there are shops in almost every place where human activity is available, even the most primitive market is actually a mobile shop. But I have seen the most incisive interpretation of the retail industry is actually, the product from the manufacturer to the hands of the consumer function. There is no shop word, but function. So retailing is a function. E-commerce retail accurate performance of the product from the manufacturer to consumers in the hands of this function, what did not change, just how to do, change is only the habit of consumers and retail trade in the traditional way. The blowout of e-commerce follows a very simple causal formula: the development of Internet/mobile technology subversive consumer behavior → consumer behavior subversion of traditional retail industry.

Before going into this topic, let's talk about the story around the author. My son works in the U.S. State Department and has been stationed overseas for years, and usually he has emails to me from home, and I tell my wife. But several times, my wife told me in advance that his son would come back to visit. I am very surprised how she knows, under the scrutiny, the original is the family began to receive the children in the overseas order package. This generation is growing up with computers and networks, the form of physical store for them has been a little outdated, his habit is often overseas to return to the United States to buy things before the purchase, and then back to check, test, and then choose whether to stay or return. Last month, my wife returned to China to visit her family, and when I started to receive my son's parcel at home, I called my wife and said, "My son is coming back!" Who would have thought that his son's spending habits had become the best way to learn about his whereabouts.

More interesting consumption changes are something that happened to me recently. I have a habit that has been developed almost like an addiction for years: to go to a bookstore. But moved to San Francisco, returned to the city life of absence, back to far less than the original living in the suburbs as convenient-the city is densely populated, land expensive, shops small and few. A year has not yet figured out where the bookstore, in fact, even if the location, parking difficult also often let me and my wife, so also accumulated a long book purchase. Recently, my wife and I went to Los Angeles for a holiday, and found that there was a Barnes (Barnes and Boble) chain bookstore across from the hotel, which was a joy, not the thought of running downstairs several times, asked a few clerks, only to find seven books to buy one. In a rage, even found the book did not buy. Back to the hotel room, by anger on the Amazon, less than 30 minutes, not only seven books all buttoned up, but also according to the relevant recommendations to buy more than two. When my wife and I got home, the FedEx package was waiting for me. I said to myself, "Farewell, bookstore!" This is the disruptive power of Internet technology to consumer behavior, a habit that has changed over a period of 1 hours and is permanent and Shing. Of course, my transformation has fallen behind most people, especially my son's generation.

As a consumer, I like Amazon, but as a retailer, I have a natural vigilance and admiration for the subversive who broke the rules of the industry. Amazon's leadership role in the retail Revolution, a company founded in 1994, initially selling books and records online, has become a veritable multinational, with sales of more than 74.4 billion dollars in 2013. The most interesting thing is that the company in the retail industry enjoys a reputation for quality service, an electric dealer, its employees in fact, not with the consumer face-to-face contact, incredibly win the consumer to its service highly appraised. This provides a powerful wake-up call to other retailers: the so-called consumer experience that is realized in traditional stores can be done online, and can make them much more satisfying than they are in a real-store experience. The giants of retailing, including Wal-Mart, were terrified by the "beast" that had suddenly grown up under their noses, as if Microsoft had misjudged the Internet era, and they misjudged the importance of the electric quotient and its rapid pace of development. Fortunately, in time to wake up from the dream, catching up.

A leaf falls to know the world autumn. As a change of consumers ' behavior, the two generations of father and son can be said to be the reflection of the changing trend of consumer behavior and retail business mode after subversion. If the Internet and mobile digital technologies have been the prerogative of well-educated people in previous years, consumers today are fully in the mobile digital age. And the popularity of High-tech and digital technology in retailing is much more than expected, with the strongest evidence of Wal-Mart becoming one of Apple's largest iphone dealers and Alibaba's successful IPO in the United States.

Today's consumers can sit in the office around, easy shopping. The traditional "black Friday" after Thanksgiving is the highest day of Christmas shopping day in the United States, marking the beginning of the peak shopping season, now closely followed by "Black Friday", the United States again appeared "Network Monday." 2010, consumers in the "network Monday" consumption of more than 1 billion U.S. dollars, and just the past 2014 years of "network Monday", a single day retail breakthrough 2 billion U.S. dollars, four years doubled.

In addition to online shopping, mobile shopping with mobile phones is to make shopping this behavior become ubiquitous, no time. Not only that, the retailer's use of High-tech is far more than the traditional goods and inventory management, but also the use of their own large number of consumer information to carry out personalized marketing and advertising: you bought diapers, personalized ads to your mobile phone to ask you need not milk powder; just started the coffee machine, The ad for the coffee Bean followed up; you bought the property, congratulated the housewarming and the furniture ad.

The speed with which Chinese consumers accept e-commerce is particularly surprising, with Alibaba successfully listing in the US, panning for $25 billion and selling at a time when market capitalisation overtook the traditional retail giant Wal-Mart, making us a retail business that had to suck a mouthful: What happened to the world? It is no exaggeration to say that the Internet, digital technology and mobile technology have, and will continue their revolution in the retail industry, they have subverted the habits of consumers and traditional retail business model, become the era characteristics. At the same time, e-commerce seems to be born for Cross-border, the world is more flat, the more suitable for cross-border development of E-commerce, and the more the development of cross-border electricity, the world will become more flat, complementary and mutually catalytic. However, there are many misunderstandings and hidden dangers in Cross-border electric power business.

Five misunderstandings of "cross-border electric power quotient"

First of all, the most important issue for cross-border electric power companies is the positioning of enterprises. Back to the definition of retailing: the function of sending a product from a manufacturer to the hands of a consumer. So the first question is: "Are you a manufacturer or a retailer?" November 2014, at the invitation of the TDC of the Ministry of Commerce of China, in the fourth session of the International Business Development Conference Forum, "The development of Cross-border electricity dealers, open up the global market" for the keynote speech, the participants are mostly manufacturing enterprises, the conference held in Dongyang, Zhejiang, the region is a typical "made in China" Ant Xiong stronghold. Of course, there are some so-called electric dealers, e-commerce retailers, but the size of a small number of. Although both sides are involved in each other's field, but the basic exception, not in the scope of this article, is not recommended by the author of the model. If you are a manufacturing enterprise, then the opportunity is to use electricity to let their products and consumers meet, to some extent, bypassing the traditional buying hands, let the market test your product is not in line with the needs of consumers. But it's not that you have to turn to be a dealer, or open a store: No matter online, retail is open shop, there are brick walls are shops. Insiders, focus is the only way to win.

The second misconception is that once you meet the consumer directly, the product will suddenly become popular. Nothing like that! Many companies have been frustrated by experts and academics over the years, thinking they have no pricing power and that profits have been taken away by the brand. The most inflammatory passage is widespread: "Take the toy industry for example, a Barbie doll our ex-factory price of 1 U.S. dollars, in the United States, Wal-Mart retail prices are 9.99 dollars." 1 U.S. dollars in the factory price, the raw material accounted for 0.65%, production accounted for 0.35%, you know we can make how much money, 1 cents great? They are exploiting our workers, wasting our resources, and they are sweeping all the profits. "Spread widely, all-cash of course also big."

In fact, the real opportunity lies in the use of cross-boundary electricity dealers to let their products and consumers meet directly, and through this interaction to get the most valuable first-hand consumer information feedback, and then use such information to develop more in line with consumer demand products, to achieve a virtuous cycle. is a mule is a horse, take out to walk. Your things are good, the price is fair, the consumer will certainly buy. However, opportunity to return to the opportunity to regain pricing power or to do a good job of basic skills. Fake and shoddy products can not be sold offline, the line is not sold off, really sold is only a one-time transaction.

A consumer research report shows that the impression of "Made in China" by the world's consumers, although it does not seem to be useful, is not entirely true, but still a mirror. As you can see, "Made in China" is still genetically inexpensive (fig. 1). Cross-border electric dealers only for the outstanding export manufacturing industry to take off the wings. Those who think that once the cross border electric dealer This bus, their own products can sell well corners export manufacturing enterprises do is a paradise. This is my "Made in China" 30 customer's heartfelt words, these 30 years in all involved in consumer products I have almost all dabbled in, "Made in China" is mourning its misfortune, hate its indisputable. This time, for "Made in China," the opportunity to increase gold is finally coming, but the prerequisite is to practice good internal strength.

How far can cross-border electricity dealers go? Early warning, misunderstanding and how to reduce detours
The third misconception is that Chinese manufacturers often assume that the development of electric companies means that consumer demand and market growth are huge. In fact, the overall growth of the consumer market in the United States is only 2%-3% a year, and Europe and Japan are worse off. Therefore, the pie did not become much larger, but was cut to different sizes. Although the proportion of physical stores still accounted for the vast majority, but the share in the year to shrink. More importantly, in the United States, almost all the retailers go through multi-channel sales, both the physical store and the electric business, can be described as "You have me, I have you." The giant Amazon is moving to decorate its first physical store in Manhattan, New York, while the Big Mac Wal-Mart now has a major strategy of developing a global network of electric dealers.

Therefore, the "Made in China" major customers have not changed, or retailers. Shake Mountain easy, shake retailers difficult, we have to do is not to replace, but to give, provide quality service and quality products. What do retailers want? Almost without exception, they are both differentiated and efficient, and are vigorously developing their own brands and direct imports. Therefore, Chinese enterprises can do stylist. Otherwise, even if you are really in the U.S. market through the electricity dealers directly with consumers, the same or inferior quality products will be abandoned by consumers. And looking at the top ten trends of retail and consumer in America, they all reveal industry dynamics, brewing business opportunities and crises (Figure 2).

How far can cross-border electricity dealers go? Early warning, misunderstanding and how to reduce detours
The fourth mistake is that Chinese manufacturing enterprises think that the electricity business does not have to open the physical store, the cost is reduced, the profit must greatly improve. This is certainly not the case. First is the cost of shipping and return, and then online around "every day low price", two knives can be manufacturers and businesses killed Black and blue. Any businessman who sells products on Alibaba knows that the price is cheap and the profit is thin. Don't you want to be transparent? This is the transparent market that hand is at work. Today's consumers a "apple" in hand, they know business events. The United States, too, look at Amazon's financial statements and know that it is not easy for electricity dealers to make money. Do not greener, stand to speak not back pain.

The fifth misconception is that Chinese electric dealers underestimate the difficulty of entering the U.S. market. In fact, this is as challenging as the Chinese retailer going to the US to open a physical store, but most people don't know how to do it. In the United States to do electricity, first of all to understand consumers, the second is to understand the laws and rules of the game here. The American business climate is hostile and concerned about Chinese companies, and Alibaba has just set up a beachhead in the United States, where Congress, retailers and local governments have gathered under the banner of the so-called Fair Market Act (11main.com) to fire. The bill was originally designed for Amazon's online shopping, but Amazon is an American company, "This is the same root of life, fry what too urgent." Since Alibaba came in, of course, to take Chinese companies as the target of more influence, in fact, 11main.com's sales and influence is not at all, but the coalition to kill in the cradle is precisely the attempt to enter the U.S. market in China's electricity dealers.

In addition to the hostility of the commercial atmosphere, the Chinese electric companies themselves have too many soft spots, they and "Made in China" as not understand the U.S. consumer, do not understand the brand building and management, do not understand the U.S. retail industry unspoken rules and rules of the game, do not understand the local market logistics. "What do you say?" An electric business boss asks.

My view is that "made in China" should work with China's electric dealers to continue to play the role of Ant Xiong, to build an industry-core carrier aircraft, to the upstream (consumer countries and markets) and downstream industrial chain of two-way extension. The function of the electric dealer is to rely on the cluster effect. At the upstream end can rely on mergers and acquisitions to start, so talent, market stone. Be sure to use the local people, the Americans in the United States, and Europeans in Europe. This study at the same time there is return, and less detours.