Business-to-consumer Domestic Trade Double Day

There is a widespread joke in the electric circle. Wife asked the husband of the electricity quotient: "Your company profit?" "The husband replied:" We are electrical business. The wife puzzled: "Can you profit?" Husband repeat: "We are electrical business." The wife insisted: "When do you profit?" Husband a little impatient "not to say, we are electrical business." ”

Today, "Do not profit" has become almost a consensus of many people, even angel investors Shire have said: "If now who can find me a profitable E-commerce company, I will call his grandfather." ”

But in the "Domestic trade type" electric Business circle is encountering "capital winter" this piece of bleak scene, in away from the bustling capital circle, far from the media to chase the eyes of the wide and deep, but really gathered dozens of can be called "Grandfather class" of the Electric Company. They will send a variety of products with distinctive "Made in China" features through an international express, a postal packet or a box of containers sent to all parts of the world. In their eyes, E-commerce has never been a show for the capital and the media, but a hidden and open billionaire gold mine.

Santa Claus is always Chinese

Remember Sala Bong Bongiorni, the American business journalist, at the beginning of the "one-year away from China" book?

China, which once in her eyes "7000 miles away, too far, can't see or feel," was found to be "so close" in the process of putting "China" out of the family life. "China", with a blue light on a DVD player, in the living room a corner of the Christmas tree droop of the light bulb and glass ball shiny, on her feet wearing striped socks rub her feet itch, even when she got up to inventory Christmas gifts and divided into China and non-Chinese two categories, the result of China 25, not China 14.

"Children's special programs should be updated with geography," said Bongiorni, "and Santa's dwarves are not working in an icy Arctic workshop, but at a factory that is at least 7000 miles away from my home coast." "This is with the last time in a trade party, a foreign trade, the boss of the sigh of" Santa Claus, in fact, has always been Chinese.

In the "China Foreign Trade Situation Report" released by the Ministry of Commerce earlier this year, the total import and export of China's foreign trade in 2011 was about 3.5 trillion U.S. dollars, which grew about 20% and the trade surplus was around 150 billion US dollars. Among them, textile products, such as textiles and clothing, footwear, furniture, bags, plastic products, toys and other total exports of 286.5 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 22.8%. At the same time, this year is the proportion of general trade exports for the first time exceeded the proportion of processing trade exports a year.

Another change that is happening at the same time as the seemingly placid data is that the trading model of small foreign trade is undergoing a shift from business-to-business to Business-to-consumer. Although some insiders believe that the total size of the 3.5 trillion U.S. dollars in foreign trade imports and exports compared to the overall scale of 5 billion U.S. dollars up and down the small foreign trade can only be called "Non-mainstream", but from the perspective of industrial change, it is the original hidden behind the Santa Claus, the "dwarfs" Directly to the overseas consumers.

As we all know, the import and export model of business-to-business (whether offline or through online E-commerce) is "manufacturer domestic wholesaler/trading company exporter overseas Importer wholesaler Terminal Customer". The information asymmetry created by this lengthy chain of links has created the famous "Barbie Story" (the average price of about 10 dollars per Barbie doll, the CIF price for American importers is $2, which includes 1 dollars in freight, Management fees and 0.65 of dollars of material costs, only to the Chinese processing plant 35 cents.

And when it is switched to e-business mode, the overall process is reduced to "manufacturer domestic wholesaler/Trading company Terminal Customer of Cross-border logistics/warehousing companies". In other words, that is, in addition to the original industrial chain distribution, there has been a number of new trading companies, they are for the factory to organize sourcing, the other side of the product information to the ebay, Amazon and other Third-party trading platform or self-built website, by placing keyword ads on google, on Facebook , Twitter and other social networks and some vertical forums to carry out marketing activities that directly bring in passenger flow and orders, and ultimately, with the assistance of international logistics/warehousing companies, bring "Christmas gifts" to the end customers.

This change, first brings the whole industry chain information transparency enhancement. And because of that, the days of overseas importers and first-level wholesalers, which had previously dominated the Pacific (601099, shares), the Atlantic (600558, stocks), were beginning to get harder, and they had to reduce the amount of each order to control inventory and keep cash flowing.

At the same time, those two or three-level wholesalers, retailers and even end-users who could only get their goods from a first-level wholesaler also reduced the number of "Big B buyers" under the traditional business-to-business foreign trade model because they could take goods directly from China through the Internet. For them, these from the original dwarf of the "network" Santa Claus mostly gathered in the surrounding source, to the textile and apparel, small commodity core origin of the Yangtze River Delta and electronic and toy core production of the Pearl River Delta is the most representative.

These international "sell peddler" uncover

"The profit of a mobile phone can be as high as $ six hundred or seven hundred; a plasma TV, even with almost the equivalent of the price of the international freight is still more than half cheaper than the local similar products; even hung a table with different specifications on the Internet, the guests choose the choice, and then to Huaqiang north of the stall temporarily assembled a station, Send International express past, still can earn 100% profit ".

You may wonder, what kind of person would be the first to think of themselves on the Internet to sell their products to overseas customers?

In fact, this question is not difficult to explain. Let us take electronic products, one of the core distribution center of Shenzhen Huaqiang (000062, shares bar) north as an example. About a decade ago, most of the gathered here were stalls at the back of the shop, with small wholesale as the main battalion. At that time, E-commerce trading model has just arisen, whether domestic Taobao or foreign ebay, have attracted the benefit of the early adopters come to test the water. As a result, some clever stall owners, or hire a guy who knows a little bit about computers and English, started Hawking on ebay.

Ipmart.com co-founder Ning, who has personally experienced this history, said to the South reporters, "that crazy era," a mobile phone's profit can be as high as six hundred or seven hundred yuan; a plasma TV, even with the price equivalent of almost the international freight still cheaper than the local similar products more than half; Even on the internet hanging a list of different specifications of the desktop Computer assembly table, by the guests choose, and then to Huaqiang north of the stall temporarily assembled a, send an international courier in the past, can still earn 100% of the profits.

As a result, many of the groups that later turned out to be independent foreign trade customers were the first bucket of gold on ebay and the original accumulation of experience and skill. According to Bo, executive director of Amoy City, "We are now playing the rest of the years before others play", but even so, 2010 years to enter the ebay platform of Amoy City still within six months to do the ebay Asia-Pacific "top-rated" Sellers, and in 2011 to achieve the "ebay+ Amazon "Billions of dollars in sales.

However, nothing is more interesting in the course of the process than the "twigs that come out of the festival". In most foreign trade companies will experience the "from ebay to independent construction station" of the mainstream model, the people in the circle that the largest and most mysterious "industry one elder brother" Dealextreme (hereinafter referred to as DX) is the most typical "alternative" one.

According to a previous public media report, DX started in 2002, with a graduate of Hong Kong Chenlingjian, an Ivy League university in the United States, and another two partners who run some game accessories on ebay while helping other ebay sellers to ship overseas via Hongkong Post's international parcel Service.

and UPS, DHL, compared to these international express, Hongkong Post Packet Although there are about 5% of the loss rate and 2 kg weight limit, but also has the former incomparable price advantage (International courier for enterprise customers after the discount price of about 70-100 yuan/kg, The Hongkong Post parcel is only 30-50 RMB/kg. It is this kind of logistics, so that many of the foreign trade in the future including DX website can be quite cheap under the original price still play "freeshipping" (global free postage) of the promotional card, but also become the current foreign trade of the website shipments abroad a major logistics mode.

But Chenlingjian's ambitions are far more than a collection of fees, in the parcel he sent out to clip his own advertising page, using his "background advantage" to the network marketing to do the United States and universities, and in the industry as high as 200%-300% of that time to the absolute low price to kill, therefore, DX not only a website online, There are thousands of orders every day and have been in a profitable state.

A few years later, Chenlingjian through the reverse takeover, let DX in Hong Kong borrow shell listing (Yeepay, Stock code 08086), and in 2009 to introduce Shire and IDG two big investors, standardize the operation of the company. So far, although founder Chenlingjian has been determined to "retire", out of the river, but its creation of DX is still the only domestic listed foreign trade company (the end of last year, rumors, founded in 2007, "the second-largest industry" Orchid Pavilion will be listed in the United States, but so far has not.

Next stop, Brand?

VC are still at this stage of the "lucrative" industry is cautious wait and see attitude, one is because the whole foreign trade industry is still in the initial stage, there are still a lot of "grey" zone, not only to touch the future policy wind, there is also the risk of being recognized by overseas capital markets; The business model that only wins by the price advantage is still thin, unable to judge its possible future trend.

It is like "East Sunrise West Rain", will result in domestic manufacturers and foreign trade business, "a high-profile make a yell but crazy to burn money, the other is stuffy sound fat" situation, in Pandawill.com founder Wang Jihong view, mainly because the two face the market environment there is a huge difference.

First, the domestic market. Because of domestic business e-commerce market overall size is limited, the growth rate is relatively stable, and the target audience layer is obvious, and the new entrant's speed is far higher than the overall growth of the market, so in 35 years, continue to borrow the help of venture capital from a certain segment of the market to achieve a breakthrough, establish its own brand status, And then through the category expansion to achieve a rapid increase in the scale, and eventually be taken overseas packaging listing, not only feasible, but also to date the domestic electric circle of the first Second Army of a mainstream practice.

But for the foreign trade market, this is a different picture. On the one hand, the domestic market and the overall size of the foreign trade market is far from the same number level, only the largest Third-party trading platform in the English market, ebay, for example, its 2011-year turnover is more than 60 billion U.S. dollars, which does not include a number of independent consumer Web sites and other fast-growing small language markets, such as Russian, Spanish and so on.

On the other hand, relative to the domestic market, foreign trade to choose the product category is also more abundant, because the target users not only include the end of the individual consumer, but also contains small wholesalers and small and medium-sized users, so in addition to the conventional clothing shoe bag, 3C products, such as public goods, a number of subdivided such as Ipmart service 3C product maintenance, etc., also has a considerable scale.

The more important point is that, compared with the traditional shopping mentality of domestic internet users, at the present stage, the reason why overseas users choose Cross-border transactions rather than local procurement is mainly driven by price factors. Therefore, for foreign trade enterprises, even if you can get a sum, two of the venture capital, in a short period of time in a particular market through the price advantage to expand the scale, once "the money burned out", the loss of price advantage, the original gathered user resources will automatically disperse.

And for most VC, the reason is still on this "profitable" industry cautious wait-and-see attitude. This is because the whole foreign trade industry is still at the beginning of the initial stage, there are still a lot of "grey" zone, which can not only touch the future policy wind, but also the risk that cannot be recognized by overseas capital market, and secondly, the business model that only wins by price advantage is still thin enough to judge the possible trend of its future.

Interestingly, with the current "all-inclusive" approach to most of the foreign trade-related Web sites you can see (the home Page's category navigation bar spans 3 C, clothing, security, lighting, jewelry and other categories, the entire station has tens of thousands of or even a hundred thousand of SKU), the Shenzhen Foreign Trade Leaders Club "sea trade" The initiator Liu Zhiyong to south all reporters that he is more optimistic about the "vertical development" of the foreign trade business model.

In the vertical mode, on the one hand, in the front-end marketing links, more easily foreign trade clients in the market segment to establish their own brand position, and through the establishment of overseas warehousing, timely updating of product information and other ways to continuously improve the user experience to strengthen the brand status; On the other hand, Such vertical web sites can also establish closer contact with the factory and more efficient information interchange, timely according to market feedback, adjust product features, new product development, thereby enhancing the profit margins of both sides.

South all reporters also found that, recently, including DX, orchid Pavilion set potential, such as the original "all-inclusive" line of foreign trade, the boss is also trying to pass its multiple sub stations, will have been involved in a number of categories, vertical operation.

There is no doubt that after nearly a decade of primitive digging, foreign trade, the secretive gold mine is gradually surfacing. It began to attract more and more "Gold Digger", but also will deduce a variety of, a variety of "nuggets of the number of tricks."