Cross-border foreign trade also buy American husband and wife China entrepreneurial record

Orderwithme's dream is for the world's "small role" to unite to do business.

A couple of American youngsters have been forced into a new entrepreneurial idea because of bankruptcy: they set up a power company in China to try to integrate the buying needs of small retailers around the world, especially in Europe and the US, and buy things directly from Chinese factories. Although they are not large in volume, but their ambition to leather foreign trade business is not small.

The 29-Year-old American Texas Boy Jiangwensen (Jonathon Jenkins) and his 24-year-old wife want to kill the Chinese foreign trade industry.

The Chinese level only stays in the number and the most basic vocabulary level of "young" couple, in Hangzhou, China, less than half a year, to obtain more than 3 million of dollars in financing, they are confident, and not even the "neighbor" Alibaba in the eyes.

Their "sharp weapon" is a company called Orderwithme Foreign Trade site, CEO Jiangwensen tube it called "online foreign Trade 2.0."

Foreign trade also buy

If you meet an American boy with a peaked cap, a high school shoulder bag, a Jiangwensen in the factory, and a dry-mouth, and a wife and assistant who looks a bit like Angelina Jolie, he may be the one.

He put the office of Foreign Trade Purchase website in Hangzhou, and procurement is mainly to Yiwu. Orderwithme on-line four months, has hung out more than 500 kinds of goods, the main fashion jewelry and furniture decoration, trading volume of 125,000 U.S. dollars.

Chinese factories in the commodity foreign trade single set threshold is usually 50 to 100 pieces, small retailers in Europe and America often do not reach this standard. Orderwithme mode is, the small order "packaging" into a large order, to reach the bottom line of foreign trade single wholesale, far below the price of overseas wholesalers to take the goods. To put it bluntly, ordinary European and American retailers can "carpool" to buy products from Chinese factories.

The traditional foreign trade process involves at least 6 subjects: factories, exporters, importers, wholesalers, retailers, consumers. A high-end handbag from Fujian people Cai factory production, the price is about 60 yuan, less than 10 U.S. dollars. When arriving in the US retail market, the selling price varies from 40 to 70 US dollars; In the past, US small retailer Moss She Rodriquez had purchased about 18 to 22 dollars from American wholesalers, while Orderwithme offered a group purchase price of $12. Orderwithme Although also earn the group purchase price and product ex-factory prices, but this range is obviously much smaller.

Although the order is not big, but because the process is short, the efficiency is high, Jiangwensen becomes some Chinese small factory the lucky star. For example, in the winter of the Cai, Jiangwensen brought two thousand or three thousand, a total of more than 100,000 yuan order is also a burning very prosperous firewood.

"Brazil has a good order, 80% less this year than it used to be, and half the orders in every other place." "Cai said, she bite teeth, layoffs more than 30 people, compared to the peak of hundreds of people have lost One-third," really can't go on. ”

Orderwithme "Trial" the first day, Jiangwensen and his wife to the United States Las Vegas to participate in trade shows, since then accumulated about 20 Chinese factories, fifty or sixty small U.S. customers, as well as three or four U.S. two-class wholesalers.

One months ago, in the industry's prestigious entrepreneurial event TechCrunch disrupt first stationed in Beijing, Orderwithme won the investment people's favor, won the "entrepreneurial arena" champion. Since then, Jiangwensen has received a steady stream of e-mails from around the world every day.

Most of them are small retailers from the United States, Europe and Southeast Asia, whose demand is bizarre-"anything made of real bamboo fiber", "imitation French antique Furniture", "Quality like LV, price like Wal-Mart handbag". There are also Chinese factory owners who want to be suppliers, as well as businessmen from Dubai, Kenya or Brazil, who want to open a Orderwithme branch of the local area.

The idea of being forced out

A year ago, Jiangwensen was cornered.

His software company smashed more than 1 million of dollars and spent more than a year developing a situational simulation game software to teach Chinese children how to learn English, which was told by the Chinese government "not allowed to sell directly to Chinese schools".

That night, Jiangwensen sleepless all night. He decided to go into business. The business plan was written in one breath, a few, full 30 pages.

In the third year after graduating from college in 2006, Jiangwensen taught English in Shanghai and went around the city without teaching. "When I got to Yiwu, I found that there were all kinds of fashionable jewellery here." He saw business opportunities, quit his job in Shanghai, and went back to the U.S. to open a jewelry store.

For the next three years, the more than 20-year-old American boy came to China for a purchase in less than two months. Although the price is cheap, but because it is a foreign trade single, like earrings category of jewelry he had to enter at least 10 dozen (120). As a result, even after he opened another two stores, the depository is still very large, and the ornaments must be constantly updated style, he plunged into a vicious circle. As a result, Jiangwensen, who claims to be an "ambitious businessman", is bankrupt.

The way to avoid bankruptcy is not no, one is from the United States large jewelry dealers hand in the purchase, but this, although the province, but the purchase price is very high, the profit is extremely meager. Jiangwensen, who is familiar with China, is unwilling to choose this path.

One of the questions he thought about after his first venture failed was: can small retailers unite?

When it comes to the difficulties of small businesses, the Jiangwensen mood is excited and the voice is raised one times. He had a deep family imprint--from the day he was born, he had never seen his father, and his mother had pulled up two sons by running an air-conditioning plant. "If I was working for a big factory, I was just helping the CEO, and if I was a small business, I was supporting my family." Because small businesses are mostly about families, big companies care more about the money itself. Jiangwensen the Southern Weekend correspondent.

That was the motive behind his subsequent creation of Orderwithme.

Jiangwensen felt that what he was doing was "particularly meaningful", and from the point of view of procurement, he thought it was helping small Chinese factory owners to open up overseas markets and build their own brands. "There are so many factories in China that they produce products that are nameless, or better, called ' Zhang ' ' Gao ' or ' Wang '." "They need to give the product some ' personality '-just as you have a child and want him to have his own personality," Jiangwensen said. ”

Don't put Alibaba in the eye

Jiangwensen couple in Hangzhou set up Orderwithme cost a few setbacks. He had intended to register a foreign trade company in the Riverside High-tech zone in order to deal with all the legal documents and export rebates for export goods. But the district government's reply is: Sorry, you can apply, but we will not approve. The district government is very frank: The government cash is limited, do not want to deal with foreign trade companies up to 13%-17% of the export tax rebate.

Finally, the type of company registered in Bingjiang District was changed to a business consulting firm, which took three or four months before and after, and the export link took another three or four days to be handled by a branch registered in Hong Kong. "We spent a lot of time in the last round," said Gao Yang, a factory relations director, "to know that Jiangwensen in his home state in the United States has only spent 24 hours, and can be completed online." ”

Although often in Hangzhou office, but Jiangwensen not the city's so-called "Let the world does not have to do business," the global electric business giant-Alibaba, the first is because his Alibaba experience is not a pleasant journey. "On Alibaba's website, if you type in a ' handbag ', there may be 300,000 different results." The link is omitted, but the American self-employed still don't know what to do next-they don't know who to call and whether they are trustworthy. ”

Alibaba, although also launched a small wholesale platform-the global fast selling (aliexpress) but still have a huge amount of information and difficult to test the real dilemma.

"If a Chinese factory says, I give you 1000 yuan, you put my product on the Orderwithme," Jiangwensen said, "I would say, no, I picked the goods because it's good quality, not because someone else paid the promotional fees." ”

Jiangwensen take this pattern to be related to his character. He hates to complicate simple things and hate black-boxes. He used "dirty" to describe the foreign trade industry, "because there is too much fraud, even I think can be called a friend, may be for the benefit of deceive me."

Orderwithme is exactly the "transnational group Buying mode". General consumer groups on the site to introduce products or services, even if only one person to order, it must be cashed. And Orderwithme is first show, and then spell, and finally see whether the total purchase volume to meet the minimum requirements of manufacturers. If the minimum purchase amount is not reached after 7 days, the group purchase announcement failed.

"In fact, if everyone buys three or four pieces, then a maximum of 20 people will be more than enough to order." "The British Chao, who has lived in Shanghai for four years, is the technical director of the team," we are expanding our customer base overseas. ”

Now part of the Jiangwensen team is actively looking for retail customers abroad, the other part is from the tens of thousands of Chinese goods selected in line with the foreign market aesthetic goods, and then look for suitable manufacturers and confirm orders, order completion time, as well as whether the goods can achieve lead-free, nickel-free, cadmium-free export environmental standards.

Jiangwensen's most proud design is to mix the elements of social networking let the American self-employed decide what to buy or what not to buy-you can vote to decide which of the hundreds of items the site initially chooses to go into the group, and you can leave a message about which color you prefer, or you want to change some parts. Even if you want to put a single item through the buy period, you can also turn it out of the history and vote to decide whether it can re-enter the group buying sequence.

A few days ago, Jiangwensen closed the Orderwithme beta site, leaving a countdown card pointing to the January 10, 2012 Orderwithme New website "officially opened". Jiangwensen and his team plan to launch three original brands that target different age groups, each offering 30 weekly group purchase products.

Jiangwensen said that he did "no one has done", in fact, there are many entrepreneurs in China in the deep foreign trade process more short-term business multinational, such as Guo to the CEO of LightInTheBox (Orchid Pavilion) and Feng Jianfeng CEO DinoDirect (Tai Long Network), They are the same as the sword refers to the life of China's foreign trade.

"The stuff on LightInTheBox and dinodirect is pretty expensive, after all, they're retail." "Jiangwensen said. He sometimes immersed himself in the electric quotient of the dream, giving a young frivolous impression.