On the eve of the cross-border electricity business, these three companies tell you how to operate.

Reading：

There are three types of cross-border electric power companies: The Enterprise platform, the self-employed and the sea Amoy, on behalf of enterprises are foreign terminals, honey Amoy, hai360 overseas purchase.

Ocean Terminal is the first to introduce overseas retailers in the Cross-border import of electric business platform, Chinese consumers can directly purchase the products of overseas retailers, by overseas retailers direct mail home. The biggest feature of the Ocean Terminal is self-built logistics, in the founder's view, this industry bottleneck in the supply chain, and the supply chain is based on logistics, so the optimization of the supply chain is the core of cross-border imports of electricity.

Honey Amoy is the flagship brand limited to sell the overseas shopping site. The advantage of the honey Amoy is that it has been established with the Guangzhou bonded area direct cooperation, free trade zone stock straight hair, significantly shorten the delivery time, price advantages also enhance the user experience.

HAI360 overseas purchase is the traditional Sea Amoy business (overseas purchasing). HAI360 overseas purchase positioning in the Overseas Electric Business service platform, docking overseas businesses and domestic consumers, for the business to provide content editing, logistics, customer service and after-sale services, and thus clears the consumer overseas shopping barrier.

Tencent Science and Technology Zhang article November 18 report

This year in the United States "black Friday" major procurement 10 days, "11.28 promotion" of the advertising word has already flooded in Beijing and other major cities in the subway, bus station and buildings. Over the past two years, Hai and Cross-border electric dealers have been rising in China, and a number of newly-grown start-ups, such as Cat International and ocean Terminals and Honey Amoy, are trying to share American shopping spree with Chinese consumers across the ocean.

"Cross-border import business will trigger a new round of major reshuffle of the domestic electricity business." "Honey Amoy founder Xia Wenbin forecast, the future consumer more and more buy overseas goods, correspondingly will gradually reduce the demand for domestic goods, the arrival time of the big change depends on the import of consumer buying habits of education and industry development speed."

The increasingly large middle-class group of the domestic quality of life to focus on the quality of overseas goods market demand is rising, and this year's Cross-border import electricity business policy in cross-border payments, customs clearance and bonded mode, etc. also show multiple positive.

In fact, this year's cross-border electricity market has been the pursuit of capital markets, a number of start-up companies have received tens of millions of of dollars in venture capital.

At present, the largest number of cross-border imports of consumer platform is the cat international and ocean terminals, the latter registered users to millions of, PC and mobile end of the app "Overseas Sweep goods Magic" daily live users around 70,000; The representative of the proprietary mode is Honey Amoy, the client activates the user nearly million The hai360 overseas purchase of the overseas electric business platform also obtains 700,000 loyal users through "Hai Tong".

But for the start-up companies, the development process has undergone twists and turns, they can wait for the real outbreak of the sea market?

Ocean Dock: Bet on Supply chain optimization

"At the earliest, no one said that cross-border electricity dealers, not to mention Hai, called flips." At that time, many people questioned the cross-border importation of electricity and even described us as traitors and lunatics. "The founder of the Ocean Terminal was in the interview with Tencent Science and technology, so described the dilemma of their initial business."

On the moral question, the blue Ocean has made its own interpretation from an economic point of view: "The macro-economy is balanced, export trade allows China to have a large amount of foreign currency, to be consumed by imports of foreign exchange reserves, so that the renminbi can return to the central treasury, and then back to circulation." ”

In fact, as early as 5 years ago, the blue waves have made this judgment. While studying in the United States, he entered Yahoo Internship, part-time to do shopping, spent 2 years to study the U.S. retail industry, he said that the entire California iphone was he recycled, and then sold to China to earn their full tuition. At the end of 2008, the Blue Ocean began to do some research on financial models, and eventually left Silicon Valley a year later with a paper business plan to prepare for his first venture in life.

September 2010, the International Terminal website officially on line, became the first overseas retailer to introduce cross-border import of electric business platform. Chinese consumers can directly buy products from overseas retailers on their websites, which are sent by direct mail from overseas retailers.

Once blue waves told Tencent Technology, and other cross-border imports of electrical goods Logistics outsourcing mode, the Ocean Terminal is the only one to choose from the logistics. Once blue waves from the beginning of the industry to determine the bottleneck in the supply chain, and the supply chain is based on logistics. According to Amazon founder Bezos's theory, "good supply chain = maximum commodity + minimum price + fastest arrival speed", which has been very agreeable to this, he believes that the optimization of the supply chain is the core of cross-border imports of electricity.

At the beginning of the venture, there was only 200,000 in the pockets of blue waves, but logistics must be done, once the blue waves had to take the Silicon Valley friends home garage when the warehouse. In order to reduce the workload of friends, to ensure that in 30 minutes to sweep the bar code, he designed a receiving system, greatly saving the traditional logistics waste of manpower costs.

"It was the first time I had a 26-foot-long truck, and it was scary to turn the corner," he said. "Once the blue waves to Tencent Technology, two years ago in Los Angeles to build their own shelves, driving a truck delivery of an old photo, recall the time when the various difficult to fight."

Take the Qing Guan this matter, had blue waves also under a lot of Kung Fu. "In this business, you have to deal with the government." "There is a need for customs officers to communicate with the customs staff on the scene, which is one of the details of the service superior to other electrical operators, and when goods are passed through the customs, they will ask the customs staff to wait until 6 o'clock, so as to ensure clearance speed," he said.

2013, the Ocean Pier annual turnover of 200 million yuan, profit of more than 10 million yuan, and at the end of the year to get a sum of nearly 10 million U.S. dollars in the venture, beginning of the beginning, the use of this money to do the scale and team expansion, to do the market, he expected 2014 of the annual turnover will have 3~4 times growth, volume after the Cat International.

Backed Alibaba platform, February 19 this year, the day of the online Cat International in a short span of 9 months to surpass the 4-year history of the ocean Terminals, the largest volume of cross-border imports of electricity business platform. Just past the "double 11" so that the day Cat International Day to harvest 300 million yuan turnover, 2014 annual turnover is expected to be nearly 1.5 billion.

When asked if the future Ocean Terminal has the chance to surpass the Sky Cat International to become the leader of the Cross-border import electricity dealer, confident Zembipo expressed caution, "I think now all of China's electricity dealers should put Alibaba first, consider assuming that they are the second how to do, if we are lucky more than the Cat international, May become another only product. ”

According to Tencent Science and technology, the latest round of financing is coming to an end, the amount of more than 50 million U.S. dollars, to refresh the cross-border import electric industry record. said that the money will be mainly used for business expansion, overseas positions and advertising, it is clear that sufficient funds to the foreign terminals to expand the supply chain upstream, to increase the platform category.

Although sufficient funds have given the ocean Terminal a bigger advantage to expand the supply chain upstream, but the high threshold and time cost of the negotiations is also the natural resistance of its platform category increase, built 4 years of the ocean pier to continue to increase horsepower.

HAI360: Low-key purchasing Platform

There have been many times in the media to assert that the traditional sea Amoy mode will die, Cross-border import of the entrepreneurial opportunities of the electronic business and the self-employed platform Mo, but he did not seem to notice, 4 months ago, a hai360 overseas purchase site low-key public test, And in a short period of 3 months to break the 10 million yuan in monthly sales. Its 50~100% daily turnover increment, also exceeds the current growth rate of the ocean Terminal--and this website does is the traditional sea Amoy business (overseas purchasing).

This July, hai360 overseas purchase official on-line. At present, the site shows the partners include the United States Amazon, 6PM, Vitacost, Beauty, GNC, including the five major U.S. electric platform. The consumer can buy all the items of these five dealers in the above equivalence, the Chinese page supports Alipay and all commercial bank cards in China are paid.

The founder of the website, Darren, was a former employee of Tencent's wireless department. As a veteran sea Amoy, he worked in Tencent for a few years to Amoy a hundred thousand of of merchandise. 2011, he had the sea Amoy process of Internet, strengthen the idea of user experience, a year after the engineer came from his own self-employed, write their own procedures, and to find Tencent, 91 of the assistant's friends part-time help, until the Shenzhen Amoy Sea Technology Co., Ltd. was formally registered, but at that time the whole company has only 3 people.

Different from the business model of several kinds of heavy supply chains that are common in the current Cross-border import electricity market, hai360 overseas purchase positioning in the Overseas Electric Business service platform, docking overseas businesses and domestic consumers, for the business to provide content editing, logistics, customer service and after-sale services, and thus clears the consumer overseas shopping barrier.

As a light supply chain of electric business platform, hai360 overseas business model is also subject to a certain degree of doubt. "We are indeed a new business model that is not good at any of the existing ones and can be understood as where we are going," Darren explained to Tencent. ”

Darren to build the first product for "Hai Tong", is to facilitate the tracking of international Logistics design a simple program, from the beginning to support less than 5 Express Company's information development to now more than 100, the number of users more than 1 million. March 2013, the product just outside the release received several companies to purchase applications. But he is very clear, Hai is only the cut-in point, he wants to do is a can make the user to buy the overseas thing conveniently the product, from the genuine, the quality, the post-sale and so on each aspect provides the safeguard.

"Hai Tong" for them to bring a large number of Low-cost precision users, accumulated relevant industry resources and data accumulation, hai360 overseas purchase also emerged. After 2 months of pure Shopping guide, it transformed into the current and overseas cooperation of the purchase mode of electricity.

The so-called purchasing, is to help users to take orders. Many purchasing sites have been difficult to maintain, largely because of the large number of shipments sent to the same overseas harvest address orders will be overseas businessmen for the suspicion of scalping cancellation. According to Darren introduced, HAI360 does not exist this problem. "We have a cooperation agreement with these electric business platforms, users in our site after the list, we have to improve the information editor to the partners, they first send the goods to our U.S. warehouse, we integrate the Chinese address, the goods sent back to the country." ”

Another major feature of HAI360 's overseas purchases is its newly launched "One-click shopping" feature. Darren said that any future global merchandise, as long as the UI link pasted over, you can buy hai360 overseas purchase, that is, the establishment of a hai360 global commodity search engine. Relevant data show that more than 90% of China's consumers are on Chinese websites rather than foreign websites to find goods, such as "What is worth buying" such a shopping site. In this way, the advantage of "one key purchase" is clear.

Previously, Darren never received any media interviews, the report also insisted on the English name appeared. He said hai360 overseas purchases are still focused on product development and the strengthening of the user experience, the promotion of temporary low-key. As for the future planning of hai360 overseas purchases, Darren hopes to make efforts towards the largest flow of Chinese market entry for overseas electric dealers.

When it comes to the competition with the foreign terminals, Darren bluntly hai360 overseas purchases will not rule out the possibility of becoming the boss of an independent power supplier. "Our SKU (number of items) is the most, 1000 times times higher than the opponent." Next year we will be connected to Germany, Japan, Korea and other markets, the future will cover the world's major countries, it is entirely possible to become the largest international platform outside the cat. ”

However, Tencent Science and Technology found that hai360 overseas purchase site still have some products described in English, and overseas electrical business orders docking has not fully realized, take the International direct mail will be more than the free trade zone delivery time longer. Want to become the industry boss, must be in the product experience and business cooperation to pay more efforts.

Honey Amoy: Focus on proprietary selling

Ocean terminals and hai360 overseas purchases will be along the heavy, light supply chain of these two parallel lines occupy market share, compared to the former two competing for the industry one elder brother's ambition, honey Amoy seems to want to do its own special sale. "We just want to plow our own acres of three points." "Honey Amoy founder Xia Wenbin said.

has been responsible for the cat wireless products Xia Wenbin in 2013 pioneering ideas, the same year October set up Beijing Basket Technology Co., Ltd., the team initially 6 people from Alibaba, Baidu, 360 and other internet companies.

In the predecessor of the CN Sea Amoy experience the overseas purchase of 60% after a single rate of heavy blow, Honey Amoy transformation become today's flagship brand special selling overseas shopping website. Xia Wenbin told Tencent Science and Technology, the future of the goal is to become China's largest cross-border import of electricity business platform, the goal is only the goods will and Jingdong.

For Xia Wenbin, the most important thing now is to cultivate users. He plans to spend another 1 years to keep users in mind, and to become dependent on the goal of achieving the largest overseas shopping platform in 3 years.

Xia Wenbin recalls that start-up is very difficult, do not understand the customs policy, and even goods to the warehouse do not know how to send users. Sometimes 20 days to deliver the goods, one months have not yet arrived. He thought of the morning when he got up and was still suffering.

Now the honey Amoy has been established with the Guangzhou bonded area direct cooperation, free trade zone stock straight hair, significantly shorten the delivery time, price advantages also enhance the user experience.

Honey Amoy The current business is divided into two parts, focusing on the launch of most hot-time special selling services, as well as a small number of long tail for the entire category of user needs and set up overseas purchasing business.

Online 8 months, honey Amoy Monthly sales flow breakthrough 10 million. The team expanded from the original 6 to the current 60 people, an average age of 25 years. Xia Wenbin revealed that the company has just received a B-round financing of 30 million U.S. dollars, will further strengthen team building, expand Marketing, and explore logistics and warehousing construction, for a large number of suppliers import stock sales to prepare.

As a cross-border import electric business platform, Honey Amoy hope to become the leader of the vertical field. This requires companies to expand the category of goods to meet the consumer needs of more users, but the expansion of the category will inevitably lead to inventory risk.

Many people worry that direct mail will affect the rice bowls of cross-boundary importers, and Xia Wenbin, he said, "overseas electricity dealers do not understand Chinese culture, do not understand consumer demand, and the cost of localization is too high to play with us." "Once blue waves predicted that China's cross-border import electricity market pattern will be in the outline within 3 years."

The threat of fakes and parallel markets

According to Tencent Technology observation, the current market of overseas shopping sites in the overall price of goods, prices, taxes, freight and so on together there will be 10 yuan within the difference. At this stage, hai360 overseas purchase for consumers to provide tariff subsidies, 2000 yuan of the following goods duty-free, but Darren said this marketing means is only temporary. And in the freight aspect, they first proposed 30 yuan/500g, continued weighs 6 yuan/100g, by this establishes the profession standard.

Darren wants to buy the Internet platform by hai360 overseas to break the price discrimination of global brand suppliers, and to expose Chinese consumers to more of the category of foreign low-priced goods, for example, the US supermarket goods in China can sell a pair of jeans to 899 yuan, but he admits that It is not easy to overturn the industry rules that have existed for nearly a century.

However, although every day there are new start-up companies to join the Sea Amoy Army, many people see the market, but really painstaking research, in-depth understanding of the market and consumer demand does not account for the majority. At present, the whole cross-border electricity business is still at an early stage, the industrial chain is not mature, many commodity categories have not been excavated, the consumer market has not fully arisen.

For a long time, Hai have been regarded as the deepwater area, and the development prospects of startups such as the ocean terminals also need to cross the threshold of industry created by fakes and parallel markets.

Tencent technology from a senior purchasing people understand that most of the sea Amoy gray area mainly focused on personal purchasing business. He revealed that China's personal purchase of almost half of the things are fakes, invoices can be false, an invoice printer costs only 100 yuan, to play an invoice cost less than a penny, some purchase is real fake mixed sell, some players in the country to find fake suppliers, forged purchasing information.

For the layman consumers, they need a professional electric platform for the product screening, check, to ensure the quality of goods.

Once the blue waves that there is no policy risk, the biggest and only threat from smuggled goods, commonly known as "parallel imports." For a long time, the sea Amoy industry smuggling phenomenon rampant, many parallel imports from Hong Kong, Taiwan into mainland China. Control is difficult, the government has not found a good way to deal with it. Once the blue Ocean said, if the low price of parallel imports flood, a large number of rules of cross-border import electricity dealers, then they will not survive the regular army.