The competition pattern has become the head, small and medium-sized platform difficult to break through
After countless battles, today’s cross-border e-commerce market competition pattern has formed a head effect. According to Analysys, in terms of the competition pattern of cross-border e-commerce import retail e-commerce (B2C) market, In the fourth quarter of 2017, Tmall International still ranked first with a market share of 27.6%, followed by Netease Kaola Overseas Shopping with 20.5% and JD Global shopping with 13.8%. The market shares of other cross-border e-commerce platforms, such as Vipshop International, Xiaohongshu, Suning Overseas Shopping and Fengqu Overseas Shopping, are all below 10%, and the phenomenon of cannibalization is more intense.
In this quarter, in terms of the competition pattern of independent cross-border import retail e-commerce market, Kaola.com ranked the first with 67.1% share, Xiaohongshu ranked the second with 14.9% share, and Fengqu Haitao ranked the third with 3.3% share. In addition, in terms of the market competition pattern in 2017, Kaola.com ranked first with 25.8%, Followed by Tmall International with 21.9%, JINGdong Global with 13.3%, and Xiaohongshu and Yangmatou with less than 5%.
On the one hand, tmall International and JD Global have developed a mature platform operation model in logistics and marketing based on their own huge traffic, giving them obvious advantages in the development of cross-border goods. Netease, on the other hand, the koala sea purchase start with proprietary pattern differentiation, strictly control product quality to win customer trust, nor were they lose in ali, jingdong logistics such as electricity and old giants, but also actively expand offline store experience, expand the brand influence, it serves to show the cross-border electricity dealer market has formed to Tmall international, netease koala, led by the strong competition, small and medium-sized platform to snare.
Under the cross-border electricity development, market competition pattern has been gradually formed, small and medium-sized cross-border electric business platform and Tmall international, netease koala giants such as than was dwarf, want to in such a competitive environment for a larger share of the market is very difficult, and cross-border electric business platform has been also exist many difficult to solve the problem of market, this let the small and medium-sized platform is struggling.
There are many problems plaguing small and medium-sized platforms
“China produces 100 million packages almost every day on average,” Ma once said. “In the next eight to 10 years, China may produce 1 billion packages a day, and more than 15 percent must come from across borders.” From the embryonic stage of “human flesh purchasing” to the exploratory stage of vertical cross-border e-commerce, then to the development stage of platform, and finally to the mature stage of rapid development, it can be seen that cross-border e-commerce has gradually become another mainstream of consumption in e-commerce business. Although it has entered the mature stage, many problems still exist in cross-border e-commerce, especially in small and medium-sized platforms.
First, quality control. Whether cross-border or non-cross-border, the quality of goods is the most important issue for consumers. Only by ensuring the quality of goods can businesses win consumers’ love and trust in order to survive for a long time. When consumers buy overseas goods, they mainly buy luxury goods and light luxury goods, so the most important thing is whether the goods they buy are genuine.
Since after “melamine powdered milk” the event, there are plenty of fake and inferior products are constantly being made public, pork, lean meat powder, cooking oil, “dirty” water injection workshop, her fake certificates, etc., and impact on Chinese domestic goods to credibility, leaving many consumers are also increasingly popular in the “foreign goods”, a surge in consumer demand to promote the vigorous development of cross-border trade, But those “foreign goods” favored by consumers are also driven by the interests of many quality problems. For example, Nike “air mattress door”, Samsung Note7 “quality door”, Friso “bug door”, carcinogenic cosmetics, Japan’s nuclear contaminated area food hit the shelves.
From April to October 2017, the GENERAL Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (QSIQ) sampled 5,328 batches of entry-exit commodities and found 1,501 batches unqualified, with a detection rate of 28.2%. Among them, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Germany and other imported commodities were relatively large, with an average detection rate of 32%. The disqualified goods include children’s toothbrushes, car brake linings, clothing, school supplies, household appliances and so on.
Cross-border goods have quality problems, one is that the quality of the goods themselves is not up to standard, the other is that the goods are counterfeit in the circulation process. Earlier, Yangtou also fell into the “fake” Luo Shengmen incident. An undercover buyer successfully bought and sold fake goods on its platform and questioned the supervision of Yangtou. However, Yangtou claimed that the undercover buyer’s self-buying and self-selling behavior was not in line with normal trading behavior and bypass the supervision and alarm mechanism of the platform.
No matter what the truth is, the Rashomon incident also reflects that there are indeed loopholes in the regulatory mechanism of cross-border e-commerce platforms, and many buyers take advantage of these loopholes to produce and sell counterfeit goods and dominate the market. Alibaba, for example, used big data mining to find more than 60,000 counterfeit gangs and revealed more than 1,600 counterfeiting factories. It shows that the phenomenon of quality problems of cross-border goods has become increasingly serious.
For small and medium-sized platforms, the disadvantage of quality control difficulty compared with large platforms is that they have no capital and no team to extend their tentacles longer, so they cannot penetrate into all links of the industrial chain, and naturally they cannot have more transparent and effective binding force.
Second, logistics. Logistics is an important link that cannot be ignored in the process of trade. In the increasingly fierce competition, logistics is another core competitiveness. Jingdong can win a place in the e-commerce world dominated by Ali thanks to its excellent reputation of logistics. However, for cross-border trade, logistics is generally characterized by slow speed, low efficiency and opaque links, which directly affect user experience.
Although most goods on cross-border platforms such as Tmall International and netease Kaola are delivered directly in bonded warehouses, the delivery time has been significantly improved, but the logistics speed is still slow for goods that need to be delivered overseas, especially for overseas shopping platforms such as Yangmatou.
In order to build a strong logistics foundation for small and medium-sized cross-border e-commerce enterprises, natural cost is the biggest problem. In the case of a sluggish market, small and medium-sized platforms are more likely to fall into a dilemma. If we want to do well in logistics, where will the money come from? What is the cost payback period? If you don’t do logistics, how can you compete with the giants? What if he dies?
Third, after-sales problems. Cross-border trade has become more and more convenient for consumers, but most of such convenience is limited to the purchase level, and it is difficult for consumers to protect their rights due to many post-sale situations. On the one hand, when there are problems with the goods, the procedures for returning and replacing the goods will be very complicated because they are cross-border goods, and the freight and customs duties will be taken care of by themselves. On the other hand, due to the cross-border purchase, many goods will not be repaired or replaced in China, even for some well-known brands, and there is no repair, return or replacement door for goods without after-sales outlets in China, especially electrical goods, and some goods will not be returned.
Fourth, tariff policy. In 2016, the introduction of the new tax system for cross-border e-commerce brought a great shock to the cross-border e-commerce market. Media reports have previously reported that jumei’s warehouse in zhengzhou’s free trade zone is one-sixth empty, while vipshop, Xiaohongshu and other cross-border e-commerce companies’ warehouses are also particularly empty.
Appear such situation because the new policy stated in online shopping “a line” bonded goods into the area to be audited according to the cargo customs clearance, and to handle or perfect note for certain category of “positive list” for the first time import licensing, registration or approval documents for the record, and many of the cross-border electric business platform procurement channels for overseas “sweep”, namely the foreign ultra, stores, brand channels direct buy, In this mode, cross-border e-commerce can only get the sales invoice of goods, but cannot get certificates of origin, contracts and other documents.
On the one hand, the new tax policy makes cross-border e-commerce platforms encounter difficulties in commodity verification and customs clearance, and the verification procedures are more complicated. On the other hand, this new policy can regulate the cross-border trade market where fake and shoddy products are becoming increasingly serious and accelerate the industry reshuffle. However, the supply chain mode of cross-border e-commerce platform leads to the problem of commodity traceability, which is not suitable for the new policy, so the implementation of the new policy is postponed.
Many problems in the cross-border e-commerce market restrict the development of small and medium-sized cross-border e-commerce platforms. In order to grow, small and medium-sized platforms need to clear up all kinds of problems existing in the platform, win the trust of users and establish a good reputation. Only in this way can they have the confidence to fight for market share from giants such as Ali and netease.
Technology, logistics, after – sales, small and medium-sized platforms to break out must be caught on three sides
Small and medium-sized cross-border e-commerce platforms can improve technology, trace back to the source, enhance the platform’s reputation, optimize after-sales service to win the favor of users and enhance the competitiveness of the platform.
First, use blockchain technology to trace cross-border goods. The distributed node encryption information storage technology of block chain is difficult to tamper with. It can be used to trace the original information of goods, such as place of origin and production time, just like goods have their own ID card. On the one hand, it is convenient for consumers to identify whether the goods they buy are genuine, and on the other hand, it can be used as a basis for protecting their rights when there are problems with the goods.
At present, there are many examples of using block chain traceability, such as Wal-mart pork traceability chain, Everledger diamond traceability chain, fruit traceability, agricultural products traceability, etc., among which the food traceability chain application is particularly prominent.
Second, logistics speed and transparency together. Logistics speed is also a direct impact on consumer experience. Jingdong’s ability to take advantage of Alibaba is also due to its emphasis on logistics speed, which is one of the most important links of new retail. In the cross-border e-commerce market, the industrialization of counterfeiting also lies in the lack of transparency in logistics links. For example, the tactics of “one-day tour” products pretending to be overseas products were once very popular.
Blockchain technology can not only trace the original information of goods, but also be applied in logistics to avoid information fraud and the entry of fake and shoddy products. Recently, Cainiao and Tmall International announced that they have enabled blockchain technology to track, upload and verify the logistics link information of cross-border goods, and 30,000 imported goods from more than 50 countries have supported the logistics link query based on blockchain technology.
Third, improve after-sales service. After-sales service is the most direct experience of users, which not only affects users’ evaluation of products, but also affects users’ favorable impression of merchants and platforms. The worse the user experience, the lower the sales of products, the lower the trust of the platform, and the weaker the competitiveness of the platform. After-sales service has always been the difficulty for cross-border e-commerce platforms to improve. Most small and medium-sized cross-border e-commerce platforms are mainly intermediaries. If there is any problem with overseas goods purchased through the platform, either the after-sales department of the domestic brand will not accept it, or there is no after-sales department of the brand in China, so after-sales service is in urgent need of innovation.
On the one hand, it can reach after-sales consensus with overseas brands for cross-border trade, so that users can repair goods in domestic brand stores if there is any problem. Second, when fake goods appear, merchants should be seriously dealt with to safeguard the consumer rights and interests of users, and at the same time, the audit of merchants on the platform should be strengthened.
Cross-border electric dealer market competition pattern has taken together, the head, before the giant column is difficult to shake, small and medium-sized cross-border electric business platform to seek greater living space or to give priority to solve some problems in Taipei, establish a good credit reputation, win the trust of the user to snare him from, to win more market share, better survival.
Article/Liu Kuang public account, ID: Liukuang110