Although cross-border e-commerce is still very hot, volume is growing, platforms, sellers, third-party service providers are also constantly chasing industry opportunities, but in the past 2018, cross-border e-commerce is not so good.
From the macro environment: complex
Increase in entrants and intensify competition: With the increase of participants, cross-border e-commerce is experiencing a change from “Blue Sea” to “Red Sea”. Traditional foreign trade has transformed into cross-border e-commerce, and a large number of domestic Taobao and Tianmao sellers have entered the cross-border e-commerce industry. Sellers in India and other Southeast Asian countries have sprung up, and competition has intensified dramatically. The result is that the flow and resources are inclined to big sellers and high-quality sellers, which also means the crisis of small and medium sellers.
Unpredictable international trade environment : the outbreak of the Sino-US trade war also makes the world trade situation become ups and downs in a sudden, which is full of uncertainty. Although it does not have a great impact on cross-border e-commerce, sellers are more or less feeling a little down. The cruel thing is that the United States announced the withdrawal of the Universal Postal Union process, which directly results in higher postage charges and higher operating costs of cross-border e-commerce.
As can be seen from the earnings of cross-border e-commerce head sellers, 2018 may be profitable, but all the money is in the warehouse. A large inventory backlog occupies a large amount of fund liquidity.
In 2019, cross-border e-commerce vendors will still face many challenges. Externally, we should expand new markets and increase revenue. Competition between Europe and the United States and other markets has become more intense. It is better to open up a new market than to compete in the US and Europe. In fact, last year Amazon announced the opening of India and Middle East is a new signal to Chinese sellers.
Internally, refined and branded operation. Fine operation will become the mainstream, abandoning the rough operation in the past, such as following the trend to selling goods, to achieve intensive farming, it is worth mentioning that the use of big data will become a sharp tool for sellers to improve the fine operation. At the same time, the deterioration of seller’s price competitive advantage, the reduction of operation and logistics costs, the improvement of operation efficiency, service level, and the realization of healthy capital flow will become the direction of seller’s attention. A certain scale of sellers can timely branding.
But we’re still moving forward. ChinaDivision had just finished its annual meeting over the last week, In review of last year, CNstorm Group, the holding company records a new sales volume, way more than any years in the past.
Let’s hope for the best, but don’t forget, prepare for the worst. New journey, we are ready!