Lanting is rising. Why do foreign trade e-commerce make so much money?

The problem is not a problem, and making money from foreign trade e-commerce is king.

For the listing of Lanting Jishi, the insiders have something to say. Some people say that this is an investor forcing Lanting to go public and eager to cash out; It is also said that Lantingji will be the industry leader and set a benchmark in the field of foreign trade B2C. Some people even say that it was forced to go public. In short, opinions vary.

Figure: Looking at the "Three Falsifications" of Foreign Trade E-commerce from Lanting Gathering.

In fact, the more important reason is that foreign trade is really profitable. "After the financial crisis, the foreign currency exchange rate was stable, and the foreign trade industry naturally rose. Do you think selling things is selling a country to make money or selling them to people all over the world to make money? The latter, of course. " A foreign trade worker who shuttled between Southeast Asia and China told me.

First, analyze the needs of foreign customers. As can be seen from the items sold at Lanting Gathering,

3C, home textiles, shoes and bags, toys, home improvement materials and other industries, these are hot commodities.

For example, wedding dresses (China wedding dresses, with China characteristics, various colors and embroidery, etc. ), it is obvious that foreign trade users are enthusiasts who pursue foreign brands on the one hand, and they like Chinese style. This has a lot to do with the internationalization of China. Many foreigners want to know more about China, so they like Chinese-style products.

This purchasing power is spread all over the world, much more than the demand of domestic users. At the same time, foreign trade e-commerce has its own special elements such as differentiation and quality, which is completely different from the domestic e-commerce operation and competition environment. This is the fundamental reason why foreign trade e-commerce can do it.

With the needs of users, foreign trade e-commerce has encountered problems, such as supply, logistics, payment, tariffs, exchange rate and so on.

According to ebay's Asia Electronic Export Trade Report, 65% of mainland exporters are most worried about the exchange rate, followed by logistics costs (63%), competition between international retailers and sellers (59%), procurement costs and the trend of large retailers migrating to the Internet (58%). In order to achieve business growth in the next 12 months, 74% of mainland sellers have multiple product categories.

Because the import and export links of international trade often involve international payment and settlement, import and export customs clearance, international transportation, insurance and so on. Coupled with the necessary safety and risk control requirements, the e-commerce application of foreign trade enterprises is more limited to information communication and marketing promotion, while the follow-up links of import and export business still need to be carried out offline, which is the biggest difference between foreign trade enterprises and domestic trade enterprises in e-commerce application.

Even if these problems exist, they are the focus of foreign trade e-commerce, but there are still ways to solve them and make themselves profitable.

On the other hand, foreign trade e-commerce is not as pure as pseudo-B2C. You will know that there are foreign trade B2C such as Lanting Jishi, foreign trade B2B such as Dunhuang Net, overseas business B2C such as domestic Vanke, Mengbasha and JD.COM, and foreign trade operated by private low-key small enterprises and state-owned enterprises. According to the understanding of ordinary users, Lanting Gathering is to sell domestic products abroad, Dunhuang Network is to sell domestic products to foreign merchants, and JD.COM Kefan has expanded overseas to sell its own brand products and so on.

"Yes, cross-border freight needs some fees, but it is not as expensive as we thought. Even in the eyes of European and American consumers, they will still feel cheap." A foreign trade practitioner told me this.

But in fact, there are few overseas users and small orders. Is Lanting Jishi Foreign Trade B2C divorced from "Earning Bitter Money" written by Zhuang Shuai? It is mentioned in the article that "traditional foreign trade may start at 65,438+10,000 yuan at a time, and Lanting will only need 3,000 yuan for the next order." It is conceivable that 3000 yuan is already a lot of orders for ordinary users. It can be seen that Lanting Jishi still has a threshold for users to place orders. This foreign trade e-commerce "B2C" is also a "pseudo-B2C" model, which is sold to individual users, but some businesses are actually buying.

Pseudo overseas market

On the contrary, domestic e-commerce companies set foot in overseas markets, taking Vanke as an example. Vanke's overseas market is not so pure, which is divided into overseas stations and overseas sub-stations. Overseas station is equivalent to Vanke's English station, that is, selling domestic Vanke brand clothing abroad, that is, transnational retail. Overseas substation is Vanke's overseas branch, and its warehousing, logistics and customer service are all in Vietnam. Products are mainly based on overseas people's own national costumes, and if necessary, they also make clothes that conform to the Chinese style for foreign users. In short, the overseas market here is a bit chaotic, and all kinds of models can be considered anyway.

The overseas market of big e-commerce has been tepid. I think there are several reasons. It is difficult for free brands to exert influence in overseas markets. Unlike Lanting Jishi brand, the audience is small. As Gong Wenxiang once said, overseas markets of big e-commerce companies are far from rich choices of domestic channels such as Taobao, Tmall, JD.COM and Amazon. Only ebay, express trade, independent shopping malls and other major channels, the payment link is monopolized by paypal. Faced with more unreasonable rules, e-commerce foreign trade practitioners can only be meat on the chopping block.

Fake domestic high-quality products

In addition to these well-known major foreign trade e-commerce, a large number of small domestic enterprises have also started foreign trade e-commerce. At the same time, they earn no less money than these big e-commerce companies that have already listed or want to list. Many people may misunderstand that foreign trade e-commerce simply sells China's goods abroad, but there are still many things that are not so simple, and these are the key points of their profit.

In some small and medium-sized foreign trade e-commerce, it is not uncommon to make profits by selling counterfeit goods at home and abroad, which subverts the view that import and export products need high-quality products. These people still sell foreign products, but the delivery is from China. "These small enterprises will fake foreign brands, such as LV, Hermes and Prada. After counterfeiting in China, it is sold to foreign users at a low price through foreign platforms. Those that cannot be sold will be sold to domestic users in the name of overseas imports. " Foreign trade e-commerce practitioners revealed.

In addition, in order to avoid suspicion by delivery, they often send the goods to foreign friends first, and then resell them. As a result, the laughing stock of "foreign trade e-commerce sells foreign products" was born.