With one million SKUs sold for 6.5 billion, the distribution king Yibai has completed the bet for five consecutive years!

Customs statistics show that China's cross-border e-commerce import and export volume increased by 15.6% year-on-year in 2023, with exports increasing by 19.6%.

In 2023, a year full of opportunities but also filled with risks, cross-border sellers, as the vane of the industry, have each delivered different answers: some are struggling on the edge of losses, with declining performance; others continue to drive on the fast track of growth, with revenue and net profit soaring . , undoubtedly belongs to the latter.

It is learned that Huakai Yibai recently released its 2023 annual performance report.

During the reporting period, Huakai Yibai achieved annual revenue of 6.518 billion yuan, an increase of 47.56% over the same period last year; the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 332 million yuan, an increase of 53.08% over the same period last year.

▲ The picture comes from Huakai Yibai’s financial report

Among them, the wholly-owned subsidiary Yibai Network achieved revenue of 6.484 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 47.89%; the annual net profit reached 406 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 40.62%.

There are countless cases of big sellers in the cross-border industry "marrying" listed companies and signing gambling agreements, and Yibai Network is no exception. According to the agreement between the two parties, Yibai Network's net profit in 2019-2023 is not less than 141 million yuan, 170 million yuan, 204 million yuan, 251 million yuan, and 290 million yuan respectively.

As of now, Yibai Network has exceeded its bet for five consecutive years and has become an important growth engine for its parent company.

▲ The picture comes from Yibai Network’s official website

Since the acquisition of Yibai Network, Huakai Yibai has used it as its main business to conduct business through third-party platforms such as Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress, selling home gardening, health and beauty, 3C electronics and other categories.

Driven by Yibai Network, 2023 will still be a year of growth for Huakai Yibai. With both revenue and net profit achieving steady growth, Huakai Yibai is also generous in employee benefits and plans to issue 90 million yuan in annual excess performance rewards to employees.

Not only that, the gorgeous performance curve also gives Huakaiyi the confidence to further expand its business scale. Previously, it had disclosed an "Announcement on the establishment of a wholly-owned subsidiary and the purchase of land use rights through overseas investment", planning to invest 1.5 billion to establish a South China headquarters in Zhongshan, covering design and R&D offices, IT technology centers and other supporting facilities to deepen its competitiveness.

It is worth mentioning that despite having Yibai Network as a powerful arm, Huakai Yibai's ambitions do not stop there. Not long ago, Huakai Yibai announced that it would acquire another Shenzhen big seller, Tongtuo Technology, in order to combine the two forces and use Tongtuo's 19 years of experience in the cross-border e-commerce industry to achieve complementary advantages in operation model, category, product strength, etc.

In 2023, when the macroeconomic environment is full of uncertainty, many small and medium-sized sellers and even top sellers are generally facing growth bottlenecks. How did Yibai Network achieve counter-cyclical growth and help its parent company to expand its business scale at a high speed?

In fact, this is inseparable from its development model - driven by the three pillars of "general products + high-quality products + Yimai ecological platform" .

Like many early big sellers that grew wildly by riding on the dividends of the times, Yibai Network started out with a distribution model, and its main categories cover many popular categories such as home gardening, outdoor sports, 3C electronics, etc.

During the reporting period, Yibai Network's general product business had about 1.04 million SKUs on sale, with a sales unit price of about RMB 107. In the main battleground of Amazon, Yibai Network achieved annual sales of RMB 4.876 billion, with 785 stores in operation.

However, with the continuous development and transformation of cross-border e-commerce, brand upgrading has become the mainstream. In order to adapt to the industry trend, Yibai Network has developed a boutique business focusing on "fine and beautiful", and also uses Amazon as the main sales channel.

During the reporting period, its boutique business gradually matured. On the basis of the four major product lines of cleaning appliances, household appliances, pet products, and lamps, it focused on building advantageous categories. As of 2023, the number of SKUs on sale in its boutique business is about 636, and the sales unit price is about 380 yuan.

This "one body and two wings" strategic layout has successfully helped Yibai Network achieve multi-point performance development.

▲ The picture comes from Yibai Network’s official website

However, it is not easy to coordinate such a large and complex business. Especially in the current industry environment, the declining distribution model is gradually being eliminated by the times, and the super sellers who started out with distribution have begun to explore the path of brand transformation. In contrast, Yibai Network's general product business is still the most important growth engine.

The reason why it can go against the trend in the era of "the end of distribution" is actually inseparable from the digital operation skills that Yibai Network has cultivated for many years.

The distribution model relies on spending money to increase sales, but behind the huge SKUs is the invisible huge inventory pressure. Yibai Network, which is well aware of the dangers of inventory swallowing money, is committed to focusing on efficiency and digital models, continuously increasing the intelligent investment in general product business, optimizing the cost of each link and ensuring inventory turnover rate. Controllable.

Specifically, Yibai Network has built its own AIGC The engine realizes data-based management of the entire chain including product selection, procurement, logistics, sales, and promotion.

This system not only helps Yibai Network improve its decision-making efficiency, but also provides stability and accuracy in business processing. During the reporting period, the AIGC engine has assisted in 30 million intelligent decisions, generated 4 million platform copywritings, recommended 7 million categories, and generated 3 million advertising keywords.

At present, AIGC has been fully integrated and applied to all business links of Yibai Network, including AI smart procurement, AI smart product selection, AI smart customer service, AI smart copywriting, etc.

Taking intelligent copywriting as an example, Yibai saved a total of 17,288 hours of copywriting time during its sales on Amazon in November last year, achieving a qualitative leap in efficiency.

It is precisely because of the hard armor forged by AIGC that Yibai Network has been able to withstand the inventory crisis and achieve counter-cyclical growth in an era of declining distribution.

It is foreseeable that competition in the cross-border e-commerce industry will continue to intensify in the future, and merchants who distribute goods need to keep pace with the times if they want to avoid being eliminated. However, Yibai Network’s ideal and blueprint are very clear: to distribute goods in a proper way - to continue the refined operation strategy, leverage the advantages of digital operation, and build a competitive barrier that adapts to changes in the industry environment and the trend of reform.