Amazon tops multiple categories, Chinese merchants enter the World Cup on behalf of the national football team

On November 20, the quadrennial World Cup opened grandly in Qatar, with 32 teams returning to compete for the World Cup.

However, unlike previous years, this World Cup was tinged with a tragic atmosphere of the twilight of the gods. Legendary veterans such as Messi, Ronaldo, and Modric all played their farewell matches.

With the gods in place and the battle at dusk as the backdrop, the enthusiasm of the fans is naturally unprecedentedly high. World Cup-related peripherals are being snapped up crazily in both offline stores and major e-commerce platforms.

It is worth noting that the Chinese national football team also entered the World Cup, but unfortunately the ball went in but the players did not - the Chinese-made football was kicked into Qatar by the Yiwu factory.

On the field, legends will never fade away, and veterans will have their last dance. Off the field, the world is celebrating, and business opportunities are bursting. Yiwu merchants, who are at the forefront of cross-border business, have already sounded the clarion call for attack. In addition to the national football team, Made in China has surrounded the World Cup field.

The Qatar World Cup has been dubbed the most extravagant in history. “Everyone who can go to China except the national football team has gone.”

China Railway Construction Corporation built the Lusail Stadium, Qatar's "Project Zero"; China Power Construction Corporation built Qatar's first photovoltaic power station; Ningxia University provided technical support for the irrigation and maintenance of the lawn at the competition venue; China made occupation flags, uniforms, trophy ornaments and other peripheral products. Even the national treasure giant pandas traveled thousands of miles to Qatar and settled in the local panda house.

While the Chinese national football team is confined to their home stadium, Chinese brands have already rushed to go global and pursue their World Cup dreams. According to Global Data, Chinese companies have become the largest sponsors of this World Cup with a sponsorship amount of US$1.395 billion, surpassing the US's US$1.1 billion. Through the World Cup, a feast of top traffic, Chinese companies have seen a broader international market.

How strong is the economic effect of the World Cup?

On eBay, a Mbappe card can be sold for $12,000, equivalent to 85,000 RMB. A Mexican online auction site shows that the sales of star cards have surged by more than 1,500% since 2020. The originally insignificant and low-cost cards can burst out with strong money-making power when they are associated with football superstars.

"Football Emperor" Beckenbauer once said: "What rolls on the World Cup grass is not football, but gold." As the world's number one sport, football has always been unique in terms of global attention and money-making power. The World Cup is the most valuable event in the football league, and its influence exceeds that of the Olympics. It is predicted that the Qatar World Cup may attract 5 billion global viewers.

According to a research report by Redseer and TikTok, the Qatar World Cup will drive explosive growth in e-commerce sales in the Middle East and North Africa. The report predicts that with the double buff of the World Cup and Black Friday, retail sales in the Middle East and North Africa will reach as high as US$70 billion, of which online sales GMV will be approximately US$8.4 billion.

It's not just the Middle East and North Africa. As early as the warm-up stage before the start of the World Cup, the demand for event-related products on major e-commerce platforms around the world has soared.

In terms of regions, in Brazil, FCDLESP predicts that the World Cup will boost Brazil's retail sales by 12%, and consumers have been buying World Cup products since the beginning of the year; the AMVO report shows that 3 out of 10 Mexican netizens are considering buying products or services during the World Cup, and online product sales will increase significantly during the World Cup.

Taking the AliExpress platform as an example, the sales of Chinese-made flags and football shoes in November soared by 300% and 200% respectively compared with the previous month. The person in charge of the platform's World Cup sales said that AliExpress has reserved about 10 million items for this year's World Cup.

It can be seen that the economic effect of the World Cup is all-round and multi-layered. The popularity of the world-renowned event has greatly boosted the consumption enthusiasm of fans from all over the world, radiating from offline physical stores to online shopping. In addition to direct consumption of peripheral products, it has also generated a variety of demands such as viewing services and star support.

Whether it is the traffic aura of the World Cup itself or the appeal of the fan economy of legendary stars, they have created incomparable opportunities for gold mining. Off the pitch, countless Chinese brands are taking advantage of the marketing opportunities and competing openly and secretly. And keen cross-border merchants have also long seen through the business opportunities and launched fierce competition.

At present, the World Cup group stage is in full swing, and the battle is tense. Saudi Arabia and Japan, the "background boards", have successively become the lights of Asia, while Argentina and Germany, the favorites before the game, have teamed up to surprise, which has made the ownership of this year's World Cup trophy even more confusing.

However, while onlookers are confused, Yiwu's sewing machines may have already known who will win the final championship. In the 2014 Brazil World Cup, Yiwu merchants predicted Germany's victory through the orders for German team flags flying like snow; in the 2018 US election, they predicted Trump's victory through the sales of Trump's support products. The hardworking and intelligent Yiwu merchants have become a world trendsetter.

Before the Qatar World Cup officially kicked off, a battle without gunpowder with Yiwu merchants as the protagonists had already begun.

Since April this year, orders for World Cup-related products have increased significantly. According to data from Yiwu Customs, in the first eight months of 2022, Yiwu exported 3.82 billion yuan worth of sports goods and 9.66 billion yuan worth of toys. Among them, exports to Spain, Argentina and Brazil increased by 95.8%, 67.2% and 56.7% year-on-year respectively.

As early as half a year ago, Yiwu merchants began to prepare for the World Cup sales. Some factories received many large overseas orders at the beginning of the year. After more than half a year of long-term planning, Yiwu products successfully dominated the list at the Qatar World Cup.

The Yiwu Sporting Goods Association of Zhejiang Province estimates that this year, Yiwu exports account for about 70% of the World Cup peripheral product market, from national flags, trumpets and whistles to footballs, jerseys and decorations. Moreover, Yiwu products account for 60% of the market share in the official store of the Qatar World Cup.

In previous years, the third quarter was usually a cooling-off period for Yiwu's commodity exports, but this year, driven by the World Cup effect, the busy peak season arrived first.

"The company's overseas orders in Q3 surged by nearly 50% year-on-year, with most customers coming from the Netherlands, Germany and South Korea," said Chen Xianchun, sales manager of Yiwu Jinzun Sports and Cultural Products Co., Ltd.

With the emergence of the top 32 teams and the official start of the World Cup, Yiwu merchants will usher in a new wave of sales peaks. The strong demand during the event also poses greater challenges to the production cycle and logistics of goods.

This year, due to the uncontrollable factor of the epidemic, orders came later than in previous years. In order to ensure timely delivery and sufficient supply, many factories worked overtime to rush production.

Aokai Sports Goods Co., Ltd. is an authorized football manufacturer for the World Cup, producing about 800 footballs per day. In July, it received an order to produce 100,000 commemorative footballs printed with participating teams. Due to the tight time schedule and the epidemic hindering the start of construction, it took only about 50 days for Aokai Sports to receive the order and deliver the goods.

In order to help World Cup merchandise arrive in Qatar smoothly across the ocean, Yiwu City also launched the "Qatar World Cup Transport Line" in mid-September . Merchandise departing from Ningbo Zhoushan and Shanghai Port can be directly shipped to Hamad Port in Qatar within 20 to 25 days.

Now, the World Cup group stage is halfway through, and the results of the tournament will directly affect sales. With the arrival of the knockout rounds, the promotion of strong teams will further stimulate fans' enthusiasm for consumption, and they will rush to buy more support products. Merchants will bet on strong teams based on demand trends and focus on stocking up.

Under the constraints of macro-adverse factors such as the epidemic, this year's export cross-border e-commerce is gradually bidding farewell to the era of high growth. Cross-border merchants who are trapped in the quagmire of sluggish demand and shrinking orders are eager to welcome new opportunities. Now the development of the World Cup, a major IP event, has undoubtedly injected stimulants into the market.

It is reported that some businesses have reflected that this year's performance has increased by 50% year-on-year, and the performance in the first half of the year alone has exceeded the total of 2021 and 2020, which is somewhat like "returning to the pre-epidemic period."

Of course, although the double-edged sword of the epidemic has affected offline retail and factory business, it has also promoted the growth of online sales of Yi's export trade. Not only are there many overseas customers purchasing from factories through online orders, but major e-commerce platforms are also very busy.

AliExpress's sales data directly reflects the rising consumption enthusiasm of global football fans. On the eve of the World Cup, more than 20 kinds of peripheral products made in China on AliExpress have become popular early, among which the sales of footballs, flags, uniforms and other categories have even exceeded 10 million pieces.

On Amazon, jerseys, trophies, medals and other sports products, as well as pillows, whistles, ornaments and other atmosphere products have become the current hot-selling trend, with many links to the top best sellers. Searching for keywords such as "World Cup jerseys" and "World Cup flags" shows that the most popular products are related to the three favorites to win the championship, Brazil, France and Argentina.

However, although the economic effect of the World Cup has awakened long-lost vitality in the market, cross-border merchants also have their own concerns.

In previous World Cups, many factories usually started production a year in advance, but this year, due to uncontrollable factors such as the epidemic, many customers are worried that the World Cup will be postponed like the Olympics and are waiting to see what happens. As a result, the late arrival of orders has put great pressure on the production cycle of foreign trade factories. Under tight production capacity, factories often give priority to sending goods to large overseas customers, which disrupts the stocking rhythm of domestic merchants.

In addition to the out-of-stock crisis, the more fatal problem is the serious product homogeneity caused by intensified competition. Merchants are fighting to establish their advantages. In addition, the costs of raw materials, logistics, etc. are rising. Even if the merchants' orders increase exponentially, their profits will eventually be almost wiped out.

Not only that, copyright issues are also a huge obstacle for cross-border merchants. World Cup peripheral products need to be authorized by FIFA before they can be produced and sold. Once they are sold privately without authorization, they will face the risk of being punished by regulatory authorities or e-commerce platforms for infringement.

Not long ago, Hong Kong Customs took enforcement action against counterfeit products related to the World Cup, cracked a total of 20 cases, and seized more than 100,000 suspected counterfeit football jerseys with an estimated value of more than HK$50 million.

Therefore, even though the World Cup effect has stimulated a substantial increase in foreign trade orders, many sellers can only miss out on this surge in orders and can only sigh in despair.

However, this also indirectly shows that with the upgrading of copyright awareness in the industry, cross-border merchants should break away from the traditional white-label "peddler" thinking and build their own brand moat in order to seize opportunities in time.

Just as Yiwu products occupy 70% of the World Cup-related market, but for individual merchants, they are generally labeled with the same number "Yiwu" and lack their own brand influence.

On the green field covered with gold, Chinese products may be competing for the World Cup in another way.