eBay's "Star Plan" is officially launched, with new product pre-sales to help Chinese brands go global

On August 24, eBay held a new "E-Creation Conference" in Shenzhen with the theme of "Building Dreams with Craftsmanship, Looking to the Future with Billions". At the conference, eBay released the "Star Plan", supplemented and upgraded the pre-sale model of new products, and launched six major support measures to escort Chinese sellers' brands to go overseas.

It is learned that the birth of eBay's "Star Plan" relies on the consumer demand trend of high-quality and branded products in recent years. The plan launches a new product pre-sale model for sellers who are deeply engaged in vertical categories, have their own brands, and have independent R&D and design capabilities. The plan provides sellers with a maximum pre-sale period of 30 days for new products. During this period, with the help of eBay's customized resources and tools, sellers can achieve preheating and promotion inside and outside the site, thereby quickly seizing traffic opportunities, obtaining market feedback in a timely manner, and making corresponding adjustments.

Huang Bujin, regional general manager of eBay China's cross-border trade division, said: "The 'Star Project' can well meet the needs of sellers to launch new products on eBay. Through pre-sales, sellers can firmly grasp the first-mover advantage of new product launches, making the supply chain more stable, the product life cycle longer, and profits more stable."

Practice has proved that the new product pre-sale model has provided great help in solving the pain points of insufficient exposure of new products, limited capital turnover, and inventory backlog during the replacement of old and new products, and achieved accurate reach of target customers through the supporting brand marketing system. During the internal testing of the "Star Project" in November last year, eBay selected more than 40 new products mainly in the 3C category to participate in the first launch, and sold tens of thousands of products in total, helping sellers increase their average sales speed by 3 to 5 times, attracting buyers from more than 100 countries, among which European and American consumers have the highest recognition, and it has attracted the attention of consumers in emerging markets such as Mexico.

Muchen International E-commerce Co., Ltd., which mainly deals in 3C brand products, launched the first pre-sale of its Oclean electric toothbrush on the eBay platform in Germany and Italy, with sales exceeding 1,100 units in 7 days, exceeding the expected target. Quan Meiling, a partner of the company, said: "The pre-sale of new products combined with the preheating of new products outside the brand site, the support of resources and policies within the site, as well as the coordination of traffic and sales rhythm, helped us to concentrate on the eBay platform, achieving high exposure and high conversion both inside and outside the site."

Looking at the overall situation, the cross-border overseas market has experienced a huge boom in the past two years, but opportunities are often accompanied by challenges. Since the beginning of this year, the industry has experienced shocks and reshuffles, and the risk factor of operating third-party platforms has increased day by day. Overseas companies are also facing more severe tests.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has impacted the global supply chain and triggered a global logistics crisis. Transportation costs have skyrocketed exponentially, coupled with a lack of transportation capacity, port congestion, and an imbalance between supply and demand in the logistics system. How to formulate a logistics strategy has become a difficult problem facing many sellers.

From the consumer level, the recurrence of the epidemic has continued to frustrate the public's willingness to consume. The U.S. Department of Commerce said that total retail sales in July fell 1.1% from the previous month after seasonal adjustment, higher than the 0.3% decline expected by Wall Street analysts. Online sales also began to slow, falling 3.1% from the previous month, and the scene of last year's peak online shopping is no longer there. At the same time, data from the University of Michigan showed that consumer confidence in August fell to its lowest level since 2011.

In this environment, overseas companies are searching for a stable and efficient development model amidst the turbulent waves.

Feng Ke, sales director of Shenzhen Zongwei Cube Technology, said: "To achieve performance growth, a company needs three carriages. The first is research and development, which is also hard power, that is, the underlying products. The second is brand, not just sales. Brand building can drive marketing plans. The third is the supply chain. These three carriages need to interact to drive the growth of the entire company's performance. It is a collaborative operation."

For a brand to go global, it not only needs to rely on the company's own strength, but also the support of the platform's support policies. At a time when opportunities and challenges coexist, cross-border e-commerce still has development potential that cannot be underestimated.