"Strategic defense" in 2020! The secret to annual sales of over 100 million yuan is to choose the right track

Today, the cross-border e-commerce seller we interviewed is Mr. Xiong from Shenzhen Chenzhou. In 2019, WorldFirst officially became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ant Financial. In that year, Chenzhou became a customer of WorldFirst and accompanied WorldFirst in its growth.

After graduating in 2008, Mr. Xiong worked as a programmer, salesperson, and project manager in several foreign companies. He then chose the cross-border e-commerce field, which he considered to be a good opportunity. In 2015, Mr. Xiong founded Shenzhen Chenzhou E-commerce Company and officially started his cross-border e-commerce business. During the interview, Mr. Xiong mentioned "choice" more than once. Looking back on his entrepreneurial journey, he did make many choices, and he made many of the right choices!

At the beginning of the business, Mr. Xiong and his team chose several directions to enter: tools, outdoor sports, beauty equipment and other related products. In the early stage, they adopted the form of overseas warehouses. With the continuous improvement of cross-border warehousing and logistics systems, Mr. Xiong decisively chose the form of self-delivery in 2017. "Basically, the annual sales of our platform have increased by 2-3 times."

▲ In 2018 , Mr. Xiong rented a car to deliver goods in the United States

With the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, Mr. Xiong's company also faced the dilemma of "difficult logistics". "Logistics companies refused to accept the goods, and many were stuck at the port. In order to ensure the normal sales of the store, we could only temporarily replenish the goods to the overseas warehouse, but the overseas warehouses were also full, and our orders could not be received at all."

The result is also "serious losses". Mr. Xiong gave an example. There is a type of product that has a strong timeliness. If it arrives at the overseas warehouse a week earlier, the overall sales volume will increase by at least 30%. Now, it is a miracle to survive.

Having learned from last year's experience, in 2021, Mr. Xiong changed the product delivery strategy. On the basis of self-delivery, he greatly increased the investment in overseas warehouses, hoping to avoid last year's predicament to a certain extent.

In the early days of the business in 2015, eBay was a platform that was conducive to starting up and easier to place orders, so Mr. Xiong first started to deploy eBay. As the overall scale continued to expand, Mr. Xiong's team also began to deploy platforms such as Amazon, AliExpress, and Lazada. "I have a natural affinity for Alibaba and Ant. I have used many products such as Alipay and 1688, which is also an important reason why I chose WorldFirst."

In 2020, amid the epidemic, Mr. Xiong's company also encountered great difficulties, but thanks to his multi-platform layout, "2020 was not a very difficult year", and the overall sales on platforms such as Amazon were still good.

As an old hand in this industry, Mr. Xiong also gave some practical suggestions to new cross-border e-commerce sellers:

At this stage, Amazon is more suitable for new sellers. There are some new friends around me who mainly do Amazon, and many of them have monthly sales of hundreds of thousands of dollars, but platforms like eBay are more about scale effects, and it is difficult for new sellers to break through.

[Cross-border e-commerce sellers who want to open new stores can choose WorldFirst's "Global Voyage Plan", which provides a free green store opening channel to connect to many overseas e-commerce platforms with one click];

Traditional foreign trade and factories need to be "cautious" in transforming to cross-border e-commerce. Many past experiences and models cannot be "copied". For example, it is recommended to abandon the previous foreign trade thinking of having more inventory, as it is likely to cause problems in the capital chain due to inventory turnover.

Like many medium and large sellers in the industry, Xiong's company focuses on distribution, high-quality products and brands. Amazon is an important platform for them to pilot their brands. But at the same time, Xiong is different from many sellers. He has started a cross-border entrepreneurial journey that integrates industry and trade.

At the end of 2020, the factory he had been working with had problems such as the inability to guarantee delivery time and quality control. For this reason, Mr. Xiong made up his mind to build his own factory and strictly control the quality of products. At the same time, he was also planning for his own brand products in the future, "so that it will not be easily imitated by outsiders."

There is another "deeply memorable" event for Mr. Xiong in 2020. One of his friends chose to resign from his position as a senior executive at Huawei and join Chenzhou. "Born in 1983, he faced the most important choice in his life. He chose to make a brilliant turn and join the cross-border industry. I support him very much." Now, his friend is mainly responsible for the research and development of smart-related equipment. The overall progress is very smooth and it is expected to be officially sold in the second half of this year.

"2020 is a year of pause. In 2021, we will achieve all the small goals set last year and move forward steadily step by step. I hope that my company can build a brand like Anker, and be a real entrepreneur rather than simply doing trade"!

Finally, I have something to say:

During the interview with Mr. Xiong, we were also deeply impressed by the word "talent" that he mentioned repeatedly:

Seeing that our seller friends' business is booming, we are also happy from the bottom of our hearts~

Recently, WorldFirst launched a 0-fee campaign to help sellers become big cross-border sellers as soon as possible!