Looking ahead to 2020, the era of cross-border e-commerce industry integration is coming. How will industry trends evolve?

On January 9, 2019, LianLian Pay, a leading company in the cross-border payment field, launched LianLian Link, an online transaction platform for cross-border e-commerce services. LianLian will evolve from a single payment service to an explorer and builder of the cross-border e-commerce ecosystem.

(Image source: LianLIan Link official website)

Payment companies are trying to integrate logistics, marketing, intellectual property, software, training, finance and taxation and other business sectors to provide one-stop full-link services for cross-border e-commerce sellers. Starting from the payment scenario (capital flow) of cross-border e-commerce, connecting different types of service providers to a unified platform, and creating a closed-loop ecosystem for cross-border payments.

The development of mobile Internet and e-commerce has integrated business flow, logistics and capital flow into a unified online information platform, and data has become one of the core production factors in today's society. Companies with more traffic and user data will have higher commercial value in the future, and the idea of ​​integrating the service ecosystem from the capital flow link is worth looking forward to.

On March 6, 2019, Zongteng Group completed a financing of RMB 700 million, established its positioning as a " global infrastructure service provider for cross-border e-commerce ", proposed the three strategic deployments of " upgrade, openness, and leapfrogging ", and launched the cross-border supply chain financial service platform "Kuaibei" on November 6, further improving the layout of the cross-border basic service ecosystem .

(Photo source: Zongteng Group’s official WeChat account)

Logistics service companies are involved in cross-border supply chain finance, solving the biggest pain point of cross-border e-commerce sellers, "cash flow", through a variety of service models such as procurement financing, inventory financing, factoring financing, and credit financing. Cross-border e-commerce sellers and various financial institutions have established a closed-loop system of trust and risk control through logistics scenarios.

Cross-border logistics is the most direct and relatively frequent link in offline transactions and service scenarios with e-commerce sellers. Due to the long time of cross-border logistics transportation, long inventory and sales cycle, slow payment from e-commerce platforms and other comprehensive factors, cross-border e-commerce sellers generally have tight capital chains, and the demand for the cross-border supply chain financial market is huge.

In June 2019, 4PX (4PX), a leading cross-border logistics company, proposed a strategic layout of " dual network building, multi-dimensional growth, openness and diversity, and four-party symbiosis " on the occasion of its 15th anniversary. It aims to create a cross-border high-quality ecosystem with the concepts of resource sharing, model complementarity, and mutual benefit and symbiosis.

(Photo source: 4PX official WeChat account)

Leading logistics companies have gone from building their own networks to open sharing, trying to integrate and open up the full-link resources of cross-border logistics, including "collection, handling, customs, warehousing, and distribution", in order to attract more different types of partners with an attitude of seeking common ground while reserving differences, and build a larger ecological pattern of a global cross-border logistics network.

The cross-border e-commerce logistics chain is long, and the customs, taxation, laws and policies of various foreign countries as well as the local infrastructure vary greatly. Point-to-point transportation currently accounts for the vast majority of the proportion, and the global network synergy effect has not yet been formed. No company can achieve a global network layout solely by relying on a self-operated and self-built model. Greater collaboration and sharing is the general trend.

On September 17, 2019, Zhejiang Zhiyu , a major independent e-commerce company, announced at a press conference for sellers going global that it would invest 100 million U.S. dollars to build an open platform focusing on traffic expansion, policy support, seller protection, and technological transformation.

(Photo source: Zhiyu official website)

E-commerce giants have evolved from building their own independent websites and conducting their own procurement and sales to opening their platforms to attract a diverse system of sellers and categories. This has further enriched the product categories on the platform, met the diverse shopping needs of buyers at different levels, increased user stickiness on the platform, and further built a platform ecosystem for cross-border e-commerce.

Large sellers only rely on the self-purchase and self-sale model of general goods. As time goes by, the capital occupied will increase, and the inventory pressure can be imagined. Self-built sellers have moved from their own platforms to open platforms, and sellers on third-party platforms have opened up their inventories and introduced distribution mechanisms. Some large sellers have also laid out industry incubation and output capabilities, and the trend of industry integration and development has become prominent.

The 1.0 stage of the development of the cross-border e-commerce industry (before 2010) was the embryonic stage of the industry. At this stage , the surrounding supporting service industries and policy support for cross-border e-commerce were extremely imperfect . Logistics, payment, customs clearance, taxation, government supervision and other links were almost separated from each other. Most sellers made a fortune in silence, and the industry layout was in a "point-like" dispersed form.

The 2.0 stage of the development of the cross-border e-commerce industry (before 2020) is the 10 years of discovery and rapid development of the industry. The entire industry has become increasingly rich and diversified in terms of platforms, sellers, service providers and other aspects. A series of industry norms, policies and standards such as 9610 no collection and no refund, and corporate income tax assessment and collection have been successively introduced. The coordination between upstream and downstream of the industrial chain has been improved, and the industry layout has expanded from point to surface .

The 3.0 stage of cross-border e-commerce industry development (starting from 2020) is a breakthrough in the industry model, brand building and value chain reconstruction in the globalization process of cross-border e-commerce. E-commerce platforms integrate logistics and seek the optimal configuration of cost and efficiency on a larger scale. Payment, software, tax and other peripheral service providers penetrate each other, e-commerce sellers open up the supply chain, and the industry ecosystem develops in an integrated manner.

In the future development of the industry, you are in me and I am in you, and the boundaries between the upstream and downstream industries and the surrounding service ecosystems are becoming increasingly blurred. Whether it is group-warming cooperation, complementary business integration, or the connection of different nodes in the industry, we will eventually be swept into an ecological era of species prosperity by information technology.