Seize the opportunity of the epidemic! Cross-border sellers turn losses into profits

The well-known cross-border retailer Lightinthebox recently released its 2020 financial report, which showed that Lightinthebox achieved total revenue of US$51.5 million and net profit of US$700,000 in the first quarter of 2020. It seems that the profit is not much, but in the first quarter of last year, Lightinthebox not only did not make a profit, but also had a net loss of US$14.7 million.

The outbreak at the beginning of the year not only did not expand Lightinthebox's losses, but instead gave Lightinthebox an opportunity to rise against the trend. According to detailed financial report data, the number of buyers on Lightinthebox's website increased from 600,000 to 800,000. After the outbreak of the epidemic, a large number of consumers flocked to online shopping websites to buy daily necessities. As a platform-based e-commerce player, Lightinthebox's traffic also increased.

In addition to sellers who build their own websites, traditional cross-border sales are also experiencing a new era. Shenzhen Tongtuo Technology also recently announced its first quarter financial report, which is also a positive development.

According to the data disclosed by Tongtuo Technology , in the first quarter of this year , Tongtuo's cross-border e-commerce business revenue exceeded 1.1 billion! Among them, home furnishing products are far ahead, accounting for 77% of Tongtuo's total export sales!

However , it can be seen from the revenue table of Tongtuo that the sales of clothing category in the entire Q1 was only 12.66 million, accounting for only about 1% of the total sales. It can be said that it accurately reveals how bleak the Q1 of clothing sellers this year was. However, the data is up to the end of March, when the outbreak of the epidemic in the United States was at its peak. After entering April, the clothing category has improved significantly.

It is precisely because of the favorable impact of the surge in traffic and demand during the epidemic , Amazon third-party sellers generally saw an increase during the epidemic. However, the financial report disclosed by Tongtuo Technology also explained the disadvantages of being a platform seller and relying on others. During 2015-2018, Amazon closed more than a dozen stores of Tongtuo Technology , and the frozen store funds amounted to tens of millions of RMB!

These store closures are also something that we ordinary sellers need to pay attention to. Generally, small and medium-sized sellers do not have many stores at the same time. Having one or two stores closed may be a natural disaster for the sellers. We small sellers can often benefit from the traffic and sales growth brought by the epidemic. In this case, we need to pay more attention to protecting the safety of our stores and products. Whether it is evaluation or other operations, they must be done in an environment that is as clean and safe as possible.