Xiaohuang andEBay team photo
fromFrom 2009 to 2021, twelve years passed quickly, and Xiao Huang grew from a young college graduate to a senior practitioner in cross-border e-commerce, leading the team to achieve one brilliant achievement after another in the industry.
From Shenzhen to Hunan, from traditional foreign trade to cross-border e-commerce, Xiao Huang personally experienced itThe process of cross-border e-commerce from embryonic rebirth to rapid growth and rapid development has led to the discovery of a career that unleashes talent and achieves dreams.His experience is not only a personal struggle history, but also a condensation of the development of cross-border e-commerce over the years.
Going south to Shenzhen to form a bond with cross-border e-commerce
The company office is located in Qianhai Shimao, Shenzhen
On the eve of the 2009 Spring Festival, Xiaohuang, who had just celebrated her 20th birthday, boarded a train heading south to Shenzhen. At that time, he didn't realize that Shenzhen would become the starting point of his career and a hot spot for him to sprinkle his youth, enthusiasm, and sweat for a long period of time in the future. At that time, Shenzhen was a city for Xiaohuang that could change its fate through hard work. Its natural geographical advantages and talent structure created a good foreign trade environment, imprinted with deep foreign trade genes. This has unparalleled appeal for Xiao Huang, who majors in international finance and English.
After a month of job search, Xiao Huang obtained a job in an e-commerce companyThe work of eBay customer service. In 2009, cross-border e-commerce was still in its infancy, and selling high-quality and affordable domestic products overseas through international e-commerce platforms was still an emerging phenomenon in China. Xiao Huang cherishes the hard-earned job opportunities and quickly learns all the information about cross-border e-commerce and the eBay platform. He discovered that,The emerging foreign trade model of cross-border e-commerce has reduced the intermediate links in traditional foreign trade. For example, throughInternationalized e-commerce platforms like eBay can easily reach consumers around the world, and this industry is rapidly developing.It was this job that lasted for six months that caused Xiaohuang and cross-border e-commerce to experience their first electric shock.
Trying and turning,'Emotional' cross-border e-commerce
The company's office located in Shenzhen
After being proficient in customer service, Xiaohuang hopes to gain a deeper understanding of all aspects of cross-border e-commerce. So six months later, with his understanding and understanding of the emerging form of cross-border e-commerce, Xiaohuang quickly joined the newly established cross-border e-commerce department of a foreign trade company mainly focused on traditional B2B, working on eBay operations. From customer service to operations, a new role transformation requires new professional knowledge and skills, including understanding and mastering the entire process from product selection to publication, logistics to after-sales, etc. Xiao Huang quickly invested in it, not only participating in company training seriously, but also actively "mixing circles", interacting and exchanging frequently with industry insiders in cross-border e-commerce, learning while doing, and constantly enriching his cross-border e-commerce knowledge reserves, quickly becoming an "expert".
Xiaohuang said:
This job has allowed me to accumulate more practical and specific skills, such as what to pay attention to when publishing products, how to do logistics and after-sales better, and how to solve account problems. Although the process of constantly encountering problems and solving them is very challenging and tiring, it has a great sense of achievement.
However, due to the company's strategic adjustment, Xiao Huang had to switch to traditional foreign trade business. He still remembers being sent by the company to the Canton Fair, where foreign customers placed orders with a value of up toA full container order of $120000 was subsequently dispatched by the company to various exhibitions in Hong Kong and Germany. Exhibiting, negotiating, and signing orders, this is the image of his once ideal traditional foreign trade person. He should have been proud of himself, but a hint of unease welled up in his heart:You will personally feel that the space for traditional foreign trade is becoming smaller and smaller, and the development speed of new customers is far from keeping up with the loss speed of old customers. There are many intermediate links, which greatly limit profits
Time quickly passed byIn 2011, the cross-border e-commerce industry also underwent many changes. The eBay platform introduced the eTRS rating standard this year, making improving the buyer experience the only way to quickly obtain excellent ratings. Xiao Huang, who has always been paying attention to the development of cross-border e-commerce, keenly captured the profound meaning behind it:This is a reshuffle in the (cross-border e-commerce) industry, where those accounts with poor buyer experiences will gradually be marginalized, and it is likely that traffic will decrease in the futureAlso in this year,The eBay platform has reached an unprecedented level of promotion for overseas warehouses. Overseas warehouse refers to the establishment of a warehouse center in the overseas destination market, where goods are first transported by sea to the overseas warehouse center, and then shipped directly from the warehouse after local customers place orders. By using overseas warehouses, domestic sellers can achieveShipping locally in the destination market not only significantly improves logistics efficiency, but also makes returns and exchanges more convenient, resulting in a better shopping experience for buyers.Vigorously promoting overseas warehouses demonstrates the platform's emphasis on the buyer experience,Many peers will find that after using overseas warehouses, account performance will indeed improve significantly
This series of changes made Xiaohuang realize that,Cross border e-commerce has truly entered the 2.0 stage of pursuing development quality, and there will be broad development space in the future. The use of overseas warehouses is a necessary path for the future development of cross-border e-commerceTherefore, after two career choices, he ultimatelyI have decided to work hard in the cross-border e-commerce industry and have clearer expectations for my next job,Companies must have e-commerce genes and overseas warehouse layout strategies
Overseas warehouse+Refined operation and deep cultivation of cross-border e-commerce
The company's office located in Changsha
Due to clear goals, mature ideas, and accumulated experience, Xiaohuang quickly took on the position of a cross-border e-commerce companyEBay Business Supervisor.
After entering the new company, Xiao Huang startedThe "sponge model" strives to absorb various professional cross-border e-commerce knowledge, skills, and ways of thinking from products, operations, to logistics. At that time, the boss gave Xiaohuang a lot of support, saying, 'He is very willing to chat with us and teach us,' which benefited him the mostAccurate SelectionAndRefined operationOur thinking.
The selection of products must be comprehensively considered from various aspects such as consumption trends, consumer preferences, and product characteristics,He will explore and extract products that may be recognized and loved by consumers from Google's technology news, and after thorough research and verification, focus on developing peripheral products related to these products. During this process, he gradually formed his own selection ideas:Win high profits through differentiation.This approach has also been validated in practice: the company's sales performance has been steadily increasing, rapidly increasing from 800000 to 900000 RMB per month in less than two years3 million RMB. During this period, Xiaohuang also made a popular product - a leather case for the Samsung P3110 tablet holder,At its peak, the monthly shipment volume of this product exceeded 30000 pieces.
Hot selling item+With the skyrocketing performance, Xiaohuang can be said to have ushered in the second "shining moment" of her career. But he was not overwhelmed by joy, but instead began to reflect and re-examine the company's product structure and strategy from the perspective of industry trends,Not only should we focus on sales data, but we should also continue to pay attention to the actual profit situation. Sometimes, the superficial profit may not necessarily be the actual profit situation Refined operations also became his focus at this time,Invest more energy and resources into products that can truly bring profits
At that timeThe appeal of the eBay platform to promote overseas warehouses led the company to establish overseas warehouses in the UK, which quickly brought a large amount of traffic and orders to the company's eBay store,But the fact that GMV has not grown in the same proportion indicates that there is a problem with our product structureHe led the team to sort out the product structure and found thatProducts priced below $30 account for 30% to 40% of the total, with minimal profit margins. However, they require a significant amount of manpower such as listing and customer service. He made a quick decision and used peak season promotions to quickly clear inventory and remove these products from the shelves. After some optimization, while maintaining stable growth in the company's GMV, SKUs have been streamlined from the initial 800 to around 500, greatly improving operational efficiency.
eachListing can be meticulously polished, and customer service and warehousing departments are less busy. They can better respond to customer needs and spend more effort on optimizing and managing the warehousing and distribution process, greatly reducing error rates and improving the buyer experience.
The most direct benefit of this is that the return rate has significantly decreased to3%, it is also easier to get a good rating in eBay store evaluations,The entire company has entered a virtuous cycle
The experience of his third job allowed Xiao Huang to quickly accumulate experience in product selection and operation, while also identifying key constraints to the company's development:Lack of control over the source of goods and supply chain, lack of proprietary brands and core technologies.This also prompted him to once again'Career Selection' came to Shenzhen Lianke Technology in 2015 to be responsible for the company's eBay platform business.
Vertical boutique+Self operated brand, embracing cross-border e-commerce
The company's office located in Changde
Around 2015, cross-border e-commerce was undergoing a transformation. With the development and maturity of overseas warehouses, the sales of high-value major goods began to grow rapidly. The categories of goods exported through cross-border e-commerce have also expanded from electronics and fashion to automotive parts, home gardening, and industrial products. Due to the higher value and complexity of exported goods, higher requirements have been placed on customer service and after-sales service. The previous large-scale search and distribution methods have been difficult to sustain, and it has become a trend to deepen and refine vertical segmentation categories to gain consumer recognition. These all mean that cross-border e-commerce has entered the 3.0 stage of winning with vertical boutiques and brand influence.
Many powerful vertical category manufacturers have entered cross-border e-commerce and achieved their dream of going overseas through this emerging channel, among which Lianke Technology, where Xiaohuang is located, is one of them. Established inIn 2010, Lianke Technology was a global operator of automotive maintenance and tool products, engaged in cross-border e-commerce operations and product research and development of automotive maintenance products,Unlike the search and distribution models, Lianke always focuses on the vertical category of automotive parts, following the boutique route. When I joined, although the company was selling a small number of products, they were all high value products with a unit price exceeding $300
In line with this, Xiaohuang has also put high-quality operations into practice, and within a year, the company'sThe GMV has nearly tripled.
——In order to better showcase products and provide servicesFor each product, I will ask the product manager to provide internal unified training, explaining product features, highlights, customer groups, and market advantages, in order to familiarize every operational partner with the product, in order to prevent after-sales disputes to the greatest extent and ensure good account presentation.
——For product keywords and adaptationsI will lead my operational partners to carefully organize product information before listing, compare it with market competitors, analyze my own highlights and advantages, and truthfully and accurately fill in structured data of the product. In order to better capture exposure and platform traffic, for each productThe display requirements on the eBay platform are more refined, with each listing carefully polished to fully, fully, and perfectly showcase the product's characteristics to buyers.
——In the customer service processThe company has given full attention, and every customer service representative must undergo training and exams to ensure that they have sufficient understanding of the platform, products, and processes before taking up their positions; At the same time, user information feedback will be collected on a weekly basis, and meetings will be held to summarize the research and development, business, and product aspects, providing improvement and optimization plans, and striving to achieve the best of the product.
——EBay platform supportIt is also crucial that category managers provide regular data analysis reports, as well as site category development trends and data analysis, to support our category sales forecast and expansion; The customer manager regularly provides us with seller account analysis reports, account performance analysis, and proposes improvement suggestions to ensure the safe use of the account; We participatedThe "Thousand Sail Plan" has received exclusive traffic and fund support; The eBay team will also visit from time to time to have in-depth communication with the company team, understand the difficulties we face and development plans, analyze the current sales status of the company account, and provide solutions based on the actual situation.
With the development and expansion of the company, a cross-border e-commerce operation center was established in Changsha, Hunan, and Xiaohuang came to Hunan to manage the companyWorking on the eBay platform. Over the past twelve years, every solid step on the path of cross-border e-commerce has brought rich rewards to Xiaohuang——Relying on the year-end bonus to buy a house and property in Changsha, and will continue to make solid progress towards its next twelve years in cross-border e-commerce.