At the 2018 Amazon Global Seller Direct Procurement Conference, the "Global Store Opening China Export E-commerce City Development Trend Report" was released for the first time. Among them, cross-border sellers in the Yangtze River Delta region have formed advantageous categories in the fields of home furnishings, clothing, accessories, outdoor, gardening, sports, etc. that are different from other regions, and have become a new force with unique category advantages.
The Yangtze River Delta region has become a rising star in cross-border e-commerce exports
In April this year, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos mentioned in a letter to shareholders that Amazon's global store business grew by more than 50% in 2017, with Chinese sellers performing outstandingly. On this basis, Amazon conducted a survey of thousands of Chinese sellers and cross-border e-commerce practitioners, and based on the five analysis dimensions of foundation, structure, potential, vitality and brand, it came up with a top 20 list of Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Suzhou and other cities and two major trends.
The report shows that the Pearl River Delta region is relatively leading in cross-border exports. Among the top 20 cities, 9 are from the Pearl River Delta region. Compared with other regions in the country, cross-border export sellers in the Pearl River Delta started early, have a large base, and have innovated products, built brands, improved consumer experience, and optimized trade chains, driving the upgrading of industrial structure. Among them, Shenzhen merchants have a strong awareness of brand registration on Amazon's overseas sites and have obvious advantages in the 3C digital and consumer electronics fields. iLIFE, a traditional manufacturing company from Shenzhen, was founded in 2007 and is one of the earliest domestic companies integrating R&D, production and sales of sweeping robots. Their products successfully entered the mainstream US e-commerce market through Amazon "robots" and established their brand position online.
The Yangtze River Delta region is becoming a rising star in China's cross-border e-commerce exports, forming complementary product categories with sellers in the Pearl River Delta region. As a representative city in the region, Hangzhou has the country's first comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zone. Over the past three years, the Hangzhou Comprehensive Pilot Zone has achieved an annual growth rate of 100%, the scale of the textile and clothing industry has exceeded 10 billion yuan, and has cultivated a group of industry tycoons with annual sales of over 10 million US dollars.
Chinese export sellers seek technology upgrades
In recent years, on the Amazon platform, China's cross-border export product categories have expanded from 3C digital products and clothing to shoes, luggage, furniture and home furnishings, sporting goods, office supplies, auto parts and gardening supplies. Among them, many sellers have begun to innovate technology and upgrade their products, and many Chinese sellers have applied Alexa (Amazon's voice assistant) to their products. The Eufy series of smart speakers from smart accessories manufacturer Anker can provide functions including music playback, voice shopping, and smart home control; after the Ecovacs Deebot sweeping robot is combined with Amazon Alexa, it can directly use voice commands to sweep the floor. At the same time, cross-border export sellers have begun to focus on building international brands, and a group of traditional manufacturers have taken advantage of their quality and craftsmanship advantages to move from offline to online, looking for new business models.
The report predicts that the next 10 years will be the golden age for Chinese brands to go overseas. Cross-border e-commerce has advantages in terms of the speed of brand expansion, resource investment, entry barriers, and operation in multiple overseas markets. Through the integration of various service resources such as logistics, finance, operations, technology, and talent training, building an interconnected localized cross-border e-commerce industry cluster has become a domestic cross-border export trend.
In the future, Amazon will focus on brand registration, brand protection, and brand promotion to provide support for Chinese sellers in brand building and business growth on Amazon.
