Cross-border e-commerce copywriters, translators, and models are affected How did ChatGPT take away the job?

Per reporter: Wen Qiao Per editor: Lan Suying

At the beginning of this year, the east wind of ChatGPT not only blew to the domestic technology circle, but also to many subdivisions including cross-border e-commerce.

Qian Dazhu, a senior seller of cross-border e-commerce engaged in beauty, wigs and other categories, revealed in an interview with the "Daily Economic News" reporter that the wig model that once cost tens of thousands of yuan to win the real shot, now relies on ChatGPT and Midjourney, only 10 minutes to generate several versions, "and the measured simulation shows that the AI drawing will be more realistic than the real shot, and the rendering is definitely better than the manual shooting." ”

"The company has cut most copywriting, and the basic English editors can now be completely eliminated. We used to have five or six people in the copywriting department, and now there is only one person left. Li Shaofeng, who has been deeply engaged in the field of cross-border e-commerce for 11 years, told reporters, "It (ChatGPT) helps translate and do product editing, which is fast and good, and the accuracy is very high." ”

Qian Dazhu experienced a similar situation. "In December last year, we were going to expand the number of people in the team, but so far this year there have been basically no recruits, and it would be good not to reduce the number of personnel at this time."

E-commerce translators and models are hit

In December last year, Qian Dazhu became the "first person to eat crabs", he tried to use ChatGPT to write product introductions, that is, product specifications and models, applicable scenarios, applicable people, selling points, etc., and used them to translate. After trying it out, he found that the tool could solve a long-standing problem in the cross-border e-commerce field for several years - the translation problem. "It may seem like a translation problem, but it's a game-changer for our industry, because translation is a long-term problem that affects sales." Qian Dazhu explained to reporters.

"In our industry, there is a profession called e-commerce translation. In order to be a global brand and ensure the accuracy of translation, many e-commerce companies will hire overseas returnees (as translators). But the cost of such employees is high, and small companies cannot afford to support them. He said.

For Qian Dazhu, who started with a small team, before the advent of ChatGPT, using machine translation was a more cost-effective option. "In the past, Google Translate and Baidu Translate had more or less grammatical errors, and for some countries with strict requirements for vocabulary accuracy, such as Germany and Japan, grammatical errors will affect dispatch and sales. But after ChatGPT came out, we didn't have any more grammatical errors. ”

"Cross-border e-commerce has a very large demand for the volume of such texts, because the same product has to be sold to many different countries, so it has to be translated into different languages, and ChatGPT has greatly improved efficiency." Qian Dazhu told reporters.

Li Shaofeng began using AI tools like ChatGPT in March this year, and now his employees are actively learning to use various AI tools. He also admitted to reporters that today's AI is fully capable of the copywriting and translation required for cross-border e-commerce operations.

"In fact, our company has laid off quite a few people, and now many basic English editors can be completely eliminated. There were 5~6 people in the copywriting department before, but now there is only 1 person left. Li Shaofeng said, "AI does translation, product editing, fast and good, and very accurate." ”

In the field of cross-border e-commerce, AI is also seizing the highland of models and photographers. The two respondents told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that another AI function commonly used by cross-border e-commerce sellers is Wensheng Tu, that is, using ChatGPT to generate prompt words, and then generating product pictures in different scenarios through tools such as Midjourney.

"This kind of photo used to be taken by a model, but now it doesn't need to be lighted and retouched by a special photographer, and we can generate several versions in 10 minutes, and the results are much better than real people." Finally, the e-commerce operation personnel can directly select and put it on the shelf. Qian Dazhu shared.

In Qian Dazhu's view, in the future, professions such as e-commerce translators and models will slowly become more difficult to accept orders. However, he believes that AI cannot replace the seller in the live broadcast room for the time being. "Human anchors will mobilize fans' emotions and answer some questions in a timely manner based on timely feedback from the live broadcast room." He explained, "Although people make mistakes, they also bring a sense of intimacy, these are things written in genes, and AI can't do it." ”

AI brings down overall costs for sellers

For copywriters, translators, models and other professions in the field of cross-border e-commerce, the emergence of AI has squeezed out their original space. But for sellers across cross-border e-commerce, the cost reduction and revenue increase brought by AI are also very welcome.

Qian Dazhu said frankly in an interview with reporters that it originally took a day to find a foreign model to take a set of pictures, in addition to lighting and shooting required man-hours and labor costs, retouching also required costs, which was higher than the cost of shooting.

"Retouching requires a combination of hair strands, little by little, and the whole process is very complicated. After a set, the worst designer studios on the market are thousands of dollars. If you want to be high-end, you can't do without tens of thousands of dollars. He told reporters, "But AI now works better than designers in 10 minutes, why do you say we still use designers?" ”

Qian Dazhu explained to reporters with a set of actual data of the company, "The original team was composed of 5 people, even very experienced employees can do up to two products on the shelves in a day. But now, the leader of a group can generate product descriptions in multiple languages in only about 30 minutes, and then distribute these product descriptions, and the number of products on the shelves in a day can be almost 3~4 times, or even higher. ”

AI's Wen Sheng Tu function has also brought tangible benefits to Li Shaofeng's company. He told reporters, "We used to build a website, including editing, art retouching, web page layout, etc., it took about 4~5 people, 2~3 months to go online on a website, but now only 2~3 people, at most half a month can be online." ”

"Now as long as you correctly master the new AI tools, in the field of e-commerce, one person can equal a team." Li Shaofeng described it this way.

With the help of AI tools, the benefits of cross-border e-commerce are also very considerable. "In March and April this year, our performance increased by more than 200% compared to the same period last year." Qian Dazhu revealed that since the beginning of ChatGPT in December last year, it has basically achieved year-on-year growth in performance every month.

"The increase in performance is not only due to the increase in work efficiency, but also because of the increase in customer repeat purchase rate brought about by optimizing and adjusting product pages." Qian Dazhu further explained, "There is a very important algorithm in e-commerce operations, if the customer repurchase rate of a product is relatively high, then it will push the product's push traffic or search volume, also called DC, and it will also save advertising costs in disguise." ”

How will e-commerce platforms survive in the future?

With the convenience brought by ChatGPT, overseas, well-known e-commerce companies such as Shopify, Instacart, and Klarna have been connected to ChatGPT; In China, more and more cross-border e-commerce companies have begun to actively embrace AI. Li Shaofeng revealed to reporters, "Most of the companies I know are using AI, and there should be a proportion of 60%~70%. ”

Li Shaofeng also compared the use of AI tools by domestic and foreign e-commerce companies, and believes that China still has a long way to go. He said, "There is still a big gap between domestic and foreign countries. From the underlying logic is different, foreign countries are the production of AI tools, through ChatGPT and produced many subdivision tools, such as making pictures, making videos, cutting videos. However, the domestic application is still in the most basic and has not yet been fully popularized. ”

In the face of the huge wave of AI, the attitude of the two respondents to AI is very consistent - AI is the trend of the times, and embracing AI is the only way to respond. "All we can do is learn the AI tool, build our own Noah's Ark, and then drive it, not be harnessed by it." Li Shaofeng said.

With the rapid iteration of AI technology, Qian Dazhu also expects that the entire cross-border e-commerce industry will usher in greater changes. "I personally estimate that at the end of this year or the beginning of next year, all sellers in the cross-border e-commerce industry will need to use AI to sell goods." He told the "Daily Economic News" reporter. "Even with the emergence of more AI tools, these e-commerce platforms may not exist in the future." Even if it still exists, the sales volume of these e-commerce platforms will not mainly come from the organic flow or advertising flow of the original e-commerce platform, but from the search volume of GPT. ”

Is the same problem facing the use of AI-generated text and images in cross-border e-commerce? The answer is currently unknown. However, both respondents said that the issue needed further observation due to the short period of use to identify the risks associated with copyright for the time being.

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