No one can shake Amazon

Under the cross-border tuyere, the highest flying is still Amazon!

This time of year is the time when the report cards of various industries are "released". Not long ago, the customs released the data of mainland cross-border e-commerce in the first three quarters of 2023: exports of 1.3 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.7%.

Compared with the "years" when you could buy a luxury house in Shenzhen Bay in a good year, the 17.7% growth of cross-border e-commerce in the third quarter of this year is not too impressive, but in the basic context of the overall growth of domestic e-commerce falling into a slow down, the significance of this 17.7% growth is very different.

Especially from the perspective of the entire e-commerce industry, on the one hand, domestic e-commerce is now becoming more and more precarious;

And when the cross-border e-commerce business is still growing steadily, who is the biggest beneficiary at this time?

On the one hand, in Amazon's global cross-border business, the performance of Chinese sellers is still very eye-catching.

According to the latest data revealed by Amazon, throughout 2023, the number of products sold by Chinese sellers to consumers and enterprise customers through Amazon's global site will increase by more than 20% year-on-year. Among them, the number of Chinese sellers with sales of more than $1 million on Amazon's global site increased by more than 25% year-on-year, and the number of Chinese sellers with sales of more than $10 million increased by nearly 30% year-on-year.

On the other hand, Amazon's overall development continues to rise.

Amazon's financial report for the third quarter of 2023 shows that during the financial reporting period, Amazon achieved revenue of $143.1 billion, a year-on-year increase of 13%, operating profit of $11.2 billion, a fourfold increase from $2.5 billion in the same period last year, and a net profit of $9.9 billion, also tripled from $2.9 billion in the same period last year.

Source: E-commerce News

In China, many e-commerce platforms have long fallen into the dilemma of revenue growth, but profits are no longer there.

Amazon's volume is already large, and the growth rate has not yet fallen, and the gap between one in and one out and the domestic platform has been pulled out.

If this development continues, Amazon's attraction to Chinese cross-border sellers may not weaken for a long time in the future.

In fact, just two years ago, a statistical agency did a survey, and the data at that time showed that 60% of Chinese cross-border sellers were the first choice for doing business with Amazon.

Speaking of which, it is not surprising that these Chinese cross-border sellers made such a choice, after all, Amazon, as the United States and the world's largest e-commerce platform, itself has the regional advantages of cross-border e-commerce.

And that's the core!

If we put the global cross-border e-commerce market into a comprehensive score by profit margin, influence and other dimensions, the North American market is undoubtedly the first gear, with more than 80% of sellers hoping to do business in the North American market, followed by Europe and Southeast Asia.

In the North American market, Amazon is a god-like existence and has almost achieved a monopoly position. All other e-commerce platforms, including those in the United States, may be difficult to match Amazon in terms of profit performance.

For example, in this year's Black Friday in the United States, Amazon's sales were as high as 106.1 billion US dollars, Walmart and Apple ranked second and third, followed by target, eBay, and best buy, among them, Wal-Mart, which ranked second, had a transaction volume of $20.3 billion, and the sales of the sixth-ranked best buy were $6.2 billion.

Amazon, on what ground?

Let's also briefly analyze why so many Chinese sellers choose the Amazon platform when doing cross-border business?

First of all, the advantage of traffic + volume.

You know, Amazon has been operating in this field for more than 20 years, after these years of development, the platform has accumulated a strong traffic advantage, Chinese sellers want to open up the United States, Europe and other high unit price markets, Amazon has prepared all the infrastructure and operational tools for them, Amazon is naturally the first choice.

Of course, in addition to the huge user group, Amazon is also the largest in the world, and different types of merchants can find greater development space on Amazon. For example, even if it is a very subdivided category, as long as you have good quality and are liked by overseas consumer groups, you can still create a sales myth on Amazon.

Secondly, a sound business model.

In recent years, some domestic cross-border platforms have been practicing the "custody model", or the first "semi-custody model". In fact, this model has been applied in Amazon for a long time. Those who are familiar with cross-border e-commerce business know that Amazon adopts the FBA model in cross-border business, that is, sellers can put goods in Amazon's warehouse, and Amazon is responsible for packaging and logistics.

You know, Amazon has its own sites in nearly 70 countries around the world, most of which are located in North America, Asia-Pacific and Europe.

Source: E-commerce News

In addition, the system is stricter, and powerful businesses are likely to rush out.

In terms of platform system, Amazon does not advocate order swiping, and there is no through train. Therefore, on the Amazon platform, it is difficult to expel good money from bad money, as long as the merchant operates legally, honest and trustworthy, for example, it is not difficult to make money through Amazon's advertising drainage and participate in more marketing activities held by the platform during publicity.

Of course, Amazon's ability to become the world's e-commerce hegemon cannot be summed up in a few simple sentences, but these successful experiences have at least given clear guidance to more cross-border platforms in terms of operation.

China's cross-border platform redistributes the global cross-border market?

There is still a long way to go!

Since April 2021, the waves set off by the "Amazon account banning action" have quickly put Chinese sellers, who occupy half of the entire Amazon country, in a storm.

At that time, affected by the ban incident, from the "Four Youths of South China City" to the "Five Tigers of Bantian", from Aoji, Tongtuo, Zebao and other big sellers to tens of thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises, they were all facing huge challenges.

At that time, many people said that Chinese sellers needed a new way out to do cross-border e-commerce. For example, build your own independent station, switch to other platforms, etc.

However, it is even more difficult to break away from the Amazon platform and take a new path!

For example, self-built independent stations, the collocation of architecture, the cost of drainage, after-sales service, etc., are not one or two points higher than Amazon's ready-made system.

For another example, moving to other platforms, in addition to repeatedly asking sellers for service fees, stipulating that they must use the express logistics services designated by the platform but not very efficient, the final effect is still far from what was promised before.

After two years of vacillation, many people have found that Amazon is still the most stable business platform for Chinese cross-border sellers.

In fact, after the Amazon account ban incident, the data also shows that the proportion of Chinese sellers' sales on Amazon has not changed much.

The reason is simple, the number of cross-border sellers in China is large enough, and if some people leave, more people will soon fill in.

Of course, while Amazon continues to grow, some domestic cross-border e-commerce platforms have no intention of disarming.

China's cross-border e-commerce "four tigers", represented by Temu and TikTok, are becoming a new force in global cross-border e-commerce.

图源：Tik Tok Shop跨境电商公众号

So much so that some people still fantasize: Can our cross-border e-commerce platform take advantage of the "Amazon account ban incident" to redistribute the cross-border market in one go?

So, do domestic e-commerce platforms really have this strength?

For example, Pinduoduo's revenue growth in recent years is inseparable from the contribution of its overseas business Temu.

Although there is still a huge gap between Temu's transaction volume and profit performance and Amazon's, Temu's expansion momentum is still very strong, and Temu has Temu sites in almost all places where Amazon has layout.

Of course, as mentioned above, the "first level" of global cross-border e-commerce, the North American and European markets are still high unit price markets.

Therefore, from a strategic point of view, most of China's cross-border e-commerce "four tigers" will take a cost-effective route before they really stand firm in these markets, but in the end, they still have to compete with Amazon at a high price, and finally make the value of China's cross-border e-commerce platform.

This also means that the future transformation of these cross-border e-commerce platforms from China will be particularly difficult, and the time may be longer.

Therefore, the most realistic attitude now: in the face of Amazon, which has a market value of up to $16,000, China's cross-border e-commerce platform should not talk about redistributing the global cross-border market at this time: their overseas journey has just begun!

Author | Charlie