In 2023, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports will reach 2.38 trillion yuan, an increase of 15.6%, and have become an important force in the development of China's foreign trade. In recent years, the Chinese government has continued to promote innovation in systems, management and services, promote the healthy, sustained and rapid development of cross-border e-commerce, and support foreign trade enterprises to expand sales channels through cross-border e-commerce.
Under the general trend, more and more traditional B2B enterprises are turning to cross-border e-commerce, and new ways and trends in the industry are also emerging. In the context of the evolution of the "AI + cross-border e-commerce" industry, how can merchants and platforms embrace the era of artificial intelligence at full speed? With the gradual rise of customer-centric consumption concepts, how will the supply chain play the greatest role?How can social e-commerce empower cross-border e-commerce B2B?......
On March 26, the 2024 APEC SME Cross-border E-commerce Summit and the Annual Merchant Conference of DHgate Group was held in Shenzhen, bringing a new professional interpretation of the future trend and growth points of the cross-border e-commerce B2B track.
New changes in cross-border e-commerce B2B: supply chain migration, overseas social e-commerce development......
The shift of global commercial procurement to online is the general trend, and the scale of cross-border e-commerce B2B market continues to grow.
1. There is a trend of dispersion and migration in the supply chain, and the original big B procurement is moving closer to the small B procurement. There are more and more cases looking for industrial source cooperation on the Dunhuang platform, and good services and products are the key to contributing to the transaction rate.
2. The development of overseas social e-commerce requires a rapid response from the supply chain. There is no shortage of mass products in overseas markets, but there is a lack of creative, high-quality and cost-effective special products, and the growing number of online celebrities with goods needs more mature B2B2C services - all of which put forward new requirements for China's cross-border e-commerce platforms to integrate localized supply capacity, pallet scale and fulfillment quality. Sellers also need to respond quickly to customer needs, strategically select products, and quickly turn over orders to adapt to the explosive growth brought about by the Internet celebrity economy.
3. The needs of B2B procurement are increasingly similar to those of B2C consumers, who expect the same logistics experience, quality control and service as local e-commerce platforms such as Amazon.
Li Chun, co-CEO of DHgate
Li Chun, co-CEO of DHgate, said: "AI technology + quality supply chain services will change the pattern of going overseas in the next ten years. ”
Provide one-stop solutions at the supply side, logistics side, technology AI and supply chain finance levels, actively embrace the new trend of cross-border e-commerce B2B development, seize the opportunity to seize the commanding heights of future development, and become the focus of cross-border e-commerce platforms. In the next three years, DHgate Group will focus on promoting the upgrading of consumer experience, the overseas service of brands and carefully selected suppliers, the acquisition of Class B customers in new consumption scenarios, the optimization of B2B industry vertical large models and the development of AIGC applications, so as to help merchants accelerate their overseas expansion.
The platform has been upgraded to promote the upgrading of consumer experience
As online traffic becomes more expensive, competition among sellers is becoming fiercer. Whoever can attract and retain enough consumers will be the winner. Industry research shows that user experience has a huge impact on purchase decisions, and 86% of buyers will stop placing orders after experiencing a bad shopping experience. At the same time, IRP Commerce data shows that the cost of e-commerce customer acquisition has increased year by year, and in January 2024, the cost of e-commerce visitors increased by 19.40% year-on-year.
Improving the quality of products and services and upgrading the buyer experience is the lowest cost and most efficient performance growth path for merchants at a time when the industry competition is unprecedentedly fierce. It just so happens that the core strategy of DHgate in 2024 is to upgrade the experience and investment, and the platform should continue to work together with merchants to let each customer buy one more order.
Shen Xiaoyan, Vice President of Investment Promotion and Category Operations of DHgate
DHgate will ensure the improvement of user experience from three aspects: merchants, commodities and fulfillment.
In terms of merchants, we will focus on the source supply of the industrial belt, establish an industrial belt operation center offline, build an exclusive channel for the industrial belt online, and incubate 1,000 powerful businesses in the industrial belt to achieve direct supply from the source of the industrial belt;
In terms of products, the quality of the buyer's experience will directly affect the stratification of goods, and by matching different levels of rights and interests, the closed-loop traffic of high-quality products will be opened.
In terms of fulfillment, we will achieve 100% online logistics in 2024, continue to enrich the "X-day delivery" and late compensation products, and greatly improve the certainty of fulfillment.
For products that meet the needs of good business, good products and good services, DHgate officially launched the "Pick Plan", which will create 1 million Pick products in 2024 and provide them with a series of traffic gain rights and interests to ensure that the traffic tilt obtained will increase by more than 70%.
Supply chain service upgrades to help merchants grasp the new trend of going overseas
At present, the group of online celebrities with goods is growing more and more, domestic brands and factories want to open up new incremental markets through social platforms such as TikTok, and more and more overseas Internet celebrities and content creators also want to directly connect to the Chinese supply chain to realize the rapid realization of fan traffic. There is a trend of convergence between the purchase needs of traditional small B procurement and C type consumers, and better and faster logistics services, order services and B2B2C services are the key for platforms and merchants to maintain their advantages.
Ma Yan, Vice President of Platform Operations of DHgate
DHgate Group continues to develop supply chain services, and the social e-commerce platform MyyShop launched focuses on providing B2B2C ultimate services for overseas Internet celebrities, which can achieve the ultimate timeliness from production and inspection to the destination country in 14 days - complete domestic production in 10 days, complete inspection within 24 hours, and deliver goods from China to overseas warehouses in 4 days.
According to data from DHgate, the transaction scale of Internet celebrities on the platform will account for as much as 30% in 2023, and this amount will continue to increase this year. Using the platform's Internet celebrity resources, many Dunhuang merchants have set up a special operation team to formulate a complete set of operation systems, covering all aspects of Internet celebrity reach and promotion, post-sales and so on. In addition to traditional shelf e-commerce, relying on social influencer e-commerce has successfully found a new way to generate revenue, and one of the merchants will send out more than 10,000 samples in 2023......
Liu Shuohu, vice president of logistics supply chain of DHgate
In addition, in 2023, the logistics fulfillment time of DHgate Group will be shortened by an average of 25%, and the parcel volume will increase by more than 60%.
In the past, when customers purchased oversized products such as kayaks, they could not use normal express delivery and truck services, and they needed to unpack and palletize in Los Angeles and find truck companies to transport them, and they had to go through cumbersome shipping, unpacking, customs declaration, and card delivery processes, and the logistics cost was extremely high, and it was very easy to have problems in import customs declaration. DHmogo, DHmogo, a new B2B cross-border e-commerce platform for the European and American markets, can provide customers with a door-to-door integrated logistics fulfillment solution for sea-rail intermodal transportation, one-stop direct delivery of unusually large goods for customers, and reduce logistics costs by more than 12% under the premise of safe and timely delivery of goods.
AI technology was upgraded, and the first large model in the vertical field of cross-border e-commerce "Feitian" was unveiled
With the continuous iteration of AI technology, cross-border e-commerce platforms and sellers with differentiated AI service capabilities are expected to further consolidate their market share and achieve industry leadership.
The first cross-border e-commerce vertical field model "Feitian" developed by DHgate Group has accumulated data for nearly 20 years, and the number of model parameters has reached the level of 10 billion, which understands the cross-border e-commerce industry scenario better than the general large model, and can more effectively solve the problems of AI illusion and data shift.
Liu Wentao, vice president of the technology center of DHgate
According to the data, after the launch of AI smart product labels and AI short video applications, the conversion rate increased by 53% and 28% respectively, and the product translation of multilingual sites such as German, French and Spanish was optimized through AI intelligent translation, breaking the language barrier and making sales soar by 271%. Next, the seller panel will successively launch new functions and new ways to play, such as AI intelligent coupons, product title selling point generation, intelligent wearing, product video generation, product picture background changing, and intelligent shopping guide robot, which will undoubtedly comprehensively upgrade the user experience of the platform and help merchants achieve a significant increase in conversion rate.
The global B2B e-commerce market is vast, and a number of sellers are taking off
According to third-party research, the global B2B e-commerce market is expected to reach $20.9 trillion in 2027, and the sales of B2B products generated through e-commerce will grow by at least 10% annually by 2025. In the United States, the most important market for cross-border e-commerce, Statista's statistics show that the total retail sales in the United States are expected to reach 7.9 trillion US dollars in 2026, of which the proportion of B2B e-commerce is continuing to rise.
After 20 years of deep cultivation in the industry, DHgate, the first B2B cross-border e-commerce platform serving small and medium-sized enterprises in China, has already grown into the largest Chinese cross-border export B2B e-commerce platform in the US market and the second largest in the world. In 2023, the number of active buyers increased by 57%, and the transaction value increased by 32%.
Shen Xiaoyan, Vice President of Investment Promotion and Category Operations of DHgate
The DHgate platform covers clothing, shoes and hats, furniture, home appliances and other commodities, meeting almost all the needs of consumers at home and abroad. There are huge business opportunities in various categories, such as home furnishing and 3C growth is strong, household sundries have increased by 80% year-on-year, and Chinese brand mobile phones have achieved triple-digit growth year-on-year. In addition, with inflation and the downgrade of global consumption, the growth rate of "provincial" mind-related categories (refurbished machines, affordable brands, big-name replacements, headphones, etc.) is also very obvious. In addition, the strong rise of the young consumer generation in the Z generation, and the strong demand for new designs, new processes, and new fabrics among young people have driven a significant increase in sales of quality, life, and self-pleasing products.
In the face of different markets, the domestic supply chain and small and medium-sized enterprises have different strengths, combined with their own advantages, deep cultivation of the supply chain, polishing product strength, batch after batch of high-quality merchants of Dunhuang network seized the opportunity to take off, and truly built their own buyer loyalty and moat. On the whole, the GM proportion of regular customers in a single store on the platform can reach 54% on average, and some stores even reach 80%.
At present, whether it is the broad development space of the global B2B e-commerce market, or the high-quality merchant Zhuyu in front, it has shown a bright future for players who want to enter this track.