This article is compiled from the program "Dean's Training Room" of Yicai Business School, from the WeChat public account: Yicai Business School (ID: yicai_shangxue01), author: Yicai Business School, guests: Li Guibin (CEO of Aotai Technology), Li Mengke (Director of E-commerce Brand Operation of Rongheng Company), Zhang Jieyun (Founder and CEO of Yinsai Information Technology), original title: "Yicai Business School Premiere, what did you say about the "Going to Sea Strategy"?", the title picture comes from: Visual China
One
Q: What are the priorities and solutions to the problems of brands going overseas?
A: First of all, the brand has occupied a certain position in the minds of foreign consumers, and the product must pass the test.
Secondly, based on the understanding of the local area, the test hurdle has passed, and it is necessary to pay attention to "the market - optimize the independent website, be more localized - make content and make social media full", which is the biggest challenge for the brand.
Third, consolidate their own supply chain, if it is not its own supply chain, the price may not be able to beat the supply chain of overseas merchants.
Fourth, how to rationally allocate the budget is a problem that must be faced.
At the moment of establishing their own moat, what exactly do they want to build? Some supply chain merchants have newly entered the battlefield, and they are thinking about getting quick results. Some are mature and should consider strengthening their moats.
When merchants choose to go overseas, there are many platforms to choose from, and there are many models on the platform. At the same time, China's manufacturing has different forms of supply, and it is necessary to find its own suitable platform and method.
Q: We look at the main overseas platforms, how do you think they did last year?
A: If you look at some data, it is basically from a seller to a platform volume.
If you compare by the progress bar of the platform, exclude TikTok first, because it is a social e-commerce, not a traditional e-commerce. AliExpress, SHEIN, and Temu combined, in terms of traffic, are half of Amazon's. If you look at GMV, it is also an order of magnitude difference compared to Amazon.
Q: In the proposition of going to sea, many times it is the process of "merchants looking for platforms, and platforms looking for merchants", what are your suggestions?
A: The first is the target market, the second is the type of platform, the third is the self-inspection of qualifications, the fourth is the cost, according to the ability, and the fifth is the function of the platform.
Two
Q: If you want to build an independent station, what preparations should merchants make?
A: It is divided into 5 modules:
1. Clarify the target market and user positioning, and provide direction for website construction;
2. Pay attention to website design and user experience to ensure the smooth flow of payment and logistics;
3. Prepare attractive website content, such as product introduction, brand story, etc.;
4. Develop marketing strategies to attract traffic, such as SEO optimization, social media promotion, etc.;
5. Continuously monitor the performance of the website, collect user feedback and improve it.
Q: Where does the traffic come from?
A: The most common type of independent website drainage is SEO (search engine optimization), which is divided into four steps:
1. Keyword optimization: Find popular keywords related to your products and optimize them in the content of your website, titles, product descriptions, etc. Then put the keywords in Google Ads for secondary conversion.
2. Website structure optimization: Make sure that the website structure is clear and easy for search engines to crawl, including optimizing the URL structure, optimizing the code, building a web map, etc.
3. Content optimization: Continuously update high-quality content, including product descriptions, blog posts, etc., to attract search engine crawlers and provide valuable information to users.
4. External links: Getting high-quality external links can help improve your website's ranking in search engines, such as partnering with well-known vertical media.
Q: What is the measurement of whether traffic is expensive or cheap?
A: Whether an ad is worth investing in is generally done in two ways:
1. Calculate ROI (input-output ratio): For example, if you spend $100 and produce $500 in sales, the ROI is 5. The higher the ROI, the more we will spend on advertising and bring more profits.
2. ACOS = ad spend（广告投入） / sales revenue（销售额）：想要保证广告盈利，ACOS就必须低于利润率。
When ACOS = profit margin, it means breakeven, no profit and no loss, when ACOS > profit margin, it means loss, and when ACOS < profit margin, it means profit.
Three
Q: What are the characteristics of the Four Little Dragons?
A: The four dragons in 2023 will be based on the full custody model as a whole, the platform controls the traffic, the merchants control the product quality and supply chain, the platform will promote according to the data, the merchants are more worry-free, and the disadvantage is that the ability to control sales is relatively weak.
TikTok: Two modes, one is TikTok shop, many local accounts in the United States are doing it, more like Douyin in China, find some big V anchors to bring goods, or go live broadcast by yourself, etc.;
SHEIN: In the past two or three years, it has risen relatively fast, mainly in the fully managed mode, as well as ODM and OBM models, which have relatively high requirements for supply chain capabilities, the platform has strict quality control, good user experience, and large traffic.
TEMU: The pioneer of full custody, the advantages are large traffic, fast growth of single volume, high requirements for the supply chain, and sensitive product price.
AliExpress: It can be used as a position for the brand, which is equivalent to the domestic Taobao. AliExpress has also adjusted a lot of models, including self-operated full custody, semi-custody, the most fundamental reason is to adapt to more diverse merchants, sellers are factories, some are brands, some are dealers and so on.
Q: How do overseas social media platforms do marketing?
A: Facebook and Instagram: Both belong to Meta's ecosystem, with a large number of users, which can provide accurate ad targeting, and the brand can target according to user interests and behaviors. Support text, pictures, videos and other forms of content publishing.
YouTube: Growing up in Google's ecosystem, it is more in line with the logic of search engines, and is suitable for long-term traffic and brand promotion video placement.
TikTok: Users are younger, the content form is mainly short videos, and the content life cycle is short, so it needs to keep up with hot topics and quickly iterate on materials.
Twitter (X): Mainly text-based content, the content is updated quickly, and the latest product and event information can be released in a timely manner.
Pinterest: Mainly based on image sharing, the conversion rate is relatively high, and it is suitable for product display and promotion. Content has a long lifecycle and can continue to attract traffic.
Four
Q: How to solve the inventory problem?
A: If a company can't solve the inventory problem, it is difficult to make a profit, which can be divided into two aspects:
First, optimize the supply chain, that is, the flexible supply chain. Predict product sales; according to the product production cycle, predict the timing of overturning orders and increasing quantities; when the product is unsalable or the sales cycle is about to end, it is necessary to do a good job in marketing strategy and quickly clear the warehouse.
It is generally divided into several data: on sale, in warehouse, and on the production line. Operations need to do a good job of these three data, do a good job of daily data analysis, and hand over the data to the factory, and the factory will produce quantitatively according to this data. Once there is a hit, we will calculate the amount according to the increase of the hit, and then give a larger stage. That's our first way.
The more difficult point is that products with long production cycles, such as winter clothes and bags, may take 20 days to 2 months to ship. The traditional business is to order in the first half of the year and ship in the second half of the year, but e-commerce has not taken so long.
When our first batch of products came up, it was basically a test model, and the amount was not large. It is necessary to operate an analysis of this product, and for potential explosive models, a sufficient amount should be given in advance, but this amount is not the largest. It is necessary to predict the output according to the production cycle in advance. What's more important is targeted promotion.
On the other hand, with the increase in styles, it is inevitable that there will be some unsalable products. Therefore, there are more tracks, there are some products that are suitable for platform A, some products that are suitable for platform B, and some platforms that are responsible for clearance, etc. We do a good job of overall planning, so that the entire inventory is benign. Especially when there is a hit, in order to do performance, we must be more bold to do this investment, plus some advertising, pay on the platform traffic, and the order volume will come up quickly.
Q: What are the logistics skills? (Take UCALingerie as an example)
A：1. UCALingerie's factories are in Shandong and Bangladesh in China, if you choose domestic warehouses:
Advantages: Centralized management, improved inventory visibility and management efficiency.
Disadvantages: Need to deal with customs clearance and cross-border transportation and other issues, the time cycle is long, and the delivery cycle may be increased.
2. Our co founders are in Charlotte, USA, if building overseas warehouse:
Advantages: close to the target U.S. and Canadian markets, it can shorten the logistics time, improve the distribution speed, avoid customs clearance and other problems, and reduce transportation costs.
Disadvantages: High costs, including warehousing fees, management fees, etc., need to deal with local logistics and distribution issues, involving complex cross-border transportation processes.
After comprehensive consideration, the brand decided to ship large goods to Charlotte in the United States by sea or DHL international small packages, and adopted a self-built warehouse model to create a good user shopping experience. Amazon's goods should be sent to the FBA warehouse, and some of them are shipped directly to users through the US warehouse.
Q: What are the basic methods to create a hit?
A：1. Data analysis + product analysis, select potential hits. Common popular models - wide audience and more cost-effective. According to the target country market, data analysis is carried out to analyze the small hits and further promote them.
2. In terms of traffic, data, vision, and inventory, support and increase volume. When the real hit data is more beautiful, or when the ROI is very beautiful, we will increase our promotion efforts, increase investment in this product, and even make the price more cost-effective, or give a greater breakthrough in advertising traffic.
3. Form a matrix of popular models. This model is originally two colors, but it sells very well, and we will give more colors to produce a popular matrix.
4. The core of creating a hit is the supply chain capability. Many times, price is already sensitive, because the competition is very fierce. When we were testing, we didn't have inventory or didn't want to produce more unsalable. Predict which model in the data, and then make more preparations in advance in the supply chain. In the end, we give it greater service value in production and traffic, and then produce this explosive model, all of which are indispensable.
Q: How to distinguish between the two propositions of "brand going overseas" and "cross-border e-commerce"?
A：1. From UCA's point of view, cross-border going overseas has gone through three stages in the past 30 years: from OEM products going overseas, to building production bases, building UCA Design workshops, realizing ODM, and starting brand overseas OBM in 2021.
2. Aotai Technology believes that there are three stages for brands to go overseas:
First, survival. Most sellers need to increase sales by selling goods first, so that they are in a benign stage.
Second, sales breakthroughs. Let more users consume our products.
Third, convey emotional value. We should analyze ourselves according to the different stages of the enterprise and whether we should be a brand. Because once it comes to promoting the brand, there may be a word called "throwing money". In the final analysis, do we act first and then believe, or believe first and then act? In fact, in the end, we all want to do volume, make profits, and make brands.
In the global consumption downgrade, in an increasingly competitive environment, with the continuous change of the platform, we merchants must first take action, and finally go to the brand.
This article is from the WeChat public account: Yicai Business (ID: yicai_shangxue01), author: Yicai Business, guests: Li Guibin (CEO of Aotai Technology), Li Mengke (Director of E-commerce Brand Operation of Rongheng Company), Zhang Jieyun (Founder and CEO of Yinsai Information Technology)
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