The cross-border road is not easy to walk.

Cross-border e-commerce companies are not used to sprinting for IPOs. Since Anker Innovations successfully registered on the GEM, more and more cross-border big sellers have begun to seek IPOs in A – shares . Cross-border big sellers such as Ou Technology have squeezed into the IPO road .

But the road to IPO was not easy. It took two or three years and many inquiries, and all the problems in the early stage of operation needed to be solved one by one. Taking Tristate as an example, its GEM IPO review status has been displayed as " suspended " many times. Recently, after updating financial materials, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange resumed its review .

An average of 838 new products are developed every day, and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange resumes the review of the IPO application of the three-state shares

Previously, because the financial information recorded in the IPO application documents had expired and had to be supplemented, according to relevant regulations, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange suspended the issuance and listing review of Shenzhen Tristate E – Commerce Co. , Ltd.

After completing the update of financial information recently , the Shenzhen Stock Exchange resumed the review of the issuance and listing of three-state shares .

Due to a number of administrative penalties during the reporting period, including overdue tax declarations, high-risk loopholes in the system, etc., and because cross-border sellers are generally banned by platforms such as Amazon for "swiping orders and swiping reviews", the Shenzhen Stock Exchange also imposes sanctions on the three states. There are many doubts about the shares, which has also led to its IPO being repeatedly suspended since it submitted its listing application in June last year.

In fact, this is not the first time Tristate shares have been listed. In 2016, Tristate was also listed on the New Third Board, but after completing asset restructuring, it did not move to the A-share market until last year .

As a distribution -type big seller, the sales categories of Tristate Co., Ltd. cover 5 major categories and 17 subcategories, including fashion trends, tools and accessories, home life, digital technology, and hobbies, with nearly 100 sub-categories and more than 20 sales channels. A global and regional e-commerce platform, covering consumers in more than 200 countries.

According to its updated financial information, from 2019 to the first half of 2022, the SKUs that Tristate shares will still sell on various platforms are 656,300 , 599,700, 669,400, and 793,700 respectively . Among them, the average number of SKUs removed from shelves every day is 302, 437, 309, and 152, while the average number of newly developed SKUs per day is 648, 283, 500, and 838 .

More than 800 products are developed in a day , so the bonus period of popular products is getting shorter and shorter, but this is the characteristic of distribution-type sellers. In order to develop market dividend products faster and more accurately, Tri-State is also paying more and more attention to the construction of technology platforms.

It is understood that in the past three years, the average number of information technology personnel in Tristate has reached 21.98% . The company divides new product development into multiple links such as product selection, supplier selection, sample procurement, information editing, and putting on shelves . Pipeline -like operation greatly speeds up the development of new products.

There are also many suppliers required for the development of a large number of new products . It is understood that the company has more than 10,000 active suppliers , and the procurement mode includes online and offline dual channels, while online procurement is mainly completed through 1688 .

Not only sell products on the e-commerce platform, but also developed cross-border logistics business in 2009, and formed most of the integration in sales and delivery .

Tri-State Shares Share of Amazon’s Sales Declines Year-Over-Year

Last year , Amazon 's " banning tide " was vigorous , and many sellers engaged in cross-border e-commerce business were affected. Now, Amazon is paying more and more attention to compliance management, and the crackdown is getting stronger and stronger.

Although Tri-State shares have not been affected by the tide of Amazon’s title ban, its latest financial data shows that the proportion of Tri-State shares ’ sales on Amazon is declining.

In this regard, Tristate shares stated that Amazon’s share has declined year by year because of the expansion of new business growth points such as Southeast Asia and other regions, as well as the vigorous development of platforms such as Wish and AliExpress. This may be a manifestation of its intention to reduce its dependence on Amazon.

At present, the number of stores of Tristate shares on Amazon is maintained at 10, which is consistent with 2019. The difference is that in 2019, only 2 of its Amazon stores were self-owned, and the other 8 were third-party stores. Until last year, Its large-scale acquisitions of third-party stores on various platforms have become its own. Currently, it has 10 self-owned stores on platforms such as Amazon, AliExpress, and Wish, with a total of 93 stores.

According to the latest version of financial information, the sales of Tri-State shares on Amazon accounted for 47.78% of the total sales in 2019 , then plummeted to 29.06% in 2020, rebounded to 35.88% in 2021, and fell again in the first half of this year to 33.21% . At the same time, the proportion of its sales on AliExpress, Shopee and other platforms has increased year by year, from 4.29% and 1.02% in 2019 to 12.82% and 15.18% in the first half of this year.

For a long time, the vast majority of cross-border sales have relied too heavily on Amazon-based third-party platforms , which has caused serious damage to their title bans last year .

Taking Zebao as an example, because its revenue on Amazon accounted for more than 90% of its total revenue , many of its brands were blocked in the wave of title bans last year, which caused the performance of Zebao and its parent company Xinghui shares to suffer heavy losses. It shows that in 2021, the revenue of Xinghui shares will decrease by 33.74% year-on-year, and the net profit loss will be 1.524 billion yuan, of which the revenue of cross-border e-commerce business will decrease by 46.02% year-on-year. Until this year, performance growth has not yet returned to the right track .

There are also Kuajietong, Youkeshu, Tongtuo Technology, etc. that have also been greatly affected by the tide of Amazon’s title ban. Although the three-state shares have not been affected, Amazon's supervision is becoming increasingly stringent, so it is normal for it to make efforts on other platforms.

The brand image of the distribution type is weak, and the user stickiness is low

Due to the low requirements for product selection and operational capabilities, the early distribution model is very popular with cross-border sellers. Taking Youkeshu as an example, in 2020, its SKUs for sale once reached 1 million, and the total number of stores on Amazon, eBay, and Wish platforms was 3,873 .

Due to the pan-category and hot pursuit of popular products, these distributions do not have their own brand effect, and consumers are not sticky.

Taking Tristate as an example, according to the results of IT verification, most of the company’s e-commerce customers only placed an order once on the same platform, and the proportion of orders placed more than 5 times in the past years (2019-2022 first half year) accounted for only 0.69% , 0.54%, 0.51% and 0.26% . Obviously, due to the lack of branding, the possibility of consumers repurchasing is extremely low.

Not only that, ignoring brand building is also one of the main reasons why these big sellers stumbled in the wave of title titles and continued to suffer subsequent performance damage . Due to relying on a single third-party platform and failing to establish brand awareness in the market , customer churn has intensified. Of course, swiping reviews and swiping orders is also a manifestation of these big sellers not paying attention to protecting their brand image.

At present, these distribution-type big sellers are in urgent need of " transformation " to build a brand image by diversifying distribution channels, improving product productivity and user stickiness . Previously, due to the early transformation of Anker Innovation, it became one of the few survivors in the wave of Amazon titles .

Nowadays , Lege, Anker Innovation, and Zibuyu in the A-share market have all established their own brands on Amazon and successfully opened up the European and American markets . They also deploy independent station business and become an important sales channel and growth curve for the company. Taking Lege as an example, its independent station revenue will reach 527 million yuan in 2021 , accounting for 18.35% of the total revenue.

In addition, the Saiwei era, which was held in June this year, has focused on " branding " since 2016 . Its prospectus shows that during the reporting period, LDK has incubated 50 self-owned brands with revenues exceeding 10 million yuan , including 19 brands including menswear brand Coofandy, underwear brand Avidlove, and sports equipment brand ANCHEER . .

The road to branding is a long way to go, and there are still many tests for distributors to gain a foothold in overseas markets, but it is expected that more and more cross-border e-commerce companies will focus on brand building in the future .