Since last year, the profits of cross-border sellers have been severely eroded by the increase in advertising fees, raw materials, and shipping prices, and there are many loss-making operators. In order to ensure profits, some sellers have streamlined SKUs and scaled down, and the low-cost mom-and-pop store model has once again attracted attention.

In the industry, the top sellers Tongtuo Technology and Price Chain all started as husband and wife businesses, while e-commerce giant Amazon was originally founded by Bezos and his ex- wife McKenzie . A survival mode adapted to the cross-border e-commerce industry.

Yien.com visited several sellers of mom-and-pop stores. These are from our peers. The annual sales range from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars, and they are still able to handle the fierce competition. This time, they showed their business to the outside world.

Sales of over 100 million in 2020, Wang Yun: The company does not need to develop too much

In the first year of the epidemic, many cross-border sellers have soared and earned profits far exceeding expectations. Zhengzhou seller Wang Yun is also one of them. This year, his company's sales exceeded 100 million yuan, reaching a small peak since he entered the industry.

Before contacting cross-border e-commerce, Wang Yun worked as a factory for several years. In 2017, the local postal industrial park held a cross-border e-commerce conference. Wang Yun had no work experience in this area, but he went to see it when he had nothing to do. After that, he learned more industry information and confirmed After realizing the potential of cross-border e-commerce, he acted quickly.

At this time, it is in the dividend period of cross-border e-commerce, and the business on the third-party platform is booming. In April 2017, Wang Yun started his own business and started Wish, focusing on clothing products, and found a Hubei factory for supply on 1688.

"At that time, the platform had a lot of traffic and the sales were also very good. We made clothing. Three months after we started doing it, the maximum number of orders per day was more than 1,000, and the unit price was about 30 US dollars. The refund rate was relatively high, but the gross profit was calculated comprehensively. 25%." Before the second half of 2020, about 80% of Wang Yun's sales came from the Wish channel.

Tasting the sweetness, Wang Yun's company registered an Amazon account at the end of 2018. The store began to operate in January of the following year. When the Spring Festival was approaching at the end of January, the first batch of goods arrived at the warehouse and began to place orders.

In 2019, Wang Yun's company already had 20 or 30 people. His wife, Zhang Yuan, wanted to go out to work after giving birth, but neither of their parents were local. If Zhang Yuan went to work elsewhere, they would not be able to pick up their children to and from school. After comprehensive consideration, Wang Yun suggested that his wife go to the company to do cross-border work together.

Compared with other employees, Zhang Yuan is naturally more conscientious and responsible for the company's business. The two have a clear division of labor. Zhang Yuan is responsible for purchasing and operation, managing account period, price, production cycle, product selection and operation, while Wang Yun is responsible for logistics and warehousing.

Before Zhang Yuan participated in the procurement, many new products developed by the company's employees could not be sold, and all of them were rotten in overseas warehouses. Wang Yun handed over all the procurement control to his wife. Whether it is purchasing or developing new products, Zhang Yuan's operations are more cautious and meticulous, which makes Wang Yun very relieved. At present, the goods purchased by Zhang Yuan are basically not unsellable. Occasionally, there are small batches, which are worth about two or three thousand yuan.

He does not interfere with the business parts and decisions that his wife Zhang Yuan is responsible for, which greatly avoids disputes caused by differences of opinion in the operation of the mom-and-pop store model.

"She can do this category well, which saves me a lot of time to do other things, such as other e-commerce businesses, overseas warehouse docking, and customer service." Wang Yun said, "The pros and cons of mom-and-pop stores depend on the individual. For example, the division of labor needs to be clear, some couples may care about each other, we are not so serious, you can do your things well, and I will take care of mine."

In 2020, the new crown epidemic broke out in the world, and cross-border e-commerce ushered in explosive growth. The sales of Wang Yun's company exceeded 100 million yuan for the first time. But after this peak period, the industry entered a period of correction.

In the second half of 2020, the Wish business of Wang Yun's company began to shrink. Today, the daily sales on the platform are only a few hundred dollars. The Amazon channel has taken the lead, focusing on three categories of beauty, furniture and outdoor. Not long ago, the company also deployed Walmart platform.

Wang Yun estimates that the company's operating income this year is about 50 to 60 million yuan, which is not as good as in previous years, and the situation may be worse in the future. In such an industry environment, the company has shrunk from 30 to 18 this year, and may shrink to 15 later.

"Actually, when we had more than 30 people, there were a lot of ineffective people who could not be brought in at all, and then we kept eliminating them. For example, everyone originally had a product in their hands, but now I eliminate one person and give you this product, and you still do it. If it is not good, then we will eliminate it again, so as to reduce the number of personnel and push profitable products to one person, then this person will definitely make money.”

Having been a cross-border e-commerce company for six years, he is a little worried about the current situation of the industry.

"The platform has blocked sellers too hard in the past two years, and closed the store for no reason. You see what Wish has done now, and the previous fines have sent many people away. Amazon is now closing the store so badly, how many people have fallen. Down, the new account is registered, the second trial is triggered for some reason, and the formal verification can’t pass, so I can’t understand it.”

But the business has to go on. In an inland city, Wang Yun often runs around Shenzhen, Yiwu and other places to synchronize industry information. Next, he hopes that the company will continue to be small and refined. "The company doesn't need to grow too big. If it is too big, it will be very tiring. We will make the existing customized products. If we don't need so many people, it can be easier. The more people, the heavier the burden."

Li Juan: Husband and wife disagree and often quarrel

Different from the model of most husband and wife shops, where the male owner is outside the female owner, Li Juan's cross-border e-commerce business was founded by herself. When a husband and wife are operating together, it is inevitable that disagreements will arise and quarrels will arise.

After graduating from university, Li Juan worked in a B2B business in a foreign trade company. Later, due to problems such as slow issuance of orders and difficulty in getting commissions, she went out to work alone, trying to make a breakthrough in the B2C track. In 2015, she joined the AliExpress platform to start a cross-border e-commerce business and sell home crafts on the platform.

In the early days of the business, Li Juan and her younger brother were under pressure together and worked hard to run the business. They basically packed their bags by themselves. They often worked until the early hours of the morning. After the business improved, they expanded the Alibaba International Station.

From 2015 to 2017, Li Juan's cross-border e-commerce business moved forward steadily, thanks to her control over the selection of products. Li Juan said that the selection of products is the most important thing. Consumers in each country like different styles. In many cases, the styles and colors are tested, and the data is presented after the test. Product selection is also a process of long-term observation. It is not easy to make an explosive model, and it requires long-term observation and testing.

When the development is good, Li Juan can only temporarily leave the company because of fertility problems. At this time, Li Juan's husband joined the company to take over some affairs. During the period, the company also experienced personnel changes. After Li Juan returned to the company after her vacation, the couple began to do cross-border e-commerce business together.

"The advantage of two people working together is that they save labor costs, and they are more dedicated. The relationship between husband and wife is the most stable relationship in entrepreneurship. However, two people will also quarrel because of work, but we have our own areas of responsibility. I am responsible for product and For the overall operation, my husband is responsible for store customer service and handling negative reviews. When there is a conflict, we discuss together and finally decide on a solution." Li Juan introduced.

In 2018, Li Juan heard from a friend in Shanghai that the Amazon platform was growing rapidly, so she quickly opened an account and asked her husband to test the waters. However, due to her unfamiliarity with this platform, her husband was unable to start after staring at it for a few days. Later, Li Juan's company recruited people to try to operate the Amazon store, but because the personnel had no experience, there was no result. Li Juan was busy with the second child, and the store was put on hold.

At the beginning of this year, Li Juan was personally in charge of the operation of the Amazon store. It has been operating for about half a year, and now it has begun to make a profit.

Several aspects of the company's business are jointly participated by the husband and wife. "My husband is a man with a good temper. He is a man of science and engineering. He is conscientious in his work and does not allow mistakes, but business itself has a process of trial and error, and I came from a sales background, and I am willing to rush to the front. We all think that there is a It’s good to have a career, it doesn’t matter how much you earn, just enough to spend.”

When it comes to future development, Li Juan said that she is willing to put more energy on products, and really starts from the needs of consumers. In the future, she will only make a few refined products and build a niche brand, and she has never thought of selling AliExpress. The store with Amazon is very big. The ideal business is a team of three or five people. It sells tens of millions on Amazon a year, and it is good to have a stable profit.

Along the way, Li Juan is very grateful to the cross-border e-commerce industry. She believes that if it weren't for this industry, she might go to graduate school or enter a foreign company, but it's not easy to do. As far as an ordinary person is concerned, with such an online channel, it is enough for the couple to have a stable career together.

Entrepreneurs often work overtime until the early morning, sometimes they can catch up with others to eat breakfast

When it comes to mom-and-pop shops, everyone says that Liang Sixing and Zhou Yun are the better ones in the same city, with "annual sales of over 100 million." Zhou Yun smiled: "They are joking, and they are only tens of millions."

After graduating from university, Zhou Yun worked in mechanical foreign trade. Later, the couple started a business together to do domestic e-commerce. In 2017, the wave of cross-border e-commerce emerged, and publicity about cross-border platforms can be seen everywhere. The two took advantage of the trend to expand their business to the cross-border field, and they deserved an additional sales channel.

With the e-commerce experience of domestic Alibaba-based platforms, the two took AliExpress as an entry point, and opened Wish and Amazon stores in the same year. "It was also difficult to open a store at that time, because I couldn't apply online, and I had to find an investment manager. I heard that there was an investment promotion association in Xiamen, and I went to Xiamen with the box myself to hear what was going on." Zhou Yun said.

When the business first started, everything such as packing and shipping was done by hand. It was normal for two people to work until two or three o’clock in the morning before leaving get off work. Zhou Yun sighed that although it was hard at that time, she was very happy, there were few people and few things, and there were not too many things to worry about except the order.

During this time, the relationship between husband and wife has given them great support. "It must have been very hard at that time, no salary, no fear of hard work." She said, "The stage from 0 to 1 is the most difficult. Although the span from 1 to 10 and from 10 to 100 is wide, it is not that difficult. .Based on the relationship between husband and wife, the other party supports you unconditionally, no matter how hard it is, you will not complain, because the beliefs of the two people are the same."

In the early days, Zhou Yun was in charge of store operations and was a well-known "master of store management" in the circle . She described the company as a "snail-like" growth when it first started Amazon, and its development was very slow. Because it is required that all orders must be real, and there is no idea of ​​swiping orders for evaluation, the same is true on other platforms, so a store has only improved after a few years. This also relieves Zhou Yun from the worry of closing the store in the future, "I'm not afraid to check whatever you want."

In the next two years, the number of employees increased, various sectors were gradually formed, and the operations of Amazon and other stores were successively handed over to suitable personnel. At present, the company has 40 or 50 employees, including more than 20 business teams. It has deployed third-party platforms such as Amazon, AliExpress, eBay, Shopee and independent station channels, focusing on outdoor products.

The continuous epidemic did not cause the company's sales to decline sharply. However, due to the local epidemic, Zhou Yun's company took two months off last year, and another month off in the first half of this year, which inevitably disrupted the operation rhythm.

At present, the company's business has spread to the European, North American and Southeast Asian markets. Europe originally had the largest share, but after the implementation of the tax reform last year, all e-commerce platforms began to withhold and pay VAT, cancel the VAT exemption under 22 euros, and restrict the sales of products over 150 euros. Its single-store sales were once cut to 1/10, and only eased in the first half of this year.

After this incident, sales in Europe fell significantly, but North America still grew. The share of North America in the first half of this year has basically equaled the European market.

In addition, the policies of some countries have greater restrictions on their product sales, and the performance problems caused by poor logistics timeliness have also caused a lot of impact on the business. Affected by these factors, Zhou Yun admitted that compared with the first half of last year, the company's sales dropped a lot.

Whether it's the wave of titles last year, the decline in profits in the industry this year, and the frequent occurrence of thunderstorms, they have all affected the mentality of sellers to a large extent, but Zhou Yun doesn't listen to the "sound of hitting the leaves through the forest".

"We have a clearer picture of who we are and what we want to do, so whether someone else has a high-rise building or a building collapses, we might just take a look and see what to do or what to do when we turn around. The same is true of the requirements. We often tell everyone that when you fall to the bottom, you can’t belittle yourself. When you reach the top one day, don’t get carried away. You must always know who you are, so that the probability of going the wrong way will be reduced a little.”

Now, Liang Sixing is in charge of products and supply chain, while Zhou Yun handles some daily operations. As a seller who has come out of the mom-and-pop store model, Zhou Yun is also worried that this relationship will in turn limit the company's development. She said that her role has become smaller and smaller, and she will consider quitting if necessary in the future.

Zhou Yun is designing the company's equity structure. "We definitely want to make it better and bigger, and make people more efficient. The company has just optimized an organizational framework, and also wants the team to build the system in the future to see if it can make more young people People realize intra-company entrepreneurship.”

Returning to his hometown from Shenzhen to start a business, Wang Jinghao: The mom-and-pop shop was born in response to the market

Compared with many sellers in Zhengzhou, Wang Jinghao entered the industry earlier, and he has started a business in Shenzhen and has a good foundation. Moving the cross-border e-commerce business from Shenzhen to Zhengzhou, Wang Jinghao has experienced three stages of ups and downs, and each stage is related to his wife.

On March 6, 2010, Wang Jinghao clearly remembered that this was the day he entered the cross-border e-commerce business in Shenzhen. After 3 years, after accumulating certain experience, he started the solo mode. In 2012, in the words of Wang Jinghao, the cross-border e-commerce industry at that time was a blue ocean, with relatively low input costs and high profit margins.

After 3 years of starting a business , Wang Jinghao and his wife got married. After he had a wife and children, he realized that he was shouldering the responsibility of taking care of the young and the old, and decided to return to his hometown of Henan from Shenzhen.

After returning home, Wang Jinghao continued to do cross-border e-commerce business in Zhengzhou. At that time, the employees brought back from Shenzhen left one after another. In the end, only the husband and wife were left to support him. Wang Jinghao fell into a trough, which was also the most difficult stage for the company. At that time, he was running multiple e-commerce platforms such as Wish and Dunhuang.com, and his biggest worry was the lack of manpower.

Because he wanted to make cross-border e-commerce a lifelong career, Wang Jinghao paid a lot. He said: "At that time, life was irregular, and I almost stayed up until two or three in the morning, sometimes even three or four in the morning. Two wives complete it."

The hard work pays off. Through the efforts of Wang Jinghao and his wife, his cross-border e-commerce business has gradually improved. Later, they moved to Henan Post Industrial Park, and they have a new office location. They recruited employees one after another and solved their worries. question.

After someone took care of the business, Wang Jinghao's wife left the company and went home to take care of the children, and the company entered the second stage of development. At this stage, the company entered the fast lane of development under the leadership of Wang Jinghao. In 2019, the company began to operate Amazon, and this platform, along with other platforms it operated before, contributed to the overall revenue, and 2019 and 2020 were also good times for the company.

When the company's performance was improving, as the children grew up, Wang Jinghao's wife also returned to the company to continue the couple's cross-border e-commerce business. Wang Jinghao said this was the third stage of the company's development. At this time, the company's business was relatively stable. The e-commerce team of about 50 people was basically run by his wife, and he could free up his hands to do some other things.

Talking about the experience of husband and wife entrepreneurship, Wang Jinghao believes that this model actually has advantages and disadvantages. In the early stage, mom-and-pop stores have certain advantages. Because working from home does not require employees, it saves rent and labor, and the cost is definitely lower. But the drawbacks of mom-and-pop shops are also obvious. When husband and wife work together, the problems they encounter will also affect their relationship. And to a certain stage of development, this model is not conducive to continued growth.

In Wang Jinghao's view, if mom-and-pop stores want to operate well, they must conform to the overall market environment of cross-border e-commerce.

Affected by the epidemic and inflation in Europe and the United States, online consumer demand has narrowed as a whole, and the overall cross-border e-commerce market is not optimistic. Especially after the Amazon platform rectified violations last year, the cost of sellers' advertising has soared, coupled with rising raw material prices and freight prices. The superposition of other factors, the seller's profits have been impacted. In such a market environment, many companies are losing money, but the profits of mom-and-pop stores are relatively considerable.

The business model of cross-border sellers came into being. Taking the Amazon platform as an example, sellers’ operations should also follow the general direction of the platform. This year, Amazon is doing four things: the first is to do branding, requiring sellers to refine operations; the second is to upgrade system services; Do diversion; the fourth is to encourage sellers to conduct off-site drainage.

After Amazon's rapid development to a certain stage, the distribution model in the past few years has been difficult to do. Now whoever can give customers a better experience, the platform will give the traffic to whoever. The savage growth of distribution and reckless vicious competition will damage the consumer experience.

For the sake of its own development, Amazon is constantly rectifying the behaviors of distribution, malicious hijacking, and billing to clear the market. In the process, involution among sellers intensified, and some people even sacrificed profits for ranking and sales. At this time, mom-and-pop stores or smaller partnership companies, because of lower costs and higher human efficiency, can instead guarantee profits and survive the competition better.

(All characters in the text are pseudonyms)