For cross-border sellers in 2022, the four words " uncertainty" are of great significance. To grasp the environment and policy changes is to grasp the direction of the market . How to deal with change in the new year ? Chinese overseas brands should consolidate their internal strengths, and flexibly adjust cross-border e-commerce strategies to drive new growth . Set sail in 2023 and never fall behind on the blue ocean track!

The "Roundtable Forum" column of this year's Amazon Global Online Cross-Border Summit , with the theme of " Responding to the Trend and Accumulating Growth ", discusses the new situation of the industry with the guests, and seeks the "pace" for the growth of cross-border e-commerce. power".

The three company founders who participated in the round table come from different industries and operate different categories. The time for brands to enter Amazon also varies. From the perspective of their respective industries, they shared with us their practical experience in dealing with key challenges in the past year , to jointly discuss how Chinese enterprises going overseas face the uncertainties of the environment, how to seize opportunities, respond to the situation, and continuously accumulate strength in the process of going overseas to win long-term business growth. At the same time, Mr. Liu Run, a well-known business consultant , joined together to discuss the new development trend of cross-border e-commerce for export from the perspective of industry observers .

Moderator: Jin Yanzhen

Vice President of Amazon China,

Head of Amazon Global Store China Seller Management

Guest: Li Yan

Mavericks Electric CEO

Niu Electric was established in 2014, focusing on urban travel, and created a category of smart lithium-ion two-wheeled electric vehicles. So far, its products include electric motorcycles, electric bicycles, power-assisted bicycles and scooters.

Guest: Chen Hao

Founder and CEO of Shaoyin Technology

Founded in 2004, Shaoyin Technology is an enterprise focusing on the innovation of acoustic technology. The bone conduction earphone category it pioneered has created new needs of consumers . Today, Shokz has become a global leading brand in the field of bone conduction earphones and professional sports earphones.

Guest: Yang Taiping

Co-founder of KEMIMOTO brand

KEMIMOTO is deeply involved in the accessories of extreme off-road vehicles, and it is a subdivision track that is rarely known in China. As an emerging brand going overseas, KEMIMOTO has made a lot of exploration and efforts on product localization and differentiation. Today KEMIMOTO has become a leading brand in the global UTV accessories category.

Special guest: Liu Run

well-known business consultant

In 2022, "uncertainty" has become a hot topic in many industries. Three entrepreneurs shared with us the pressure from "uncertainty" they faced in the development of overseas business this year, and the development of overseas business. key challenges.

Li Yan

Mavericks Electric CEO

In 2022, Mavericks will encounter several big challenges.

Rising raw material prices

The Mavericks brand has been focusing on smart lithium battery two-wheeled electric vehicles. Lithium batteries are a huge cost item. This year, the price of lithium batteries has risen very high, which puts some pressure on us.

Sea Freight Rates Rise

Including sea freight warehousing, sea freight has remained high, and only saw a decline in the second half of this year.

depreciation of european rates

We have a major market in Europe. Due to the depreciation of the euro this year, the consumption power in Europe as a whole is still relatively weak, which makes us feel that the entire overseas business has been affected.

However, the sales revenue of our entire overseas business itself has increased this year. This is also largely due to the fact that we created our cross-border e-commerce through Amazon in 2022-2022 is the first year of Mavericks ' cross-border e-commerce -and quickly expanded our electric scooter category through Amazon. It has also achieved very good results in the global market.

Yang Taiping

Co-founder of KEMIMOTO brand

Industry impact slows down

We are mainly engaged in auto parts, so the overall launch of new cars in the auto industry has slowed down, resulting in a slowdown in the incremental market. Everyone is fighting in the stock market, so there are more new sellers.

Competition with Overseas Local Brands

Most of the categories we are in are 2B. Overseas, local brands are basically dominant, and consumers are also overseas, so we need to obtain localized resources for products, which has always been a very big challenge.

Chen Hao

Founder and CEO of Shaoyin Technology

low price competition

This year, as the global leader in the category, we have also encountered some challenges, such as some low-end bone conduction headphones appearing on Amazon. We also face many challengers in the domestic market. On the one hand, they can help us challenge the audience of the bone conduction headset market, and on the other hand, they also have a certain impact on our entry-level bone conduction headsets.

Fortunately, the overall audience is different, and the impact on the main models is relatively small. This year, we still maintained a high-speed growth on Amazon.

Liu Run

well-known business consultant

Be objective about external influences

I believe that Chinese local companies, as well as American local companies, have encountered these challenges today. Exchange rate issues, supply chain issues, product price issues, competition issues, and even international environmental situation issues, these challenges are very important but all come from outside. What we're seeing may not be the full story, and it's likely that these problems will ease over time. After these changes come back, more cross-border companies may realize that the biggest challenge comes when the industry matures, and the competition will become fiercer , but we interpret this "fierce" as external There are only objective reasons.

Embarking on the Industry /Brand Future

The degree of "intenseness" in the future comes from the entry of a large number of sellers, as well as higher requirements for brands, specialization, and understanding of local consumers in the future. These challenges may be the real bigger challenges hidden under the external environment. Today we have been talking about "uncertainty", but uncertainty does not refer to challenges – you don't know what will happen, that's called uncertainty. If you know that there is a 30% chance of rain tomorrow, don't It's called uncertainty, and you should be prepared for it. The real challenges are those things that we are not aware of. That is the uncertainty . It may be that everyone will face it in 2023, and we have to make some preparations.

Jin Yanzhen

Vice President of Amazon China,

Head of Amazon Global Store China Seller Management

In 2022, Chinese sellers will face some objective challenges: such as rising logistics raw material costs, exchange rate challenges, and tax issues. There are also some specific challenges in different industries . Xiaoniu Electric is facing the use of existing brand influence to promote new products and brand recognition; KEMIMOTO’s localized categories bring high requirements for upstream and downstream linkage of products; These are typical challenges of the low-price competition encountered by audio technology .

Chinese sellers are facing different challenges under the changing international trade environment. What short-term and long-term specific measures should be considered, and what are the actual combat effects ? The answers of the three entrepreneurs may bring some inspiration to everyone.

Chen Hao

Founder and CEO of Shaoyin Technology

Shaoyin Technology faces challenges mainly by investing heavily in research and development , and sticking to mid-to-high-end pricing on the basis of strong product strength. Despite the competition from low-priced bone conduction headphones, we are still full of confidence in Shaoyin's product strength. We always do our own thing well, always do a good job in the price control of the counter-price channel, keep the brand tone, adhere to the positioning of the station, and adhere to the high-end positioning of Shaoyin.

We believe that from the perspective of the difficulty of sticking to mid-to-high-end pricing , it can be divided into three steps.

The first step is to create high-quality, high-reliability products

Quality and reliability are not the same thing. Quality means that there is no problem when the product leaves the factory; when your product leaves the factory and enters the use process, the performance and quality of the product will degrade over time. High reliability must ensure that the product In the life cycle, it is still very useful with degradation, and it maintains a good quality. This can only be truly achieved through forward design and product system engineering, as well as cooperation with high-quality suppliers and foundries in the industry.

The second step is to create the ultimate product

There are actually only five main SKUs that Shaoyin sells, and we hope to make each one an ultimate product, so as to give users a truly ultimate user experience.

The third step is also the most difficult, which is to insist on original innovation and positive innovation starting from the underlying technology

We have entered the consumer-grade bone conduction earphones since 2011, and have continued to invest in the research and development of bone conduction technology, including the research and development of bone conduction acoustic devices and basic algorithms. This year is the ninth generation of technology. We are the industry leader in the technology segment of bone conduction.

We won the China Patent Gold Award last year. According to our own statistics, the number of patents in the world has exceeded 1,800.

Since the beginning of this year, we have continued to strengthen the recruitment of personnel, especially the recruitment of R&D personnel. Our basic research department and product innovation department do not set KPIs, because we believe that technology and innovation are not utilitarian things, and it may take a few years to have a major breakthrough and innovation, so we must be patient, and only long-term investment can be achieved. It will be effective, and we must adhere to long-term value principles.

Only by doing the above three steps from easy to difficult can the product strength be guaranteed. Then increase investment in major platforms. For example, we continue to invest resources in Amazon. This year’s advertising investment has increased by more than 60% compared with last year. We continue to expand the size of Amazon’s team and conduct in-depth cooperation with Amazon’s official team to ensure our Continue to grow, especially in the rapid growth of Amazon, and win-win development.

Li Yan

Mavericks Electric CEO

When Xiaoniu entered cross-border e-commerce, it encountered the challenge of improving "brand awareness" in overseas markets. We have three considerations: on the one hand, how to quickly gain brand recognition at the consumer level; second, how to create an irreplaceable and competitive commodity; reach consumers.

brand recognition

The urban travel category we make is also convenient, environmentally friendly and low-carbon travel. Therefore, the main consumer groups we focus on are young people in cities, or those with a young mentality – because they are more willing to adopt new technologies, and they are more interested in new brands, new travel methods, and low-carbon environmental protection concepts. The acceptance rate will be higher, so we focus on this kind of people from the beginning.

When a brand goes overseas, it still has to have a global and universal value. In fact, we are talking about " aggressive, happy, independent thinking " on a global scale. Because we think that young people in cities need to have an aggressive attitude and a happy life, and also need to have an independent opinion and live a different life. This is what we do on the brand, of course the brand itself If it is promoted like this, it will not work without good product power.

Product power

As for the product strength itself , we also look at several aspects.

Because we are an electric travel product, technological innovation is particularly important. In particular, we are powered by lithium battery technology. The seventh-generation sharp electric technology ensures that our battery life can be longer, the power can be stronger, and the sense of acceleration is better, which makes him feel that this car is easy to drive and ride.

Not only innovative technology itself, industrial design is also critical. There is a slogan called "Appearance is justice", that is, this car is not only easy to ride, but also good-looking. So far, we are the only one among all the companies that have two products that have won 7 global design awards.

We feel that the product must meet the needs of local consumers, especially because many roads in Europe are gravel, so there are certain requirements for the shock absorption and width of the car. So we changed the product to meet local needs.

Quickly reach consumers

This year, we are particularly happy that when considering channels that can quickly reach consumers, we saw Amazon’s voice and potential, so we directly opened all six sites in the United States, Canada, Spain, France, Italy, and Germany. This also forms a broad potential. When we were on Prime Day, we achieved good results on multiple sites.

Regarding the issue of balancing short-term sales interests and long-term brand building , we feel that it is difficult to balance this thing , and it must be both. Long-term brand building such as values ​​and concepts is definitely needed, but if you don’t focus on the short-term and only talk about the brand, it will be a bit empty. So when we started cross-border e-commerce this year, we were very focused on short- and medium-term tactics:

Drainage delivery

At the same time, in terms of drainage and placement, Amazon constantly uses various new tools to optimize to ensure that the traffic conversion rate is good enough and enough exposure can be generated.

Shipping logistics

For the overall shipping logistics, we use Amazon FBA to reduce logistics costs and achieve refined operations, because we believe that short-term tactics also need to be refined, and we cannot say that it is wrong to spend money casually at the beginning.

Yang Taiping

Co-founder of KEMIMOTO brand

The use scenarios of KEMIMOTO 's category are basically overseas. How to cut into the track problem, in fact, we have made some attempts before, and we finally chose product differentiation . We have transformed from an early follower to a model driven by self-developed products in recent years.

Product Design Innovation

Specifically, we will also innovate at the level of product design, mainly from the perspective of user needs, and provide products that exceed customer expectations.

Cross-industry technology migration

We will also do cross-industry migration in terms of technology, apply new technologies and new materials to it, and provide customers with better value experience.

Product testing and development

We will also do some positive research and development in product testing, build laboratories, and purchase experimental equipment, hoping to deliver better products to users through positive research and development. At the same time, we will also apply the Amazon Vine program and various types of advertising forms , to quickly obtain consumer feedback on innovative products.

But the most important thing I think is that we are accelerating the speed of product iteration to obtain better product differentiation and customer experience.

In addition, KEMIMOTO itself also attaches great importance to localization, because from the company level, we do not regard it as an obstacle.

Confront localization

First of all, we think this is a must-answer question, because we have been doing auto and motorcycle parts, and the production of customer models is overseas, and the users are also overseas, so we feel that from a conscious level, we must do this.

Open up offline channels to deeply link customers

In the past few years, we have opened up offline channels by participating in offline exhibitions, and kept in touch with KOLs and KOCs in the industry; at the same time, through the deployment of personnel from overseas branches, they can periodically go to offline stores to conduct in-depth discussions with customers. connection to obtain first-hand feedback from customers. At the same time, based on the feedback, we will do product differentiation and iteration.

Vertical user research

We also have a variety of channels to apply online tools. We can conduct questionnaire surveys on target users and ask for their suggestions for our products. At the same time, we also communicate with customers in some vertical forums such as professional forums. to interact.

Moderator: Jin Yanzhen

Vice President of Amazon China,

Head of Amazon Global Store China Seller Management

Shaoyin is constantly increasing investment in research and development, building strong product strength, laying fast channels, and building three product strength steps to bring reference to more sellers.

Although Mavericks has different emphases in long-term and short-term strategies, the unchanging core strategy is long-term investment in brand building and product differentiation.

When facing overseas consumers, KEMIMOTO establishes the awareness of localization, and uses more channels to get close to end users and understand their needs.

China has a strong supply chain advantage and engineer bonus. When it senses the needs of consumers, Chinese sellers can respond and develop related products at a faster speed . This is also the advantage of our Chinese sellers. As mentioned by Mr. Liu Run, the mid-to-high end is not the price problem itself, but solves the more expensive problem and reflects the professionalism of the brand; globalization means localization in every country.

According to this year’s seller survey, most of the surveyed sellers said that “brand building” is crucial to their global business growth. We have also seen the rapid growth of many brand sellers. For example, Shaoyin, which makes bone conduction headphones, insists on technological innovation and brand value. By building Amazon brand flagship stores and optimizing products based on customer reviews, it has found a high-growth development model.

How to help everyone in these matters and make dreams come true is also the responsibility of Amazon's global store opening.