Fast fashion cross-border e-commerce SHIEN stopped the operation of the Indonesian national site after groping for three years in Indonesia.

Perfect Diary, the representative of the new consumer brand, although it once achieved eye-catching sales in Shopee Indonesia, it also stopped its business in the country due to some irresistible factors.

Not only that. Even behemoths like Amazon have not been able to taste the sweetness in Indonesia.

However, just a month ago, the largest IPO in the first half of this year, GOTO, a technology unicorn with an opening market value of more than 100 billion yuan, was surrounded by overseas giants in every business sector. .

"The elusive localization demand and high cost estimates have made us discouraged from the Indonesian market." A domestic beauty businessman said bluntly that Southeast Asia is the preferred destination for its brands to go overseas. Through the two platforms of Shopee and Lazada, they can quickly Started business, but after repeated evaluation, it still chose to give up Indonesia, the country with the greatest potential.

Another cross-border merchant going overseas to Southeast Asia said, "If you don't do Indonesia, you will lose half of the Southeast Asian market." "Winning Indonesia is a difficult and correct thing to do." He firmly believed.

Southeast Asia has become a new pilgrimage place for Chinese cross-border e-commerce exporters.

Indonesia, as the most populous country and the largest economy in Southeast Asia, has been given the expectation of "the people who win Indonesia will win Southeast Asia" by entrepreneurs who go to Southeast Asia.

Not only Lazada and Shopee have made Indonesia a strategic location. As early as 2015, JD.com's first layout in Southeast Asia was the launch of JD.com Indonesia Station (JD.ID) , a cross-border e-commerce platform jointly established by JD.com and local Indonesian companies. In 2021, TikTok also chose Indonesia as the first national site for its closed-loop e-commerce business (TikTok Shop) .

However, the other side of the coin is that the so-called "emerging" often means uncertainty, and even unpredictable danger.

01

Gold is everywhere, and the strategic commanding heights of Southeast Asia that must be seized

"If someone lets buyers and sellers find each other, pay and deliver, this is a huge bonanza." Wu Kun is the head of marketing at Jet commerce, an e-commerce agency in Southeast Asia.

In his view, Indonesian e-commerce is infinitely imaginative – five years ago, this place was depicted as the birthplace of the next Jack Ma, Liu Qiangdong and Huang Zheng.

Southeast Asian e-commerce really entered the attention of Chinese entrepreneurs going overseas, around 2015.

At that time, Lazada, an e-commerce platform incubated by the European Internet investment company Rocket Internet, officially entered the Chinese market in March 2015 after locking in the blue ocean of e-commerce in Southeast Asia in 2012. It attracted nearly 5,000 merchants in less than half a year. settle in.

In the next two or three years, Alibaba has gradually acquired Lazada, and Shopee, which has invested in Tencent, has also risen.

As long as you chat with a few cross-border e-commerce entrepreneurs targeting Southeast Asia locally, you can understand why so many entrepreneurs are obsessed with Indonesia from the fundamentals they quickly sketched.

270 million people. This is also the core reason why investors, big Internet companies, start-ups and cross-border e-commerce are all looking at Indonesia – the Internet demographic dividend. The total population of 11 countries in Southeast Asia is 650 million, and Indonesia alone accounts for 41%. Basically, it can be said, "Doing the Indonesian market is equivalent to doing Southeast Asia."

GDP is 16970.8 trillion rupiah (about 8.5 trillion yuan, about 1.2 trillion US dollars) . Among Southeast Asian countries, only Indonesia's GDP exceeds US$1 trillion. You can compare the experience with the GDP of various provinces in my country. In 2021, the GDP of Shandong Province will be 8.3 trillion, the GDP of Zhejiang Province will be 7.3 trillion, and the GDP of Indonesia will be almost in between.

35% of Indonesians spend more than 2 million rupiah (about 1,000 yuan) per month on average. In Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, the local minimum wage has reached 4.27 million rupiah (about 2,100 yuan).
74% Internet penetration. As of January 2022, Indonesia has 204.7 million Internet users, of which more than 60% are Internet users under the age of 35. The key word here is "young + mobile Internet". A large number of young people provide Indonesia with sufficient labor force and create demand. It is a golden period when the double dividends of population and mobile Internet are superimposed.

77% of unorganized retail. The retail market in Indonesia is about 377 billion US dollars, of which 77% of the retail market is still unorganized, that is, sales through small stalls, which is relatively close to the retail format in China in the 2000s. The concentrated performance is that the proportion of shopping malls is low and the channels are highly fragmented. change.

Also, it’s worth noting that Indonesians are particularly fond of social media. About 120 million people in Indonesia use Facebook, ranking fourth in the world in terms of users; Twitter also ranks third in the world in terms of users; Whatsapp and WeChat have the largest number of Indonesian users among all Southeast Asian countries.

Indonesia also has its own super head influencer: on Instagram, Raffi Ahmad has more than 60.68 million followers; the second is the popular Internet celebrity beauty Ayu Tingting, with 51.22 million+ followers and huge influence.

"Although Indonesia's consumption power (unit price) is still relatively low compared to developed countries, and its brand awareness is not strong, after rounds of education from various e-commerce platforms, the e-commerce environment has already taken shape. In the e-commerce penetration rate On the basis of the accelerated growth rate and the continuous improvement of infrastructure and related supply chain services, if Chinese merchants want to enter the market, it will be beneficial in the long run." Wu Kun said.

In the view of Bruce, a cross-border e-commerce seller who mainly focuses on 3C categories, the form of e-commerce in Indonesia is still in a relatively early stage, and the dividends of the broader market are still there. For example, several leading e-commerce platforms (Tokopedia, Shopee, Bukalapak) use a lot of "subsidy" strategies in order to snatch users, which is very beneficial to the growth of merchants. For another example, Indonesia’s relatively higher user tolerance – the return rate of local e-commerce orders is generally low, which also leaves enough room for trial and error for merchants on the platform.

"The business evolution process in Southeast Asia is very similar to China's, just like when Taobao first emerged ten or twenty years ago." Xu Longhua, founder of Southeast Asian B2B e-commerce platform Wook, told Yibang Power, "Indonesia not only has a big plate, but also E-commerce supporting facilities are also constantly maturing, such as the improvement of logistics and online payment capabilities, and capital is also pouring money into Indonesia. Therefore, entrepreneurs start from Indonesia first, and then radiate operating experience in other countries/regions, and they will have more experience. Potential."

In 2010, Xu Longhua left TCL after 7 years in office. Two years later, he chose Indonesia as his last stop.

That's when Wook started. But he soon discovered that it is not easy to be a to C e-commerce company in such a country that distributes at various levels, sells goods first, and then checks out.

The Indonesian market is like two ends of a pyramid. The top is the big international brands in the shopping mall, and the bottom is the knock-off goods and local trade brands, but the waist lacks the cost-effective, quality-assured, and well-known brands. This became Xu Longhua's entrepreneurial opportunity – of course, this is also an opportunity for a large number of Chinese businesses.

In the end, Wook chose to start from B2B. On the one hand, it integrates high-quality brand owners and manufacturing resources in China, and on the other hand, it establishes a local push business team in Indonesia, so that local offline stores can order one-stop orders through Wook. This model greatly compresses the traditional export path of "factory-brand-national agent-regional agent-wholesaler-retailer".

In 2021, Wook received a C round of hundreds of millions of RMB financing, which is the harvest of its ten years of dormancy. Now it has become the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia, with business spanning across Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia. Even under the influence of the epidemic, Wook maintained a 50% increase in revenue and an 80% increase in net profit.

But not every business is as successful and lucky as Wook.

02

The geography of the "broken" island nation

The Indonesian market is by no means as accessible as one might imagine.

The first to bear the brunt is the complex geographical elements of Indonesia, and the development problems surrounding it.

Indonesia is a super archipelago country consisting of 17,000 islands, mainly five large islands of Java, Kalimantan, Sumatra, Sulawesi and Ilian, and tens of thousands of small islands scattered like broken pearls. . The fragmented territorial structure makes it difficult for the various sectors of Indonesia to form a joint force. This "fragmentation" originates from geographical conditions, but affects the future integration of the entire country in various dimensions such as politics, economy, culture, transportation, and religion. .

Indonesia's territory spans Asia and Oceania, spanning more than 5,000 kilometers from east to west

In sharp contrast to Indonesia, although the United Kingdom and Japan are also island countries, both of them have a "main island" with the largest area, and the compact land structure makes land transportation within the country possible. But Indonesia has a hard time doing this.

"Indonesia's logistics is a nightmare!" said Bagus, a Chinese resident in Indonesia. "It's not like China can connect one end of the country to the other by train lines, and the distance between the islands is very long, so it's not like China can directly build cross-border construction. The sea bridge is also not realistic, and more cargo is transported by sea and air, unloaded on one island, and then transported to another island.”

One figure can support the high cost of Indonesian e-commerce in logistics: except for Java Island (the island with the highest population density in Indonesia) , the cost of Indonesia's logistics industry accounts for 26% of the gross domestic product (GDP) , compared with In neighboring countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore, logistics accounted for less than 15% of GDP, and developed countries in Western Europe accounted for about 8%.

Due to the special topographical conditions, Indonesia has only existed as a supplier of industrial raw materials for hundreds of years, which has hindered the rapid development of Indonesia's economy and the formation of the industrial chain (a centralized area is needed to allow various industries to communicate with each other, forming a circular advantage and resonance) . Therefore, Indonesia's economy relies on the export of natural resources (bulk commodities) , including oil, natural gas, timber, etc., but there are very few top global companies, very few high-tech exports, and no large number of super local brands have been born.

"Thousands of islands, the distribution of fragments, the separate language families under more than 300 ethnic groups, and the 'main island' and 'outer islands' with huge differences in density have made some entrepreneurs who are looking forward to going to Indonesia to experience After all the hardships, you can go home, change the track, change the project, or you can only get on the car first by way of investment.” Bagus sighed.

Obviously, the road to e-commerce in Indonesia has to start with logistics issues.

According to Indonesian customs data, the number of overseas parcels purchased by Indonesia through e-commerce jumped to nearly 50 million in 2019, compared with 19.6 million in 2018 and 6.1 million in 2017, most of which came from China.

However, tens of thousands of islands are a test for delivery timeliness and smooth delivery.

"Indonesia's local logistics service providers are more traditional, and most of them do not have the ability to handle a large number of high-frequency small parcels." A Southeast Asian logistics service provider told Ebang Power.

"Most of the e-commerce orders can be sent to the most economically developed Java Island, but the sea journey from China's supply chain to Indonesia is still very long, about 30-40 days. In comparison, Shanghai to Los Angeles The shipping time is only 40 days, which makes the cross-border logistics efficiency and cost to Indonesia very low." Charlie Tong, a cross-border seller in the Southeast Asian market, believes.

In addition, in remote areas with more prominent multi-island terrain and backward road facilities, "motorcycle + boat" is one of the most commonly used means of transportation for dispatchers. "Even the last mile delivery in some places will use buffalo from cultivated land," said the above-mentioned service provider.

However, from another perspective, this also gives global entrepreneurs an opportunity to grab a huge market. At present , around Indonesia's "big logistics" industry, JT (Jitu) , Sicepat, JNE, Go-jek and other Southeast Asian companies are fighting fiercely, and more cost-effective logistics companies have been born. Basic players from China, such as SF Express, JD Logistics, and YTO, are also eyeing this market.

03

For Indonesia, there is no cross-border e-commerce, only local e-commerce?

Indonesia is a young country that only became independent in 1945, and its past history has a very strong colonial economy color, and its voice on the world stage is not loud.

"Indonesia's local protectionism is prevalent, and the policy is unfriendly, which has caused many sellers who went to start a business to 'bleed' again and again." According to Alan, an investor who has lived in Indonesia for a long time, Indonesia lacked economic openness in the past, and even had a certain degree of trade. protectionism. But what is exciting is that today, changes are taking place in Indonesia, with local leaders advocating a policy line of vigorously developing e-commerce and liberalizing foreign investment in the industry.

Under the guidance of this new trend of thought, the Indonesian version of "reform and opening up" is being staged, bringing huge Internet dividends to the local area. Alan pointed out that at the 2019 Indonesian general election debate, then-presidential candidate Joko Widodo focused on how to support the development of Indonesian unicorns (referring to technology start-ups with a market value of more than $1 billion) .

It is also in recent years that the rapid growth and successful listing of technology companies such as Goto and Bukalapak have given Indonesia more imagination about the "digital transformation of the Internet", and it has also attracted the return of a large number of Indonesian talents.

"Goto, which has just been listed successfully, is an Internet company that provides many services closely related to daily life, such as taxi-hailing, takeaway, e-commerce, payment, etc. It is equivalent to combining Didi, Meituan, and Taobao. Indonesia finally has a company Super local," Alan said.

Corresponding to the rise of local Internet unicorns in Indonesia, there are many challenges faced by overseas companies to enter the local market.

"The Indonesian government is very protective of local manufacturing, so it is difficult for Chinese cross-border e-commerce sellers to sell goods locally in Indonesia." Bagus said bluntly that most of the Indonesian cross-border e-commerce companies enter the market as local companies. be welcomed by the locals.

In addition, due to "focusing on the development of domestic handicraftsmen and manufacturers, especially garments, shoes and bags", the General Department of Customs of the Indonesian Ministry of Finance has implemented new tax standards for cross-border e-commerce goods since January 30, 2020. The threshold was lowered from $75 to $3, and the tax rate was adjusted. Among them, the import tax rate of luggage is 15%-20%, the import tax rate of shoes is 25%-30%, and the import tax rate of textiles and garments is 15%-25%, all of which are added on the basis of value-added tax of 10% and income tax of 7.5%-10%. above. This is obviously not a joy for cross-border e-commerce companies that use low-cost direct mail packages to deliver goods to Indonesia.

There are various indications that there is a delicate mediation relationship between Indonesian e-commerce platforms and local national policies.

For example, Tokopidia, the e-commerce business of Indonesian local technology giant Goto, has not yet officially opened to Chinese sellers. Indonesian e-commerce unicorn Bukalapak has stopped attracting cross-border investment. Shopee's cross-border business has obvious restrictions on commodity categories – Muslim-related clothing is prohibited, and the price of goods cannot be lower than 30,000 rupiah, and the sale of food, medicine, and cosmetics also requires BPOM certification.

These undoubtedly increase the difficulty for Chinese e-commerce entrepreneurs to enter Indonesia as "cross-border merchants".

A Southeast Asian e-commerce service provider shared an example: "Last year, the sales of Perfect Diary in Indonesia were very good, but it was stopped due to the impact of administrative efficiency. Because each SKU of Perfect Diary in Indonesia needs to be certified, the time period In 3 months to half a year." The service provider pointed out that if new consumer brands enter the Indonesian market and their business model emphasizes the logic of "quickly launching new products, testing the market, and creating popular models", it will be difficult to quickly enter the Indonesian market. run through.

If Indonesia's foreign policy cannot be changed in the short term, it may be a wiser choice to follow the trend. Shopee, which is invested by Tencent, and Lazada, which is controlled by Alibaba, both do this.

It is understood that whether it is Shopee or Lazada, the e-commerce sites that cast their nets in Indonesia have very high requirements for the entry of "local stores". "You need to register a local company, have a KYC system (local face recognition system) , platform data compliance, product certification compliance (such as meeting local SCI certification standards) , and also understand local cultural differences, business and government environment. Some 'rules' are more complicated than others," Bruce said.

On the other hand, the Indonesian "local stores" of the two platforms have the rigid advantage of being commission-free and duty-free. For Chinese sellers, whether it is a branding route or a low-price strategy, entering Indonesian e-commerce through "local stocking" and "local merchants" is obviously a more efficient way than entering the market with "cross-border business". ideal way.

Having a "local store" in the true sense means even getting an admission ticket to Indonesian e-commerce.

04

In the face of a complex market, even SHEIN has closed the door

Indonesia's fragmented market, complex geopolitics, and hugely different cultural, legal and regulatory systems make it necessary for entrepreneurs to establish a firm foothold in the local market, including local supply chains, local teams, All-round operation of local warehouse distribution logistics network, local management, local brand recognition, etc.

"Localization cannot be achieved simply by translating Chinese into local languages ​​and recruiting locals," Alan believes.

"Companies with money and strength in China are often blindly confident in new markets, and rely on spending money and spreading resources to replicate the model that has been successful in mature markets. This may not only fail, but also accelerate the arrival of failure." Bruce said .

Even SHEIN, which has reached a valuation of US$100 billion, has been closed in Indonesia.

SHIEN developed its fortune in Europe and the United States and has overcome difficulties in many markets around the world. Since 2018, SHIEN has provided products and services to customers in Indonesia. But unfortunately, after three years of exploration, SHEIN stopped operating in the Indonesian market from July 29, 2021.

An investor who has been concerned about the Southeast Asian market for a long time told Ebang Power that SHEIN's main clothing industry is the core manufacturing industry in Indonesia. The Indonesian government plans to develop Indonesia into the world's top five textile and clothing producers by 2030. "Clothing is a labor-intensive industry, which is very advantageous in Indonesia, and is also the 'heart' of the Indonesian government. Therefore, whether it is SHEIN, or the clothing category on Lazada and Shopee, it will be greatly affected by the policy." he talked.

In Bagus' view, differences in cultural habits may also be the reason for SHEIN's failure.

"The advantages of China's extremely developed clothing industry allow SHEIN to be quickly updated in Europe and the United States, even faster than Zara, but SHEIN's competitors in Indonesia are those simple street clothing stores." Bagus said that Indonesians generally compare in terms of clothing. Conservative, men wear uniform overalls or long trousers in the office, and women wear skirts and short jackets with sleeves, but not overly colorful. While visiting temples, locals are not allowed to wear shorts, tank tops or relatively bare clothes.

"The Buddy shirt is the national uniform of Indonesia and can be worn on many formal occasions. Indonesians do not have high requirements for color, fabric, pattern and layout design, as long as it conforms to religious habits and national characteristics, so they like to go offline. Tailor-made clothing. Interestingly, offline clothing stores in Indonesia can usually complete and deliver within 3-5 days, which is faster than SHEIN's 'quick return for small orders'." Bagus said.

At the same time, how to improve the local personnel efficiency, corporate culture and team coordination mechanism in Indonesia is also a difficulty.

"How decision-makers delegate power is critical. If it is just the way Chinese employees bring overseas employees, copy the corporate culture and management methods to Indonesia, report to the Chinese headquarters at every level, and don't support resources in place, it will be hard to beat." Local snakes'." said Wook founder Xu Longhua.

It is reported that in Wook's team of more than 1,500 people, there are only more than 30 middle and high-level Chinese faces, and the company has set up more than 30 branches in Indonesia (one in each province) , and each region is equipped with local warehouses and management personnel. "We will let the local people who understand this market better than the Chinese 'rush' ahead, including social relations and social channels, so as to avoid friction and promote business faster." Xu Longhua said.

He also pointed out that Indonesia is a Muslim country, and managers must fully adapt to and respect the local culture, including every inconspicuous daily life. "When all employees eat at the same table, some use chopsticks and some use their hands, but everyone behaves very freely, no one is better than anyone else, balance the contradictions caused by cultural conflicts, these small Details matter."

Li Jianggan, founder of Singapore-based Moteng Ventures, also shared his impression of the differences between Indonesian employees in management. For example, when faced with greater resistance, Indonesians must communicate clearly before taking action, but Chinese bosses may not like this. "Indonesian employees like Japanese bosses, because Indonesians are inherently Buddhist, and Japanese bosses can make the work process very meticulous and follow the steps. But the management of Chinese companies is often 'efficiency is life', 'do it first and then talk about it', some Uncertain things can be advanced together in the process, which is prone to some new problems." He said.

05

Why Amazon can't win Indonesia, but TikTok can?

Imagine such a scenario: On a weekday afternoon, the owner of a mom-and-pop shop received a message from a customer on his social platform account asking if lemongrass and coconut oil were in stock, and then directly confirmed the availability in the dialog box , collect payment, arrange pick-up time or delivery at the store.

This kind of "private domain e-commerce" that directly contacts sellers through social software is well recognized in Indonesia.

The reason is inseparable from the extremely strong offline retail in the Indonesian market. In Indonesia, mom-and-pop stores and regional chain convenience stores account for a very high proportion. In comparison, the penetration rate of e-commerce is less than 5% (more than 20% in China) . Therefore, "private domain e-commerce" (that is, the way of private message transactions through social software such as Whatsapp, Instagram, Facebook, etc.) has become a rather popular transitional form.

Some entrepreneurs from Southeast Asia pointed out that Indonesia is currently in a stage of shifting from private e-commerce to mainstream e-commerce, and new media e-commerce represented by TikTok is able to take advantage of this chaos. work hard.

"It's hard for you to be a traditional e-commerce platform. There are many similar players. Tokopedia, Shopee, Bukalapak, Lazada, BliBli, etc. have been working for many years. Most of them are in the C2C mode, and players from China JD.com (referring to JD.com Indonesia Station) JD.ID), as a B2C representative, is competitive in terms of genuine mentality and logistics services, but the final GMV is not as good as several other local platforms. Amazon, which entered Southeast Asia at the end of 2019, is currently only in Singapore, and has not set foot in Indonesia." The above-mentioned entrepreneur said bluntly.

"But there is still an opportunity to make a super brand in Indonesia." The entrepreneur continued to describe: "Chinese and foreign Internet companies continue to invest money and resources in Indonesia, export advanced models, operating experience, IP content, and cultivate a large number of talents. Just like the development path of new consumer brands in China, with changes in people, goods, and markets, there are many opportunities to build brands in new categories, and new brands will emerge in traditional categories."

An example is the beauty brand YOU, which just completed a $40 million Series C financing earlier this year. Founded in 2018, it initially took root in Indonesia and has now expanded to Southeast Asian countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Although it also relies on China's mature beauty supply chain, it is different from most beauty brands going overseas (entering e-commerce platforms) . , new media platforms and offline distributors, supermarket counters, beauty collection stores, OTC channels, etc.) , customized localized products around users, and eventually formed a high barrier in Southeast Asia.

Indonesian social media e-commerce is in the ascendant, and TikTok live-streaming e-commerce is even more popular.

In February 2021, TikTok took the lead in launching the "TikTok Shop" small store function to local merchants in Indonesia. Users can directly complete the purchase link when browsing videos or live broadcasts pushed by TikTok. "Indonesia's live broadcast performance accounts for more than 80% of the entire TiKTok live broadcast format. TikTok's goal is to reach over 100 million US dollars in June, and there are one or two beauty brands (said to be made by Malaysian founders) , one month of live broadcast. GMV can reach more than 10 million yuan, which can be regarded as some benchmark cases." A service provider revealed.

"Capturing the structural dividends generated by channel changes is an important opportunity to go overseas to Indonesia," said an investor who pays attention to Southeast Asia, "and a deep understanding of Indonesian culture and connecting with real consumer habits is to gain a firm foothold locally. The core of the heel."

"Different from the domestic Douyin explosion list, the hot-selling products of TikTok's Indonesian stores are mainly just-needed products, such as 'rice, noodles, grains and oils' are better than snacks, and 'basic skin care products' sell better than makeup, which is in line with In Indonesia's economic environment, consumers can also place orders decisively." Na Xin, founder of cross-border marketing service provider Orangutan, pointed out.

Another Southeast Asian marketing service provider said: "Recently, tooth whitening powder has been very popular in TikTok Indonesia store. Because Indonesia is located in the tropics, local people like to eat sweets, and many have oral problems, which has caused the sales of oral care products to explode. There are also great opportunities for related categories such as electric toothbrushes, mouthwashes, and dental floss.”

In the descriptions of most Indonesian entrepreneurs, the so-called localization means that entrants have to really lower their profile and understand and respect the rules of the game for local users and the local market. "Even though Southeast Asia is very similar to China, copying it is definitely not going to work," they said unanimously.

After years of exploration, Wook founder Xu Longhua found that rooted in the Indonesian market, pure online or pure offline brands have limitations. Only by building online and offline omni-channels can a strong brand promotion force be formed locally.

Wook's business model is rare in China. It is now a multi-brand, multi-platform "comprehensive" cross-border e-commerce – B2B platform connecting offline channels (connecting Chinese brands and manufacturing resources to local retail stores in Southeast Asia) + B2C brands connect online consumers (created several private brands and carried out retail business on e-commerce platforms such as Shopee, Lazada, JD.ID, Tokopedia) . In addition to Indonesia, Wook also has a presence in Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia.

Xu Longhua believes that starting a business in Indonesia requires patience and long-term investment, and even eventually becomes a "local company" in the true sense. Wook has made a very "heavy" infrastructure investment in Indonesia. In addition to setting up a large number of local branches (currently more than 30) and recruiting local employees, Wook has also built a central warehouse of tens of thousands of square meters and a distribution area of ​​thousands of square meters. Allocate positions and invest up to 100 million yuan in fixed assets.

"If you just want to catch the wind, but don't want to take root and don't pay attention to compliance, in the end, it will be broken." Xu Longhua said.

This is also the reason why many merchants who use a single cross-border e-commerce model to cover the Indonesian market have "hit a wall". For example, some cross-border sellers do not pay taxes when selling goods in Indonesia, which has an impact on the local manufacturing industry, and it is natural that they are subject to policy restrictions when there is no input value (capital, employment, technology, etc.) .

"Even if it is a relatively backward emerging market, don't report it with the mentality of 'making quick money' and 'cutting leeks'." An overseas businessman sighed.