Behind the "hot selling products" brought by overseas clothing bosses to China: How can small and medium-sized businesses leverage the global market? Going abroad | Cross border | China

Recently, in the "Chinese children's clothing capital" of Huzhou Zhili, there have been more foreign figures. This makes local bosses feel emotional - back in the day, everyone went abroad to "learn art", but now it's the opposite. In the context of domestic and international dual circulation, many businesses like Zhili are actively expanding new growth points, and they are all turning their attention to overseas markets to expand their business globally. And Shanghai has become a place that many businesses cannot avoid.

It's peak season all year round

From "buying all over the world" to "selling to the world", Zhili is a microcosm of the high-quality development of domestic e-commerce. But perhaps only the merchants themselves know how difficult it is behind this.

"I have never been in contact with overseas markets before. What are the differences in size, style, and standards? How can logistics and warehousing be resolved? How should cross-border e-commerce operate?" This has been a confusion for many local clothing owners. Everyone knows that we must do it in overseas markets, but no one knows exactly what to do.

In the domestic children's clothing market, Zhili is truly the capital of children's clothing

A few years ago, many people spontaneously "went out" and organized groups to participate in exhibitions in countries and regions such as Vietnam, the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. Some merchants also ventured into foreign markets, but even if they went out, there were still many invisible barriers in front of them.

Firstly, when Chinese goods are exported abroad, most of them need to go through the hands of local distributors, who take away most of the profits; Alternatively, merchants may open their own stores on overseas platforms, but due to lack of understanding of rules and communication difficulties, they often encounter store closures. There is another way, which is for businesses to create their own independent overseas shopping websites, but the difficulty lies in operation and traffic acquisition, and many independent websites are gradually becoming difficult to sustain.

It wasn't until these two years that small and medium-sized businesses discovered a new partner - Shanghai e-commerce company Pinduoduo, which has started doing overseas business.

To help Chinese manufacturing go global with high quality, Pinduoduo launched cross-border business last year, providing merchants with one-stop overseas solutions. Merchants only need to deliver their goods to designated warehouses, and the platform is responsible for website traffic, cross-border logistics, legal services, etc., solving the pain point of merchants not being familiar with overseas markets.

Pinduoduo has also promoted its domestic "group buying" experience to the global market, using a "group buying" model with fewer categories, high orders, and short bursts to help manufacturers quickly digest production capacity while also relying on popular products to win overseas users.

In the clothing industry, the off peak season is more pronounced. Compared with other domestic children's clothing industry belts, winter clothing in Zhili is the most outstanding, with its peak season concentrated from August to December. If the global market is opened up, the off-season in the first half of the year can also be utilized, and winter clothing can be sold to the southern hemisphere, which means that the whole year is the peak season for businesses.

In the Zhili children's clothing market, many young people recommend children's clothing styles to dealers in various regions through mobile phone videos

Show off your skills on the international stage

The impact on domestic industries, from buying globally to selling globally, goes far beyond that. Made in China going global has attracted overseas merchants to search for goods, representing the recognition of Chinese brands and Made in China by the world.

"When I first entered the industry ten years ago, everyone went to South Korea to buy editions. On a flight from Shanghai to Seoul, sometimes more than half of the passengers were colleagues who went to South Korea to buy editions." A children's clothing brand owner in Zhili recalled that now Korean bosses are starting to come to Zhili to search for popular products, and in Zhili's edition buying market, at most, more than 5000 people come to sample and buy editions in a day.

"From an industrial perspective, China has a foundation and supply. China's manufacturing industry has accumulated a large number of internationally competitive manufacturers, but it has also reached a turning point in transformation. If we do not establish direct channels to European and American consumers, we will face the risk of industrial transfer and lose the opportunity to further transition to the high-end." Pinduoduo CEO Chen Lei said that in the past two years, the country has introduced a series of policies to support the development of cross-border e-commerce, encouraging platform enterprises to show their skills on the international stage. Pinduoduo has no reason not to do so.

Currently, taking the creation of the "Silk Road E-commerce" cooperation pilot zone as an opportunity, Shanghai is cultivating and strengthening cross-border e-commerce platforms and enterprises. The "Shanghai Action Plan for Promoting High Quality Development of Cross border E-commerce" proposes to encourage leading cross-border e-commerce enterprises to establish headquarters and provide convenient support for customs clearance, taxation, foreign exchange, credit insurance, and other aspects for high-quality cross-border e-commerce included in Shanghai's key foreign trade enterprises.

The event site of Duoduo's cross-border business attracted more than 50 children's clothing merchants in Zhili

"There is great potential for overseas business," Chen Lei said. With the help of relevant government departments, customs, and airport groups in Shanghai, "we have integrated the entire customs clearance process of pre security inspection, packaging, and return of goods, improving the overall customs clearance efficiency."

At present, Pinduoduo's overseas e-commerce import business has covered all 29 Silk Road e-commerce partner countries, and its cross-border business covers more than 20 countries in North America, Australia, and Europe, helping China's manufacturing industry directly connect with overseas consumers. From helping Chinese consumers "buy globally" to promoting Chinese merchants "sell globally", Pinduoduo has finally taken this path.

Moving towards high-quality transformation

In the view of Professor Li Lingfang from the Department of Applied Economics at the School of Management of Fudan University, Shanghai is an international economic, financial, trade, and shipping center. Whether it is the richness of goods, cross-border logistics, cross-border settlement and other infrastructure, it is relatively complete. The development level of cross-border e-commerce ranks among the top in the country. "Pinduoduo chooses to go abroad, and the path choice is wise."

In early April of this year, Zhao Jiazhen, co-founder of Pinduoduo, was promoted to co CEO. Pinduoduo clearly defined a new development direction: fully embracing high-quality development.

"High quality development is not a slogan, but should be solidly implemented in all aspects such as platform governance, business ecology, high-quality supply chain, and high-quality consumption." Zhao Jiazhen said that high-quality development first and foremost means that agriculture remains the foothold of Pinduoduo. Secondly, assisting in the transformation and upgrading of traditional production capacity and enabling manufacturing in various regions to enter the national and even global markets is an important task faced by the platform. Establishing a special fund for "billion yuan subsidies", optimizing platform governance and ecological construction, are important measures for Pinduoduo to practice high-quality development.

Driven by Duoduo's cross-border business, domestic merchants are taking the first step towards going overseas

"Next, we hope to continuously subsidize and invest in the Shanghai consumer market, strengthen the protection of consumer rights, improve supply levels, optimize the consumption environment, and further stimulate consumption potential," said Zhao Jiazhen.

At present, many Shanghai manufacturers have reached overseas consumers through cross-border channels. There are both Shanghai time-honored brands such as Sanqiang underwear and new consumer brands among them. After receiving overseas support from Pinduoduo, a beauty company in Fengxian, Shanghai quickly achieved sales of over 15000 beauty products.

"In the future, we will further strengthen the deep integration of cross-border e-commerce and the industrial chain, drive the digital collaborative upgrading of the entire manufacturing chain, and help Shanghai become a bridgehead for Chinese brands to go global." Chen Lei said.