What is the prospect of AliExpress?
Compared to the originator of the world’s cross-border e-commerce, such as Amazon, which has a significant status in the world, AliExpress is a new platform. What is the development direction of AliExpress, and what is the prospect of AliExpress?
For Alibaba AliExpress platform, August 15, 2016 is a day of extraordinary significance. Because from this day, AliExpress has completed the transformation and upgrade from C2C platform to B2C platform. Since then, all sellers operating on the platform have corporate identity. Aliexpress has been changing with changes in the market environment, so what is the development direction of Aliexpress in 2017? What is the prospect of Aliexpress?
AliExpress has completed the transformation and upgrade from the C2C platform to the B2C platform. This action is regarded by many in the industry as the biggest change in the cross-border e-commerce field this year.
“Transforming from C2C to B2C requires more than corporate qualifications. It actually involves various aspects of market mechanisms, rules, models, etc., and requires a combination of punches.” Shen Difan revealed that at present, the AliExpress platform checks sellers every month. To identify the sellers that do not meet the standards; the platform also differentiates all industries and does not allow stores in the form of grocery stores to continue operating; at the same time, the platform is vigorously promoting branded products, allowing consumers to Perception.
This series of measures that seem to be changing from the outside, in fact, still have not deviated from the platform’s consistent branding and professionalization. As the cross-border export e-commerce market is gradually formalizing, only professional sellers can survive the reshuffle period. Shen Difan said: “AliExpress is also a role in the market and has been changing with changes in the market environment. Next year, Aliexpress will change even more than this year.”
B2C transformation in the narrow sense is completed, and the seller structure is changing
Shen Difan: After Aliexpress completed the transformation, the results were good.
First, the buyer experience has improved significantly. This year, the dispute rate of buyers on the quality of goods on the platform has dropped by about 30% to 50%. At the same time, buyers ’NPS (Net Promoter Score) rose by 50%. Second, platform risks are reduced. We used to find some similar infringement risks on the platform. Now, this ratio has been reduced by more than 60%. In addition, the seller structure of the platform has changed. In addition to reviewing corporate qualifications this year, we also checked the seller’s operating indicators, and selected gold and silver sellers based on these indicators. After the platform transformation, the GMV of these sellers has generally increased by 2 to 3 times.
Because the income is more, these high-quality sellers are also willing to go closer to the platform. We found that this year the seller’s willingness to stock is much higher, and even some sellers are willing to go overseas to stock, so the timeliness of logistics has also improved. Moreover, many sellers have begun to work hard on the quality of the products. Some sellers have also developed models for overseas markets, and they have become more focused on product manufacturing.
Except for gold and silver sellers, what feedback do other sellers have on the changes to the platform?
At present, gold and silver sellers account for about 5% of all sellers on the platform. In addition to big brands such as Li Ning and Xiaomi, there are many small and medium sellers on our platform. The transformation does put forward higher requirements for them, and they have also worked very hard.
For the platform, we will definitely direct the traffic to those products and sellers who are willing and able to upgrade the quality with the platform. And we also observe that when these sellers do a good job in service capabilities and product quality, the buyer repurchase rate is also much higher. Therefore, this effect not only depends on the support of the platform, but a large part of the reason is from the sellers themselves. I believe this is a virtuous cycle. With such a benchmark in the platform, other sellers will follow immediately. Consumer choice is the most telling.
After changing from C to B, we see AliExpress has recruited many Tmall sellers in the past year. From domestic e-commerce to cross-border e-commerce, how are these Tmall sellers now living?
Some Tmall sellers have done a good job, for example, Puppy Appliances, First Language, etc., but many sellers have also shown dissatisfaction. From these successful cases, we find that many Tmall sellers have a certain foreign trade background. A long time ago, the export environment for foreign trade was not very good. A large number of people transformed from foreign trade to e-commerce. Another group of people who did well became today’s Tmall sellers. These sellers still retain the skills of doing foreign trade that day, they know how to satisfy overseas consumers.
In fact, when we talk about Chinese goods, the goods in the entire market are divided into domestic and foreign trade. The two products are very different, with different sizes, versions, formats, preferences, and so on. If Tmall sellers want to transfer from domestic production and customer service system to foreign trade in a short time, it will inevitably encounter certain difficulties. However, we also found that these Tmall sellers with foreign trade background are very adaptable. Some sellers even told me that AliExpress took them to the sea today to help them fulfill their dreams of doing foreign trade before. We were very impressed to hear it.
Cross-border e-commerce enters the reshuffle period, there is a huge opportunity for new China manufacturing.
In your observation, what changes have taken place in the overall environment of cross-border export e-commerce this year?
In the past two years, cross-border e-commerce is gradually moving from a state of chaos to a state of governance and formalization. In the past, those amateur sellers who did not understand the products at all, and spent three days fishing and two days drying the nets, have gradually eliminated in the market competition pattern in the past two years. At the same time, those cross-border e-commerce practitioners who were hiding behind the scenes are now more and more willing to be exposed to the public. Some of the outstanding sellers have already listed on the NEEQ. As exposure increases, these sellers are also pursuing formalization and high quality. All signs indicate that the reshuffle in the cross-border e-commerce sector has been very clear.
From the perspective of seller structure, cross-border e-commerce was a marginal market in China’s e-commerce market, accounting for a small proportion. But this year, I think the growth rate of cross-border e-commerce will usher in an unprecedented increase. After the regular sellers enter the market, the infrastructure of the entire market is improving, whether it is logistics, payment, service standards, or product quality. This year, capital’s participation in the cross-border e-commerce market has been much higher, which is enough to prove that this market is entering a period of rapid growth dividends.
Do these changes bring new opportunities or challenges to the platform and sellers?
The market is shuffling, which will be a good time for mainstream players in the market. In addition, due to the entry of capital and large regulated enterprises, the market’s plate will become larger and larger. As the plate grows, I believe more opportunities will emerge.
Before we talked about Made in China, we mentioned Angang Baosteel and other large companies with hundreds of thousands of people, but this is the product of the past industrialization era. Today we will see many companies with dozens or hundreds of people. They already have strong R & D capabilities and market acumen. Small and beautiful companies like this can actually seize new opportunities. We use the words “Made in New China” to describe these companies. When the entire market is formalized, there will be huge opportunities for these companies.
Now AliExpress focuses on branding and specialization
Is the branding proposed in December 2017 still the direction of AliExpress? What is the current progress?
On August 15, 2017, AliExpress completed 100% of the enterprise, but we are still far from real branding. In fact, between enterprise and branding, there is another thing called trademarking, which is also the second step strategy of AliExpress. Trademarking is not the same as branding, but without it, there will be no concept of branding.
AliExpress will put forward trademark requirements for most industries on the platform in the future. It is hoped that sellers can own or operate a brand and have a symbol in the minds of buyers. This symbol represents the tone of the seller, and represents the seller’s product quality and service level.
AliExpress is also launching the “Thousand-Class Brand Program”, hoping to select 1,000 outstanding cross-border e-commerce brands from the platform after the enterprise and trademarkization of the platform is completed. These brands can have a certain understanding in the minds of consumers, and the brand also has a system from production to cross-border supply chain. In the next two years, AliExpress is likely to cultivate such a group of cross-border e-commerce brands. Like Taobao’s “Amoy Brand”, AliExpress will have its own A brand.
Aliexpress has been adjusting the operating categories this year, and the classification has become more detailed. Why did you make such an adjustment?
This is in line with our strategy. We hope to further subdivide some of the business scope so that sellers can focus on one or two categories, really do a good job of products and services, and make this category bigger and stronger. When the seller wants to be big and comprehensive, the professionalism will become weaker accordingly. Today, as the division of labor throughout the supply chain becomes more and more clear, we hope that sellers can be as professional as possible in a certain category.
After the adjustment, what are the original sellers who operate multiple categories at the same time?
Branding and specialization will definitely be the direction of cross-border e-commerce in the future, but we are not saying which group to eliminate, and each group has its value in the industry. Consumers demand better products and better services. These products must be provided by professional sellers. What about better services? It is likely that the service providers are transformed by those sellers who used to make big products in the past. which provided. At present, such a trend can be seen on the platform. Big sellers who previously operated multiple categories have begun to transform into TP and logistics. When the market volume goes up, the regularization becomes more and more obvious, and its role will be subdivided accordingly. Whether at home or abroad, an era of differentiation is bound to come.
What do you think of the future cross-border export e-commerce industry? Among them, what kind of role does AliExpress play?
In my opinion, the concept of cross-border e-commerce does not exist within five years. With the larger business volume and better service experience, I believe that the experience of cross-border e-commerce is the same as that of local e-commerce.
Return to Aliexpress’s role, we still adhere to the mission of “Good Cargo, Happy World”, so that global quality goods can be bought by consumers around the world. In fact, AliExpress is also a role in the market. With the changes in the market environment, we have also been changing in accordance with the market environment. Many sellers and many market practitioners feel that 2016 is the year with the biggest changes in AliExpress. But I want to say a word here, as the market continues to specialize and formalize, AliExpress will change more than this year.
So the development of AliExpress platform is still very impressive. Just look for the industry to enter and do well in store operation. You can also freely travel in such a blue ocean of cross-border e-commerce!