Interface News Reporter | Ge Zhenwei
After a gap of three years and nine months, from December 12th to 15th, 2023, Amazon chose to restart its investment promotion conference for sellers in Shenzhen - the 2023 Amazon Global Store Cross border Summit.
This is a landmark event in the cross-border e-commerce industry, and Amazon has dispatched more than 200 staff members. Luxury hotels around the exhibition center were once fully booked. Tens of thousands of cross-border sellers and service providers from all over the country flocked to the Futian Convention and Exhibition Center in Shenzhen, with a clear goal of capturing the latest "money making" opportunities at this summit.
Interface News reporters saw at the summit that Amazon executives took turns on stage to introduce Amazon's latest policy trends and strategic priorities, including the official opening of the Amazon Supply Chain by Amazon overall solution to Chinese sellers, with seats filled for thousands of people. Several giant screens surround Hall 9 of the Convention and Exhibition Center, ensuring that every visitor can timely and accurately obtain information about the conference. The 1-on-1 shop consultation area in Hall 7 is even more difficult to find.
Shooting: Ge Zhenwei
Amazon reviewed the progress and achievements made by Chinese companies on Amazon over the past year. Data shows that in the past year, the number of Chinese sellers with sales exceeding $1 million on Amazon has increased by over 25% year-on-year; The number of Chinese sellers with sales exceeding 10 million US dollars increased by nearly 30% year-on-year; The number of products sold by Chinese sellers to consumers and corporate customers through Amazon's global website has increased by over 20% year-on-year.
But Amazon still faces considerable competitive pressure.
In the past year, Pinduoduo's overseas version of Temu has made a significant entry into Amazon's headquarters - the US market, and has received over 200 million downloads in just one year, while expanding to 48 national sites. The latest data shows that American consumers spend almost twice as much time on Temu as on major competitors such as Amazon. Temu has become the favorite shopping app among Americans.
Not only Temu, but also Shein and TikTok from China, Alibaba International Station, AliExpress and other cross-border platforms from Alibaba, as well as Wal Mart, a traditional retail giant in the United States, are constantly updating their policies to compete with Amazon indirectly or directly for Chinese sellers and user resources.
In response to the diversion of low unit price products by rising stars such as Temu, Amazon has also adjusted its strategy and announced that starting from January next year, it will reduce the commission rate for clothing product sellers priced below $15 to 5%; The commission rate for clothing priced between $15 and $20 will be reduced to 10%. Previously, the commission rates for both categories were 17%.
"Amazon has lowered service fees/commissions for certain categories, which is a huge change for it," Qin Tong, Sales General Manager of Payoneer's Payoneer Greater China, told Interface News reporters. Payoneer is the official global payment service provider of Amazon, listed on NASDAQ. Its payment system covers all Amazon sites and over 100 e-commerce platforms worldwide.
In the face of particularly fierce competition in 2023, Dai Jianfei, Global Vice President and CEO of Amazon's Asia Pacific region, responded calmly: "The cross-border e-commerce arena is becoming increasingly spacious, and we are also seeing more and more companies joining. This is a good thing for the healthy development of the industry. It also indicates that there is still great development space for exporting cross-border e-commerce."
In Qin Tong's view, the e-commerce market is still continuing to grow. According to statistics and EDGE reports, the compound annual growth rate of e-commerce market size in North America and other regions is expected to reach 14.43% from 2017 to 2027, and the GMV of the US e-commerce market will increase from $400 billion to nearly $130 billion.
At the same time, the consumer group, economic environment, and trade environment are also undergoing changes. In terms of consumer groups, Gen-Z has become the main consumer group in society, leading to a shift in overall consumption habits and expectations. The trend of consumption shifting towards mobile devices requires cross-border e-commerce sellers to consider new strategies for customer acquisition and interaction;
In terms of economic environment, high inflation in the United States has led to a significant increase in the cost of basic necessities, so overseas consumers will be more interested in cost-effectiveness.
"As traffic acquisition shifts from traffic dividends to refined operations and compliance requirements become increasingly strict, it means that cross-border e-commerce sellers need to obtain professional advice and solutions in many new fields." Qin Tong said. At this summit, Payoneer has set up a dedicated booth and a professional team of account managers to introduce comprehensive revenue and payment solutions for Amazon sellers to on-site sellers.
For novice sellers, Qin Tong also introduced Payoneer's "Million Dollar Operating Hands - Sales Enhancement Camp Project", which is specifically aimed at cross-border e-commerce merchants with less than 3 years of experience. In addition, Payoneer will also hold a seller summit in Shenzhen next month.
Both Payoneer and Amazon choose to continue betting on cross-border e-commerce in Shenzhen. On the opening day of the summit (December 12th), Amazon announced that the "Amazon Global Store Asia Pacific Innovation Center" has settled in Qianhai, Shenzhen. This is Amazon's first innovation center to open a global store.
China's cross-border e-commerce looks at South China, and South China's cross-border e-commerce looks at Shenzhen. It is estimated that Shenzhen has the highest number of Amazon sellers in the world. Shenzhen accounts for 60% of the total cross-border e-commerce scale in China, and almost 80% of sellers in Shenzhen will do Amazon. Many international e-commerce platforms will also set their first stop in China in Shenzhen. Shenzhen is also known as the "Capital of Cross border E-commerce".
In recent years, cross-border e-commerce in Shenzhen has gone through ups and downs. In 2020, the rapid recovery of the epidemic and a stable supply chain system led to the transfer of global procurement orders to China. Accidentally, they pressed the growth engine of China's foreign trade, and cross-border sellers in Shenzhen reaped explosive growth dividends in foreign trade that year.
However, starting from the first half of 2021, Shenzhen's cross-border e-commerce industry has experienced a "once-in-a-decade industry shock", with many top sellers being banned on a large scale for violating Amazon platform rules, causing significant damage to their morale and becoming an indelible trauma to this day. Afterwards, the trend of compliant operation became increasingly apparent, and some sellers also flowed to other platform channels or built their own independent websites.
In 2022, cross-border e-commerce in Shenzhen will resume growth. According to the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Commerce, the import and export volume of cross-border e-commerce in Shenzhen exceeded 190 billion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of over 2.4 times, ranking first in Guangdong Province and leading in the country. Ningbo and Hangzhou, which are also gathering places for cross-border e-commerce, have cross-border e-commerce import and export volumes of 170 billion yuan and 120.3 billion yuan respectively in 2022.
From January to October this year, the import and export volume of cross-border e-commerce in Shenzhen has exceeded that of the entire year last year. With Shenzhen Saiwei Times and Three State E-commerce independently listing on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in July and September, there are 10 cross-border e-commerce listed companies in Shenzhen, ranking first in the country.
"The flow of people at this summit far exceeded our previous expectations (15000 people). One reason behind this is that the market, government, and this track need such opportunities to boost everyone's confidence. In this ecosystem, everyone can inspire, support, and grow together, so that Chinese sellers can truly 'sweep globalization' through capital and product overflow." Qin Tong said.