According to data from the US Department of Commerce, online consumption in the United States is still growing by 8%, which may mean that regardless of where it goes abroad, the returning markets are still the United States and Europe, and trade between China and the United States has become a commercial link between the two countries.
01 Sino US Trade: Three Major Categories that Cannot be Neglected
Furniture remains the top imported category in the United States. However, due to the low production technology content of the furniture industry, it is easy for the industry to flow to countries with lower costs, especially Indonesia and Vietnam, which have already taken on some of the industrial belts. This trend did not occur in the past year. In the 2-3 years before the epidemic, a large amount of American furniture had already been produced in Southeast Asia.
As the second largest import category in the United States, the quality of mechanical components determines the import scale. China's supply chain of mechanical components has not undergone significant changes and still maintains technological advantages. In fact, compared to furniture, it takes longer for China's mechanical product industry chain to transfer to Southeast Asia.
Many partners have also asked when China's export pattern will undergo significant changes? I believe that in an industrial chain, only after 50% of the production of components has been transferred out will a scale change be seen. As of today, the mechanical components have not yet reached this threshold, and it is expected to be achieved in 2-3 years.
Electrical appliances are the third largest imported category in the United States, and in the innovation of such products, Chinese manufacturing and Chinese brands have strong advantages while still maintaining a certain volume.
02 From Supply to Supply and Demand Matching - Cross border Trade Moving towards Omni Channels
In the past three years, while cross-border e-commerce has experienced rapid development, it is also highly integrated with traditional trade. No enterprise can rely solely on one channel to complete global sales.
For example, Wal Mart has experienced six channel development stages from 1962 to 2023. Up to now, Wal Mart is not a supermarket, but a global supply chain management company. Its own commodity competitiveness is to make full use of global manufacturing, especially made in China, to reduce the cost of global commodity procurement, and to have a retail commodity quality and price that is more advantageous than its competitors to meet the rising demand of consumers. Therefore, Wal Mart also defines its core competence as the supply chain.
Over the years, Wal Mart has gone from offline to online to better reach the supply chain, because the end point of goods is not just a simple retail customer. The development of Wal Mart also tells us that we should not refuse new channels or actively develop new channels to realize our business value.
03 Challenges brought by omni channels
·Platform supply chain changes
When looking at the development of omni channels, one can also see that a certain emerging platform in China has made some moves in the past three years. For example, both establishing a consolidation warehouse in China and stocking up in domestic and overseas warehouses in the United States actually utilize existing self built websites and establish distribution channels similar to Amazon.
The platform has keenly observed the changes on Amazon in recent years, including Amazon's decisive decision to cut off its DI services, which are self purchased segments. Perhaps it is because Amazon believes that in the supply chain, there is no way for manufacturers and brand owners to have a clearer understanding of where costs are invested. In this case, brand owners and consumers should be left to choose their own supply and demand matching.
In addition to the changes in DI services, Amazon also has DF (One Piece Delivery) and PO (General Goods Mode). In the past three years, whether in South China or East China, one piece shipping has been a rapidly growing field. However, in the past six months, more companies have begun to wonder - can my goods be shipped online and offline in one shipment? That is to say, can setting up overseas warehouses in the United States simultaneously meet the needs of cross-border e-commerce trade and offline distribution channels. They also have such doubts because a single online channel may not guarantee high growth rate development.
·The seller's advantage is gradually disappearing
There are also more sellers facing many challenges in the development of omni channels, and in this process, their core advantages are gradually disappearing. For example, the traffic and distribution of the original online channels are relatively single, and they have not formed a competitiveness centered on brand and design. So today, relying on prices to do cross-border e-commerce is becoming increasingly difficult, and only products and brand ideas can overcome the cold winter.
Among them, regarding distribution channels, the online operation methods of sellers have also become thin, and more enterprises are facing competition such as factory transformation, cost inversion, and internal competition among sellers.
In the continuous improvement of online and offline channels, as many sellers collide in their respective categories, they begin to push various operating costs to the extreme. At this point, everyone urgently needs to find breakthrough points, including exploring consumer segmentation, market judgment, brand innovation, and so on.
Omni channel development trend one: FBA to FBM
Channel: sellers expand from Amazon to Wal Mart, independent stations, RH, Ashley and other offline platforms.
Supply chain: The ratio of top selling FBA warehouses to FBM warehouses is 1:9, and overseas warehouses supply to offline stores, allowing for flexible inventory management.
Brand: A leading domestic electrical appliance brand, covering the entire United States through FBM warehouses to enhance brand premium capabilities and create a strong effect.
Of course, it is also inevitable to face challenges, including uneven levels of standardization in some overseas warehouse services. This requires enterprises to have a complete management team and management standards, or to establish strong IT capabilities through self construction or third-party joint leasing.
Omni channel development trend two: increasing demand for digital capabilities
In the face of market competition, cross-border sellers are constantly transforming and upgrading. In this process, everyone is pursuing product shelf life, ensuring no stockouts, reducing capital occupancy, and constantly increasing the demand for flexible supply capacity, which has given rise to dependence on digital systems.
