GLOBAL COMMERCE IS CHANGING
this is an age of fast-changing, the way we communicate, work, play, and the way we do business have been changing rapidly these few decades too, and it will continue to change globally.
In recent few years, we have seen a tremendous change in international trading, especially buying from China. What are the changes? And How will it impact you or your business? Let’s figure it out.
MOVING FROM OFFLINE TO ONLINE
In China, most of the business has gone online, especially for those companies which sell globally. Of course, sell online or promote online is not something new, however, only a few sell online VS they all sell/promote online is quite a different thing. This basically means you can find all products without heading to China, and figure it out what you truly want to purchase from China. And this is also why nowadays when you visit those used-to-be very big and busy exhibition, you will only find very boring and common products all over the exhibition, also fewer people in the fair. So if you spend most of your time visiting fairs, and expecting to find something amazing, it is quite likely that your work will not pay off very well. Spend more time online, Digg deeper, this is the right thing to do before you really pay a visit to a factory or place an order.
So
- Spend more time online
- Don’t go to trade fair if you were looking for innovation or uniqueness (if you wanna purchase from China)
- Come to China is important but research intensively before come.
FROM BULKY PURCHASE TO SMALL BUT FREQUENT PURCHASE
This is a very interesting phenomenon and stories of this phenomenon are shared by both China side and purchase side. In the past companies in China expected and like to take big bulky orders, but things have changed. Many companies say that the order size has shrunk into small orders which used to be one container after another.
But the frequency of placing the order is increasing sharply. More and more orders are transferred by express service, and orders are placed by different companies or even individuals. What if we dig into this phenomenon, we can see that there are some factors may have caused this.
- E-Commerce
E-Commerce has transformed the way many companies source the products. Unlike the traditional import and distribution business model. E-Commerce allows the company to fast test the water, so this will either cut the blind purchase or increase the order on certain products.
- Communication and Shipping facility
As the internet develops, companies are able to present the products in many fashions via rich media, photos, videos, VR. And Internet companies also help to build trust system online. All these facilities allow both sellers and buyers to connect and build business connection way easier than before. Once the international trading business could only be done by big companies, now it is almost available to everyone.
CHINA IS CHANGING
As the world second-biggest economy, China is changing, fast! How China is changing is a very huge topic, and this topic can be turned into a brick-thick book. In terms of the factors impact sourcing from China, those can be generalized into the following points.
- Cost is increasing quickly. Now the human resource, land, rental cost in China is way higher than 10 years ago. This will for sure go into the cost of the product, service you may purchase from China. If you were looking for some very low-cost product from China, you may be disappointed.
- Chinese companies touch the customer more direct. In the past, companies in China only do B2B with other countries. Nowadays, it is quite different. Chinese companies do not only set up the branch office in other countries but sell directly to the end users via different e-commerce platforms, like Amazon, eBay, Wish, Walmart.
- Innovation and quality start to becoming the trend. if you look at the crowdfunding platform, Digg a bit deeper, you would see most of the electronic products are from China, this is very obvious on Indiegogo which accept Chinese company to promote their ideas. Made in China basically means cheap and low quality, this stereotype is still popular, but what we can also see is that there are so many quality products from China now. It is not cheap, but it is also not that expensive compared to their counterpart from developed countries.
I believe what you read above is something you are experiencing or heard or saw. These changes will definitely impact your business or the way you do business. If you are sourcing from China, or plan to source from China. You need to rethink, maybe not for now, but for the future.
Echeers is specialized in manufacturing and related fulfillment service, based in Shenzhen China.