Cross border live streaming "ferocious delivery": I have never been to China or met before, and the customer placed an order of 180 million yuan

I believe no one will doubt that the focus of e-commerce platforms has shifted to live streaming. If export and foreign trade business now relies on live streaming to bring goods, can you believe it?Upstream News noticed that according to the latest data released by Alibaba International, in May this year, the daily broadcast frequency of merchants on the platform increased by 66% year-on-year, and the number of overseas viewers increased by 186% year-on-year

I believe no one will doubt that the focus of e-commerce platforms has shifted to live streaming. If export and foreign trade business now relies on live streaming to bring goods, can you believe it?

Upstream News noticed that according to the latest data released by Alibaba International, in May this year, the daily broadcast frequency of merchants on the platform increased by 66% year-on-year, and the number of overseas viewers increased by 186% year-on-year.

The most typical case comes from a technology company in Shenzhen. Founded in 2011, Shuoteng Technology set a record: last year, it won a single transaction of $26 million and ultimately delivered a large overseas order of RMB 180 million - a business completed in a live streaming room. The client has never been to China and the two parties have never met and shook hands.

This is unimaginable in the era of traditional foreign trade.

In the current situation where live streaming e-commerce continues to be popular in China, the trend of live streaming sales is gradually spreading to overseas markets.

Don't look at traffic, only look at efficiency

At the beginning of this year, everyone was on vacation, and only a few merchants like me were still broadcasting. The traffic was really pouring in like a tide! "Wu Xinhe, the marketing director of Shenzhen Maiwei Times Technology Co., Ltd., was excited about the" precise targeting "at that time. In January and February, we received over 9000 inquiries from overseas buyers during cross-border live streaming

The era of Maiwei is a microcosm of many foreign trade enterprises. Xinhua News Agency reporters have conducted research in Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Yiwu and other places and learned that more and more foreign trade enterprises are starting to participate in cross-border live streaming.

The reporter saw at Shenzhen Shuoteng Technology Co., Ltd. that multiple anchors were conducting cross-border live broadcasts in fluent English, along with live streaming robots shuttling between factories. We will connect the factory operation footage captured by the robot to live streaming, and overseas customers can simultaneously see the factory operation situation while communicating with the anchor. "said Luo Chang, founder of Shenzhen Shuoteng Technology Co., Ltd. The company currently has a total of 9 live streaming salespeople, and the live streaming is aimed at platforms such as Alibaba International, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Wu Xinhe told reporters that unlike domestic C-end live streaming, B-type cross-border live streaming is watched by professional overseas buyers, So it's usually good if a live broadcast has dozens or hundreds of viewers, but with January's traffic storage, by February, the average number of viewers per session in our live broadcast room can reach more than 1000. Relying solely on Alibaba International's cross-border live streaming, the company received inquiries from more than 9000 overseas buyers in the first two months. Since the beginning of this year, there have been more than 100 newly developed customers, and we have also negotiated agents in the United States and other places, which is at least more efficient than live streaming Increase the speed of the unified mode by more than one time.

In the past four years, none of our million dollar order customers have come to China or our factory. All business is done online, and even a nearly 200 million yuan foreign trade order signed last year was completed in the live broadcast room. "Luo Chang, CEO of Shenzhen Shuoteng Technology Co., Ltd., felt more deeply about the positive results of discussing business in the live broadcast room.

Shuoteng Technology entered Alibaba International Station in 2019 to conduct online cross-border B2B business, and became one of the earliest companies to test cross-border live streaming with Alibaba International Station in May 2020.

From the initial "duck chasing" to years of exploration and making cross-border live streaming a must-have option, it is accompanied by the business certainty brought by cross-border e-commerce to Shuoteng Technology. In 2022, out of the 300 million yuan revenue of Shuoteng Technology, 240 million yuan came from Alibaba International Station. Not only did it win a $5 million order from the United Nations Food Programme, but it also provided mobile information intelligent terminal equipment for the entire administrative system of a country, with orders reaching nearly 200 million yuan.

With the maturity of online foreign trade tools such as cross-border live streaming, offline meetings are no longer a must-have option to achieve a foreign trade business. In the past three years of reduced global trade demand, the conversion rate of cross-border live streaming scenes has doubled compared to traditional scenes, which makes us more certain that we need to invest more in cross-border live streaming

Do not sell products, only sell capabilities

Similar to selling lipsticks, live streaming rooms with ToC style anchors should try out colors or match them to introduce products and consumer scenarios. Foreign trade live streaming rooms showcase professionalism and abilities. Business anchors in cross-border live streaming often introduce whether the production materials are organic and have been certified by institutions when entering the live streaming room. They cover all the steps involved in foreign trade procurement, such as sample taking, sampling, inspection, factory inspection, and transportation, so that buyers can "see it as it is".

"Cross border live broadcasting is mainly aimed at B-end enterprises, which sell not goods, but the production and manufacturing capacity of enterprises." Luo Chang said that in order to achieve the normalization of cross-border live broadcasting, enterprises independently developed a live broadcasting all-in-one machine. The anchor can start broadcasting with just one click at the workstation, and one person can complete the live streaming tasks that originally required five or six people to collaborate.

The mobile robots produced by Shenzhen Ruiman Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd. also participated in the live broadcast. We live for about 3 hours every night, during which we will have robots do exploratory live broadcasts. Over the past 3 months of live streaming, we have achieved very good results, with 12 serious inquiries appearing on the best night. In the future, we will achieve the normalization of cross-border live streaming, "said the person in charge of the enterprise.

Digitalization has significantly shortened the order formation cycle of foreign trade. In the past, traditional customers of companies took about 40-50 days to complete orders, but the order formation cycle of cross-border e-commerce is generally only about 30 days. "Zhang Qiang, sales manager of Jinan Xintian Technology Co., Ltd., said that this year, enterprises have further" tested "cross-border live streaming on the basis of cross-border e-commerce and achieved good results.

Cross border live streaming procurement can achieve more timely interaction, more realistic presentation, and more comprehensive display. Real products and factories can be seen in the live streaming room, thereby reducing the sense of distrust caused by distance. "Liu Jinyang, the head of cross-border live streaming business at Alibaba International Station, said that in May this year, the daily cross-border live streaming sessions of Alibaba International Station merchants increased by 66% compared to the same period last year, and the number of overseas viewers increased by 186% year-on-year, Overseas enterprises have begun to increase investment in new formats such as live streaming.

Liu Jinyang said that Alibaba International Station has launched a new model of "workstation live streaming" this year. After overseas customers enter the enterprise live streaming room, the Alibaba platform will prompt them, and foreign trade salespeople only need to open the camera to achieve real-time interaction. In the future, Alibaba International Station will also launch the 'voice to subtitle and translation' function, which will convert the merchant's voice into subtitles in real-time in the live streaming room, making it easy for buyers to understand and supporting multilingual translation

Don't be a big name anchor, need a workstation salesperson

In fact, cross-border live streaming is not new. Major platforms in the industry have tried overseas live streaming and sales, but the results have not been satisfactory.

During the Amazon member days from July 11 to 13 last year, including comedian Kevin Hart, Australian model Miranda Kerr, actress Kyle Richards and other stars, all joined Amazon's live delivery team.

But the popularity of live streaming rooms is not as high as imagined.

The busiest official Amazon live streaming room has only over 3000 online viewers, while the average number of viewers in most other live streaming rooms is only a few dozen.

Facebook has also made corresponding attempts, but the final result was a notice: starting from October 2022, the live shopping feature in the Facebook app will be closed.

Instagram, a social media platform from the same company as Facebook, also announced that it will no longer allow creators to label products in live broadcasts, starting from March.

These two large factories have successively abandoned live streaming sales, which has really made many merchants who are preparing to enter the cross-border live streaming sales market take a breath of cold air.

So why have domestic enterprises achieved differentiated success in cross-border live streaming?

One point that must be noted is that cross-border live streaming and live streaming retail for foreign trade target different groups, one is overseas B-end customers and the other is consumers.

From the perspective of the content in the live broadcast room, they have achieved differentiation in the content displayed in the live broadcast room, with the core theme mainly showcasing technical strength, factory production processes, and product performance.

For example, a new energy merchant, Delan Minghai, directly conducts a "pressure test" scenario in a laboratory global live broadcast of its products, such as lighting a 30015 watt light bulb at once, experiencing sudden lighting tests such as a drop in height of 50 centimeters in an extremely cold environment of minus 10 degrees Celsius, showcasing its energy storage product's capacity, cold, and drop selling points.

The Hard power of the product is directly displayed in the form of live video.

From the perspective of anchor sales, merchants and manufacturers often choose to have foreign trade personnel who understand products and business better start broadcasting directly.

As mentioned earlier, a new model of "workstation live streaming" has emerged on Alibaba International Station. Without the need to carefully arrange the live broadcast room and prepare content scripts, foreign trade salespeople can sit on their workstations and start broadcasting on Alibaba International Station to receive global customers.

Compared to the common model of big anchor+MCN organization, this live streaming sales process is more concise and clear.

observation

Outstanding Achievements in Digitalization of Foreign Trade

New Opportunities for Millions of Small and Medium Businesses to Go Abroad

In recent times, Alibaba's international business has gradually become one of the fastest growing businesses under the 1+6+N system.

At the New Trade Festival in March this year, Alibaba International's cross-border live streaming was very popular, attracting 700000 professional buyers in the first week, and the number of merchants tripled year-on-year. In the first half of this year, the number of sea freight containers served through Alibaba International's online services increased by nearly 200% year-on-year, driving a year-on-year increase of nearly 30% in Alibaba International's online foreign trade transaction volume.

The financial report shows that in the first quarter, Alibaba International's retail commercial order volume, including Lazada, AliExpress, Trendyol, and Daraz, increased by 15% year-on-year, and revenue increased by 41% year-on-year.

This reflects that behind the diversified business division of Alibaba Group, it ultimately presents us with the background of an "e-commerce platform".

The first business meeting that founder Jack Ma participated in after his return was the internal communication meeting on Taobao and Tmall. Next, he quietly went to overseas markets.

Azfar Ahsan, former Minister of State and Chairman of the Investment Committee of Pakistan and founder of NutShell Group, recently posted a photo on Twitter with Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group.

According to him, Ma Yun will stay in Lahore, Pakistan for more than 20 hours. Prior to this, Jack Ma conducted research visits to Bangladesh and Nepal. After ending his visit to Pakistan, Jack Ma will also visit Uzbekistan.

Jack Ma's intensive overseas trips make it difficult not to be associated with the development of Alibaba's international business. In addition, the rapid expansion of Alibaba's cross-border live streaming business undoubtedly brings new growth opportunities for millions of domestic small and medium-sized businesses to go overseas.

In this regard, Pan Helin, co director and researcher of the Research Center for Digital Economy and Financial innovation of the International United Business School of Zhejiang University, pointed out that cross-border live broadcasting is a new breakthrough for China's cross-border e-commerce, and this new business type can better broaden the sales channels of China's foreign trade export enterprises and strengthen their ability to obtain customers. Through cross-border live streaming, Chinese enterprises can fully demonstrate their production capacity and strength to overseas customers, which is of positive significance for corporate brand building. The vigorous development of new formats such as cross-border live streaming helps to promote the stable and high-quality development of China's foreign trade

Upstream News Comprehensive Xinhua News Agency, China Economic Weekly, E-commerce Daily, and International Business Daily

Editor: Yang Hong

Editor in Chief: Chen Jingjing

Reviewed by: Zhou Shangdou

Disclaimer: The content of this article is sourced from the internet. The copyright of the text, images, and other materials belongs to the original author. The platform reprints the materials for the purpose of conveying more information. The content of the article is for reference and learning only, and should not be used for commercial purposes. If it infringes on your legitimate rights and interests, please contact us promptly and we will handle it as soon as possible! We respect copyright and are committed to protecting it. Thank you for sharing.(Email:[email protected])