If the SARS in 2003 changed the shopping habits of domestic consumers and made Taobao a success, then the new epidemic will make the e-commerce platform represented by Amazon on a global scale and trigger a new round of changes in the shopping habits of global consumers.
For those who want to start a business in the e-commerce industry, compared with the saturated domestic e-commerce market, cross-border e-commerce is undoubtedly the only choice with higher income and lower risk.
The “home” economy brought by the epidemic accelerates the rise of global online retail sales
(US e-commerce environment)
After more than ten years of development, domestic e-commerce has developed in a multi electricity business mode. Nowadays, the flow cost is extremely high, and of course, the operating cost is also rising. The domestic e-commerce environment has become particularly competitive, but online shopping abroad is growing at a high speed, and the epidemic continues, more people’s shopping habits are being changed, and online consumption will continue to grow at a high speed.
The future is promising.
Amazon stands out in the world
According to the top 10 e-commerce online retail sales in the United States, Amazon is the absolute leader in the U.S. e-commerce market, with a market share of nearly 40% predicted by emarkerter.
According to the report jointly released by cbcommerce.eu, FedEx and worldline, the mainstream e-commerce players in the European e-commerce market are Amazon and eBay, with a market share of more than 50%.
According to the observation data and forecast data released by emarketer, Western European countries are the main force of online consumption, and the online retail scale of the UK, Germany and France together accounts for more than 60% of the share in Europe, among which the UK’s online physical retail volume ranks the third in the world.
In Asia (except mainland China), Japan has the largest online physical retail scale. Amazon is the first online shopping platform in Japan.
Strong supply chain system helps small and medium-sized sellers sell their goods around the world
Amazon old saying: seven options, three operations, selection is the most important. With the globalization of e-commerce development, “made in China” is deeply loved by overseas consumers. The Chinese market, known as the “world factory”, has the competitive advantages of sufficient supply, many categories and good quality. With Amazon products as the king, Chinese sellers are not only suitable for long-term operation of the refined route, but also can operate multiple products.
We can compare domestic wholesale platforms (such as 1688) with Amazon products, and there is a huge price difference (take mobile phone case as an example).
(1688 website)
(data source: sorftime market analysis report of Amazon BSR front desk – price range analysis)
Chinese sellers have occupied a large share of Amazon’s many sites
Most of Amazon’s global sales come from local sellers first, followed by Chinese sellers. In France, Italy, Spain and Canada, Chinese sellers even account for a larger share than local sellers.
(data source – Amazon official platform)
How to enter Amazon
First of all, we must be clear about the goal of e-commerce competition?
It’s traffic! That is, when consumers search for keywords or products, products can be displayed on the search results page. The higher the ranking, the greater the chance of being displayed. Without traffic, it is impossible to generate more orders and higher sales. For big sellers, in order to fight for traffic, we can spend all kinds of money (of course, there is a big market, small sellers had better not enter), but small sellers have less money. Since we can’t spend money to rush the ranking, for small sellers, we can at least do better than our competitors in some dimensions.
Because Amazon platform will make a comprehensive score according to various indicators of the product. The higher the score, the greater the traffic and the higher the product ranking. Indicators such as the relevance between consumer search purpose and product, shelf time, sales volume, conversion rate, price stability, evaluation number, score, return rate… Therefore, the earlier the entry, the higher the cumulative weight of the product, The greater the competitive advantage.
Secondly, how to analyze and choose the market?
Maybe some novice sellers feel that Amazon has a high threshold, in fact, many of them are because the way of thinking can’t keep up with the times. It’s no longer an era of selling what you want to sell, simply looking for goods, distributing goods, and advertising. Because the number of Amazon sellers has increased sharply, especially a large number of Chinese sellers have entered the market (a large number of talents have accumulated in the domestic e-commerce environment for more than ten years), the market competition has become particularly fierce. In the traditional consumer electronics, clothing accessories and home furnishings, the competition among the well-known categories is particularly fierce. The most important method for small and medium-sized sellers is to know how to analyze the competitive environment.
We can gain insight into the market by analyzing the top 100 products in Amazon best sellers. Because top 100 is the most concentrated embodiment of category market sales, we can analyze the market environment from the following four aspects:
Monopoly (we call it monopoly dimension analysis in the following cases)
1. Sales monopoly. In the category market, the sales volume of head products is very high, which makes it difficult for follow-up products to obtain sales volume. We call it product monopoly sales volume. In such a market, consumers have obvious product preferences in most cases. Small and medium-sized sellers are not suitable to enter. For example, the following categories of products.
(data source, sorftime market analysis report)
2. Brand / seller monopoly. If there are big brands, big sellers and Amazon’s proprietary market share in the category market is too high, we call it brand / seller / Amazon’s proprietary monopoly sales. Such a market competition threshold is usually very high, small and medium-sized sellers are not suitable to enter. For example, products in the following categories:
(data source, sorftime market analysis report)
Operational Professionalism (we call it operational professionalism dimension analysis in the following cases)
1. Analyze the competitors in the category market, if they are big sellers who have been working hard for many years and have a wide distribution. In such a market, it is difficult for small sellers to participate in the competition. For example, Anker is involved in the power bank market.
(data source, sorftime market analysis report)
2. The proportion of filing. If most of the products in the category market have been registered as brands. It shows that the seller is more professional. For example, the proportion of brand records in the power bank market is as high as 81%. In addition, the high proportion of a +, video also shows that the seller is highly professional.
After sales risk:
This is a point that many sellers ignore, but countless lessons come from this. Because once there is a return, the seller has to bear double freight and return service charges. If the product is unpacked for trial, it can not be sold again, which greatly reduces the profit. If the average star rating is greater than 4 stars, the risk of return is small, otherwise it is large. Of course, if the seller who has the ability of product research and development specializes in the low star market, it is easier to obtain sales volume and quickly occupy the list by improving the product.
Amount of investment:
1. Look at the number of evaluations. If the average number of product evaluations in the category market is too large, and the cumulative platform weight is high, it is difficult for new products to compete with it for traffic, and new products need to spend a lot of early advertising / pushing costs (also take power bank products as an example).
2. Look at the sales volume. If the product needs to reach hundreds of daily sales to be on the list, it requires great capital preparation.
3. Logistics cost. If the product is large or heavy, it can only be transported by sea. This kind of product has high first logistics cost and high pressing cost, which is not suitable for small and medium-sized sellers.
(data source, sorftime market analysis report)
For small and medium-sized sellers, the first thing Amazon has to do is competitive analysis. If we use the above analysis method to analyze the mobile phone shell Market, then we know that the market seems to have a huge price difference, but there is great competition, high professional operation, high capital investment, and small and medium-sized sellers have no chance. But learn to use the method of competitive analysis to analyze the market, in the face of Amazon’s numerous development opportunities, we will be able to find our own blue ocean market.
Post time: May-21-2021