Zhejiang foreign trade enterprises prepare for the foreign trade peak season in March

"In the era of cross-border e-commerce, I realized that the customer base I faced has undergone tremendous changes. Only 10% of the big B-end customers in the industry have an annual transaction volume of more than 200,000 US dollars, and the remaining 90% are small B-end customers. Moreover, the needs of customers change rapidly and are highly diverse. " Since the spring, domestic foreign trade enterprises have ushered in the first foreign trade peak season this year. Xuan Tao, the founder and general manager of Zhejiang Shaoxing Fuyi Clothing Co., Ltd., realized that in the past, only focusing on big customers made Fuyi’s annual sales performance only hover around 10 million US dollars for a long time.

Now Xuantao has expanded to a wider customer base with the help of cross-border e-commerce. After adjusting the marketing ideas, Xuantao quickly accepted a French customer order with an annual transaction volume of $1.2 million at Ali International Station. Within a year, Fuyi’s traffic increased rapidly, and the conversion rate was also high, and its performance quickly exceeded 30 million US dollars.

According to the data of Ali International Station, the market demand of Zhejiang’s clothing, home gardening, automobile and motorcycle accessories, machinery, packaging and printing has increased by more than double digits in the past year. Since the beginning of this year, foreign trade merchants from 50 to 00 at Ali International Station have shown their magical powers, grabbing orders digitally and racing against time.

Internal incubation partners retain talents

According to statistics from Hangzhou Customs, the import and export scale of Zhejiang Province reached a record high in 2022, with the export contribution rate ranking first in China. The province’s import and export was 4.68 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.1%. Among them, exports reached 3.43 trillion yuan, up by 14.0%.

"In order to let the salesman come back to work early this year, we gave double wages from the eighth day of the first month to the fifteenth day of the first month. In the original foreign trade industry, ordinary employees usually came back to work after the fifteenth day of the first month. " Xu Jingqian, a post-60s businessman and general manager of OPEC Machinery and Equipment Co., Ltd., believes that starting work early will enable everyone to better enter the peak season in March.

At present, Xu Jingqian’s company is headquartered in Yiwu, and there are three other factories in Shanghai, Wuxi and Shenzhen. Among them, the Shanghai factory is mainly based on self-developed screw air compressors, and it has expanded from industrial machinery to construction machinery.

For foreign trade companies, it used to be common that a senior foreign trade salesman would take the company’s customers away and go it alone. Xu Jingqian said that they now have three shops on the international station. The third store opened last year just finished a "special ceremony" years ago, so that an outstanding post-1995 salesman can manage the third store by internal incubation and become a partner, and 40% of the store’s net profit will be distributed to him. The post-1995 partner, who just took office, got three orders with a total of $150,000 through Ali International Station for more than two weeks.

"Generally, in the foreign trade industry, the average life cycle of a salesman in the company is 5 years. For the machinery industry, it takes five years to train a qualified sales salesman. " Xu Jingqian described the difficulty of cultivating talents in mechanical foreign trade enterprises, making excellent employees partners and avoiding the loss of core talents. This is the best solution in his practice.

Digital foreign trade is the future.

In fact, not only Zhejiang, but also businesses in other provinces are also facing the foreign trade peak season in March, and the March New Trade Festival of Ali International Station was officially launched, contributing to foreign traders.

"100 million!" This is the "small goal" that Zhao Yunqi, a post-90 s businessman on Ali International Station, set for himself this year. At present, the new energy products of Hefei Shengwei Technology Company led by him are exported to Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

In order to seize this peak season, Zhao Yunqi made a mobilization meeting early in the new year, in order to make every member keep up with the rhythm. "The original weekly weekend, in March, we temporarily changed it to a weekly weekend. In the business, it was originally pulled once or twice a month, and now it is done every week. " Behind the strict requirements, the rewards are equally generous. In addition to the commission, the salesmen also have new energy vehicles and public travel as rewards when they open the big orders.

"In order to meet the foreign trade peak season in March, we recently set up a new cross-border new media operation team, which recruited 20 to 30 people in the beginning of the year." Luo Chang, general manager of Shenzhen Shuoteng Technology after the 1970s, believes that cross-border e-commerce and domestic new media operators cannot be universal, because the usage habits of new media at home and abroad are very different.

Luo Chang’s cross-border new media team has invested heavily in cross-border e-commerce live broadcast. He believes that real-time reception of cross-border e-commerce gives customers a better experience. The data shows that the live reception of cross-border live broadcasts can increase the conversion rate of potential customers by nearly 10%.

Although Zhang Fucai, general manager of Shanghai Sixiu Composite Cloth Co., Ltd. is an old foreign trader, he is very positive in the face of cross-border e-commerce. He believes that digital foreign trade is the future trend.

In order to cater to the trend, in 2017, 65-year-old Zhang Fucai began to frequently participate in various study tours organized by Ali International Station. "Only when you see the growth of other companies can you be inspired." Zhang Fucai and his cross-border e-commerce operation team began to try various digital promotion tools this year. "With the help of digital promotion tools, we can accurately find the target population and expand new customers. March is our key month, and all salesmen are working hard to fight for orders and strive for progress steadily. "