To help Taizhou manufacturing efficiently attack the global market, Temu has provided the "answer"

In recent years, influenced by factors such as policy support and improved market environment, China's cross-border e-commerce has maintained a rapid expansion trend. According to the General Administration of Customs, the total import and export volume of China's cross-border e-commerce is expected to reach 23.8 trillion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 15.6%.

At the same time as the continuous expansion of the scale of cross-border e-commerce, a group of highly competitive new-generation cross-border e-commerce platforms are "breaking waves" in overseas markets, rapidly growing into an undeniable "Chinese force". Among them, Temu, the cross-border and e-commerce platform launched by Pinduoduo (PDD.US), can be said to be a leader and typical representative.

According to the Intelligence Finance APP, in order to support more industrial belt enterprises to seize new opportunities in going global and build new foreign trade channels, Pinduoduo's cross-border business has been conducting dozens of industrial belt docking activities in the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and the Jiaodong area since the beginning of this year, including 12 large-scale comprehensive industrial docking meetings. The latest example is the 2024 Temu (Taizhou Station) Industrial Docking Conference held in Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province.

At the event, hundreds of representatives from local companies and factories gathered together, showing strong interest in topics such as the Temu platform model, merchant support programs, product selection direction, and brand cultivation. "Taizhou is a very important advanced manufacturing base in the Yangtze River Delta region, with high-quality enterprises such as 'specialized, refined, distinctive, and new' and 'small giants'. We look forward to Temu deepening its connection with more industries in Taizhou, revitalizing traditional industries in Taizhou through this pioneering cross-border e-commerce platform, and creating a better prospect for going global." said Dong Jie, Deputy Director of Taizhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce.

Pinduoduo's Cross-border Empowerment of Taizhou Manufacturing

As a major province in foreign trade, Zhejiang's contribution rate to foreign trade in 2023 continued to rank among the top in the country. According to data from Hangzhou Customs, Zhejiang Province's total exports in 2023 reached 3.57 trillion yuan, ranking second in the country; among them, cross-border e-commerce is the source of export growth, with data showing that in 2023, Zhejiang exported 179.83 billion yuan through customs cross-border e-commerce platforms, with a high growth rate of 47.8%.

Behind the impressive data is the transformation of traditional foreign trade processing and order-snatching models by cross-border e-commerce, with the mold industry in Taizhou being one of the representative cases. Data from the Taizhou Plastic Trade Fair shows that in daily life, 6 out of 10 plastic daily necessities in China are "Made in Taizhou". The mold industry is one of the 7 billion-level industrial clusters key to nurturing in Taizhou, involving everything from home storage to automobiles, medical equipment, aerospace machinery, and more.

Despite its large industrial scale and complete supply chain, the Taizhou mold industry has long faced the dilemma of oversupply due to high homogeneity and industry dispersion. However, with the emergence of Pinduoduo's cross-border business and Temu, this situation is undergoing positive changes.

Lin Sheng (pseudonym) comes from a family engaged in furniture storage business and owns a factory. However, due to the low technological barriers, competition in the field of home storage production has always been fierce. Lin Sheng is well aware of the vast overseas market. As early as 2021, he planned to obtain overseas orders through cross-border e-commerce. However, as the only person in the family who understands e-commerce, he had to study in the UK, manage an online store, remotely control shipping, customs clearance, warehousing, fulfillment, etc., from across the ocean This idea ultimately failed to materialize.

After the launch of Temu, this orange APP gave Lin Sheng hope for rapid cross-border operations. "The full-service model allows me to focus on operating the online store, while my family elders are responsible for production and distribution, and the platform takes care of subsequent customs clearance, fulfillment, after-sales, and other processes." As a result, Lin Sheng became one of the first merchants to join Duoduo Cross-border.

This side business "grew very fast", and within three months of joining Temu, Lin Sheng's shop orders increased by 400%. After graduating from university, he returned to Taizhou and devoted himself to the operation of his family's factory's cross-border e-commerce.

"A platform's explosive product may be an opportunity for explosive business growth for ordinary factories." At a previous Taizhou industrial belt docking event, Dong Jie said that the full-service model simplifies the process of going global, lowers the threshold for foreign trade, and, more importantly, broadens the industrial belt's order channels, bringing it a great opportunity for growth. "We encourage traditional enterprises in Taizhou to actively transform and participate in cross-border e-commerce industries, leveraging Temu's platform advantages to further promote 'Taizhou manufacturing' setting sail overseas."

Comprehensive support to help brands attack the global market

At the Taizhou Industrial Docking Conference, the relevant persons in charge of Duoduo Cross-border's home, outdoor, bags, clothing, beauty tools, and other categories introduced the overseas consumption hotspots and trends of their respective categories. Taking the outdoor category as an example, according to the person in charge of this category, as the domestic sports outdoor industry is still in its infancy, many merchants often include sports outdoor products in the large home category. However, in the consumption scenarios in Europe and America, sports outdoor is an independent category, widely popular, with high repurchase rates, and a very large market size. "This category fits very well with Taizhou's advantages in the molding industry. Currently, there are not enough merchants in China supplying sports outdoor products. The spring and summer periods are the peak sales season for this category in Europe and America, presenting an excellent opportunity for the Taizhou molding industry belt."

It is worth mentioning that the semi-full-service model launched by Duoduo Cross-border in March this year is another boon for the Taizhou molding industry belt, which excels in manufacturing large storage boxes, suitcases, surfboards, and other bulky and heavy products.

Under the semi-full-service model, merchants have autonomy and can flexibly find warehouse logistics service providers according to their capabilities, achieve local delivery in overseas warehouses, shorten the fulfillment time of goods, and consumers generally receive ordered goods within 2-7 working days.

At the launch of the semi-full-service model, Lin Sheng once again became one of the first merchants to join. "This model greatly shortens the logistics time. In addition, in the home storage category, there are many large items such as large storage boxes, cabinets, etc., which were previously unsellable. Now, through the semi-full-service model, the product categories and styles have been greatly enriched." Lin Sheng said that he has already negotiated cooperation with overseas warehouse service providers to send the first batch of goods to overseas warehouses.

With the expansion of going global, it is foreseeable that more and more merchants will seize the historic opportunity to establish their brand reputation in this wave. Therefore, Temu has already prepared resources to escort merchants for going global in advance. In order to enhance merchants' accumulation of intellectual property legal affairs, logistics warehousing, and other related resources and knowledge reserves in cross-border operations, and to timely synchronize the latest overseas consumption hotspots for merchants and answer their operational doubts, the platform's relevant responsible team will regularly hold online small-class courses every week to improve merchants' cross-border operation capabilities In addition to regular training, Temu staff have introduced multiple measures to support merchants in achieving from "0" to "1", including new product launches, daily promotions, advertising, and more. For high-quality merchants, the platform has also launched blue/green labeled stores to plan brand development paths for merchants, with additional traffic and resource support for high-quality merchants. "Joining the platform is just the first step, we hope to guide merchants to provide high-quality services, supply high-quality products, and operate stores with craftsmanship through brand building."

It is reported that for merchants with exclusive names, the platform not only encourages them to display their brands on product pages and introduction pages, but also provides more support for branded products in terms of pricing and traffic resources.

The head of Duoduo Cross-border mentioned that cross-border e-commerce not only brings about a transformation in the foreign trade model, but also gives a new definition to "brand". "We hope to expand with more Chinese manufacturing. Twenty years ago, our foreign trade model was to OEM for overseas brands, dedicating all Chinese manufacturing to overseas brands. Now Chinese manufacturing can go global with its own brands, as long as the products maintain quality and sales volume, they will be recognized as well-known brands by global consumers."

During the meeting, the head of Duoduo Cross-border Outdoor also shared a case study of a fishing tackle merchant on the platform. Despite not being on Temu for long, due to consistently enriching product categories, providing quality products and sufficient inventory, and with the support of the platform, the store has now become a blue labeled store with nearly ten thousand fans, tens of thousands of repeat customers, and sales exceeding 100,000. "We must cherish our own brand, carefully polish our products, continuously accumulate fans, in order to go the distance."