Cheng Dahong, who has been engaged in traditional manufacturing for more than 20 years, never expected that one day his products would sell well in North America, let alone that his products would be exported to more than 20 countries and regions around the world.

Cheng Dahong is the Chairman of Anhui Honglu Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. Last September, Anhui Honglu became one of the first merchants to join the e-commerce platform Temu under Duoduo Cross border. In less than a year, the product has become a "hot selling item" on Duoduo Cross border Platform.

Cheng Dahong, Chairman of Anhui Honglu Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., Zhang Jian/Photo taken

Against the backdrop of traditional foreign trade being hindered, more and more small and medium-sized enterprises are striving to seek opportunities to go abroad through new platforms such as Duoduo Cross border.

From 2.84 billion yuan in 2017 to 30.5 billion yuan in 2022, the average annual growth rate of cross-border e-commerce transactions in Anhui Province is over 40%. In the first half of this year, the cross-border e-commerce transaction volume in Anhui Province reached 18.18 billion yuan, an increase of 39.4%.

Behind the impressive results, there are vivid cases of Anhui Manufacturing taking the initiative to accelerate its "sailing" on the giant ship of cross-border e-commerce.

Workers in the production workshop are assembling products, Zheng Ru/Photo

Razors, igniters, "fire" throughout Europe and America

On Duoduo Cross border, overseas consumers have received constant praise for a shaving machine. This highly rated product is produced by Anhui Honglu Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. This enterprise, located in the Development Zone of Shucheng County, Anhui Province, mainly produces personal protective electronic products such as shavers, as well as products such as lighters and igniters.

Cheng Dahong, the person in charge of Anhui Honglu Company, introduced that in September last year, the Duoduo Overseas Support Plan was launched, launching Duoduo's cross-border business. The company's products were originally sold on the Pinduoduo platform. After seeing Pinduoduo launch cross-border business, he took a try and see attitude and became one of the first merchants to settle in.

"After about a week of settling in, orders began to be issued. At first, there were a few orders per day, but after one or two months, it surged to over a thousand orders per day, which I didn't expect." Cheng Dahong remembers that one morning at 2 o'clock, he suddenly received a call from the e-commerce manager, who was told that the firearms were sold out and needed to be urgently stocked. The next morning, Cheng Dahong personally arranged and followed up to increase the production volume of popular products to meet the platform's order needs.

Workers pack products into boxes, Zhang Jian/Photo

"At present, the daily sales volume of our products on Duoduo Cross border has exceeded 5000 units, and the monthly sales volume has remained stable at over 150000 units." Cheng Dahong introduced that Duoduo Cross border was launched less than a year ago and has been launched in dozens of countries and regions around the world. The personal care electronic products and igniters produced by Anhui Honglu Company have also been sold to various parts of the world. Especially for products such as rechargeable igniters and electric shavers, they sell very well and often experience explosive sales.

"We are not allowed to run exhibitions this year. We will focus on promoting online cross-border e-commerce business and strive to further expand our market share!" The popularity of the product has strengthened Cheng Dahong's confidence in expanding and doing a good job in cross-border e-commerce.

Amplify their respective strengths

Cheng Dahong is a native of Shucheng, Anhui. In the early 1990s, he went to Wenzhou, Zhejiang to work. In 2003, a factory was established in Wenzhou, specializing in the production of lighter accessories. Subsequently, the business scope was gradually expanded, the industrial chain was improved, and the research and development of personal protective appliances such as shavers and nose hair clippers, as well as products such as igniters and lighters, were produced.

After the product was put into production, while selling domestically, Cheng Dahong also attempted to engage in foreign trade. However, traditional foreign trade business has unstable orders, multiple intermediate links, and long sales cycles. In the past three years of the epidemic, traditional foreign trade business has been even more difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises like them.

In 2016, Cheng Dahong attempted to do cross-border e-commerce again and opened stores on other cross-border e-commerce platforms. However, several years of water trial experience also made Cheng Dahong feel tired. "Amazon is a platform that is heavy on assets and operations, while our expertise is in research and development, production, and manufacturing, and our operational advantages are not significant." Cheng Dahong admitted that the Amazon platform requires merchants to prepare goods and send them to overseas warehouses, with many intermediate chains and links, and logistics is a significant cost. In addition, the preparation time is also long, and the platform's marketing expenses are relatively high, ultimately driving up the cost of products and terminal prices.

In 2019, Cheng Dahong responded to the call of his hometown and invested in the construction of a 100 acre industrial park project in the Economic Development Zone of Shucheng County, Anhui Province, further integrating the upstream and downstream industrial chain and specializing in the production of personal care products such as razors. At the end of 2021, the Shucheng factory was officially completed and put into operation. The company's production capacity has expanded, and there is an urgent need to further focus on sales for its products. At this moment, the emergence of Temu, a platform under Duoduo Cross border, has given Anhui Honglu a brand new foreign trade platform and experience.

"The cross-border model of Duoduo is full custody, and the advantage of this model is that it allows professionals to do professional things. Enterprises and platforms can amplify their respective advantages and improve overall efficiency." Cheng Dahong said, "Merchants are only responsible for providing goods sources and the most basic online operations. The platform is responsible for all aspects of overseas logistics, online marketing, traffic procurement, customer service, etc., greatly simplifying the process and improving efficiency.", Lowering the threshold for small and medium-sized enterprises to go global allows them to have more energy to focus on product research and production, which they excel at.

Cross border e-commerce injects new momentum into foreign trade

In the razor production workshop of Anhui Honglu Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., the reporter saw that employees in various production processes were busy and orderly.

Cheng Dahong said that after the product was launched across borders, the company was able to collect consumer demands from different national markets, providing valuable references for production and research and development. "For example, taking women's shavers as an example, in the domestic market, women prefer products in white, pink, or purple. However, according to cross-border data, women in foreign markets prefer black. Therefore, we will re sample and ship products in color matching. In addition, considering the physical characteristics of foreign consumers, the power of the products will also vary."

Product loading and delivery to warehouse Zhang Jian/photographer

The e-commerce manager of Anhui Honglu Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. introduced that the platform's "buyers" will constantly grasp, follow up, and provide feedback on user related information to them in a timely manner, in order to better capture the consumption dynamics of overseas markets and optimize products and sales strategies. "For example, many of our products belong to personal care products and require cleaning. Sometimes customers evaluate this product as not waterproof and inconvenient to clean. We will find ways to improve it and see if we can make it a waterproof product."

Next, Cheng Dahong hopes to leverage the new cross-border model of Duoduo to develop products with more added value and higher quality. On the basis of the basic plan, he will make some upgrades, including trying to cooperate with foreign designers, creating new products with competitive barriers, and striving to create a well-known independent new brand abroad.

In recent years, cross-border e-commerce has been favored by foreign trade enterprises due to its advantages such as online transactions and short transaction chains. Since September last year, Pinduoduo has launched the Duoduo Overseas Support Program to help Chinese manufacturing directly connect with overseas consumers, enabling more small and medium-sized industrial and trade enterprises to find new growth models. As of now, Duoduo Cross border has covered all categories except food and daily chemical products, penetrated more than 100 domestic industrial belts, helped more than 10000 factories successfully go overseas, and reached consumers in more than 20 countries and regions.

Lu Sicheng, Executive Secretary General of Anhui E-commerce Association, stated that in recent years, with the layout of cross-border e-commerce on platforms such as Pinduoduo, digital means, effective international logistics, and professional online marketing services have been used to solve the shortcomings of small and medium-sized enterprises in cross-border e-commerce, further tapping into the potential of overseas markets. This is a rare historical opportunity for domestic products to go abroad. In the context of the slowdown in traditional foreign trade, Duoduo Cross border provides new solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises to "go global", injecting new momentum into the recovery and transformation of small and micro enterprises in the post pandemic era. Anhui's manufacturing trend must seize this spring breeze, ride the wind and waves, and set sail to sea.