SHEIN acquires fashion brand Missguided; Shopify's GMV grows by 22% | Cross-border Weekly Report

[Ebrun Original] SHEIN acquires fashion brand Missguided; Shopify's GMV grows by 22%; AliExpress Cainiao Warehouse stocked up 10 times as much for Double 11.

Compiled by | Wang Haoran

In the past week, the following events occurred in the cross-border e-commerce field:

# Platform Dynamics #

【Amazon】

1 Amazon Logistics provides free cost reports for Japanese customs clearance documents

The Amazon FBA Cost Report (FCR) can now be used as proof of declaration to customs in Japan when sellers import goods. When Japanese customs inspect the goods and have doubts about clearance, they may request the FCR as a trust document from the logistics provider. If the logistics provider cannot provide the FCR, sellers will need to download and truthfully fill in their goods information on the Amazon seller platform. After completing this step and obtaining acceptance and approval from Japanese customs, they can proceed with clearance.

2 Amazon Business partners with Affirm to offer "buy now, pay later" option

Amazon has expanded its partnership with the U.S. consumer finance company Affirm, making Affirm the first "buy now, pay later" option at checkout for Amazon Business. Amazon business customers can use Affirm installment payments with no late fees or hidden charges. Amazon Business will begin offering Affirm to all eligible Amazon Business sole proprietors starting today and to all eligible Amazon Business sole proprietor customers before "Black Friday".

3 Amazon adds 2 prohibited categories and 8 pre-sale review categories

The Amazon U.S. site has added "Light Emitting Diode (LED) headlight conversion kits" as a prohibited category, and the Canada site has added "Breathing patches" as a prohibited category. The categories requiring pre-sale review have been added to the UK, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain sites. The Canada site has added wood charcoal requiring pre-sale review, Poland, Belgium, and Sweden sites have added food supplements requiring pre-sale review, the Australia site has added sports supplements requiring pre-sale review, and the Japan site has added "Magnetic ball assembly toys" and "Highly absorbent resin toys (foam bead toys)" requiring pre-sale review.

4 Amazon updates eligibility for enhanced A+ pages

Amazon has announced that the eligibility requirements for brand sellers to use enhanced A+ pages will change. The enhanced A+ page provides brand sellers with a range of unique content modules, including video modules, interactive hotspots, carousel modules, advanced comparison tables, and more, to deliver more complete product and brand information and improve sales conversions.

According to the announcement, the updated eligibility requirements for enhanced A+ page use are as follows: First, all ASINs under the brand have published the "brand story" feature module; Second, at least 5 A+ page content projects have been approved in the past 12 months.

5 Amazon deploys over 750,000 robots to develop AI

Amazon has announced that it has deployed over 750,000 robots in its global warehouses and delivery networks, most of which are mechanical arms or wheeled robots. Furthermore, the company has begun testing human-like robot solutions at its robotics research site to perform repetitive tasks and collaborate with employees. The recently tested bipedal robot, "Digit," can grasp and lift items more quickly for faster product warehousing, helping to improve order delivery speed by 25%.

6 Amazon Japan will cancel the Small and Light program to focus on low-value customer markets

Amazon Japan announced the termination of the Small and Light program to provide consumers with more reasonable prices and better delivery services. Instead, a new fee rate for low-value products will be launched. Specifically, Amazon Japan's Small and Light program stopped accepting new product registrations as of September 14 this year. According to the announcement, the Small and Light program in Japan will be officially terminated in the first half of 2024, but Amazon has not yet notified the specific termination date. It is understood that the Small and Light program is a transportation plan specially designed by Amazon for lightweight products priced under $10.

After the new logistics fee rate is launched, all products that meet the requirements on Amazon will be included in the calculation range, and the new rate will be an average of $0.77 lower per item than the Amazon FBA standard rate for the same size and weight, without any action required by sellers. For sellers who have registered for the Small and Light program, the delivery fee per item will increase by $0.3 more than when the Small and Light program was still active.

7 Amazon announces a partnership with the airline Azul

Amazon has announced a partnership with the airline Azul to further strengthen its parcel delivery capabilities in the northern regions of Brazil. Through this partnership, consumers in major cities such as Manaus and Belém will receive orders from the Amazon platform within two days.

According to a survey by the real estate consulting firm Cushman & Wakefield, as online shopping has grown rapidly, Brazilian consumers have significantly increased their demand for fast delivery and free shipping. This means that e-commerce platforms, including Amazon, must invest more in the entire logistics network. In recent years, Amazon has been expanding its logistics network in Brazil by recruiting personnel, expanding delivery vehicle fleets (trucks, planes, vans, and motorcycles), and opening distribution facilities to quickly and efficiently deliver goods to consumers.

8 Amazon launches "Customer Most-Loved" program to help U.S. station bestsellers expand in European stations

Amazon U.S. sellers opening stores in European stations can receive free traffic support through the Amazon "Customer Most-Loved" program (CML). The CML program directly syncs the ratings and reviews from Amazon U.S. to European stations, helping products to quickly gain traction. Furthermore, there is free exclusive multichannel promotional activities support to increase exposure and traffic. Items selected for CML are 100% recommended by enthusiastic customers, thereby effectively reducing buying obstacles and igniting purchase desires for buyers. In addition, the carefully crafted exclusive page layout of CML also helps to increase consumer purchase intentions.

【TikTok】

1 TikTok is testing a new video tagging feature that can identify products in videos

TikTok is testing a new video tagging feature that can help users identify products in videos and guide them to make purchases at the TikTok Shop. In other words, if this feature is successfully promoted, all videos on the TikTok platform in the future can drive traffic to their storefronts.

Specifically, the video tag mainly scans and identifies the products appearing in the video, automatically prompting users with a buy button to guide them to the TikTok Shop for purchase. From product recommendations to purchase, it will all be completed without the video creators' knowledge, and the creators will not receive any sales commissions. For example, when you watch a video related to wedding dresses on TikTok, TikTok will automatically pop up the "Buy Now" button and a prompt inviting you to "Find more wedding dresses on TikTok Shop." Clicking the button will directly take you to the TikTok Shop homepage.

In response, TikTok stated that this function is currently in the early testing phase and is only available to a small number of users in the United States and the United Kingdom. It is currently uncertain whether it will be popularized among TikTok users.

2 TikTok Shop Updated Cross-Border Goods and Store Negative Review Rules on October 31st

TikTok Shop updated the "TikTok Shop Cross-Border Goods/Store Negative Review Rules." The announcement shows that TikTok Shop will expand the scope of actions related to handling high negative reviews of stores and goods from October 31, 2023. Starting on October 31, 2023, TikTok Shop sellers are required to have a full understanding of sections 4.3 and 4.4 of the updated "TikTok Shop Cross-Border Goods/Store Negative Review Rules" (UK/Southeast Asia) and comply with the updated rules to avoid any punitive measures on their account, content, and product listings by the platform.

3 TikTok Shop Cross-Border E-Commerce Leads the Way with Pre-Black Friday Sale

TikTok Shop's Cross-Border E-Commerce pre-Black Friday sale has officially begun on October 27th, as the "Pre-Black Friday Sale."

According to official information, this event will last for 35 days, marking the largest platform event of the year for TikTok Shop's Cross-Border E-Commerce, the first time it has gathered resources from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia. Starting from October 27th, TikTok Shop will launch multiple rounds of promotions including "Pre-Black Friday Sale, Home, Digital, Trend Category Days, Carnival" and more, until after the pre-Black Friday sale, continuing all the way until the end of November 30th.

According to earlier reports, TikTok Shop's Cross-Border E-Commerce encouraged merchants to get their main products onto shelves before October 27th. With the official start of the Pre-Black Friday sale, TikTok Shop has also aggregated "Content + Shelf" bi-domain resources to comprehensively help merchants boost their sales. It is reported that the TikTok App homepage has already launched special Black Friday mall entrances, search banners, discount coupon pop-ups, and other super resources, and has jointly launched topic rankings and influencer challenges with the help of sales experts. It is reported that TikTok has over 40 billion global downloads and over 1.5 billion daily active users globally.

4 TikTok Shop Reveals Strategies for Southeast Asia's Double 11 Shopping Festival

TikTok Shop recently unveiled support policies and marketing strategies at the Southeast Asia Cross-Border Merchant Conference, including billions in subsidies, activity product pools, and optimized product mechanisms. At the same time, TikTok Shop also announced the official launch of the Mall brand mall in Southeast Asia. It is understood that Mall customers will enjoy exclusive rights including authentic product guarantees, free returns within 15 days, free shipping, and more. However, merchants will need to meet specific performance requirements to enter the Mall brand mall and receive exclusive Mall icons, governance team support, and additional exclusive shipping vouchers.

5 TikTok Shop's Fully Managed Business Adjusts Policies for Inventory and Return-Related Costs

Starting November 6, 2023, the cost policies for inventory and return-related handling services with TikTok Shop platform will be adjusted. Specific policies are as follows: The handling service fees for inventory will be shared equally between the platform and the merchant, each covering 50%; the return service fees will be fully borne by the merchant. Reference prices for handling service fees and return service fees can be viewed directly in the Dispatch Platform and Return Management Module of the TikTok Shop Fully Managed Seller Center when placing orders using the platform's logistics feature. The specific charges will be based on the bill issued by the Seller Center Settlement Management Module.

【Shopee】

1 Shopee Opens Second Largest Distribution Center in Brazil

According to Shoppe, the company has opened its second largest distribution center in Brazil, located in Guarulhos, near the city of S?o Paulo. Currently, Shoppe has over 3 million local merchants in the country, accounting for over 90% of Shoppe's sales in Brazil. In addition to 9 distribution centers, Shoppe also has approximately 100 small logistics centers and about 1400 pickup and delivery points in Brazil.

2 Shopee Adjusts Localized Fulfillment Commission Rate for Third-Party Warehouses in Mexico, Lowering it to 11%

Shoppe announced that the commission rate for its third-party warehouses in Mexico was lowered from 14% to 11% starting November 1, 2023, with no changes elsewhere.

3 Shopee Announces Strategies for Double 11 Shopping Festival Advertising

Shopee released advertising strategies for the Double 11 shopping festival. According to Shopee, advertisers can help sellers accurately attract target customers and overcome traffic bottlenecks. The cost per click for advertising is only 0.02 USD, with a return on investment as high as 12 times. In addition, Shopee has launched the Double 11 shopping festival advertising competition.

【Alibaba】

1 AliExpress Cainiao Warehouses See 10-Fold Increase in Double 11 Inventory Compared to Last Year

As the "Double 11" event continues, logistics and express delivery companies are fully guaranteeing order deliveries. The latest data shows that this year's "Double 11", the inventory volume in the Cainiao Optimal Warehouse increased by 10 times compared to last year. AliExpress and Cainiao jointly launched "Global 5-Day Delivery" to attract more merchants to stock up in the optimal warehouse. Warehouses in Hangzhou, Dongguan, and Shandong have shown noticeable growth in stocked goods, with most of the newly added goods coming from full-managed businesses.

2 Lazada's Double 11 Event Preheating Phase to Begin, With Subsidies Reaching as High as 40% on Multiple Sites

Lazada officially announced the rhythm and strategies for the Double 11 event, with a similar overall rhythm to last year, still consisting of a preheating period and a peak promotion period. The peak promotion period of various sites has been extended, except for the Vietnamese site, from one day to three days. In addition, the platform has provided unique promotions for each country's site.

【Shopify】

1 Shopify Markets Pro Introduces International Standard Shipping Service

Shopify has announced that Markets Pro now offers an international standard shipping service. If merchants use DHL eCommerce Parcel international standard shipping service, USPS will provide the first mile domestic service, which means that USPS will deliver the merchant's package to the DHL hub before international shipping. If USPS has already collected from the merchant's warehouse, it can pick up DHL eCommerce packages together with the merchant's other domestic parcels. Otherwise, the merchant will need to deliver the DHL eCommerce order to USPS for delivery.

2 Shopify upgrades Search & Discovery filtering function

Shopify announced that its Search & Discovery filtering function has been upgraded, allowing merchants to set product filtering conditions based on customer needs, providing customers with a better search navigation experience, and quickly and efficiently locating the products that interest customers the most. Merchants can also rename filtering conditions and intelligently "translate" filtering conditions to reduce customer search difficulty and simplify the shopping process. For filtering condition values, such as price ranges, product colors, materials, sizes, etc., merchants can standardize and group them, and save the filtering settings for future use.

3 Shopify says marketing campaign reports can help merchants optimize marketing strategies

Shopify states that insightful traffic and effective marketing attribution are important steps for effectively measuring marketing performance and optimizing marketing strategies. If a merchant's store is currently using Basic Shopify or higher plans, they can access reports on the number of visitors attributed to marketing. If the merchant is using Shopify or higher plans, they can access more comprehensive and multi-dimensional marketing reports.

4 Shopify's Q3 revenue reaches $1.22 billion, with expected 20% year-on-year revenue growth

Shopify has released its financial performance for the third quarter of 2023. Performance data shows that the company's GMV (gross merchandise volume) grew by 22% in the third quarter, reaching $56.2 billion, an increase of $10 billion compared to the third quarter of 2022. Compared to the previous year, total revenue increased by 25%, reaching $1.7 billion, and after adjusting for the impact of the sale of the logistics business of approximately 500 basis points, it grew by 30% year-on-year. Business solutions revenue increased by 24% compared to the previous year, reaching $1.2 billion, driven mainly by GMV and Shopify Payments growth.

[Other platforms]

1 eBay US site expands the range of standard envelope services

eBay's US site announced that eBay Standard Envelope is a low-cost shipping service provided by eBay Label for small, lightweight items. Sellers can now use this service to ship a wider variety of items. Starting from November 1, 2023, in addition to trading cards, coins and currency, stamps and postcards, patches, stickers and decals, greeting cards, and seeds can also be shipped using eBay Standard Envelope. eBay Standard Envelope is suitable for items weighing no more than 3 ounces and 1/4 inch thick, providing sellers with integrated tracking and shipping protection.

2 eBay launches strategic category promotions for collectibles

In the fourth quarter of 2023, eBay will increase support for Chinese collectibles sellers, launching strategic category promotion reward activities. Sellers who achieve sales targets in key strategic categories will have the opportunity to receive multiple rewards, with the highest reward ratio exceeding 10% of the total transaction amount. Activity sites include major sites such as eBay US, UK, Germany, Australia, and Canada.

3 Walmart launches off-site traffic advertising tools

To help sellers better achieve off-site traffic during peak seasons, Walmart has launched a self-service search engine marketing (SEM) tool. After sellers establish and activate their advertising campaigns and set budgets, when consumers search for related products similar to the sellers' products, they can take the opportunity to promote their products on the Google search results page through Google Shopping Ads.

4 Temu becomes the most downloaded mobile application in the French market for the past three quarters

According to Data.ai's latest research, Temu has become the most downloaded mobile application in the French market for the past three quarters. From January to September, Temu's ranking rose by 684 places. The research also found that although the epidemic has ended, the French still have a strong enthusiasm for online shopping. According to data from Data.ai, in the third quarter of 2023, the French collectively spent 200 million hours on e-commerce applications.

5 Meikodo announces Black Friday promotion schedule

Meikodo has announced the schedule for Black Friday promotions. Starting from November 1, the Brazilian site will kick off Black Friday promotions, which will run until November 30. The Black Friday promotion in Colombia will be held from November 20 to November 27. The Black Friday promotion in Chile will be held from November 24 to December 3. In addition, Meikodo has also released the popular and high potential categories from previous years for the Brazilian, Colombian, and Chilean sites. They include categories such as beauty, sports, clothing, home furnishings, and household appliances.

6 Wish to start charging listing fees, guiding sellers to remove low-quality or excessive products

Wish announced that it will begin charging corresponding listing fees for active product listings, starting from January 1, 2024, UTC. Wish states that this new policy is intended to encourage merchants to focus on product quality rather than quantity, and to remove low-quality or excessive duplicate products, in order to concentrate resources on more promising, best-selling, high-quality products. This will greatly benefit the development of merchants' stores, including optimizing product layout, improving user shopping experience, and raising Wish Standards indicators.

It is reported that based on the highest Wish Standards level reached by the store over the past 90 days, each store will enjoy a certain amount of free listing (active products). Therefore, Wish suggests that merchants fully utilize the free quota to cover key products, such as high-selling products, upcoming new products, highly rated products, products with good details page quality, and products with low return rates.

Listing fees will be calculated starting from the 1st day of each month, with each month as a calculation period, and the fee amount will depend on the store's Wish Standards level, ranging from $0.15 to $0.35 per product.

7 Focus Technology's Q3 2023 report: Net profit increases by 24.69%

Focus Technology released its Q3 2023 report, achieving operating income of 1.119 billion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 1.44%. Net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 298 million RMB, a year-on-year increase of 24.69%. Net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was 295 million RMB, a year-on-year increase of 30.76%.

8 News states that TikTok, YouTube, and Meta plan to jointly apply for e-commerce licenses in Indonesia

After the Indonesian government prohibited e-commerce transactions on social media platforms, TikTok and YouTube are considering applying for e-commerce licenses in Indonesia together with Meta. The Indonesian Ministry of Trade banned e-commerce transactions on social media platforms one month ago, stating that it aims to protect small and medium offline businesses and markets, and to ensure the protection of user data. (tech report)

9 SHEIN announces acquisition of the UK women's fashion brand Missguided

SHEIN announces the acquisition of women's fashion brand Missguided from the UK retail company Frasers Group. SHEIN also announced that it has reached an agreement to license the brand intellectual property of Missguided to SUMMON Studios, which is a joint venture between SHEIN and Missguided founder Nitin Passi. The Missguided brand will be managed through the joint venture and its products and collections will be produced through SHEIN's on-demand production model and sold on the SHEIN website.

# Business Circle #

1 Wanglaoji introduces the overseas brand "WALOVI"

Recently, Wanglaoji officially introduced a new overseas brand name "WALOVI" in an attempt to enter the overseas local market. Wanglaoji company had registered the "WALOVI" trademark in 2020, including convenient food and beer beverages. In addition, Wanglaoji has registered a series of trademarks such as WOOJEE, WOLOCHI, and VALOVI in 2019-2020.

2 SK Square in discussions with Qoo10 to jointly manage 11Street

The investment management department of South Korea's retail group, SK Group, SK Square, is in discussions with Qoo10 to sell its e-commerce subsidiary 11Street to Qoo10, with the main shareholder, SK Square's Chief Investment Officer Ha Hyung-il, and Qoo10's largest shareholder and CEO, Ku Young-bae, currently engaged in discussions on jointly managing 11Street after the merger.

3 SUNRATE introduces TikTok Shop US station payment services

SUNRATE's global payment service now supports the TikTok Shop US station, providing businesses with a safe and compliant local US payment account for free. After receiving payments, sellers can withdraw funds, pay suppliers, and perform other subsequent financial transactions.

4 Lianhan Technology launches Inno Studio to help DTC brands quickly enter overseas offline stores

Overseas crowdfunding service provider Lianhan Technology has launched a new offline retail service brand, Inno Studio. It is positioned as an offline curation-type product flash store, transforming the store from a "purchase place" to an "experience place," creating a product experience space for consumers through creative visual, tactile, and auditory aspects, thereby extending brand culture and conveying product value.

Inno Studio adopts a Retail-as-a-Service model, helping brands efficiently deploy physical retail like purchasing digital advertising, and introducing the most innovative global technology products to physical stores.

5 Ankey Innovation has now entered globally renowned chain stores such as Walmart and Costco in North America

Ankey Innovation recently stated during an investor survey that the company is committed to building a "online + offline" three-dimensional sales model, with online and offline revenues accounting for 68.78% and 31.22% of total operating income in the first half of this year, respectively.

The company is currently mainly selling on third-party platforms through Amazon, while also actively exploring new platform businesses and development opportunities, and has cooperated with well-known e-commerce platforms such as JD, Tmall, AliExpress, eBay, and Douyin. On the offline side, the company has now entered globally renowned chain stores such as Walmart, Bestbuy, Target, Costco, and Japan's retail giant 7-11 convenience store group (Morketing).

# Overseas Marketing #

1 YouTube announces global crackdown on ad blocking software

YouTube announced in June that it is conducting a "small experiment" worldwide, requiring users of ad blocking software to disable them in order to watch content on the platform. This is no longer just a "small experiment," as YouTube has stated that it will intensify efforts to crackdown on ad blocking software worldwide, and encourages users to choose to allow ads to play or subscribe to YouTube Premium (ad-free version).

2 Meta launches Instagram and Facebook ad-free subscription service in Europe

Meta's official website announced that Facebook and Instagram will provide ad-free subscription services in the European Union, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland, starting in November, offering users the choice to continue using these personalized services with ads for free, or subscribe to block ads. After subscribing, user information will not be used for advertising.

Depending on the purchase location, the cost is 9.99 euros per month (approximately 77 yuan RMB) for the web version, and 12.99 euros per month (approximately 101 yuan RMB) for the iOS and Android versions. The pricing for iOS and Android takes into account the fees charged by Apple and Google through their respective purchasing policies.

3 Instagram tests collaborative carousel posts

Users can invite others to continue adding images when creating image posts, and the completed set of images will be displayed in the form of a carousel post.

For ordinary users, this is a good feature for creating content together with close friends around the same topic. For brands, inviting collaborating influencers to share behind-the-scenes photos and other images will be a new marketing approach that can be tried in the future.

4 Google introduces small business labels in search results

Google has added small business labels to its search results to boost their sales. This function adds exclusive labels for small and medium businesses in search results, which will help improve their sales. Google stated that 84% of people are eager to support small local businesses, and the new tags can directly mark these small businesses for more direct support.

5 Google's AI-powered e-commerce tool Product Studio is now open for access

Google has officially launched the AI-powered product image tool Product Studio, and it is now available to all Merchant Center Next users in the United States, as well as Google and YouTube applications on Shopify. Merchants and advertisers can use Product Studio's AI capabilities to create new product images for free by entering prompts, and it can also be used to improve low-quality images without the need to reshoot, or remove distracting backgrounds. This feature was announced at Google Marketing Live event in May this year.

# Industry Policies and Data #

1 Deloitte: E-commerce sales during the holiday shopping season are expected to achieve a 10.3% to 12.8% year-on-year growth

According to Deloitte's latest forecast, e-commerce sales during the 2023 year-end holiday shopping season (November to January of the following year) are expected to achieve a year-on-year growth of 10.3% to 12.8%, with sales reaching $278 billion to $284 billion.

2 IDC: Cross-border e-commerce revenue in Southeast Asia is expected to grow by 70% by 2027

According to the latest report released by the global payment platform 2C2P and Ant Group on behalf of the market intelligence company IDC. The report shows that in the next five years, the growth rate of Southeast Asia's digital economy will reach 15.8%, surpassing that of the United States (9.4%) and the European Union (8.7%). South Korea (12.7%) and Japan (10.2%) will closely follow, unleashing significant business opportunities for Southeast Asia, South Korea, and Japan (SEAKJ). It is worth mentioning that in terms of cross-border business, the report predicts that from 2022 to 2027, the three major economic entities of Southeast Asia, South Korea, and Japan will gain an additional $232.4 billion in cross-border revenue, mainly driven by cross-border e-commerce and offline tourism. By 2027, cross-border e-commerce revenue in Southeast Asia is expected to grow by 70% to reach $148.1 billion, a growth rate that will also surpass that of domestic e-commerce revenue in the region.