Where Is The Way Of Private Foreign Trade Agents?

Since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, China's annual GDP growth is over 9%, while the annual growth rate of China's foreign trade exports has been over 27% since 2001, which is 3 times the growth rate of GDP.

The proportion of China's exports of goods to the world's foreign trade and exports increased from 4.3% in 2001 to 8.2% in 2006. The ratio of China's exports to domestic GDP rose from 22.9% in 2001 to 36.1% in 2006, and the total volume of import and export increased from 509 billion 700 million US dollars in 2001 to 17607 billion US dollars in 2006.

Foreign trade has become an important engine to stimulate China's economy and a major force in increasing employment.

In addition, the state has released the approval of general trade and foreign trade agency, and private foreign trade agents have been developing at a high speed in this period.

However, with the increase in attrition of international trade, the adjustment of RMB exchange rate led to the appreciation of RMB. In September 2006 and July 2007, the state lowered and abolished the proportion of tax rebates for some foreign trade exports, simplifying the profit model of private foreign trade agents, and the low barriers of competitors entering ordinary commodities and foreign trade agents, resulting in competitors entering the general merchandise trade agency industry. In order to snatch competitors' customers, price reduction is the most important weapon, with less profits and increasingly unstable foreign customers, resulting in the survival of private foreign trade agents becoming more and more difficult. Private foreign trade agents urgently need to clarify the way of enterprise development, clarify the future development direction of the strategy, and define the future strategic direction of development and the way to achieve it. Two.

At present, there are three kinds of enterprises that import and export foreign trade in China: the proportion of foreign-funded enterprises is 58%, the proportion of state-owned enterprises is 20%, and the proportion of private enterprises and collective enterprises is 22%.

Foreign enterprises are mainly divided into two categories: one is processing trade enterprises, their products are usually sold directly abroad, and the other is factories that run factories in China, and their products can be sold in domestic and foreign markets.

State owned enterprises are mainly divided into two categories: one is directly engaged in the production of enterprises, through their own marketing network to sell to foreign customers; the second category is the export of some countries' exclusive products, including mineral products and other scarce resources.

Private enterprises and collective enterprises are mainly divided into two categories: collectives mainly rely on their own products for export, while private foreign trade enterprises are mainly engaged in foreign trade agents of ordinary products, mainly concentrated in small household electrical appliances and light textile products. Textile products mainly include textiles, clothing, toys, footwear, furniture, plastic products, travel supplies and bags.

Private foreign trade agents are mainly concentrated in coastal provinces, especially in the four provinces of Zhejiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Guangdong. They mostly rely on products with Chinese characteristics, such as 86.59,0.00,0.00%, Yiwu, and their surrounding areas are the main producing areas of these products.

Most private foreign trade agents grew up in the middle and late 90s, relying on the local characteristics of China's small commodity industrial chain, through the contact with foreign customers to reach the agent relationship of export products, to seek agency fees or differential profits.

In the early stage, private foreign trade agents mainly realized profits through asymmetric profit models of customer resources and commodity information.

However, this simple profit model is easy to be copied easily, resulting in very low profits. In the new form of foreign trade, these profits are also diluted by the reduction of export tax rebate. In order to survive, the original private foreign trade enterprises are facing many kinds of strategic choices, such as strengthening research and development, attracting customers at low prices, opening up subsidiaries to attract more customers, creating brands, establishing foreign sales networks, establishing production bases and continuing development of the original mode.

In the light of industry development trend survey, data analysis, competition environment analysis, benchmarking enterprise analysis and so on, we find and believe that the short-term strategy of private foreign trade agents is continuing to develop in the original mode, but at the same time strengthening the construction of core competitiveness. The medium and long term strategy is to gradually establish a strategic development mode guided by supply chain.

Short term strategy: keep the original mode unchanged, but it is necessary to form the core competitiveness that is different from other private foreign trade enterprises, consolidate and exploit customer resources, expand the amount of foreign trade agency, and win time for enterprises to realize the supply chain oriented strategic development mode.

The specific approach is: through industry and enterprise value chain analysis, combined with the trend analysis of China's export structure adjustment, we believe that the most important need for private foreign trade agents to achieve short term strategy is purchasing capability and service capability.

First, the establishment of core competence.

Private foreign trade agents are engaged in providing more products with Chinese characteristics to customers. The driving factor of foreign customers buying goods here is that goods are whole, new and low price. To do this better, we need our private foreign trade agents to have their own full-time procurement team. We can not rely on the local wholesale market to provide one-stop service to customers. Such a pattern can be replicated by current competitors, which can only get bogged down in the mire of price war.

It is necessary to find manufacturers and establish long-term strategic cooperative relations with them. It is difficult to find manufacturers with different development orientation. Therefore, the location of manufacturers is different, so it is not difficult to find them, because some manufacturers rely on low price strategy, some manufacturers rely on products in a niche market, some manufacturers rely on the fashion of design, some manufacturers rely on high quality products, etc., these manufacturers either have fame outside, or there are booths in the market.

In this way, the products that the customers may need are divided into several categories. Different purchasing departments are set up respectively, purchasing special products for different categories of products, satisfying all purchasing needs of the company's customers, and setting up procurement offices in some areas if necessary, so as to ensure the realization of this core competitiveness.

At the same time, establishing strategic partnership with these manufacturers, private foreign trade agents need to set up a certain factory database, which can only be purchased in this database, and the manufacturers in these databases are the strategic partners of private foreign trade agents.

Peer to peer requires these manufacturers to give priority to quality and quantity protection for private agents.

The agent of common products in the wholesale market can form the core competitiveness in procurement, satisfy customers' one-stop purchase desire, and also satisfy the driving factors of customer purchase, and the profit of agents will also be increased because of the diversity of products provided, because the profit pattern is not easy to be copied.

At present, the market competition is intense and the information is becoming more and more symmetrical, forming the core competence of purchasing can better satisfy the needs of customers and gain more profits.

Second: foreign trade service capability.

The foreign trade service capability includes: after ordering the customer, the goods can arrive at the agreed place according to the time and procedure agreed with the customer.

The key to building up the core competitiveness of the service is to ensure that goods are punctual, customs clearance, delivery and punctual arrival without any shortage on the basis of ensuring goods can be punctually produced. In addition to the need for professional declarations, documents and quality inspectors, it is necessary to research and develop the supporting role of the network.

Set up a network platform that customers can go up. Depending on the operation process of the company, the process of every order is reflected on the network, so that the customer can search and find out, so that the customer can arrange the docking work in time. If there is an accident, it can also timely coordinate to meet the customer's service requirements.

Medium and long term strategy: in order to meet the growing demand of customers, the supply chain management mode is gradually developing.

Through benchmarking analysis of similar enterprises, we compare the geographical location, industrial characteristics and foreign trade development trend of the benchmarking enterprises and the present situation of our country. The strategy is that the private foreign trade agents will have 5 stages of development in the future: purchasing agents, procurement services, production without borders, virtual production and supply chain management. These five stages of development are a gradual development process from low to high.

Purchasing agent: at present, the mode adopted by most enterprises is simply using simple services to provide customers with products that customers need, with low profits and less vitality.

Procurement services: provide a better agency service for a subdivision product category to meet customers' procurement needs in this subdivision product category.

Or to provide better services to customers, so that customers can buy goods more at ease. At present, a large number of large private foreign trade agents have entered this stage of development.

No boundary production: to meet the differentiated needs of customers, when customers see a good product or a good product idea, whether the product concept is feasible, the foreign trade agent conducts market research, then organizes the best production enterprise to commission production, and the foreign trade agent monitors the key process of production. After the production is completed, it is pported to the customer by the foreign trade agent and pported to the designated place by the foreign trade agent.

Virtual production: when foreign trade agents can understand the potential needs of customers and fully grasp the changes in the market, foreign trade agents can guide customers' consumption orientation through building design and R & D teams, and even lead the market's consumption fashions, impress customers through design samples, so that customers can directly sign orders with foreign trade agents after they are optimistic. At this time, foreign trade agents will be pformed into manufacturers. Of course, foreign trade agents should find suitable manufacturers to monitor the important processes of production and ensure the quality and stability of production.

Supply chain management: on the basis of virtual production, we recruit the right materials and manufacturers on a global scale, and manage and optimize the supply chain for every customer's orders.

In fact, the essence of our private trade agents is to satisfy customers' demand for goods, satisfy customers' changing demand for goods, and satisfy the needs of global consumers for Chinese products.

Therefore, we should not only be an ordinary foreign trade agent, but also rely on China's industrial chain and world commodity chain to meet customer's demand for goods.

Although we are only in the first and second stages, our private foreign trade agents should not indulge in the price war. We should establish our core competitiveness as soon as possible and prepare for the pformation of the third stage production without borders. The foundation of the pformation is purchasing power and service capability, which is consistent with our core competitiveness in the short-term strategic objectives.

Finally, on the basis of the third stage, the pformation of supply chain management is finally completed. At the moment, it is only the core capability that foreign trade agents need to increase product design, and the cooperation of production enterprises is copied from home to abroad.

To sum up, the way out for private foreign trade agents is to expand cooperation with production enterprises at the strategic level, increase the functions of service and design, and make use of the division of labor in the global industrial chain, so that every customer's orders can provide a unique supply chain service to satisfy customers' ever-changing and expanding demand for products, and behind this product demand is the consumption dynamics and consumption demand of global consumers.