Author | Milin @AMZ123
Statement | This article is copyrighted by AMZ123 and may not be reproduced without permission
Ten years ago, the cross-border e-commerce was still a mixed and wild market.
Under the wave of the era's dividends, the "gold everywhere" was not a plot in the fantasy arrangement, but a reality that happened to countless grassroots sellers.
In the era of heroes emerging from chaos, top sellers with annual sales of billions could be hidden in an old office building outside the bustling city center or a small counter in Huaqiangbei.
Over the past decade, the wild growth era of cross-border e-commerce has passed, and the glory of the once-dominant sellers is no more - The four young masters of Huanan City have been reborn, the five tigers of Bantian have retired from the market, and what about the three heroes of Amazon?
Amazon is the place where most cross-border sellers' dreams begin.
In 2012, Amazon began to open its doors to Chinese sellers. At that time, Bezos did not realize that the Chinese sellers he did not take seriously for a long time would later occupy half of Amazon's market.
During Amazon's pioneering period, it was almost the best "money-picking" era. Many Chinese sellers became "dealers", moving thousands of low-priced products to Amazon and easily achieving explosive orders with a little gray means.
The so-called three heroes of Amazon - Anker, Zebra, and Paterson - rose in this context.
Anker
From its inception to its rise, Anker's story has always been closely intertwined with Amazon. In 2011, founder Yang Meng discovered a market gap in the mid-priced category when buying laptop batteries on Amazon, so he resigned to start a business, established Anker, and sold mobile power banks on Amazon.
At that time, Amazon was still in a disorderly wild period, and the supply was far less than the demand in a typical seller's market environment, and the extensive model of distributing goods and increasing volume dominated. Facing the popular category of charging accessories with low technical barriers and lack of premium space, most of the earliest sellers from Huaqiangbei chose to chase the trend of OEM and low-price competition.
Initially, Anker relied on its supply chain advantages to launch reliable quality and moderately priced laptop batteries and charging products. At this stage, Anker's business model was mainly OEM. However, it soon realized that this rapid arbitrage extensive operation logic was not a long-term solution.
In the era of distribution, Anker was one of the earliest players to awaken its brand gene. In 2013, Anker started the brand upgrade path, creating competitive barriers through independent research and development technology and precise user insights, thus becoming a clear stream in the 3C category where counterfeits were rampant and quality was worrying, and successfully established a good user reputation and brand awareness on Amazon.
Zebra
Zebra was established in 2007 and initially started from traditional foreign trade. In its early days, Zebra tested multiple platforms, but made a key decision in 2011: to clear other platform businesses and all in Amazon.
As one of the earliest companies to seize the cross-border dividend, Zebra is a typical distribution seller, covering multiple hot categories such as small household appliances, consumer electronics, and personal care health.
At that time, the Amazon platform order was not standardized, and many sellers secretly walked in the gray area of brushing orders and evaluations, and Zebra was no exception. In its early days, it monopolized multiple category tops with massive distribution and expanded rapidly through scale effect.
In 2012, Zebra started the brand transformation and gradually built six major brands: RAVPower, VAVA, Taotronics, Anjou, Sable, and Hootoo. However, due to internal turmoil and lack of experience, Zebra's brand transformation process was slow during this period, and it failed to completely change the extensive operation logic for a long time.
Paterson
Paterson was established in April 2012 and settled in Amazon at the beginning. Focusing on the 3C category, it also pursued scale expansion in its early days, and once became "Amazon China Seller TOP10" by grabbing the top of categories such as headphones and chargers.
In 2013, Paterson began to awaken its brand awareness, and its core brand Mpow was born this year and quickly grew into the number one brand of Amazon North America audio products. At this stage, Paterson invested heavily in developing private model products and embarked on a heavy R&D road, and its annual sales soon broke through 1 billion and 2 billion yuan, with performance doubling.
From 2018 to 2020, it was Paterson's golden period of development. With strong product strength and operational capabilities, its influence on Amazon expanded rapidly, with more than 800 Best Sellers and over 260 million global users. By 2020, its revenue had soared to 4.947 billion yuan, and net profit reached a record 318 million yuan.
With excellent performance, Paterson received investment from Cross-border Communications in 2015 and became its holding subsidiary, and was successfully incorporated into its ranks by Cross-border Communications in 2018.
It can be seen that the three companies were almost established around 2011-2012, during the golden age of cross-border e-commerce, and also enjoyed the first wave of traffic dividends. In the industry's wild growth period, "Amazon's three heroes" were the benchmarks commonly admired in Shenzhen's cross-border e-commerce circle. They all seized the dual dividends of Amazon and China's supply chain to rise.
However, although they started on the same starting line, the development paths of the three are obviously different. In the early days, they all adopted extensive operation models in line with the platform ecology, but compared to them, Anker's brand awareness awakened earlier and its brand transformation was more determined, relying on user-oriented technology innovation strategies to build brand competitive barriers.
Although Zebra and Paterson also realized that pursuing volume and making quick money was not a long-term solution, their brand upgrade process was slow, lacking the determination to completely abandon the distribution thinking, and their "Amazon dependence" became more and more serious, missing the best time for brand transformation.
In a specific historical period, distribution, as an incorrect but optimal solution, helped countless sellers represented by Amazon's three heroes realize the grassroots counterattack. But the gift of fate has long been marked with a price.
In 2021, an unprecedented Amazon account closure wave surged and became a watershed in the fate of these three companies.
In this account closure disaster, Paterson became the primary target. On April 30, 2021, Paterson's main brand Mpow's store was closed by Amazon, and more than 600 hot-selling listings were removed.
This blow was fatal to Paterson. Its core business almost stalled, its capital chain broke, and the company fell into a "semi-coma" state, and even had to let employees in technical positions "stop work and wait for work".
