They also sell products. Why is foreign trade worth tens of dollars, yet cross-border e-commerce can reach the range of hundreds of US dollars?In order to break the fate of no pricing power, Whig Metals, an old company that has been deeply involved in the industry for 30 years, resolutely transformed into Amazon, starting from scratch to become number one in Germany, with daily sales of 300,000 US dollars.

Today, we invited Whig Metal founder He Shanzhu and e-commerce operation director Wang Yazhen to reveal how traditional factories can take back their pricing power through Amazon to achieve a perfect transformation from manufacturer to brand.

Whig Metals
He Shanzhuo (Founder)
Wang Yazhen (E-commerce Operation Director)

Seller profile
- Company: Whig Metals
- Main products: commercial kitchen
- Entry sites: US station, European station
- Outstanding performance:
● Germany ranked first in the category
● Daily sales of 250,000-300,000 US dollars

What made Ho Shan-shu even more alert was a stark comparison: he saw that downstream partners used Whig's products, rapidly expanded through e-commerce in just two years, and even became Whig's biggest customer. This also made him realize that the product was not the problem; the bottleneck was the channel and model.

Ho Seon-suk, founder of Whig Metals
Traditional businesses are really comfortable and less stressful. However, the prospects are small and there is less room for growth, so it is difficult to escape the fate of limited profits.

Comparing the paths, He Shanshu first made one point clear: on the premise of not abandoning traditional business, enterprises must cultivate a second growth curve to make their business structure more balanced and more resilient to risks; and cross-border e-commerce is the growth path they finally chose. As a result, Whig joined Amazon in 2022 and officially embarked on the path of transformation.

Ho Seon-suk, founder of Whig Metals
As the first step in going overseas, we chose Amazon: first, it has a wide global coverage, which allows us to reach many consumers in the US, Europe, etc.; second, Amazon is very friendly to new entrants. We have learned many methods in communicating with Amazon's strategic customer team, and we have strengthened our confidence to follow Amazon.

When many factories are transforming across borders, the first hurdle is often stuck with “people,” and Whig also took a detour at this step. Due to a lack of internal experience in cross-border e-commerce, Whig initially selected personnel from the original foreign trade salesmen to operate, but soon discovered that the two types of jobs are not the same thing: traditional sales are good at interpersonal communication and empirical judgment, while e-commerce operations rely more on logical thinking, data analysis, and understanding rules. These are two completely different professional tracks. At the same time, Whig's factory is relatively remote and not attractive enough to recruit, further magnifying the talent problem.

In order to solve this problem, Whig redesigned the talent development approach from the following three aspects:
● Set up the e-commerce team in the city center:
Whig leases office space in the central business district and establishes an independent e-commerce operation center to improve the working environment and collaboration efficiency, and provide basic conditions for team stability and growth
● Clear division of labor and gradual specialization of positions:
From one person being responsible for all aspects to detailed job placement, gradually preparing personnel for operation, product development, logistics, vision, etc., and establishing a fixed collaboration mechanism with all departments in the factory
● Attracting talents with more competitive treatment:
Whig's salary level is 20% to 30% higher than the local level, while supporting clear growth channels, diverse incentives and a more open team culture

After this set of combo punches landed, the formation and stability of the team accelerated markedly: after two years, Whig formed a professional cross-border team of nearly 20 people, and the core members remained stable. Among them, the retention rate of management trainees was as high as 90%.

After the cross-border team was set up, new problems emerged: long cross-border links, many departments involved, and efficiency of collaboration quickly became a bottleneck in business promotion. At the initial stage, the order volume is small, the link is long, and there are many variables. Once all aspects are not in place, there will be continuous internal consumption: too much preparation either causes backlog, or insufficient inventory is out of stock; the logistics process also frequently breaks down due to lack of experience. More importantly, new businesses are naturally weak in resource allocation, making it difficult to form a positive cycle of input-output-re-investment.

To improve efficiency and turn the business around, it is not enough for the operation team to move forward unilaterally. Whig's approach starts with senior management, clarifies cross-border e-commerce as a priority, and favors resources and processes:
● Strategic setting:
Clearly position cross-border e-commerce as the core business of the enterprise in the future, rather than a short-term test project
● Priority guarantee:
The general manager clapped the production side to open a green channel to prioritize production scheduling and guarantee the supply of cross-border orders
● Resource inclination:
Simultaneously push resources and processes towards the cross-border side, increase investment in key aspects from product design, production to planning, and open up cross-departmental collaboration links

Wang Yazhen, Director of E-commerce Operations at Whig Metals
Looking back now, I think the greatest luck was that our leadership made it through
Looking at the domestic industry, it is with this kind of determination that transformation is successful.

Compared with traditional foreign trade, the biggest difference in cross-border e-commerce is that uncertainty has been significantly amplified. Sales volume will fluctuate due to factors such as algorithms, user reviews, and competitive prices; variables such as shipping, tariff policies, and advertising costs may also change at any time; once products are slow to sell, preparation funds may be used for a long time. Because of this, cross-border e-commerce is not as simple as moving goods to be sold online; it is more like a system upgrade to operating capacity.

At this point, Amazon's corporate purchasing manager provided timely assistance. On the one hand, he helped Whig sort out the key variables behind the fluctuations through regular reviews and data diagnosis; on the other hand, combined with category experience, he helped Whig clarify operational methods that could be implemented.

Based on these suggestions, Whig changed the focus of cross-border operations to refinement, using stricter calculations, smaller verification steps, and more frequent reviews to expose risks in advance and correct them in a timely manner, thus making uncertainty more manageable:
● Complete cost estimates before the upgrade:
Each product must fill out a “full life cycle cost calculation table” to include production costs, initial freight, FBA expenses, advertising investment, slow sales reserves, etc. in unified accounting, clarify the break-even point, and evaluate the viability of ROI during the project establishment stage
● Verify requirements by testing in small batches:
At the testing stage, market verification is carried out with small-batch delivery of 100-200 units; after verification is passed, goods are replenished on a rolling basis based on key indicators such as sales data, conversion rate, and ACOS to avoid one-time betting preparation
● Weekly review and month-to-month alignment of operations last week:
Advertisement performance, conversion rate and inventory turnover are reviewed every week, and products with poor sales are promptly cleared or lost through off-site drainage; at the same time, an emergency budget of 15% to 20% is reserved for each project to deal with logistics price increases, advertising fluctuations, or slow sales. The operation, finance and supply chain teams hold monthly business analysis meetings to continuously calibrate the match between input and output

Wang Yazhen, Director of E-commerce Operations at Whig Metals
The key to this strategy is to verify business assumptions at minimal cost and achieve more steady growth while controlling risk.

Referring to the results of the transformation, Ho Seon-suk's assessment was bluntly: “Very satisfied, even exceeding expectations. ” In his view, compared to traditional businesses, cross-border e-commerce not only brings higher input and output, but also better pricing, wider customer coverage, and more confident growth in the future.

Price per customer jumped: the pricing power returned to oneself
Judging from the data, the changes are most intuitively reflected in the customer unit price and pricing power: in the past, the customer unit price for offline foreign trade was mostly in the range of tens of US dollars, but now online it has risen to the 100 yuan level, or even higher. The experience and sense of trust brought by the product is being transformed more steadily into sustainable price support.

2 Major promotions exploded, and multi-site performance was outstanding
If the increase in customer unit prices gave more room for business, then the big promotion at the end of June last year actually verified its ability to grow: the German site took first place, followed by the US site; daily sales also increased from the usual 100,000 US dollars to 250,000 to 300,000 US dollars, a new record high.

Conclusions:
As the share of e-commerce continues to increase, Whig will continue to increase its cross-border investment; currently, the Australian and Canadian stations have been opened, and the growth momentum of cross-border business will be further strengthened in the future. When it comes to factory peers, Mr. Ho's suggestions are also straightforward: transform early, invest early, start early, and enjoy the dividends brought by cross-border e-commerce.