Apparel can be called the hard model in cross-border e-commerce: high return rate, multiple SKUs, high inventory, and difficult logistics management. However, there is such a Chinese brand, Zibuyu Group, which is upgrading and fighting monsters on Amazon, holding the top 10 clothing and footwear brands, sweeping Amazon's TOP1 in the suit category, TOP2 in the high-heeled shoes category, and TOP7 in the short boots category, achieving a scale of 2 billion dollars in half a year!

In fact, early children were also faced with the uncertainty of cross-border transportation: “The lockers fell into the sea, were set on fire, and even stolen by drivers. Abbottt, Premiere Creative’s creative director.

From facing uncertainty in logistics to winning top seats in multiple categories. One of the core elements of this transformation is the FBA practice style of play that has been deeply cultivated for 10 years. Without saying a word, Zi has settled the three most painful accounts for cross-border people:

● First account: shipping and delivery account
Addressing “logistics uncertainty”

● Second account: FBA expense and profit account
Solve “selling more vs. reducing costs and increasing efficiency”

● Third account: inventory and weekly fund transfers
Solve “Has the money been quietly eaten by inventory?”

seller business card
Zhu Xufeng: Head of Zibuyu Brand Division
Company name: Zibuyu Group
Online sites: North America, Europe, Australia, Middle East
Joined: 2014
Main categories: clothing, shoes, shoes
Outstanding results:
● Top 1 in Amazon's suit category in 2025
● 2025 Top 2 Cardigans, Top 4 Sweaters
● Top 2 high-heeled shoes and TOP7 short boots in the footwear category in 2025

Behind these extreme cases, there are actually more common and everyday business risks, including uncontrollable logistics timelines, frequent loss and damage, and opaque information links, which will eventually all turn into bad reviews, customer complaints, and high-pressure team operation.

It was in this context that the key decision to switch to Amazon FBA was made. The certainty brought by FBA is not a single-dimensional improvement, but is reflected in several key aspects:
● High-speed timeliness: unified delivery by Amazon, delivery links and timeliness expectations are more clear, reducing customer complaints and negative reviews caused by logistics delays
● High quality conversion: Prime logo and official delivery endorsement give the product a natural advantage in similar competition
● Efficient operation: Integrated services from warehousing, distribution to after-sales, enable inventory and after-sales management, which originally relied heavily on manual experience, to enter a standardized and predictable state of operation

The changes brought about by this transformation are fundamental. While peers were still worried about the 20-day shipping time and damage, the unspoken item was delivered within 2-3 days via FBA. More importantly, the “Amazon Delivery” label became a natural endorsement of trust, which significantly increased the conversion rate, while professional after-sales processing freed the team from complicated disputes and allowed them to focus on growth itself.

“Act” on FBA fees
Increase profit margins under high sales volume

When FBA pushed sales into the fast track, a counterintuitive problem faced the team. The financial department's analysis report for a month gave a warning signal: while sales increased, logistics-related costs also surged.

Factors such as seasonality and high return rates in the apparel industry have increased every cost, such as delivery and restocking fees, and handling fees. The Zibuyu team realized that simply “using” FBA is not enough; it is necessary to polish the cost structure of FBA like running a product.

1. Cost transparency: see where every penny is going

The starting point of optimization is cost transparency. Zi Bu Yu pulls Amazon Seller Central reports through the system interface and breaks down every cost such as storage fees, order processing fees, and storage allocation fees to the most granular level to form a clear cost view.

As a result, the team was able to accurately determine “where the money was spent” and established a reliable data foundation for subsequent optimization.

2. Official collaboration: Collaborate with the Amazon team to “fight monsters”

The Amazon Seller Growth Services account manager team played a key role in the optimization process. They not only thoroughly interpreted the new policies (such as storage allocation fee rules), but also recommended Amazon's new inbound and delivery API tool - Pack Later, and even personally visited the Huzhou warehouse for field research to jointly resolve practical pain points such as packaging and warehouse separation. This deep collaboration upgraded optimization from “fighting alone” to “systematic combat.”

Zhu Xufeng
Head of Zibuyu Brand Division
The entire FBA fee, with the support of data analysis from our self-developed system and the help of the Amazon team, has been greatly optimized.

Based on data from the Amazon platform and the support of the official team, Zi Puyu adopted the three-step FBA fee optimization method in the “Amazon Supply Chain Cost Optimization Solution” to break through the closed loop of “data acquisition → diagnosis analysis → optimized execution”:

● Data Acquisition: Download reports on relevant fee items through Amazon Seller Central
● Diagnostic analysis: Analyze according to the store dimension and ASIN dimension to find abnormal expenses
● Optimized execution: Execute cost reduction actions for special expenses in response to diagnostic results, and continuously track results

Take optimizing storage allocation fees as an example

The Zibuyu team first pulled the Amazon Seller Platform report, combined the report with the self-built system, compared the cost differences between single point entry and multi-point entry in different categories and sizes, and finally chose multi-point warehousing as the optimal solution, and reduced the storage allocation fee by sending 5 warehouses for storage.

Since 5 warehouses require that each product must be packed in at least 5 cartons, this is still a headache for sellers with many SKUs and mixed boxes. In order to reduce operational complexity, the new version of Amazon's official delivery and warehousing API tool (Pack Later will be packaged later) was used to first let the system generate a warehouse separation plan, then pack the boxes as needed without saying a word. The process is more flexible and convenient, and forms a long-term execution mechanism.

This mechanism has also brought direct and quantifiable benefits. In the apparel category, the share of AOSS (multi-point storage) increased from 30% to 40% to 100%; in the footwear category, it increased from 0 to 75%. For footwear alone, each pair can save about 0.5 US dollars in storage configuration fees.

Zhu Xufeng
Head of Zibuyu Brand Division
“Optimization is not about picking a plan in the head, but rather calculating every account clearly and then letting the system help you keep doing the right thing. Abbottt, Premiere Creative’s creative director.

From the initial “shipping horror” to now having a clear control of the fee structure, FBA is no longer just a delivery tool, but has gradually become an important part of building operational certainty without saying a word.

After stabilizing the basic logistics and costs through FBA, can the overseas business rest easy?Without saying a word, Zi soon discovered that the next tiebreaker, which is also the biggest hidden danger, is hidden in inventory.

The apparel industry has strong seasonality, many SKUs, and healthy inventory turnover directly determines profit margins and even the boundary between life and death. In response to this, Zi was extremely painful: under the early “fight for each division” model, the number of inventory turnover days once exceeded 230 days, and large amounts of capital were deposited in slow-selling inventory, creating a heavy burden.

Zhu Xufeng
Head of Zibuyu Brand Division
“A lot of Amazon sellers don't do a good job, mostly because of inventory management. Abbottt, Premiere Creative’s creative director.

1. Intelligent inventory management system

In 2023, Zibuyu made a key organizational change: the establishment of a central product department to unify and coordinate inventory data for all brands. The product department's decisions are based on highly systematic data. Through the API interface, all inventory reports, long-term storage fee reports, etc. on the Amazon Seller Platform are connected to the self-developed system in real time.

This means that the operation and product teams can check the real-time sellable inventory, in-transit quantity, storage age distribution, and estimated storage costs of each SKU in one stop without having to log in to the back office repeatedly, making the leap from vague estimation to accurate control.

2. Product lifecycle management model

Zibuyu has established an internal product lifecycle management system to record the changing sales volume trends of each product over the years and label the products:
● Popular and seasonal products: Use forward-looking stocking. For example, for autumn/winter models starting in July, a centralized stocking plan will be launched in April and will be put into storage in advance through shipping
● Stable sales of waist products: Implement the “8 weeks (in stock) +2 weeks (in transit)” safety inventory model, combined with the production cycle to achieve stable turnover
● New products: Set a strict “first month testing period” and quickly decide to increase promotion or immediately clear inventory based on data performance
● Long-tail products: Implement a phasing out mechanism, stop replenishment, and optimize overall asset efficiency

3. Refined inventory turnover management model

Zi Fu Yu adopts a refined inventory turnover management model to comprehensively consider the three core elements: number of inventory days = delivery date+shipping timeline+number of safety inventory days. In normal operation, FBA's sellable inventory is controlled for about 8 weeks, and shipping is about 2 weeks in transit. Combined with a 30-day production and delivery period, a complete inventory turnover loop is formed.

Zhu Xufeng
Head of Zibuyu Brand Division
I think for an excellent inventory management, the best data should be kept between 180-200 days.

Regarding the management of overage inventory, Zi has established a set of standard actions to actively clean up slow-selling inventory every month. Because Amazon issues an inventory assessment report on the 15th of every month, at the beginning of every month, the product department will screen out a list of SKUs that are about to incur overage inventory fees to the division. The division will strictly implement the process of “off-site promotion → batch clearance → removal and disposal”, which ultimately effectively prevents slow-selling inventory from continuing to encroach on profits.

Conclusions:
Looking back on a ten-year journey to overseas without saying anything, you will find that sustainable growth does not stem from chance, but from continuous and correct choices at key points: firm branding, systematic use of FBA to overcome logistics inventory problems, and continuous cultivation of cost efficiency. While pursuing operational efficiency, Zi Bushi is also boldly innovating in organizational management — starting in 2025, a 4.5-day work week system has been implemented, making the workplace a happy experience, and using freedom to stimulate employees' passion for work and creativity. In the era of refined operation of cross-border e-commerce, these solid “back-office” capabilities are the core of building long-term competitiveness.