On November 20, the quadrennial World Cup opened in Qatar, with 32 teams returning to the throne to inspire the competition for the Hercules Cup. However, unlike previous years, this World Cup is rather tinted with a few twilight of the gods of the sad color. Messi, C Luo, Modric and other legendary veterans have played the curtain call.

The gods are in place, the twilight of the war in the background, the enthusiasm of the fans is naturally unprecedented, both offline physical stores or major e-commerce platform of the World Cup related peripherals were mad rush. It is worth noting that the national soccer team also broke into the World Cup field, but unfortunately the ball into but not into the people - made in China soccer was Yiwu factory kicked into Qatar.

Above the field, the legend will never be annihilated, the last dance of the veteran. And under the field, the world rejoiced, business opportunities burst. Walk in the cross-border front Yiwu businessmen have long been blowing the horn of attack, outside the national football, made in China surrounded the World Cup field.

The battle under the green field

2022 Qatar World Cup main venue: Lusail Stadium

Made in China instead of the Chinese soccer team kicked into the World Cup

Crowned the most trenchant title in the history of the Qatar World Cup, "China in addition to the Chinese soccer team can go to all go." China Railway Construction to build Qatar's "Project Zero" Lusail Stadium; Qatar's first photovoltaic power plant by China Electric Construction; match site lawn irrigation and maintenance technology, Ningxia University to provide technical support; China-made occupation flag, uniforms, trophy ornaments and other peripheral goods. Even the national treasure, the giant panda, traveled to Qatar from far and wide to settle in the local panda pavilion.

While the national soccer team is confined to its home, Chinese brands have long jumped into the sea to dream about the World Cup. According to Global Data, Chinese companies topped the list of largest sponsors of this year's World Cup with $1.395 billion in sponsorship, surpassing the $1.1 billion of the United States. Through the World Cup, the top traffic feast, Chinese companies have seen a broader international market.

How strong is the economic effect of the World Cup?

On eBay, a small Mbappe card can fetch up to $12,000, equivalent to 85,000 yuan. An online auction site in Mexico shows that sales of star cards have jumped by more than 1,500 percent since 2020. The original insignificant cost of the card, and the football superstars associated with it can burst out a strong money-sucking power.

The "Emperor of Football" Beckenbauer once said, "What rolls on the World Cup turf is not soccer, but gold." Soccer as the world's first sport, global attention and money-sucking power has always been unique. The World Cup is the most prestigious event in the soccer league, and its influence surpasses that of the Olympic Games, and it is predicted that the Qatar World Cup may capture 5 billion global viewers.

According to a study by Redseer and TikTok, the Qatar World Cup will drive explosive growth in e-commerce sales in the Middle East and North Africa. The report predicts that with the double buff of the World Cup Black Friday period, MENA retail sales will be as high as $70 billion, including online sales GMV of about $8.4 billion. Not only the Middle East and North Africa, as early as in the World Cup before the start of the warm-up phase, the global major e-commerce platform on the event-related products demand will soar.

By region, in Brazil, FCDLESP predicts that the World Cup will boost retail sales by 12% in Brazil, where consumers have been buying World Cup products since the beginning of the year; AMVO reports that 3 out of 10 Mexican internet users are considering buying products or services during the World Cup, and that online merchandise sales will increase significantly during the World Cup.

On the Sizzle platform, for example, sales of Chinese-made flags and soccer shoes soared 300% and 200% respectively in November compared to the previous month. The platform's head of World Cup sales said that Sizzle has stocked about 10 million items for this year's World Cup. As you can see, the economic effect of the World Cup is all-round and multi-level. The fever of the world-renowned tournament has greatly boosted the consumption enthusiasm of fans from various countries, radiating from offline entities to online shopping. In addition to direct consumption such as peripheral products, there are also various forms of demand such as match-watching services and star support.

Whether it is the traffic aura of the World Cup itself or the appeal of the fan economy of the legendary players, it has created unparalleled opportunities for gold mining. Under the green field, countless Chinese brands are taking advantage of the marketing trend and fighting with each other. And the keen cross-border businessmen have also already understood the business opportunities and launched a fierce collision.

Who is the winner of the Hercules Cup?

Yiwu's sewing machine may be the "Best" prediction

Since April this year, orders for products related to the World Cup have shown significant growth. According to Yiwu Customs, in the first eight months of 2022, Yiwu exported 3.82 billion yuan of sporting goods and 9.66 billion yuan of toys. Among them, exports to Spain, Argentina, Brazil year-on-year growth of 95.8%, 67.2% and 56.7%, respectively.

As early as six months ago, Yiwu businessmen began to prepare for the World Cup sales tension, some factories received a number of large overseas orders at the beginning of the year. After a long layout for most of the year, the World Cup in Qatar Yiwu goods successfully dominated the list. Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province Sports Goods Association estimates that from the flag, horn whistle to soccer, jerseys, decorations, etc., this year, Yiwu City exports accounted for about 70% of the World Cup peripheral products market. Not only that, the Qatar World Cup official stores in Yiwu goods share of 60% share.

In previous years, the third quarter usually belongs to the cool period of Yiwu commodity exports, but this year, driven by the World Cup effect, the busy season came first. "The company's Q3 overseas orders surged nearly 50% year-on-year, with most customers mainly from the Netherlands, Germany and South Korea." Sales manager Chen Xianchun from Yiwu City Jinzun Sports & Cultural Products Co. And with the birth of the top 32 teams, the World Cup officially played, Yiwu businesses will also usher in a new wave of sales peak. And the strong demand during the tournament also on the production cycle of goods, logistics and transportation put forward a greater challenge.

This year, affected by the epidemic, an uncontrollable factor, the order came later than in previous sessions. In order to ensure timely delivery and sufficient supply, many factories worked non-stop overtime to catch up with the production. In July, it received an order to produce 100,000 commemorative soccer balls with the participating teams on them. Due to the time constraint and the epidemic, it only took Aokai Sports about 50 days from receiving the order to shipping.

And in order to help the World Cup goods smoothly across the sea to Qatar, Yiwu City also opened in mid-September "Qatar World Cup transport line", from Ningbo Zhoushan and Shanghai port departure of goods, can be shipped directly to the port of Hamad in Qatar within 20 to 25 days. Now, the World Cup group stage schedule has been halfway, and the results of the event will also directly affect sales. With the knockout stage approaching, the advancement of the strongest teams will further stimulate fans to spend money and purchase additional support products. The merchants are betting on the strong teams according to the trend of demand, the focus on the amount of stock.

World Cup effect

And on Amazon, uniforms, trophies, medals and other tournament products, as well as pillows, whistles, ornaments and other ambient products become the current hot trend, a number of links topped the best seller. search "World Cup uniforms", "World Cup flag" and so on. Keywords such as "World Cup jerseys", "World Cup flags" and so on can be seen Brazil, France, Argentina, the three favorites to win the championship related goods most popular.

But although the economic effect of the World Cup has awakened a long-lost vitality for the market, cross-border merchants also have their own hidden worries. In the past World Cup many factories usually start production a year in advance, but this year by the constraints of the epidemic and other uncontrollable factors, many customers worried about the World Cup and the Olympic Games as postponed and more wait-and-see state. For this reason, the late arrival of orders makes the production cycle of foreign trade factories face great pressure. Tight capacity, factories tend to give priority to overseas customers to send goods, domestic business rhythm of preparation is therefore also disrupted.

In addition to the out-of-stock crisis, the more fatal problem is the intensification of competition under the product homogenization is serious, the business in order to lay the advantage of the volume of life and death, coupled with the rising cost of raw materials, logistics, etc., even if the business orders multiplied, the final profit is close to being eaten away. Not only that, the copyright issue is also a mountain in front of cross-border business. World Cup peripheral products need to obtain authorization from FIFA in order to have the production and sales qualification. Once the unauthorized private sales, will face the risk of infringement by the regulatory authorities or e-commerce platform punishment.

Not long ago, the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department took enforcement actions against counterfeit products related to the World Cup matches and detected a total of 20 cases and seized over 100,000 pieces of suspected counterfeit soccer jerseys with an estimated value of over HK$50 million. Therefore, even though the World Cup effect stimulated the sharp increase of foreign trade orders, many sellers could only not get this single wind and sighed in hope of "single".

 But this also shows that, with the upgrade of the industry's copyright awareness, cross-border businesses should jump off the traditional white label "sellers" thinking, shaping the exclusive brand moat, in order to seize the opportunity. Just as Yiwu goods dominated the market around the 70% of the World Cup, but for individual businesses are generally marked on the same Yiwu a few numbers, the lack of their own brand influence.

On the green field covered with gold, the Chinese manufacture may be competing for the Hercules Cup in another form. As a Chinese manufacturer and quality supplier of PAINT tools, share the joy of Qatar World Cup 2022 with people all over the world.