Not long ago, a set of data released by South Korea’s statistical department caused wide concern: in 2023, South Korea’s imports from China’s cross-border e-commerce surged by 121.2% year-on-year. For the first time, China has surpassed the United States to become the largest source of cross-border e-commerce imports for South Korea.

This is the latest example of the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce in China. Data from the Ministry of Commerce show that in 2023, China’s cross-border e-commerce imports and exports were 2.38 trillion yuan, an increase of 15.6%. Among them, exports reached 1.83 trillion yuan, up 19.6 percent year-on-year.

What are the new aspects of cross-border e-commerce in promoting exports? What are the reasons for its rapid development? What is the future trend? With these questions, our reporter conducted an interview.

The “Blue Ocean” track is full of highlights

On February 4, a plane carrying cross-border e-commerce goods such as clothing, shoes and hats, accessories and daily necessities flew from the Raining International Airport in Kashgar, Xinjiang Province to Bournemouth, UK. The cargo plane carries goods prepared by Chinese manufacturers for cross-border e-commerce companies such as Amazon and Wish.

“We provide procurement, logistics, commodity information collection and other services for foreign cross-border e-commerce, and are participants in the field of cross-border e-commerce supply chain. As small as the head rope, hair clips, as large as generators, machine tools, what overseas customers need, we help to buy what.” Zhang Qi, head of Fengyun Supply chain Technology (Xinjiang) Co., LTD., told our reporter that cross-border e-commerce goods transportation attaches great importance to timeliness. Kashgar has the unique location advantage of “five people through eight countries, all the way to Europe and Asia”, and the 1.5 hour air economic circle can cover the main cities of 8 countries such as Pakistan and Tajikistan, which has a unique foreign trade location advantage.

According to Zhang Qi, at present, Kashgar Customs implements “7×24″ hours of booking customs clearance, efficiently handling customs clearance procedures, and normalizing “on-arrival, on-arrival, on-release”, which allows enterprises to spare more energy to develop new customers in the European market on the basis of consolidating the Central Asian and South Asian markets. “Since 2021, the company’s cash flow has grown at a rate of more than 100% every year. After the opening of the cargo route from Kashgar to Bournemouth, the export cargo handled by the company has further increased. We spent the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon with customs staff!” Zhang Qi said.

In addition to the expansion of the horizontal geographical dimension, the development of vertical market segments has also added more “blue ocean” tracks to cross-border e-commerce.

Huang Kai, from Shaoyang, Hunan Province, was born in 1999. Despite his young age, he has a lot of business experience. After graduating from college, Huang Kai found that his uncle’s dining table and chair business was highly competitive and difficult to make new progress in a short time. So Huang turned his attention to online channels. After analyzing all kinds of background data operated by his shop in Ali International Station, Huang Kai believes that sofa export is a potential track.

“A container can hold 2,000 dining tables and chairs, but only 18 groups of sofas, so many companies are not willing to do sofa exports.” However, there is not a lot of demand for sofas from overseas customers.” Huang Kai told this reporter that after anchoring the direction, he began to explore the operation of functional sofas and combination sofas for export to the European and American markets with the help of his uncle.

It turns out that Huang Kai is on the right track. Since the establishment of a year and a half, Huang Kai’s Jiezhu Furniture Co., Ltd. has grown rapidly, with a monthly export volume of more than 2 million yuan in 2023. “Through cross-border e-commerce, old industries can also make new features. On the one hand, with the help of cross-border e-commerce platforms, we communicate directly with all kinds of overseas customers and actively grasp the rhythm of the market; On the other hand, we continue to innovate in our products and improve the cost performance of our products.” Huang Kai said that according to the development of this momentum, it is expected that in 2024, the export value of Jiezhu furniture is expected to reach 3 million yuan or even 4 million yuan per month.

Lu Daliang, spokesman of the General Administration of Customs and director of the Department of Statistical Analysis, believes that the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce not only meets the diversified and personalized needs of domestic consumers, but also helps Chinese products to reach the world, becoming an important driving force for the development of foreign trade.

The spring breeze of policy brings warmth

Cross-border e-commerce will ship a large number of goods to more countries and regions in the form of cross-border small parcels, which conforms to the new trend of foreign trade development. Wang Shouwen, international trade negotiator and Vice minister of the Ministry of Commerce, said that the United States cross-border e-commerce platform companies are very famous, and now China also has a very strong and famous cross-border e-commerce platform, with APP downloads ranking among the top in the world.

According to the information provided by Shanghai Customs, in 2023, the number of cross-border e-commerce declarations for exports at Shanghai airport ports reached 440 million tickets, an increase of nearly 2 times year-on-year and a record high; The total export value exceeded 85 billion yuan. Among them, Aliexpress, Xiyin, Pinduoduo and other emerging Chinese e-commerce platforms have outstanding performance, with a total of more than 400,000 orders per day.

From creating cross-border e-commerce characteristic industries to improving the specialization, scale, and intelligence level of overseas warehouses, from enhancing the existing sea and air freight line service capabilities and radiation scope to continuing the implementation of cross-border e-commerce export returned goods tax policy… In recent years, the policy spring breeze across China has become an important reason for the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce.

– Stronger supply capacity. Zhejiang Yiwu Shenglin Trading Co., Ltd. is the first batch of merchants to enter the cross-border e-commerce platform “Duoduo cross-border”, whose products cover household goods, kitchen tools, bathroom storage, fashion accessories and so on. Not long after its arrival, Shenglin Trading’s daily order volume on Temu reached about 30,000 orders. In the view of Guo Xinxin, general manager of the company, it is thanks to the support policies of government departments at all levels for the manufacturing industry and the full custody model launched across the border, the supply chain advantages of the enterprise “industry and trade integration + cooperative factory” can be more fully played, so as to better meet the needs of overseas consumers.

– Faster customs clearance. On January 24, at the cross-border e-commerce public Customs clearance center of Guangxi Youyi Pass Port, cross-border e-commerce export packages quickly passed the mechanical inspection equipment on the sorting line and were loaded into the vehicle after customs inspection. Zhang Wei, general manager of Guangxi Overfly Supply Chain Management Co., LTD., found that the goods that need to be inspected can also leave the country on the same day, and the goods that do not need to be inspected can be exported immediately, and they can be delivered to Vietnam in 2 hours. “By strengthening the use of non-invasive inspection equipment such as X-ray machines and strengthening the comparison of the same screen, we minimize the number of packages opened and speed up the inspection and release of goods.” Friendly Customs supervision eight deputy section chief Gao Lu said.

– More “play” online. Last year, Alibaba International Station took the lead in launching a full-link foreign trade AI product, which has functions such as intelligent commodity release and management, market analysis, customer reception, real-time translation and enterprise management, so that export enterprises can communicate more easily and quickly with overseas customers and seize business opportunities. The relevant person in charge of Alibaba International Station believes that whether it is a digital foreign trade platform, or small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises, the introduction of a series of cross-border e-commerce support policies has played a good effect, helping Chinese products to accelerate the sea. With the introduction of more new measures, cross-border e-commerce “play” will also increase, and the threshold for smes to export is expected to be further reduced.

To bring China closer to the world

Cross-border e-commerce has accelerated the pace of Chinese products going to sea, while allowing more Chinese products to integrate into the clothing, food, housing and transportation of foreign consumers, narrowing the distance between China and the world.

We can get closer through good food. “Liuzhou snail noodle is a unique snack, and I hope to recommend it to more overseas Chinese.” Zheng Xiaozhen, a returned Canadian, said. According to Ou Haoxuan, head of overseas business department of Guangxi Luobawang Food Technology Co., LTD., in the past few years, the company has deeply cultivated overseas markets through cross-border e-commerce, and the fist product “Luobawang Luosifen” has successfully entered key markets such as the United States, Canada and Southeast Asia.

Ou Hao Xuan told this reporter that cross-border e-commerce enables enterprises to directly reach global consumers, respond quickly to market changes and promote product innovation. “Luosifen has a unique taste of ‘sour, spicy, fresh, numbing and hot’. Now, we are developing new products for different regional consumer preferences, optimizing localized marketing strategies, and actively planning cooperation with well-known overseas bloggers to increase the exposure and influence of our products in the international market.” ‘he said.

Close the distance, but also through the production of living tools. At the end of 2023, a Romanian merchant dressed as Santa Claus and rode a Chinese-made “Jinpeng” brand electric tricycle to distribute New Year gifts to children, attracting a lot of attention. Hou Dafu, head of Jinpeng Group’s Jinyishun overseas platform brand, told this reporter that electric tricykes, as an important civilian production and transportation tool, traditionally rely mainly on offline stores for exhibition and sales. In recent years, with the increase in the number of offline stores and the increase in costs, overseas markets have become an important starting point for enterprises to expand new growth points.

“With the help of cross-border e-commerce, we introduce the characteristics of electric tricycles for short-distance transportation, cargo transportation, energy saving and environmental protection to overseas customers through live broadcasting, and have obtained many orders without having to go overseas to open stores.” Since 2019, our exports have increased by more than 30% annually, and we have sold to more than 80 countries and regions around the world, and our foreign trade team has grown from 5 people to more than 60 people.” Hou Dafu said that this year, Jinpeng Group is actively planning the first overseas flagship store, the construction of overseas turnover warehouse, the establishment of overseas processing plants, and further expand export business.

According to the data of the Ministry of Commerce, there are 645,000 enterprises with foreign trade import and export performance in the country, of which more than 100,000 cross-border e-commerce entities. The unique advantages of made in China and the strong demand in overseas markets have added confidence to cross-border e-commerce practitioners.

Liu Hang, cross-border business manager of Duoduo, said that since its launch in September 2022, Duoduo Cross-border has opened business in more than 40 countries. Up to now, Duodo Cross-border has promoted high-quality manufacturing products from Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shandong, Anhui and other places to enter more than 40 countries and regions in North America, Europe, Asia and other places, and exports more than 400,000 packages per day. Guangzhou’s beauty, Shenzhen’s digital products, Huzhou’s children’s clothing, Wenzhou’s shoes, Taizhou’s plastic products, Jinhua’s thermos cups, etc., accelerate into the daily life of overseas consumers. “We will work together with foreign trade operators to make the ‘cake’ of domestic goods going to sea bigger.” Liu Hang said.

Source: People’s Daily Overseas Edition