Cross-border e-commerce development trends: offline expansion and penetration into third- to fifth-tier cities
Cross-border e-commerce has developed rapidly around the world in recent years, especially in China. This trend is even more significant. On the one hand, in order to break through time and space constraints and meet consumers’ needs for a ready-to-use shopping experience, many imported cross-border e-commerce companies have begun to expand offline. For example, Kaola Overseas Shopping opened its first offline physical store – “Haitao Refinery Store” in Hangzhou in April 2019, and subsequently expanded rapidly in Ningbo, Zhengzhou and other places. At the same time, Tmall International also opened offline stores in Hangzhou; Xiaohongshu successfully transferred its online community to offline; Fengqutao’s “Wow” global selection store also opened in Chongqing, covering unmanned Convenience stores, global selection stores, smart cabinets and other forms.
On the other hand, with the upgrading of rural consumption and the rise of new retail models, e-commerce platforms are gradually extending their reach to third- to fifth-tier cities. This will not only help increase the purchasing power of consumers in these areas, but will also further improve supporting facilities such as logistics and warehousing, thereby providing customers with a better consumption experience. In the future, cross-border e-commerce platforms will promote the efficiency growth of the entire industry by improving product real-time and price advantages.
In the development process of cross-border e-commerce, the B2C model has gradually become mainstream. The rise of this model is mainly to solve the problems existing in traditional small foreign trade, such as inconvenient payment and low logistics efficiency. As many companies in Hangzhou shift from traditional models to B2C models, the successful case of “Foreign things” shows that this transformation not only improves efficiency, but also enhances user experience. In addition, with the listing of companies such as JD.com, Jumei Youpin, and Vipshop, the cross-border e-commerce landscape is undergoing profound changes. The popularity of mobile e-commerce, the rise of the O2O model and the improvement of comprehensive foreign trade service platforms are all driving the development of cross-border e-commerce in a more convenient and efficient direction.
Cross-border e-commerce transactions present new characteristics: diversified product categories and extensive market areas. From the perspective of sales products, cross-border e-commerce companies are no longer limited to lightweight products such as clothing and 3C electronics, but are expanding to large-scale products such as home furnishings and automobiles. According to eBay data, the three fastest growing categories on its platform are home and gardening, auto parts and fashion. At the same time, cross-border e-commerce companies are also actively exploring new market areas. In addition to mature markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia, emerging markets such as Russia, Brazil, and India are becoming new growth points. In particular, Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia have attracted much attention due to their large population base and consumption potential.
As mobile technology advances, the boundaries between online and offline commerce are increasingly blurred, and “omni-channel” shopping is rapidly emerging. For B2C, mobile shopping allows consumers to shop anytime and anywhere, which greatly stimulates market demand; while for B2B, mobile technology makes cross-border transactions more seamless and efficient. The cross-border e-commerce ecosystem is also becoming increasingly mature, and supporting companies including software development, online payment, logistics services, etc. provide comprehensive support for cross-border e-commerce. For example, in the field of logistics, in order to meet the needs of cross-border e-commerce, many logistics integrators have emerged that provide integrated services, such as Sifangdi, Export, etc. They have significantly shortened delivery time by establishing overseas warehousing and other methods.
To sum up, cross-border e-commerce is experiencing unprecedented changes and development opportunities. In the future, it will pay more attention to user experience and service quality, and will also continue to explore new business models and technology applications to adapt to the global competitive environment. .