The development history and challenges of cross-border e-commerce

Cross-border e-commerce, also known as cross-border e-commerce, refers to various business activities implemented by transaction parties in different countries or regions through the Internet and related information platforms. Specifically, it covers an international commercial activity in which trading entities belonging to different customs territories reach transactions through e-commerce platforms, conduct payment settlements, and deliver goods through cross-border logistics to complete transactions. The development of cross-border e-commerce has gone through three stages: information service stage, online transaction stage, and whole industry chain service stage.

The bud and growth of cross-border e-commerce

The sprouting of cross-border micro-e-commerce did not start in recent years. It already took shape as early as the end of the 20th century. The 1.0 era of cross-border micro-commerce (1999-2003) mainly focused on information services, and third-party platforms only provided product display and did not involve transactions; in the 2.0 era (2004-2012), online trading platforms represented by Dunhuang.com appear, signifying cross-border Micro-commerce has entered the online transaction stage; in the 3.0 era (2013 to the present), with the launch of large-scale factories on e-commerce platforms, the expansion of buyers, the increase in the number and quota of orders, the growth of mobile users, and the participation of large service providers, cross-border micro-commerce has E-commerce has entered the full industry chain service stage.

Overview of the current cross-border e-commerce export market

Cross-border e-commerce exports initially started with small and medium-sized sellers selling Chinese goods on the eBay platform. In the past ten years, they have gradually developed and formed a four-platform structure dominated by Amazon, eBay, Aliexpress, and Wish. According to eBay’s financial report, its global transaction volume in 2015 was US$80 billion, of which about 30% of the top 1,000 sellers were from China. Despite the huge market size, the growth of cross-border e-commerce is still amazing, attracting a large number of Chinese sellers to enter.

Cross-border logistics challenges and solutions

As cross-border e-commerce enters the 3.0 era, logistics has become one of the key factors. Logistics pain points vary for different destination countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, and South American and Middle Eastern markets. For example, the United States no longer provides delivery information for inbound small packages, and it is recommended to choose professional logistics services such as IBexpress; the United Kingdom faces the problem of not being able to find delivery information by registered postal mail, and recommends DHL UK e-commerce parcel line; Russia’s logistics customs The situation is complicated, so it is recommended to follow the “AliExpress” logistics system, such as Wuyou Logistics or SF Express’s Russian special parcels.

Security of cross-border payments

Cross-border payment refers to the international creditor-debt relationship that occurs between two or more countries or regions due to international trade, international investment and other aspects. To ensure payment security, cross-border sellers can choose from a variety of payment methods, including bank wire transfer, credit card consumption, third-party payment platforms (such as PayPal, Alipay) and international credit cards. In addition, measures such as protecting personal information, choosing reliable payment systems, paying attention to network security, and regularly checking accounts must be taken to ensure the safety of funds.

Conclusion

Cross-border e-commerce is in a stage of rapid development. Facing many challenges such as logistics efficiency, payment security and other issues, the industry is actively exploring solutions to promote its healthy development [[1][[2]]. With policy support and technological advancement, it is expected that cross-border e-commerce will usher in greater development opportunities in the future.

The above content is integrated from multiple articles and aims to outline the development history of cross-border e-commerce and the main challenges it faces.