Overseas Shopping of Chinese Products: Emerging Consumption Habits of Foreign Consumers

The rapid development of China’s cross-border e-commerce is mainly attributed to foreign consumers’ high recognition of high-quality and low-priced Chinese goods. According to the “Third Global Cross-Border Trade Report” jointly released by PayPal and Ipsos in November 2016, China has become the first choice for “overseas shopping” among global online shopping consumers for the first time. This marks China’s growing influence in the international market.

In addition, cost-effective products such as Xiaomi mobile phones are in short supply in the international market. For example, in November 2018, in the smartphone category of Amazon Spain, 8 brands appeared in the top ten in terms of sales, most of which were Xiaomi phones, which further highlighted the appeal of Chinese brands.

Over the past few decades, China’s export trade has experienced a significant upward trend. From 1958 to 2013, China was considered difficult to surpass the United States, but by 2013, China finally surpassed the United States and became the leader in global trade in goods. From 2014 to 2015, China continued to maintain this position, and by 2017-2018, it still came out on top. From 1978 to 2018, China’s import and export of goods increased 223 times, with an average annual growth rate of 14.5%, which was much higher than the average growth rate of global trade in goods during the same period of 7.5%.

At the same time, China’s cross-border e-commerce industry is developing at an alarming rate. Data show that from 2010 to 2016, China’s cross-border e-commerce transaction scale maintained a compound growth rate of 33.19%, and it is expected that this growth rate will remain at 15.68% by 2020, significantly higher than traditional import and export. 3.12% of trade. All of this is inseparable from the support of national policies and the continuous efforts of Chinese sellers, which jointly promote the vigorous development of this industry.

To sum up, the rise of China’s cross-border e-commerce not only plays a vital role in foreign trade, but also truly changes the shopping habits of foreign consumers and promotes Chinese products to the global stage.