Internal motivations for the transformation of traditional foreign trade enterprises into cross-border e-commerce enterprises:
(1) Increased labor costs
Most of my country’s traditional foreign trade enterprises are OEM manufacturers concentrated in the southeast coastal areas. They are mainly engaged in traditional manufacturing and are low-tech labor-intensive enterprises. Their competitive advantage lies in a large number of cheap labor. However, with the continuous rise in domestic labor costs, the competitive advantage of these traditional foreign trade enterprises is gradually disappearing.
The cross-border e-commerce model uses Internet technology and platforms to significantly reduce the intermediate circulation links in the product value chain, reduce the logistics, labor and intermediary costs of enterprises, and expand the profit space of enterprises. Therefore, it has become the best path for many traditional foreign trade enterprises to break through development bottlenecks and reshape cost advantages.
(2) Lack of core competitiveness
Core competitiveness refers to the competitiveness established by enterprises through the integration of their own resources, products, manpower, funds, etc. The overall weakness of the global economy has led to insufficient effective demand in the international market, and competition in the foreign trade field has become increasingly fierce. However, the traditional foreign trade intermediary industry, which used to rely on cheap labor for development, has been unable to create new core competitive advantages against the background of rising domestic labor costs.
Cross-border e-commerce is a new form of foreign trade based on the Internet. It is in a stage of rapid development and market expansion. It can help traditional foreign trade enterprises cultivate more advantageous core competitiveness and provide new ideas for enterprise development.
(3) Difficulties in corporate financing
The overall sluggish development of the traditional foreign trade industry has caused it to gradually lose the recognition of the capital market. The decline in investment willingness has made it increasingly difficult for traditional foreign trade enterprises to obtain effective financial support. In contrast, cross-border e-commerce, as a new field of e-commerce, has shown a strong development trend in the past two years and has been widely supported and favored by the government and capital. This situation has prompted more and more traditional foreign trade enterprises to transform into cross-border e-commerce to solve financing problems.