The establishment of the comprehensive cross-border e-commerce platform “Dunhuang.com” in 2004 was a milestone in the development of China’s cross-border e-commerce. It was precisely because of Dunhuang.com’s pioneering innovation and preaching-style education that many Chinese export manufacturing business owners devoted themselves to cross-border e-commerce.
On September 19, 2014, the 10th anniversary celebration of Dunhuang.com was held at the Beijing Century Theater. A reporter once interviewed Wang Shutong and asked about the origin of the name “Dunhuang.com”. She replied that Dunhuang.com established the mission of “promoting global trade and achieving entrepreneurial dreams” at the beginning of its establishment, and was determined to become the most important post station on the Silk Road in the new era, helping small and medium-sized enterprises to “buy and sell globally” on the platform, so it was named “Dunhuang.com”.
The beautiful vision at the beginning of its establishment did not win the market’s enthusiasm. In just half a year after Dunhuang.com was officially launched in 2004, Wang Shutong had already consumed the 1 million yuan investment. Wang Shutong said that was the bleakest time. The website was not making ends meet, and a large number of employees left the company. Only she was alone and persevered, but fortunately she never thought of giving up.
In 2009, Dunhuang.com’s small online foreign trade transaction volume reached 2.5 billion US dollars. With the success of Dunhuang.com’s business model, Alibaba announced on April 26, 2010 that it would invest 100 million US dollars to officially enter the small online transaction market, and Alibaba’s small cross-border trade platform “AliExpress” was born. The official launch of Alibaba’s “AliExpress” is of great significance to the development of China’s cross-border e-commerce. It means that the Chinese e-commerce market has begun to pay attention to and recognize the future of cross-border e-commerce. For Dunhuang.com, it also means that they will encounter strong market competitors.