The development characteristics of cross-border e-commerce in China can basically be summarized as follows.
1. With the increasing downward pressure on the world economy, the purchasing model of international buyers has changed from the previous large orders to small batches and multiple frequency fragmented orders. More and more traditional manufacturing foreign trade channels are blocked, and they have joined cross-border e-commerce. Therefore, cross-border e-commerce ushered in a thriving development in 2015.
2. The cross-border e-commerce business model is just a new demand under the old model. Many Chinese foreign trade companies and large sellers have been operating for many years through cross-border e-commerce platforms such as eBay and Amazon, and many of the sellers are cross-border e-commerce traders. It’s just that as the competition for cross-border export platforms becomes more and more fierce, those large cross-border sellers who have been operating for many years have turned to the upstream development of the value chain, from a simple price advantage to a new advantage with brand and customized personalization as the core competitiveness.
3. The operation of overseas warehouses has improved logistics efficiency. In fact, for cross-border e-commerce, especially cross-border export e-commerce, one of the core factors that currently plagues its development is the limitations of cross-border logistics. Many traditional cross-border e-commerce companies use a model similar to Taobao to send cheap packages from mainland China to the destination country market. This logistics method is not only inefficient, but also has a long cycle and poor customer experience. In 2015, more and more sellers have realized the importance of overseas warehouses for cross-border e-commerce. Through the operation of overseas warehouses, Chinese sellers have improved the delivery speed and stabilized the logistics, which is very effective in improving customer experience.
4. With the rapid development of China’s cross-border e-commerce market, huge market opportunities have attracted more and more capital-based international retail merchants to participate in the competition of China’s cross-border e-commerce. They use their strong capital advantages to develop the 020 model of cross-border e-commerce, seize the customer experience advantage of cross-border e-commerce, and add the local services of these cross-border e-commerce destination countries, truly achieving first-class customer experience. These cross-border e-commerce companies will become the biggest competitors of China’s cross-border e-commerce in the future.
In 2016, the scale of China’s cross-border e-commerce reached 6.5 trillion yuan, with an annual growth rate of up to 30%. Faced with huge market opportunities, various investors have poured into the cross-border e-commerce market, including not only traditional trading companies such as China Resources Vanguard and Rainbow, but also Internet giants such as Alibaba, JD.com, Amazon, and NetEase. Cross-border e-commerce platforms such as DHgate, eBay, and Amazon all have their own strategic layouts.