Although China’s cross-border e-commerce has developed rapidly in terms of policies and platforms, it also faces some problems.
1. Changes in the international market economic environment.
In 2015, the world economy was in a downturn as a whole, and the market environment faced many changes. For cross-border e-commerce, the main changes were in the instability of exchange rates and changes in the laws of the destination country. The changes in exchange rates in 2015 directly led to fluctuations in the purchasing power of end consumers in the destination country. For example, the depreciation of the US dollar had a great impact on the cross-border retail of many high-priced products in a period of time.
2. Overseas buyers continue to improve their requirements for the quality of goods.
At present, many cross-border e-commerce sellers in China are still in the early stages, relying solely on price advantages to do cross-border e-commerce, and many even directly copy the Taobao retail model. In fact, overseas markets, especially the European and American markets, have very high requirements for the quality and after-sales service of retail products. For example, the entry barriers for pharmaceuticals and food are very high. With the rapid development of China’s cross-border e-commerce market, many destination countries have formulated relatively strict laws and regulations in response to the low price and low quality characteristics of early Chinese cross-border e-commerce, which is a relatively large test for China’s cross-border e-commerce sellers. China’s cross-border sellers must have this concept. The standards of overseas markets have always been relatively mature. To do a good job in cross-border e-commerce, only with reliable and stable product quality can sustainable development be achieved. At the same time, the destination country has stricter legal supervision on intellectual property rights and other issues of China’s cross-border products, so China’s cross-border sellers must pay enough attention.
3. Lack of cross-border e-commerce talents.
The biggest problem currently facing China’s cross-border e-commerce is the lack of talent. The core of the development of cross-border e-commerce still relies on cross-border e-commerce talents. Cross-border e-commerce talents should be a group of very high-end talents with strong comprehensive abilities. They need to have some understanding of traditional manufacturing, e-commerce operations, foreign trade knowledge, and small languages. They should even be familiar with the laws, regulations and customs of the destination country. In terms of cross-border e-commerce talent construction, whether it is Alibaba’s “AliExpress” or eBay, even China’s higher vocational colleges are sparing no effort to invest in teachers.