In 2020, the huge demand for the “stay-at-home economy” has led to a rapid development of China’s cross-border e-commerce exports. Foreign trade companies, especially cross-border e-commerce sellers, have a surge in demand for overseas warehouses. Warehouse explosions and some international cross-border e-commerce platforms have “obstructed” large furniture from entering overseas warehouses in disguise have become the hottest phenomena of the year. Facing the huge demand for overseas warehouses, both the state and local governments have introduced relevant preferential policies.
In August 2020, the “Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Further Stabilizing Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment” mentioned that various financial institutions such as the Export-Import Bank of China and the China Export Credit Insurance Corporation are encouraged to actively support the construction of overseas warehouses under the premise of controllable risks. At the local policy level, Shandong Province has selected the “Shandong Province Cross-border E-commerce Public Overseas Warehouse”, and some areas in Shandong have also given a subsidy of 2 million yuan to related companies that build overseas warehouses.
In 2021, many Chinese companies began to “switch” to online, whether it is domestic Taobao live broadcasts, Douyin live broadcasts, or cross-border e-commerce export products, they are all ways for companies to “save themselves”. However, the road to “switching to a new market” is always full of ups and downs. Many sellers have encountered problems such as collective account closure, account re-examination, difficulty in getting reviews, backlog of unsalable inventory, malicious competition, and difficulty in promoting new products. Facing the problems encountered on the road to “switching to a new market”, Shenzhen, as China’s first national e-commerce demonstration city, has reached the national leading level in terms of industry depth and breadth. According to statistics from the Shenzhen Cross-border E-commerce Association, since May, Amazon’s store closures have caused an estimated loss of more than 100 billion yuan in China’s e-commerce industry, and many top Amazon sellers have been affected. In response to the phenomenon of “collective store closures”, the Shenzhen government’s new policies, in addition to helping companies tide over the difficulties, are more to get rid of Amazon’s revenue impact on Chinese companies and encourage cross-border e-commerce companies to continue to carry out foreign trade business. The Shenzhen government has introduced funding and support policies for cross-border e-commerce companies, ranging from supporting office space to new technology development, from supporting the application of new models to contribution rewards, with a maximum funding of 22 million yuan.
Jinan, which is already in the cross-border e-commerce track, had a transaction volume of more than 2 billion yuan in the first half of 2021. This is due to the Jinan Municipal Bureau of Commerce accelerating the promotion of foreign trade, improving the quality and volume of foreign trade by improving the support policies for cross-border e-commerce, accelerating the layout of overseas warehouses, strengthening market development, and improving the comprehensive service level of foreign trade.
The problems encountered by enterprises in the process of export trade have also been well solved through active communication between enterprises and the government. The country is willing to work hard to solve the problems and introduce corresponding support policies to promote small and micro enterprises to “borrow a boat to go to sea” and drive the development of domestic brands.