The overall degree of marketization in northern China is lower than that in the south. Tianjin is an important economic town in the north, the economic center of the Bohai Rim region, the largest comprehensive port in the north, and an important foreign trade port. It is backed by Beijing, a large consumer market, and has obvious geographical advantages. In September 2005, Tianjin was approved to become a cross-border e-commerce pilot city qualified for bonded import business.
The Tianjin government has introduced regulations to put forward specific regulations on the supervision, innovation and development of advantageous industries in the free trade zone. Financial innovation has formalized cross-border e-commerce export settlement; regulatory innovation has improved cross-border e-commerce. Localization of imported consumption improves convenience; opening up foreign investment access helps foreign-funded cross-border e-commerce companies settle in free trade zones and enter the Chinese market.
However, the actual implementation is far from the policy design, or at least the progress is very slow. Dongjiang Free Trade Zone, Binhai New Area, and Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone compete with each other. Everyone wants to seize the share of cross-border e-commerce, and there is a lack of unity. There is some internal friction in the management of the coordination and entrance platform. An offline O2 experience store for cross-border goods was opened in the central business district of the Free Trade Zone, and the “Dongjiang Imported Goods Direct Sales Center” was opened in Beijing to retail and wholesale imported goods in the form of a supermarket.