In addition to external factors, cross-border e-commerce has also encountered some “growing pains” in the past few years since its inception. To put it simply, there is “double support” both in and out: strong demand and crowded channels. It mainly focuses on policy orientations such as foreign exchange settlement and tax refund, customs supervision, inspection and taxation, as well as issues such as commodity infringement, transaction disputes, international logistics and customs clearance.
On the one hand, it mainly relies on commercial power to lay out and promote, such as payment and collection, infringement disputes, overseas warehouses, cross-border distribution, etc. These “operational bottlenecks” that affect market development will remain stable as long as the industry maintains steady growth. , more and more capital and participants join, and resource investment, model innovation, transnational cooperation and other methods will gradually improve each link from different angles. On the other hand, greater uncertainty depends on government and regulatory policies. Solving the supervision of small parcels of goods and scattered orders is a global problem. Just observe the backlog of customs and postal services in various countries during the peak season.
For the traditional small amount of 2C packages or express mails to individuals, the entry and exit supervision of each country is similar, and the degree of electronicization is not high. There is almost no customs declaration and trade supervision for natural persons, and it has no impact on bulk trade. International The rules of trade have evolved over hundreds of years and have matured, and everything is going smoothly. However, after the outbreak of cross-border e-commerce, global small parcels have soared. It can be said that quantitative changes have caused qualitative changes. The intermediate role that B2B trade once played in the global supply chain has been eroded by B2C. The difference between personal items and trade goods is shrinking and even difficult to distinguish. If we simply let E-commerce bypasses traditional trade rules, which will inevitably lead to a series of issues such as foreign exchange, taxation, licensing, and intellectual property rights.
When the government tries to use both old and new methods or explores new policies, the industry develops too fast. “Policy cannot keep up with the market, and the market cannot keep up with demand.” There have been complaints from consumers. From the perspective of customs clearance methods, for general trade, due to the customs taking convenient measures such as credit grading, classified customs clearance, and paperless customs clearance, various policies are perfect, and customs clearance efficiency is relatively high; while cross-border e-commerce B2C goods are traded by express or mail Customs clearance, according to the current non-trade nature management of personal items, has actually broken through the scope of traditional non-trade items. In the final analysis, cross-border e-commerce has not yet bypassed trade barriers. If the world is truly unified, wouldn’t it be as easy to do cross-border e-commerce as it is to do domestic e-commerce?
In terms of export, for B2C direct mail export goods sold to foreign individuals, e-commerce transactions and foreign exchange settlement, customs declaration, commodity inspection, tax refund and other links cannot be connected, which hinders efficiency. For example, because product orders are sporadic, the single transaction amount is small, and they are delivered by cross-border express or air mail, they cannot reach the customs declaration value, or it is difficult to obtain the official customs declaration form, so most of them do not declare customs when exporting, and the customs only It carries out on-machine inspection and random inspection, which cannot be verified online according to regular items, and the transaction items are exported from customs territories across the country, so single goods cannot be consistent.
Without the customs’ exit data records, the foreign exchange management department cannot verify the true export of goods, and it is impossible to realize foreign trade verification and foreign exchange settlement. The government lacks a piece of trade statistics, and sellers cannot follow routine procedures. Ways to settle foreign exchange and tax refund. Overseas, the customs supervision of small-volume trade in various countries is also complex and difficult. The workload of taxation of small items, random inspections of infringements, and smuggling inspections has increased, and customs clearance efficiency is low.
In terms of imports, domestic residents have strong demand for hot commodities involved in cross-border online shopping. B2B and B2C are applicable to different tax rates, but it is difficult to distinguish between small merchants and individuals at the terminal. Under different transaction modes, domestic The market is “overseas”, traditional supervision methods are difficult to meet the tax determination, and some e-commerce companies have tax evasion problems.
Without trade taxes, large-scale postal imports affect trade fairness and impact the domestic market. The government makes little profit in terms of tax revenue. For example, when purchasing overseas, some companies or individuals falsely declare the names of items, hide them, forge shopping receipts, use the night to clear customs in an attempt to evade tariffs, and some use the method of spreading mailings to various places to prevent batch mailings from causing serial numbers. Customs suspects this is used to avoid taxes.
Similarly, both parties in cross-border trade belong to two countries, and small parcels also bring great challenges to commodity inspection work. It is difficult for inspection and quarantine agencies to fully obtain data on commodities and transactions. Insufficient regulatory inspections will directly lead to Once it reaches consumers, it becomes more difficult to detect infringements, and it is difficult to guarantee users’ rights to return or exchange goods. These still need to be weighed and considered by the management department, and research is needed to establish supporting systems and efficient means.
In addition, since there are no geographical restrictions on cross-border transactions, problems such as poor after-sales service quality, transaction fraud, and online privacy rights arise. It is difficult for some consumers to defend their rights, and sellers may also be liable for fraud due to buyers’ receipt of goods. Suffer the loss of refund or reissue. This involves the legal jurisdiction of cross-border e-commerce, facing customers from different countries. Merchants and platforms, the definition of responsibilities for online shopping disputes and the protection of the rights and interests of sellers or buyers are still controversial.
The most popular saying in Internet entrepreneurship in recent years is “Where there are problems, there are opportunities.” The fuzzy stage of regulation is the initial stage of the market’s wild growth, and policies can bring favorable winds from time to time. As policies become increasingly clear, platforms act as strong rule managers, and the logistics industry provides full traceability and other measures in place, the above problems are indeed gradually disappearing.