Chapter 1
The origin of the term cross-border e-commerce
Key points of this chapter:
The past life of traditional foreign trade The present life of traditional foreign trade Cross-border e-commerce The future of cross-border e-commerce now
1.1 The past life of traditional foreign trade
The term foreign trade has been around for a long time and is no stranger to people. Especially after China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, foreign trade has developed rapidly. Made in Zhejiang, Made in Jiangsu, and Made in Dongguan were world-renowned at that time. As long as you go to these places between 2001 and 2011, you can see the words “the world’s number one product manufacturing factory” everywhere. This is not an exaggeration. This is indeed a decade of prosperity for China’s manufacturing. After 2011, we entered the era of cross-border export and foreign trade.
Comparative chart of traditional foreign trade and current cross-border e-commerce from 2001 to 2011. It can be clearly seen that traditional foreign trade manufactures products from the original factory and purchases them from domestic exporters (the exporters are often Said foreign trade companies, industrial and trade companies), then these exporters sell directly to foreign importers (importers are large foreign wholesalers), and the importers then increase the price of the products appropriately and sell them to various local retailers abroad. , the retailer simply packages the product, puts it in a physical store for retail, and is purchased by individual end consumers.
There are many links in between, and each link requires a certain profit, so the price is increased layer by layer, and finally it reaches the end consumer at a very expensive price.
Based on market share, traditional foreign trade accounted for 99.9% at this time, while cross-border e-commerce only accounted for 0.1%.
From the perspective of the general environment, this kind of transaction means that before 2011, the pace of people’s lives was very slow. With the rise of the Internet, not only the pace of our lives has become faster, but the pace of life around the world has also become faster.