2. The epidemic accelerates the trend of online foreign trade 2. Alibaba Online Trade Fair launches 3D factory viewing for the first time: the proportion of digital transactions will exceed 50% in the future
Alibaba Online Trade Fair lasted from June 8 to 28, with 12 industry pavilions, and launched 3D factory viewing for the first time, so that buyers can see the full picture of the merchant’s factory without leaving home; merchants display goods in the form of live broadcasts, and Class B live broadcasts also support overseas merchants; there are also audio and video calls, so that buyers and sellers can communicate face to face.
According to Alibaba International Station data, the number of inquiries at the Alibaba Online Trade Fair held from June 8 to 28 increased by 177% year-on-year, the number of intended orders increased by 525% year-on-year, the number of paid orders increased by 243% year-on-year, and the actual transaction amount increased by
124% year-on-year. The 30 items with the most orders are all women’s products. Large retro sunglasses occupy 3 seats in the top 5, which can be called “dominant”. The rest of the hot products are off-shoulder tops, flat beach shoes, etc. Zhejiang, Guangdong and Fujian provinces took the top ten cities (regions) in terms of export orders at the online trade fair; Wenzhou, Chaoshan and Hangzhou ranked in the top three. In terms of import orders, the United States is still the largest purchasing country, followed by the United Kingdom and Canada, and the Philippines surpassed Germany to rank fifth.
In addition, the average daily active buyers of Alibaba International Station in May increased by 130% year-on-year and 16% month-on-month in April.
Compared with April, various industries have seen significant growth, which is much better than the same period last year. For example, consumer electronics increased by 99% year-on-year, sports and entertainment increased by 175% year-on-year, clothing increased by 132% year-on-year, and hardware tools increased by 120% year-on-year.
Currently, fully digital transactions account for less than 10% of the entire foreign trade exports. Zhang Kuo, general manager of Alibaba International Station, predicts that this proportion will definitely reach 50% in the future. He said that all companies must quickly have the ability to digitize, and the core of Alibaba Online Trade Fair is to help offline merchants move from the old foreign trade era to the new foreign trade era, and to lower the threshold for merchants to do foreign trade through digitalization, bringing large-scale incremental value to all merchants.
3. The pilot program of cross-border e-commerce B2B export supervision sends three important signals
The General Administration of Customs issued the “Announcement on the Pilot Program of Cross-border E-commerce Business-to-Business Export Supervision”, which pointed out that the customs supervision mode codes “9710” and “9810” were added, and cross-border e-commerce B2B export goods were subject to national customs clearance integration, and could also adopt the “cross-border e-commerce” model for customs transfer. This policy was officially implemented on July 1, 2020.
Sun Xiangyang, co-chair of the World Customs Organization’s Cross-border E-commerce Working Group, pointed out that the Customs Policy No. 75 is obviously beneficial to cross-border B2B exports and sends three major signals:
(1) Support the development of cross-border e-commerce and expand the business scope of cross-border e-commerce enterprises. Previously, the business of cross-border e-commerce enterprises was mainly business-to-consumer (B2C). The issuance of Customs Document No. 75 means that not only B2C, but also business-to-business (B2B) models including large-scale export goods are included in the scope of cross-border e-commerce, which is conducive to the expansion of e-commerce enterprises.
(2) Support exports. Help more export enterprises better cope with the export sales crisis under the epidemic.
(3) Support the development of cross-border e-commerce overseas warehouse business. Previously, exports under the B2C model could only be directly to consumers, and large-volume commodity exports had to be handled as general trade. Therefore, the overseas warehouse model could not be included in the cross-border e-commerce policy management. With the support of cross-border B2B policies, the overseas warehouse model can be managed as a cross-border e-commerce model, which plays an important role in helping companies further solve customs clearance, transportation, tax refund and other issues.