Answering the “Annual Question” of Foreign Trade: Alibaba International Station’s Digital Foreign Trade Award Creates New Opportunities for 2025

On December 26 , the Alibaba International Station Digital Foreign Trade Real Awesome Awards was held in Hangzhou. 18 annual merchants of the International Station, spanning four generations of foreign trade people from the 70s to the 00s , stepped onto the stage of this foreign trade "Oscar" and answered the 2024 foreign trade "Annual Question" in the form of a debate.

( Photo: 2024 Alibaba International Station Digital Foreign Trade Real Awesome Award Site )

Different from previous years, this year's Zhenniu Award surveyed and collected questions from all foreign trade people and summarized them into four "annual questions": 1. In an uncertain era, should we choose emerging countries or developed countries when going overseas? 2. In the era of internal circulation, should we choose to go overseas in depth or expand horizontally? 3. Under the impact of new AI technologies, is AI more useful for start-ups or mature companies? 4. For contemporary foreign trade people , is the success of going overseas more valuable for the first generation or the second generation ?

These four questions, covering foreign trade market selection, industry expansion paths, AI technology applications, and entrepreneurs' own struggles , also became the four debate topics on the Zhenniu Awards stage, sparking extremely fierce debates and discussions. The Zhenniu Awards were full of golden sentences, and the number of online and offline viewers exceeded 2 million in just 2 hours.

Answering the "Annual Question" of Foreign Trade, AI Becomes the Keyword

In the heated debates and discussions among foreign trade professionals at the 18th annual conference, AI became the key word of the whole event.

Zhang Zhuotian, the second-generation successor of the factory , has moved a 25 - year-old offline traditional enterprise with a scale of hundreds of millions to the online market . The 400,000 emails that were originally impossible to read every month are now quality-checked in real time with OKKI AI . The private knowledge base established by AI helps new foreign trade people to quickly land, shortening the order opening cycle from the longest 240 days to the fastest 8 days .

( Photo: Zhang Zhuotian, a merchant who won the Alibaba International Station Zhenniu Award )

"I just know that efficiency and data are the future of the enterprise." Zhang Zhuotian said that Zhejiang Putian, which has completed digital transformation, has achieved performance exceeding 200 million yuan for the first time, 90% of which came from online, of which Alibaba International Station's performance accounted for 60% of the total.

Liu Shiqi, a new generation of foreign trader born in 1997 , doubled his company's performance by 100% in Quanzhou's already saturated footwear industry with AI . Focusing on the US market, he designed and produced ugly slippers through the analysis of American users' preferences by AI business assistant, which sold for US$ 50 a pair and created a turnover of 30 million . During the Christmas season this year, with the prediction of trending products by AI , the store's daily search volume increased by more than 500% .

" I know this company is still young, but I believe we are mature enough in the application of AI technology. " Liu Shiqi revealed that the company's team is generally composed of post- 00s with no foreign trade basics, but with their enthusiasm for new technologies, they achieved 100% penetration of AI in the company in less than a year , and the business order conversion rate also increased from 9% to 20% .

( Photo: Liu Shiqi, the merchant who won the Real Awesome Award at Alibaba International Station )

Behind this, the first full-process AI launched by Alibaba International Station this year has been used by 60,000 small and medium-sized enterprises, and the scale of AI -released products has reached 7 million . The payment conversion rate of AI - optimized products in overseas markets has increased by 52 %. Accio, the first B2B AI search engine launched for overseas buyers , is also reshaping the experience of global trade.

AI will solve three core problems for foreign trade companies

Zhang Kuo, president of Alibaba International Station, also participated in the discussion. He believed that AI core can solve three types of problems for foreign trade entrepreneurs:

First, AI can improve supply and demand matching based on larger-scale and more real-time data. It can use richer data and reasoning capabilities to generate better materials than manual work in the past. At the same time, it can also tell foreign trade companies about global market trends more quickly and comprehensively, and solve problems such as product selection and market selection .

Second , AI can become an important digital productivity, freeing people from purely data-driven, tedious daily affairs and greatly improving efficiency .

Third, AI can better help foreign trade entrepreneurs fully understand the industry, market and even business operations in which they are located: for example, Alibaba International Station's AI risk control agent can quickly alert market risk points based on the rapidly changing laws, regulations, trade policies and product standards in the global market.

(Photo: Zhang Kuo, President of Alibaba International Station)

Zhang Kuo believes that by solving these three core problems, the productivity of our enterprises can be greatly liberated, and entrepreneurs can focus on more important issues and expand the scale of their business.

With the left hand, we promote new technologies, and with the right hand, we expand new markets. Zhang Kuo revealed that Alibaba International Station is focusing on three core trade types: general trade based on customization, fast-growing spot wholesale business, and emerging overseas warehouses. It deeply integrates the supply chain in core countries and regions, customizes the complete transaction chain from financial services, logistics fulfillment to after-sales guarantee, and makes better supply and demand matching around the needs of different countries and industries, making the process of doing foreign trade business for different companies extremely simple.

At the Zhenniu Awards, you can also see foreign trade merchants accepting orders from around the world on Alibaba International Station, a cross-border B2B platform that allows one to sell to the world with one click, while also making breakthroughs into core areas.

Li Jun, the CEO of Lingmo Stationery, who was born in the 1970s , was unwilling to be trapped in the domestic market with low prices, so he found a new market for pens on Alibaba International Station. He focused on high-end customers in Europe and the United States, with annual exports reaching 60 million .

Chen Liang, a businessman in the auto parts industry born in the 1980s , started his business from a small stall in Guangzhou. He now has built a team of 80 people on Alibaba International Station and expanded his business to Turkey, Germany, the United States, South America, and the Middle East markets , with annual exports reaching 170 million yuan.

Li Jiale, born in 2000 , has been constantly trying and failing on Alibaba International Station. From floating rafts to inflatable castles to wedding supplies , as a freshly graduated college student , his annual export volume has reached 7 million . He said: " I have found the right way. My data is already twice the average of the same industry. Now I have 2,000 customers every month. This year I think I can get my first 10 million. "

(Photo: Li Jiale, the merchant who won the Zhenniu Award at Alibaba International Station)

Finally, 18 foreign trade entrepreneurs and the more companies they represent, with their own stories, gave answers to the "annual questions" of foreign trade from various dimensions. Among them are those who have transformed from domestic trade to foreign trade, those who have been engaged in foreign trade offline for more than ten years and are now digitally transformed, and young entrepreneurial teams. They have used different paths to verify the huge increase in B2B overseas business and have found their own path to success . For all foreign trade people, this is the best news at the end of the year.

Alibaba International Station

Question of the Year