Deloitte: The value of cross-border e-commerce has increased, and small and medium-sized sellers are rushing to participate in the "Canton Fair that never ends".

" The Canton Fair has been held for 67 years and has reached its 136th session. It is changing from an annual spring and autumn exhibition to a 'never-ending' Canton Fair. The vitality of the Canton Fair lies in keeping pace with the times." As the countdown to the 136th Canton Fair approaches, Deloitte and WorldFirst , a one-stop digital payment and financial service platform under Ant International , released the 2024 "New Landscape Report on Digital Trade" , and the Canton Fair became an important entry point in the report. Xie Sijun, Managing Partner of Deloitte China's Technology Industry, said: The Canton Fair's keeping pace with the times is not only reflected in the continuous expansion of new trade forms, the improvement of trade convenience and new services, but also attracting a new generation of traders from different countries and regions, industries and fields to join, and providing a continuous source of power for "Made in China" to become popular all over the world.

( Photo: The 2024 Digital Trade New Landscape Report released by Deloitte and WorldFirst shows that small and medium-sized enterprises are using digital technology to achieve a key leap and become "cross-border giants" in various industries )

The report shows that cross-border trade in the Asia-Pacific region will maintain a high prosperity in 2024 , and will achieve a growth of 5.1%, which is higher than the 2.6% growth of global merchandise trade in the WTO. Among them, China is the most important "power source" and "locomotive" driving the growth of trade in the Asia-Pacific region. Its trade share continues to increase, and it plays an increasingly leading role in the Asia-Pacific trade value chain. On the day the report was released, Deloitte also held a roundtable discussion with industry experts and foreign trade representatives on the topic of "How to accelerate the creation of a never-ending Canton Fair in the digital age."

An "inflatable mattress" made in Huizhou   Witness the Canton Fair “never ends”

"We have observed that with the digital upgrade, the Canton Fair is exerting a strong spillover effect. As a barometer and weather vane of high-quality export development, the platform connection capability of the Canton Fair in global trade is still being comprehensively improved. Through emerging technologies such as digital finance and artificial intelligence, it breaks the geographical and time limitations of traditional trade, creates a 7*24-hour borderless market and first-time transactions, and enables companies to do global business with confidence and efficiency. " said Xie Sijun, Deloitte China's technology industry managing partner .

A significant change in the Canton Fair is the increasing proportion of cross-border e-commerce exhibitors. At a time when trade export B2B orders are small and fragmented, the emergence of cross-border e-commerce has brought opportunities to more small and medium-sized enterprises. "Small ships are easy to turn around" makes "one yuan order" possible. In 2023 , China's cross-border e-commerce exports will reach 2.38 trillion yuan, an increase of 15.6% . This year's Canton Fair provides exhibitors with full-chain trade services , allowing global buyers and sellers to negotiate transactions at the Canton Fair both offline and online .

( Photo: Countdown to the opening of the 136th Canton Fair, overseas buyers visited the outdoor booth of WorldFirst in advance )

At the same time, more "small and beautiful" cross-border e-commerce entities participated in the Canton Fair, and the combination of "cross-border e-commerce + industrial belt" also greatly enriched the "quality" of the Canton Fair's support for entities. Xie Sijun, the managing partner of Deloitte China's technology industry , said that around the development trend of "cross-border e-commerce + industrial belt" , Guangdong, as China's largest foreign trade province, has continuously improved its support policies in recent years. Amazon, AliExpress, SHEIN and other world-renowned cross-border e-commerce platforms have settled in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, helping fashion apparel, 3C electronics, home furnishing and other industrial belt sellers to achieve "small orders and fast response" and "supply on demand" through digital flexible supply chain upgrades, driving the transformation and upgrading of the entire manufacturing industry.

"Compared with traditional foreign trade, cross-border e-commerce has more flexible digital service support. For example, if you go to the mainstream European and American e-commerce platform Wayfair to open a store, it will take half a year to apply for various materials and prepare them yourself. So we used Wanlihui's global one-stop store opening service, and we successfully settled in less than a month . " Li Zhaoyang, a second-generation Cantonese, has witnessed the changes in the Canton Fair: 20 years ago, his father successfully sold mattresses to Walmart supermarkets in North America by handing out business cards, drinking old wine and making friends with overseas exhibitors at the Canton Fair; now, his son participates in the Canton Fair again, and has sold his own brand of inflatable mattresses with multiple patents from the single North American market to nearly 10 markets including Germany, France , Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Japan through multiple global e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Wayfair, and Temu . " Even so, the Canton Fair is still very important for cross-border e-commerce. This year we expect to get more 2B orders at the fair, even if there are small orders. We are willing to accept them . " Li Zhaoyang said that as the global economy enters a downturn, overseas customers are less willing to try and error, and small orders have become a market trend. " Don't underestimate the small orders of only a few dozen pieces in the first batch. As long as we have good Made in China products, we can turn new customers into regular customers and have the opportunity to attract larger orders again and again. "

"If we want to better serve small and medium-sized enterprises and help them grow into cross-border 'little giants' faster, we can re-examine the industrial chain and key points of cross-border e-commerce and build a complete overseas professional ecosystem offline and online through exhibitions. Xie Sijun suggested that the Canton Fair can also refine the matchmaking services for cross-border e-commerce entities according to different types of industrial belt sellers, so that Chinese sellers and overseas buyers can be better matched.

Technology upgrades digital services: providing security for uninterrupted transactions

The Deloitte report pointed out that the integration of online and offline exhibitions at the Canton Fair, the increase in the number of overseas buyers, and the participation of more small and medium-sized enterprises have put forward higher requirements on payment timeliness, security, and performance capabilities, including how to reduce the risks of "small-amount", "high-frequency", and "anytime, anywhere" cross-border transactions.

(Photo: Isaac, a global cross-border buyer from the United States   , is also an opinion leader in the cross-border track with nearly 300,000 fans on the entire network. He will take his fans to "visit the Canton Fair" online)

Isaac Hetzroni is a global cross-border buyer from Imprint Genius in the United States , and an opinion leader in the cross-border track with nearly 300,000 fans on the Internet . Isaac , who attended the Canton Fair for the third time, said : " Many of my fans are engaged in cross-border procurement, and they often ask me how to effectively and smoothly pay the suppliers? " In the increasingly complex global trade situation , it is particularly important to find reliable trading partners and ensure contract fulfillment. In actual operations, buyers and sellers may face trade disputes, such as buyers refusing to pay or maliciously delaying payment based on their own demands, or sellers delaying shipment after receiving payment.

Regarding this user pain point, as a leading exhibitor in the cross-border payment field of the Canton Fair, Shi Wenyi, CEO of Wanlihui, said: Wanlihui specially demonstrated the "Pay in to China" payment solution to global merchants at the Canton Fair to facilitate overseas buyers to purchase directly across borders; at the same time, for foreign trade B2B companies, it launched the WorldTrade global trade order payment and transaction guarantee service , which facilitates global merchants to place orders efficiently and fulfill contracts intelligently at the Canton Fair , manage order transaction processes online , effectively improve payment efficiency , and use risk control technology to ensure transaction security .

At present, Wanlihui 's international account can support global sellers in more than 200 countries and regions and more than 130 cross-border e-commerce platforms around the world , using nearly 100 currencies for payment and more than 30 currencies for local collection, and provides cross-account, cross-entity, account authority customization and other services.

( Photo caption: Shi Wenyi, CEO of Wanlihui , believes that digital financial services can help "cross-border small giants" grow and help them improve their competitiveness in terms of professionalism, product strength, brand strength, and innovation )

The “New Three Things” are now available overseas to provide “Green Pass” services for green brands

The 136th Canton Fair focuses on the themes of " advanced manufacturing" , "quality home" and "better life". 1.15 million new products, 1.04 million green products and 1.11 million products with independent intellectual property rights will be exhibited on site, all of which are significantly higher than the previous session. According to Chu Shijia, director of the China Foreign Trade Center of the Ministry of Commerce, more than 30,000 companies will participate in the offline exhibition , including more than 8,000 companies with titles such as national high-tech, specialized and new "little giants", and single champions in manufacturing, an increase of more than 40% over the previous session.

"The mature supply chain, strong digitalization and intelligent construction have made China's supply chain unshakable in the world. The overall scale has remained the world's first for 14 consecutive years. This is the biggest support and help for our companies to go overseas. " As a representative of the "new three" exports, the new energy car XEV YOYO has been sold to Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Greece and other places, and is very competitive in the European car-sharing market. Wu Lei, CFO of Future Global Technology, who attended the roundtable forum on behalf of XEV , said that for new energy companies going overseas, foreign trade and cross-border settlement needs are diverse. In the past, they all conducted business by opening settlement accounts overseas, but the handling fees were high, the settlement efficiency was low, and the management costs were high. Since the full use of Wanlihui's one-stop cross-border financial services in June this year, transfers and payments between companies within the group can be completed on the same day, avoiding the "difficult" of waiting for fund settlement. It is very suitable for the needs of Chinese companies that value efficiency as king to go overseas, and has left European customers with a good impression of "China's smart manufacturing" with efficient and timely delivery.

(Photo: The "China-made" new energy car XEV YOYO has conquered the European market. Behind it is the cross-border financial service of Wanlihui, which has solved the "long-standing problems" of cross-border fund settlement, such as high handling fees and low efficiency )

"Through the ecological service capabilities of the Canton Fair, the 'green' overseas expansion capabilities of small and medium-sized enterprises can be sustainably improved." Xie Sijun also suggested that small and medium-sized enterprises are important market participants that are indispensable for promoting sustainable and green development, especially specialized and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises and "little giants". The "Canton Fair that never ends" creates an uninterrupted global trade market with sustainable innovation. In the subsequent services of the Canton Fair, it is recommended that more innovative services can be used to guide and encourage overseas enterprises to develop in a more environmentally friendly, intelligent and high-quality direction.

Cross-border e-commerce

Small and medium-sized sellers