Chinese sellers are booming overseas

Which industries will still make money in 2024? An outsider believes that cross-border e-commerce, lottery industry and short video media are among them...

The broad prospects of cross-border e-commerce have become a consensus among many people!

“Now the pancake-selling ladies in the small town are all talking about cross-border e-commerce!”

"My relatives and friends often inquire about cross-border e-commerce news and seem to want to get involved."

…

In recent years, similar words are not unfamiliar in the cross-border circle. As a sudden epidemic accelerates the development of online shopping, cross-border e-commerce continues to be known by more outsiders with the trend of "breaking the circle". According to the data of the General Administration of Customs, in the first half of this year, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports amounted to 1.22 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.5%, 4.4 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of China's foreign trade in the same period. Cross-border e-commerce, or "cross-border e-commerce", refers to an international commercial activity that completes transactions through e-commerce platforms, conducts electronic payment settlements, and delivers goods through cross-border e-commerce logistics and off-site warehousing.

Cross-border e-commerce has not only broken down the barriers between countries and made international trade borderless, but it is also causing tremendous changes in the world's economic and trade.

Once upon a time, Shenzhen was the exclusive synonym for cross-border e-commerce. Now, cross-border e-commerce has blossomed all over the country.

With the rise of new models such as full trusteeship and semi-trusteeship on e-commerce platforms, it has become a new trend for sellers to expand cross-border e-commerce business online. In addition to traditional domestic e-commerce sellers, traditional foreign trade factories are also deploying cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and Temu in large quantities. According to preliminary statistics from various places, there are more than 120,000 cross-border e-commerce entities in the country, with more than 2,500 overseas warehouses built and an area of ​​more than 30 million square meters.

Chinese sellers are booming overseas!

Products are sold all over the world! Chinese sellers are running wild overseas

Data shows that China's international cargo routes continued to be added in August, and cross-border e-commerce goods were still the main export goods. In order to cope with the surge in overseas market demand, a total of 10 new international cargo routes were opened in August, with more than 30 round-trip flights added per week, including 1 North American route, 3 European routes, and 6 Asian routes.

European and American regions, where infrastructure conditions are more mature, have always been the main targets of Chinese cross-border e-commerce sellers, and these regions are also filled with a large number of Chinese products. For example, in the first half of this year, the share of Chinese e-commerce platforms in the European Spanish market reached an astonishing 34%, far exceeding other European countries; the United States, as the largest destination for Chinese cross-border e-commerce exports, accounted for 37.4% of exports in 2023. However, cross-border e-commerce in markets such as Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, and Southeast Asia is also booming.

According to the data from the Korea Customs Service, in the first half of this year, South Korea's cross-border e-commerce imports reached 89.17 million pieces, a year-on-year increase of 55%. The total value of cross-border e-commerce imports was US$2.943 billion, a year-on-year increase of 18.3%. Among them, the total value of goods imported from China was 64.206 million pieces, a year-on-year increase of 74.3%, and the proportion of goods increased from 64% in the first half of last year to 72% in the first half of this year. The value of cross-border e-commerce imports from China was US$1.57 billion, a year-on-year increase of 55.5%, accounting for 53% of the total value.

Australian consumers are also keen on shopping for Chinese products online. Roy Morgan research data shows that more than 2 million Australians shop on Temu and SHEIN every month. Currently, these two platforms occupy a considerable market share in the Australian retail market and have threatened the status of local retail giants.

Temu has grown so fast in Thailand, with local consumers becoming addicted to Chinese goods, that it has even impacted the logistics services provided by Thailand Post to other e-commerce platforms. Thailand Post said its parcel volume has dropped by 20-50% per day since July.

Similar scenarios apply in many areas.

Chinese sellers are becoming increasingly active in regions outside Europe and the United States, as can be seen from the data on cross-border e-commerce export destinations in 2023. In 2023, exports to the United States (37.4%), the United Kingdom (8.7%), Germany (4.7%), Russia (4.6%), and France (3.7%) accounted for nearly 60% of the total exports. Emerging markets such as Thailand (2.5%), Vietnam (2.4%), Malaysia (2.4%), and Australia (2.1%) are rising rapidly, and the amount of exported products should not be underestimated.

Chinese products are becoming more and more visible around the world, and correspondingly, the scale of my country's cross-border e-commerce market is increasing year by year.

In the past five years, the scale of China's cross-border e-commerce trade has increased more than 10 times. According to the data from 2023, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reached 2.37 trillion yuan, an increase of 15.3% over 2022. Among them, exports were about 1.84 trillion yuan, an increase of 20.2%, accounting for 7.7% of China's total exports in the same period. Cross-border e-commerce exports mainly come from Guangdong, Zhejiang, Fujian and Jiangsu.

With the emergence of cross-border e-commerce third-party platforms such as Temu, the rise of new e-commerce models of full and semi-hosting, and the opening of many overseas local e-commerce platforms to Chinese sellers, Chinese sellers are still developing rapidly overseas with the help of major e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, eBay, and Temu.

The vast world outside Shenzhen: cross-border e-commerce is emerging in various places!

The national cross-border e-commerce industry looks to Guangdong , and the Guangdong cross-border e-commerce industry looks to Shenzhen. In the first half of 2024, Guangdong's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reached 427.34 billion yuan. From 2015 to 2023, Guangdong's cross-border e-commerce jumped from 11.3 billion yuan to 843.3 billion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 71.4%, accounting for more than 10% of the province's total foreign trade and more than 1/3 of the country's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports.

Shenzhen is undoubtedly the biggest contributor. In the first half of 2024, Shenzhen's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports increased by 130% year-on-year, and in 2023, Shenzhen's cross-border e-commerce GMV exceeded 800 billion yuan .

Shenzhen currently has the largest number of cross-border e-commerce entities in China, with more than 80,000 cross-border e-commerce sellers in Shenzhen, accounting for about 50% of the country's sellers. In addition, Shenzhen has 12 listed cross-border e-commerce companies and 8 provincial cross-border e-commerce companies. In the latest list of China's top 100 cross-border e-commerce brands in 2024, Shenzhen accounts for more than 40%.

The results of the 2023 Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone (hereinafter referred to as the "Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone") assessment show that among the 165 cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones in the country, nine regions, including Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Ningbo, Qingdao, Zhengzhou, Xiamen, Suzhou and Chongqing, have been successfully rated as the first tier, sharing the same tier as Shenzhen. In addition to Shenzhen, cross-border e-commerce in other regions is also rising rapidly, which can be seen from the cross-border e-commerce development data and the growth in the number of sellers across the country↓↓↓

Qingdao: From January to June 2024, there were 2,361 registered cross-border e-commerce companies in Qingdao, Shandong Province , accounting for one-tenth of the city's foreign trade import and export performance enterprises; the import and export scale in the first half of this year was about 56.93 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23.8%.

In the first half of the year, Shandong's imports and exports totaled 1.62 trillion yuan, up 4.3% year-on-year, of which exports totaled 995.43 billion yuan, up 9.1%.

Hangzhou: In 2023, the number of cross-border e-commerce companies in Hangzhou reached 63,436 . In 2014, the number of companies was less than 2,000 , a 30-fold increase in 10 years; the import and export volume of cross-border e-commerce reached 140.04 billion yuan, of which 194 companies had a turnover of over 100 million yuan.

Yiwu: From January to June 2024, the number of newly established e-commerce entities in Yiwu, Zhejiang Province reached 65,700, accounting for 76.5% of the total newly established ones; the total number of e-commerce entities registered with industrial and commercial administration in the city reached 652,100, of which more than 40% were engaged in cross-border e-commerce business, and more than 40 cross-border e-commerce independent sites have been built.

In the first half of 2024, Zhejiang's cross-border e-commerce exports reached 179.93 billion yuan, up 38.5%, 21.6 percentage points higher than the national average . In 2023, Zhejiang's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reached 512.93 billion yuan, up 18.9% year-on-year, accounting for more than one-fifth of the national total.

The General Office of the Zhejiang Provincial Government issued an action plan to promote the high-quality development of cross-border e-commerce in the province. The plan shows that more than 80 leading enterprises with annual transaction volume exceeding 1 billion yuan and more than 1,000 sellers with annual transaction volume exceeding 100 million yuan will be introduced and cultivated. The goal is to double the scale of cross-border e-commerce in the province by 2027 compared with 2024, and to have more than 10 cross-border e-commerce platforms with annual transaction volume exceeding 10 billion yuan; strive to double the scale of cross-border e-commerce by 2030 compared with 2027.

Jiangsu: There are currently about 5,000 registered cross-border e-commerce companies , accounting for about 7.5% of the national total. As of 2023, Suzhou has cultivated nearly 400 cross-border e-commerce brand companies with an annual export volume of more than 20 million yuan, and more than 5,400 cross-border e-commerce brands. Among the top 100 Chinese cross-border e-commerce brands, 7 companies in Suzhou are on the list, and the total number ranks third in the country .

From January to July this year , the scale of Suzhou's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports increased by 27.4%. In addition, from January to April this year , Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province achieved a total cross-border e-commerce export of 3.888 billion yuan, accounting for 12.64% of the total volume of the province during the same period; Nanjing's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports increased by 44.5%, accounting for more than 50% of the province's total.

Hefei : By the end of 2023, there will be about 2,600 cross-border e-commerce companies in Hefei, Anhui Province, including 139 companies with annual transaction volume exceeding 20 million yuan. Amazon data shows that in 2023 , Hefei's cross-border e-commerce transaction volume and the number of new sellers ranked among the top ten in the country.

In the first half of this year, Anhui's cross-border e-commerce transaction volume reached 22.12 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.7%, far exceeding the 9.7% growth in trade exports .

Xiamen: Currently, there are more than 6,000 cross-border e-commerce sellers in Xiamen , and the sales volume of cross-border e-commerce accounts for more than 40% in Fujian Province. The customs supervision platform shows that the import and export volume of Xiamen's cross-border e-commerce in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 will be 440 million yuan, 2.78 billion yuan, 8.55 billion yuan, 14.35 billion yuan, and 23.67 billion yuan respectively, with an average annual growth rate of more than 60% over the past five years.

In the first seven months of this year , Fujian Province's cross-border e-commerce exports amounted to 117.39 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 58.5%, setting a historical high for export value during the same period.

Changsha: There are about 1,800 companies engaged in cross-border e-commerce business, with more than 200 companies increasing each year. Since being approved as a cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone in 2018, the business entities and trade scale of Changsha's cross-border e-commerce have increased by more than ten times.

From January to July this year , the import and export transaction volume of cross-border e-commerce in Hunan Province reached 33.102 billion yuan. The third-party monitoring data (Amazon) increased by 7.9% year-on-year, and the sample enterprise data increased by 16.86% year-on-year.

The strong get stronger , and the latecomers catch up. This can be said to be the current development status of cross-border e-commerce across the country.

Cross-border e-commerce + industrial belt model promotes overseas development

According to statistics from the E-Commerce Research Center of the China Internet Network Information Center, in 2013, the penetration rate of cross-border e-commerce in China's foreign trade was only about 12%, and it had increased to 40.35% in 2023.

Traditional enterprises and cross-border e-commerce continue to show a "two-way rush" trend.

On the one hand, the gradual e-commerce of foreign trade is the current development status and also the general trend. Many traditional foreign trade bosses have been impacted by cross-border e-commerce, and their performance has stagnated or gradually shrunk. Transforming into cross-border e-commerce has become one of their main means of self-help and is also the only way for the company to grow and develop. In addition, as the semi-hosting and full-hosting models reduce the difficulty for novices to engage in cross-border e-commerce, as well as the full support of major e-commerce platforms, it has paved the way for factory owners to enter cross-border e-commerce to a certain extent. Figures show that in the first half of 2024, in the industrial belts covered by Amazon Business Purchase, the number of newly launched factory-type sellers was 5 times that of the same period last year, and the combined sales of these sellers were more than 10 times that of the same period last year.

On the other hand, relying on various products produced by Chinese factories, many e-commerce platforms have gradually established competitive advantages, such as Temu, which has emerged in the past two years.

In 2023 , consumer goods accounted for 97.3% of China's cross-border e-commerce exports , mainly clothing, shoes, bags and jewelry accessories, home textiles and kitchen utensils, mobile phones and other digital products and accessories, home office appliances and accessories, etc. It can be found that the focus of export commodities in various places is different, because various places have unique industrial belt resources. Under the "cross-border e-commerce + industrial belt" model, industrial belt sellers are accelerating their overseas expansion.

Guangdong's Foshan, Jiangmen, Guangzhou, Dongguan and other places have well-known industrial clusters. Among them, Foshan's industrial belt includes smart home appliances, furniture, ceramics, building materials, green lighting, high-end textiles, food and beverages; Jiangmen's industrial belt includes motorcycles and accessories, tangerine peel, metal products, papermaking and printing, and home appliances; Guangzhou's industrial belt includes textiles and clothing, luggage and leather goods, jewelry, beauty and daily chemicals, food and beverages, lighting and audio, and auto parts; Shenzhen's industrial belt includes clothing, 3C electronics, gold jewelry, watches, furniture, underwear, glasses, and medical equipment; Dongguan's industrial belt includes textiles, clothing, shoes and hats manufacturing, papermaking and paper products, toy manufacturing, food and beverage processing and manufacturing, furniture manufacturing, gold jewelry, packaging and printing, rubber and plastic products.

Fujian has characteristic industrial belts such as textiles and footwear, sports equipment, bamboo and wood products, and new energy. Footwear and clothing from Quanzhou and Xiamen, home furnishings from Fuzhou, clocks and musical instruments from Zhangzhou, and electromechanical massage equipment from Ningde are all very competitive.

Jiangsu will build more than 30 cross-border e-commerce characteristic industrial belts by 2025. Nanjing has initially formed four major cross-border e-commerce export industrial belts, namely smart manufacturing, outdoor products, power tools, and textiles and clothing; Suzhou has currently formed several "Suzhou-featured" cross-border e-commerce export billion-level industrial belts, including machinery and equipment, smart home appliances, textiles and clothing. In addition, Changzhou's auto parts, Nantong's home textiles, and Wuxi's electric vehicles are also very well-known.

Suzhou tools and measuring instruments, Ningbo lamps and tools, Zhongshan lamps, Xiamen plumbing and sanitary ware, Hebei Anping County silk screen, Jinan laser engraving machine, Jinhua hardware manufacturing, Taizhou molding, Shanghai light industrial products, Chongqing general machinery, Xuchang wigs, Qingdao swimwear, Sichuan and Chongqing auto parts, Shandong furniture, etc. The characteristic products in the industrial belt are continuously exported to all parts of the world with the support of cross-border e-commerce.

After years of development and evolution in the industry, various product categories have gradually formed a first echelon that mainly operates its own brands, a second echelon that mainly produces ODM/OEM products, and a third echelon that participates in market competition through OEM production, single-process OEM, and other methods.

It is worth noting that with the increase in the number of cross-border e-commerce companies and the intensification of market competition, various subdivided commodities in various categories are showing a certain homogeneous competition situation, which is specifically manifested in the similarity of products in appearance and function, and increasingly fierce price competition for products of the same specifications.

Homogeneous market competition has brought more severe challenges to the technological product innovation capabilities, differentiated competition and rapid market response capabilities of competing companies in the industry.

With the continuous innovation of industry technology and the continuous updating of product forms, in the future, brand owners who have technological and channel advantages will gain more significant competitive advantages.

With strong policy support, cross-border e-commerce has both opportunities and challenges!

As an important booster for the transformation and upgrading of my country's traditional foreign trade industry and innovation-driven development, cross-border e-commerce is receiving strong support from national industrial policies.

In recent years, the central and local governments have intensively introduced a number of policies to support the development of the cross-border e-commerce industry, and have introduced corresponding supporting measures for key links such as customs clearance, taxation, payment, and overseas warehouse construction, such as:

In June 2024, the "Opinions of the Ministry of Commerce and 9 Other Departments on Expanding Cross-border E-commerce Exports and Promoting the Construction of Overseas Warehouses" pointed out that in order to expand cross-border e-commerce exports, optimize the layout of overseas warehouses, and accelerate the cultivation of new foreign trade momentum, with the approval of the State Council, the following opinions were put forward: actively cultivate cross-border e-commerce business entities; increase financial support; strengthen the construction of relevant infrastructure and logistics systems; optimize supervision and services; and actively carry out standard rule building and international cooperation.

In December 2023 , the "Several Measures on Accelerating the Integrated Development of Domestic and Foreign Trade" pointed out that a number of industrial clusters integrating domestic and foreign trade development should be cultivated and expanded in key areas. The construction of commercial science and technology innovation centers should be promoted to promote the deep integration of the Internet, big data, artificial intelligence and domestic and foreign trade related industries. The development of the "cross-border e-commerce + industrial belt" model should be promoted to drive more traditional industries to go overseas in groups.

In January 2023, the "Announcement on the Tax Policy for Cross-border E-commerce Export Return Goods" pointed out that cross-border e-commerce export return goods that meet the requirements will be exempted from import tariffs and import value-added tax and consumption tax, and the export tariffs collected at the time of export will be refunded. If the goods exported by cross-border e-commerce companies are returned to China again, the export tariffs previously collected will be refunded.

Many cross-border sellers such as Anker Innovations, Huakai Yibai, Santai, and Saiwei all enjoy various preferential policies such as tax incentives. Yi Enjun learned that in 2021, 2022, and 2023, the total amount of tax incentives of Green Union Company was 41.3606 million yuan, 41.8194 million yuan, and 46.3074 million yuan, respectively, accounting for 11.96%, 11.10%, and 10.39% of the total profit in the current period.

With strong policy support, cross-border e-commerce has been highly valued. The role of cross-border e-commerce in promoting the development of small and medium-sized enterprises and driving the development of local characteristic industries has become increasingly prominent. It is foreseeable that the next world-renowned Anker Innovation will appear in various subcategories!

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