The "Double 11" fever spreads across the globe, and cross-border e-commerce overseas is making a lot of money

Recently, a post by the well-known Internet commentator Lan Xi went viral in his WeChat Moments. It was caused by a screenshot of a cross-border seller’s backend order that he saw in a merchant group. The seller said that he sold nearly $500,000 in one day on AliExpress, which was higher than the entire period of last year’s Double 11. He lamented that “the development of cross-border e-commerce today is just like Tmall and Taobao 10 years ago, with unlimited potential.”

Looking back, this year's Double 11 cross-border e-commerce has indeed achieved outstanding results. "Orders can't be stopped at all", "Stocking is conservative", "Sales exceeded 24,000 dollars in the first hour"... Soon, more and more merchants posted screenshots of orders on social platforms, and many cross-border sellers said frankly: "Finally, I feel the atmosphere of Double 11 overseas."

With the rapid development of China's cross-border e-commerce in recent years, the cross-border shopping experience is almost the same as that of local shopping. The overseas spillover effect of Double 11 continues to be released, becoming a year-end shopping carnival for overseas consumers to spend crazy.

Overseas Double 11 Shopping Spree (subtitle)

As the domestic Double 11 e-commerce promotion draws to a close, the madness of the overseas Double 11 “shopping addicts” begins to show.

"As more and more Chinese brands go abroad, more and more overseas consumers are also starting to participate in 'Double 11 '. They will start shopping on time at midnight on November 11th, Pacific Time," said a cross-border seller.

The enthusiasm of overseas consumers has led to a surge in orders from cross-border sellers.

A maternity and baby merchant who has just opened a store on AliExpress for one month said that from the initial exploration and research, when only one product was put on the shelves every two or three days, now more than 300 products have been put on the shelves, and new products are continuously added. The sales volume has also increased from 10 orders, 40 orders, and 100 orders per day at the beginning to a huge explosion on the Double 11 day, reaching 21 times the order volume in October.

Zeuslap , an AliExpress brand that was recommended by Korean influencers, once again saw a huge sales volume in Korea: on the first day of sales, it surpassed the entire Double 11 sales volume last year, and directly broke through seven figures. "The next six days were all growth," said Mary, head of Zeuslap's cross-border e-commerce, happily.

Two star products of the projector brand magcubic sold more than 10,000 orders on the first day of Double 11. All the merchants went to the warehouse to help pack and ship. An auto parts merchant who mainly serves the Korean market sold out all its inventory within one hour of the start of sales. The merchant was so excited that he sighed repeatedly: "We are still too conservative in our preparations. We have to restock quickly!"

According to the data from the General Administration of Customs , in the first half of 2023, the total value of China's cross-border e-commerce exports reached 821 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.9%. Another market research institution predicts that the total value of global retail e-commerce outside of China will reach 4 trillion US dollars in 2027, with the European and American markets being the core.

According to statistics from Freightos, a logistics sales platform, consumers from 235 countries and regions around the world have participated in the "Double 11 " since 2016 , and it is expected that by 2023, 1 billion consumers worldwide will participate in shopping.

Double 11, the shopping carnival invented by Chinese e-commerce, has been successfully "taken over" by overseas consumers under the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce, and even showed an order frenzy comparable to that in China. Chinese merchants who refuse to involute have entered the cross-border e-commerce market and are digging for gold overseas.

The "killer weapon" for cross-border e-commerce sales explosion (sub-title)

Among the screenshots that flooded the screen and the heated discussions among netizens, the two keywords "full trusteeship" and "five-day delivery" took center stage.

Sure enough, with the help of the "killer" combination of full-service hosting and five-day delivery, on the afternoon of November 11th, Beijing time, just after the Double 11 sales on AliExpress started, news of hot sales came from the European market . Less than five days after the sales started , Cainiao's "Global Five-Day Delivery" packages were signed for by European consumers.

Join the fully managed domestic auto parts brand CARE, which mainly operates in Europe, South Korea and other markets. In October this year, the merchant prepared 200,000 items for 8 stores to prepare for Double 11. The brand manager said that CARE sold out more than 30,000 items in just one and a half days, which is about 5-8 times the usual amount.

In recent years , "hosting services" have become a new choice for cross-border platforms and merchants. This business model allows merchants to focus on supplying goods, and the complex logistics, operations, after-sales and other work can be handed over to the platform, making it easier for manufacturing companies to "go overseas" and more likely to make big orders.

Cainiao's "Global 5-Day Delivery" has become a "god assist" for the full-hosting model. It is understood that in September this year, AliExpress and Cainiao launched a 5-day delivery logistics service for cross-border shopping in Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands and other European countries. The improvement of consumer experience has driven the rapid growth of AliExpress orders.

A seller once mentioned : "Every day that the fulfillment time of an e-commerce package is shortened will increase the order volume by several or even dozens of points."

On the one hand, because overseas consumers often place orders again after receiving the package, the ultra-efficient cross-border logistics of "5-day delivery" will undoubtedly increase the consumer repurchase rate, thereby promoting the frequency of e-commerce transactions and driving the growth of orders.

On the other hand, overseas consumers are increasingly inclined to "local experience" when it comes to cross-border e-commerce . When cross-border logistics is close to local online shopping logistics, consumers will give priority to cross-border e-commerce platforms when choosing to buy goods. When new consumption habits are formed, it is equivalent to directly broadening the entire track of cross-border e-commerce.

As Lan Xi wrote in a post on WeChat Moments: "AliExpress and others have taken the fully managed fulfillment model to its extreme, contracting out all the work including finding people, fulfilling contracts, customs clearance, and after-sales. Factories only need to accept orders and ship goods. The market is determined by their production capacity. In addition, Cainiao's 3-day delivery to South Korea and 5-day delivery to Europe, "cross-border ordering and domestic experience", has exported Double 11 overseas, and orders have exploded."

With the help of AliExpress's full hosting and Cainiao's " Global 5-Day Delivery " , diligent Chinese cross-border e-commerce companies successfully overtook others in this Double 11, continuing and replicating the Chinese business miracle overseas.

Double 11

Rookie