Cross-border e-commerce has become an important supporting force for China’s foreign trade
Under the current situation, the global economy is weakening, demand is declining, and China’s export-oriented economy has also suffered some impacts, and cross-border e-commerce has become an important supplement to China’s foreign trade. Industry insiders generally believe that cross-border e-commerce not only injects new momentum into the development of China’s foreign trade, but also continues to show its advantages in “buying the world and selling the world”, and can also drive the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries and small and medium-sized enterprises. At a deeper level, cross-border e-commerce is accelerating the reshaping and even subversion of traditional production methods and business models.
“In the past two years, cross-border e-commerce companies represented by Xiyin and Pinduoduo have achieved success overseas and helped Chinese products to be sold overseas, although it is not enough to make the entire Chinese export increase rapidly, but without these new formats and new models, our export growth rate may decline faster, because the entire world economic situation is very bad.” Some industry insiders pointed out.Not long ago, the “Annual Report on China’s Cross-border E-commerce Trade” released by the General Administration of Customs of China showed that in 2022, the scale of China’s cross-border e-commerce imports and exports exceeded 2 trillion yuan for the first time, reaching 2.1 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.1% over 2021.Wang Ning, president of the China Electronic Chamber of Commerce, introduced that cross-border e-commerce mainly includes four types of subjects, one is traditional cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon; the second is the e-commerce that settles in the platform; The third is to provide suppliers of products for merchants; The fourth is a service provider that provides cross-border e-commerce related services, including logistics, software development, overseas warehouses, etc.”In recent years, China’s cross-border e-commerce has maintained a rapid development momentum, with an increase of nearly 10 times in 5 years. Cross-border e-commerce is the successful application of digitally-empowered international trade, the achievement and driving force of economic globalization, and an important part of building a unified national market and promoting international trade facilitation. Wang Deyang, deputy director of the Foreign Trade Development Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce, said.
Reinventing production methods and business models
Under the current situation, how should cross-border e-commerce exert its strength, and what new models will appear in the future?
Zhong Zeyu, vice president and secretary general of the China Association for Trade in Services, believes that in the current special period, cross-border e-commerce should make efforts from both inside and outside. Inwardly, cross-border e-commerce should now gradually become part of the production enterprise or a sector after the initial stage of the development of intermediate traders, and establish the ultimate competition mechanism of the supply chain. Externally, the first is to gradually shift from a single enterprise to overseas market expansion to group development; The second is to do a good job of localized articles, going out may only be the first step, whether you can take root overseas is the key; The third is to seek new growth points, since the second half of last year, the traditional European and American cross-border e-commerce market has fallen sharply, but at the same time, cross-border e-commerce in the Middle East, Central Asia, ASEAN and other regions has achieved rapid growth, and new breakthroughs should be sought in these regions.
“Cross-border e-commerce has not only changed China’s foreign trade, but also transformed the global market.” Wang Jian, professor at the University of International Business and Economics and chairman of the Expert Committee of the APEC E-commerce Business Alliance, said that today’s cross-border e-commerce cannot be simply understood as cross-border online retail, and many new models and new formats have emerged, becoming a new field of foreign trade innovation and development.
Specifically, the first is the diversification trend of cross-border e-commerce platforms, which are no longer limited to traditional eBay, Amazon and other broad category platforms, but also clothing, home appliances, FMCG and other subdivision platforms, as well as B2B supply chain platforms, and new models such as independent websites, live streaming and short videos deeply bound to foreign social media and short media platforms have emerged. Second, the cross-border e-commerce ecological chain, supply chain, and information chain are continuously integrated, and e-commerce is not only selling products, but embedding credit systems, financing platforms, government supervision and other functions through information network means. Third, the boundary between cross-border e-commerce and traditional industries is gradually blurred, and it is impossible to distinguish whether platform enterprises are doing finance, sellers or supply chains, etc., and it is the ambiguity of these roles that brings about the emergence of business model innovation.
Post time: Jul-11-2023
