General

E-commerce cross-border business is an innovative practice to expand the import of high-quality products from abroad and promote the upgrading of consumption quality. While enriching the supply of goods, it shows the cultural characteristics and lifestyle of different countries, so that domestic consumers can purchase high-quality goods from all over the world without leaving home and experience local characteristics. In recent years, relevant central departments and local governments have been actively deploying to increase the policy support for cross-border e-commerce and promote cross-border e-commerce to enter the fast lane of development, including the top-level design documents supporting its development, as well as the trade facilitation and innovation development exploration of platforms such as the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone. With the gradual improvement of the cross-border e-commerce trade mechanism and the continuous dredging of the international logistics network, the cross-border e-commerce channel has accelerated its expansion, and more and more market entities are realizing the "two-way travel" of "buy the world and sell the world" through this channel.

The new driving force of foreign trade development plays a prominent role

When introducing the development of online retail market in 2022, the head of the Department of Electronic Commerce of the Ministry of Commerce said that cross-border e-commerce has developed rapidly. According to customs data, China's cross-border e-commerce import and export will reach 2.11 trillion yuan in 2022, up 9.8% year on year. Customs data showed that the export was 1.55 trillion yuan, up 11.7% year on year; The import was 0.56 trillion yuan, up 4.9% year on year.

As a new form of foreign trade with rapid development and strong driving force, cross-border e-commerce has become a new driving force for China's foreign trade development, a new channel for transformation and upgrading, and a new starting point for high-quality development. In recent years, the model of China's cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone has become more mature and has played an important role in the development of cross-border e-commerce. Vigorously developing cross-border e-commerce and other new business forms and modes will help stimulate the vitality of foreign trade entities, improve the efficiency of foreign trade operation, stabilize the supply chain of foreign trade industry chain, and realize the integration of industry digitalization and trade digitalization.

The State Council recently approved the establishment of a comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zone (hereinafter referred to as the comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zone) in 33 cities and regions including Langfang. This is the seventh batch of comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zones set up in China. So far, the number of comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zones in China has expanded to 165.

In 2013, Guangzhou became one of the six pilot cities of cross-border e-commerce business in China, marking the beginning of the development of cross-border e-commerce in the "Millennium Business Capital". In 2016, Guangzhou was approved as China (Guangzhou) cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone. According to customs data, the import and export scale of cross-border e-commerce in Guangzhou has increased from 1.46 billion yuan in 2014 to 67.5 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 46 times, and the retail import scale has been the first in China for eight consecutive years. According to customs data, by the end of 2021, the number of cross-border e-commerce enterprises in the city has reached 193000.

Now the comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zone has become a cross-border e-commerce ecosystem and carrier for the coordinated development of system, management and service innovation. It has explored and established a policy framework centered on "six systems and two platforms" (i.e., "six systems" for information sharing, financial services, intelligent logistics, e-commerce credit, statistical monitoring and risk prevention and control, and "two platforms" for online single window and offline comprehensive park), Nearly 70 mature experiences and innovative practices have been replicated and popularized nationwide to effectively promote the stability and quality of foreign trade.

In the next step, the Ministry of Commerce will continue to solidly promote the construction of comprehensive pilot zones, focusing on building a number of excellent pilot projects, cultivating a number of backbone enterprises, promoting a number of experience and practices, and accelerating international cooperation in the field of cross-border e-commerce.

Local commodities go to the international market

"Traditional foreign trade is waiting for others to give orders, and enterprises have no pricing power. Cross border e-commerce allows some of our enterprises to find opportunities for brands to go to sea." Wu Changhong, director of the Cross border E-commerce Comprehensive Test Department of Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce, Zhejiang Province, said that the essence of cross-border e-commerce is "Internet plus+cross-border trade+Made in China". Enterprise products are excellent, and the pilot zone does a good job in various service guarantees, so more and more Chinese brands will go abroad.

In November 2022, the Hangzhou Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone launched the "National Products to Sea" plan, combining the resources of the Hangzhou Key Industry Belt Association and the Cross-border Industrial Park, from the perspective of international market insight, business training, platform store opening guidance, special rights and interests incentives, and other multi-dimensions, to dig into excellent sellers from the origin, and promote China's high-quality supply to the world.

Driven by relevant policies, HIBREW, the brand of domestic capsule coffee machine, has turned from OEM to independent brand; Fishing and hunting have exported Chinese fishing gear to more than 200 countries and regions around the world... A number of small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises have accelerated their entry into the international market.

"Cross-border e-commerce enterprises have better met the personalized and customized needs of consumers by building a flexible supply chain with factors gathering and rapid response." The relevant head of the Ministry of Commerce said that cross-border e-commerce has significantly reduced the threshold of international trade specialization, making a large number of small and micro entities become operators of new trade. At present, more than 30000 enterprises have been registered on the online comprehensive service platform of the comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zone.

It is noteworthy that after years of rapid growth, cross-border e-commerce is changing from the "flow dividend" stage to the "innovation dividend" stage, and innovation, green, synergy and standardization are becoming the new direction of cross-border e-commerce development. In the process of "going out", the majority of manufacturing enterprises should not only continue to develop new markets, obtain new orders and maintain old customers with the help of cross-border e-commerce, but also try to make use of cross-border e-commerce to focus on brand building, product innovation, flexible transformation of supply chain, private flow retention, online and offline integration, etc.

Cross-border online shopping is becoming more convenient

While manufacturing in China "sells globally", more domestic consumers are also "buying globally" through cross-border e-commerce channels.

During the Spring Festival this year, Xiasha Park of Hangzhou Cross-border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone was a busy scene. Trucks loaded with cross-border e-commerce import packages continued to drive out of the park, ready to be sent to consumers across the country. "This year's Spring Festival is much busier than in previous years. Our shipment orders have increased by 52.3% compared with the same period last year, and the sales of snacks, health products and other categories have increased significantly." said Zhou Dongfang, customs officer of Hangzhou Haiku Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. With the increasing convenience of cross-border online shopping, many consumers will buy "foreign New Year goods" through cross-border e-commerce import channels.

After JD International launched the cross-border fresh food e-commerce, through the direct purchase of the country of origin and the integration of supply chain resources with large suppliers, the frozen instant pizza in the UK, the Samosa cake in India, the tempura king shrimp in Japan, the Italian handmade pasta and various imported ice-cream, chocolate and other global fresh food delivered to Chinese consumers with better quality and faster speed. In addition, since JD started its cross-border import e-commerce business, it has attracted more than 20000 brands to settle in the United States, Canada, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany and other countries and regions.

Cross-border logistics efficiency is increasingly concerned. Cross-border logistics is an important support for the development of cross-border e-commerce, and also a key link to improve consumer experience. According to customs data, nearly 1/4 of global online shopping consumers believe that the delivery speed is the key factor affecting their choice of platform. Building high-level overseas warehouses is an effective way to improve the quality of logistics services. Under the dividend of policy support, traditional logistics enterprises, cross-border e-commerce platforms, and independent station sellers will all be more active in building overseas warehouses and improving the cross-border logistics management system, and the industry competition will become fierce.