This aerial photo shows a cargo ship at a smart container terminal of Tianjin Port in north China's Tianjin, July 7, 2023. (Xinhua/Zhao Zishuo)
BEIJING, July 13 (Xinhua) -- Cross-border e-commerce has not only injected new power into China's foreign trade development, but also pushed forward the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries and micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, reshaping or even subverting traditional production methods and business models, according to insiders.
A report released by the General Administration of Customs (GAC) in June this year showed that in 2022, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports exceeded 2 trillion yuan for the first time and reached 2.1 trillion yuan, up 7.1 percent from 2021.
-- Buying and selling goods globally
In recent years, China's cross-border e-commerce business has seen rapid development, with advantages and potential in buying and selling goods worldwide continuously released, and bringing more and more options and convenience to global consumers.
Beijing WJ E-Commerce Co., Ltd.is an e-commerce operator in the cross-border beverage sector. By adopting the mode of "overseas direct procurement plus cross-border supply chain plus professional warehousing logistics", the Wajiu.com platform created by the company serves as a reliable supply and demand trading platform for overseas wineries and domestic wine dealers, and also brings better-quality and cheaper red wine products to Chinese consumers.
In the warehouse of a subsidiary of the company in the Hebei area of the Beijing Daxing International Airport comprehensive bonded zone, there are red wine products from France, Spain, Italy and Portugal which can be distributed to more than 50 cities in China.
At present, the warehouse stocks 5.37 million bottles of non-bonded red wine and 540,000 bottles of bonded red wine, with a total value of 287 million yuan, introduced Liu Xin, deputy general manager of the subsidiary, noting that since settling in the bonded zone, the company has shipped 3.68 million bottles of red wine worth about 180 million yuan in total.
Cross-border e-commerce entities mainly include traditional cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, operators settling on e-commerce platforms, suppliers providing products to businesses, and providers of services related to cross-border e-commerce, including logistics, software development and overseas warehouses, etc, introduced Wang Ning, President of China Electronics Chamber of Commerce (CECC).
Jiajia Supply Chain Management (Langfang) Co. Ltd. belongs to the fourth type of cross-border entities. According to the company's one-stop foreign trade integrated service solution, related platforms can establish a foreign trade network covering the entire cross-border supply chain by using digital technology, and provide small- and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises with one-stop services for the whole process of import and export, including commodity inspection and customs clearance, export tax refund, foreign exchange settlement, credit insurance, trade financing, overseas warehouse exhibition, and order matching, etc., helping promote Chinese products to be sold globally.
"It's like when we go traveling, we can enjoy services like buying a ticket, booking a hotel or entering a scenic spot through a mobile APP. Customers only need to make an order on the platform, and we will do the rest," introduced Zhang Wen, general manager of the company.
In recent years, China's cross-border e-commerce has maintained a rapid development momentum, increasing by nearly 10 times in five years, said Wang Deyang, an official of the Ministry of Commerce, adding that cross-border e-commerce is a successful application of energizing international trade with digital technology, a result and driving force of economic globalization, and an important part of building a unified and large national market and promoting international trade facilitation.
-- Driving overseas business upgrading of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises
Nanhe District in Xingtai City, north China's Hebei Province, known as the "capital of China's pet industry", in recent years has guided enterprises to export products through cross-border e-commerce platforms to more than 10 countries and regions, including the Republic of Korea, Japan and Malaysia.
Xingtai Mingpai Pet Products Technology Co., Ltd. is a beneficiary of cross-border e-commerce. According to the head of the company Jin Yongjie, the company has realized selling its pet products on Amazon and other platforms through cooperation with experienced foreign trade companies, and currently, cross-border e-commerce sales has accounted for one-third of the company's total sales.
In order to support the development of local characteristic industries, Nanhe District has also established cross-border e-commerce industrial parks, providing preferential policies for settled enterprises and holding cross-border e-commerce training regularly.
Actually, Hebei boasts hundreds of county-level characteristic industrial clusters like the pet product industrial clusters in Nanhe District, while across China, industrial clusters composed of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises are countless.
In the view of Tang Min, Counsellor of the State Council and initiator of China Cross-border E-commerce 50-person Forum, for micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, the model of livestream e-commerce can solve the problem of insufficient brand influence with the help of the celebrity effect, and even make them replace large brands on a small scale.
Cross-border e-commerce is not only a change in foreign trade modes, but also a good choice to help traditional enterprises get rid of agent processing business, believed Zhang Xiao, a general manager of AMASS Global Network Group. When facing the consumer side, the flexibility of manufacturing capacity will face great challenges, and at the same time, it will force enterprises to upgrade product brands and product design, Zhang added.
Cross-border e-commerce is undergoing service innovation, business form innovation and model innovation, which will help accelerate the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries and promote the high-quality development of China's foreign trade,said Wang Jian, a professor of the University of International Business and Economics and Chairof the Expert Committee of the APEC E-commerce Business Alliance.
-- Reshaping production methods and business models
In the last two years, cross-border e-commerce companies represented by Shein and Pinduoduo have succeeded overseas, helping sell Chinese products overseas, which, although not enough for the whole of China's exports to increase quickly, provides new modes and options for more enterprises, pointed out an insider.
"Cross-border e-commerce has not only brought great changes to China's foreign trade, but also transformed the global market," said Wang Jian, adding that today's cross-border e-commerce can not be simply understood as cross-border online retail, as it has seen many new models and new business forms and become a new field of foreign trade innovation and development.
Specifically, cross-border e-commerce platforms are becoming increasingly diverse, no longer limited to traditional ones like eBay and Amazon. There are also sub platforms involving clothing, home appliances, fast moving consumer goods, etc., B2B supply chain platforms, as well as new models such as independent platforms deeply bound to foreign social media and short video media platforms, live-streaming e-commerce, and short videos.
Cross-border e-commerce ecological chain, supply chain, and information chain continue to integrate, and e-commerce is not only to sell products, but to embed credit system, financing platform, government supervision and other functions through information network means.
In addition, the boundary between cross-border e-commerce and traditional industries is gradually blurred, making it impossible to distinguish whether platform enterprises engage in financial services or selling goods or supply chain business, etc., and it is the ambiguity of these roles that brings business model innovation.
In Tang Min's view, cross-border e-commerce may change or even subvert traditional production methods and business models. "With cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence likely to change entire business models, there may be predictive business in the future and platforms can use big data to predict what each person and family is likely to buy next week or next month. This business model is exactly the opportunity for cross-border e-commerce, and e-commerce, which used to be a commercial supplement, will slowly become mainstream," noted Tang.
"In this business model, production methods will also change, and rapid, personalized and flexible production will become the mainstream," said Tang, adding that this production mode not only tests the labor force, but also tests the design, logistics, innovation and other aspects, which will also bring precious opportunities for Chinese manufacturing.
(Edited by Gu Shanshan with Xinhua Silk Road, gushanshan.1987@163.com)
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