Li Simin checks succulent plants at a livestreaming base in Jinning District of Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan Province, Oct. 18, 2023. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)
BEIJING, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- China's export-oriented cross-border e-commerce has experienced rapid growth in recent years. Many professional cross-border e-commerce platforms have deeply linked up with national industrial belts, supporting the transformation, upgrading, and the going-global of made-in-China products.
Industry experts believe that integrating industrial belts, cross-border e-commerce, and digital flexible supply chains can not only facilitate the expansion of international business opportunities for industrial belts, but also contribute to the upgrading of numerous domestic industries in the long term, thus realizing "small orders, quick response" and on-demand supply, as well as better connect the made-in-China products with global market.
-- Equipping industrial belts with new business forms
China currently has hundreds of industrial belts with different local characteristics. In recent years, an increasing number of enterprises within these industrial belts have been leveraging cross-border e-commerce channels for global expansion, achieving significant progress in product innovation, brand building, and global business layout. By cooperating with industrial belts, cross-border e-commerce platforms can further expand their pool of merchant resources, enrich the variety of products, and create featured product categories.
SHEIN, a professional cross-border e-commerce platform, recently unveiled its nationwide initiative called the 500-city Industrial Belt Going Global plan. Over the course of three years, the plan aims to extend its outreach to industrial belts in 500 cities across the country. This initiative seeks to help more high-quality manufacturers and brands go global, consequently driving industrial upgrading. Through seamlessly integrating industrial belts with digital trade and flexible supply chains, SHEIN intends to help the global expansion of cross-border e-commerce in the upper stream of industrial belts, as well as expand their sales and brand presence in the global market. Furthermore, the initiative aims to facilitate the digital upgrade of more industrial chains, thereby helping them achieve on-demand supply in terms of production.
In the clothing industry, the overseas children's wear market stood at 140 billion U.S. dollars in 2022. Industry insiders note that there is great potential for online children's wear globally due to the rising of online shoppers as well as the further reach of e-commerce in overseas markets.
Cross-border e-commerce platforms can offer flexible and diverse modes for entering global markets based on sellers' needs, ranging from self-operation to agent operation. With the application of the so-called all-in-one approach, platforms are capable of offering extensive assistance to more sellers and industrial belts in expanding their international presence, while simultaneously strengthening brand reputation, ultimately achieving industrial digitalization and flexible upgrading, they say.
In addition, professional cross-border e-commerce platforms such as AliExpress and Amazon Global Selling are also actively expanding their reaches and support for domestic industrial belts. Industry insiders believe that industrial belts boast China's high-quality supply chains, and many industrial belts have the potential and advantages to develop cross-border e-commerce in terms of their scale, classification, and infrastructure. The "cross-border e-commerce plus industrial belt" model is a powerful combination of new business forms and high-quality supply chains.
-- Creating new model for entering international market
"Small orders, quick response" refers to platforms using real-time market demand to regulate production. Based on real-time analysis and tracking of fashion trends, the approach involves starting with very small orders for all SKUs (stock keeping units), typically starting from 100 to 200 pieces per SKU. If the sales trend is positive, orders are immediately increased. However, if the sales fall short of expectations, production is halted. By constantly monitoring market trends and gathering consumer feedback real time through the front-end, the platform is able to make accurate market predictions. This also allows enterprises to further formulate product line styles, positioning, and do planning more effectively. After entering the production stage, the requirements and standards for production and quality management of each style are synchronized in real time with the respective suppliers through online tools.
Industry insiders note that implementing such flexible supply chain model as on-demand production has improved overall efficiency in the industry. This has been achieved by informatization and upgrading entire industrial chain, from front-end fashion trend analysis, design and development to production, warehousing, and logistics.
Data shows that the "small orders, quick response" has facilitated the transformation of many traditional manufacturing companies. Siling Clothing, for example, collaborated with SHEIN as a women's ready-to-wear supplier in 2020. By employing the flexible model of "small orders, quick response", the company achieved sales volume of over 800,000 pieces in the first year of cooperation. Since the collaboration began, Siling Clothing has experienced remarkable growth in annual sales.
As the second generation in the family involved in the clothing industry, Zhuang Hao has cooperated with SHEIN over the past two years, which leads to substantial growth in his company's sales. He said that in the past, his parents used to follow the traditional practice of completing orders of tens of thousands of pieces over a few months, relying on paper documents for communication. However, he has now turned to a fully digitized model, where order placement, procurement of materials, and production scheduling all facilitated via computers. By adopting the on-demand production approach of "small orders, quick response", his factory has greatly minimized inventory and waste caused by unsold clothing, thus making the production process more agile and flexible.
Hu Qimu, chief researcher with DE Thinktank, believes that by implementing "small orders, quick response" and utilizing digital tools, factories can effectively reduce costs and enhance efficiency even with a high volume of small orders. The reason is that the "small orders, quick response" model integrates the entire industry chain and improves overall efficiency through digital transformation.
-- Expanding competitive advantages for upgrading
Industry insiders note that the innovative and flexible on-demand production model is supported by cross-border e-commerce platforms, which continuously empower suppliers to carry out digital transformation in the industry, ultimately assisting in the transformation, upgrading and global expansion of the manufacturing industry.
Chen Shaotong, general secretary with Guangdong Association of Garment and Garment Article Industry, said that the industry is actively building the service platform for the cross-border sales of the clothing industry. On one hand, the platform provides one-stop services for various links of the clothing industry, such as online wholesale and procurement, original design, materials procurement. On the other hand, such a platform is dedicated to facilitating business collaboration across the entire industry chain, including design and development, production and manufacturing, terminal sales, and channel services. This aims to assist traditional manufacturing enterprises in expanding their presence in the international market.
Hu Qimu said that the trend of international operation of Chinese manufacturing is becoming increasingly prominent. Companies like Alibaba's AliExpress, SHEIN, and others have been introducing different modes and forms for overseas expansion. Enterprises adopting international operations often do not embark on overseas ventures alone. Instead, they form groups and ecosystems with domestic upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain. In the process of internationalizing China's manufacturing industry, it is important to establish new advantages. This can be achieved by leveraging digitalization to make the supply chain more efficient. (Edited by Niu Huizhe with Xinhua Silk Road, niuhuizhe@xinhua.org)
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