How Does Cross-Border E-Commerce Transform?

After the development of the past decade, China's cross-border e-commerce has begun to take shape. While the global economy will generally decline in 2020, China's cross-border e-commerce retail will rise against the trend.

According to the statistics of the Chinese Customs, in 2020, the import and export bills released through the customs cross-border e-commerce management platform reached 2.45 billion, with a year-on-year growth of 63.3%, which is four times the year 2017 with less negative impact from the international macro environment. In amount ¹， In 2020, China's cross-border e-commerce import and export increased by 31.1% year on year, of which the export growth rate was 40.1%, much higher than the import.  

The good situation of cross-border e-commerce benefits from the support of enterprises and domestic policy resources, as well as the mature supply chain, manufacturing and talent advantages accumulated in the long-term development of the industry. Domestic cross-border e-commerce has not only accumulated strong products, but also actively explored how to use new technologies and new channels to better meet the needs of consumers. With the leadership of the predecessors, more and more e-commerce enterprises are holding the dream of becoming a popular consumer brand in the world, and are working hard for it.

At the same time, the market environment is also transmitting a similar signal to all e-commerce enterprises - the market environment is becoming more and more mature, and enterprises need to find a sustainable development model. In 2019, the global cross-border online shopping penetration rate has reached 51.2%. In 2020, under the catalysis of the epidemic, the change of consumers and shopping psychology is accelerating, and the global e-commerce market is accelerating its development and gradually evolving into a "new normal", which requires cross-border e-commerce to adopt new ways to maintain their own sustainable development and obtain more long-term vitality.

Brand building: a new turning point of cross-border e-commerce

Under the influence of the epidemic, a large number of global consumers' shopping behavior has changed from offline to online, which not only brings excellent development opportunities for cross-border e-commerce, but also profoundly changes the competitive pattern of cross-border e-commerce. Although user growth seems to be easier, how to retain users exposes the weaknesses of traditional business models such as distribution and flow realization. If the growth of brand sales is centered on traffic and goods, communication and connection with consumers will be ignored. On the other hand, for consumers, the contact with brands will be limited to purchasing behavior, leaving no deep shopping impression and experience. In this way, it is difficult for brands to achieve user precipitation, which means that it is difficult to achieve sustainable growth. When the industry dividend gradually recedes and the competition turns from increment to stock, how to drive growth from users and build brands to precipitate consumers becomes the top priority for cross-border e-commerce companies to think about if they want to achieve long-term sustainable development.

The purpose of brand building is to build the ability to expand the market, occupy the market and obtain profits. Only by relying on strong brand influence, can we build loyalty among consumers. It determines customers' preference for brands, and more importantly, it determines customers' attention and trust in brands, so as to avoid falling into repeated price competition, avoid business risks, and enjoy the value brought by brands. On the other hand, with the improvement of users' experience in cross-border online shopping, users' brand recognition is also increasing, and cross-border e-commerce has ushered in a key turning point of maintaining its development through brand.

Consumers: in-depth online shopping and brand awareness

The changes in the current business environment and shopping mode will have a great impact on e-commerce consumers and the track in 2020. On the one hand, the major consumers of e-commerce have gradually matured their awareness of the brand and are willing to identify with the value of the brand; On the other hand, although the categories of e-commerce have not changed much, they still focus on clothing fashion, home gardening, 3C products and cosmetics as the main track, but there is more room for brand development in the subdivisions of some tracks, and the customer price has been improved.

In 2020, the epidemic situation not only brings about "social distance", but also brings about the phased "lock city" in some economically developed countries due to epidemic prevention, and the living conditions of consumers have changed dramatically. In order to understand the changes in the shopping behavior and mentality of online shoppers, the researchers in the 2021 China Cross border E-commerce Development Report, based on the mature cross-border e-commerce markets represented by the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Spain, distributed questionnaires to online consumers who had bought in independent e-commerce channels in the past 12 months, and collected a total of 5005 questionnaires.