A customer asks about a bottle of wine on sale at the trading town, a 2.9-sq-km cluster in downtown Hangzhou designed to boost the emerging cross-border e-commerce industry. (Photo/China Daily)
Be it cosmetic products from South Korea or wine from Italy, residents in Hangzhou city, East China's Zhejiang province, can get their hands on a wide range of imported products via a few clicks online.[Special Coverage]
But rather than making cross-border orders and praying that the deliveries will look exactly like what is shown on e-commerce sites, those who live in Hangzhou are lucky enough to be able to check out products in brick-and-mortar stores first, thanks to an innovative cross-border shopping area in the city.
In the newly opened cross-border trading town, a 2.9 square kilometer cluster for the emerging cross-border e-commerce industry in downtown Hangzhou, more than 20 country pavilions, including Spain and Canada, offer shoppers thousands of imported products to choose from.
"Customers can check out and test whatever products they like and then decide which ones they want to buy," said Huang Jianya, head of the Bulgaria pavilion. In Huang's pavilion, there are many samples of the popular Bulgarian rose oil, which can be tested by shoppers.
Having made their decisions, customers can then place orders online and the goods, which are already in bonded warehouses in Hangzhou, will be delivered to their doorsteps within three days of clearing customs.
With Chinese consumers' taste becoming more sophisticated, a growing number of them want non-standardized and customized products from all corners of the world, said a man surnamed Zhuang, who is a co-founder of the France pavilion.
"Many of China's shoppers previously turned to over-seas shopping agents for help. But by using this bond-ed warehouse model, we can purchase a large volume of goods directly from overseas suppliers at a wholesale price," he said, adding that the innovative model can guarantee genuine products and faster delivery.
