Amazon ups efforts to cash in on China's cross-border e-commerce

U.S. tech company Amazon is ramping up efforts to help Chinese merchants sell high-quality and innovative products to the world by improving its logistics and supply chain services, scaling up its localization input and providing training courses for sellers to develop their cross-border e-commerce capabilities.

Chinese sellers have shown strong resilience amid global economic uncertainties and the COVID-19 pandemic, said Cindy Tai, Amazon vice-president and head of Amazon Global Selling Asia, emphasizing that cross-border e-commerce is playing a substantially vital role in stabilizing China's foreign trade.

According to the latest data from Amazon, Chinese sellers have sold billions of commodities to global consumers through the company's 18 overseas marketplaces this year and the number of Chinese sellers who took advantage of Amazon's logistics services increased by more than 20 percent year-on-year, with their sales revenue achieving double-digit growth.

The number of Chinese brand owners on Amazon surged nearly three times in the past three years, with their turnover posting double-digit growth in 2022. Meanwhile, Chinese sellers have shown diversification trends in terms of merchandise categories and technological innovation as well as brands and business types.

"Despite short-term challenges, the demand from overseas consumers continues to inject fresh business opportunities into the cross-border e-commerce export sector," Tai said during the 2022 Amazon Global Seller Conference held online on Monday and Tuesday.

She said Amazon will provide Chinese sellers with comprehensive and reliable logistics, inventory and supply chain solutions based on its global logistics capabilities and network advantages, to help them achieve long-term, sustainable growth and enhance global operational efficiency.

It will also further optimize new selection solutions, upgrade big data analytics tools for sellers, speed up its localization efforts and launch training centers to help sellers comprehensively improve their cross-border e-commerce skills, Tai noted.

Cross-border e-commerce in China has made great strides in recent years. Statistics from the General Administration of Customs showed that the import and export scale of the country's cross-border e-commerce segment reached 1.98 trillion yuan ($284.3 billion) in 2021, up 15 percent year-on-year. In the first half of 2022, the market registered a 28.6 percent year-on-year growth in trade volume.

Last month, the country approved the establishment of comprehensive pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce in another 33 cities and regions, in its latest bid to boost foreign trade growth. This is the seventh batch of such pilot areas, which lifted the tally to 165 across the country.

With continuous policy support, technological innovation and comparative advantages such as strong supply chains and manufacturing capabilities in China, the company has full confidence in the prospects of cross-border e-commerce, Tai said, adding that Chinese sellers are paying more attention to building brands and expanding their presence in overseas markets.

"As a new form of foreign trade, cross-border e-commerce has witnessed rapid growth during the COVID-19 pandemic and become an important driving force for stabilizing China's foreign trade," said Zhang Zhouping, a senior analyst of business-to-business and cross-border activities at the Internet Economy Institute, a domestic consultancy.

It will have a profound impact on the transformation and upgrading of foreign trade in China, Zhang said, adding more and more Chinese enterprises have attached great importance to cross-border e-commerce as it is playing an important role in bolstering traditional foreign trade enterprises to build new brands.

This type of trade has been growing exponentially, particularly in the past two years as the pandemic impeded business travel and face-to-face meetings.

"Cross-border e-commerce platforms have become an efficient and convenient way for traditional manufacturing enterprises to expand their overseas footprint. They can help micro, small and medium-sized enterprises open up new markets," said Lyu Gang, a researcher from the Development Research Center of the State Council.