China rides surge in cross-border e-commerce demand

Cargos are unloaded from a container ship at the container terminal of the Lianyungang Port in East China's Jiangsu province, on Jan 14, 2021. [Photo/Xinhua]

Major countries around the world have seen a significant increase in e-commerce traffic since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, with emerging nations becoming hot spots, according to the latest research by NielsenIQ, the global company in measurement and data analytics.

Mature markets such as the United States and Russia remain the targeted export markets for domestic cross-border e-commerce sellers due to their massive size and high growth rate. As a pioneer in the digitalization of global foreign trade, China's cross-border B2B e-commerce is enjoying new opportunities.

According to NielsenIQ, the US, Mexico, the UK, Australia and Canada all recorded more than 110 percent growth on a yearly basis, and Russia as well as India saw a year-on-year growth of more than 90 percent. At the same time, the e-commerce traffic in Pakistan, the Philippines and Brazil, which are partners of the Belt and Road Initiative with China, increased by over 230 percent on a yearly basis, making the growth of emerging countries a hot spot.

Since the beginning of 2020, both traditional foreign trade and the real economy have suffered a lot from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, China's export e-commerce has bucked the trend and achieved a rapid growth of over 20 percent thanks to its flexibility and resilience.

NielsenIQ research found that the application of new information technology together with the strengthening of China's digital infrastructure provides a good industrial foundation and ecological environment for cross-border e-commerce. With the gradual integration of emerging technologies such as big data and Internet of Things with cross-border e-commerce research & development and production, logistics and distribution, precision marketing and other links, China's cross-border e-commerce has gained a leading edge in technology.

At a time when global manufacturing supply chains have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and international production capacity has yet to be restored, China's stable supply chain provides opportunities for sellers to expand in the international market. In July this year, the General Office of the State Council issued The Opinions on Accelerating the Development of New Forms and Models of Foreign Trade, further providing favorable policies for cross-border e-commerce.

Besides, open strategies also bring huge opportunities for those enterprises to go global. According to the Ministry of Commerce, by May of 2020, the Chinese government had signed documents on the "Belt and Road Cooperation" with 138 countries and 30 international organizations, and established long-term bilateral e-commerce cooperation mechanisms with more than 20 countries, including Vietnam, New Zealand, Brazil and Italy. Moreover, the signing of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership plays a positive role in promoting the upgrading of export e-commerce industry and the extension of trade radius.

"According to diverse essential productive factors, American buyers can be divided into price-sensitive type, quality-driven type and creativity-oriented type. Different types of buyers have various focuses in procurement and have diverse core demands for suppliers," said Barbara Shi, the vice-president of Digital Giants in NielsenIQ. As an intermediary service enterprise purchasing low value-added goods, price-sensitive buyers need suppliers to focus on exclusive distribution, price and communication. Quality-driven buyers tend to be industry leaders with higher requirements on quality, and they will be strict with suppliers in product quality, cooperation stability and service. While the creativity-oriented buyers who are fond of things with innovative ideas always have high requirements for credibility, price and customization.

Wang Hao contributed to this story