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The annual national final of AliExpress's cross-border e-commerce creator competition was held in Hangzhou. The event crowned its top 3 winners and a "Most Popular" winner, with "Full Managed Store," "second-generation factory heirs" and "new markets" emerging as the core keywords from participating entrepreneurs' stories. Aspiring cross-border e-commerce founders can draw the following practical takeaways:

1. Domestic traders facing growth bottlenecks can pivot to cross-border e-commerce, cutting trial-and-error costs by leveraging established platforms. For example, competitor Xie Yi joined AliExpress after hitting a domestic market ceiling in 2018, quickly rose to become an industry leader, and after launching full managed operations, its LED outdoor searchlight now sells over 50,000 units per month.

2. Heirs of traditional manufacturing families can revitalize their family businesses via cross-border e-commerce. Second-generation factory owner Zhang Haiying helped her family's umbrella factory transition to AliExpress after the pandemic, developing localized golf umbrellas for the South Korean market, and is now a seven-figure sales seller.

3. New entrants can capitalize on growth dividends from platform priority markets. AliExpress is currently prioritizing expansion in South Korea, Brazil and the Middle East, and has upgraded its overseas warehouse logistics network, creating abundant growth opportunities for new sellers.

This competition revealed new trends and opportunities for cross-border brand expansion, offering actionable insights for brands going global:

1. For channel development: AliExpress is currently the only cross-border export B2C platform that covers all countries and regions along the Belt and Road. The Hangzhou Cross-Border E-Commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone has partnered with AliExpress to launch the "Whale Program" for global brands, which provides official support to help brands expand into new markets. The full managed model allows brands to free up operational resources and focus solely on product development.

2. For product R&D and trend alignment: Brands need to develop localized products tailored to different new target markets. Zhang Haiying's successful localized golf umbrellas for South Korea and Xie Yi's hit LED searchlight launched to capitalize shifting global energy demand both validate this approach.

3. Key opportunity note: South Korea, Brazil and the Middle East are the platform's core high-growth priority markets, where AliExpress has already built out an overseas warehouse network to improve delivery speed. Early entry into these markets lets brands capture traffic growth dividends.

The competition shared the latest industry developments for AliExpress cross-border e-commerce, delivering opportunity alerts and actionable lessons for sellers of all types:

1. Policy and platform updates: Zhejiang province and Hangzhou offer multiple layers of official government support for cross-border e-commerce. The Hangzhou Cross-Border E-Commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone has partnered with AliExpress to launch initiatives including the "Whale Program" that help merchants connect to resources and expand into new markets. AliExpress will continue upgrading full managed services and other offerings, with a core focus on expanding into the three new markets of South Korea, Brazil and the Middle East.

2. Opportunity alert: Full managed operations is a clear existing industry dividend. The model lets sellers cut operational overhead and redirect core resources to product selection and development, enabling even new stores to achieve rapid growth.

3. Practical lessons: Sellers facing stagnant domestic growth can pivot to cross-border e-commerce, develop products adapted to localized demand in new markets, and leverage the platform's overseas warehouse logistics to improve delivery speed, all of which effectively boost product competitiveness. Multiple competition participants have used this playbook to become top industry sellers.

Several success stories of traditional factory transformation shared at the competition outline a clear path and new growth opportunities for Chinese factories looking to enter cross-border e-commerce:

1. For product development and design: Demand varies significantly across different overseas regional markets, so factories need to develop localized products tailored to their target markets. For example, a Linyi-based umbrella manufacturer developed localized golf umbrellas for the South Korean market that quickly became a bestseller after launch.

2. Business opportunities: Amid post-pandemic pressures and a slowing domestic market, many domestic-focused traditional factories are facing growth bottlenecks. Factories can use AliExpress for cross-border retail to connect directly with overseas consumers. AliExpress is currently prioritizing expansion into the new markets of South Korea, Brazil and the Middle East, and has opened multiple new overseas warehouses in these regions to speed up delivery, creating a strong foundation for factories to ship goods internationally.

3. Transformation insights: Factories can leverage AliExpress's full managed model, which eliminates the need to build out an in-house cross-border operations team. Factories only need to focus on manufacturing and product development to achieve growth. After Zhang Haiying's umbrella factory transitioned, 90% of its revenue now comes from AliExpress, successfully revitalizing the business.

The event reveals new growth trends in the cross-border e-commerce industry, and opens up new business directions for service providers:

1. Industry growth trends: The cross-border e-commerce industry as a whole is growing rapidly. In the 8 years since its launch, the number of sellers in the Hangzhou Cross-Border E-Commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone has grown from 200 to 55,000, a 275-fold increase. More and more traditional factories, domestic sellers and second-generation factory heirs are entering the cross-border space, with full managed operations and new market expansion becoming the industry's hottest areas, driving a sharp increase in demand for supporting services.

2. Key customer pain points: Most new entrants—traditional factories and small-to-medium sellers—lack cross-border operational experience, insight into demand in new overseas markets, and access to overseas channel resources. Many factories facing growth bottlenecks urgently need new distribution channels, creating strong unmet demand for supporting services.

3. Business development directions: Service providers can build offerings around new market expansion, providing clients with localized product design consulting and market research services. They can also develop offerings tailored to the full managed model, providing support for product selection, inventory planning and supply chain, and helping sellers connect to the platform's overseas warehouse logistics needs, to expand their own business scope.

AliExpress's creator competition showcases the platform's latest operational strategy, offering valuable reference insights for the development of all cross-border platforms:

1. Core merchant needs: Small-to-medium sellers and factory sellers want platforms to lower barriers to cross-border entry, provide low-lift operational services, improve core infrastructure such as warehousing and logistics to boost delivery speed and product competitiveness, and provide access to official resources to support growth.

2. replicable operational practices: Platforms can launch full managed services to meet merchants' need to focus on product development, while pre-building overseas warehouses in high-growth new markets to improve logistics speed and attract merchants. They can also partner with local governments and cross-border pilot zones to launch support programs and host entrepreneurial competitions to source high-quality merchants and support their growth.

3. Risk mitigation: The merchant base has evolved, with a growing number of second-generation factory heirs and traditional factories transitioning into the space. Platforms need to adjust their services to meet the needs of these new merchants, capture the industry's new growth drivers, and avoid missing out on growth dividends.

The competition reveals multiple new trends in China's cross-border export e-commerce sector that carry high research value:

1. New industry trends: First, the full managed model has become the mainstream service model for cross-border e-commerce platforms. By having platforms handle operations, logistics and other backend links while sellers focus on product development, the model fits the needs of large numbers of traditional factories and domestic sellers transitioning into cross-border e-commerce. Second, second-generation factory heirs have emerged as a new driving force in the sector, injecting new vitality into the transformation of traditional manufacturing. Third, emerging markets along the Belt and Road, including South Korea and Brazil, have become core sources of incremental growth for cross-border exports, with enormous growth potential.

2. Innovative business models: Local governments partnering with leading platforms to build a cross-border e-commerce ecosystem—through support programs, entrepreneurial competitions and other initiatives to nurture local brands going global and drive overall industry growth—has proven highly effective in the Hangzhou case, with a 275-fold increase in seller numbers over 8 years, making this model worthy of further research and broader promotion.

3. New research questions: How traditional manufacturing can transform via cross-border e-commerce amid a volatile global trade environment, and how second-generation factory heirs can upgrade their family businesses through cross-border e-commerce are both new questions emerging from current industry development that merit in-depth research.