独立站评价、品牌出海基地评价有了新标准！跨境电商两项团体标准发布

This article highlights the release of two new group standards for the cross-border e-commerce industry by the Hangzhou Cross-Border E-Commerce Association, which fills gaps in domestic industry regulations and takes effect immediately, expected to accelerate brand global expansion and drive the healthy development of the sector. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. China’s cross-border DTC independent store sector is growing rapidly. Public data shows the market size expanded from RMB 0.2 trillion in 2016 to RMB 0.8 trillion in 2020, and its share of the overall cross-border e-commerce market is projected to rise from 25% in 2020 to 41% by 2025. The number of independent store sellers will exceed 500,000 within three years, making independent stores a core channel for cross-border e-commerce.

2. The two standards are *Evaluation Specification for Cross-Border E-Commerce Independent Stores* and *Evaluation Specification for Cross-Border E-Commerce Brand Global Expansion Hubs*. Both clarify the principles, indicators, methods and processes for relevant evaluations, applicable for self-assessment, peer benchmarking and third-party certification, and help relevant players improve their operations and service capabilities.

The release of these two new group standards provides clear industry guidance for cross-border brands going global, and reflects the latest development trends of the industry. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Industry trend: Independent stores have become a core growth channel for cross-border e-commerce, with their market share rising rapidly. More and more companies are abandoning the traditional OEM model to build their own independent brands and own overseas channels. Branded global expansion has become the mainstream direction of the industry.

2. Operation optimization: Brands building independent stores for global expansion can use *Evaluation Specification for Cross-Border E-Commerce Independent Stores* for self-assessment, optimize their independent store operation and management against industry standards, continuously improve operation quality and performance. They can also boost brand credibility through third-party evaluation conducted in accordance with the standards.

3. Resource matching: With a unified evaluation standard for brand global expansion hubs, brands can select qualified high-quality hubs to access supporting services, improve global expansion efficiency and reduce related costs.

The two newly released group standards align with China’s policy requirements for developing new forms and models of foreign trade, clarify the development direction for cross-border e-commerce sellers and bring clear opportunities. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Track opportunity: Independent stores are currently the core growth track in cross-border e-commerce, with their market share projected to reach 41% by 2025 and the number of sellers exceeding 500,000 within three years. The large market space makes it a valuable new growth track for sellers to布局.

2. Operation improvement: The released independent store evaluation specification clarifies evaluation indicators, methods and processes. Sellers can conduct self-assessment against the standard, identify gaps compared with peers, optimize independent store operations in a targeted manner, and improve overall operational performance.

3. Supporting services: With a unified evaluation standard for brand global expansion hubs, sellers can prioritize qualified high-quality hubs to access more standardized and reliable supporting services for global expansion, and reduce operational risks and costs.

The release of two new cross-border e-commerce standards reflects new industry trends, and brings clear opportunities and insights for factories looking to transform through global expansion. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Transformation opportunity: More and more cross-border businesses are abandoning the traditional OEM model to build their own brands for global expansion, while the market share of independent stores is climbing rapidly. Factories can capitalize on this trend to transform from OEM processing to independent branded global expansion, capture higher profit margins and build long-term competitiveness.

2. Operation guidance: For factories布局 independent stores for global expansion, they can conduct self-assessment based on the newly released *Evaluation Specification for Cross-Border E-Commerce Independent Stores*, optimize operations against industry standards to avoid common transformation missteps and improve independent store performance faster.

3. Transformation support: With a unified evaluation standard for brand global expansion hubs in place, factories undergoing branded global expansion transformation can select qualified high-quality hubs to access supporting operations and resources to advance digital and e-commerce transformation, and reduce the risk of transformation failure.

The release of the two group standards clarifies the development direction of the cross-border e-commerce industry, and brings new business opportunities for cross-border service providers. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Industry trend: The cross-border e-commerce independent store sector is growing rapidly, with its market share projected to reach 41% by 2025 and the number of sellers exceeding 500,000 within three years. Meanwhile, branded global expansion has become the industry mainstream, driving sustained growth in market demand for standardized independent store evaluation and branded global expansion operation services.

2. Addressing customer pain points: Before this release, there were no unified industry standards for independent store evaluation or brand global expansion hub evaluation, leaving sellers and hubs without clear benchmarks for optimization. Service providers can leverage the new standards to develop corresponding evaluation, consulting and operation optimization services to meet customers’ demand for self-assessment and improvement.

3. Own business upgrade: Service providers can integrate the new standards into their own service systems to improve the standardization and authority of their services, build customer trust more easily, expand business boundaries, and capture the industry dividends brought by the growth of branded global expansion and independent stores.

The release of the two group standards clarifies the new direction for the operation and development of cross-border e-commerce platforms, and outlines the latest industry demands. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Aligning with industry demand: Independent store operation and branded global expansion are currently the core growth directions of cross-border e-commerce, but the industry lacked unified evaluation standards before this release. Platforms can align their management and services for onboarded sellers and global expansion-focused merchants with the standard requirements to improve overall platform operation performance, in line with national policy requirements for developing new forms of foreign trade.

2. Optimizing merchant recruitment: Platforms can establish a screening mechanism based on the new standards to onboard qualified high-quality independent store sellers and branded global expansion merchants, improve the overall quality of platform merchants, build differentiated competitive advantages and attract more targeted traffic.

3. Risk mitigation: Unified evaluation standards help platforms screen compliant and high-quality merchants, phase out non-compliant operators, standardize industry order on the platform, reduce platform operational risks, and improve the platform’s overall service reputation to win more trust from merchants and end users.

The release of the two group standards is an important new industry development in the cross-border e-commerce sector, filling gaps in the niche field and offers high reference value for industry research. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. New industry development trends: China’s cross-border e-commerce independent store sector is growing rapidly, with market share rising continuously, and branded global expansion has become the industry mainstream that is replacing the traditional OEM model. As a national cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone, Hangzhou has already approved 12 branded global expansion hubs to proactively advance independent brand cultivation.

2. Progress on industry regulation: Before this release, there were no unified industry standards for domestic independent store evaluation or brand global expansion hub evaluation. The two newly released group standards fill this gap, clarifying the evaluation principles, indicators, methods and processes for the two types of entities, which is of great significance for driving standardized industry development.

3. Reference for policy research: The two standards align with national policy requirements to accelerate the development of new forms and models of foreign trade. They offer important practical value for improving the service capacity for cross-border e-commerce brands going global and advancing the construction of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones, and also provide a practical foundation for the subsequent improvement of industry-related regulations and policies.