从跨境电商和海外仓说起，解读“外贸新质生产力”

This article provides a core analysis of cross-border e-commerce and overseas warehouses, the two major carriers of China's new quality foreign trade productivity, and summarizes key takeaways and practical insights as follows:

1. Global consumption has shifted online, with e-commerce penetration continuing to rise in both developed markets in Europe and North America and emerging markets in Southeast Asia and Latin America, creating abundant business opportunities for cross-border e-commerce. In 2023, China's cross-border e-commerce import and export volume reached 2.38 trillion yuan, up 15.6% year-on-year, making it a core source of incremental growth for China's foreign trade.

2. For individual beginners looking to enter the space, the full managed service model launched by major platforms enables quick market entry without the need to build a complex in-house operation system.

3. Key risks to note: Overseas third-party platforms carry the risk of bankruptcy and closure, which can be mitigated by purchasing cross-border e-commerce insurance from Sinosure. Additionally, the overseas warehouse sector has moved from a high-growth blue ocean to a red ocean market, requiring careful assessment before entry.

This article sorts out consumer trends, channel opportunities and risk warnings for brand global expansion against the backdrop of China's new quality foreign trade productivity, with key takeaways as follows:

1. On the consumer trend front: Both global individual consumption and SME procurement have shifted to online transactions, with e-commerce penetration rising steadily across all major global markets. E-commerce retail is growing even faster in emerging markets, creating broad market space for Chinese brands going global.

2. On channel development: Leading Chinese platforms have all launched full managed service models, allowing brands to quickly enter niche overseas markets through this model. Brands can also choose to build independent sites or lay out overseas warehouses. The industry has already formed a global overseas warehouse network centered on North America and Europe, and expansion is accelerating rapidly in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia.

3. Risk warnings: Overseas third-party platforms carry bankruptcy risk, which can be hedged via cross-border e-commerce insurance from Sinosure. As the industry shifts toward refined, brand-focused development and the overseas warehouse sector becomes a red ocean, brands need to pursue differentiated positioning.

This article summarizes policies, market opportunities, risks and response strategies for the cross-border e-commerce and overseas warehouse sectors, with key takeaways as follows:

1. On the policy front: The Chinese government has issued clear policy support for new foreign trade forms including cross-border e-commerce and overseas warehouses. In response to the common pain point of overseas platform collapse, Sinosure — China's only policy insurance company — has launched dedicated cross-border e-commerce insurance to provide risk protection for sellers expanding overseas.

2. On market opportunities: Global e-commerce penetration continues to rise. Among the 10 fastest-growing markets for global e-commerce retail in 2023, 4 are in Southeast Asia and 2 are in Latin America, offering huge incremental growth space. The overall growth rate of overseas warehouses in emerging markets exceeds 30%, with Southeast Asia hitting a growth rate of 91.55%, meaning layout in emerging markets offers strong return potential.

3. Risk warnings: While the full managed service model helps small and medium-sized sellers enter the market quickly, overseas third-party platforms carry bankruptcy risk, so relevant insurance coverage is a must for risk mitigation. The overseas warehouse sector is now a red ocean, so sellers need to make full planning before entering.

Against the backdrop of new foreign trade forms, this article summarizes key insights for factory transformation and growth as follows:

1. Changes in production and design demand: The growth of cross-border e-commerce has created a long-tail effect, with demand for differentiated, customized, small-batch orders growing significantly. Factories can align with this demand to avoid homogeneous competition in large-batch orders and build new competitive advantages.

2. Business opportunities: Cross-border e-commerce as a whole is growing rapidly, with import and export volume up 15.6% year-on-year in 2023. The full managed service model from major platforms allows small and medium-sized factories to directly connect with overseas consumers and quickly expand into niche overseas markets, without relying on traditional foreign trade intermediaries.

3. Insights for transformation: Leveraging China's complete supply chain and digital economy advantages, factories can advance digital transformation to connect with online transactions. They can also lay out overseas warehouses based on their own needs, prioritizing high-growth, high-increment emerging markets such as Southeast Asia to capitalize on the growth window of new quality foreign trade productivity.

This article sorts out industry development trends, customer pain points and relevant opportunities for new foreign trade forms, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Industry development trends: Cross-border e-commerce is currently the fastest-growing new foreign trade form with the greatest potential and strongest driving effect. As of 2023, China has more than 150,000 cross-border e-commerce entities, with total import and export volume up 15.6% year-on-year. The overseas warehouse sector has already formed a global service network, with both the number and total area of overseas warehouses growing extremely fast in emerging markets, leaving huge room for overall industry growth.

2. Core customer pain points: A large number of small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises expanding overseas face the risk of bankruptcy and closure from overseas third-party platforms. At the same time, expanding into overseas markets requires supporting services including warehousing, logistics, operation and risk protection. As the industry shifts toward refined operations, demand for professional services is growing steadily.

3. Development directions: Service providers can align their layout around demand for risk protection, warehousing logistics, and refined operation for cross-border e-commerce brands going global. They can capitalize on the rapid expansion of overseas warehouses in emerging markets to meet merchants' diverse needs for full managed services and localized services.

This article sorts out the current competitive landscape, merchant demand and platform development directions for the cross-border e-commerce industry, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Industry competitive landscape: Chinese platforms including Temu, AliExpress, Shein and TikTok Shop have launched full managed service models, enabling a huge number of small and medium-sized merchants to expand overseas and directly competing with traditional Western platforms such as Amazon, eBay and Walmart. The full managed model has won broad favor among merchants because it lowers the entry barrier for small and medium-sized sellers.

2. Core merchant demand: Risk is the top concern for merchants expanding overseas. The risk of overseas platform collapse undermines merchant confidence in expansion. At the same time, merchants need supporting overseas warehouse and logistics services for global expansion, with particularly strong demand for supporting services in emerging markets.

3. Platform development directions: Platforms can leverage the full managed model to step up merchant recruitment and attract small and medium-sized sellers, while improving overseas warehouse layout to capitalize on the high-growth window of overseas warehouses in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia. They can also partner with insurance institutions to provide risk protection for merchants, address merchants' core pain points, and improve merchant retention.

This article interprets the core forms of new quality foreign trade productivity and sorts out new trends, changes and issues in industrial development, with key takeaways as follows:

1. New industrial trends: New quality foreign trade productivity currently centers on two new business forms: cross-border e-commerce and overseas warehouses. Cross-border e-commerce enables disintermediation of international trade, drastically reducing search, matching, information and transaction costs, driving major changes to the global value chain system. It also unlocks the late-mover advantage of China's service trade and drives its rapid growth.

2. Business model innovation: The full managed model for cross-border e-commerce, and the three operational models for overseas warehouses — merchant-built, platform-owned, and third-party operated — are all innovations in new foreign trade forms. Through virtual agglomeration, cross-border e-commerce achieves economies of scale and the long-tail effect, building a new competitive advantage for China's foreign trade.

3. New questions for further research: The overseas warehouse sector has shifted from a high-growth blue ocean to a red ocean market, and overseas third-party platforms carry the risk of bankruptcy and closure. How to improve policy and commercial frameworks to support the development of these new industries is a new topic worthy of in-depth research.