1688跨境总经理林敬贤：1688跨境GMV已超2000亿元

This article summarizes key takeaways from a speech given by the General Manager of 1688 Cross-Border at the 2024 Silk Road E-Commerce Forum, where he shared the latest updates on 1688's cross-border business and key industry trends:

1. Core business metrics: 1688 has deep roots in 1,000 domestic industrial clusters across China, bringing together over 100 billion-dollar-level production regions and more than 1 million original manufacturers, with over 200 million product SKUs on its platform. It currently counts more than 3 million registered overseas buyers, posted cross-border GMV exceeding 200 billion yuan last year, and continues to see rapid growth across all key business metrics in 2024.

2. Emerging cross-border consumption trends: Beyond traditional markets in Europe and North America, trade volume is growing rapidly in emerging markets including South America, the Middle East and Africa. Unconventional consumption trends have also emerged, for example, Vietnamese demand for insulated bottles has boomed, and Thai purchases of blind boxes have skyrocketed. Overseas buyers are also starting their holiday stocking for Black Friday and Christmas earlier than ever.

3. Industry pain points and solutions: Both cross-border buyers and sellers currently face barriers related to language, logistics, payment and order fulfillment. To address this, 1688 has launched three sets of targeted solutions to connect domestic supply sources with overseas procurement channels.

This article outlines new cross-border trends, shifting consumer demand, and available channel support for brands looking to expand globally, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Market and consumption trends: Supported by national policies for cross-border trade, China's total export volume continues to grow. Beyond traditional North American and European markets, emerging markets including South America, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia are posting very rapid growth and generating a wide range of new consumer demands, creating fresh growth space for brands.

2. Solutions for core pain points: For domestic brands that lack the capacity to directly connect with small and medium-sized overseas B buyers, 1688 offers three core services: Select certification labeling, full托管 (full-service management), and hot product warehousing. These services resolve common pain points for brands expanding overseas, including language barriers, certification requirements, and order fulfillment challenges.

3. Supply chain support: 1688 supports light customization services to help brands develop differentiated, personalized products. It also integrates AI capabilities to generate multilingual marketing content, and partners with Cainiao for global logistics and supports multiple payment methods, enabling brands to connect cost-effectively with 3 million small and medium-sized B buyers globally.

This article sorts out new cross-border expansion opportunities, available policies and resources, and key risk warnings for sellers, with core insights as follows:

1. Market opportunities: Backed by strong national policy support for cross-border trade, China's overall export volume continues to grow. Traditional European and American markets remain stable, while demand in emerging markets including South America, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia is growing rapidly, creating a number of new consumer trends. Sellers that enter these markets early can capture first-mover growth dividends.

2. Tiered solutions for different seller types: For ERP and independent site sellers, 1688 offers open API access, allowing sellers to directly leverage its 200 million SKU inventory, payment infrastructure, and fulfillment capabilities to meet product sourcing and procurement needs in one stop. For local overseas sellers, direct procurement is available through 1688's country-specific sites. For third-party platform sellers, two sourcing models are available: JIT dropshipping and consolidated small-batch wholesale.

3. Risk warning: Sellers need to resolve universal cross-border pain points including language barriers, payment, logistics and fulfillment in advance. Leveraging the infrastructure of a mature platform can effectively reduce trial-and-error costs.

This article outlines new cross-border expansion directions, available channel support and business opportunities for domestic original manufacturers, with core takeaways as follows:

1. New expansion opportunities: The overall cross-border trade sector is growing rapidly. 1688 already hosts more than 3 million small and medium-sized overseas B buyers, with annual procurement volume exceeding 200 billion yuan. Beyond traditional European and American markets, demand in South America, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia is growing very quickly. In addition to spot wholesale, there is also strong overseas demand for light customized, differentiated products, creating a new growth curve for domestic factories.

2. Solutions for core pain points: Most Chinese domestic factories lack the capacity to directly connect with overseas buyers, and face barriers across language, communication, payment, logistics and fulfillment. 1688 offers three core supporting services to address this: Select certification labeling, which helps factories align products with qualification requirements of different countries and makes it easier for overseas buyers to identify qualified products; full-service management, where the platform handles outreach to overseas buyers; and hot product warehousing, which improves fulfillment reliability.

3. Digital support: Factories can leverage 1688's AI translation, AIGC-powered multilingual marketing content generation, Cainiao global logistics, and multiple payment options to expand overseas without building their own cross-border operation system from scratch.

This article shares the latest development trends, core customer pain points and available partnership opportunities for the cross-border service industry, with key insights as follows:

1. Industry growth trends: Cross-border export volume continues to grow, and demand in emerging markets is releasing rapidly. A large number of originally domestic-focused Chinese suppliers are now connecting with overseas buyers. Both domestic factories and overseas procurement sides have large unmet demand for cross-border services, leaving significant room for industry growth.

2. Core customer pain points: Domestic original factories lack the capacity to directly reach small and medium-sized overseas B buyers, while small and medium-sized B buyers face barriers across the entire procurement journey from language, product sourcing, payment to logistics. For service providers, building a complete in-house supply chain system is costly and operationally challenging.

3. Ready-to-use partnership solution: 1688 offers an open API integration scheme for ecosystem service providers. After integration, providers can directly leverage 1688's over 200 million SKUs, product data, payment capabilities, and fulfillment middle platform. This allows providers to offer a complete cross-border procurement service to their own users without rebuilding the entire supply chain system, cutting development costs and enabling rapid business expansion.

This article sorts out current demand for high-quality supply chains among cross-border platforms and the partnership model offered by 1688, with core takeaways as follows:

1. Current industry demand: All types of overseas e-commerce platforms need access to cost-competitive original Chinese goods to improve their competitiveness in local markets. However, most platforms lack the capacity to directly connect with millions of domestic original factories, and building an in-house supply chain system is both costly and time-consuming.

2. Two mature partnership models: The first is B2B2C cooperation via the JIT model. After a platform receives a consumer order, it syncs order information to 1688, which handles direct fulfillment to the end customer. This allows the platform to operate an asset-light model without holding inventory. The second is consolidated small-batch wholesale procurement, where platforms source goods in bulk from 1688 to expand their product catalog and improve competitiveness.

3. Supporting infrastructure: 1688 has already completed the screening and qualification certification labeling for products suitable for overseas sales, and provides AI-powered multilingual capabilities, global fulfillment logistics, and multiple local payment methods. After onboarding, platforms can directly reuse all these capabilities without rebuilding them, significantly cutting operating costs.

This article discloses the latest industrial developments and business model innovations in China's domestic cross-border B2B wholesale sector, offering high reference value for research on Silk Road e-commerce and cross-border trade development, with core findings as follows:

1. New industrial trends: 1688, originally a domestic-trade-focused platform, has naturally developed a large-scale cross-border procurement business. Its cross-border GMV now exceeds 200 billion yuan, accounting for 30% to 40% of the platform's total GMV, and the business continues to grow at a high speed. Small and medium-sized overseas B buyers have strong demand for original Chinese goods, emerging markets have become new growth poles for cross-border trade, and Silk Road e-commerce cooperation has now entered the practical implementation stage.

2. Innovative business model: Leveraging its accumulated advantages in domestic supply chains, 1688 has launched tiered differentiated solutions for different types of participants: it opens API output capabilities for ecosystem service providers, operates country-specific sites for small and medium-sized overseas B buyers, and opens integration partnerships for overseas e-commerce platforms. This has built a complete cross-border wholesale system that connects domestic original factories with small and medium-sized overseas B buyers.

3. Industry implications: This model relies on existing supply chain infrastructure, opens up capabilities to empower participants across the value chain, and significantly lowers barriers for cross-border B2B trade. It has opened up a new path for domestic-trade-focused factories to expand globally, and provides a practical reference model for advancing the implementation of Silk Road e-commerce.