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Li Wenyuan, a business owner on AliExpress, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba's online global retail platform, is increasingly enjoying his new role as a trainer for newcomers in the cross-border e-commerce industry. His training program is growing as rapidly as his baby products online retailing business did several years ago.

"My training program at AliExpress has seen more people joining and has just been named a demonstration project by the Zhejiang Province E-commerce Promotion Association," Li told the Global Times on Monday.

Li started his business to sell baby products directly to customers in Russia, the US, Spain, France and Israel on AliExpress four years ago. Strong business performance helped him quickly become an officially recognized senior trainer on AliExpress' training platforms. Now he is also an expert with the Hangzhou E-commerce Promotion Association and a lecturer with the Singapore Chamber of E-commerce. 

The course introduction of Li's training program read that after four days of training, trainees will learn how to build their own businesses on e-commerce platforms like AliExpress, Wish and Amazon. The course also helps business owners manage online payment security and intellectual property rights issues in their operations.

Li is fairly confident about the future of his training programs as China is promoting successful industry business models, which have been proven in leading cities. Chinese brands are now introduced to more overseas markets.

Nation-wide campaign

The State Council, China's cabinet, said on July 3 that China plans to set up more comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zones and introduce more preferential policies to support the industry.

These cross-border e-commerce pilot zones are to be set up in accordance with local governments' support, according to a statement published on the gov.cn website.

The rapid development of cross-border e-commerce has proven to be a bright spot in the growth of imports and exports. It has pushed the reform of domestic industry upgrades, released the potential of consumption markets, and encouraged employment and entrepreneurship, the statement said.

The call for more cities to put their businesses online is poised to become a nationwide campaign to develop cross-border e-commerce, according to analysts.

Helping more regions build direct connections to overseas markets will largely propound their established advantage in manufacturing and promote more companies to build their own brands, said Zhang Zhouping, director of the Cross-border E-commerce Department of the E-commerce Research Center based in Hangzhou, the first comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zone in China.

China has 35 existing cross-border e-commerce pilot zones. After Hangzhou experienced great success, the State Council decided to take the successful business model and preferential policies to more cities in central and western China.

In the third group of cities to build cross-border e-commerce pilot zones announced in July 2018, cities like Lanzhou in Northwest China's Gansu Province and Wuhan in Central China's Hubei Province are included. Although the fourth group of cities has not been announced yet, many have shown their willingness to embrace the online business model to boost imports and exports.

North China's Hebei Province supports the Xiongan New Area's application to set up a cross-border e-commerce pilot zone, according to a draft plan issued by the province in June 2018.

As leading Chinese e-commerce companies like Alibaba and JD.com are trying to expand their territory in overseas markets, an increasing number of Chinese companies also seek to build new, efficient online methods to promote their brands in overseas markets.

Alongside individual business owners, Li's training program has seen more companies join, and some are interested in employing Li to develop online business solutions in overseas markets.

"A famous Chinese sports brand joined my training program in May. The company has built mature, offline sales channels in overseas markets, and now they are consulting me for an online plan to further promote their brand, especially to seize the opportunities that come with the Tokyo Olympics in 2020," Li said.

Successful business model

Cross-border e-commerce has been well proven as a successful business model for local governments to speed up economic transformation. It is a new efficient way to expand exports and imports and encourage employment.

China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reached 9.1 trillion yuan ($1.32 trillion) in 2018, according to an industry trend report published by Shenzhen-based iiMedia Research in April. They account for 29.83 percent of China's 30.51 trillion yuan total imports and exports for the year.

The scale of the industry is expected to exceed 10.8 trillion yuan as more preferential policies like tax cuts are rolled out. Regulations are improving and domestic consumption has been boosted by more events like the China International Imports Expo (CIIE).

China's rapidly developing cross-border e-commerce industry has already established a relatively mature system, according to business insiders.

"At the starting phase of the B2B model, importers and exporters could only look for business information on platforms that did not have payment and transaction functions, but now most individual business owners can launch their own stores on big platforms, or they can even launch their own sites to reach deals very quickly," said Zhu Cheng, an online business owner in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang Province.

The number of China's online buyers is expected to reach 200 million in 2020, and the total global number is expected to reach 900 million. During the CIIE last November, Chinese e-commerce platforms like Alibaba and JD.com reported huge orders to suppliers from around the world, according to media reports.

Hefei, capital city of East China's Anhui Province, was among the 12 cities being set up as comprehensive cross-border e-commerce pilot zones in January 2016. After adopting the established systems and business model from Hangzhou, the city has made great progress in economic transformation.

New entrepreneurial boom

Alongside the plan to expand cross-border e-commerce pilots in more regions and complete industry regulations, the State Council on July 3 also encouraged educational institutions to establish e-commerce majors and strengthen education for the industry.

As more support policies come from the government and more cities join the e-commerce boom, a new massive entrepreneurial trend is expected to spread across China, according to insiders.

"Among the more than 60,000 online trainees from our cross-border e-commerce platform Bixue, more and more people from regions in central and western China are joining," Zhu Cheng, the founder of the platform told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"The e-commerce sector is a rapidly developing industry, which requires those joining to update their knowledge frequently," Li said.

A Beijing-based, white-collar worker surnamed Yang said she is planning to co-found an independent cross-border e-commerce platform to export clothing to South Korea.

"Many international students in China like buying things on Taobao, and some of them are buying things for friends in their own countries who don't know Chinese and can't buy things directly on the platform," Yang said.

"In fact, many online clothing stores in South Korea are getting their goods supplies on Taobao. Chinese clothing has price and quality advantages in the market. The key is to choose the styles that will be popular," Yang said.
Newspaper headline: Cross-border e-commerce boom