Cross-border e-commerce growing in China

Having worked as a tech reporter for about a decade, I have witnessed firsthand the rapid growth of China's cross-border e-commerce platforms and how the country's consumers have shown increasing demand for premium imported and foreign-branded products in recent years.

Nowadays, I don't have to visit brick-and-mortar stores. Online shopping suffices. During this year's Singles Day shopping carnival, I scrolled through some cross-border online marketplaces such as JD Worldwide and Tmall Global to find fresh produce, alcoholic beverages, cosmetics and apparel.

Chilean cherries, Norwegian salmon, New Zealand milk, French red wine and eye shadow and moisturizer from Japan arrived in fine shape at my door in just a few days. They all looked and tasted authentic and seemed worth the prices I paid.

I noticed that a growing number of Chinese shoppers are embracing online shopping for high-quality imported items, driven by enhanced logistics efficiencies and preferential policies such as lower tariffs, as well as an expanded list of imported goods.

According to a report from Chinese e-commerce platform JD's Consumption and Industry Development Research Institute, imported brands, including mobile phones, personal care products, cosmetics, watches, eyeglasses, infant and maternal goods, nutrition and healthcare products, have gained in popularity among Chinese shoppers.

People in the 26 to 35 age group are the main consumers of imported products, accounting for nearly 50 percent of all age groups. In addition, consumers aged between 46 and 55 have contributed to the fastest growth in purchasing imported products, the report said.

In recent months, I have had the privilege of interviewing many industry insiders and company executives in the cross-border e-commerce domain. Some of them told me that although orders for online cross-border shopping platforms are still mainly being placed in first-tier cities, residents in second- and third-tier cities have also shown rapidly growing purchasing power.

Cross-border e-commerce in China has grown exponentially in recent years. Statistics from the General Administration of Customs show that the country's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reached 1.22 trillion yuan ($171.7 billion) in the first half of the year, an increase of 10.5 percent year-on-year.

Li Yanchuan, head of Amazon China Global Store and Prime, said young Chinese consumers, especially Generation Z — born between the mid-1990s to around 2010 — think and judge independently while choosing brands, and prefer to pursue niche lifestyles and personalized products.

Sales of fragrance and skin care products, Japanese kitchenware, outdoor sports brands, virtual reality equipment, and healthcare and nutritional goods, have boomed on Amazon and are being increasingly favored by Chinese shoppers, Li said.

"Price, selection of products and logistics experience are the most important factors consumers consider while buying commodities," Li noted, adding that he is bullish on the prospects of China's cross-border online shopping market.

According to market consultancy iiMedia Research, with China's further opening-up, gradual improvement in logistics and deliveries, and people's rising incomes, demand for imported goods will continue to increase and provide a big boost to consumption upgrade.

Chinese consumers have exhibited increasing purchasing demand for diversified, personalized and niche overseas products, and are attaching more importance to the value of the goods they buy, said Zhang Zhouping, a senior analyst on business-to-business and cross-border activities at the Internet Economy Institute, a domestic consultancy.