Cross-border e-commerce boosts the industry to bring high quality to the sea.

    In recent years, many domestic industrial belts have successively joined the cross-border e-commerce track, and "cross-border e-commerce+industrial belt" has become one of the main forms of foreign trade. In 2024, the domestic industrial belt will face not only the cross-border blue ocean, but also the long-term high-quality sea going. The reporter’s recent visit found that some cross-border e-commerce platforms are helping the industrial belt to expand into a "new blue ocean and new growth pole" through digital means, and promoting the leap of "Made in China" in the international market competitiveness and brand power.

   Cross-border e-commerce empowers industrial belts to expand markets.

    Industrial cluster is an important carrier to promote the high-quality development of regional economy. At present, there are hundreds of light industrial clusters in China, which play an important role in regional economy. In recent years, major cross-border e-commerce platforms have begun to increase cooperation with industrial belts to help local enterprises expand overseas business opportunities more accurately and efficiently through in-depth services.

    In September 2023, Xiyin, a cross-border e-commerce platform, announced the launch of the national 500-city industrial belt plan. Within three years, it will go deep into the national 500-city industrial belt, connect the industrial belt with digital trade and digital flexible supply chain, and provide integrated empowerment from production to market sales to brand growth, helping the industrial belt expand the global market and gain brand promotion. The reporter learned that through the continuous deepening of the 500-city industrial belt going to sea plan under the platform model, the flexible supply chain model of "small single and quick response" produced by Xiyin on demand is splitting from the clothing industry to more industries, helping the industrial belt to go to sea with cross-border e-commerce, and at the same time, empowering this set of capabilities to more industrial belt sellers through platform.

    Going out to sea is not the digestion of excess capacity, but the flexible supply chain makes the market demand and supply more match. By cultivating new models and new formats, the productivity of industrial belts will be improved, and at the same time, small and medium-sized sellers will be realized. In the process of internationalization of China’s manufacturing industry, domestic characteristic industrial belts need to build their own competitive advantages in order to win. With the help of updated digital ideas and digital means, they can realize efficient resource allocation and accelerate innovation, and finally realize the overall capacity transformation and upgrading of industrial belts.

    According to the Insight Report of Cross-border E-commerce Industry 2023 Industry Belt Brand Going to Sea released by Billion Think Tank, "Cross-border E-commerce+Industry Belt" provides a strong impetus for high-quality going to sea. Cross-border e-commerce industrial belts in China have their own characteristics. With the continuous release of policy dividends, many traditional foreign trade industrial belts have achieved global business expansion through cross-border e-commerce.

   From product to brand.

    At present, China’s industrial belt has entered a new stage of intensive brand going out to sea from extensive high-speed growth. Under the background of the state’s support for the development of new foreign trade formats, many traditional foreign trade industrial belts have been actively transformed by relying on cross-border e-commerce channels and digital service tools, further focusing on brand building and global development.

    In the eyes of the industry, one way for the industry to take the brand to the sea is to take the flexible supply chain as the support and embark on the road of brand internationalization through the cross-border e-commerce platform; The other is that trade-oriented businesses transform and upgrade from distributing goods to brands, and build their own brands with the help of cross-border e-commerce platforms.

    Building its own brand and strengthening its brand power are regarded as the inevitable trend of "Made in China". Insiders pointed out that cross-border e-commerce platforms not only empower more industrial belt sellers with flexible supply chain capabilities, but also actively assist industrial belt sellers to build brand power together. The platform helps industrial belt sellers to improve a series of capabilities including product development, market trends, compliance management and supply chain management by empowering them with one-stop services. For the industrial belt, the future is not only the product going out to sea, but also the overall ability and brand power of the industrial belt going out to sea and upgrading. If the industrial belt wants to go to sea, it must achieve high-quality going to sea, and the ultimate benefit will be the comprehensive competitiveness of the whole "Made in China".

    Deng Nan, the seller of wig industry belt, paid attention to the demand of overseas consumers for wigs in his early years. Through the online Xiyin platform, the humble niche products achieved sales of 50,000 US dollars in the first month; Three years later, this number has grown to $2 million.

    "At present, industries driven by cross-border e-commerce platforms are brought out to sea, allowing China’s high-quality supply chain to directly face international consumers, opening up new international markets and promoting industrial upgrading." Zhao Lingyi, chief analyst of Shen Wanhongyuan’s research on commerce and retail, told reporters that the new format of going to sea promoted by "cross-border e-commerce+industrial belt" will further promote the transformation of China’s manufacturing industry into a China brand with independent design concept and strong market competitiveness, thus occupying a more important position in the global value chain.

   Digital innovation drives the development of industrial belt

    Last year, the General Office of the State Council issued an opinion on promoting the stable scale and excellent structure of foreign trade, proposing to support foreign trade enterprises to expand their sales channels and cultivate their own brands through new formats and new models such as cross-border e-commerce, encouraging all localities to combine their industrial and endowment advantages, innovate and build a comprehensive cross-border e-commerce experimental zone, actively develop the "cross-border e-commerce+industrial belt" model, and drive cross-border e-commerce enterprises to export to enterprises.

    Domestic emerging cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Xiyin, AliExpress and Tik Tok Xiaodian have attracted a large number of consumers and sellers through their own characteristics and unique development models, and gradually occupied an important position in the global e-commerce market. In the future, domestic cross-border e-commerce enterprises are expected to fully benefit from the continuous high penetration rate of global e-commerce and the cost-effective advantage of "Made in China" to drive the rapid development of the domestic cross-border e-commerce market. In addition, sellers related to brand going out to sea and manufacturing going out to sea are expected to benefit from the traffic dividend brought by the emerging cross-border e-commerce platform in China.

    "New advantages need to be established in the process of manufacturing internationalization. China’s manufacturing industry must take the road of increasing added value in the future. The added value comes from innovations in design, technology and products, as well as the improvement of brand power. " Hu Qimu, chief researcher of digital economy think tank, said that enterprises can make the supply chain more efficient through digital means, realize personalization and improve overall efficiency at the same time.

    Hu Qimu believes that the "cross-border e-commerce+industrial belt" model is to use digital tools to help businesses continuously optimize the supply chain, solve the problem of production balance through flexible small orders, and then digitally manage the whole process of a large number of fragmented orders, so as to realize flexible and standardized production, improve quality and efficiency, and empower more industrial belts to build new quality productivity and brands to go to sea. (Reporter Gao Shaohua)