Looking back at the development history of China’s e-commerce industry, we can find that cross-border e-commerce has developed from traditional foreign trade to foreign trade e-commerce, and then further developed into cross-border e-commerce. Under the general trend of China's e-commerce globalization, my country's cross-border e-commerce industry has shown explosive growth.

1. Analysis of the advantages of cross-border e-commerce

Compared with traditional export trade, cross-border e-commerce has the advantages of fewer intermediate links, low prices and high profit margins. Generally speaking, traditional foreign trade exports need to go through six links including “domestic factories-domestic exporters-foreign importers-foreign wholesalers-foreign retailers-foreign consumers”. Under this model, the largest share of profits in foreign trade is The intermediate links that are circulated make money away. Under the cross-border e-commerce model, the export link can be simplified to "domestic factory-foreign retailer-foreign consumer", or even further simplified to "domestic factory-foreign consumer", directly bypassing many intermediary links. On the one hand, the prices of exported goods can be further reduced, thereby increasing the competitiveness of our products in foreign markets; on the other hand, exporters can obtain most of the profits.

It is understood that the cumbersome order process, long cycle, geographical limitation, and low profit have been the problems of traditional foreign trade transactions, which have severely restricted the development of foreign trade of my country's small and medium-sized enterprises. The new cross-border e-commerce model has not only broken the monopoly position of wholesalers, retailers, and importers, it has broken through the traditional development model that restricts import and export trade, and has reshaped the international trade structure, allowing retailers, wholesalers and enterprises to directly Contact effectively reduces intermediate links, saves working capital, and greatly improves the efficiency of goods circulation.

2. Development status of cross-border e-commerce in China

With the rapid development of global e-commerce and the general trend of China's e-commerce globalization, in recent years, my country's cross-border e-commerce industry has developed rapidly, and the scale of transactions has continued to grow substantially. Statistics show that since 2010, the transaction scale of my country's cross-border e-commerce industry has almost maintained a growth rate of more than 20%. In 2019, according to statistics from the China E-commerce Research Center, the scale of cross-border e-commerce transactions in my country is as high as 10.5. Billion yuan, an increase of 16.7% year-on-year. According to data from the General Administration of Customs, my country's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports in 2020 are 1.69 trillion yuan, an increase of 31.1%, of which exports are 1.12 trillion yuan, an increase of 40.1%. In the first quarter of 2021, the growth rate of my country's cross-border e-commerce exports far exceeded imports, reaching 69.3%. In the post-epidemic era, cross-border export trade is coming strongly.

1. National policies help cross-border e-commerce development

Behind the growth cannot be separated from the strong support of national policies. A review of relevant materials found that since 2004, my country has promulgated a series of policies to support the development of the domestic cross-border e-commerce industry, enabling my country's cross-border e-commerce to maintain a steady growth momentum. From 2004 to 2008, the e-commerce industry specifications were initially implemented, and during this period the main focus was on industry specifications. From 2008 to 2013, more than 10 policies concerning logistics, payment, management and other cross-border e-commerce were successively promulgated, which further improved the industry standards. After 2014, the state has successively introduced a series of cross-border e-commerce support policies, and has set up more than 80 cross-border e-commerce retail import pilot cities in batches. In 2020, the State Council will issue a comprehensive trial of policy expansion for cross-border e-commerce. There are currently 105 districts, and they have expressed their opinions to help export companies connect with more overseas buyers, all of which provide strong support for the growth of cross-border e-commerce.

2. The rapid development of cross-border e-commerce trading platforms

The vigorous development of cross-border e-commerce is inseparable from the support and promotion of trading platforms. A trading platform with a certain scale and strong strength can not only provide good opportunities for cross-border trade, but also enhance the brand awareness of e-commerce and gain benefits for enterprises.

In recent years, my country's cross-border e-commerce trading platforms have risen rapidly. B2B websites such as Global Sources, Dunhuang, and Alibaba are examples of successful cross-border e-commerce development, and they all have a high reputation overseas. New B2C cross-border e-commerce websites such as Amazon, AliExpress and Silk Road Mall are also rapidly emerging, providing a stable and safe platform for cross-border transactions.

3. Related supporting services are becoming more and more perfect

The rapid development of my country's cross-border e-commerce industry has driven the development of related peripheral industries. First, the laws and regulations related to cross-border e-commerce have been continuously improved; secondly, trading platforms have sprung up like mushrooms; in addition, continuous breakthroughs in logistics, supply chain, payment and other technologies have supported the vigorous development of some derivative service industries of the transaction and led The coordinated development of express delivery, overseas warehouse and other industries.

3. Problems of China's cross-border e-commerce

Although there are many advantages and rapid development of cross-border e-commerce, there are still many problems in the industry, which hinder and restrict the further development of cross-border e-commerce.

1. Customs clearance efficiency issues

Cross-border trade e-commerce will inevitably involve customs clearance supervision and taxation in the transaction process. A large number of goods enter the country through express mail channels and postal channels, which brings higher requirements to customs supervision methods and taxation. However, the current customs supervision model still cannot solve the problems of cross-border delivery and return. Some e-commerce companies have already encountered some problems in cross-border trade, especially the difficulty in fast customs clearance and standardized foreign exchange settlement. Therefore, mature enterprises will use the customs management system to assist customs clearance, which is simple and efficient.

2. logistic issue

Logistics usually includes warehousing, sorting, packaging and distribution services. As a link between buyers and sellers, it occupies an important position in e-commerce transactions. At present, there are many difficulties and problems in cross-border logistics in our country. First of all, the cost of cross-border logistics is relatively high, and many cross-border logistics rely on air transportation, which undoubtedly increases logistics costs. Secondly, cross-border logistics has not kept up with the pace of cross-border e-commerce development, there is a certain lag, and the system construction is not sound, the infrastructure is not perfect, and it cannot meet the explosive growth of cross-border e-commerce transaction needs. To some extent, it restricts the development of cross-border e-commerce.

3. Electronic payment problem

Cross-border electronic payment involves the security of funds transfer between the two parties, and is the core link of cross-border trade e-commerce. At present, there are still certain risks in electronic payment. On the one hand, in the process of information transmission, payment information is lost due to system failures or information failures; on the other hand, some outsiders illegally use computer technology to steal payment information, causing losses to the party in the transaction.

4. product problem

The core of cross-border e-commerce services is products, and the quality of products directly affects the success or failure of e-commerce transactions. At present, the main problem with cross-border e-commerce products is that they are limited in variety. Most of them are simple processed products and primary products. They are mainly concentrated in personal consumption fields such as clothing, luggage, food, and electronic products. High-tech products and high value-added products are not. many. At the same time, the categories of cross-border e-commerce products in my country are not yet complete, and the types of products to choose from are relatively limited.

5. Legal Issues

Cross-border e-commerce is a transformation of business models, and the emergence of this new business model has put forward new requirements on my country's traditional legal system. Judging from the current legal issues of cross-border e-commerce, the most prominent issue is still the supervision and rights protection related to product quality. The incomplete legal system often leads to insufficient protection of the rights and interests of cross-border consumers. Some criminals use e-commerce platforms to commit fraud, Illegal transactions, false propaganda, and infringement of consumer rights and interests have caused the privacy of customers’ payment information to be illegally leaked, and the security of cross-border transaction activities cannot be guaranteed. The relevant cross-border laws are not yet perfect, and there are still loopholes in related management, which also makes illegal acts not punished in a timely and effective manner.

6. Talent gap

According to the "China E-Commerce Report" issued by the Department of E-commerce and Information Technology of the Ministry of Commerce, the current shortage of cross-border e-commerce talents in China is close to 4.5 million, and it is still expanding at an annual growth rate of 30%.

The report pointed out that due to the rapid development of new forms of cross-border e-commerce, the existing cross-border e-commerce practitioners in the market are mainly the original traditional foreign trade talents who have been transformed through exploration. Chinese universities do not have an extremely matching talent training program. , So that the cross-border e-commerce industry did not have sufficient talent pool before.