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Global Christmas buyers embrace Chinese online retailers

TaiShang

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Global Christmas buyers embrace Chinese online retailers
December 24, 2014

Christmas shopping adapts to the internet age, Chinese e-commerce sites are grasping the opportunity to play Santa Claus for the whole world.

In Russia, 29-year-old Eva is waiting for her son's new coat to arrive from China. A Christmas gift for her seven year old, she bought it using AliExpress, an overseas online shopping platform under Chinese e-commerce giant the Alibaba Group.

The platform, launched in 2010, has expanded its business to 220 countries and regions worldwide. Jiang Dongjian, director of Alibaba's international department, said, during this Christmas season, the platform has been providing discounts for various products including garments, beauty products and electronics.

He said Russia is a major market for Aliexpress. The website once organized a painting activity named "Santa Claus in my heart", with Russian children participating.

"One of the children even painted a Santa sitting on a Chinese dragon, and another kid's Santa was a giant panda in Santa's clothes," he said.

In recent years, China's booming e-commerce sector has been increasing expansion abroad.

Statistics from the Ministry of Commerce show cross-border e-commerce companies in China recorded a foreign trade volume of about 3.1 trillion yuan (497.1 billion U. S. dollars) in 2013, up by about 31.3 percent from 2012. The ministry predicted the volume will grow to 6.5 trillion yuan in 2016.

The LightinTheBox Holding Co., Ltd., another Chinese online retailer serving global consumers, has been offering discounts of up to 80 percent during this Christmas buying season.

On Black Friday, which is considered to be the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season, the company set a one-day sales record of 2.65 million U.S. dollars, a growth of 65.6 percent from last Black Friday, according to a report by the company.

China's manufacturers are also benefiting from the development of cross-border e-commerce.

MyLED.com, a subsidiary of Huaqiangwoguang based in Guangdong Province, provides Chinese LED products to customers around the world. Since September, the platform has been busy preparing for Christmas sales, since Christmas lights produced by Chinese LED manufacturers are a major export for China.

The company's CEO Zhang Bin said this year's Christmas sales have exceeded 10 million yuan, with the biggest order, including more than a hundred different products, coming from Germany.

"The good performance of the Chinese cross-border e-commerce firms is based on the advantages of 'Made in China' products. Meanwhile, online retailers have provided chances for the Chinese-made products to reach the international buyers more easily," he said.

"Manufacturers are enjoying a larger profit margin as they no longer have to rely on middlemen to go abroad," he added.

Cross-border e-commerce is also bringing discounted products from the foreign market to Chinese consumers during the Christmas season.

Xiu.com is a Chinese e-commerce focused on selling foreign luxury and fashion goods to Chinese buyers. Ji Wenhong, CEO of the website said, the Christmas buying season in western countries is a golden business opportunity for his company.

"Many foreign retailers start a clearance sale several days ahead of Christmas, and that is when we manage to buy the products at the lowest prices," he said.

China's e-commerce sector boom is backed by the central government's preferential policies.

The Ministry of Commerce and other departments issued a paper on implementing policies to support cross-border e-commerce retail export in August 2013. It defined six supportive policies for e-commerce exports, which covered areas such as inspection, quarantine, payment and tax rebate.

In January 2014, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation ruled qualified cross-border e-commerce retail export enterprises could utilize the same tax exemption and rebate policies as ordinary foreign trade enterprises.


"Establishing Chinese e-commerce brands and deepening their engagement in the global market competition should be the goals for the Chinese cross-border online retailers," Zhang Bin said.

However, further development of Chinese cross-border e-commerce is still facing obstacles such as the slow logistics and inconvenient cross-border payments, Zhang said.

E-commerce companies should pay more attention to improving the user experience in order to attract more international customers, he said.
 
The failing ruble will turn more Russian into Chinese market for lower price. With new opening of silk road railway, rail shipping to Moscow will be faster than traditional ship route.
 
Domestic logistic companies must expand their reach and become global operators.
 
Domestic logistic companies must expand their reach and become global operators.

:)

China facilitates domestic commerce, logistics development


BEIJING, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- The State Council, China's cabinet, on Sunday released guidelines to promote the development of domestic commerce and logistics sectors in an effort to speed up job creation and consumption.

Loans from commercial banks and other policy support will be given to relevant enterprises to build some of them into globally competitive retailers, wholesaler and logistics companies, noted the guidelines.

Efforts will be made by the authorities to improve business environment for these companies including reducing administrative approval procedures and tax burdens for them, it said.

From January to September, consumption contributed to 48.5 percent of China's economic growth, outdoing investment, which accounted for 41.5 percent. However, some bottlenecks need to be unblocked to boost consumption in the world's second largest economy.

It is very urgent to establish a highly efficient logistics and distribution system to meet the needs of the e-commerce and information era, Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Fang Aiqing said at a recent industry meeting.

The authorities will publish a blacklist of companies that fail to keep their promises in a bid to establish a credit evaluation mechanism, noted the document.

The State Council urges local governments at various levels to implement these measures in an earnest manner.
 
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