China's Cross-border E-commerce in 2023: Refined Digitization and Growing Service Market

The policy research center of the Electronic World Trade Platform of Alibaba, China’s e-commerce behemoth, recently released an exclusive report on the development and prospect of China’s cross-border e-commerce.

China's cross-border e-commerce industry is set to undergo significant changes in 2023, with refined digitization and an expanding service market. This transformation is driven by the continuous expansion of global online consumption and the rapid development of digital technology, according to the report.

The main theme of cross-border e-commerce development in the future will be multi-channel refined operation, using user behavior data to target customer groups and analyze user journeys. The traditional extensive marketing strategy will shift to a refined one, where quality instead of quantity becomes the focus. Social shopping, livestream shopping, and VR shopping will become increasingly important channels for advertisement delivery.

The transaction scale of service products through cross-border e-commerce in China will increase in 2023, with new impetus being injected into the development of such products through the deepening of service trade reform. The business environment in China has continued to improve, with foreign investment access in the service sector continuing to be relaxed. Online services, such as audiovisual, healthcare, education, and online retail, have grown significantly worldwide.

The scale of cross-border e-commerce imports will continue to expand with further improvement of import policies, the adjustment and optimization of the positive list of cross-border retail imports, and the increase in consumer demand of Chinese residents. China's large market will fully release consumption dividends, and the scale of cross-border import market will be further expanded.

The cross-border e-commerce ecological chain will continue to be optimized and upgraded, with the development of digital technology bringing innovation to the industry. Block chain technology will help solve the problems of cross-border logistics monitoring, cross-border payment and cross-border e-commerce product quality traceability. Big data technology and cloud computing technology will make marketing more precise and personalized, and improve the speed of supply chain operations.

International cooperation in e-commerce will accelerate, with China promoting the expansion of bilateral cooperation and the development of multilateral mechanisms. China has actively promoted WTO joint initiative on e-commerce and has applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA).

In summary, China's cross-border e-commerce industry will experience a significant transformation towards refined digitization and an expanding service market in 2023. With the deep integration of digital technology and cross-border e-commerce scenarios, an intelligent and green cross-border e-commerce digital ecological chain will be formed, promoting international cooperation and expanding market opportunities.