Chapter 01 Introduction to Cross-Border E-Commerce
Case Study
China’s JD.com Pitches Cross-Border E-Commerce to UK SMEs
LONDON, UK?DOne of China’s largest tech firms, JD.com, has told small- and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in London that selling to China can be relatively straightforward, and they don't need to be overawed by China's huge size and a general lack of understanding about the country.
“Everyone has heard of Google and Microsoft, but has everyone heard of JD, Xiaomi and Alibaba?” JD business development manager, Julia Yang, told UK SMEs at a meeting at Cocoon Networks, a center for technology startups to coalesce in central London.
JD is one of China's largest technology companies and claims to be the country's biggest retailer. It says it can deliver to 99% of China’s population, and fulfill same-day or next-day deliveries for 90% of products sold on JD’s online platforms.
Yang said when we consider how to sell to China the “best option” for SMEs is e-commerce. Part of the reason is that it relies on a different regulatory regime for imports than for general trade, referred to as “cross-border e-commerce.”
Cross-border e-commerce originally referred to the unregulated trade of goods purchased abroad and posted back to Chinese online shoppers in small packages. It surged in the wake of the Melamine Scandal in 2008, when tens of thousands of Chinese infants were sickened by adulterated infant milk formula (IMF) and panicked Chinese parents rushed online to buy trusted foreign IMF brands. In recent years, China’s government has been supporting the likes of JD and Alibaba Group to standardize cross-border e-commerce, said Yang, after concerns about counterfeits and tax evasion.
However, cross-border e-commerce is still a more lightly-regulated and lightly-taxed channel for imports to China, she said; unlike general trade channels, goods imported into China through cross-border e-commerce aren’t lev