Global Christmas buyers embrace Chinese online retailers

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.

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