If we were to choose a keyword to describe the cross-border e-commerce industry over the past year, “surviving a tribulation” would perhaps be the most fitting. Repeated tariff policies, increasingly stringent overseas regulations, and the accelerated penetration of generative AI—these three forces intertwined, almost simultaneously reshaping the industry’s underlying operating logic. Cross-border e-commerce platforms that once relied on low prices, direct mail parcels, and traffic dividends for rapid expansion were forced to hit the brakes and re-examine the sustainability of their models. This cross-border e-commerce sector, once considered a “easy money” track, has entered a stage of hardcore competition. Cross-border e-commerce platforms have gradually evolved from “efficiency stories” to “compliance stories,” “localization stories,” and “branding stories.” As one of the “Four Little Dragons of Chinese Cross-border E-commerce” (TEMU, SHEIN, AliExpress, and TikTok Shop), AliExpress now considers “brand going global” its most important strategy. After directly challenging Amazon last year, AliExpress recently launched its first large-scale merchant recruitment drive of the new year, clearly defining “brand globalization + overseas hosting” as the core keywords for 2026. The four leading Chinese cross-border e-commerce platforms almost simultaneously entered a period of strategic adjustment over the past year. From the “fully managed” myth to the “return of semi-managed services,” from price wars to value wars, cross-border e-commerce is undergoing a collective “trial.” This reshuffling will determine not only the survival of platforms but also the future of Chinese manufacturing and brands going global. Focusing on the “value war,” AliExpress, as the leading cross-border e-commerce platform, was relatively low-key during the industry’s rapid growth in the past two years. However, last year, AliExpress suddenly became high-profile, upgrading its brand globalization strategy from “10 billion yuan subsidy for brand globalization” to the “Super Brand Globalization Plan,” directly challenging Amazon. AliExpress’s “Super Brand Globalization Plan” explicitly states: “Let merchants achieve higher sales in key markets with half the cost of Amazon.”
AliExpress remains determined on this path. Following its first merchant recruitment conference on January 7th, AliExpress will hold a new round of merchant recruitment conferences in Shenzhen on January 22nd, focusing on recruiting merchants with brand power or the ability to deeply integrate into local markets. Pinduoduo’s TEMU also emphasized the importance of brand globalization at the end of the year. Pinduoduo’s co-chairman and co-CEO Zhao Jiazhen stated that in the next stage, TEMU will go all in on the high quality and branding of the Chinese supply chain to achieve platform restructuring.
Looking back at the past year, the most significant change in cross-border e-commerce platforms is the collective “correction” of existing models.
To address policy risks and enhance their resilience, China’s four major cross-border e-commerce platforms have taken measures such as diversifying their operating areas, improving operational strategies, promoting semi-managed models, and increasing overseas warehouse fulfillment methods. The cancellation of the small-value parcel tax exemption policy in the United States and other regions undoubtedly dealt a significant blow to cross-border e-commerce platforms last year. The small-value parcel tax exemption policy had been a driving force behind the rapid expansion of cross-border e-commerce. Platforms relying on the direct mail parcel model, such as TEMU and SHEIN, experienced a golden age of rapid expansion in the United States. Data shows that from 2015 to 2024, the number of applications for the US “small-value exemption” for goods surged from 139 million to 1.4 billion. However, since 2024, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Vietnam, Brazil, and other countries have either already cancelled or proposed to cancel the small-value parcel tax exemption policy. Those relying on direct mail parcels typically operate under a fully managed model. TEMU, hailed as a dark horse in cross-border e-commerce, has become a goldmine for numerous new and established cross-border players in China. Its “fully managed model” swept across the market like a hurricane, becoming the hottest topic in the cross-border e-commerce industry in 2023. Following in TEMU’s footsteps, AliExpress, SHEIN, and TikTok Shop quickly launched their own fully managed models. Now facing tariff and compliance challenges, the fully managed model, once considered a tool for efficiency and scale, has been the first to encounter challenges, relegated to a “marginalized position” in the strategies of major platforms. AliExpress, TEMU, and SHEIN have all shifted their recruitment focus to semi-managed or overseas managed models. It is reported that after AliExpress pioneered the semi-managed model in 2024, providing logistics and warehousing services, it quickly increased its investment in the “overseas managed” model. Under this model, merchants only need to connect their overseas warehouse goods, and the platform handles marketing promotion, user operations, and local fulfillment. This is considered an important service model for localized operational management. With changes in the external environment, localization has become crucial for global e-commerce competition. Based on this, AliExpress officially listed “overseas hosting” as one of the core keys for merchants going global last year, another key being “brand globalization.” Currently, AliExpress’s overseas hosting covers more than 30 key markets globally, including Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. Starting in January 2026, AliExpress will upgrade its overseas hosting, dividing Europe into three operating regions to further enhance localized services. In addition, AliExpress will expand its official logistics and warehousing capabilities in Europe, continuing to strengthen the “fulfillment certainty” user experience. The industry landscape is being reshaped. To leverage “localization,” in addition to increasing the operational model of overseas local warehouses for merchants’ inventory, these cross-border e-commerce platforms are also intensifying their efforts to attract local overseas merchants, which will undoubtedly further increase the impact on overseas e-commerce giants such as Amazon. It is understood that AliExpress aggressively recruited local merchants in markets such as the United States, Germany, and Poland last year, and TEMU’s “Local Seller Program” has been launched in multiple countries including the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Japan. It is worth mentioning that in November last year, TEMU also signed memorandums of understanding with postal groups in France, Italy, and Austria. This move is seen as an important part of TEMU’s efforts to strengthen localization. CICC Research analysts pointed out that localization is a must for e-commerce platforms to grow into leading local platforms. Against this backdrop, leading cross-border e-commerce platforms have begun to systematically promote localization. Based on the proactive strategic adjustments of cross-border e-commerce platforms and the growth potential of the global e-commerce market, leading cross-border e-commerce platforms have still demonstrated resilience despite headwinds from tariffs and regulatory policies. According to CICC Research, China’s cross-border e-commerce GMV is projected to grow by 12% year-on-year in 2025, higher than the 11% year-on-year growth rate of China’s overall e-commerce GMV and leading the global e-commerce GMV growth rate of approximately 8%. The main driver is expected to be the four major Chinese cross-border platforms, including TEMU, which are projected to maintain a 25% year-on-year GMV growth rate in 2025, exceeding the overall industry average. TEMU has also demonstrated that last year’s “black swan” event did not hinder its global expansion. At Pinduoduo’s shareholders’ meeting at the end of last year, Pinduoduo’s management revealed that TEMU had achieved in just three years what Pinduoduo’s domestic main site took almost ten years to grow. This means that TEMU’s size is already close to that of the domestic main site. Analysts at First Shanghai Securities also pointed out that TEMU showed positive growth momentum in the third quarter of 2025. Building on the strong performance in the second quarter, the third quarter saw a positive quarter-on-quarter GMV growth rate, with revenue entering a healthy growth trajectory, and the pace of loss reduction expected to accelerate. AliExpress’s brand strategy upgrade last year marked a significant turning point in its commitment to “brand globalization.” Over the past year, AliExpress has become a new main platform for brands going global. During the 2025 Double 11 and Black Friday shopping festivals overseas, over 300 brands achieved more than double the sales volume on AliExpress in a single day compared to Amazon, and brands achieving sales of over one million US dollars throughout the entire period saw an 80% year-on-year increase. According to Sensor Tower data, during the 2025 Black Friday, AliExpress’s downloads in Europe briefly surpassed Amazon’s. However, while AliExpress has had a year of aggressive expansion, in terms of GMV growth, TikTok Shop appears to have achieved even more impressive results among the “Four Little Dragons of Chinese Cross-Border E-commerce.” It is understood that ByteDance recently announced that in 2025, TikTok Shop’s GMV will approach 100 billion US dollars, ranking fifth and fastest-growing among major overseas e-commerce platforms, second only to Amazon, Walmart, Shopee, and eBay. With the changing global trade landscape, a consensus has emerged: cross-border e-commerce will inevitably shift from all-out growth to profit-driven growth, and from simple “low-price exports” to a high-value-added strategy of “branding.” Against this backdrop, going global is transitioning from a “sales-driven era” to a “brand-driven era.” Looking ahead, cross-border e-commerce remains in a vast but increasingly complex market. Challenges lie in policy uncertainty, rising compliance costs, and increasing localization investment; opportunities lie in the fact that global consumers’ demand for high-quality, cost-effective, and diversified supply has not disappeared, but their understanding of “cheap” is evolving. In this sense, 2025 may not be the most exciting year for cross-border e-commerce, but it could very well be a year that determines the industry’s long-term landscape. Having weathered a challenging year, Chinese cross-border e-commerce is transitioning from a speed-driven competition to a true endurance race.
