Under the current environment of increasing tariff costs, cross-border e-commerce is facing a critical period of localization, branding, and AI transformation.
As trade protectionism rises and tariff pressure continues to increase, the era of cross-border e-commerce where small packages are shipped overseas is coming to an end.
Yang Yi, head of Alibaba’s AliExpress brand overseas marketing, said during the 2026 China (Guangzhou) Cross-border E-commerce Fair: “The form of small parcel exports can no longer go back. We must
Get rid of this kind of thinking and adjust from exporting goods in the form of packages to exporting in the form of brands. Only then will there be a future.
“Following the cancellation of the tariff exemption policy for small packages last year by the United States, the EU will also cancel the tariff exemption policy for small packages under 150 euros on July 1 this year.
This move will significantly increase the cost of exporting cross-border e-commerce low-unit price products overseas. Some small and medium-sized sellers face severe challenges with labor-intensive products, and the structure of overseas products will undergo major changes in the future.
Faced with this dilemma, localization, branding and AI have become the three major coping strategies.
AliExpress is actively cooperating with Chinese brand merchants to deploy overseas goods to overseas warehouses in various countries. This has become one of the main trends in the future.
Currently, AliExpress has set up overseas warehouses in 27 countries to help merchants improve their logistics fulfillment capabilities.
Yang Yi emphasized: “Compliance will be a test. We must promote the export of Chinese goods from commodity form to brand form so that they can have a premium and bear the cost increase caused by tariffs. The next step may be the arrival of a new era of Chinese brands.” AliExpress plans to help 2,000 Chinese brands go overseas to double their scale.
In addition, AI technology plays an important role in the field of cross-border e-commerce.
It can reduce costs and increase efficiency, and has been widely used in product release, translation, customer service, customs declaration and other aspects of cross-border e-commerce, significantly reducing operating and labor costs.
Yang Yi said that some leading cross-border e-commerce companies could only operate business in 7-8 countries in the past. In the future, they may be able to serve hundreds of national markets at the same time with the help of AI technology.
Enterprises in industrial belts also have their own countermeasures.
Zhao Jiang, general manager of Guangzhou Yiyun Beauty Industry Belt Product Selection Center, said that some of their manufacturer customers already have their own brands in six countries, and their target markets are expanding from Europe and the United States to overseas emerging markets to absorb the impact of cross-border e-commerce tariffs.
“Spot goods are the trend,” said Liu Gang, founder of the Zhongshan Lamp Factory Cross-Border Spot Alliance. They have organized more than 40 factories in the industry to provide foreign e-commerce sellers with spot goods in overseas warehouses to help export high-value-added lighting products.
They have built their own overseas warehouses in the United States, and have also started leasing overseas warehouses in Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada.
However, how to develop overseas warehouses in compliance with regulations is a problem that the industry needs to further solve.
Liu Feina, executive president and secretary-general of the Guangdong Provincial Internet Business Association, analyzed that the cancellation of tax exemption for small-value parcels in Europe and the United States has had a chain reaction, and relevant policies in many overseas countries and regions such as Brazil and Vietnam are also tightening, which forces cross-border e-commerce companies to take compliance as the first step to go overseas.
“Compliance used to be a bonus, now it is a must-answer question, and in the future it will be the ticket.” At the same time, AI also brings new opportunities to cross-border e-commerce companies. AI can make pictures and videos. Some AI-native sellers can even operate with one person worth hundreds of people, making cross-border e-commerce equal.
