Around the Spring Festival, the cross-border e-commerce industry continues to be under pressure in the three major dimensions of compliance, cost, and competition, and is undergoing a profound reshuffle from “barbaric growth” to “intensive farming.”
Platform core dynamics
Coupang: Data leakage investigation escalates into geopolitical incident
South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang
The data breach crisis (involving approximately 34 million users) continues to unfold.
The South Korean government mobilized nine departments to conduct an unprecedented cross-agency investigation and even publicly discussed the possibility of issuing a “suspension of business” order, which shocked foreign-invested companies in South Korea.
U.S. politicians linked South Korea’s investigation of Coupang to former U.S. President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on South Korea, making the incident one of the focal points of the U.S.-South Korea trade friction.
This incident serves as a warning to all cross-border platforms and overseas companies that in key markets, corporate governance issues may quickly escalate into political and diplomatic issues and become uncontrollable “black swan” risks.
Amazon: Strategically shrinking offline business, tilting online resources to new sellers and promotional tools
Amazon is undergoing a new round of strategic focus and ecological optimization.
It announced a strategic contraction of direct-operated physical retail, closed all Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go unmanned convenience stores, focused its resources on Whole Foods and fresh food delivery business, and planned to add 100 stores to expand same-day delivery services.
At the same time, the “2026 New Sellers Settlement Plan” was officially launched, providing substantial subsidies such as first-leg logistics coupons and advertising coupons. After new sellers settle in the US site, the total cost of a single product can be reduced by up to 42%, and the gross profit margin is significantly increased.
The Japanese station’s spring sale has been upgraded to a “dual-session 168-hour” model, and functional updates for non-price reduction tools such as point promotions have been launched to support batch management of SKUs to help sellers optimize inventory and profits.
Temu: In response to global regulatory pressure, it suspended cross-border business in Türkiye and switched to a local model
In response to increasingly tightening regulations in various countries, Temu continues to adjust its global strategy.
All cross-border sales operations in Turkey have been suspended. The platform only displays and provides delivery services for products from local sellers in Turkey. The model has changed to a local e-commerce in response to Turkey’s new regulations that will cancel the simplified customs clearance procedures for goods under 30 euros starting from February 1.
During the Spring Festival, in order to stabilize traffic, the platform suspended the addition of the “similar product comparison” link.
These actions show that Temu is shifting from aggressive global expansion to more prudent and localized in-depth operations to avoid policy risks.
TikTok Shop: The United States has forced logistics integration and concentrated resources on top brands
TikTok Shop The US market is driving ecological upgrades through rules.
Starting from February 2026, the US region will cancel the seller’s self-delivery model and mandate switching to official logistics services such as FBT to fully control the fulfillment experience.
Invest billions of resources to launch the “TOP Plan” to provide exclusive logos, commission reductions and traffic support for leading overseas brands and sellers worth tens of millions of dollars to accelerate the growth of high-quality sellers.
In Southeast Asia, the “No Closing during Spring Festival” plan was launched to encourage merchants to continue operations, and prompts to stock up on popular products such as “Eid al-Fitr clothing” for precise layout.
New policies on domestic fiscal and taxation regulations (core risks)
From January 1, 2026, the “Value-Added Tax Law of the People’s Republic of China” and its implementation regulations will officially come into effect, and the collection and management logic will be upgraded from “controlling taxes with tickets” to “governing taxes with numbers.”
General taxpayers register “early warning zero”. After the annual sales exceed the 5 million standard, there will be no buffer period and tax must be calculated immediately according to the general taxpayer standard (up to 13%). The sales of the same entity operating on multiple platforms will be calculated together.
Export tax rebates “will be sold domestically if they are overdue.” If goods exported using overseas warehouses (9810 model) and other goods are not collected within the prescribed period and declare tax refunds, they will be directly regarded as domestic sales, and a 13% value-added tax will be paid.
Historical risks are “retroactively accountable”. Once past non-compliance behavior is audited, the back-paid sales will be traced back to the current period when the business occurred, and calculated according to the high tax rate applicable at that time, and late payment fees will be superimposed.
The requirements for entrusted exports are strict, and formal entrusted export procedures must be completed. The loophole of “paying for exports” has been completely blocked.
The new tax law is a game-changer for the industry, and for “waist sellers” with annual sales of around $5 million, compliance costs may balloon to unaffordable levels.
Industry Trends and Strategic Suggestions
The industry is showing three major trends: Compliance has changed from a “financial issue” to a “survival issue”. Domestic value-added tax laws and international platform rules have been combined, and non-compliant operating models have no room for survival; platform ecology is “horse-breaking”
The “too effect” is intensifying, and platform traffic and policies are concentrating on top sellers. Small and medium-sized sellers need to find differentiated market segments or turn to emerging platforms; global operations need to be aware of “political risks”, and sudden changes in geopolitics and host country regulatory policies may become a more deadly threat than market competition.
Emergency action suggestions for sellers include: immediately conduct a tax health diagnosis to verify whether historical business and current models comply with the requirements of the new tax law; reconstruct cost and profit models to include compliance costs and efficiency variables brought about by changes in platform policies; evaluate the strategic focus of the platform, brand sellers can apply for TikTok’s “TOP Plan”, and supply chain sellers evaluate Temu
Wait for platform localization opportunities, pay attention to Amazon’s subsidy window period for new sellers; strengthen the resilience of the supply chain, deploy overseas warehouses to respond to changes in customs clearance policies, standardize the tax declaration process for overseas warehouses, and strictly prevent the risk of “overdue sales being deemed as domestic sales”.
