In the past two years, many factory-type cross-border sellers have become accustomed to the fully managed model: the platform is responsible for traffic, pricing, logistics and after-sales. As long as the merchants supply goods, they can take advantage of the overseas dividends.
But this phase is ending.
From 2024, SHEIN semi-custodial opened to the United States and five European countries, to the end of April 2025, Temu US station fully managed products were removed from the shelves on a large scale, and traffic shifted to semi-managed, and then to TikTok in January 2026
Shop has raised EU commissions, and in May 2026 AliExpress will increase its focus on the US, South Korea, and Latin American markets and adjust its fulfillment and merchant incentive policies. The leading platform has released a clear signal: cross-border e-commerce is no longer just about “who supplies cheaper”, but has entered a new stage of “who can operate, control goods by themselves, and bear risks by themselves.”
Full hosting was once a key model for the rapid growth of cross-border e-commerce.
For merchants, its biggest attraction is that the threshold is low. Many factories that are unfamiliar with overseas markets can also use the platform to quickly sell goods around the world.
For the platform, full hosting can also expand the product pool in a short period of time and attract overseas consumers with sufficiently rich and low-priced products.
However, as the industry enters a new stage, the pressure on platforms to continue to “cover the bottom line” begins to become increasingly heavy.
Costs are getting higher and higher, and the larger the order volume, the harder it is to ignore costs such as inventory, fulfillment, customer service and compliance; profits are getting thinner and thinner, and low prices can bring orders, but not necessarily profits; risks are getting bigger, and European and American regulations and return costs are increasing pressure.
Semi-custodial means that while the platform continues to provide traffic, transaction rules, partial logistics fulfillment and basic services, it returns more autonomy to merchants such as product selection, pricing, stocking, store operations, local fulfillment, and brand building.
What semi-custodianship really changes is the distribution of costs, risks and profits between platforms and merchants.
Costs are no longer borne unilaterally by the platform. The platform hands more operating responsibilities to the merchants, and the merchants must truly look at the cost structure of each order; risks shift from the platform to sharing them with merchants. Merchants take back pricing rights, stocking rights, etc., and must also bear the corresponding consequences; profits
The space has been opened up, but it is no longer about earning dividends. Merchants have the opportunity to obtain higher unit prices, higher repurchases, and more stable profits; the role of the platform has changed from “operating on behalf of others” to “infrastructure”, providing traffic entrances, transaction rules, etc., but it no longer bears all operating results for merchants.
Based on the mid-2026 node, the decline of full hosting and the popularity of semi-custody is a signal for cross-border e-commerce to shift from rapid expansion to refined operations.
The right to speak has been transferred, and sellers have replaced platforms as the core of operations; compliance and risk control have become rigid, and localized stocking has become standard for merchants; price competition has faded, and brand quality determines market share; platform functions have been transformed, and infrastructure has replaced full control.
Overall, this transformation is essentially a shift in cross-border e-commerce from “platform-organized growth” to “platforms and merchants co-building an ecosystem.”
Low price is still important, but it is no longer the only answer; traffic is still critical, but it cannot replace products, brands and service capabilities.
In the future, companies that can balance platform efficiency and merchant autonomy, and continue to output differentiated products, localized services, and supply chain resilience will be more likely to gain long-term say in the global cross-border market.
