Since this year, a cross-border e-commerce revolution with “fast” as its core is taking place across Jiangsu.
Cargo planes at the airport take off, overseas warehouses stock up in advance, cross-border trucks are assembled and run… They race against time to transport goods around the world. Behind this set of data is Jiangsu’s full sprint on the foreign trade track.
From January to April, Yangzhou City’s cross-border e-commerce import and export increased by 123.5% year-on-year; from January to May, cross-border e-commerce exports by air at Nantong Port reached 2.4797 million tickets, a year-on-year increase of 72.9%; from January to April, Nanjing Lukou Airport Customs inspected and released more than 8 million cross-border e-commerce export lists, and the weight of goods increased by nearly 30% year-on-year.
In this change, overseas warehouses play an important role.
The code-scanning gun beeped, and more than a dozen workers skillfully sorted and packed the boxes of household paper, which were then loaded onto trucks and shipped.
This is one of the overseas warehouses of Silk Piao (Yangzhou) International Trading Co., Ltd. in Vietnam.
As the first company in Yangzhou to adopt the “9810” (cross-border e-commerce export overseas warehouse) model, Silk Piao prepares goods in warehouses in Thailand, Vietnam and other places in advance. After consumers place orders on the platform, the goods are sent directly from the “warehouse at the doorstep”, and the delivery time is the fastest the next day.
“Compared with the traditional model, ‘9810’ has the advantage of front-end stocking in overseas warehouses, and the delivery time of goods is greatly improved. It not only shortens the time for customers to receive goods, but also helps enterprises to directly face foreign markets and reduce comprehensive costs.” Niu Guanglan, chairman of Silk Piao, said that the front-end reduces logistics costs and the back-end improves contract fulfillment certainty, which is especially critical for products such as paper towels that are quick to repurchase and fear of being out of stock. During overseas e-commerce promotions, the company’s daily sales can rise from an average of 300 orders to 3,000 orders per day.
The “fastness” of overseas warehouses is not only reflected in transportation, but also brings about the “fastness” of capital flow.
Niu Guanglan said that the real fatal sticking point in cross-border operations is never sales volume, but capital accumulation, long account periods, and stuck cash flow.
Fast capital turnover means “money moves fast”, which is the ultimate closed loop of all speeds and the core of sustainable cross-border profitability.
Most sellers suffer losses and go bankrupt. The core reason is not that they are not making money, but that profits are trapped in inventory, logistics, and account periods, resulting in low capital turnover efficiency.
The continued release of policy dividends makes companies more confident.
In 2025, the policy of “tax refund upon departure and re-accounting after sale” for cross-border e-commerce exports to overseas warehouses will be implemented, opening up new growth space for enterprises.
“In the past, when exporting to overseas, there was no tax refund if there was no sales. The goods and funds were pressed, and the operating pressure was very high. Now, through the overseas warehouse model, as long as the order, payment order, and logistics order are “three orders in one”, you can apply for tax refund when the goods leave the country, and the capital turnover is suddenly active.
“It’s getting better.”
Niu Guanglan revealed that the company’s cross-border e-commerce export volume exceeded 170 million yuan in 2025, an increase of more than 14 times over the previous year; in the first five months of this year, the cross-border e-commerce import and export volume reached 88 million yuan, and it is expected to reach a new level of 200 million yuan throughout the year.
In Yangzhou, more and more manufacturing companies are beginning to use “overseas warehouses” to expand their markets.
According to Yangzhou Customs statistics, from January to April, the growth rate of Yangzhou’s cross-border e-commerce import and export value led the province.
“We are working hard to promote the new model of ‘industrial belt + cross-border e-commerce + overseas warehouse’, and promote the gradual and in-depth integration of special industries such as plush toys, tourism daily chemicals, agricultural products, textiles and clothing with the platform.” Ren Bing, deputy director of Yangzhou Customs, said that in the next step, more small and medium-sized manufacturing companies will be helped to dare to build warehouses, make good use of warehouses, and seize new opportunities in global market competition.
The speed of cross-border e-commerce is also reflected in the incubation of hot products.
The speed of cross-border e-commerce lies in fast logistics and fulfillment on the surface, fast production and sales turnover in the middle layer, and quick demand prediction and risk stop loss at the bottom layer.
The first step of “Only fast but not broken” is to have the ability to quickly capture blank business opportunities and quickly incubate hot products.
A few days ago, Mansha (Suzhou) Technology Group Co., Ltd. completed a batch of aromatherapy products inspired by Su-style gardens and completed the declaration through the cross-border e-commerce 9710 supervision method and successfully shipped to the European market.
In recent years, aromatherapy products with both functional and cultural attributes have continued to be popular in the international market. “Chinese fragrance” carrying the oriental life aesthetics has become an “oriental symbol” loved by overseas consumers, which has opened up a new track for domestic companies to go overseas.
“In 2025, we exported 133 million yuan through cross-border e-commerce, a year-on-year increase of 79%. Our candles, sprays, fragrances, aromatherapy and other products will deliver Jiangnan fragrance to thousands of households around the world. We feel the confidence to upgrade from ‘Made in China’ to ‘Chinese Brand’.” Ma Zhenguo, chairman of Mansha Group, said.
In September last year, the main construction of Mansa’s national headquarters and industrial base project was completed, aiming to create an integrated platform of “R&D + production + experience” to further consolidate its competitiveness in the international mid-to-high-end fragrance market.
In the production workshop of Jiangsu Jiayubo Furniture Co., Ltd. in Henglin Town, Changzhou City, 3,000 pieces of cat nests will go overseas via ocean-going cargo ships after going through various processes such as cutting, edge sealing, punching, and packaging.
As the largest e-commerce industry cluster for laminate flooring, stone-wood plastic flooring, raised flooring and wooden furniture in the country, Henglin Town is known as the “Capital of Laminated Wood Flooring in China”.
The town has broken away from the limitations of traditional civilian furniture, tapped into the consumption potential of the global “other economy”, and cultivated pet furniture as a key derivative sector of the furniture industry. The export of derivative pet furniture categories such as cat climbing frames, solid wood pet nests, and steel-wood pet fences has a steady momentum.
“Unlike traditional foreign trade, the cross-border e-commerce track focuses on ‘fast turnover and high efficiency’. We can launch a new product in as soon as two weeks, which requires very high delivery capabilities of the company.” Zhang Dingchao, general manager of Jiayubo, said, “Once the shipment pace lags behind, in Amazon
When platforms such as Xunxun and TikTok are out of stock, they will not only directly lose order sales, but also affect store and brand reputation, seriously affecting the company’s overseas layout.
“According to reports, from January to May, the company’s export volume was approximately 57.22 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 106%.
In the fertile soil of Changzhou home furnishing industry, more and more “new generation” small furniture companies have grown up.
According to Changzhou Customs statistics, from January to April, Changzhou City exported wooden tools and small furniture products with a value of 543 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.7%.
Jiangsu is also constantly innovating in terms of overseas networks.
At the Nantong Customs cross-border e-commerce supervision cargo terminal at Nantong Xingdong International Airport, the “7×24” all-weather customs clearance guarantee mechanism, regardless of day or night or holidays, has made it the norm to “assemble goods into the warehouse on the same day, inspect them on the same day, and release them on the same day if there are no abnormalities.”
Fast fulfillment and logistics are the speed that consumers can most intuitively perceive.
In response to the cross-border e-commerce demand for small batches, fast turnover, and high timeliness, Jiangsu continues to break traditional logistics bottlenecks, deploy multiple points, and diversify innovations to open up a three-dimensional logistics system that links airports, land routes, and overseas warehouses. It effectively solves the pain points of tight space, cumbersome transfers, unstable timeliness, and high costs, making Jiangsu’s cross-border goods accessible to the world more efficiently, more stably, and more economically.
“From last year to this year, we have not been idle for a day and have been operating at full capacity. The peak order in a single day has now exceeded 30,000 orders.” Zhou Wei, manager of Nantong Fanzhong International Trading Co., Ltd., said that in the past, the most feared thing was “rushing goods”, but now we can arrange production and logistics more accurately.
In the past year, Nantong Customs focused on the pain points of corporate customs clearance and made every effort to promote the automatic docking of the cross-border e-commerce system and the water and air manifest system. Through repeated trial orders and process optimization, the automatic verification and write-off of the waybill and water and air manifest was realized.
This change means that enterprises do not need to manually submit data repeatedly. The system automatically compares, cancels, and clears customs clearance, and the customs clearance time is reduced to minutes.
On June 1, the Nanjing-Beijing-Melbourne cross-border e-commerce “air-air combined transport” route was officially opened.
This means that cross-border e-commerce sellers in Jiangsu and surrounding areas can ship their goods from Nanjing nearby and use the dense international route network of Capital Airport to achieve “one order to the end, seamless connection.”
“In the past, we used ‘land-air combined transport’ to depart from Shanghai or fly directly, and sometimes space was tight. Now with ‘air-air combined transport’, starting from Nanjing and transferring in Beijing, the time is more certain, and it also saves the trouble of customs declaration in other places.” Wu Yan, head of customs affairs at Nanjing Wolfo E-commerce Co., Ltd., calculated an account. Under the new model, the transfer operation time of a single ticket is reduced by about 8 hours compared with traditional batch shipment, and the comprehensive logistics cost can be reduced by nearly 20%.
More importantly, during the “618” e-commerce promotion period, direct flights are often “hard to find”. “Air-air combined transport” is equivalent to opening up a spare and efficient air channel for e-commerce goods.
In May, Wuxi opened a new logistics channel of “TIR + cross-border e-commerce”.
This is the first time that Jiangsu has implemented the TIR international road transport model, and it is also the first time that the province has adopted cross-border road transport to export cross-border e-commerce goods.
TIR transportation is a cross-border road transportation method established in accordance with the United Nations Convention on International Road Transport. It has the characteristics of “one declaration, one certificate, and one direct vehicle.”
As the “fourth logistics channel” besides shipping, railways and aviation, it is becoming an efficient and smooth “high-speed channel” in the global economic context.
“The TIR transportation mode is fast and flexible, and is very suitable for the multi-category and small-volume shipping needs of cross-border e-commerce. It is a stable and efficient new land logistics channel.” She Qiuyan, the person in charge of Wuxi Hanyuan E-Commerce Co., Ltd., said that it departs from Wuxi and reaches Moscow in 11 days, which saves 5 to 7 days compared with traditional road transportation.
