From June 16th to 18th, the 9th Global Cross-border E-commerce Festival and the 12th Shenzhen International Cross-border E-commerce Trade Expo were grandly held at Shenzhen Futian Convention and Exhibition Center.
This exhibition revealed many new changes in the cross-border e-commerce industry, especially the fact that AI applications have changed from “plus points” to “must have options.”
Wang Xin, executive chairman of the Global Cross-Border E-Commerce Association and president of the Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Association, said: “The core breakthrough in the industry this year is to fully open a new era of ‘AI empowering cross-border’.” The focus of industry discussions has shifted from “whether to use AI” to “how to use AI.”
AI technology is reshaping all aspects of the cross-border e-commerce industry at an unprecedented speed and depth, from discrete links such as assisted product selection and copywriting generation to the entire link.
This not only helps companies significantly reduce operating costs, but also changes the industry’s business model and competitive landscape.
The “2026 China Export Cross-Border E-commerce Development Trends White Paper” recently released by Amazon Global Store shows that more than 98% of Chinese sellers surveyed have used AI tools in their operations, and 16% of them have advanced to deploy AI workflows or agents.
According to data from China Research Institute, the current global AI e-commerce market has exceeded US$10 billion and is continuing to expand at a compound annual growth rate of more than 15%. It is expected that this number will climb to US$19.12 billion by 2030.
Wang Xin emphasized: “In the future, whoever can better embrace and use AI will be able to take the lead in global market competition.”
In addition to the widespread application of AI, the growth logic of the industry is also changing.
Wang Xin believes that the current cross-border e-commerce industry is shifting from scale dividend to value dividend, the old model driven by traffic is receding, and the era of quality and brand competition has begun.
Wang Chen, president of the Portuguese and Romanian branches of the Shenzhen-Shenzhen Transnational Association, has long been rooted in the southern European market.
He pointed out that Portugal and Romania are the fastest-growing emerging e-commerce markets in Europe, with growth rates higher than the Western European average in the past two years, but competition is far less intense than in mature markets such as Germany and France.
“Chinese products are very popular due to their high cost performance, and at the same time, the needs of local consumers are rapidly escalating.” He called the current moment a “golden window period” for Chinese cross-border e-commerce merchants to expand into these two markets.
However, the attitude of merchants entering the market has changed. “The European market is not a place to make quick money. Merchants need to concentrate on polishing their products and services, accumulating brand reputation, and they also need to share resources, exchange needs, and share risks to form a strong synergy. The era of going it alone is over.”
In fact, China’s cross-border e-commerce industry is undergoing a global transformation: from products going overseas to brands going overseas, and then to “ecology going overseas.”
Wang Xin analyzed that the progress of these three stages is a true reflection of the development of China’s cross-border e-commerce – in the era of products going overseas, they rely on cost advantages to open up the market; in the era of brands going overseas, they begin to focus on quality and brand value; and in the era of ecological overseas expansion, it means that “it is no longer a single enterprise fighting alone”, but using AI as a link to connect the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain to build a global industrial ecosystem.
In 2025, the online transaction volume (GMV) of Shenzhen’s cross-border e-commerce sellers will exceed 1 trillion yuan, and the scale of cross-border e-commerce import and export has ranked first in the country for four consecutive years.
In November this year, this first cross-border e-commerce city will host the APEC leaders’ informal meeting.
Li Mingxing, global director of the World Trade Centers Association, said at the scene that the association will rely on the resources of the global World Trade Center network to build an accurate docking system for Asia-Pacific supply and demand to accurately match China’s supply chain with global diversified consumer demand.
