Looking back to 2025, the days when cross-border e-commerce relied on picking up dividends and making quick money are completely over. The entire industry has begun to work hard to achieve stable development.
Nowadays, big companies in the industry are undergoing transformation, which has also pointed out the direction for everyone: if you want to win in the future, you can’t just rely on luck, you have to work hard on logistics, supply chain, branding and intelligence.
If you want to do a good job in cross-border e-commerce, you will focus on three things, each of which is worthy of in-depth discussion.
First of all, go into a specific area and cultivate it deeply, instead of running around blindly.
Stop thinking about “casting the net everywhere” and try to do it in every country and region. In the end, you won’t be able to do it well or deeply in any one of them.
For example, focusing specifically on certain countries in Southeast Asia, or a certain market segment in Europe and the United States, and thoroughly understanding the local rules, local preferences, consumption habits, and even local logistics and after-sales routines, familiarizing and understanding the customers in this region, and accumulating a stable customer base is much more reliable than just trying to do it here and there, and you can also make money in the long term.
By deeply cultivating in specific areas, companies can better understand local market needs, optimize products and adjust marketing strategies based on the characteristics of local consumers, thereby improving market competitiveness.
Secondly, create your own brand and don’t just fight on price.
In the past, many people doing cross-border business would take other people’s goods, put on a no-name brand, and rely on low prices to grab customers. Others would sell for RMB 100, while they would sell for RMB 80. In the end, they only earned a meager price difference, and they were easily squeezed out by their peers.
Things will be different in 2026. You have to build your own brand, even a small brand – let customers remember your brand and know what is good about your products, such as good quality and good after-sales service. Even if the price is a little higher than other brands, customers will be willing to buy it.
In this way, you can not only make more profits, but also be less likely to be eliminated by the market and go further in the long run.
Brand is one of the core competitiveness of an enterprise. Having its own brand can improve the added value of products and customer loyalty.
Finally, only by doing a good job in logistics and AI (building the underlying base) can we avoid being eliminated.
This is the most basic and critical thing, which is equivalent to the “foundation” of cross-border e-commerce. If the foundation is not laid firmly, all subsequent efforts will be in vain.
Let’s talk about logistics first: when customers buy something from you, what they care about most is how long it will take to receive it and whether it is in good condition.
If the logistics is very slow, it takes half a month or a month to arrive, or items are often lost or damaged, customers will definitely not buy again and will leave negative reviews, and gradually no one will come to you.
Therefore, we need to straighten out the logistics, find reliable logistics cooperation, optimize transportation routes, and try our best to allow customers to receive goods faster and safer, while at the same time controlling logistics costs so as not to waste money.
Let’s talk about AI: You don’t have to think that AI is very advanced or far away from you. In fact, it can be used in many places when doing cross-border business.
For example, AI can be used to help write product introductions and translate copy, saving time and making mistakes easier; AI can be used to analyze customer preferences, know what products customers like, and accurately recommend products to increase transaction rates; AI can also be used to manage inventory, knowing when to replenish goods and how much to replenish, so as to avoid inventory backlogs or shortages.
By using AI, you can save manpower, improve efficiency, and gain an advantage over others, so that you can keep your footing and avoid being eliminated.
In short, in the cross-border e-commerce industry in 2026, companies need to work hard in specific areas, build their own brands, and make good logistics and AI applications in order to gain advantages in the fierce market competition and achieve stable development.
