New changes create new space.
Since the beginning of this year, with the complete closure of the T86 small-amount tax-free channel in the United States, and the EU is about to cancel the tax-free threshold for packages under 150 euros, the “tax-free bonus” of cross-border e-commerce is gradually disappearing.
Facing the new foreign trade environment, what new changes have occurred in the development of China’s cross-border e-commerce?
On May 27, at the 2026 Ningbo Export Cross-border E-commerce Expo (hereinafter referred to as “Ningbo Cross-Border Expo”), which gathered 2,500 foreign trade factories, 36 cross-border e-commerce platforms and 190 cross-border service companies, it was discovered that the current cross-border e-commerce development structure is diverging.
Among them, cross-border e-commerce companies and platforms, as typical representatives of new foreign trade formats, are rapidly expanding the market at the front, and branding has become a key growth point.
At the same time, foreign trade factories and supply chains work closely with the former to develop vertical manufacturing capabilities in the background and produce “high-quality and cost-effective” Chinese-made products, further enhancing the comparative advantages of the supply chain and bringing compound profits.
At the Ningbo Cross-border Expo, a salesperson from a Shenzhen cross-border e-commerce company asked about the price of a new pet groomer and pet water blower in front of the booth of a Zhejiang Jinhua factory.
The salesman said that he came to the exhibition with a mission to find categories with high unit prices, mainly for EU and American consumers.
“We can do dropshipping for some large-ticket items, but products with relatively low gross profit are not suitable now,” the salesman said.
While visiting the exhibition, I encountered many heads of cross-border e-commerce companies asking carefully in front of the home appliances and large home furnishing booths, looking for foreign trade products with high customer unit prices. This reflects that it is increasingly difficult for cross-border e-commerce companies to do simple distribution.
In the past, the two biggest cards of China’s cross-border e-commerce were a large number of SKUs and extreme prices, focusing on the North American and European markets, but now the situation has changed.
Starting from August 29, 2025, the United States has stipulated that all imported packages of US$800 and below will no longer be tax-free; on May 2 this year, the US T86 customs clearance channel was completely closed.
Starting from July this year, the EU will cancel the tax-free threshold for parcels below 150 euros and charge parcel processing fees.
Coupled with the rapid increase in compliance costs, overseas warehouses and local fulfillment have become standard, and the trend of the cross-border e-commerce industry has changed accordingly.
In this regard, the country has also established a new positioning for the development stage of cross-border e-commerce and launched a series of support measures.
On April 6, the Ministry of Commerce, together with six departments including the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, issued the “Guiding Opinions on Better Serving the Real Economy and Promoting the High-Quality Development of E-Commerce,” which clearly stated that cross-border e-commerce should be promoted from scale expansion to high-quality development and help upgrade “Made in China” to “Chinese Brand”.
Currently, branding has become a key growth point for many leading cross-border e-commerce companies.
Saiwei Times is a cross-border e-commerce company that started brand transformation earlier. Its main business is in the field of clothing. According to Saiwei Times’ 2025 annual report, the company’s revenue will increase by 15% and net profit will increase by 32.17% in 2025. A total of 12 brands have annual sales of more than 100 million yuan.
Also in the clothing track, cross-border e-commerce company Zibuyu will start to establish a brand department in 2024. In fiscal year 2025, its revenue will increase by 40.15% year-on-year, and its net profit will increase by 78.55% year-on-year. The revenue of high-end brand RQ is close to 100 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of approximately 1.9 times.
The refined competition differentiation of “high customer unit price + brand” in the cross-border e-commerce industry has gradually changed the perception of overseas consumers that “Made in China equals cheap”.
Behind this is also a new upgrade of manufacturing in China.
At the Ningbo Cross-Expo site, Fan Liangxing, the person in charge of Guangdong Cube Chain Home Furnishing Co., Ltd., introduced that the company was originally a sponge processing company, and later produced mattresses independently. In 2022, it switched from domestic sales to foreign trade, and simultaneously established a cross-border e-commerce supply chain. The current annual revenue is about 200 million yuan, and is expected to grow to 500 million yuan in 2026-2027.
At present, Blockchain’s cross-border e-commerce orders account for about 60%.
Fan Liangxing mentioned that e-commerce companies generally require factories to have an after-sales ratio of 1% or 2%, but Cube Chain Home previously had higher requirements for brand OEMs, reaching an after-sales ratio of 50,000.
“Our manufacturing capabilities have been honed, and our low after-sales ratio highlights our advantages in the cross-border e-commerce supply chain. At the same time, we develop new products quickly, sample quickly, and even logistics and packaging can save costs for customers. A high-quality supply chain and cost-effective products are the key to attracting customers.” Fan Liangxing said.
Dan Changhong, general manager of Foshan Nanhai Dijia Garden Furniture Co., Ltd., also said that the company started with gardening supplies, and now the market has covered the world, with cross-border e-commerce orders accounting for 15% – 20% of the total business volume, catching up with the period when cross-border e-commerce companies are transforming into high-priced categories and branding.
In Dan Changhong’s view, the advantage of foreign trade factory-type enterprises lies in their deep accumulation in manufacturing. “Our understanding of outdoor products is based on decades of production and manufacturing, and details determine success or failure. Now, we are also working with front-end cross-border e-commerce companies to figure out what consumers need and like. This is a big step.
The direction of research together.”
At the booth of Ningbo Ningxing Trading Group Co., Ltd., I saw an air fryer with colorful noodles. This is the company’s best-selling product this year. It is mainly sold in offline supermarkets in Europe and the United States, and mainly through cross-border e-commerce in Russia and Southeast Asia.
The company’s business manager Liu Haixiang said that the iterative update of this air fryer was completed after customers put forward their needs and they further followed up and docked, relying on the company’s full-process design and development system.
This is very different from the traditional order-taking thinking of foreign trade factories, which emphasizes the in-depth participation of customers from ideas to products, while factories allow ideas to be quickly implemented.
An executive of the company said that making products now is not just about simple trade and interaction, but about differentiated competition and more about meeting the personalized needs of customers.
When it comes to cross-border e-commerce, the executive believes that some cross-border e-commerce companies face the dilemma of homogeneous product selection when looking for sources of goods. “Therefore, we are now working with customers to complete the development of new products to help customers expand their cross-border e-commerce product selection.”
This model of in-depth cooperation between cross-border e-commerce and foreign trade factories is not an exception.
Driven by the continuous upgrading of the supply chain, the cost-effectiveness advantage of Chinese products in overseas markets is also expected to accelerate the transformation into brand advantage, opening up new space for the development of cross-border e-commerce under the new foreign trade situation.
