This report takes stock of the industry trends in the cross-border e-commerce circle from May 19, 2026 to May 25, 2026.
First of all, in the United States, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted four mainstream container companies and seven executives, accusing them of jointly limiting production and raising prices from 2019 to 2024, violating antitrust regulations.
The four companies involved account for 95% of the world’s standard dry cargo container production capacity, and they met in Shenzhen to reach an agreement.
During the epidemic, box prices doubled, corporate profits soared, and the trade volume involved reached US$35 billion.
A senior executive has been arrested and awaits extradition, and the parties involved may face heavy fines, but the relevant charges have not yet been decided by the court.
This incident not only affects the market order of the container industry, but may also have a chain reaction on cross-border logistics and trade.
In the first quarter of 2026, U.S. e-commerce revenue increased by 9.8% year-on-year, a two-year high.
After excluding the 1.9% price increase, the actual sales volume increased by approximately 8%.
Nearly half of this growth was driven by price increases, while the rest relied on buy now, pay later credit consumption.
The transaction volume of eBay and Etsy has increased, but the user scale has basically stagnated. The revenue growth comes from the increased consumption of old customers.
The transaction scale of the installment payment platform has surged by more than 30%, which shows that industry growth is increasingly dependent on credit support and the growth of new users is sluggish.
This reflects that while the U.S. e-commerce market is growing, it is also facing some potential risks and challenges.
In South Korea, the May Shopping Festival was extremely popular, and major e-commerce platforms took advantage of it to launch major sales, and traffic and transaction volume increased significantly.
During the Gmarket and Auction promotions, the number of visits exceeded 30 million, and the transaction volume of popular products was up to 7 times that of normal days.
This major promotion has significantly boosted the growth of active users on the platform. With the number of users on top platforms peaking, South Korea is making May the core consumption node in the first half of the year to benchmark Black Five at the end of the year.
This has injected new vitality into the Korean e-commerce market and provided more business opportunities for cross-border e-commerce companies.
In the ASEAN region, Southeast Asia has risen strongly in the past decade and has become one of the fastest growing regions for global e-commerce. ASEAN has also become an emerging highland of the digital economy.
According to the e-Conomy SEA 2025 report, ASEAN’s digital economy GMV exceeded US$305 billion in 2025, of which e-commerce GMV simultaneously climbed to US$157.6 billion.
Indonesia firmly ranks first in terms of volume, while Vietnam leads the way with a growth rate of 25.5%, driven by its young demographic dividend, high Internet penetration rate and digital transformation, with the market size approaching US$31 billion.
This shows the huge potential of ASEAN’s digital economy. For cross-border e-commerce companies, the ASEAN market is an opportunity that cannot be missed.
To sum up, the cross-border e-commerce market shows different development trends around the world. Enterprises need to pay close attention to market dynamics, seize opportunities, and respond to challenges in order to achieve better development.
