After 2000, China's cross-border e-commerce gradually rose. In particular, the announcement on the supervision of inbound and outbound goods and articles in cross-border trade e-commerce and the announcement on adding customs supervision mode codes (industry abbreviations "No. 56 document" and "No. 57 document") of China Customs in 2014 marked the rapid growth of cross-border e-commerce. Today, cross-border e-commerce has become an important engine to promote domestic and international double circulation and China's open economic development. In 2020, with the global spread of COVID-19, serious trade protectionism and a sharp decline in foreign demand, cross-border e-commerce, as a new form of foreign trade, performed brilliantly. According to the preliminary data of the General Administration of customs, in 2020, China checked and released 2.45 billion import and export bills through the customs cross-border e-commerce management platform, an increase of 63.3% over the previous year; In the whole year, the import and export of cross-border e-commerce was 1.69 trillion yuan, an increase of 31.1%, of which imports were 0.57 trillion yuan, an increase of 16.5%, and exports were 1.12 trillion yuan, an increase of 40.1%.
The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 and the global spread in 2020 led to profound changes and adjustments in the allocation of resources between the government and the market, and in the structure of product supply and demand. The academia and industry paid more attention to the development of epidemic economics. At present, the epidemic prevention and control in China has been effectively controlled. With the promotion of covid-19 vaccination in many countries in the world, the number of new confirmed cases and deaths of covid-19 in the world has decreased, and the epidemic has a clear trend of improvement. The epidemic has accelerated the development of domestic e-commerce and cross-border e-commerce. Cross border e-commerce essentially belongs to the e-commerce of international trade and the internationalization of e-commerce. It is an important part of Digital Trade and an important manifestation of economic globalization. In the post epidemic era, compared with traditional trade methods, cross-border e-commerce shows greater resilience and potential, facing both rare development opportunities and prominent challenges. It is suggested that the Chinese government and relevant departments grasp it scientifically and effectively, so as to promote cross-border e-commerce to achieve new development from a new starting point.
1、 Seize the new opportunities for China's cross-border e-commerce development in the post epidemic Era
（1） Channel opportunities: expand overseas retail channels
For a long time in the past, the retail channels in the European and American markets were firmly controlled by major retailers. Most export enterprises in China, especially in the clothing, home furnishings, groceries and consumer electronics industries, were constrained by capital, experience, culture, talents and other aspects, and it was difficult to establish overseas retail channels. They could only export through general trade, and were locked in manufacturing links with low profit margins for a long time. In the era of e-commerce, a large number of Chinese sellers sell products to overseas consumers through e-commerce platforms at home and abroad such as Amazon, eBay and Alibaba, bypassing intermediate links and significantly improving product profits. It is estimated that as of December 2020, 47.9% of the third-party sellers in Amazon's global market came from China, which reached an all-time high. Among them, Chinese sellers account for 46% of the active sellers of the US station, and Chinese sellers account for 46% of the top 10000 sellers. During the "double 11" period in 2020, China handled 52.27 million import and export lists through the customs cross-border e-commerce import and export unified version system, an increase of 25.5% year-on-year; The processing list peaked at 3407 tickets / second, an increase of 113.2% year-on-year, both hitting a new record.
（2） Brand Opportunity: high quality domestic brands take the opportunity to go to sea
Many enterprises in China have good product quality and service, but they are unknown to overseas consumers. Cross border e-commerce platforms take advantage of the global network, break through the limitations of traditional marketing channels, and provide support for Chinese brands to go abroad. For example, JD global can provide overseas marketing, cross-border logistics and other services to empower independent brands. Aliexpress has opened 18 languages, and its sites cover more than 230 countries and regions, It ranks first in the number of downloads of shopping apps in more than 100 countries. Facing end consumers directly, cross-border e-commerce enterprises can grasp first-hand information of overseas markets, track and understand overseas consumption habits and trends, and more easily transform domestic manufacturing advantages into brand advantages. At present, the brand awareness of enterprises is constantly strengthening, and some domestic OEM factories pay attention to patent registration when exporting through cross-border e-commerce, and crack down on infringement through legal means.
（3） Policy opportunity: expansion of comprehensive test area and addition of supervision code
Under the influence of COVID-19, the development of cross-border e-commerce is an important measure taken by the Chinese government to do a good job in "six stability" and implement the task of "six guarantees". The successive introduction of favorable policies such as the expansion of the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zone and the addition of regulatory codes shows the Chinese government's supportive attitude towards cross-border e-commerce, which ushers in a rare policy opportunity. In April 2020, the executive meeting of the State Council decided to establish 46 new cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot areas on the basis of the 59 established cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot areas. After the expansion, there will be 105 comprehensive pilot areas nationwide, covering 30 provinces. From the perspective of layout, from 2015 to 2020, the comprehensive pilot zone expanded its capacity in five batches, extending the pilot cities from large and medium-sized cities in the east to provincial capitals and second and third tier cities in the central, Western and northeast regions, and to third and fourth tier cities with good foreign trade foundations. In 2020, the General Administration of Customs launched cross-border e-commerce enterprise to enterprise (B2B) export pilot sites on the basis of the original "9610" (B2C domestic enterprises sending goods to overseas consumers) and "1210" (B2C domestic enterprises sending goods stored in the customs special supervision area or bonded warehouse to overseas consumers), and added the "9710" (cross-border e-commerce B2B direct export) and "9810" (cross-border e-commerce export overseas warehouse) trade modes. In Beijing, Tianjin 22 customs directly under the central government, including Nanjing, have promoted the supervision of cross-border e-commerce from B2C to B2B, and have taken measures to facilitate customs clearance.
（4） Model Opportunity: technology and service accelerate going out
At present, China's e-commerce development as a whole is in the leading position in the world, providing important support for technology and service output. It has gradually formed a mature solution and technical standard system in e-commerce platform network payment, logistics and warehousing, express delegation, technical support and other aspects, and has the ability to export mode experience and technology to foreign countries. The development of online retail in Europe and the United States will accelerate the internationalization of domestic e-commerce platform mode system and form a new pattern of "made in China + China Platform + China service" groups going abroad. Social e-commerce such as live broadcasting and goods delivery is still in its infancy in Europe and the United States, but has already flourished in China. The online shopping platform integrates digital payment, group purchase, social media, games, instant messaging, short video and online popular live broadcasting, which is more dynamic than the development of Western e-commerce. After the outbreak of the epidemic, the overseas version of Tiktok, which is popular all over the world, launched the video shopping cart function, promoted the star short video delivery mode, and led the international e-commerce trend.
（5） Market opportunities: Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and other markets have great potential
Europe and the United States are still the most important markets for cross-border e-commerce, but ASEAN has become China's largest trading partner, and cross-border e-commerce trade has great potential. A survey shows that nearly 40% of the enterprises interviewed have entered Southeast Asia, surpassing Japan, South Korea and Russia. However, less than 20% of the enterprises have entered Africa, Latin America and other markets. There is great room for market expansion in the future. Taking Africa as an example, the potential user group of African e-commerce market is huge, developing rapidly, and has great market potential. Its market is similar to China's middle and low-end market. Chinese e-commerce enterprises have rich experience in extending cross-border e-commerce business to the African market. At the same time, Africa's age structure with young people as the main body will promote the development of e-commerce. On the basis of the rapidly growing young population, the gradual popularization of the Internet, the improvement of education, the gradual stabilization of the political situation, the improvement of the payment environment, and the gradual opening of the business environment will greatly promote the rapid growth and expansion of e-commerce in Africa. The global COVID-19 epidemic also provides development opportunities for China's cross-border e-commerce to explore the African market. Judging from the situation at the beginning of 2021, Africa will still face the haze of COVID-19. Although there is no "big outbreak" feared by the international community, South Africa and other countries have entered the second round of the epidemic, and there are more infectious virus variants. If vaccines can not be popularized as soon as possible, the epidemic may become the "normal" in Africa.
2、 In the post epidemic era, China's cross-border e-commerce faces new challenges
（1） Unstable external environment and absence of international rules
At the present stage, the main export countries of China's cross-border e-commerce are still developed countries such as the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Germany. These countries have good communication infrastructure, high Internet penetration, high consumer acceptance of overseas online shopping, and relatively mature market as a whole. However, for the international community, there is still a lack of uniform rules for cross-border e-commerce. For their own interests, some western countries have tightened relevant policies, hindered the formation of fair and reasonable international rules, and frequently provoked trade wars, which has a great impact on small and medium-sized cross-border e-commerce enterprises. In 2017, the European Union issued regulations to abolish the value-added tax exemption policy for imported goods less than 22 euros from 2021. All countries in the European Union are currently accelerating the implementation of this agreement through legislation. In 2019, the United States threatened to withdraw from the group, forcing UPU to reform the terminal rate increase and flatten the rate level among member countries. China's terminal fees will increase by 23.3% - 27% in 2020, and the highest may increase by about 164% by 2025. It is not excluded that some developed countries set their own terminal fees. These measures will increase the cost of Chinese goods and have a great impact on small and micro enterprises that rely on low prices.
（2） Incomplete supporting services and increased operational risks
To realize the global development of cross-border e-commerce, comprehensive import and export support services, such as payment services, logistics services and customs clearance services, are required. At present, the supporting services of the relevant industrial chain are not perfect enough, which brings three risks to cross-border e-commerce. First, the risk of import and export clearance. Some cross-border e-commerce enterprises lack specialized customs professionals and are not familiar with customs regulatory policies, inspection and quarantine requirements, relevant laws and regulations of import and export countries, and quality standards of various countries. In this case, enterprises generally entrust import and export customs declaration and other businesses to customs declaration companies or logistics enterprises, which increases the operating costs of cross-border e-commerce enterprises. On the other hand, due to the lack of professional knowledge of the enterprise itself, customs declaration companies and logistics enterprises have relatively little knowledge of products, which is prone to negligence in the process of cooperating with customs declaration, increasing the time cost of communication and problem handling. Second, intellectual property risk. Small and medium-sized enterprises lack professional knowledge of foreign intellectual property laws and regulations, and lack the ability to protect themselves by legal means when selling goods, which may lead to some goods being maliciously imitated and sold, thus causing economic losses. At the same time, when some enterprises sell goods, they also lack understanding of the relevant intellectual property laws and regulations of the selling country. The goods sold are identified as infringing, resulting in the removal of products from the shelves, even the freezing of funds and the entanglement of lawsuits. Third, international settlement risk. The effective supply of convenient cross-border payment and settlement services is insufficient. Some small and medium-sized cross-border e-commerce enterprises have reported that they have encountered international settlement risks for many times. For example, some third-party payment companies have used various rules to freeze the company's money, resulting in a slow return of enterprise funds. Some irregular third-party payment companies even have fraud. In addition, it is more difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to resist the risk of international currency exchange rate fluctuations.
（3） The transportation network is not smooth, and cross-border logistics is blocked
Cross border logistics is an important support for the development of cross-border e-commerce, a major indicator of the quality of cross-border e-commerce services, and directly related to the shopping experience and repurchase rate of overseas customers. China's cross-border e-commerce export logistics services mainly include six modes, including postal parcels, yiyoubao, international express, domestic express, special line logistics and overseas warehousing. The main problems of logistics transportation are long transportation time, high freight and high exchange costs. At present, the international epidemic is still ongoing, and international logistics and distribution are still constrained, affecting consumer shopping experience, increasing chargeback violations, and hindering the release of cross-border e-commerce potential. The strict quarantine measures imposed by some countries on Chinese goods have not yet been lifted, air transport capacity is in short supply, and freight rates have increased significantly. In the import and export market, due to the epidemic prevention and control, port personnel are reduced, distribution personnel are in short supply, and the speed of customs clearance and distribution has dropped significantly. According to a cross-border e-commerce service provider in Shenzhen, the logistics and distribution costs have increased by 35% compared with that before the epidemic, the cost of freight charter flights is more than four times that of the past, and the average time for sea freight to reach the United States has been extended by 2-3 weeks.
（4） The layout of overseas warehouses is not fast, and the construction and operation capacity needs to be improved
Overseas warehouse is an important node of cross-border e-commerce overseas and an important part of the supply chain system, which helps enterprises to realize localization operation, distribution service and market development overseas. At present, in addition to Alibaba and other large-scale e-commerce, other cross-border e-commerce enterprises in China mainly rent overseas warehouses of foreign enterprises such as Amazon. At present, there are prominent problems in the construction and development of China's overseas warehouses, which restrict their role. On the one hand, the phenomenon of disorderly competition is serious. Enterprises in various regions lack coordination in the construction planning of overseas markets, act independently, duplicate construction, and fail to form a reasonably distributed, linked and efficient service network. On the other hand, the construction level is uneven. Due to the high self construction cost and long return period, objectively there are more simple warehouses and less intelligent warehouses in the existing overseas warehouses, and the comprehensive service capacity needs to be improved. In Eurasia, overseas warehouses are generally small in scale, with less capital investment and low application rate of advanced technologies such as automated big data. It is impossible to analyze and adjust the matching degree of supply and demand in time, which is not conducive to optimizing the storage arrangement by taking advantage of the timeliness of China Europe trains, and affects the construction scale and development prospects of overseas warehouses. Affected by the epidemic prevention measures of various countries, the costs of overseas storage, logistics and disinfection and sterilization have increased, diluting the profits of enterprises and affecting the enthusiasm of enterprises for continuous investment.
（5） Innovation ability needs to be improved, and products tend to be homogeneous
For most small and medium-sized cross-border e-commerce enterprises, product homogeneity is an important problem that hinders their sustainable development. The homogenization of products has led to extremely fierce market competition, and the price reduction of peers has seriously compressed the profits and survival space of enterprises. Suppliers are unclear about product positioning and market demand. They always try to seize market opportunities by copying and following up. As a result, the products they provide lack characteristics and recognition. Many enterprises compete to lower prices to attract the attention of online buyers. Most of the goods sold on some foreign trade trading platforms are low value-added goods such as clothing, shoes and hats, household appliances, etc. it is difficult for merchants and manufacturers to copy, which deepens the homogenization of products. Some cross-border e-commerce platforms are limited by their own development scale and lack sufficient capacity to sign product monopoly agreements with suppliers, resulting in serious product homogeneity on third-party platforms. Although many cross-border e-commerce enterprises realize that the market yearns for innovative products, most domestic small and medium-sized enterprises are still in the development stage, with limited profits and insufficient innovation investment, resulting in slow product upgrading.
3、 Policy suggestions for China's cross-border e-commerce development in the post epidemic Era
In the post epidemic era, the Chinese government should adhere to the principle of "encouraging innovation, inclusiveness and prudence", further improve policy innovation and supervision, focus on the prominent problems and bottlenecks faced by the development of cross-border e-commerce, accelerate the construction of cross-border E-Commerce Statistical Monitoring and supervision management system, increase support for the construction of cross-border logistics system for overseas warehouses, actively participate in the formulation of international rules for cross-border e-commerce, and create a good ecological environment for the development of cross-border e-commerce, Build cross-border e-commerce into an important breakthrough to cultivate new competitive advantages in foreign trade and promote high-quality development of foreign trade.
（1） Improve supporting services and improve cross-border trade facilitation
Strengthen the construction of cross-border e-commerce Industrial Park, introduce professional operation teams, integrate upstream and downstream enterprises of cross-border e-commerce, build a cross-border e-commerce industrial park integrating key production factors, customs clearance logistics system, warehousing and payment marketing, and provide support for the rapid expansion and strength of the cross-border e-commerce industry. We will strengthen the construction of the e-commerce logistics information service industry and provide cross-border e-commerce operations with various information service enterprises, including online logistics, after-sales service, international logistics credit system and dispute settlement. We will improve the cross-border payment system, strengthen the construction of cross-border payment infrastructure, encourage RMB pricing and settlement, and establish an all-round and multi-level regulatory system for cross-border payment and settlement. Pilot digital RMB, support the standardized development of third-party cross-border payment business, promote the facilitation and efficiency of cross-border e-commerce payment and settlement, strengthen the real-time grasp of cross-border e-commerce transaction information throughout the chain, and improve the transparency of cross-border capital flow. Pay attention to the training of cross-border e-commerce professional application-oriented talents, build a talent collaborative training mechanism with colleges and universities, and provide talent protection for enterprises through the form of school enterprise cooperation.
（2） Strengthen industrial planning and promote high-quality product development
Promote the organic integration of cross-border e-commerce and the real economy, promote the digital transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, accurately match supply and demand, and stimulate and release greater development potential. We will actively guide cross-border e-commerce and traditional retail to connect and cooperate, expand the import of high-quality products, promote consumption upgrading, and promote traditional manufacturing to touch the Internet. Strengthen the sharing of data resources with cross-border e-commerce, and enhance the research and judgment of demand markets and emergency response capabilities. Make full use of data tools to analyze the sales market data, guide enterprises to avoid blindly following the trend, reasonably select business products, and concentrate limited resources on the determined direction. To encourage cross-border e-commerce enterprises to innovate, we can transform scientific research achievements, reduce development costs, and guide cross-border e-commerce enterprises to carry out brand management through cooperation with universities and scientific research institutes. Strengthen the construction of the integrity system of Chinese enterprises and products, support the high-quality development of production enterprises, improve the performance and quality of their own products, improve the after-sales service of products, and establish a good product reputation and brand awareness.
（3） Reduce logistics costs and promote the construction of overseas warehouses at a high level
By optimizing the layout of overseas warehouses, improve the digital level of overseas warehouses, improve the efficiency of the supply chain, and enhance customer stickiness. Financial departments should actively provide funds and financial support, support enterprises to build overseas professional warehouses and smart warehouses, improve service quality and reduce logistics costs. Strengthen international cooperation and coordination, select key markets along the "the Belt and Road" into the multilateral mechanism, and strive for a favorable external environment for cross-border e-commerce platform enterprises to go global and build overseas warehouses. Give full play to the advantages of all kinds of overseas institutions in being familiar with local legal market conditions, actively provide information services, and help solve problems encountered. Governments at all levels should strengthen overall planning, improve the global layout of overseas warehouses, avoid duplicate construction, and accelerate the formation of a moderately advanced overseas warehouse network that radiates the global layout. Promote the establishment of a public information service platform for overseas warehouses, form an effective matching mechanism between supply and demand, strengthen the publicity and promotion of successful practice cases of overseas warehouses, and guide the healthy development of overseas warehouses.
（4） Promote openness and cooperation and improve the international development environment
We will continue to give play to China's global leading edge in e-commerce, comply with the development trend of digital trade, promote countries to reduce cross-border e-commerce barriers, promote liberalization and facilitation, and jointly make the cross-border e-commerce cake bigger. We will deeply participate in multilateral e-commerce negotiations, take the initiative to set up relevant digital trade rules, and promote the establishment of a rule system that is conducive to the healthy development of cross-border e-commerce and represents the interests of the overwhelming majority of countries under the WTO framework. We will continue to promote the joint construction of the "the Belt and Road", actively develop the "Silk Road" e-commerce, deepen consultation and cooperation on customs clearance and logistics supervision methods, dispute handling, data protection, and explore the formation of a regional rule system. Adhere to a prudent monetary policy, stabilize the fluctuation of RMB exchange rate within a controllable range, guide enterprises to do a good job in avoiding foreign exchange fluctuations, and improve the risk management level of cross-border e-commerce market.