Global Christmas buyers embrace Chinese online retailers

As Christmas shopping adapts to the internet age, Chinese e-commerce sites are grasping the opportunity to play Santa Claus for the whole world.

In Russia, 29-year-old Eva is waiting for her son's new coat to arrive from China. A Christmas gift for her seven year old, she bought it using AliExpress, an overseas online shopping platform under Chinese e-commerce giant the Alibaba Group.

The platform, launched in 2010, has expanded its business to 220 countries and regions worldwide. Jiang Dongjian, director of Alibaba's international department, said, during this Christmas season, the platform has been providing discounts for various products including garments, beauty products and electronics.

He said Russia is a major market for Aliexpress. The website once organized a painting activity named "Santa Claus in my heart", with Russian children participating.

"One of the children even painted a Santa sitting on a Chinese dragon, and another kid's Santa was a giant panda in Santa's clothes," he said.

In recent years, China's booming e-commerce sector has been increasing expansion abroad.

Statistics from the Ministry of Commerce show cross-border e-commerce companies in China recorded a foreign trade volume of about 3.1 trillion yuan (497.1 billion U. S. dollars) in 2013, up by about 31.3 percent from 2012. The ministry predicted the volume will grow to 6.5 trillion yuan in 2016.

The LightinTheBox Holding Co., Ltd., another Chinese online retailer serving global consumers, has been offering discounts of up to 80 percent during this Christmas buying season.

On Black Friday, which is considered to be the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season, the company set a one-day sales record of 2.65 million U.S. dollars, a growth of 65.6 percent from last Black Friday, according to a report by the company.

China's manufacturers are also benefiting from the development of cross-border e-commerce.

MyLED.com, a subsidiary of Huaqiangwoguang based in Guangdong Province, provides Chinese LED products to customers around the world. Since September, the platform has been busy preparing for Christmas sales, since Christmas lights produced by Chinese LED manufacturers are a major export for China.

The company's CEO Zhang Bin said this year's Christmas sales have exceeded 10 million yuan, with the biggest order, including more than a hundred different products, coming from Germany.

"The good performance of the Chinese cross-border e-commerce firms is based on the advantages of 'Made in China' products. Meanwhile, online retailers have provided chances for the Chinese-made products to reach the international buyers more easily," he said.

"Manufacturers are enjoying a larger profit margin as they no longer have to rely on middlemen to go abroad," he added.

Cross-border e-commerce is also bringing discounted products from the foreign market to Chinese consumers during the Christmas season.

Xiu.com is a Chinese e-commerce focused on selling foreign luxury and fashion goods to Chinese buyers. Ji Wenhong, CEO of the website said, the Christmas buying season in western countries is a golden business opportunity for his company.

"Many foreign retailers start a clearance sale several days ahead of Christmas, and that is when we manage to buy the products at the lowest prices," he said.

China's e-commerce sector boom is backed by the central government's preferential policies.

The Ministry of Commerce and other departments issued a paper on implementing policies to support cross-border e-commerce retail export in August 2013. It defined six supportive policies for e-commerce exports, which covered areas such as inspection, quarantine, payment and tax rebate.

In January 2014, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation ruled qualified cross-border e-commerce retail export enterprises could utilize the same tax exemption and rebate policies as ordinary foreign trade enterprises.

"Establishing Chinese e-commerce brands and deepening their engagement in the global market competition should be the goals for the Chinese cross-border online retailers," Zhang Bin said.

However, further development of Chinese cross-border e-commerce is still facing obstacles such as the slow logistics and inconvenient cross-border payments, Zhang said.

E-commerce companies should pay more attention to improving the user experience in order to attract more international customers, he said.