It takes a freight train more than 10 days to bring Chinese products like phones and personal computers from southwestern China's Sichuan province to the city of Lodz in Poland.
But to help Chinese manufacturers reach Polish buyers, e-commerce is seen as a much more efficient solution.
OSell, a major Chinese cross-border e-commerce company, has launched a new service in Poland that points the way forward. It not only allows local retailers to check Chinese product samples without stepping out of their country, but also enables them to place online orders and contact potential Chinese sellers via mobile devices.
The Chongqing-based company on Monday inaugurated operations at its cross-border e-commerce industrial park in Poland's capital, Warsaw.
The 4,300-square-meter industrial park allows Polish buyers to check Chinese products on site, without the hassle of a long-haul fight to China. It also gives them direct access to producers, via scanning quick respond codes so they can process online orders.
OSell Executive President Liu Wenting said that by linking online and offline facilities, buyers and sellers in China and Poland could have barrier-free communications through the company's apps and build up trust to do business with its offline showrooms.
"With this new model of e-commerce, they don't need to spend a lot of time and money traveling to China to search for the ideal products any more and they can buy directly from Chinese factories, which boosts efficiency and cuts costs," she said at the China-Polish online silk road cooperation summit in Warsaw.
The business summit was held during Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Poland. The Warsaw visit follows Xi's trip to Serbia, where he said Serbia could also play a role in Beijing's plan for a new Silk Road to boost trade with Europe, Asia and Africa.
Poland, which is located at the crossroads of Central and Eastern Europe, is seen by OSell as an important gateway to expand its cross-border e-commerce to other European countries.
"With the rapid economic development of Poland and the rising income of its people, there will be rising demand for the high-quality necessities of daily life," OSell's Liu said.
"We expect the made-in-China textiles, shoes, home appliances and furniture, which are already competitive enough in quality, to see a bright future in the country," she said.
Poland is China's biggest trading partner in Central and Eastern Europe, while China is Poland's third-largest source of imports.
