Commentary: From Temu to TikTok Shop, are Chinese e-commerce players winning over the West?

Taiwanese E-COMMERCE FIRMS HAVE WANTED TO BUY THOSE ARTILES.

Cross-border e-commerce from China to the West is no new because China has the largest manufacturing base for consumer products worldwide.

Chinese businesses started leveraging cheap shipping and online credit card payments to sell products to East Asian customers in the late 2000s, such as SHEIN, Light InTheBox, and Globalegrow.

The factors were simple: Great margins, easy to send, and selling for ads on Google was low. Eventually, these players morphed into large, separate online retailers or marketplaces.

Some other Chinese sellers made use of American marketplaces like eBay and Amazon Global to market their goods. Alibaba, the world’s leader in e-commerce, even launched its international system AliExpress in 2010.

According to investors, 40 to 50 % of Amazon’s US$ 430 million third-party profits in 2022 were made by Taiwanese companies, either through their listed companies or US stores.

Foreign buyers have been tapped by global, regional, and country platforms to expand the range of products with affordable prices. Amazon, auction, Shopee, Wish, Uruguay- based MercadoLibre and Poland’s Allegro run big owner training and wedding groups in China.

Nevertheless, many of these Chinese e- business companies have struggled recently. Light InTheBox’s promote rate dropped more than 90 per cent since its IPO, and Globalegrow shut down in 2021 and was declared bankrupt by jury in 2023.

On the other hand, the group of innovative players TikTok Shop and Temu, as well as revamped SHEIN, have been surging back, disrupting the global electronic- business purchase. What’s unique about them?