Chinese Crave Imports; Cross-Border eCommerce to Clear $100 Billion

November 16, 2024         By: Steven Anderson

A proper mix of imports and exports can keep an economy running smoothly while giving everybody access to some of the best goods and services the world over. New word from eMarketer, sent our way by the group, notes that the Chinese are taking to imports with surprising alacrity, driving spending on same to the $100 billion mark by the end of this year.

The eMarketer report points to “a growing middle class in China” that prefers foreign goods to the stuff found in China proper. They’re willing to spend accordingly, and are driving cross-border e-commerce up substantially to match. The average spend per buyer is just $882, so that shows you just how many people are doing the spending accordingly. Almost one in four Chinese digital buyers—23 percent—will make at least one cross-border purchase in a lifetime.

It’s not some kind of foreign mystique that’s driving these sales; the cross-border buyers believe that not only are the logistics better when it comes to foreign goods, but there’s also a perception that the purchased imports are actually—brace yourself for this one—of a better quality than those found domestically in China.

China’s actually making it easier for such purchases to happen; websites like Kaola and Tmall Global, among others, are driving interest and making it easier to plunk down cash for those goods. Several market segments are seeing this growing demand, including health and beauty goods, maternity goods and goods for what happens immediately after maternity: the baby.

It’s surprising that Chinese consumers with more cash are starting to eschew local goods on the basis of quality; I’ve actually run into this myself, having reviewed a number of small-brand Chinese cell phones that did some truly outlandish things—one was actually a small analog television, complete with antenna, built into the phone—but weren’t exactly long on survivability. I don’t think any of them actually work today.

Considering some of China’s past blunders in production, like the lead in children’s toys and melamine in dog food—not to mention the eyeball toy bizarrely filled with kerosene—it’s not too surprising to see its own countrymen look elsewhere for quality goods. E-commerce is making such practices simpler, and mobile payments are making it even easier for that growing middle class to land imports.