E-commerce spreads its cross-border wings

Middle East focus

With the robust growth of the e-commerce export sector, more newcomers are tapping emerging and niche markets such as the Middle East and northern Europe, unlike traditional online marketplaces such as Alibaba and Global Sources.

Take Jollychic in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, for example. Founded in 2012 and now approaching consumers in Europe, the US and the Middle East, its mobile shopping app has become the leading and most influential one in the Middle East, offering a full range of products based on big data analysis.

Jollychic mainly sells goods to countries and regions taking part in China's Belt and Road Initiative. By the end of last year, registered users of the app globally topped 35 million, with its revenue growing by more than 300 percent annually over the past five years. Mainly selling clothes, shoes, bags and home products to customers in the Middle East, it has offices in China, the US, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The company acquired Marka VIP, a flash sales e-commerce platform in Jordan, last year and made this its second platform focusing on the Middle East.

"Right now we are still focusing on our mainstream Middle East market. We may also consider expanding into more countries taking part in the Belt and Road Initiative when conditions are ripe," Ding Wei, co-founder of Jollychic, told China Daily on the sidelines of the Third Global Cross-border E-commerce Summit in Hangzhou in June.

"Cross-border e-commerce, especially exports, involves many aspects, such as tariffs, after-sales and infrastructure. For us, over the next two years, the key task remains working on better localization, especially in after-sales in the Middle East market," Ding said.

He added that the company employs more than 1,000 staff members in the Middle East, and plans to add 3,000 new jobs.

"It is only through understanding local consumption and living habits that we can better integrate into the local market in terms of marketing, promotion, sales and logistics," he said.

Wang Xiaoyi, associate professor of marketing with the School of Management of Zhejiang University, said that with enhanced internet infrastructure, more businesses in countries taking part in the Belt and Road Initiative are keen to conduct cross-border trade online to lower their business risks.