Reference News website reported on June 23 that the US Consumer News and Business Channel website published an article titled "Chinese Exporters Are Increasingly in Need of Building Brands to Survive" on June 18. The author is Zheng Yilun. The full text is excerpted as follows:
"Do you need a warehouse in the United States?" "Do you need a warehouse in Mexico?" "Shipping to Europe?"
This week, when I attended the 2025 10th Shenzhen International Cross-border E-commerce Trade Expo, Mandarin-speaking salespeople enthusiastically promoted their logistics services.
For companies selling products from China to the United States and other countries through the Internet, this is one of the most important events of the year. Amid a moderate truce in the Sino-US tariff war, many companies seem eager to enter the US market.
However, the rules of the survival game have changed.
In an interview at the exhibition, Xu Jingxian, partner of startup Love Creation (Zhuhai) Artificial Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd., told me, "In the past 30 years, Chinese companies have become very mature in supply chain integration. Nowadays, if there is a tool that can help (companies) tell a better story and resonate with users... they can go overseas with brand characteristics and conduct business in a healthier, more sustainable, and more profitable way."
She said, "Not all customers here are aware of the necessity of building a brand." She pointed out that those who understand this best are Chinese entrepreneurs who have studied abroad. However, she warned that without intrinsic differentiation, Chinese companies will find it difficult to survive overseas in the next 30 years.
In the cross-border e-commerce sector, although a few companies with Chinese origins like Temu and Shein are receiving the most attention, as domestic competition intensifies, several smaller Chinese companies are also leveraging the Internet to sell directly to overseas consumers.
Li Xiaoming (phonetic), distribution manager of Shenzhen Present Cloud Network Technology Co., Ltd., said, "The United States remains the world's largest consumer market and the destination for most cross-border e-commerce sellers." He said that although the company has shifted its focus to other countries, it still retains some resources to deploy to the US market when conditions improve in the coming months.
No matter what, Chinese sellers are plunging into the cross-border e-commerce wave.
Presentation Cloud Network Technology Co., Ltd. claims that as of June this year, the company has a total of 800,000 customers, and about 200,000 companies joined the MiaoShou platform developed by the company in the past six months. Li Xiaoming (phonetic) said that the company's goal this year is to double the transaction volume of its customers on the platform. To stand out in such a fiercely competitive environment, these companies need better brand promotion and marketing, especially in the current trade environment.
Hao Haoyang, president of the China region of financial technology startup FungPaw International, said, "We believe that these tariffs mark a process of complete market adjustment," squeezing out companies that previously relied solely on price rather than product quality to compete.
Hao Haoyang, who previously worked at Alibaba, said that this startup has become the official loan provider for some Chinese sellers on Walmart's e-commerce platform and plans to reach similar partnerships with sellers on Amazon later this year.
Hao Haoyang said that FungPaw International is providing more loans for companies to run advertisements, and clients have increased their marketing expenditures to up to 20% of their product turnover, far higher than the 3% to 5% in 2023.
Although advertising spending can bring short-term sales surges, building a brand is a longer-term process and a more challenging task. If Chinese exporters want to compete globally, they need to focus on this arduous task of building a brand.
This situation is similar to that of China's fiercely competitive electric vehicle industry. Companies have been significantly cutting prices and offering more high-tech features, but to remain long-term attractive, they need to build brands that resonate with consumers.
Some Chinese companies believe they have the means to build brands but lack legal resources to protect themselves—especially in cases where lawsuits initiated by existing market participants may force Chinese sellers to shut down.
Zhang Chao, secretary-general of the Legal Department of the Shenzhen Cross-border E-commerce Association, said that this has become a very pressing challenge. In such cases, some Chinese merchants support a platform that provides litigation services with a low-cost structure, which might otherwise be quite expensive. He leads a team of approximately 30 people.
His plan is to consolidate litigation into thousands or tens of thousands of cases to negotiate lower fees with law firms in the United States or other markets. Zhang Chao hopes to reach a threshold of 1,000 lawsuits by this time next year.
A few companies at the expo also promoted services ranging from compliance to business registration—a flyer said obtaining a US trademark costs $485, now discounted by $150. However, since many merchants seem to be imitating each other's styles and only trying to undercut others on price, it is evident that the concept of branding has yet to catch on. (Translated by Li Sha)
Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7519054263390093862/
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