On October 31, China International Chamber of Commerce, Deloitte, and Ali Research Institute released the “China Import Consumer Market Report” in Shanghai, stating that China’s consumption growth has promoted the continued development of the import business, and China has become the world’s largest importer of e-commerce consumers, cross-border e-commerce The number of imported consumers has increased tenfold in three years. After 90s and 95s, consumers have become the largest import consumer group.
Yu Min, secretary of the China National Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce, said that although the multilateral trading system has been affected, unilateralism and trade protection ideas have continued to rise, but in the current environment, economic globalization is still an irreversible trend.
Yu Min said that from 2001 to 2017, the average annual growth rate of China's imports of goods trade reached 13.5%, 6.9 percentage points higher than the global average, becoming the world's second largest importer, and the import volume of goods reached 20 trillion. In the US dollar, the growth rate of service trade reached 16.7% over the same period, accounting for nearly 10% of the total import of global service trade.
With the sustained and rapid growth of China's economy, consumer income has been significantly improved. With the continuous improvement of infrastructure and the increasing supply of consumer goods, consumer demand has been continuously released. The report points out that the total retail sales of consumer goods in China reached 2017. 36.6 trillion yuan, an increase of 10.2% year-on-year, accounting for about 25% of the global retail sales. Although the growth rate in 2018 has declined, the growth is still considerable due to the continuous increase in volume.
With the rise of cross-border e-commerce platforms, China’s cross-border e-commerce retail import penetration rate (the ratio of the number of consumers buying goods through cross-border e-commerce to online shopping) has rapidly increased from 1.6% in 2014 to 2017. 10.2%. The cross-border e-commerce retail import consumer group has expanded rapidly. In 2017, the number of Tmall international consumers was 10 times that of 2014.
In the past four years, Tmall International has introduced nearly 19,000 overseas brands from 3,900 categories in 75 countries, and more than 80% of them have entered China for the first time.
2014-2017 Statistics on the proportion of cross-border e-commerce consumers by birth year
The age differentiation of imported consumer groups is more youthful. In 2017, after Tmall International's 90s, the number of consumers after 95% accounted for 45.2%, and it has become the largest import consumer group after 80 years. In 2018, this proportion is more than 50%. However, from the perspective of purchases, the post-80s and post-85s are still the strongest purchasing power groups, accounting for 47.6%.
Distribution statistics of Tmall international category sales in 2014-2017
In 2017, China's import consumer goods market category continued to increase, and consumers' daily consumer goods selection was also more abundant. Consumers' most frequently used daily consumer goods, watches, clothes, home, food, cultural and educational supplies, imported consumer goods all showed different degrees of increase. Among them, the import of milk powder from daily chemicals and maternal and infants is the two important categories that promote the growth of imported consumer goods, which are respectively increased by 48.6% and 40.4%. The meat and food in the food, the household appliances of electronic appliances mainly appeared. 3.8% and 23.4% negative growth.
2017 China's imports of consumer goods mainly to the proportion of countries
The report shows that the EU, the United States, the ASEAN, Japan, New Zealand and Australia are the main suppliers of imported consumer goods to China, among which the EU imports the largest proportion of consumer goods, with a share of 436.67 billion yuan, accounting for 39.7% of the total value of China's consumer goods imports during the same period. .
At present, foreign retail goods can now enter China with two paths, namely, the general trade model and the cross-border e-commerce model. Compared with the two, the cross-border e-commerce model can reflect the flat transaction process with more active and open policy support. Intensive, service intensive, thus helping overseas brands to sell to Chinese consumers faster and better. At the same time, there are many participants in the cross-border e-commerce market, diverse business models, and different advantages, which also provide more choices for brand enterprises. .
Deloitte Research Director Chen Wei pointed out that the bonded model is more suitable for the standard, the risk is that the sales are not as good as expected. For the new category and the new brand want to test the Chinese market, you can use the direct mail mode, test the water slightly. Consumer feedback will be changed to bonded mode later, with a variety of path options.
The report mentioned that in recent years, China's imports of consumer goods have increased tax reductions. In July 2018, the average tax rate dropped from 15.7% to 6.9%, with an average decline of more than 50%. At the same time, cross-border e-commerce goods doubling the effectiveness of operations. The average receipt time of the bonded mode has been reduced from 9.2 days in 2014 to 4.5 days in 2017, and the efficiency has more than doubled.
Gao Hongbing, dean of the Ali Research Institute, said: 'China is becoming one of the largest consumer markets in the world, and this huge consumer market is still open. On the one hand, China's import consumer goods tax reduction is increasing, on the other hand, China The policy continues to encourage new formats such as cross-border import of e-commerce.