For the first time, China's leading e-commerce platforms, JD.com and Tmall, successfully imported fresh fruits via the cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) channel. This was partly a result of increased cold chain availability. Both platforms have established self-operated CBEC cold chain warehouses, positioning themselves to handle more fresh and frozen agricultural imports in the future. Industry experts predict that CBEC cold-chain product imports will significantly drive overall CBEC import growth in the coming years. This report outlines the opportunities and challenges for U.S. fresh and frozen produce in the CBEC market.
CBEC General Information: According to recent estimates from the Generation Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China (GACC), in the first three quarters of 2024, China's CBEC import-and-export value reached $263 billion, a year-on-year increase of 11.5 percent. Despite an overall 0.4 percent decline year-on-year for CBEC imports, the United States is the top source for CBEC imports representing 16.7 per cent of the market, followed by Australia, Japan, Germany, France, and New Zealand. Industry analysis shows that health products, bags, apparel, food, and drinks are the major categories that the US exports to China via CBEC.
Among the CBEC import categories, food products take about 25.2 percent, second only to beauty and cosmetics with 28.8 percent. Due to the limited cold chain availability of CBEC warehouses in the past room-temperature food products have dominated food product imports. Since 2022, some smaller platforms started exploring CBEC fresh produce import in small volumes as cold-chain capabilities became available in selected CBEC warehouses. Starting from the second half of 2024, JD.com and Tmall -- the top two e-commerce platforms in China – made their first attempts at fresh fruit imports via CBEC. Industry experts estimate that CBEC imports of cold-chain products could become the major driver for overall CBEC import growth in the next few years.
Fresh Fruits Available via CBEC In August 2024, JD Worldwide (JD.com's CBEC channel) imported fresh durians from Southeast Asia via JD's self-operated CBEC cold-chain warehouse in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. This marked the first attempt at CBEC fresh fruit imports. In December 2024, Tmall Global (Alibaba's CBEC channel) also launched its first trial order of fresh durian from Malaysia via its CBEC cold-chain warehouse in Changsha, Hunan Province. The two platforms reported that they initially selected durians as these fruits are available year-round, sell quickly, and are relatively physically robust. Following this attempt, the two platforms will further explore importing other fruit and cold chain product categories.
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