Cross-border e-commerce from China
On June 5th 2025, ChinaTalk’s Ed Sander had the honour and pleasure of presenting at Fashion Talks 2025 in Antwerp, Belgium. In the colourful company of people who clearly are a lot more knowledgeable about fashion than him, he took the stage to talk about the ‘4 little dragons that go overseas’. This is the name the Chinese give to four companies active in cross-border e-commerce from China: Alibaba (AliExpress), Shein, Pinduoduo (Temu) and Bytedance (TikTok Shop).
Considering the fashion industry audience, Ed specifically focused on Temu and Shein and shared:
▶️ Why the wave of cross-border e-commerce from China started (and what role Western companies played in this)
▶️ The business models behind Pinduoduo and its global initiative Temu
▶️ How, from a certain perspective, Shein has a remarkably sustainable business model (used for not-so-sustainable products)
▶️ Are Chinese websites cheap? Or are Western websites expensive?
▶️ Why Europe will find it hard to deal with ‘China speed’
▶️ What Western companies can do (for now …) to cope with this new competition
Many people told him afterwards it was a rude awakening…
If you weren’t there last week but are interested in learning more … FashionTalks recorded the keynote, which can be watched below.