2025, cross-border e-commerce 9 predictions

GOODCANG 2025.01.17

"Cross-border e-commerce 9 predictions" wrote to the third year, more and more awe and caution for this industry, the prediction is not blind fortune telling, is the comparison of desk data demonstration, inductive deduction of clue facts, is careful hypothesis, bold verification.

Cross-border changes are like rivers, and industry transformations are like white clouds, but we still desire order, desire growth, and desire certainty, which is also the original heart of the annual forecast article.

Fortunately, after consulting hundreds of data cross-verification, we have sorted out 9 relatively accurate predictions for you, to share and discuss together, and to give you more advice on inappropriate places.

Again, it is for communication only, not for reference, and does not constitute any business proposal.

01. 2025: Global GDP growth of 2.8 percent, 1.9 percent in the United States, 1.3 percent in the European Union and 4.8 percent in China

The first forecast, hot out of the oven, is the latest World Economic Situation and Prospects 2025 released by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which predicts that global GDP growth will increase by 2.8% in 2025 and 2.9% annually in 2026.

Despite weathering a series of overlapping shocks, global economic growth has yet to return to its pre-pandemic average of 3.2%. Geopolitical conflicts, trade tensions remain uncertain, and the good news is that falling inflation and monetary easing are expected to modestly boost the global economy.

Key predictions:

Growth in advanced economies in 2025 is 1.6%;

The U.S. economy will grow 1.9 percent in 2025 and 2.1 percent in 2026.

Eu growth of 1.3% in 2025 and 1.5% annually in 2026;

The UK will grow by 1.2% in 2025 and 1.4% in 2026.

Other major markets GDP growth in 2025, Mexico, 1.9%, 2.3% in Brazil, South Korea 2.2%, Japan 1.0%, 6.5%, 2.2% in Australia, Russia 1.5%, 2.45% in Spain, 6.6% in India, 4.4% in Saudi Arabia.

02. The United States 2025: the largest "variable" is Trump, the probability of a tax increase of 60% is small, and the stock continues to be hot in the first half of the year

The US market is the most difficult to predict because of Trump.

In the short span of more than ten days in January, one will acquire the Panama Canal, one will attack Greenland, one will change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the American Gulf, one will change Canada into the 51st state of the United States, one punch in the sky and one foot on the ground, you think he is in the 18th floor, in fact, he is in the atmosphere.

Strongly related to cross-border e-commerce: a tariff, a rate cut, a logistics.

Regarding the tax increase, the controversy is relatively large, which may be Trump's bargaining chip: for example, he wants to open a window, afraid that you do not agree, so he threatens to tear down the house, so that you agree to open the window.

For example, he threatened to increase taxes on Europe by 20%, in order to sell more oil to Europe, and threatened to increase taxes on Mexico, in order to ask Mexico to manage immigration.

It is predicted that the tax increase may be gradually promoted in the second and third quarters of 2025, and step by step, while assessing the impact of tariffs on the cost of imports in the United States, inflation and ordinary households, and then deciding the next step.

The probability of a 60% tax increase is smaller, and the probability of a different tax increase is larger: for example, levying a general benchmark tariff on all goods, starting the old 301 for some goods, levying a specific high tariff on tram photovoltaic chips, and turning a blind eye to trivial livelihood goods.

Reference and 2022: Of China's $890 billion worth of exports to the United States,150 billion will be subject to 25% tariffs,100 billion will be subject to 7.5%, and the remaining 300 billion will be subject to 2% to 3%.

The average tax rate is 12%, well below the 45% originally proposed.

With regard to interest rate cuts, the Federal Reserve is forecast to be cautious in 2025, and may only slightly cut interest rates 1-2 times, a total of 50-75 basis points, aiming at prices and employment, and will resume interest rate hikes if inflation rebounds.

The United States currently high prices, high inflation, high deficit "three high", can not withstand the fierce medicine toss, prices plus 60%, the people have to kindly greet the number.

Regarding logistics, although the strike crisis in the East of the United States was lifted in early January, the impact has been spillover, in recent months, the amount of cargo at the United States terminal has surged year-on-year, considering that the tax increase may be landed in the middle of the year, the stock is expected to continue to grow in the first half of the year.

The NRF predicts that US container imports will remain a "big year" in 2025:

03. Europe 2025: Slow economic growth, look at the degree of tax increases in the United States, look at the energy crisis, buyer consumption recovery is a bright spot

The fate of Europe depends on whether the United States "raises taxes" on it.

The European Central Bank will cut interest rates three times in 2024, and inflation has fallen to a low of 2.0%, but it is not yet out of the energy crisis.

As of January 2025, Europe's gas storage ratio was 69%, down from 85% last year.On January 1, 2025, Russia terminated the transit of natural gas to Europe through Ukraine, accounting for 50% of Russia's total pipeline gas exports to Europe.

2025 forecast: Europe will be sold US LNG by Trump (" Oh "), don't buy it, threatened with tariffs.

Everyone, sell high gas, do "sell oil weng", is the career planning of Sichuan general, without him only hand.

Other forecasts: The European economy will recover slowly in 2025, with GDP growth of around 1%. The good news: European officials expect consumption to recover as buyers earn more and save more.

eMarketer predicts that 2024 is the first year that retail growth in Europe will exceed inflation, and it is expected that the five Western European economies will recover from the downturn in 2025-2026, and e-commerce will resume growth of 5.0%, steadily increasing in the next few years.

The Russia-Ukraine war is still a "point of irritation" in Europe, and if an armistice is also achieved this year, Europe will recover faster.

04. Amazon: "single level inventory" to "gradient inventory", continue to integrate supply chain hosting, guide sellers "high turnover"

Following the "eight regional sub-network", Amazon officially announced the "supply chain intelligent hosting" service at the end of 2024, focusing on improving the position of AWD "gradient inventory" :

AGL is responsible for the first leg transportation and partial warehousing, AWD is responsible for FBA's buffer stock, and FBA is responsible for regional fulfillment distribution.

The purpose of the reform is to reduce the cost and increase the efficiency of FBA, from "emphasizing the scale" to "emphasizing the high turnover under the premise of limited storage capacity", and the FBA operating rules faced by sellers have changed.

In 2025, predict three scenarios for Amazon:

(1) Gradient cache: Establish a buffer storage warehouse in a cheap storage area, shorten the FBA arrival reservation period by half, help FBA disperse pressure, and form a "gradient inventory" in the United States.

(2) Three-level inventory: the tariff war will force sellers to purchase and export to the United States from many countries around the world, and the national ports will form a first-level gradient inventory;Collect and distribute goods in the United States to form the second level of gradient inventory;Finally, it is distributed to FBA in different regions to complete the third-level gradient inventory.

(3) Integrated supply chain: do one-stop "end-to-end" hosting, greatly reduce the supply cycle delay in the handover of "dry customs transfer", and dynamically reduce safety inventory.

Summary: Accelerate turnover, reduce inventory, complete the transition from "efficient supply chain" to "agile supply chain", and let the FBA elephant run small steps from the beginning to the end.

05. First leg 2025: air transport capacity is tight, costs are rising, and business flow is bound;Abundant shipping capacity, continuous detour, multi-factor interference

Air transport market, rise also platform, fall also platform.

After the rise of "full custody", the air cargo owner has changed from the US retail giant to the Chinese e-commerce platform, and the T86 has increased by 6 times in four years, fundamentally changing the pattern of air cargo between China and foreign countries.

The small package of 50% capacity serving China's e-commerce platform also makes air transport almost bound with business flow: the platform is like a faucet valve, flow changes → affect single volume → affect cargo volume → affect freight rate.

The 2025 contract price may be affected by the December rate;Retired passenger aircraft/cargo aircraft resources are scarce, and the peak of capacity is inevitable;Asia Pacific is likely to experience higher costs and lower demand. In addition, direct shipments and freight also depend on: the new tax exemption of small packages in the destination country, customs inspections, and the restart of the Russian-Ukrainian armistice Siberian Golden route.

Shipping is the opposite of air transport, the capacity is too sufficient, shipbuilding is not like building an airplane, a ship thousands of cabinets.

In 2024, the shipping company's luck exploded, and the global new shipping capacity was 3 million TEU, an increase of 10.6%, which was a year when a large number of new ships were launched, the shipping capacity was bound to be excess, and the freight rate was bound to fall into a dog, but it was basically absorbed by the sailing Cape of Good Hope, and only 0.6% of the idle capacity was opened low and high, and the pot was full.

Looking further afield, even if the Middle East ends in 2025, it will continue to circumnavigate:

The process of the peace agreement is complicated and changeable, and the shipping company is worried that the gun will go off at any time, and the safety of the crew and the cargo ship will be watched for some time.It will take months to reschedule ships and restore order to the Red Sea.The Suez Canal, which has suffered heavy losses for more than a year, will reopen or adjust tolls.

At the beginning of 2025, the two good news is that the United States East strike is cancelled and the shipping alliance is restructured;

06. Overseas warehouse: The track is still hot in 2025, the current round of replenishment cycle ends around the fourth quarter, and eventually returns to the "strong constant strong"

2024 is the "bull market" of overseas positions, and it is expected that 2025 will be.

Count 2024:

It is conservatively estimated that last year, the whole industry added more than 2 million overseas warehouses in the United States, and there are as many family warehouses as small warehouses.

4 reasons: the United States entered a new round of "active inventory increase" cycle, Trump's tax increase and the mood of the strike in the United States, and stimulated the acceleration of replenishment at the end of the year;Furniture appliances and other large volume category replenishment enthusiasm;The rise of "semi-custody" business drives the overseas warehouse distribution model;FBA peak season congestion, demand overflow third party warehouse.

Forecast 2025:

Under the prosperity, the overseas warehouse industry is also facing the confusion of "where the road is". In particular, after FBA launched the "supply chain intelligent hosting" service, the entire logistics industry has been brought into the "fast lane", the underlying logic of the industry has accelerated the change, and the e-commerce performance service has further accelerated and reduced the cost.

FBA benchmark in front, behind will be beaten.

In the next 2-5 years, "zoning + gradient inventory" will become the mainstream model. Assuming that a region in the United States needs 100,000-200,000 square meters of overseas warehouses, five regions are 500,000-1 million square meters, which will become a new threshold for competition in the United States market, lagging behind the average level of the platform, may be from the table.

The newly rising Chinese e-commerce platform, in order to compete with Amazon's distribution capacity, will also force overseas warehouse service providers to invest heavily in infrastructure and regional network layout, otherwise it will not be able to make up for the cost of long-distance distribution.

Prediction: At present, the United States has not yet reached the "inventory reduction" stage, and this round of cross-border e-commerce "active + passive inventory" upward cycle will probably turn in a quarter around the end of 2025.

History repeats itself, and old sellers should remember the 2021-2022 inventory cycle. In the ups and downs, it is recommended to choose between price and stability, and cooperate with partners with sufficient volume and good reputation.

07. Platform pattern: "TikTok refugees" is just an accident, and the platform is fierce, making up for their respective shortcomings, and promoting the "multi-channel" layout of sellers

On January 14, "TikTok Refugee" poured into XiaoHongshu overnight.

Top downloads from the Apple Store

The small sweet potato became a sweet potato, ranked first in the App Store in the United States, sliding the screen 20 cm, three steps a distorted nut, full of "Hello", the old iron refugees from North American states to China, bearing the same feelings of home and country:

TikTok failed the reply from the Supreme People's Court, the plan 19 initiative to shut down the APP, but the latest news is the trump to consider after taking office signed an executive order to suspend TikTok ban, said biden also plans to delay the ban "hot potato to trump, one good thing came out of it, well, this several days full of inversion.

This wave of "magnificent wealth" is even small red book himself did not expect, but after all, its target users, language design, server are not for foreigners, after the novelty of the past American users are difficult to root in a Chinese cultural community;The ban is only a piece of government order: in March 2023, Texas, the United States, introduced HB2206 proposal to "prohibit the use of little Red books" in the United States.

The platform is only the carrier, and the background color is the circle and culture.

At this point, "full/semi-managed" represents the third iteration of China's foreign trade, a reshuffle of the cross-border e-commerce supply chain, and a precise case of local circle culture landing.

The first generation of "Chinese goods going to sea" : foreign wholesale retailers outsourced manufacturing in China.

The second generation of "Chinese sellers go to sea" : domestic production, cross-border logistics compliance, Amazon eBay sales.

The third generation of "China supply chain going to sea" : the Chinese platform integrates the domestic supply chain, goes to sea with the new model of "full/semi-managed" retail, and impacts the "comfort zone" of the established platform.

In 2025, it is expected that the new and old platforms will become more competitive, innovate more business models, and test each other's advantage areas, such as Amazon's launch of low-price mall Haul, Temu heavy on "semi-managed" local warehouse delivery, speed and price, how fast and good province, both sides maintain their own advantages, and tacit understanding to the strengths of rivals.

Platforms contend, channels blossom, for sellers, single platform pressure becomes greater, using the advantages of different markets and platforms, flexible adjustment of pricing strategies, "omni-channel" better risk allocation.

08. Compliance trend: The United States continues to tighten the tax exemption of $800 small bags, and the new tax exemption regulations of the European Union are about to be introduced, and strengthening compliance has been the trend

In September 2024, after the Biden administration announced the tightening of the "tax exemption of small bags under $800", the US Customs excluded some small bag textiles, required to fill in IOR information, and uploaded COC self-declaration.

On January 11, 2025, U.S. Customs officially implemented Section 55321 of the "Duty-Free Minimum Value Rule" :

Goods received by the same recipient or company within the same day, with a total value of not more than 800 US dollars, are exempt from tax;Deliberate omission or tampering with declaration information will be delayed or delayed customs clearance, withholding tax.

It is expected that in 2025, this policy may continue to be implemented, and more low-value packages will be tightened duty-free, which is also consistent with Trump's concept of "increasing tax revenue + protecting domestic enterprises".

It's the same in Europe.

Commission officials said about 4 billion low-value packages entered the EU in 2024, almost three times as many as in 2022, and most of them were less than 150 euros and did not need to be checked.

In 2024, the EU launched a series of digital review or compliance investigations against TikTok, SHEIN and Temu. The new European Commission said that it intends to consider the proposal of "abolishing duty-free goods under 150 euros" by February 2025.

In 2025, it is expected that major e-commerce platforms will be more and more strict on compliance inspection, including seller qualification, tax declaration, transaction data, privacy protection, intellectual property rights, product quality/material/certification, etc., strengthening compliance has been the trend.

Affected by customs policies in various countries, air capacity constraints, and the peak of "full custody" growth, it is predicted that the "semi-custody" of "shipping + overseas warehouse" will remain the focus in 2025.

09. RMB exchange rate: two-way fluctuation, moderate depreciation, affected by the US "tax increase", is expected to hover around 7.3% for the whole year

The USD/RMB exchange rate should be viewed in two stages.

Us plus tax: The "Trump 2.0 economy" has led the US dollar to strengthen, and the RMB is expected to continue the depreciation trend since October 2024, but the overall range of 7.1-7.35 is maintained.

After the United States raises taxes: The impact of tariffs passes, and the dollar begins to depreciate.

First, the tax increase is "fleece on the American buyer", prices rise, inflation cannot be suppressed, the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates, and the dollar depreciates.

Second, after Trump came to power, he tends to "focus on domestic affairs", if the situation in Russia and Ukraine and the Middle East cools down, capital does not need to hedge against the dollar, and the attraction of the renminbi rises.

Third, Trump's term or the initiative to depreciate the dollar, stimulate the United States foreign trade exports, that is, the relative appreciation of other currencies.

Unexpected factors:

How much the United States raises taxes is the biggest variable, adding 10% and adding 60%, the exchange rate impact is very different;

The emergence of a new war, or the expansion and spillover of the Russian-Ukrainian war in the Middle East, foreign capital continues to choose the dollar as a hedge, and the dollar may appreciate. (January 16 news, the Gaza ceasefire agreement has been reached, effective on the 19th of this month, good for the stability of global financial markets).

Everything that happens is good for me.

In 2025, a quarter of the 21st century is over, turbulence and prosperity are alternating, accidents and recovery are competing, challenges and opportunities coexist, but the general trend of cross-border e-commerce is optimistic. Maintain confidence, look for increment, anticipate certainty, the pie is getting bigger and bigger, the winners are constantly adapting, and the "way to live" of the long-termist is three things: imagine optimistically, plan carefully, and execute firmly.

The lunar Year of the snake is approaching, 2025, rest and set out again.

Barn wish you: snake to run, snake add Fu, snake year sales!