A US Postal Service employee transports parcels for distribution during the start of the holiday mail rush, following Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Los Angeles, California, Dec. 3. /Photo by Mario Tama /Getty Images
Transcending distances and national borders, the Black Friday shopping spree has become an extravaganza for both American and Chinese firms and consumers, thanks to the expansive reach of cross-border e-commerce.
According to several data providers, Black Friday spending in the United States saw a robust rise online, indicating the growing popularity of e-commerce as a convenient avenue for securing the best deals on desired products.
Online shopping on November 29, the first day of this year's Black Friday shopping spree, reached a record $10.8 billion in sales, US media reported, citing data from Adobe Analytics, which tracks US e-commerce trends. This represents a 10 percent increase over last year's Black Friday and more than double the spending recorded in 2017.
This shifting shopping preference has fueled the expansion of Chinese cross-border e-commerce platforms, which offer a wide range of high-quality, affordable made-in-China products delivered directly to consumers worldwide.
Chinese cross-border e-commerce retailers like Shein, PDD's Temu, and TikTok Shop saw strong growth in sales in the seven days through Friday compared to a year earlier, according to Reuters.
The robust sales on these platforms are supported by an efficient cross-border e-commerce ecosystem, which includes manufacturing hubs, streamlined customs processes and expanding logistics networks.
Black Friday has long marked a bustling production and sales season for Yiwu, a city in eastern China known as the "world's supermarket" and a key supplier for Chinese cross-border e-commerce platforms.
"During the Black Friday season, we have prepared a stock of 300,000 to 400,000 items, and hopefully this major promotion could increase our revenue by 20 percent to 30 percent year on year during the period," Wu Tingxuan, marketing director of a sports goods company in Yiwu, told Chinese media.
China has some 120,000 cross-border e-commerce export enterprises. In the first three quarters of 2024, the country's total cross-border e-commerce imports and exports grew by 11.5 percent year on year in value.