The relevant person in charge of international cross-border e-commerce platforms stated that traders are increasingly moving towards the industrial end, while manufacturers are accelerating their move towards the market end with the help of cross-border e-commerce. Supply chain going global is becoming increasingly popular under the scale effect.

We already have over 30 cabinets on the road, "said Zhang Peng, the head of Changzhou Wenqi Vehicle Parts Factory, at the Shanghai Frankfurt International Auto Parts Exhibition held in early December. Due to the increased risks of tariffs next year, the industry is generally rushing to stock up in the short term, and it is expected that sea freight will rise next month; In the medium to long term, whoever has goods locally can seize the market faster, so they have also accelerated the expansion of overseas warehouses. Generally speaking, March is the peak season for the overseas automotive aftermarket auto parts industry; Considering the shipping and shelving cycle, December to before the Spring Festival is the peak season for shipments in China's supply chain. In the current changing global trade environment, Zhang Peng's case is quite typical and reflects the adjustment and response of China's auto parts supply chain.

The number of new sellers has increased more significantly, with more and more manufacturing companies settling in, which used to be mainly traders, "said Yi Peng, the head of the automotive parts category at international cross-border e-commerce platform eBay. This year, a more obvious trend on the platform is that traders are increasingly moving towards the industrial end, while manufacturers are accelerating their move towards the market end with the help of cross-border e-commerce. The supply chain going global is becoming increasingly hot under the scale effect.

Against the backdrop of increasing uncertainty, Zhang Peng, who was previously relatively conservative and made more use of third-party warehouses, has accelerated their layout this year and decisively signed a larger area of new warehouses - the newly expanded overseas warehouse in the eastern United States is about 6000 square meters, which is more than double the original size. In the second half of next year, they also plan to establish a new warehouse in the southern United States. Zhang Peng proposed that on the one hand, building a self built overseas warehouse can effectively reduce the final cost, which accounts for more than 30% of the total cost, and improve transportation efficiency; On the other hand, they maintain confidence in the overseas aftermarket dominated by the United States, as well as the compatibility of newly developed products with the market. "If we fill our 10000 square meter overseas warehouse, there will still be pressure on stocking funds, but our product repurchase rate can reach over 80%, so we have confidence that we can quickly digest it.

According to public data, China is currently the only country in the world that can export all types of accessories for "international car models", with a manufacturing richness exceeding that of Germany. In 2024, China's auto parts exports will exceed 100 billion US dollars, achieving rapid growth for five consecutive years and doubling the export scale.

The optimism about the demand for the automotive and motorcycle parts market is related to the characteristics of the industry and also benefits from the continuous penetration of new formats such as cross-border e-commerce. Against the backdrop of a contraction in the growth rate of new car sales, Yi Peng believes that this is actually beneficial for the demand in the automotive aftermarket. The global car ownership exceeds 1.5 billion units, with the after-sales market in the United States exceeding $300 billion and Europe approaching $300 billion, with an average growth rate of 8%. In addition, the online growth rate is close to 16%, which is twice that of the offline aftermarket. At the same time, the global penetration rate of aftermarket e-commerce is only about 10%, and it is expected to grow to 20% -30% in 10 years, with the scale of automotive and motorcycle power distribution companies reaching 200 billion -300 billion US dollars.

EBay's regional general manager, Pan Zhehu, stated that the sales scale of automotive and motorcycle parts by Chinese sellers on the platform has shown double-digit growth this year, and the growth rate will be even faster in 2025. "The penetration of e-commerce has a flywheel effect, and the growth will only become faster. Because the e-commerce on the supply side is more mature, consumers are more accustomed to it, and the ecosystem is more complete. Under this trend, the position of Chinese manufacturing in the global market is becoming increasingly important.

Guogui Racing Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Guogui Racing") is an automotive parts manufacturing enterprise located in Chongqing. They have been experimenting with cross-border e-commerce since 2006, and now 90% of their exports go through platforms such as eBay. The deputy general manager of the company, Li Qiaozhi, said that the company's market map has expanded from the United States to Europe and then to Australia, with an export scale of hundreds of millions of yuan. "Our exports have doubled every year before 2021. This year's growth is about 20%, and we expect to have a growth of 30% next year.

Zhang Peng also stated that their exports doubled in 2023, with a growth rate of about 40% this year. Due to the recent expansion of overseas warehouses, it is expected that their export scale will continue to double next year. "In addition to having financial strength, site warehouses are also an important condition for doing auto parts trade. In addition, they will also visit Southeast Asia and other places this year to investigate the construction of factories, and will act according to the situation while observing. He believes that with the new US president taking office, the industry reshuffle will intensify, and companies also need to prepare in advance.

Compared with the more mature US market, the European market has shown a more significant growth rate this year. According to eBay's "Strategic Categories for Going Global" released at this year's Frankfurt Auto Show in Shanghai, the German and British markets have great potential, with an average car age of over 10 years in both countries. The rapid growth of their automotive aftermarket will also stimulate greater online purchasing demand. Chinese sellers have seen a nearly 20 fold increase in headlight assembly sales on eBay UK compared to the previous year; At the German station, sales of charging station equipment increased by 60% year-on-year, and the growth of taillight assemblies and turbocharging exceeded 10 times. Therefore, Zhang Peng, who is currently mainly based in the United States, also plans to focus on developing markets in Europe in the future.

Li Qiaozhi said that due to the continuous promotion of branding, their speed of innovation has been faster in recent years, and they have also achieved an increase in profit margin while expanding their scale. In addition to infrastructure layout such as overseas warehouses, they are establishing branch offices in various major markets to better operate and manage overseas resources.

On the path of advancing Chinese enterprise branding, one of the major advantages of the Chinese supply chain is still cost-effectiveness, which has become a factor for them to resist the risk of tariff increases. On the basis of striving to achieve 80% performance of overseas big brands, our price is 50%~80%. "Li Qiaozhi proposed that on the one hand, we need to reduce costs and increase efficiency in the supply chain to maintain our cost-effectiveness advantage, and on the other hand, we need to increase pricing power by continuing to build our brand to cope with the impact of tariffs." Currently, the proportion of tariffs in the price system is not very high, and we need to consider costs and exchange rates comprehensively. On the current basis, they still maintain confidence in export growth for the next two years.

Since December, the fluctuation and downward trend of the RMB exchange rate have provided some favorable conditions for export-oriented enterprises. Among them, on December 3rd, the offshore RMB against the US dollar broke through the 7.3 mark shortly after opening, and then quickly fell below 7.31, hitting a new low since November 2023.

As Zhang Peng and his team mainly export market parts, which provide after-sales appearance parts for branded cars, their competitiveness mainly lies in cost-effectiveness, "matching the platform's big data with consumer preferences as accurately as possible".

In Zhang Peng's view, the biggest challenge at present still comes from the competitive pressure among peers - cost-effectiveness and financial strength are relatively common advantages of Chinese manufacturing. Therefore, what they can strive for in the future is fine management of the supply chain and efficient operation of the overall team.

With the diversified development of overseas markets and the accelerated pace of "going global", Li Qiaozhi pointed out that one of their major challenges is the relative shortage of international management talents. Such 'growing pains' have also become a microcosm of Chinese enterprises accelerating their' going global 'efforts.