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The auditorium at Alibaba headquarters was packed with attendees, leaning against the wall and huddling on the stairs. A group of representatives of China’s online shopping giant Alibaba, with words and deeds flowing with Alibaba’s representatives, took the stage on the stage to make them resilience to China and face the shocking tariffs of the United States. This is a group of representatives of China’s online shopping giants.
“We have been researching and discussing this policy environment since early April, what should our approach and attitude be like in this rapidly changing situation?” said Wang Shan, head of digital marketing.
“Everyone’s consensus is that the business still has to go out,” she continued. “We think what we end up testing is our own capabilities.”
The battlefield mindset has become the norm for many Chinese people engaged in online sales. According to official Chinese data, their threat to tariffs is huge: the United States is China’s largest online trade export market, accounting for more than one-third of sales. These include individual Americans who rely on Shein for cheap swimsuits or Temu for $2 garlic pressure and small business owners who use platforms like Dhgate or Alibaba to resell.
The Alibaba conference in Hangzhou, the company’s hometown of the company in eastern China, first glimpse at how the country has become such a behemoth in online shopping. It shows how the industry responds to the crisis.
China’s success in e-commerce has become the center of legendary growth in the country. More like the country’s rag story than Alibaba’s founder Jack MA, from an English teacher to an online shopping entrepreneur, ultimately making him one of the richest men in the world.
The vast ecosystem that China has built to support its export aircraft makes this journey possible. It covers not only factories, marketers and transportation companies, but also sales suppliers who handle procurement and delivery on behalf of sellers; live streaming of carnival carnival carnival on short video apps; and private mentors dedicated to helping countless small business owners in the country sell internationally.
In recent years, the Chinese government will also expand priorities for online international sales to reduce corporate taxes and encourage universities to introduce relevant majors. Hangzhou is scattered with glittering towers, offering discounted office space for e-commerce entrepreneurs.
Now, with tariffs, government and corporate support is intensifying. Officials in Hangzhou have committed to helping companies through legal paperwork to companies in the non-U.S. market. Employees from Amazon have set up a center in Hangzhou to provide training for people selling on their platform, hosting a meeting last week on tariffs for its own merchants.
At the Alibaba conference, the conference is open to anyone interested in learning to sell abroad, and company employees assured attendees that they will help them take care of customs procedures. The online platform also promises to use tens of millions of dollars to help exporters advertise domestically.
As a result, many businessmen at Alibaba’s headquarters have always been concerned about their moods, but have not been deceived.
Qiu Leisi, 36, plans to open an online store to sell large-sized clothing to retailers in the United States and Europe, saying she will only pass on the tariffs to customers.
“American business owners should see injustice coming from their own people,” she said. (To show how much interest the meeting attracted, the barista quoted 50 minutes of waiting drinks.)
Ms. Qiu is not worried that Americans may hit it at a higher cost. Her parents run a hardware factory where one-third of their business comes from the U.S., but they unloaded some unsold stocks to India at a slight discount.
“They will make concessions to people who are friendly to us,” Ms. Qiu said of her parents. “Even if we lose the United States, there are many other countries that will strengthen.”
Indeed, a key part of China’s strategy is to introduce its exports to other countries. Even before the latest tariffs, Chinese entrepreneurs have been focusing on expanding in Southeast Asia and Europe as tensions in the U.S. and China have intensified.
However, this transition can only be done quickly, especially for those who are primarily American customers.
These include Shawn Zhao’s company Hypersku, which helps foreign small business owners source goods such as yoga mats from their Chinese factories. About half of his business comes from the U.S., and he has revised his cost estimates for his clients over the past few weeks as tariffs climb higher and higher.
To adapt, he has cut his advertising budget in the United States and focuses more on Europe.
He has also been focusing on personalized products, and he hopes shoppers think it is worthy of premiums, such as carving earrings or photos of a calf with a pet. He said that this is where China’s supply chain is irreplaceable because it can provide highly specific goods than any other country.
Still, he expects at least a 20% decline in revenue.
“There are some things on the market that you can’t control, such as political factors,” Mr. Zhao said during lunch at one of the many high-end shopping malls in Hangzhou. “You can only try to evaluate the company in the worst case and can you keep moving forward? Make sure you have clear accounting.”
Optimism at Alibaba meetings may also be related to other reality.
Some sellers recommend levying tariffs by redirecting goods to third countries. But under pressure from the Trump administration, some countries have pledged to crack down on this practice.
Several people also said that the choice to look overseas is far less than necessary. China’s domestic market is too competitive and people are reluctant to spend due to the slowdown. This is why the government itself is eager to promote overseas e-commerce.
“The market is big and businessmen are so saturated that our share of pie is getting smaller and smaller.” Fu Sicong, 27, wearing square frame glasses on hips, runs an online store with two friends, selling car decorations. After his domestic business fell by about 20% last year, he decided to try Europe and the United States, where profit margins are usually higher. “Even if we don’t do it well, we still have to do it.”
In addition to government subsidies or the reassurance of e-commerce companies, doing business anyway – seems to be driving the confidence of many entrepreneurs.
In an office building called Architectural Dreams, one of Hangzhou’s many industrial parks dedicated to cross-border e-commerce, Li Tongzi, 30, reveals the fact that his sales of bracelets and rich harvest accessories in the United States have evaporated. Despite the shrinking profits, he will still double in the Chinese market.
“It’s just a matter of whether you make more money or less,” he said. “Even if we can only make 10 cents, we dare to do that.”
Siyi Zhao Contributed to the research.
