1.2.2 Future Development Trends and Opportunities
Here are a few e-commerce trends that are catching on across borders.
（1）Using ＂Buy Now，Pay Later＂
Buy Now，Pay Later （BNPL）is a solution for point-of-sale financing that has grown increasingly popular in recent years，and is beginning to show up at international checkout pages.BNPL features installment payments for consumers who either don't have access to credit or don't want to make a purchase with a credit card.BNPL allows shoppers to purchase a product and pay in a predetermined number of installments over time，with little to no interest rate or hidden fee.
（2）Creating a Faster E-Commerce Checkout Process
Research shows that 55% of global consumers said they only buy products from websites that provide them with information in their own language.This includes navigating the checkout process.Selling products in different countries means understanding the different preferences for international visitors，including languages，currencies，and payment options.Optimizing your site for international visitors will allow for a faster，more streamlined e-commerce checkout process.
（3）Social Commerce
Social commerce sales are set to triple by 2025.While only 30% of US consumers report purchasing goods through social platforms，nearly half of China's consumers already shop on social platforms，generating over $351 billion in sales over 2021.
The competition is on the rise，with 49% of brands investing in social commerce content in 2022.Expect more branded shopping apps，more SМS and Facebook Мessenger marketing campaigns，and more social commerce content on TikTok and Instagram.
Reading Materials
Cross-Border E-Commerce Energizes Trade
How deeply the rapid development of China's cross-border e-commerce has affected the grassroots and the country's foreign trade can be measured from Hangzhou，Zhejiang.
In this provincial capital，forklift driver Li Jingsheng，36 and father of two children，who works with a local warehouse，skips lunch at his office canteen just so that he could meet near impossible demands on his time and energy.
Li has to load lots of goods into ocean-bound shipping containers almost nonstop through the day.Fully-laden containers are then transported on trucks to various ports.Inside the containers are tons of assorted goods - juicers，air fryers，bread makers and food processors - bought by overseas consumers on various crossborder e-commerce platforms.
On a certain workday afternoon in April，Li's task was to load goods made byJoyoung Company Limited，a Jinan，Shandong province-headquartered producer of home appliances.From Hangzhou，the goods will be transported to the Chuanshan port zone at Ningbo-Zhoushan Port，where they will be loaded into a containership.
After customs clearance，a procedure which has been simplified recently to facilitate trade via cross-border e-commerce，the vessel will set sail for Europe.
Li said his employer had hired some staff members recently to deliver lunch boxes and flasks to his team of forklift drivers，all of whom were being paid extra as workload increased from the third quarter of last year.Higher wages for additional work may appear as the silver lining of the dark cloud of COVID-19，which has affected many companies′ operations and people's daily lives，and has revealed many weaknesses in the global supply chain，like limited shipping capacity and shutdowns of both plants and ports across the world.
As it transpires，the pandemic has also necessitated efforts to grow crossborder e-commerce as well as transportation networks，to support distribution of the goods bought online.One shining instance is the increased activity in the China-Europe freight train services.
Without doubt，cross-border e-commerce has boosted trade since last year，said Lv Xiaobin，deputy director-general of Ningbo Customs District.
Driven by robust demand arising from the rapid recovery of some major economies，China's total goods imports and exports soared more than 29 percent year-on-year to 8.47 trillion yuan （$1.3 trillion）in the first quarter of 2021，according to data from the General Administration of Customs.Trade via crossborder e-commerce channels alone surged 46.5 percent on a yearly basis to 419.5 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2021.
Since the pandemic has kept people at home longer due to social distancing norms and general curbs on travel，consumption from homes surged，inflating sales of products or goods like household appliances.This has，in turn，altered the structure of supply chains worldwide.
（sources from www.chinadaily.com.cn）
[1]A research institate on global market.