Chinese international shopping websites can be sorted by whether they sell products or offer services. The former is the traditional business model and is more widely adopted by Chinese merchants while the latter is getting more and more popular these years.
Type 1: Sites = Suppliers
Sites offering products to customers with their own warehouses are the most common in terms of quantity. Such sites have their own product sourcing teams, product management teams, pre-sales teams and after-sales teams and marketing teams and handle orders by their internal staff instead of manufacturers or suppliers cooperated with them.
Generally, this type of stores focuses on a rather limited number of product categories. For instance, some mainly sell fashion and accessories, some offer electronics while some others may be famous for toys, home and garden supplies, car parts and accessories, lighting supplies, luggage and bags, jewelry and watches or any other field(s). These professional stores may also carry some minor categories other than their major ones. For instance, as a store well-known for women’s fashion, Lightinthebox.com also sells a variety of electronic gadgets like tablet PCs & accessories, cell phones & accessories or car electronics. Here is a short list of the most popular Chinese online shops that fall into this type:
- Lightinthebox.com
- Milanoo.com
- Ahappydeal.com
- Focalprice.com
- DealExtreme.com
- SammyDress.com
- Priceangels.com
- Chinavasion.com
- Lightake.com
- Eforchina.com
- Tmart.com
- Sheinside.com
- YesStyle.com
- MyeSoul.com
- Suntekstore.com
- 7daysget.com
- ChicStar.com
- Uxcell.com
- Romwe.com
- Everbuying.com
- …
At the same time, there are a small number of Chinese shopping malls that cover a broad range of categories. Anyway, the really strong ones of this type are very rare in the Chinese cross-border trade arena. So far I personally only know Dinodirect.com is doing a good job in this area. The site have several warehouses around the world and the major one is based in Shenzhen, China. Let’s just take a look at what they are offering: men’s clothing, women’s clothing, tablet PCs, Android phones, flashlights, handheld game consoles, OBD2 & diagnostic tools, iPhone accessories, baby, cameras & camcorders, car & motorcycle accessories, computers & networking, cool gadgets, security & surveillance, electronics, gifts & holiday supplies, health & beauty, home & garden, jewelry & watches, novelties, office supplies, sporting goods, toys & hobbies, video games and books.
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