Ten most important events in Cross-border E-commerce in the first half year of 2025
Cross-border e-commerce has always been a bumpy ride. The first half of 2025 saw the US tariff policies flip-flop, closure of the USD 800 duty-free channel, three postponements of the explosive move of banning TikTok from the US, millions of users “moving” to Xiaohongshu, DHgate soar to the top of the US app chart, more than ten firms race to IPO, a sweeping AI-driven efficiency revolution along the entire industry value chain.
To know the past is to be foretold the future. Here we present ten of the key events of the first half of 2025. From them we can see the trends and mutations of the industry, and wonder: in a period of both crisis and opportunity, in the midst of bad games of localization, tariffs and traffic, how can one understand the rules of survival and stay alive when the storm finally comes?
Event 1: U.S. tariffs are repeatedly upending cross-border e-commerce patterns
In the first half of 2025, US tariffs were adjusted frequently, between pre-hearing reviews, several increases and then temporary easing, with the cross-border e-commerce 38 crossborder e-commerce dynamics repeatedly affected.
As a result, China-U. S. in the first half was 2.08 trillion RMB, down by 9.3% year-on-year. Shipments to the U.S. amounted to 1.55 trillion RMB, a decrease of 9.9%. In the second quarter, due to the effect of “reciprocal tariffs”, year-on-year decrease of China—U. S. trade at its peak hit 20.8%.
On the consumption end, Domestic (U.S.) e-commerce sales growth in Q1 2025 fell to 6.1 percent, the lowest level in 2 years, per DigitalCommerce360 data. In addition, online orders in a variety of U.S. e-commerce’s core categories — electronics, sporting goods, office supplies, furniture, large appliances and cosmetics — all posted double-digit declines.
Price is still the most important factor driving consumers' purchasing decisions, according to a survey by AlixPartners. Thirty-three percent of consumers would trade down to less expensive brands, and 34% would buy less of such categories. Meanwhile, 34% have postponed purchases because they are not sure about prices, while 28% have brought forward purchases in case tariffs went up, and more than 60% said that should the prices of foreign products rise by 10% or more, they would turn to domestic products first.
Event 2: TikTok “sell-or-ban” bill delayed three times
The “TikTok ban” stemmed from former President Biden’s signature on the “sell or be banned” legislation approved by Congress on April 24, 2024, which bears the headline “protecting national security.” The measure would have mandated that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, sell TikTok to a non-Chinese firm by Jan. 19, 2025, or the app would be prohibited in the United States.
On January 20, 2025, the newly sworn-in President Trump signed another executive order postponing the rule, scheduled to go into effect January 19, by 75 days — to April 5.
On April 4, 2025, Trump extended the deadline again, this time by 75 days, to a new target implementation date of mid-June.
On June 19, 2025, Trump issued another executive order of 90 days extending the grace period, pushing back the commencement date of the “sell-or-ban” law to September 17.
Event 3: Amazon adjusts multi-site policies
2025 was the 20th Amazon Prime Day. It was the longest Prime Day ever, and the biggest in terms of revenue. But for all the scope and sales, the mood among sellers was subdued, with a sense of detachment on the consumer side.
What’s more, it looks like Amazon had overdrawn attention in the first half of the year. In the context of intensifying competition in the mainstream platform market, Amazon has begun to take the initiative to enter the low-end market while pushing out and updating relevant regulations to increase the threshold of logistics, operations, compliance of cross-border business.
Indeed, new rules for promotional coupons that went into effect in January required sellers to consider overall pricing and how subsequent promotional prices would be affected when pricing coupons. Numerous subsequent patches increased the difficulty even further. U.S. coupon participation on Amazon, based on data from Momentum Commerce, also fell hard, going from 13.6% in June last year to 9.1% this year.
Amazon also on-boarded significant policy changes at various vital locations, such as the U.K., Germany, Brazil, and the U.S., in the first half of 2025, which entailed logistics, compliance, and fee related changes.
Event 4: T86 relegated to the past as small parcel exemption comes to an end
T86 was a voluntary customs clearance option for declaring e-commerce goods that are eligible for US Customs' “de minimis” (duty-free level), being packages with a value of up to 800 USD. Under the T86 clearance procedure, goods were free of duty, they cleared more quickly, and this was available for all most types of transport.
The U.S. eliminated the small-parcel duty exemption on May 2, 2025. T86 was revoked since merchandise from China and Hong Kong were no longer subject to the USD 800 de minimis. And even good valued at less than USD 800 may now be subject to duties under the U.S. Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTSUS).
Event 5: More than 10 cross-border e-commerce companies are rushing to IPO.
In early 2025, China had welcomed more than 6,400 new cross-border e-commerce businesses, roughly 75% of those that had been added in all of 2024. By the end of June, the country had about 30,000 enterprises across the nation registered for cross-border e-commerce.
In the publicly-traded companies which released the 2025 interim report, Ninebot (smart micro-mobility and service robotics) recorded revenue of 11.742 billion RMB in the first half, and revenue and net profit both increased.
It is obvious that enterprises with core competitive advantage in brand building, supply chain management, logistics efficiency and technological innovation will win favors in the capital market. As the industry consolidates at an increasing speed, there will only be more and more cross-border e-commerce companies entering the capital market for growth funds.
Event 6: DHgate is No. 1 on the U.S. shopping app list
In April 2025, as U.S.-China trade tensions continued to escalate, videos made by Chinese suppliers disseminated widely on TikTok, among other platforms, demonstrated how luxury brand clothing and bags were manufactured in China, after which they were tagged and sold at premium prices.
This content deflated the balloon of high-end brands. Several users suggested Taobao, DHgate and other outlets to buy directly from factories and avoid markups. DHgate even climbed to No. 1 of the U.S. shopping app chart, and for a short time appeared near the top of the overall free app chart, second only to ChatGPT.
On one hand, consumer worries about tariff policies played a part. A lot of U.S consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises, in an attempt to stockpile in order to avoid new tariffs, looked to a direct manufacturing channel from Chinese factories and here DHgate became their first choice.
Meanwhile, DHgate had long since broken the “big orders, long cycles” foreign trade and developed small orders, timely response typical, which was attractive to SMEs who wished to stock goods without high inventory risk.
Its rise was also a product of the force of social media on consumer practices and supply chain accountability. However, obstacles persist in the area of IP protection and product quality control.
Event 7: Temu stretches multisite and localization approaches
As with the whole-fulfillment model, the cost advantage of the full-fulfillment place of origin was also reduced due to the adjustment of the tariff In 2025, Temu remained the world’s second largest cross-border place after Amazon, and was still in the process of eliminating the full-fulfillment model and concentrating on semi-fulfillment, differentiated barriers, deep localization, and compliance ability.
Launch of pre-sale function. Temu introduced pre-sale option on February 8th. Stores that want to participate have to comply with operational criteria (late delivery, order cancellation rates, etc.). Qualify SKUs are the best-selling products, which includes up to 10% products in the past 30 days. Pre-sale exists 3-7 days, then it will be automatically changed to be unavailable.
Multi-site expansion and localization. Temu helped drive globalization by opening many more sites and getting local sellers. As for Europe, Japan and Korea, it minimized semi-fulfillment and L2L (local-to-local) model, and sellers would handle logistics and after-sales, with the support of platform for traffic.
Temu : Increased prices for its products as of April 25 to mitigate tariff expenses.
Adjusted and delisted U.S. bulk-fulfillment offerings; (e.g. shed regulated medical and radiation devices) And U.S. incomplete-information listings; reinforcement of compliance.
This skewed resources to the semi-fulfillment side, releasing Y2 model for sellers who have no overseas warehouse but can do the small-parcel shipments, providing the logistics support and traffic support.
Event 8: Large of TikTok refugees flock to Xiaohongshu
In January 2025, ahead of the looming U.S. ban for TikTok (January 19 was the date), foreign users that are now self-styled “TikTok refugees” started immigrating to other platforms. And to telegraph their frustration with the U.S. government’s data-security argument, the destination of their “online migration” was China’s Xiaohongshu.
Reuters reports that Xiaohongshu added more than 700,000 foreigners in the last two days, on January 13 and January 14. On January 15, Xiaohongshu overtook App Store's free download lists in 87 countries and regions. Its downloads in the second week of January were more than 20 times higher than in the first week.
Even as TikTok’s fate has remained uncertain, such exodus did not cease. Xiaohongshu’s distinctive “planting grass” (recommendation) culture and content-sharing mechanism broke through the barriers of language and culture. Users used a hybrid of fractured Chinese and English to talk about lifestyles and interests. After deploying cats and selfies, Americans also started testing Chinese dishes like tomato scrambled eggs, braised pork and Sichuan pickles.
With this investment, Xiaohongshu’s 2025 commercialization path is focused on industrial scale expansion, product infrastructure, and ecosystem open access, there will also be a brand push for new marketing channels for overseas markets.
Event 9: AI commonly used by platforms, merchants and consumers
This is a merchant side by focusing on catering customer service, recommendation, marketing, logistics, and other links,Product selection after-sales and other aspects of e-commerce,AI has been the fulcrum to accelerate the layout.
On the platform side, AI advancements are emerging as a new area of competition in cross-border retail. More than tools, AI is a remaking of the global retail value chain. The real race is to use AI as the engine, with user experience at the core, to create stronger tech barriers.
Consumers are also onboard: According to Attest, 49% of Americans are turning to AI tools for help making shopping decisions, up 6% year-over-year. On Prime Day 2025's opening day, generative AI accounted for a 4,100% lift in U.S. retail sites' traffic, Adobe said. Consumers also pushed for technology in the tracking of their orders, up-to-date notifications and returns/exchanges services.
Event 10: Layoffs widen in cross-border e-commerce networks
Layoff news pages were updated often, with Amazon, Walmart, Wayfair, TikTok and other platforms making headlines for major reductions as early as the first half of 2025. It was global in nature, covering the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, including retail, technology, customer support, logistics and other business functions.
Windingflow — The Cross-border Efficiency Engine
In a fast-changing environment of tariffs, policies, and shifting platform rules, cross-border sellers face mounting complexity:
- Multiple platforms with fragmented rules
- Repetitive product uploads
- Difficulties syncing inventory and orders
This is where Windingflow becomes your best partner:
- Integrates with 9 global e-commerce platforms
- Simplifies bulk product management
- Real-time synchronization of orders and inventory
- Smart analytics to optimize pricing and product strategies
- Multi-language and multi-currency support
Windingflow = the survival kit for sellers navigating global storms.
