The rise of semi-hosting and the escalation of price wars! A review of the major cross-border e-commerce events in 2024

At the beginning of 2024, e-commerce platforms led by Amazon continued to adhere to the conservative route of increasing revenue and reducing costs, and gradually launched global layoffs. By the end of 2024, Amazon had reduced staff in multiple departments such as Twitch, Audible, Buy with Prime, Prime Video and MGM Studios, and its global employees were affected to varying degrees.

At the same time, Lazada also took the lead in implementing an organizational structure adjustment plan in Southeast Asia to optimize its business layout to achieve sustainable growth.

It is worth noting that this wave of layoffs is not limited to e-commerce platforms. Some well-known DTC brands and Amazon sellers also announced layoff plans in 2024: DTC mattress brand Purple decided to close some factories and lay off employees to cut costs and improve financial conditions; iRobot, the leading brand of Amazon's sweeping robots, also announced an operational restructuring plan on November 5, 2024, and it is expected to lay off approximately 105 employees, accounting for 16% of its global workforce.

Combined with various uncertain factors, the wave of layoffs in the e-commerce industry in 2024 has not been alleviated, causing far-reaching and lasting impacts on the industry.

On February 12, 2024, Wish's parent company ContextLogic announced plans to sell most of its operating assets and liabilities to Singaporean e-commerce giant Qoo10 for approximately US$173 million.

On April 26 of the same year, Wish issued a relevant announcement to the platform sellers, announcing that Qoo10's acquisition of Wish was officially completed.

In June, Qoo10 announced the launch of "Wish+", which integrates Qoo10's existing platform with Wish.com to provide a unified global e-commerce experience and an expanded product inventory covering local suppliers and high-quality Asian brands and manufacturers.

Looking back at Wish's success from its grand listing in 2020 to its loss-making sale in 2024, the reason for this is that, on the one hand, the huge marketing expenses generated by social media traffic gradually dragged down Wish's profits; on the other hand, the rampant inferior products and vicious competition under the low-price model also caused consumers to gradually lose confidence in it.

There are different opinions in the industry about Qoo10's motives for acquiring Wish. Some sellers believe that Qoo10 may have taken a fancy to Wish's layout in the sinking market, while other sellers believe that Qoo10's move is intended to accelerate market expansion and expand its international influence.

In 2024, the trend of semi-custody swept the cross-border circle, among which Temu and Shein adopted a new form of "semi-custody" and "full custody" in parallel, and expanded rapidly in overseas markets.

As early as February 18, 2024, Alibaba International Station took the lead in launching semi-hosting services simultaneously in six European and American countries, opening up a new path for traditional B-end foreign trade companies to transform into the e-commerce field.

In mid-March 2024, Temu officially announced the trial of a semi-hosted business model in the US site. Compared with the full-hosted model, Temu's semi-hosted model focuses more on sellers with overseas local fulfillment capabilities. Under this model, Temu will continue to undertake key operational tasks such as promotion and traffic diversion, after-sales service, intellectual property and legal affairs, while overseas shipment, fulfillment and after-sales links will be left to the sellers to take charge, giving full play to its localized operational advantages.

SHEIN also officially launched the "semi-hostage" model on June 3, 2024. For sellers entering the "semi-hostage" model, SHEIN currently does not set performance threshold requirements, and there is no additional cost for opening a store, providing sellers with a low threshold and a quick opportunity to enter the market.

On March 5, 2024, bipartisan members of the U.S. Congress formally proposed a "sell or ban" bill against TikTok. On April 24 of the same year, the U.S. President announced the signing of a $95 billion foreign aid bill, which included the earlier proposal to divest TikTok.

Faced with this situation, TikTok's CEO Zhou Shouzi firmly ruled out the possibility of selling TikTok in a public statement. TikTok and its parent company ByteDance officially sued the US government on May 7, 2024.

• September 16: The trial of the case in which TikTok and its parent company ByteDance sued the U.S. government for unconstitutionality began.

• December 6: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused to dismiss TikTok’s “sell or ban” bill.

• December 13: A U.S. federal appeals court rejected TikTok's request to delay the implementation of the ban bill.

• December 18: The U.S. Supreme Court decided to hear TikTok’s appeal against the government’s forced sale bill, and will debate the constitutionality of the bill on January 10, 2025.

• December 27: Trump filed a request with the U.S. Supreme Court to suspend the forced sale order against TikTok.

• On January 3, Aero Energy was listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange Science and Technology Innovation Board.
• On July 26, UGREEN Technology rang the bell for its listing on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's Growth Enterprise Market.
• On October 2, Carrot was listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
• On October 21, Qian'an Technology was listed on the New Third Board.
• On November 8, Aoji was listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.