Shanghai customs data shows that in the first eight months of this year, cross-border e-commerce exports through Shanghai port reached 106.98 billion yuan, up 28.7% year-on-year, maintaining growth for eight consecutive months. Shanghai Customs is leveraging institutional innovation and technological empowerment to continuously support Chinese goods in "selling globally."

Overcoming the "LCL challenge": low-cost sea freight becomes the preferred option for SMEs going global

Recently, at the Shanghai Maritime Cross-Border E-Commerce Operations Center at the Waigaoqiao Zhendong Terminal in Shanghai, a batch of cold-weather products worth approximately 150,000 yuan was shipped overseas under the supervision of Shanghai Waigaoqiao Port Area Customs, demonstrating Shanghai port's regulatory reform targeting the "fragmented" orders of cross-border e-commerce. Traditional sea freight uses full containers as the minimum unit of operation, lacking less-than-container-load solutions suited to the multi-batch, small-volume needs of cross-border e-commerce, making LCL shipping a bottleneck for small and medium-sized enterprises going global. Waigaoqiao Port Area Customs innovatively introduced a "master bill plus LCL consolidation" regulatory model. According to Yang Qisheng, head of the second inspection section of Waigaoqiao Port Area Customs, this model deeply integrates master bill operations with LCL consolidation business, allowing cross-border e-commerce goods with bills of lading as the regulatory unit to be consolidated together with general trade export goods for shipment, and directly loaded onto vessels after customs supervision and release. The new model has been widely praised by enterprises. A representative from Shanghai Limeng International Logistics Co., Ltd. said: "The new model has cut cargo consolidation time by 50% and saved an average of about 4,000 yuan in logistics costs per TEU." A representative from Youlianda Trading (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. said: "Now even a few cubic meters of cargo can be arranged for sea shipment, significantly reducing logistics costs." It is reported that in the first eight months of this year, Shanghai Customs supervised over 10 million parcels of export goods under the maritime cross-border e-commerce manifest model, with a value exceeding 10 billion yuan, doubling compared to the full previous year, attracting supply from international leading platforms such as Amazon to cluster at Shanghai port.

"Speed like flying": Pudong Airport cross-border e-commerce imports and exports hit new highs

Pudong Airport's cross-border e-commerce manifest volume has ranked first nationwide in air freight for three consecutive years. In the first eight months of this year, the overall declared volume of import and export cross-border e-commerce manifests at Shanghai Pudong Airport reached 578 million tickets, with a value of 57.526 billion yuan, up 41.37% and 6.62% year-on-year respectively, both setting new historical records. A customs affairs representative from Shanghai Zhizhi Robotics Co., Ltd. said: "Under customs guidance, we rely on cross-border e-commerce platforms to launch new products in real time and quickly capture consumer demand. In the first eight months of this year, the company exported over 3,000 tickets of robot parts, up 20% year-on-year." On the export side, the proportion of higher-priced items such as mechanical keyboards, astronomical telescopes, and wigs continued to rise; on the import side, personal care and cosmetics, fashion apparel, and light luxury goods were widely favored, while imports of leisure categories such as game consoles and outdoor camping equipment grew steadily. To make good use of massive data, Shanghai Pudong International Airport Customs explored the application of BI technology to build a data ecosystem foundation featuring "one-screen overview" and "drill-down linkage." A relevant official from Shanghai Pudong International Airport Customs said: "We empower business growth with digital and intelligent supervision, letting platform data run ahead and saving enterprises from making extra trips afterward."