Cross-Border E-Commerce Experiment in North China's Industrial Belts: How Artificial Flowers, Excavators and Fasteners Generate Profits in Overseas Markets?

【Ebrun Original】If the East China industrial clusters centered around Yiwu and Hangzhou, endowed with the inherent genes of small commodities and e-commerce, are nimble and connected to the global market; and the South China industrial belts anchored by Guangzhou, Dongguan and Shantou, as the engine of electronics and FMCG manufacturing, prioritize efficiency and win through scale; then the North China industrial belts are more like a quiet heavy-duty manufacturing complex.

Wigs from Qingdao, excavators from Jining, steel shovels from Tangshan, carpets from Wuqing District of Tianjin, fasteners from Handan... Most of the industrial clusters here are large-scale and heavy-weight, carrying decades of craftsmanship and complete supply chains, standing solidly and steadily on the northern land and forming the solid foundation of "Made in China".

The smile curve theory points out that in an industrial chain, the upstream segments including R&D, technology, patents and core components, as well as the downstream segments such as branding, marketing, channels and after-sales service, usually have higher added value and profits; while the midstream processing, assembly and manufacturing links have relatively low added value. The manufacturing-heavy North China industrial belts have long been stuck at the bottom of the smile curve for most of the time.

"Many northern enterprises have long relied on OEM processing for operation. They lose money when the machines are running, and lose even more when they are not. That means they either go overseas or get eliminated, and failure to transform may be a matter of life and death," said Pan Huifeng, Secretary-General of Tianjin Cross-Border E-Commerce Association.

Transforming from general trade and OEM manufacturing to cross-border e-commerce is a solution that North China's industrial belts are exploring. It is reported that about 22,000 enterprises in Shandong Province have achieved new foreign trade growth through cross-border e-commerce, and the annual sales of the province's overseas-oriented industrial clusters on cross-border e-commerce platforms have maintained a steady growth of more than 10% on average; Hebei Province, relying on 107 characteristic industrial clusters including Baigou luggage and Yongnian fasteners, has built 7 cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones, 23 provincial-level industrial parks and 10 public overseas warehouses; Leveraging its port location advantages and rich service provider resources, Tianjin's cross-border e-commerce import and export volume has increased more than tenfold in five years, with six industrial belts including carpets, artificial flowers and bicycles becoming the main growth drivers.

Recently, at the 2026 Amazon Global Selling North China Seller Conference, through conversations with cross-border e-commerce associations in Tianjin, Hebei and Shandong as well as local industrial belt sellers, we sought to explore: What transformation dilemmas are the North China industrial belts facing? What experiences and methods have local merchants explored amid the growing pains of transformation? How can e-commerce platforms and industry associations empower the North China industrial belts?

01 Transformation Dilemmas of Industrial Belts: Meager Profits, Inconvenient Logistics and Concept Gaps

Pan Huifeng, Secretary-General of Tianjin Cross-Border E-Commerce Association, vividly illustrated the profit dilemma facing North China's industrial belts with the case of the local artificial flower industrial belt: The Tianjin artificial flower industrial belt accounts for more than 60% of the country's total production capacity. The production cost of an artificial flower is about 1 yuan, and the factory makes a profit of 0.1 yuan, selling it to southern ports at an ex-factory price of 1.1 yuan. It can then be resold for $9.9 on cross-border e-commerce platforms.

The dozens of times profit gap has made local enterprises realize the urgency of transformation. Patinas, a home decor enterprise based in Qingdao, Shandong, transformed from a traditional manufacturer to an industry-and-trade integrated cross-border seller. According to its General Manager Zhao Jing, the company's annual foreign trade sales were about $40 million before the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, orders almost came to a complete halt, factories suspended operations, and pressure mounted significantly. It was this shock that prompted Patinas to make up its mind to shift to cross-border e-commerce.

The company decided to send one person from each department, a total of 6 employees, to learn about Amazon operations covering business, product R&D to design. Currently, the C-end business contributes 70% of the company's total performance, and its operating sites have expanded from the single U.S. market to Europe, Japan and Southeast Asian countries.

Besides the profit gap, the poor logistics system is the second obstacle. According to Wang Congling, Secretary-General of Hebei Cross-Border E-Commerce Association, the logistics system in southern China is well-developed, with several weekly fast shipping services to the U.S. West Coast, while Hebei may "not even have one per week". Although Hede Shipping, a subsidiary of Hebei Port Group, has launched a U.S. West Coast express route, it often has to detour to Nansha Port due to insufficient cargo volume for a full container load, which prolongs the logistics time. Therefore, many sellers would rather pay extra express fees to transport goods to southern ports such as Shenzhen and Ningbo for shipment.

Moreover, most products from North China's industrial belts are large in size, further increasing the difficulty of logistics transportation. Shandong Haituo Machinery Group mainly operates excavators, which are large-sized goods. Bu Panpan, the company's Chief Operating Officer, said that large-sized goods cannot be stored in FBA warehouses, so they can only use FBM (Fulfillment by Merchant). The last-mile delivery of FBM orders cannot be operated as ordinary parcel delivery, but must be handled as freight delivery, usually adopting LTL (Less Than Truckload) delivery. However, initially, large goods transported to overseas warehouses had no tracking numbers or logistics trajectories, which could not be uploaded to the Amazon platform for consumers and the platform to track. This problem was later solved through communication with overseas warehouses.

In terms of talent reserve and conceptual awareness, there is also a certain gap between North China's industrial belts and those in the south. "Except for Qingdao and Jinan, which have a large number of universities and concentrated enterprises, other cities in Shandong face great difficulties in recruitment. Overall, it is very hard to recruit cross-border e-commerce operation talents in Shandong," said Lyu Yaping, Secretary-General of Shandong Cross-Border E-Commerce Association.

According to Pan Huifeng's observation, northern enterprises are relatively less willing to pay for knowledge services. However, this situation is gradually improving now, as some enterprises are willing to pay for knowledge and spend money on training courses.

Lack of brand building, meager OEM profits, inconvenient overseas logistics and shortage of cross-border talents are the major constraints facing North China's industrial belts in their transformation to cross-border e-commerce. Nevertheless, a group of pioneering sellers have started to address these problems one by one: some have built their own overseas warehouses for large-sized goods logistics, some have reshaped product logic from the consumer perspective, and others have prioritized brand building before product launch.

02 Sellers' Solutions: Self-Built Overseas Warehouses, Mindset Shift and Brand Registration

Shandong Haituo Machinery's transformation to the C-end market started with two insights. After more than a decade of deep engagement in the B-end market, the company found that prices were uncontrollable when going through distributors, and it could not hear the real voices of users; while small excavators are not only used for B-end engineering machinery in the U.S. — "Gardening enthusiasts, factory owners, farmers and households also use this equipment, so there is C-end demand." Going overseas through e-commerce platforms such as Amazon allows the company to directly reach C-end customers and launch its own brand in overseas markets, ensuring controllable end prices.

Excavators in the C-end market are a blue ocean category. According to Bu Panpan, Chief Operating Officer of Haituo, there were no similar products on Amazon before 2023. Currently, the customer unit price of Haituo's small excavators ranges from $4,000 to $10,000, while the price of similar machines offline in the U.S. is 3 to 4 times higher than Haituo's. In the past, American consumers preferred to buy mechanical equipment offline, but Haituo's products have the advantages of simplified functions, small size (1-3 tons) and high cost-effectiveness, which are suitable for scenarios such as garden renovation and ditch digging, and better meet the needs of individuals, families or farmers.

In addition, the threshold for large-sized goods to go overseas is not low, and proprietary supply chains and self-built overseas warehouses are the foundation, which have certain requirements for sellers' strength and capital. Currently, Haituo has self-built overseas warehouses in both the U.S. East Coast and West Coast. On the one hand, this ensures the timeliness of logistics and transportation, and on the other hand, it facilitates after-sales service. The overseas warehouses can serve as maintenance bases, and all product accessories come with a one-year warranty and free replacement. In addition, Haituo has also configured 24-hour online customer service, and uses AI replies to reduce customer waiting time.

For Haituo Machinery, the key to realizing C-end transformation lies in solving the pain points of large-sized goods logistics, while for Patinas, which mainly operates home curtains, the key to transformation lies in shifting from B2B manufacturing mindset to B2C consumer-centric mindset.

Its General Manager Zhao Jing said that at first, they thought that doing e-commerce was just changing from selling to supermarkets to putting goods online, and they could win by relying on high quality and low price. Holding the belief that "good wine needs no bush", they did not even run advertising campaigns, resulting in the first batch of goods being sold off at clearance prices.

Later, the team realized that B2C operations need to start from customer needs. Instead of launching a large number of SKUs online all at once, they began to conduct market research, collect data and identify product pain points from competitors' styles and customer reviews, and feed them back to product development, redesigning the yarn, fabric, style and color of curtains. Currently, Patinas has upgraded from mass production to a flexible supply chain based on "48-hour rapid prototyping and 7-day small-batch production", and multiple of its products have ranked among the top in their categories.

In addition to mindset shift, brand and copyright awareness is also an essential lesson for transformation. Huating Zhonghui, a trader relying on the Tangshan steel shovel industrial belt, said that the company did not register its own brand at the beginning. After its business grew, it found that there were constant follow-up sellers, and rights protection in the later stage was extremely complicated.

Moreover, only by having its own brand and joining Amazon's Brand Registry can sellers use Amazon A+ Content, the enhanced graphic and text introduction below the basic title, five-point description and ordinary pictures on the product detail page. Sellers can add brand stories, large pictures, detail modules, usage scenarios, videos, parameter/model comparison tables and other content, making the originally simple product page more like a small brand official website, so as to more fully explain product selling points, differentiation and brand information. This is crucial for building brand image and influencing user perception.

03 Government-Enterprise Collaboration to Break Dilemmas: Building Parks, Improving Logistics and Supplementing Talents

In addition to the exploration by enterprises, local cross-border e-commerce associations and governments in North China are building a systematic support network covering parks, logistics, platforms and talents.

Cross-border e-commerce parks are the bridgehead for exerting industry agglomeration effects, and various regions in North China are accelerating their construction. Tianjin has selected a batch of national-level cross-border e-commerce demonstration parks since 2020, and currently has six national-level demonstration parks, in addition to many independently operated demonstration parks. Demonstration parks can receive supporting subsidy policies to boost industry development. The Department of Commerce of Hebei Province has led the establishment of the International Trade Group and implemented the "1+2+N" strategy: one online product selection center covering 107 industrial clusters, supporting one-click customs declaration and tax refund, two offline product selection centers, and contracts with multiple overseas warehouse service stations.

In response to the problem of poor logistics system, local authorities are also improving and constructing relevant facilities simultaneously. Wang Congling, Secretary-General of Hebei Cross-Border E-Commerce Association, said that Hebei Province undertakes the mission of building an important national modern commercial and logistics base, and is committed to realizing "Hebei goods going overseas, Hebei goods traded by Hebei enterprises, Hebei goods shipped from Hebei ports". Currently, it has formed "seven major sea outlets": Shijiazhuang International Inland Port is the North China China-Europe Railway Express assembly center; two air ports are provided by Shijiazhuang Zhengding Airport and Beijing Daxing Airport; and there are four seaports: Huanghua Port, Caofeidian Port, Jingtang Port and Qinhuangdao Port.

Tianjin gives full play to its port advantages and continues to strengthen subsidies for port route construction and overseas warehouse construction. In addition, the scope of Tianjin's foreign trade subsidies is also expanding. In 2025, the subsidy coverage was relaxed from the four cross-border e-commerce customs supervision codes (9610 for small parcel direct shipment, 1210 for bonded stock preparation, 9710 for B2B direct shipment, 9810 for overseas warehouse stock preparation) to also include general trade under code 0110.

On the other hand, the talent shortage is also being continuously addressed. Tianjin Cross-Border E-Commerce Association has established a special committee for industry-education integration, promoting universities to set up cross-border e-commerce majors. Several batches of graduates have been trained and entered the market so far. "Previously, cross-border e-commerce talents were selected from majors such as finance, logistics, foreign languages and international trade. Now universities have cross-border e-commerce majors, and students learn simulation systems of various platforms in their courses. Although they may not cultivate operation and management talents, it is helpful to solve the problem of starting from scratch," Pan Huifeng introduced.

In addition to delivering talents, e-commerce associations also provide more direct support for enterprises' overseas expansion practices. Shandong Cross-Border E-Commerce Association has launched the "Cross-Border E-Commerce + Industrial Belt" cultivation and empowerment initiative, covering five major links: overseas expansion analysis meetings, store diagnosis, factory visits and product selection, practical operation guidance, and themed matchmaking. The initiative has achieved remarkable results so far, cultivating more than 2,000 enterprises in less than two months.

Recently, Amazon also launched the "North China Industrial Belt Joint Empowerment Plan", focusing on ten major industrial belts including Qingdao wigs, Jining construction machinery, Tianjin Wuqing carpets, Handan fasteners and Hengshui wire mesh, setting a target of incubating 500 brand sellers and cultivating more than 50 benchmark new sellers with annual revenue of over 100 million yuan in two years. It is reported that the plan will be promoted in three directions: identifying and cultivating benchmark sellers in each industrial belt, driving large-scale overseas expansion through the "leading enterprises driving clusters" model; providing classified support for industrial goods and consumer goods industrial belts, promoting the dual-track development of B-end upgrading and branding of cross-border e-commerce in North China; going deep into various regions of North China to accelerate the overseas expansion of industrial belts with characteristic advantages.

From the individual breakthroughs of pioneering sellers, to the ecosystem building of associations and governments, and then to the systematic empowerment of platforms, the heavy and steady North China industrial belts are now glowing with new vitality. For factories in the industrial belts, going overseas through cross-border e-commerce is not just about opening an additional online store, but a comprehensive transformation that gets closer to consumers, grasps pricing power and changes business thinking.

Ebrun will continue to follow up and report on this development. If you want to know more information related to this article, please scan the QR code to follow the author's WeChat account.