In 2025, the cross-border e-commerce industry will undergo a deep reshuffle under multiple pressures.
According to relevant reports, the annual revenue of U.S. Customs has risen to US$215 billion, a surge of US$120 billion from 2024. Fluctuations in tariff policies caused China’s freight volume to the United States to plummet by 60%.
At the same time, platform advertising costs continue to rise.
Amazon’s advertising revenue accounts for nearly 10%, reaching US$17.7 billion in a single quarter; Walmart’s advertising business is growing six times as fast as its retail business, and sponsored products account for more than 60% of the top 20 search results.
These data reflect the core contradiction of the industry: sellers are under the triple squeeze of tariffs, advertising, and platform fees, and their profit margins continue to narrow, while the popularity of artificial intelligence has further raised the operating threshold.
In such a complex environment, the trend of cross-border e-commerce is shifting from extensive expansion to refined operations, and professional tools have become the key to breaking the situation.
From the perspective of the platform landscape, 2025 marks a structural transition.
Chinese sellers accounted for more than 50% of Amazon’s global active sellers for the first time (reaching 50.03%), but policy compliance pressure has also intensified.
State Council Order No. 810 requires platforms to submit transaction data on a quarterly basis, which forces companies to standardize tax declarations.
At the same time, new channels are emerging rapidly.
TikTok Shop’s global GMV increased by 100% year-on-year to US$26.2 billion, and the US market reached US$5.8 billion; Temu has reduced delivery time from several weeks to two days by increasing the local fulfillment ratio (target 50%-80%).
This differentiation shows that the model that relies solely on low prices or a single platform is unsustainable, and multi-channel layout and data-driven decision-making are becoming the new normal.
In terms of cost control, 2025 has exposed the shortcomings of the traditional operating model.
Natural products account for less than 50% of Amazon’s search results, and sellers fall into “advertising dependence”: stopping advertising means a traffic cliff, and continued advertising will erode profits.
What’s even more serious is that AI tools have been upgraded from “optional extras” to “survival necessities.”
Amazon Seller Assistant can automatically implement price adjustments and replenishment strategies, and Creator Studio enables zero-threshold content generation.
This means that small and medium-sized sellers who fail to embrace technology will be eliminated at an accelerated pace.
Looking forward to 2026, the cross-border e-commerce trend will present three main lines.
First, the price differentiation per customer is accelerating. Low-customer products are more affected by tariff costs, while high-customer categories need to maintain premiums through value-added experience. Second, AI-driven efficiency revolution, conversational e-commerce (such as ChatGPT shopping) may reduce reliance on traditional advertising. Third, compliance costs are internalized, and Chinese sellers need to incorporate taxation and data declaration into their business models.
It is worth noting that 2026 is not a blindly optimistic “growth year”, but a “efficiency year” of structural optimization.
It is predicted that the penetration rate of e-commerce will steadily rebound, but the growth momentum will come from the personalized needs of Generation Z and the resilience of the supply chain rather than traffic dividends.
Sellers need to establish a dynamic pricing mechanism, identify high-margin categories and optimize resource allocation.
This ability is particularly important for the expansion of emerging markets. When TikTok Shop expands its European site or Target Plus implements a selection model, sellers can quickly evaluate the contribution value of the channel and avoid blind investment.
