The China International Import Expo is not only an exhibition for imported products and innovative technology, but also an important platform for creating a world-class business environment, stimulating market development potential and enhancing international exchanges, said Li Yanchuan, head of the China Global Store and Prime, Amazon.

Li made the remarks at the ongoing fourth CIIE, which kicked off on Thursday night in Shanghai. The US tech giant makes its CIIE debut this year.

During the CIIE, Amazon Global Store, the cross-border shopping platform of Amazon, not only showcases some of the best-selling overseas products, more importantly, it also hopes to share the innovative services, high-quality shopping experience and wide selection to meet the diversified and personalized cross-border online shopping needs of Chinese consumers.

"The CIIE is one of the most direct ways to connect many foreign products and services to China's consumer demand faster and more directly, realize the effective connection between supply and demand, and promote the efficiency of the supply side of the Chinese market," Li said.

According to Li, Amazon Global Store will continue to deepen localization initiatives and create more value for consumers by expanding the selection and introducing more categories of overseas products, so as to to meet the growing personalized and differentiated consumer needs, and build a more immersive cross-border online shopping experience.

According to the Ministry of Commerce, China has been the world's largest online retail market for eight consecutive years, and the scale of China's cross-border e-commerce retail imports exceeded 100 billion yuan ($15.6 billion) in 2020.

In addition to the market size, Amazon also sees that China's e-commerce industry is taking the lead in innovation and has abundant new business models.

"The Chinese market is increasingly becoming a hot spot for technological innovation and business model innovation. In the process of consumption upgrading, Chinese consumers' demand for innovative products and experiences is also increasing. They are at the forefront of the cross-border online shopping market, which puts forward higher requirements for us," Li noted.

According to a report jointly released by the Amazon Global Store and Baidu, although first-tier cities still dominated the cross-border online consumption, residents living in lower-tier cities have displayed a fast-growing purchasing power.

The report said the post-1990 generation is emerging as the mainstream consumers, and cross-border online shoppers are clearly becoming younger. The proportion of the post-90s users among overall cross-border online shoppers has been increasing over the past years.

Li said beauty, personal care and clothing have been the most popular categories among consumers in cross-border online shopping. Moreover, products like tableware and kitchen utensils, small home appliances, and gardening tools were very popular, and the growth of products in the health category was very eye-catching, due to the pandemic.