Letting sellers tap into UnionPay’s massive base—and Chinese interest in cross-border ecommerce—could boost volume and attract sellers who might want to switch providers.

The number of cross-border ecommerce buyers in the US will rise by only 4.5% (or 2.9 million) in 2022, but other markets are growing rapidly. China led cross-border ecommerce buyer growth with a 24.5% increase in 2020, and Shopify’s partnerships with Chinese tech giants like Alipay, and with ByteDance’s TikTok, will help its merchants more easily penetrate the market.

The platform will likely be focused on cross-border retail—primarily, shipping Chinese goods to other markets like the US. Per our forecast, cross-border ecommerce is steadily growing in popularity in the US, with 64.7 million people ages 14 and older taking part in it this year—more than a fifth (23.3%) of the population.

We also expect that Amazon will make moves internationally, having filed “Amazon Pharmacy” trademarks or patents in the following markets: Canada, the UK, Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, the EU, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey, and the UAE. While that doesn’t indicate imminent moves, it does signal Amazon’s intention to scale its online pharmacy beyond US borders.

Parcels in the US, Australia, and the UK most commonly originate from China, as many retailers ship goods from the country.

Singles’ Day, the online shopping festival invented by Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba and held on November 11, is widely known in the West. Now, a series of similar “double-digit” shopping festivals from digital powerhouses Lazada and Shopee are driving ecommerce growth in Southeast Asia.

We estimate that in China—where many shoppers want products from leading international brands, including luxury labels—the number of cross-border ecommerce buyers rose by almost 25% in 2020, as consumers took advantage of both direct sales from brand websites and marketplaces that have opened the vast Chinese market to non-Chinese products.

Already No. 1 in ecommerce, China will overtake the US this year to become the world’s largest overall retail market for the first time.

Global trends shifting shopping, including omnichannel selling, the rise of “New Retail,” cross-border ecommerce, social commerce, and top ecommerce players like Amazon and Alibaba and why marketplaces are dominating worldwide.

Growth of retail sales in China is declining, due to economic and geopolitical challenges, and will not overtake the US until 2021. But retail ecommerce has continued to flourish in some surprising ways under these current circumstances.

We also examine their current strategies for expansion and consider the steps they may take in the future to grow their businesses, both in China and abroad.