The city is simply astonishing! As soon as you leave the airport, you feel it.
In 1980, Shenzhen was a small town with a population of around 60,000. Now, home to over 12 million, the city is a technological hub, widely known as China’s Silicon Valley. With its economy surpassing Hong Kong’s for the first time last year, and home to leading brands like Huawei, Tencent and JDI, it has truly become the world’s capital for cross-border eCommerce.
We have been hosting the Payoneer Forum for the past 6 years and have taken our flagship event to 100 cities worldwide. But Shenzhen always attracts the biggest crowds – this year’s forum, officially titled “Smart Sharing, Global Winning” drew in 1,500 merchants and over 30 marketplaces from all over the world. With a packed agenda covering topics from breaking into the growing Indian market to launching your own brand and managing your international tax obligations, there was engaging content for business of all sizes and at all stages of growth.
Our Shenzhen forum felt like a cross between a major industry conference and a huge speed dating event! On the one side you have hundreds of merchants with original products at competitive prices. On the other side you have eCommerce marketplaces from all over the world, keen to onboard the best merchants to expand their range with original products.
In addition to the global giants like Amazon, Ebay, Walmart and Shopify, we were also joined by leading marketplaces from every corner of the globe. For example, Shopee, Lazada, Tiki and JD.ID all attended from Southeast Asia, presenting the merchants with insights on how to expand their businesses in this rapidly growing economic hub.
Among all the sessions, the highlight of the day for me was the Green Channel launch ceremony with participation from 16 marketplaces from Latin America through Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Payoneer’s Green Channel is a matching and onboarding service designed to connect merchants with marketplaces, utilizing Payoneer’s comprehensive fraud protection and compliance capabilities to create a seamless onboarding experience for both merchant and marketplace.
We live in amazing times, whereby anyone anywhere in the world can buy from or sell to anyone anywhere in the world. It was amazing to witness first-hand how today’s digitalized, connected world has created opportunity for consumers, brands and marketplaces. It was amazing to witness innovation and creativity, together with the capability to truly scale.
There is huge opportunity out there for both marketplaces and merchants alike, and it really is a privilege to be on the front-line of empowering businesses to Go Beyond.