Merchants in China leverage AI for international marketing

A businesswoman communicates with a foreign merchant with the help of an artificial intelligence (AI) tool of Chinagoods AI smart service platform in Yiwu, east China's Zhejiang Province, in October 2024. (Photo courtesy of the media convergence center of Yiwu city)

"One, two, three, four, five," a woman who owns a sock shop in Yiwu, an international hub for small commodity production and trade in east China's Zhejiang Province, repeated the numbers to her phone camera in early 2025.

With the help of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, videos in which she appeared to introduce products to potential customers fluently in dozens of languages were instantly generated for her.

This has become routine for tens of thousands of foreign trade merchants in Yiwu and other regions in China. With AI assistance, the entire foreign trade process—from production and design to display and transaction—has been optimized, and cross-border e-commerce has continued to break through limitations of time, space, and operating costs.

"I was among the first to benefit from AI," said Sun Lijuan, head of Yiwu Hongsheng Toys Co. Ltd. in the Yiwu International Trade Market, the world's largest wholesale market of small commodities.

"In October 2023, I was introduced to AI and digital human technologies as a beta tester," she recalled. At that time, the market's operator Zhejiang China Commodities City Group Co., Ltd. released China's first large language model for the commercial trade sector, with its Chinagoods AI Smart Service Platform being upgraded.

A merchant takes notes during a training session on artificial intelligence in Yiwu, east China's Zhejiang Province, March 7, 2025. (Photo courtesy of the media convergence center of Yiwu city)

To test the functionality, staff members of the operator contacted her to film a product introduction video in Chinese, which was then quickly converted into English, Arabic, Spanish, and Russian versions using AI technology.

"When I saw the videos, I was stunned by synchronized lip movements that matched my voice. The effect was incredibly realistic," she said.

After publishing these videos on social media platforms, they generated strong responses. Some videos garnered over 1 million views, and many customers commented asking how Sun's Arabic was so fluent.

"Many users from Israel, Pakistan, Mexico, Nigeria, and other countries reached out requesting product lists. After using AI-generated videos, my store's sales increased by 10-20 percent," she said.

Today, beyond creating multilingual videos with digital humans, Sun also uses AI tools to accelerate product design and development processes.

"Previously, we would spend one to two months producing samples, and then soliciting customer feedback, or relying on international exhibitions," Sun said.

"Now with AI, we can generate corresponding design elements that provide us with considerable inspiration. We can directly create images for customers to review and only proceed with production after confirming the style. This significantly shortens development time while reducing costs," she added.

Sun is just one example of the many foreign trade merchants in Yiwu benefiting from AI. According to statistics from the Yiwu International Trade Market, nearly 30,000 merchants now regularly use various AI tools launched on Chinagoods. As of the end of February this year, over 200,000 users had used related AI products on the platform.

Merchants attend a training session on artificial intelligence in Yiwu, east China's Zhejiang Province, March 7, 2025. (Photo courtesy of the media convergence center of Yiwu city)

In addition, more than 100,000 companies worldwide now use Alibaba.com's AI tools for foreign trade. Data shows that products optimized with AI have seen a 52 percent increase in conversion rates, while customer response rates have improved by 36 percent with AI assistance.

Zhang Kuo, president of Alibaba.com, believes that as AI business assistants continue to self-learn and evolve, their capabilities are rapidly improving, providing opportunities for many small and medium-sized enterprises to engage in foreign trade operations.

To ensure that AI tools become effective assistants in the cross-border e-commerce sector, Yiwu has focused on training talents in AI application according to merchants' actual needs.

On March 11, Yiwu announced the launch of a training plan that coordinates efforts among the government, enterprises, and colleges to comprehensively cultivate talents in AI application in the e-commerce sector. The plan aims to provide free training to over 300,000 participants within two years, covering AI practical skills in product selection, customer service, design, and more.

Merchants like Sun have directly benefited from this plan. She had brought her team to participate in training sessions organized by Zhejiang China Commodities City Group Co., Ltd. for four consecutive evenings.

"All of our AI tools are available free of charge to merchants operating in the Yiwu International Trade Market," said Lou Qinfeng, technical director of Yiwu China Commodities City Big Data Co., Ltd.