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This morning e-commerce briefing aggregates 9 of the latest industry updates across e-commerce and AI, with key highlights and actionable takeaways summarized below.

1. Practical update for general consumers: Alipay has launched "Abao", its most extensive AI-powered upgrade to date. Currently in invite-only beta testing, the feature can be accessed with a right-swipe, allowing users to complete more than 10,000 different services via simple text prompts in the chat interface. It will roll out to all users gradually, and consumers are encouraged to follow along for early access.

2. Major industry headlines: Sam's Club China's Chief Purchasing Officer Zhang Qing will step down at the end of June 2026 for personal reasons. Former CPO Neil will serve as interim during the transition period, and a global search for a permanent successor is underway. The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference will be held in Shanghai this July, and China is accelerating the establishment of the World AI Cooperation Organization, welcoming participation from stakeholders worldwide. OpenAI burned through $3.7 billion in cash during the first quarter, highlighting the persistent profitability challenge facing AI firms even as the industry continues its rapid expansion.

This briefing aggregates the latest industry insights to inform brands' strategy across marketing, channel expansion, cross-border expansion and risk management, with key takeaways summarized below.

1. Cross-border expansion insights: AliExpress has launched the "Saiya Program", a brand recruitment initiative targeting the U.S. market. It offers support including zero-cost store setup, ad credit incentives and upfront payments for warehoused inventory, paired with an overseas fulfillment model where brands only handle inventory preparation while the platform manages all operations. This reduces barriers to entry and creates a new opportunity for brands looking to enter the U.S. market. The EU is set to eliminate its tax exemption for low-value imported parcels; in response, SHEIN has scaled up its direct local logistics network in Europe. This serves as a reminder to Europe-focused brands that they need to build out local fulfillment infrastructure in advance.

2. Brand building insights: JD 7Fresh has released its "7S Quality Control Covenant", which translates freshness and food safety into quantifiable, verifiable standards to upgrade its brand positioning. This approach to quality-focused brand building offers a useful reference for offline retail brands. Chow Tai Seng continues to expand its self-operated offline store network in core regions, indicating that offline channels still offer growth headroom for jewelry brands, making this expansion strategy a useful reference.

This briefing outlines multiple new opportunities, support policies and risk alerts for sellers, with key takeaways summarized below.

1. New growth opportunities: AliExpress's "Saiya Program", a U.S.-focused brand recruitment initiative, is an extension of its Brand+ cross-border brand expansion program. It offers a full suite of support for brand sellers, including 3-day fast track store setup, a limited-time $1,000 ad credit incentive, and upfront payments for warehoused inventory. The program's overseas fulfillment model lets sellers only need to prepare inventory for the warehouse, while the platform handles marketing and user operations, drastically reducing operational complexity. Brand sellers targeting the U.S. market should take advantage of this opportunity.

2. Risk management alert: The EU's upcoming elimination of tax exemptions for low-value imported parcels is prompting SHEIN to take over a local Irish logistics center to accelerate its direct controlled fulfillment network expansion in Europe. This is a reminder to sellers targeting the European market that building a local logistics and fulfillment network in advance is critical to both mitigate policy risk and improve customer experience.

3. Industry risk alert: OpenAI recorded $3.7 billion in cash burn in Q1. While demand for AI is strong, profitability remains out of reach for most players. Sellers building AI-related businesses should make long-term cash flow plans and maintain sufficient cash reserves.

This briefing offers insights for factories on new business opportunities and digital transformation, with key takeaways summarized summarized below.

1. Cross-border business opportunities: Cross-border e-commerce platforms are aggressively recruiting brands for global expansion. AliExpress's U.S.-focused "Saiya Program" offers multiple incentives and an overseas fulfillment model. As core suppliers for brands, factories can leverage this program to access platform resources, expanding into overseas markets by only handling inventory preparation without shouldering operational pressure. This represents a new opportunity for factories to grow cross-border revenue.

2. Digital transformation insights: Moore Threads has completed day-zero rapid adaptation of Zhipu AI's new open-source flagship large language model GLM-5.2 on its own MTTS5000 AI computing card, optimizing performance for ultra-long context processing and complex reasoning. This demonstrates that mature large language model and computing infrastructure is already available for commercial deployment. Factories pursuing digital and intelligent upgrades can leverage existing mature technologies to revamp their production, design and operational workflows, lowering barriers to transformation.

3. New order opportunities: Chow Tai Seng added six new self-operated stores in May and continues expanding its offline network, confirming that jewelry brands still have growing offline expansion demand. Jewelry-related supply chain factories can align with this expansion pace to secure more stable orders.

This briefing outlines emerging trends, customer pain points and new technological advances in e-commerce and AI, with key takeaways summarized below.

1. New technology opportunities: Moore Threads has completed day-zero rapid adaptation of Zhipu AI's new flagship GLM-5.2 large language model on its MTTS5000 AI computing card, further unlocking high-throughput performance for long-input scenarios and optimizing performance for ultra-long context and complex reasoning use cases. AI computing and technology service providers can leverage this adapted solution to deliver more efficient AI training and inference services for clients, expanding their business scope.

2. Customer pain points and new opportunities: The core pain points for cross-border sellers are high operational complexity and limited familiarity with European regulatory policies. Platforms have already launched fulfillment models to address operational challenges, leaving room for service providers to build complementary offerings focused on compliance, local warehousing and logistics. By aligning with platforms' brand expansion initiatives, service providers can serve small and medium-sized brand sellers to build a stable customer base.

3. New industry demand: AI industry demand is booming, but profitability remains extremely challenging. OpenAI burned $3.7 billion in Q1, and is projected to burn $250 billion this year. This indicates that a large number of AI companies have unmet demand for cost control, cash flow planning and financing consulting. Related service providers can develop targeted offerings to capture this demand.

This briefing outlines latest moves from industry peers to inform platforms' strategy on recruitment, operations and risk mitigation, with key takeaways summarized below.

1. Recruitment and operations insights: AliExpress's "Saiya Program" for U.S.-focused brand sellers lowers entry barriers through zero-cost setup, multiple incentives, and an overseas fulfillment model. In just nine months since launch, it has attracted more than 1,500 officially certified brands. This approach to recruitment and seller support offers a valuable reference for other cross-border platforms.

2. Risk mitigation and user experience improvement: To prepare for the EU's elimination of tax exemptions for low-value imported parcels, SHEIN has proactively built out a network of directly controlled local logistics centers in Europe, while also cutting delivery lead times. This demonstrates that cross-border platforms need to adjust their fulfillment network layouts proactively to adapt to regulatory changes, improve customer experience and avoid business disruptions from policy shifts.

3. Product upgrade insights: Alipay's most extensive AI upgrade to date lets users access an AI chat interface via a right-swipe, integrating over 10,000 services that can all be completed via simple text prompts. This approach to AI-powered product improvement that boosts user efficiency offers a reference for all types of service platforms. For retail platforms, JD 7Fresh's approach of building user trust via a quantifiable 7S quality control covenant also offers a useful model for quality-focused operations.

This briefing covers the latest industry developments, emerging challenges and new business models across multiple sectors for research reference, with key takeaways summarized below.

1. New developments and business models in cross-border e-commerce: Cross-border e-commerce has entered a new phase of global brand expansion. AliExpress has launched the "Saiya Program" for the U.S. market, an extension of its existing Brand+ global brand expansion initiative. The program positions itself as allowing brands to gain incremental growth at half the cost of selling on Amazon, with an innovative model where the platform handles marketing and operations while brands only manage inventory. This asset-light brand expansion model represents a key new industry development worthy of study. Additionally, cross-border platforms' widespread push to expand local fulfillment infrastructure in Europe in response to EU regulatory changes is another important industry shift.

2. Unresolved challenges in the AI industry: OpenAI recently reported $3.7 billion in cash burn in Q1. While market demand is strong and the company holds ample cash reserves, profitability remains elusive. Industry analysts project its annual cash burn will reach $250 billion this year and $570 billion by 2025. This confirms that the profitability challenge remains a core open problem for the large language model industry, making it a critical area for further industry research.

3. New developments in the retail industry: Traditional jewelry brand Chow Tai Seng continues to accelerate offline store expansion in core regions; fresh grocery retailers are pushing for standardized quality control; and membership retail is seeing a key executive turnover. All of these are the latest industry shifts in retail that can serve as reference for industry research.