The Biggest Growth Market Right Now Isn't AI

01 /The Concept

Entering the Chinese e-commerce market isn't hard – it's a different kind of hard. The rules, the platforms, the cultural expectations, and the regulatory requirements are all different enough that most Western brands either give up or hand control to a local partner they can't fully trust. YASO's pitch: what if you could have all of that handled for you, at Western standards of transparency, through what it calls an "operating system for global brands in China"?

The offer covers everything:

- Setting up and managing local e-commerce storefronts and marketplace listings on major Chinese platforms

- Importing goods, warehousing, payment processing, and last-mile delivery to Chinese customers

- Brand marketing, including adaptation of marketing materials to fit Chinese cultural norms

- Research and analytics to help brands identify which of their products are best suited for the market, plus ongoing reporting on everything that happens after handoff to YASO

If imported products need registration or certification to be sold in China, YASO handles the entire compliance process – at no extra charge.

All of this runs through a single IT platform that covers every dimension of the brand's relationship with YASO: operations, marketing, sales, and reporting.

Brands retain full visibility into what's happening – it feels like running an in-house China division, without actually having one.

The commercial model is clean: no upfront fees, no subscription costs. YASO takes a percentage of net revenue after customs duties are paid. Brands remain responsible for their own marketing budgets, but YASO absorbs logistics costs.

YASO currently focuses on UK-headquartered brands in the beauty and wellness category – cosmetics, fragrance, personal care, and adjacent categories.

The company just raised £8.25 million (just over $11 million USD), bringing total funding to $13.5 million. The plan is to expand both the range of countries YASO serves and the product categories it supports.

02 /Why It Matters

Most people think of China as the world's leading exporter of cheap goods. That's not wrong – but it's far from the full picture.

China is also the world's largest domestic e-commerce market by volume, generating $3.3 trillion in annual online sales. That's not a typo. China accounts for 40% of global e-commerce, ahead of the US at 39%, with Japan (5%), the UK (4%), and Germany and South Korea (3% each) trailing far behind.

Anyone who has tried to enter the Chinese market knows how difficult it is – from adapting marketing to local cultural sensibilities to navigating a complex operational environment.

The conventional wisdom has always been: you need a local partner. But local partnerships carry their own frustrations. Trust, transparency, and accountability can be elusive, and the power dynamic often tilts toward the local side.

A service that deeply understands Chinese market realities but operates by Western standards – with full transparency – is a compelling alternative to the traditional local-partner model.

Zooming out from China specifically: expanding into any international market is a well-established lever for revenue growth. OpenBorder ([related review](/review/pljus-35-vyruchki-za-150-minut)) makes the case that cross-border expansion works for almost anyone – with 20% revenue uplift for brands that execute competently, and 35%+ for brands with genuinely competitive products. OpenBorder offers a full-service cross-border expansion suite and has raised $10 million to build it.

Finnish startup eBrands ([related review](/review/tema-v-kotoroj-deneg-bolshe-chem-zhelajushhih-ej-zanjatsja)) operates on the same model and has raised $50 million in total, including $7.5 million this March.

Onex ([related review](/review/lokalnye-posredniki-jeto-globalnye-dengi)) helps medical device manufacturers enter international markets – but opts out of retail operations, instead connecting manufacturers with local distributors and retail chains and acting as a trusted intermediary. It's raised $1.2 million.

For lighter-touch options: xNova ([related review](/review/prodavat-v-drugih-stranah-mozhno-proshhe)) helps manufacturers identify importers in target markets (€1.2M raised), while Matchory works the reverse – helping sellers find suppliers globally to expand or improve quality (€7.6M raised).

03 /Opportunities

Most manufacturers still treat international market entry as a personal mission – diving deep into the target market, opening a local office, building their own distribution from scratch.

That approach can produce better results. But in today's environment, speed matters more than control. Enter a market too slowly and competitors will fill the gap with near-identical products. By the time you've set up properly, the battle may be over.

The smarter play is to treat international expansion like an operational function, not a personal challenge. The analogy: a strong technical founder knows they could write better code than any freelancer – but outsources it anyway, because their time is better spent on growth.

Two directions emerge from this review. For producers, the move is straightforward: expand into more international markets, using platforms and local partners to handle execution rather than trying to build in-house capability.

More interesting is the opportunity for people already living at the intersection of two markets – having relocated abroad, for instance. Anyone who understands both the home and host markets and has an appetite for building has all the ingredients to create a YASO equivalent for their specific corridor. Or vice versa. Or both simultaneously.

These two directions can also be combined. The founders of OpenBorder, for example, originally expanded their own products into international markets under a previous company – then built a startup to help others do the same thing, on top of the connections and knowledge they'd already accumulated.

Cross-border e-commerce was a $232 billion market in 2023. Projections put it at $9 trillion by 2032. That's the kind of tailwind that creates room for many players to grow alongside it. Which slice do you want to grab?