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Leading B2B cross-border e-commerce marketplace DHgate teamed up with female empowerment organization The Inner Mountain Foundation to highlight the experiences of real business owners at ASD Market Week 2024.

The spring edition of ASD Market Week just wrapped up in Las Vegas, with over 1,800 vendors displaying an all-in-one shopping experience with a wide selection of high-margin products available for view at the trade show.

One of the more notable participating exhibitors was DHgate, a leading B2B cross-border e-commerce platform that helps international retailers connect with suppliers from China and around the world. This year saw DHgate team up with The Inner Mountain Foundation, a groundbreaking initiative started by DHGATE Group Founder, Chairperson and CEO Diane Wang that seeks to empower female entrepreneurs. Diane herself is a pioneering e-commerce entrepreneur who first founded Chinese online book and video retailer Joyo.com (later acquired and rebranded as Amazon China) and then later the DHgate e-commerce platform.

“ASD Market Week is a fantastic opportunity to not only showcase DHgate’s e-commerce services, but also for the company and The Inner Mountain Foundation to reach out to and better understand micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and female entrepreneurs’ experiences,” said DHGATE Group Co-CEO Chun Li.

“We are keen to advance DHgate’s services for small American businesses and collaborate with platform merchants for mutual growth. Among these, female entrepreneurs make up a significant portion of DHgate’s clientele.”

Inspiring Stories Aboard the DHgate X Inner Mountain Party Bus at ASD
Launched in the fall of 2023, The Inner Mountain Foundation is devoted to building communities of like-minded women around the world, with a goal to inspire them to conquer their ‘Inner Mountains’, find the inner strength to lead, and make a difference in the world. The Foundation provides access to numerous educational resources, information, training and funding for female-owned businesses.

At this edition of ASD, The Inner Mountain Foundation organized a party bus, hosted by Natasha Walstra, a member of The Inner Mountain Foundation’s California chapter and host of the Foundation’s podcast ‘The Climb’. During the one-hour bus tour, Natasha and participants from diverse backgrounds shared stories of personal growth and self-discovery, as they worked to empower themselves and other women.

The party bus represents the first in a series of offline events aimed at engaging women in local US communities. Everyone aboard the party bus was excited to hear about the upcoming activities from The Inner Mountain Foundation across North America this year, as well as opportunities to communicate with female entrepreneurs from China.

As party bus-goers shared their experiences, obstacles and challenges they faced during their entrepreneurial journeys, a few participants stood out: Erica, a local Las Vegas beauty blogger who recently started her own business; Amanda, a stand-up comedian who is also starting a social content service business; and Sherita, a single mother of three who is seeking more stable financial income by venturing into e-commerce.

They revealed that they appreciated the safe cooperative space curated by The Inner Mountain Foundation, where they could gain strength and encouragement from sharing with others, hearing their stories, and inspiring each other.

Meet the Real People in Retail: DHgate Customers Share their Experiences
Back at DHgate’s ASD Market Week booth, the business team met many old friends and new clients from around the world, including female influencers and other women-owned small businesses, who shared their experiences in the American retail space.

One anecdote came from Ashan and his mother, immigrants who operate a family-owned grocery and wholesale business in Texas. Their offline grocery store has been operating for decades, transitioning from the first to second generation of the family. They said that their secret to surviving over the years has been to stay on the constant lookout for new and more cost-effective products. They expressed appreciation that DHgate could connect them with a wider choice of high-quality suppliers from China. Ashan and his mother were very excited to learn about DHmogo, a new B2B cross-border e-commerce platform for home and living products that offers value-added sourcing services such as customized procurement for MSMEs in the American and European markets.

Mark and Tiffany, a married couple from New York, also shared their story about running a beauty business. They openly admitted that, based on their experience, in the past, cosmetics have not been a strong suit of Chinese suppliers. The situation is changing thanks to a dramatic expansion of beauty categories on the Chinese supply chain, offering various beauty tools, accessories, and smart beauty devices. The emergence of high-quality beauty merchants and competitive prices has given Chinese suppliers an advantage for Mark and Tiffany, who are excited to use DHgate to expand their business further.

Two Days of Shopping and Stories, with a Multilingual Focus
DHgate had one of the most eye-catching booths at ASD Market Week this spring. With a selection of popular products and excellent booth design, the booth drew a lot of attention and created a buzz among event-goers and other vendors alike.

The unique design of DHgate’s gift bags received unanimous praise, with many attendees specifically requesting them; one customer even placed an on-site order for 5,000 pieces. Many on-site orders were also placed for electric skateboard luggage cases, one of this year’s hottest items.

This year, DHgate also received an unprecedented amount of interest from multilingual customers, primarily from Turkey and Spanish-speaking countries, and many negotiations and inquiries took place. Some Turkish dealers said they hoped businesses in the United States could cooperate with DHmogo in the future to expand American customer services to other overseas regions.

“The growing trend of multilingualism will be an important focus for our team this year,” said DHGATE Group Co-CEO Chun Li. “We anticipate that AI-generated content will be a game-changing technology for multilingual business interaction, and to this effect, we’ve developed our own Voyage AI model specialized for cross-border e-commerce.”

About DHgate
Founded in 2004, DHgate has become the leading B2B cross-border e-commerce marketplace in China, boasting over 34 million live listings annually. Through their global operations and offices, including in the USA and UK, DHgate reaches millions of people with trusted products and services. As of December 31, 2022, DHgate served more than 59.6 million registered buyers from 225 countries and regions, connecting them to over 2.54 million sellers in China and other countries.

For more information, please visit DHgate.com and follow @DHgate.com.

About The Inner Mountain Foundation
The Inner Mountain Foundation promotes the empowerment of women through education, community, and outreach. They are led by Founder and Chairperson Diane Wang, who first articulated the principles of Inner Mountain Thinking in her 2024 book, The Inner Mountain. As a global foundation and women’s empowerment community, The Inner Mountain Foundation invests in impact-making educational resources that they seek to make as broadly accessible as possible. Their goal is to focus the work of the Inner Mountain on soft skills training, which they believe helps equip women to be their greatest, most empowered selves across their most wholly integrated life (connecting the self with work, family, community, and legacy).

For more information, please visit innermountain.org