At Yiwu International Trade City District 1, shops selling keychain pendants, articulated figures, stress-relief toys and other 3D-printed products are drawing steady crowds. One merchant, Lin Hao of Zhu Ye Culture, said 80% of the shop's goods are export orders bound for Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea.
Rather than relying only on offline trade fair foot traffic, Lin set out to build a cross-border independent website of his own. In early September, using the Chinagoods platform and the "World Yiwu" trade large model, he uploaded company information, three-view product drawings, factory and warehouse photos, product design and R&D photos, and showroom images, then fed his initial web design concept to an AI tool. In roughly ten days, the first version of the site was delivered.
The site now allows customers to browse and select products online, with selection lists uploaded directly to the merchant's backend. It also automatically switches to the same language system as the visitor's phone, lowering the communication threshold and extending reach. Planned upgrades include in-site ordering, customer-side 3D design modeling, and automatic retouching of product images from a single phone photo, which Lin said will meaningfully cut time and labor cost.
AI is also reshaping product development at the store. Lin, who has worked in 3D design modeling for over a decade and began experimenting with AI tools in design five years ago, said his team now designs 20 to 30 products a day. Previously a single product took a full day; with AI tools it takes two or three hours. For toys, where product cycles turn over quickly, that speed lets small merchants respond to the market much faster.
The wider shift is visible across Yiwu. Merchants are using the Chinagoods platform and the World Yiwu trade large model to reach global small and medium-sized buyers directly, cutting out intermediaries. With the 2026 Yiwu Trade Conference scheduled for October 23, operators expect more merchants to share AI application experience and explore new digital trade paths.
Source: Yiwu Business Daily / Tencent News
