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DHgate.com

e-commerce platform

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ5205077
Source-derived summary

DHgate.com (Chinese: 敦煌网; pinyin: Dūnhuángwǎng) is a Chinese business-to-business (B2B) and Business-to-consumer cross-border e-commerce marketplace that facilitates the sale of manufactured products from suppliers to small and medium retailers. It is one of the largest B2B-cross-border e-commerce trade platforms in China. The company is based in Beijing and has offices worldwide, including in the US and UK.

History

DHgate was founded by Diane Wang in Beijing in August 2004 and was officially launched in 2005. The "DH" in DHgate refers to Dunhuang (Mandarin 敦煌 (Dūnhuáng)), a Chinese city in modern-day Gansu province and formerly a strategic point on the Silk Road which linked China to the rest of the world during ancient times. The name alludes to the company's place as a modern, online version of the Silk Road linking SMEs between China and abroad. Early on, the company struggled to remain profitable, but capital investments in 2006 and 2007 helped DHGate remain afloat. In 2008, it was listed 7th on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 for the Asia Pacific region. By the following year, it had over 1 million registered users worldwide.

In January 2013, DHgate began assisting small & medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam with exporting goods internationally. Prior to this, the company had primarily worked to connect Chinese SMEs with foreign buyers.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “DHgate.com” as e-commerce platform. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around DHgate, e-commerce and platform.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2004, 2005, 2006, 2007—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with DHgate, e-commerce and platform providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “DHgate.com”, the useful work is to connect “e-commerce platform” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5205077. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “DHgate.com”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow DHgate.com primary sources, DHgate.com archive and DHgate research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “DHgate.com”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from DHgate.com” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.