[Abstract] The research purpose is to analyze how China International E-Commerce Expo (hereinafter referred to as the E-Commerce Expo) promotes the transformation of Yiwu's business model from physical specialized markets to e-commerce, namely "e-commerce replacing traditional market". Since the 2008 financial crisis, traditional trade has been increasingly sluggish. Yiwu, as the representative of physical specialized markets, bears the brunt. Meanwhile, the rapid development of information technology has transformed the traditional circulation field and spawned e-commerce as a brand new form of trade, bringing new opportunities to physical specialized markets. In 2013, Zhejiang took the strategic move of "e-commerce replacing traditional market". In 2014, under government guidance, China International E-Commerce Expo came into being, driving the transformation of Yiwu and surrounding specialized markets, breaking through space constraints, and further expanding the small commodities market. The E-Commerce Expo has been successfully held for 7 sessions so far. During this period, Yiwu - China's largest small commodities specialized market - has made remarkable achievements in e-commerce transformation, thus reputed as the "World E-Commerce Capital".

As a model of China's "e-commerce replacing traditional market", Yiwu has attracted many scholars to study the driving factors behind it, such as market advantages, technological advantages, government role and industrial clusters, from perspectives of economics, geography and management. But the role of E-Commerce Expo that accompanied Yiwu's e-commerce development has long been neglected by academia. From the communication perspective, focusing on on-site communication activities, and combining stakeholder theory, ritual theory, new public service theory and other interdisciplinary theories with data from field visits and in-depth interviews, this paper argues that as a strategic communication platform, the E-Commerce Expo helps Yiwu's "e-commerce replacing traditional market".