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Elise Hacking Carr is senior production editor for Print & Promo Marketing magazine, and managing editor for PRINTING United Journal.

Kyle A. Richardson is the editorial director of Promo Marketing. He joined the company in 2006 brings more than a decade of publishing, marketing and media experience to the magazine. If you see him, buy him a drink.

China devalued its yuan currency for a second day running on Wednesday. It could have an effect on American consumers and investors. Here's how.

Cheaper imports, more expensive exports:

If you like your goods made in China, a weakened yuan is your friend. When the yuan falls in value, goods imported to the U.S. from China become cheaper. And China makes a lot of things, from cars and computers to clothing and furniture. Conversely, American businesses will find it more expensive to sell their goods to China.

Sales are up on 1688.com, Alibaba Group’s business-to-business e-commerce site for connecting China-based suppliers with retailers within China. One reason is that suppliers are offering their customers more flexible ways to place small and customized orders through Alibaba’s Tao Factory program.

The program, which is geared toward retailers who also sell through Alibaba’s Taobao.com and Tmall.com retail e-commerce sites, also lets retailers apply for loans to purchase merchandise. It also includes a system through which suppliers automatically replenish a retailer’s inventory of particular products when they fall below specified levels.

A China regulator has accused Alibaba Group Holding Ltd of failing to clean up what it called illegal business deals on the e-commerce titan's platforms, in an unusually strong government criticism of one of the country's biggest private companies.

The State Administration for Industry and Commerce, in a report published on its website last week, said many products sold on Alibaba's e-commerce websites and services infringed upon trademarks, were substandard or fake, were banned or endangered public security.

Alibaba declined to comment on the report.

"Made in China" will be a less frequent sight in U.S. clothing stores if the United States has its way in a new trade pact negotiated among 12 Pacific Rim nations. Washington aims to engineer a deal where Vietnam, set to be one of the big winners among the members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), would win apparel market share from China and other non-members, rather than Mexico and Central America. Today, thanks to regional trade deals half of U.S. yarn and textile exports head south of the border.

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