Cainiao launched the world's largest charter flight plan, locking more than 700 charter flights to ensure that 90% of the tmall Singles' Day export packages will be directly delivered by air
China's annual express delivery volume exceeded 80 billion for the first time on December 21, setting a new record, according to data from the State Post Bureau. A boundless, efficient and convenient express delivery network has become inseparable from consumers' daily life, known as the "second high-speed rail network".
Behind the strong growth of express delivery business is the strong online shopping consumption of residents. In the first 11 months of 2020, China's online retail sales exceeded 10.5 trillion yuan, accounting for nearly 30 percent of the total retail sales of consumer goods in the same period.
Online shopping is not limited to China. In recent years, cross-border e-commerce has gradually entered the public life. In particular, since the outbreak, people's need to connect with overseas markets has increased. Cross-border logistics has enabled people to experience the efficiency and intelligence of shopping, and witnessed the strong consumption potential of China and the world after the epidemic.
"Logistics is the two pillars of the economy, and cross-border logistics is directly related to the recovery of the global economy and the stability of the supply chain. The Chinese government and enterprises are working hard to improve cross-border logistics." Jia Jinjing, assistant dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, told Oriental Outlook that the logistics industry supports the production end and connects the consumption end, closely linking the upstream and downstream, and playing an important role of two-way catalysis to accelerate the operation of the supply chain.
Eyes and brains for Southeast Asian logistics
Just before singles' Day this year, smart logistics platform Cainiao announced at the end of October that it would help 11 Southeast Asian countries prepare for singles' Day with brand new logistics in Taiwan to support the promotion of Singles' Day in 12 countries around the world. The mass, the system reform of the new technology, was named the "Apollo program", dominated by ali rookie, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nepal, Burma, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and other countries more than home appliance business platform, nearly hundred express company, and small and medium-sized sellers do together, The new system could cover a billion people.
Represented by a rookie logistics platform has created a series of Numbers, or from one side to just "regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement" signed (RECP) buried footnote - asean has become China's enterprises not only in the layout of the land, its potential for emerging industries, especially in cross-border electricity, cross-border logistics bring huge promotion effect.
Behind the magnificent transformation of the southeast Asian logistics system in 6 months is the result of long-term deep cultivation and patient management of the novice. Chen Weicai, cainiao's global logistics technical director, led a team to visit Indonesia in December 2019. In Chen's view, the state of e-commerce logistics in southeast Asia in the pre-digital era is a bit like China 15 years ago. For example, the upstream and downstream status of e-commerce and logistics is inconsistent. The downstream of express delivery has signed for the package, but the e-commerce background is still on the way. And Cainiao's Apollo project is to build a unified logistics technology center, to put eyes and brains on southeast Asian logistics.
Thus, for the first time, merchants, express logistics companies, warehouses, transit centers and consumers in southeast Asian countries are connected by a unified logistics center. In the past, southeast Asia express relies on people's work points, but now it is intelligent and automatic points. Couriers, who used to navigate complex, crowded streets with memory and navigation, now use smart path planning from amateurs. In the past, the weight and volume of goods delivered by businesses are estimated, and now there are algorithms for accurate measurement; Logistics pricing before are manual operation, now is intelligent pricing, one key adjustment. Relying on cainiao's core system, e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia can, for the first time, adopt differentiated operation strategies in different cities by taking into account factors such as revenue, cost, timeliness, investment rate and total transaction volume, helping to turn losses into profits.
During the operation of the new logistics technology in Central Taiwan for more than half a year, the probability of mismatch between e-commerce and logistics information in the core six southeast Asian countries of Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore has been reduced by 98%, and the average cost per parcel delivery has been reduced by 20%. Chen weicai said, "We hope to make logistics the core competitiveness of e-commerce platforms through the upgrading of logistics technology."
"The new market in Southeast Asia has attracted a large number of e-commerce and express delivery players, and many companies compete for the market through price competition," an industry expert with a long-term focus on Southeast Asian logistics told Oriental Outlook. "But what this new market needs are ecommerce companies that are really willing to invest in upgrading the underlying technology architecture of Logistics in Southeast Asia."
Show China's responsibility
At the height of the epidemic this year, Cainiao also contributed to the global response. In the process of fighting the epidemic, with international flights basically suspended, Cainiao network, relying on the global intelligent logistics backbone, quickly opened a stable and green channel for the global fight against the epidemic. In January, Cainiao opened a green Channel to help transport global medical aid to Wuhan. Cainiao delivered 69 million tons of medical aid from 39 countries and regions to Wuhan.
When the epidemic was brought under control in China, Cainiao's focus shifted to delivering supplies, increasing the number of charter flights from 260 to a staggering 1,260, making up for the shortfall in capacity caused by airline shutdowns. Cainiao has shipped 250 million pieces of medical protective equipment to more than 150 countries and regions around the world. The pandemic has tested cainiao's capabilities and spurred many improvements.
In addition to transporting medical supplies through its own efficient and scientific logistics system, Cainiao has also played a positive role in stabilizing the global supply chain as the pandemic has eased. To stabilize foreign trade, Cainiao has intensively opened new intercontinental flights in the past two quarters, increasing its monthly charter flights from 40 to nearly 150.
An official from Air China Cargo told Oriental Outlook that this is the first time Air China has cooperated with a cross-border e-commerce logistics company to open a charter flight. Cainiao's strengths in cross-border e-commerce logistics complement Air China cargo's global network of passenger and cargo aircraft.
In terms of port promotion, Cainiao focuses on the expansion of the central warehouse network, which has been increased nearly 20 times in a year, with 46 warehouses covering major ports in China. In this quarter, cainiao import warehouse began to connect to more e-commerce platforms, supporting overseas merchants to send "one tray of goods" to China, and then multi-platform distribution through Cainiao. Data show that cainiao international's daily cross-border parcel processing volume has been on par with the three big European and American express delivery giants, forming a new pattern of "the world's new four" cross-border logistics.
Outbreak to the whole world economy brings a major challenge, China as the world's second largest economy, China's exports account for the international market share is rising steadily, is an important part of the international industrial chain of the supply chain, now China's first showed recovery, the good operation of supply chain to ensure that the international industry chain is huge, and cross-border logistics unobstructed will guarantee the stability of the supply chain, It will also benefit the domestic market and the international market.
The next growth point
At present, As the first major country to achieve positive economic growth under the epidemic, a large number of small and medium-sized exporters are eager to sell their products to overseas markets, and smooth international logistics is the basic condition. Companies with international logistics and transportation capabilities, such as Cainiao network, are playing a key role.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are very sensitive to logistics prices, and the rise in international logistics prices after the epidemic has also brought great pressure to relevant enterprises -- air freight prices once rose by about five times. In order to help stabilize foreign trade, cainiao's export logistics department has lowered export logistics fees in late June. Some key European countries cut prices by nearly 30%, which is expected to save small and medium-sized enterprises 150 million yuan in cross-border transportation fees in the next month.
Relying on this logistics system, many small and medium-sized enterprises have bucked the trend of growth. For example, BioloMix, a kitchen appliance brand based in Dongguan, is entering a period of rapid post-epidemic growth, recording a year-on-year growth of more than 160% in the first quarter of this year even as many exporters were hit.
Before, its cooperation warehouse in Europe was inefficient. It took 48 hours to place an order and deliver the goods, but the whole delivery process took 3-5 days. Logistics became the bottleneck of this enterprise's export. In April this year, BioloMix started to move into Cainiao's warehouses in Poland and Spain, realizing full custody of logistics in Europe. When European consumers place orders, the two overseas warehouses arrange to deliver goods to buyers, increasing the logistics timeliness by at least 40%. Faster logistics has attracted more customers to place orders, resulting in a 17-fold increase in the store's conversion rate and a 30% increase in monthly sales on AliExpress in the past three months.
International trade under the epidemic situation is like a miniature of the future situation: some traditional B2B overseas traders have blocked access, the penetration rate of overseas e-commerce market has increased, and B2C export traders have shown strong resilience. It is foreseeable that these enterprises will play a more important role in international trade, but they also urgently need to build a set of reliable, efficient and beneficial international logistics infrastructure.
The compression of logistics cost and the improvement of timeliness make the advantage of Chinese manufacturing reflected again. It is reported that cainiao has started to expand logistics hub facilities in Thailand, Russia, Spain, the United States and other places, and plans to add 1,000 export charter flights in the next nine months, in the next three years through nearly 2 million square meters of overseas warehouses for small and medium-sized enterprises to prepare for the sea.
At present, Cainiao has built a global intelligent logistics backbone network integrating cross-border parcel network, overseas warehouse network and cross-border supply chain network, covering more than 220 countries and regions around the world. Most of AliExpress's cross-border logistics is handled by Cainiao international. Cainiao International (the cross-border logistics team of Cainiao) has thus become one of the four new cross-border parcel networks in the world, along with UPS, FedEx and DHL. The daily cross-border logistics orders handled by Cainiao surpass those of FedEx and DHL, and close to UPS.
Different from the common impression that only high-value goods can be chartered by charter, Cainiao uses smart ordering technology to allow many high-quality and inexpensive goods such as mobile phone cases, toothpaste extruders and toilet seats, which cost 5 yuan or 10 yuan, to be chartered by charter, providing a brand new export logistics solution for small and medium-sized merchants.