Overseas "thousands of warehouses", "foreign trade station" to support Chinese manufacturing "group out to sea"

Xinhua Daily Telegraph 2012-07-16, 10:29:58

Data from the Ministry of Commerce show that China has built more than 2,500 overseas warehouses with an area of more than 30 million square meters. As an important overseas node of cross-border e-commerce, the era of overseas warehouses "thousands of warehouses" is accelerating.

Zhejiang has one-third of the number of overseas warehouses in the country, and the area accounts for 40% of the total construction scale. Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporter recently visited the site to learn that with the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce, coupled with enterprises in recent years to improve the efficiency of the supply chain, reduce logistics costs as the starting point to actively respond to overseas goods "warehouse" situation, overseas warehouse construction into the "fast lane", to help Chinese sellers open up the "last kilometer" to the sea.

"Open branches and scatter leaves", the construction of overseas warehouses has begun to take shape

At the headquarters of Ningbo Discovery International Logistics Co., LTD., multiple screens show the reality of its long-term rental warehouse overseas in real time.

"This year, we are prepared to invest more money to realize intelligent warehousing, and integrate services such as commodity display, after-sales, maintenance, assembly and packaging into the warehouse." Xu Guanghui, president of Discovery International Logistics, said that at present, a large number of foreign trade has changed rapidly from To B(sales To goods enterprises) To C(sales to consumers), and the time requirement for logistics compliance is higher, and the demand for overseas warehouses is also rising.

"There is no overseas warehouse, cross-border e-commerce logistics is' fault '." Shen Liangbin, executive vice president of Jiaxing Huanyang E-commerce Logistics Services Co., LTD., said that with overseas warehouses, cross-border e-commerce warehousing, sorting, packaging, return, delivery, delivery may be further guaranteed.

It is aware of this, global e-commerce logistics began to layout in 2022, began to invest in overseas warehouses in early 2023, and carried out systematic layout in the United States, Vietnam and other places.

With the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce, more and more enterprises are participating in the construction of overseas warehouses, including manufacturing enterprises.

"In the past, the cost of renting Amazon FBA warehouse is very high, and the shipping season will" explode ". And music product exports accounted for 90% of the total, very dependent on overseas warehouse. In 2019, we invested $100 million to purchase warehouses, massively expanded our warehouses, and started to develop public overseas warehouses." Xiang Lehong, chairman of Lege Ergonomic Technology Co., LTD., said that as of the first quarter of 2024, Lege has deployed 13 self-operated overseas warehouses in the world, including 9 in the United States, with an annual shipment of nearly 100,000 parcels, and has served more than 700 cross-border e-commerce enterprises to go to sea.

Zhejiang enterprises overseas warehouse construction began to take shape. According to the data of Zhejiang Provincial Department of Commerce, at present, 319 enterprises in Zhejiang have arranged 839 overseas warehouses in 53 countries around the world, accounting for about one-third of the country, and have a wide layout in North America, Western Europe and along the "Belt and Road".It covers an area of 12.1 million square meters, equivalent to the area of about 1,700 football fields, accounting for 40% of the country. "The number and size of overseas warehouses have increased rapidly in recent years." Zhejiang Provincial Department of Commerce foreign trade development deputy director Wang Shuli said.

However, in the view of the industry, the development of overseas warehouses is still in its infancy. Xu Guanghui said that the industry is very young, the current competition is more fierce, it is expected that in another three to five years there will be a head of enterprises, the future overseas warehouse contribution to foreign trade will be more and more.

Overseas warehouses help China's "last mile"

Reporters interviewed in Zhejiang found that the construction of overseas warehouses not only makes enterprises have the ability to "inventory", but also creates the opportunity for Chinese brands to work together to go to sea, and Chinese manufacturing is more competitive.

The first is faster timeliness. Cainiao operates more than 800,000 square meters of overseas warehouses in 18 countries and regions around the world, mainly in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and North America. Sun Ting, general manager of Cainiao Group's overseas warehouse supply chain, said that the existence of overseas warehouses not only provides convenience for Chinese merchants to go overseas, but also greatly improves the delivery time of parcels.

Good logistics service is the key to accelerate the brand to go to sea. For example, Cainiao New Jersey overseas warehouse is specially for home, auto parts and other large goods customized overseas warehouse, since January this year, has been stored more than 20,000 cubic meters of goods, mainly from Foshan, Guangdong, Zhejiang Anji and other places. The warehouse delivers to 15 states in the US. Chinese merchants will stock large furniture to the warehouse, and American consumers can receive goods on the same day or the next day as soon as they place orders on the e-commerce platform.

The second is a more comprehensive service. The reporter learned that the overseas warehouse can also provide multiple services such as exhibition, after-sales and maintenance for overseas enterprises. For example, Yiwu Mall Group establishes overseas warehouses in Dubai, Mexico and other places, and adopts the operation mode of "overseas warehouse + exhibition hall + land promotion".Huali Group has established national economic and trade cooperation parks in Thailand and Mexico, and overseas warehouses in the parks are equipped with maintenance and processing functions, which improves business efficiency.

The third is greater competitiveness. On the one hand, for domestic overseas enterprises, there are more overseas warehouses, connecting points into pieces, which can leverage more cross-border business. On the other hand, after the multi-point layout, the marginal cost of logistics has dropped rapidly, and the end logistics from warehousing to the destination country has higher bargaining power. "It's like, in the past, talking about end-logistics was the retail price, and now everyone talks together, talking about wholesale prices." Xiang Lehong said that the decline in logistics costs also means higher market competitiveness for foreign trade enterprises.

At the same time, Zhejiang has built an overseas intelligent logistics platform, integrating 19 kinds of business in 4 categories such as customs logistics, overseas online and offline marketing, overseas agency, finance and insurance, and built a closed-loop service system from warehouse supply to warehouse management. Up to now, a total of 407 overseas warehouses have been attracted to enter, and the cumulative orders have reached more than 15 million.

There are still some difficulties in the construction of overseas warehouses

In the survey, the surveyed enterprises reflected that the development of overseas warehouses is still facing some problems.

For example, a number of business leaders reflect that there is now no shortage of "overseas warehouses" with "greenhouses on the playground and garages as warehouses". These companies do not have formal warehouses, nor do they have express accounts to cooperate with overseas logistics companies, and often become "borrow warehouse from enterprise A, borrow express account from enterprise B" to fight a price war. If there is a problem, it has nothing to do with me, and if it cannot be done, it will "roll the money and run away".

In addition, the reporter learned that some illegal cross-border logistics companies seize the "time difference" loophole - on the one hand, the domestic industry and trade enterprises renting overseas warehouses need to "pay in advance to ship", on the other hand, the payment of overseas warehouse enterprises and foreign logistics enterprises is weekly and monthly. After some domestic industry and trade enterprises pay logistics costs, they find that the companies operating overseas warehouses "run away" before paying logistics enterprises, causing economic disputes and losses, and "a few pieces of rat poop broke the pot of porridge."

According to industry insiders, the establishment of overseas warehouses has a high capital investment, which requires investment in leasing, labor, information construction and other costs, and the return cycle is longer. Taking the United States overseas warehouse as an example, to buy a 10,000 square meters of overseas warehouse, the average price is more than 10 million US dollars (excluding equipment and hardware and software investment), such as leasing a 10,000 square meters of overseas warehouse, the average annual rent is more than 1.2 million US dollars, plus warehouse rent and labor costs rise in different degrees, for overseas warehouse service enterprises,Only when the average annual use or rental rate reaches more than 80% can capital and profit be maintained, enterprises are facing greater pressure on capital cost and professional operation ability. Therefore, some more flexible financing methods are needed to support the development and growth of overseas warehouse enterprises and industries.

In this regard, many companies call for the development of overseas warehouse industry norms and standards as soon as possible. The interviewed Zhejiang enterprises said that Zhejiang Province regularly evaluates and annually audits the "provincial public overseas warehouse" to help enterprises a lot, through the official regular assessment of enterprises, the survival of the fittest at the same time subsidies, to avoid "pepper", so that foreign trade enterprises can quickly find legal compliance and have the strength of overseas warehouse enterprises, to avoid the risk of "going to sea". (Reporter Zhang Xuanlin Guangyao)