Attention: Sentiment Index
The original report is sensitive to the opinion index, tracing back to the source, and interpreting the deep context of real estate. Be committed to the line and reveal the overall development law of the industry.
Abstract:In addition to the transformation and upgrading of assets, it is also necessary to continuously improve the strength of enterprises, so as to attract more cross-border e-commerce enterprises to settle in.
According to the General Administration of Customs, cross-border e-commerce has become a new force in global trade, with the scale of mainland netizens exceeding 1 billion, making it the world's largest online retail market, and cross-border e-commerce is growing particularly rapidly.
In 2023, the total import and export volume of cross-border e-commerce in mainland China will be 2.38 trillion yuan, an increase of 15.6%. Among them, exports were 1.83 trillion yuan, up by 19.6 percent, and imports were 548.3 billion yuan, up by 3.9 percent. The number of consumers participating in cross-border e-commerce imports is increasing year by year, reaching 163 million in 2023.
According to the data of the Ministry of Commerce, in the first quarter of this year, the import and export of cross-border e-commerce in mainland China was 577.6 billion yuan, an increase of 9.6%, and the import and export of e-commerce with Hungary, the United Arab Emirates, Cambodia and Brazil and other "Silk Road e-commerce" partner countries grew rapidly.
Behind the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce, in addition to the help of policy guidance and digital trends, warehouses for commodity storage are equally important. Especially for pure foreign trade enterprises, it is difficult and costly to build their own warehouses, and leasing warehouses has become the first choice, and for cross-border e-commerce platforms, it is not necessary to build their own warehousing system, and it is also a good choice to choose to cooperate with warehousing providers to build customized warehouses.
On March 29, 2023, the Suzhou Industrial Park High-end Manufacturing and International Trade Zone announced that up to now, nearly 100,000 square meters of high-standard and high-specification warehousing facilities have been established in the jurisdiction, forming a full-process cross-border e-commerce logistics and supply chain service system, and strongly supporting the development of cross-border e-commerce enterprises. It is mentioned that based on the overseas empowerment system provided by Amazon, a localized operation team will be established, and together with Suzhou Cross-border E-commerce Co., Ltd., it will provide customers with Suzhou industry and trade integration with "Suzhou brand + Amazon/third-party platform + independent station" cross-border brand overseas service.
On December 12 of the same year, GLP announced that the construction of the Western Smart Industrial Park project in the Shein Bay Area had started, which is an intelligent, low-carbon and humanized industrial base customized by GLP for SHEIN, and is also the largest customized customer project of GLP so far.
Starting from the third-party warehousing provider, this paper analyzes the convenience given by the warehousing provider in the process of cross-border e-commerce development, what adaptive construction or transformation has been done when introducing cross-border e-commerce enterprises, and the current problems of the third party.
Choice of warehousing
In terms of the types of warehouses that cross-border e-commerce enterprises can choose, there are mainly bonded warehouses and non-bonded warehouses (domestic) and overseas warehouses (foreign), and from the perspective of warehouse construction methods, there are mainly two types: self-built and leased.
Opinion Index understands that bonded warehouses are mainly used to store goods that have not been paid for duties in the bonded area, and enterprises are temporarily exempted from the payment of duties and taxes when goods are imported, reducing financial pressure and providing flexible warehousing and logistics arrangements for enterprises. A non-bonded warehouse is a regular warehouse for the storage and distribution of goods that are subject to duties and taxes immediately upon importation.
Overseas warehouses are storage facilities built by enterprises overseas, and domestic enterprises transport goods to target market countries through international transportation, store goods in local self-built or leased warehouses, and carry out commodity sorting and delivery operations from local warehouses according to local sales orders.
Data source: Cross-border Eye, Frost & Sullivan, opinion index collation
From the perspective of institutional data, from 2020 to 2022, the number of overseas warehouses in major countries and regions has gradually increased, and by the end of 2022, the number of overseas warehouses in mainland China has increased to 2,356, an increase of 30% year-on-year, and the overall market supply is strong.
On April 21, 2021, GLP, as the provider of overseas warehouses, introduced Aosom in G Park Valls in Catalonia, Spain, which leased 30,000 square meters of storage space for use as a regional distribution center. It is understood that Aosom is a cross-border export e-commerce enterprise mainly engaged in outdoor leisure, household products, sports and fitness, health and beauty products, and the company is headquartered in Ningbo, Zhejiang.
On January 3, 2024, JD Logistics launched an overseas "front warehouse" service model for Honor in Europe, by storing smart terminal devices such as mobile phones in warehouses such as JD Logistics' Paris warehouse in France, European consumers can place orders on any platform, and they can quickly produce and ship in the warehouse, and through JD Logistics' logistics network, orders can be delivered in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and other countries as soon as 1 day, and cover core European countries and regions in 2-3 days.
For cross-border e-commerce enterprises, leasing warehouses is a better choice.
Self-built warehouses require huge investment and long-term preparation, and if they are not well-run medium and large cross-border e-commerce enterprises, the profits may not be able to amortize the costs of construction, logistics and distribution.
Of course, overseas warehouses are also a kind of logistics real estate, which also comes with disadvantages such as long construction cycle and recycling cycle. However, for warehousing companies, they can amortize costs to multiple customers, achieving economies of scale, thereby reducing the operating costs of a single customer. In addition, it can also use its professional logistics network and resources to allow customers to carry out more efficient logistics operations and realize the integration of warehousing and distribution.
Data source: Cross-border Eye, opinion index collation
According to the data of institutions, overseas warehouses are still mainly pure leasing at this stage, accounting for 39%, while only 28% of enterprises are engaged in a completely self-built mode.
In response to the demand for bonded warehouses, Hongtu Innovation Yantian Port REIT stated in its 2023 annual report that on December 8, 2022, the Shenzhen Yantian Port Cross-border E-commerce Operation Center was officially opened, marking a new breakthrough in the cultivation of port and shipping supporting industries and new business formats of Shenzhen Port Group, providing strong support for Shenzhen to build a cross-border e-commerce international hub city, which will greatly promote the standardized development of the cross-border e-commerce industry and promote the agglomeration of more cross-border e-commerce enterprises in Yantian District to form an industrial cluster effect.
For example, the first cross-border e-commerce industry support policy issued in April 2023, the Measures for Accelerating the High-Quality Development of Cross-border E-commerce Industry in Yantian District, which provides different degrees of incentives and support to enterprises in Yantian District, such as shipping and logistics, bonded high-end industries, and bonded exhibition and trading, to promote the entry and development of such enterprises in Yantian District.
In addition, the bonded area where the bonded warehouse is located implements the policy of "inside and outside the customs", that is, the goods entering the bonded area from overseas are not regarded as imports, and only when they enter the country from the bonded area to the country, they are regarded as imports, and the goods from the domestic to the bonded area are regarded as exports.
This also means that international enterprises purchasing in China can set up distribution centers for purchasing export goods in bonded areas and directly distribute goods to foreign markets, thereby solving the cost of distribution;
Adaptability vs. the status quo
The relationship between the third-party warehousing provider and the cross-border e-commerce enterprise is not a one-way choice, but a two-way selection process. Third parties will also carry out some adaptive construction or renovation to attract cross-border e-commerce enterprises to settle in, such as the cross-border e-commerce operation center of Yantian Port mentioned above.
Guandian Index has learned that the cross-border e-commerce operation center of Yantian Port passed the customs acceptance at the beginning of 2023, and broke through the barriers of the customs area on August 7, transferred electronic customs clearance data in the form of "transfer order" on the integrated platform, enabled intelligent electronic customs locks to replace traditional physical locks, and used scientific and technological means to strengthen the supervision of vehicles on the way, and the whole chain of "data flow, trajectory flow, and video stream" was connected to the customs system in real time, and vehicles could automatically pass through the gate and return the container in real time, so as to truly realize the interconnection of the system.
In addition, the customs clearance time of each shipment can be saved by 2 to 3 hours, and at the same time, the logistics cost of cross-border e-commerce enterprises can be saved by 500 to 1,000 yuan. As of August 17, 2023, the cross-border e-commerce operation center of Yantian Port has completed the customs clearance of nearly 600 truckloads of cross-border e-commerce goods, with 14 million parcels and an export trade volume of US$160 million.
In addition, the policy side also guides warehouse providers to optimize the layout of overseas warehouses.
Specifically, the Ministry of Commerce said at the recent press conference of the State Council Information Office that the mainland will continue to optimize the layout of overseas warehouses, encourage foreign trade enterprises and logistics enterprises to make full use of these overseas warehouse resources, and improve their level of specialization, scale and intelligence, so as to provide more convenient channels for China's high-quality products to reach overseas consumers.
It is understood that at present, the overseas capacity is unstable, due to the large increase in cross-border commodity import and export demand, resulting in a large number of merchants need to stock up, which in turn leads to an increase in the demand for warehousing, but at the same time, it also leads to some warehousing providers to use low-price temptation when attracting sellers to cooperate, and then raise prices after cooperation, making merchants fall into a passive situation.
Behind the chaos in the industry is the further concentration of resources in overseas warehouses with deep qualifications and brand endorsement, which also gives a signal to third-party warehousing providers: in addition to the transformation and upgrading of assets, it is also necessary to continuously improve the strength of enterprises, so as to attract more cross-border e-commerce enterprises to settle in.