The Paper's reporter Zhang Jing
At this year's China International Import Expo, the one-stop international logistics online service platform "Where to Ship" launched the ship schedule forecasting service for cross-border supply chain logistics, hoping to solve the pain points on the market that can only be simply queried about the current ship status but cannot be predicted, helping customers to better arrange shipping plans and grasp future production and shipment plans.
On November 6, Zhou Shihao, founder and CEO of "Where to Ship", said in an interview with the surging news (www.thepaper.cn) that the earlier the ship schedule forecast can help customers make plans and find empty boxes to queue up, so as to better arrange shipments. The accuracy of the "where to ship" schedule forecast is close to 90%, and the digital way is used to help the supply and demand sides match, and the improvement of matching efficiency can smooth out or reduce the congestion caused by the original empty containers or insufficient space supply, and channel some demand to choose other transportation solutions.
Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Shanghai, "Where to Go" aims to use the Internet and digital technology to create a visual cross-border supply chain logistics, making international logistics as convenient and efficient as sending and receiving express delivery. It has obtained 7 rounds of financing, with a financing amount of more than 300 million US dollars.
Lack of boxes and cabins, low punctuality rate, soaring freight rates, the international logistics market since 2020 is full of uncertainty, bringing great trouble to import and export traders. Zhou Shihao said that in the past year, the demand for shipments based on consumer goods has been strong, but cross-border supply chain logistics has changed the demand for shipments due to various unexpected situations, "the original shipment to the United States has suddenly become Europe; the original shipment to Southeast Asia has suddenly been shipped to the United States." "This fluctuating demand makes scheduling more difficult.
At the same time, foreign ports are congested, containers in the maritime market are difficult to find, and freight rates are soaring. "In some cases, even if customers are willing to pay a higher price, there are no classes or empty boxes." He said that these two pain points have collectively led to many trade export enterprises making money this year, but they have not actually generated higher returns.
At last year's Ciie Expo, "Where to Ship" launched digital products such as logistics visualization, fulfillment automation and logistics big data for traders around the world, allowing customers to understand the status of goods in real time. This year, "where to ship" launched a ship schedule forecast on this basis, predicting the ship schedule through global ship data, history and current transaction conditions, hoping to solve the pain points on the market that can only simply query the current ship status but cannot predict, provide a reliable operating basis for ships, ports, traders, agents, etc., help customers better arrange shipping plans, and grasp future production and shipment plans.
"Just as one end of a tube is blocked, you can predict at what point in time the other end will be congested, how long the voyage will be in the middle, and how many boats the owner has invested on the route." Knowing the changes in capacity and the changes in ships, for individual customers, he is more confident when negotiating deals with his own buyers. Zhou Shihao introduced that the accuracy of the ship schedule prediction based on to b data has approached 90%.
He said that the core reason for the difficulty of finding a box is congestion in foreign ports and the demand for customer shipments. In a sense, the schedule forecast product is not used to solve the shortage of empty containers, but the earlier the schedule forecast can help the earlier the plan, the earlier to find the empty box queue, so as to better arrange the shipment.
"Customers do not know the accurate shipping schedule is constantly fixed, constantly changed, constantly withdrawn, fixed and not, in fact, a lot of efficiency loss." What we would most like to see is that customers arrange their own production with certainty based on planned shipping schedules, and we can arrange certainty products around deterministic production and planning. ”
Zhou Shihao said that "where to ship" uses digital methods to help the supply and demand sides match, and the improvement of matching efficiency can smooth out or pull down the congestion caused by the original empty boxes or insufficient supply of positions, "because most congestion is actually everyone going to one place, if you can give more solutions, it is equivalent to dispersing congestion." ”
Diverting some of the demand to other solutions can even reduce costs, "because they are all congested there, everyone can only increase prices and raise prices." "This also deepens the congestion of information and the virtual congestion of market demand." If the downstream shipowner and capacity resources can arrange the operation in advance according to the plan, the resources will not be consumed, which is conducive to reducing costs. At the same time, when inquiries become a habit, customer plans can be perceived, facilitating advance procurement and arrangements to downstream or suppliers in accordance with market changes.
At present, "Where to Transport" is exploring more possibilities for digital service products to be applied to ports, shipping divisions and other systems. During the Expo, "Where to Transport" reached a strategic cooperation with Zhejiang Sigang Linkage Development Co., Ltd. to build a digital system and serve Chinese import and export enterprises. The cooperation content includes the application of molded digital products such as documentary cloud and logistics visualization; the cooperation exploration in new technology fields such as artificial intelligence and big data; and the cross-integration of global products and regional ecology.
Zhou Shihao said that China's supply chain is going overseas, and the biggest shortcoming is at the destination port. Therefore, on the one hand, "where to transport" will continue to implement digital connections around the world, allowing customers to conveniently place orders, query and track logistics information, on the other hand, online and offline are combined, and offline service networks are set up overseas to truly connect cross-border supply chain logistics from end to end, minimizing logistics costs and improving delivery levels. "Where to Ship" has established branches in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Africa and other places to extend and refine overseas service capabilities.
Editor-in-Charge: Li Yuequn