In the current situation where postal parcels account for 70% of the market share, cross-border e-commerce logistics still has various drawbacks. Let's take a closer look at the pain points in cross-border logistics:
Pain point one: Long delivery time
On May 7, 2013, AliExpress adjusted the maximum promised delivery time for sellers sending goods to Russia, from the previous 60 day limit to 90 days. That is to say, it is possible for a Russian customer to place an order on AliExpress and receive the product after 3 months. From the current perspective, the common delivery time for using China Post or Hong Kong packages to destinations such as Russia and Brazil is between 40 and 90 days; Using dedicated logistics is slightly faster, but it also takes around 16 to 35 days to arrive. On the eBay platform, goods sent to Europe and America through international e-mail usually take 7-12 days to be delivered. These delivery times, which can last for a week, two weeks, or even several months, not only greatly test the patience of overseas users, but also seriously restrict the further development of cross-border e-commerce.
Pain point 2: The package cannot be tracked throughout the entire process
Within China, thanks to the rapid development of China's e-commerce logistics industry in recent years, real-time tracking and querying of packages have been basically achieved. However, cross-border logistics includes both domestic and overseas segments. Many packages cannot be tracked after leaving the country. Countries such as the United States, the United States, and Australia, which have developed logistics and convenient language, are slightly better. After obtaining the tracking number, you can go to relevant English websites to check it; For some small language countries and underdeveloped logistics industries such as Russia and Brazil, even if you obtain a tracking number and open various Portuguese Russian Spanish websites, you may not be able to check the delivery information of the package. To solve the cross-border full process tracking of packages, on the one hand, the foreign logistics itself must be at a high level of informatization, and on the other hand, it is necessary to connect the information systems of domestic and foreign delivery parties to achieve one-stop full process tracking. Obviously, this is a long-term large-scale project.
Counting the pain points in cross-border e-commerce logistics
Pain point three: obstacles in customs clearance
The biggest difference between cross-border logistics and domestic logistics is that it requires passing through two customs checkpoints: the customs of the exporting country and the customs of the destination country. In cross-border e-commerce for exports, the key to logistics lies in the destination country's customs. Customs often hold and inspect goods, and the results of processing are nothing more than three: direct confiscation, return of goods to the place of origin, or request for additional documentation before release. The losses caused by "confiscation" and "return" are difficult for sellers to bear, and "supplementary documents and materials before release" undoubtedly prolongs the delivery time, which may lead to buyer complaints or even refusal to pay. The main reasons for customs clearance obstacles in cross-border logistics come from two aspects: (1) cross-border e-commerce sellers do not attach importance to the regulatory system of the importing country, such as low declared value or failure to obtain relevant product certification; (2) The trade barriers of the destination country's customs, such as Brazil's customs inspecting almost every package and requiring the provision of commercial invoices, recipient's tax number, declaration of goods value, and other information, sometimes even providing all the information may be considered as fraud. In addition, some destination country customs do not have IT system support and rely solely on manual customs clearance, which is inefficient and prolongs the entire logistics delivery time.
Pain point four: Damage or even packet loss
Under the cross-border logistics model dominated by postal parcels, incidents of package damage or even loss often occur. In the postal system of cross-border logistics, from picking up packages to delivering the final goods to customers, it often requires four to five or even more transfers, which can easily lead to package damage. Whether it is postal parcels or using dedicated logistics, there is a certain packet loss rate. These not only bring about a poor shopping experience for customers, but also make sellers have to bear losses such as shipping costs, goods, and customer loss.
Pain point 5: No support for returns and exchanges
In any normal commercial trade, there is inevitably a problem of returns and exchanges. However, whether it is postal parcels, commercial express delivery, or dedicated logistics, it is difficult to support sellers in providing return and exchange services, mainly for the following three reasons: (1) Long cross-border logistics time. Shipping and delivery itself will take several weeks, and if we exchange and re deliver, the logistics cycle can be imagined. (2) The cost of reverse logistics is high. Merchants often receive certain discounts from logistics service providers for shipping large quantities; If the goods are returned or exchanged, the customer needs to send them from the destination country, and the logistics cost of a single item is obviously very high. (3) For merchants, returning and exchanging goods is actually an import behavior, which may be subject to inspection by Chinese customs and even pay certain tariffs.
In the model dominated by a single postal package, the various pain points of cross-border logistics seriously restrict the development of cross-border e-commerce. Fortunately, since the rise of cross-border e-commerce in 2005, cross-border logistics has evolved from a single postal package to a diversified business model with postal packages as the mainstay and other modes coexisting.
Although cross-border express delivery is expensive, it compensates for the delivery needs of products with strict timeliness requirements and high single item value; Although dedicated logistics has limited delivery areas, it at least has a good balance between timeliness and logistics costs. In recent years, the emergence of overseas warehouses has not only attracted media attention, but also been vigorously promoted by cross-border e-commerce platforms, and logistics service providers have begun to layout and practice. In mature markets in Europe and America, overseas warehouses have become a standard feature for big sellers. I believe that in the near future, cross-border logistics will provide diversified services to cross-border sellers through diversified logistics formats, deeply promoting the rapid development of export cross-border e-commerce.
