Although cross-border e-commerce and cross-border logistics belong to two different categories, the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce cannot be separated from the support of cross-border logistics. The two are inseparable. A complete cross-border e-commerce trade requires the cooperation of the two, mutual cooperation, and the synergy of the two to be completed. The development of cross-border logistics has laid the foundation for the development of cross-border e-commerce, and the development of cross-border e-commerce has also provided impetus for the further development of the cross-border logistics industry.
First of all, cross-border logistics is one of the foundations of cross-border e-commerce. Cross-border logistics provides logistics services for cross-border e-commerce, which enables goods or resources to be allocated across customs borders on a global scale. Cross-border e-commerce without logistics cannot conduct real commodity trade. The subject of cross-border e-commerce transactions has broken through the restrictions of customs borders, which is reflected in the geographical space displacement in the circulation of goods, breaking through the restrictions of national (regional) geographical boundaries, and circulates from the seller’s location to the buyer’s location through cross-border logistics. According to the geographical flow of goods from suppliers to buyers, the geographical flow of goods includes the flow of goods from suppliers to sellers. The seller ensures that the goods flow out of the seller’s country (region) through the customs of the exporting country (region), and realizes the long-distance cross-border transportation of goods through international freight or other logistics modes, and then flows into the buyer’s country (region) through the customs and commodity inspection links of the importing country (region), and finally realizes logistics and distribution activities within the country (region) where the buyer is located. When goods are returned or exchanged, there will also be a reverse flow of goods from the buyer to the supplier.
At the same time, the logistics industry chain also has a driving force for the development of cross-border e-commerce. Logistics is a part of cross-border e-commerce activities. The further development of logistics informationization, integration and mobility can effectively reduce costs and enhance the consumer experience of cross-border e-commerce. At the same time, with the further development of the cross-border logistics industry chain towards globalization, cross-border logistics has the possibility of integrating the logistics service resources of global cross-border trade and establishing a global logistics service network to provide logistics services for cross-border e-commerce.
Secondly, although cross-border logistics already existed when there was no cross-border e-commerce, the integration with cross-border e-commerce has injected modern technology and Internet thinking into it, which is conducive to the modernization of the cross-border logistics industry. First, the rapid development of cross-border e-commerce has objectively increased the requirements for modernization and specialization of the cross-border logistics industry; second, the development of cross-border e-commerce has promoted the informatization, networking, electronicization and intelligence of cross-border logistics, including the expansion of information networks and logistics networks to the global scope.
Finally, cross-border e-commerce and the logistics industry have clear technical boundaries, product boundaries, business boundaries and market boundaries, but from another perspective, their boundaries are vague. In cross-border e-commerce, there are companies that have established their own logistics systems and included them in the cross-border e-commerce business system, that is, cross-border e-commerce and the logistics industry have overlapping parts in their business and business models. For example, Alibaba’s Cainiao International Logistics (http://global.cainiao.com/), Lightinthebox’s Lightin Zhitong Cloud Logistics (https://zhitong.litb.cn), Wish Post (https://wishpost.wish.com/), etc. Before the integration, cross-border e-commerce and the logistics industry were independent of each other, with different customers, and even cross-border e-commerce was the customer of logistics companies. After the integration, the two companies jointly face end consumers and provide them with logistics, information, transactions and other services.