Alibaba (hereinafter referred to as Alibaba) is a company with a strong platform strategy, and global operation is one of its directions. Logistics, e-commerce retail, finance and cloud computing are listed as Alibaba’s four major “business infrastructures”, among which e-commerce business is still its main body, accounting for 80% of its revenue source, but its all-round expansion has made the data dimension rich enough, and the ecological chain big data will become a new resource advantage. Alibaba first integrated the entire export tax rebate and supply chain finance in the cross-border B2B sector through the acquisition of Yidatong, providing small and medium-sized export enterprises with the convenience of comprehensive foreign trade services. Many customs brokers on the market receive export declarations with Yidatong as the header, and then made an open integration of the entire logistics link with “Yipaiduo”, attracting freight forwarders, customs brokers, China-Hong Kong transportation, air and sea transportation, finance and taxation and other third-party service providers to integrate them, making many small and medium-sized freight forwarders feel that they are working for the platform.
In terms of international transportation capacity, Alibaba also hopes to gather the needs of the majority of traders and let major logistics companies join the platform. For example, Alibaba entered the container shipping market with “Space Treasure” and reached online booking cooperation with shipping companies such as Maersk Line, ZIM, CMA CGM, and Evergreen, so that exporters can bypass freight forwarders and directly book ship schedules online to directly contact shipowners to guarantee space. Alibaba and China Shipping jointly built the eShipping comprehensive shipping service platform, which supports online booking, online receipt of space confirmation information, online verification of bills of lading, online payment, etc., and provides shipping supporting services such as trailers and customs declarations. Overall, the advantages of these aspects in terms of price and volume are not obvious, there are many service restrictions, many customer issues cannot be handled flexibly, and the tripartite relationship easily puts logistics companies in a passive position.