Warehousing service fees are charged according to workload, and are charged by piece for outgoing, incoming, depositing and returning goods. Another type is charged according to resource use contracts, and is charged by area, storage space, personnel, equipment, consumables, etc. The cost of overseas warehouse operations includes fixed costs, warehouse rent, and depreciation; variable costs include salaries, consumables, water and electricity network fees, and freight. In terms of pricing model, excluding the possibility that the seller may deliver the goods by himself, the fees can be roughly divided into several parts, such as storage fees, operation fees, and delivery fees. Many overseas warehouse companies continue the sales method of traditional freight forwarders, using discounts as a selling point, with different prices for sellers of different sizes, and launching some preferential activities at different times. As industry competition becomes more and more open, market quotations have changed from early chaos to more and more consistent now, that is, the profit point is mainly based on increasing the warehouse throughput scale and earning labor output rather than price difference. For the first leg of the consignment, the cost structure of transportation, pickup, warehousing and customs clearance of goods from China to overseas warehouses is more complicated, forming a price matrix involving different products, different routes and different channels.
In the early stage of cooperation, most third-party overseas warehouses can be exempted from 1~3 months of warehouse rental fees; the operating fee is 3~5 yuan/piece per package, which increases with a certain weight; the larger part is the delivery fee, and the express discount depends on the overall shipment volume of the overseas warehouse. In order to attract sellers, overseas warehouses usually quote at the actual price, and rarely add price differences; value-added services in the warehouse are calculated separately according to the workload.
Multiple countries and multiple accounts will involve multiple FBAs and third-party overseas warehouses, and there are many cost items. Overseas warehouses should take the initiative to issue regular reports on the in/out volume and delivery status for each consignor, so that sellers can master the inventory and calculate the composition of each fee to avoid disputes. For example, if the demurrage fee is calculated based on the number of days the goods are detained, if there is a difference in the inventory quantity, various disputes will arise around the demurrage fee. When controlling warehousing costs, do not pursue area, but optimize processes, maximize sales and minimize inventory, fully tap the potential of technical equipment, and improve storage density and warehouse capacity utilization: choose a reasonable form of personnel organization to minimize non-production labor costs; adopt a variety of business methods such as leasing, borrowing, and selling to improve the utilization rate of assets and equipment and capital occupation; only when the number of orders increases can a better delivery price be obtained.
In order to avoid bad debts, most overseas warehouses adopt a stored-value prepaid delivery model to make full use of the difference in upstream and downstream account periods. Financial personnel are responsible for the reconciliation and payment of local taxes and channel fees, as well as the handling of abnormal purchases and sales, and connect the cost process with domestic and foreign parties, output financial statements, and analyze capital turnover. Only by depositing customers in the system and clearly managing customers’ after-sales, bills, and account periods, can customers not be easily lost even if sales staff change.