Cross-border e-commerce has become one of the hottest areas of China’s foreign trade development. It is expected to maintain a high growth rate of 30% in the next few years. However, cross-border logistics has been one of the key factors restricting the development of cross-border e-commerce for a long time.
There are currently two main ways of cross-border logistics. One is to ship goods from China to the destination country through traditional international cheap logistics. Such logistics costs are very high, and the express delivery cycle is very long, which affects customer experience; the second way is the overseas warehouse model. The construction process of overseas warehouses requires huge investment and the effect is relatively slow. In addition to the investment in the infrastructure of e-commerce platforms, the Chinese government is also actively building large-scale overseas warehouses. For example, in 2015, the Zhejiang government’s public overseas warehouse construction, the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Finance has determined the first batch of Zhejiang Province’s cross-border e-commerce public overseas warehouses, which are distributed in 11 countries including the United States, Russia, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates. The function of public overseas warehouses is to provide one-stop warehousing and distribution services for cross-border enterprises in Zhejiang Province. For the construction of social infrastructure such as overseas warehouses, the government plays a very important role. Although e-commerce logistics companies such as Alibaba Cainiao and SF Express have also made investments and efforts for China’s cross-border e-commerce logistics, the author believes that the main investment in the infrastructure of overseas warehouses is still the Chinese government itself.