1. First leg
The first leg channels are divided into three types: sea transport, air transport, and land transport. In terms of the current sales market, the United States mainly uses sea transport and air transport, while Europe uses all three channels.
1) Air transport channel
The air transport channel is divided into commercial express and air transport. Usually, the air transport time to the United States is 3 to 8 days, and to Europe it is 5 to 10 days. The main factors affecting the time are warehouse scheduling (flight conditions), customs clearance, and weather in the destination country.
Air transport is fast, but the price is high, and there are certain requirements for products (especially sensitive to pure electric products). At the same time, logistics companies will calculate the actual weight and volume weight separately when calculating the price, and take the heavier value as the weight parameter, so it is not recommended to use air transport for products with larger volume.
The first leg of air transport is suitable for trial sales and replenishment in the early stage of product promotion, as well as some products with higher value but lighter weight. For the current WE project, most merchants do not have a stable overseas warehouse explosion, and air transport is indispensable, so more attention needs to be paid to the issues involved in the air transport link.
2) Ocean shipping channel
Usually, after having a stable overseas warehouse hit, the ocean shipping channel will gradually be considered by some merchants. Ocean shipping is divided into LCL, small cabinet and high cabinet, and LCL is usually the main method in the early stage. It should be noted that many freight forwarders will mix goods from multiple companies when LCL, so there are usually great risks in timeliness and customs clearance security, and merchants need to consider it clearly before shipment. Usually, the ocean shipping time to the west coast of the United States is 25 to 35 days, and 35 to 50 days to Europe. The peak season will be delayed by one to two weeks. If you encounter extreme weather or strikes, you need to replenish inventory in time by air transport.
3) Land transportation channel
With the completion of the Eurasian railway, merchants who mainly do business in the European market have begun to try land transportation channels in large numbers. The price of land transportation is currently more cost-effective, and you can try it if you have the conditions.
2. Last mile
The main channel for the last mile delivery is usually the official postal service of the local country. The current three major express delivery companies DHL, FedEx, and UPS also have corresponding commercial delivery services in mainstream countries. It should be noted that many countries do not have a signature service for envelope channels, and parcels in the United States also have zoned prices, so before choosing a channel, you need to do statistics on your products and main customer groups to ensure the optimization of logistics prices.
The final delivery price in Europe is very advantageous, so merchants can focus on overseas warehouses in Europe.
Compared with domestic direct mail, the heavier the product, the more obvious the advantage of using overseas warehouses for final delivery, so it is recommended that merchants focus on products weighing more than 400 grams when choosing overseas warehouse products.