What is an overseas warehouse? Overseas warehouse review

Reasons for the rise

It is mainly to solve various cross-border difficulties, such as long delivery time, inability to track packages throughout the entire process, customs clearance obstacles, damage or even lost packages, etc., to improve customers' shopping experience.

Advantages of overseas warehouses

1) The location of the item is overseas, making it easy to become an overseas seller and increase product exposure;

2) Increase the selling price of goods to achieve competitive local sales;

3) Improve the timeliness of logistics distribution;

4) Ship goods overseas in bulk to reduce logistics costs;

5) Quickly process returns and exchanges, efficiently resolve customer disputes, and improve customer satisfaction;

6) 24/7 warehouse monitoring, real-time inventory synchronization, safer;

7) It can meet small-volume b2b and b2c purchasing needs at any time and solve the blind spots of traditional cross-border trade.

According to the different operating entities, it can be divided into

1. Self-operated overseas warehouses

The self-operated overseas warehouse model refers to an overseas warehouse built and operated by an export cross-border e-commerce enterprise, which only provides warehousing, distribution and other logistics services for the goods sold by the enterprise. In other words, the entire cross-border e-commerce logistics system is controlled by the export cross-border e-commerce enterprise itself.

2. Third-party public service overseas warehouse

A third-party public service overseas warehouse refers to an overseas warehouse built and operated by a third-party logistics company. It can provide a logistics model in which logistics services such as customs clearance, warehousing quality inspection, order reception, order sorting, multi-channel delivery, and subsequent transportation are provided to numerous export cross-border e-commerce companies. In other words, the entire cross-border e-commerce logistics system is controlled by a third-party logistics company.

Common business of overseas warehouse

1. One piece delivery
   

In short: sellers send bulk stock products from China to overseas warehouses abroad, and then the overseas warehouse staff will count and put them on the shelves. When a buyer places an order, the seller only needs to issue a shipping instruction in the overseas warehouse system, and the warehouse staff will implement local delivery in the foreign country according to the instruction.

2. Change the label

If there is a problem with the seller's account or the label is affixed incorrectly, the product needs to be sent to an overseas warehouse, with a new label, and then sold again.

3. Transfer

The most common situation is to combine FBA with a third-party overseas warehouse. First, stock up the goods in the overseas warehouse, and then transfer them to FBA (replenishment) regularly or irregularly. Then, the goods are shipped from FBA and from the overseas warehouse at the same time.

4. Handle value-added services such as returns and exchanges

Overseas warehouse delivery operation process

It mainly includes first-leg transportation-warehousing management-local distribution.

First-leg transportation: Chinese merchants deliver goods to overseas warehouses by sea, air, land or combined transport.

Warehouse management: Chinese merchants use the service provider’s information system to remotely operate overseas warehouse goods and manage inventory in real time.

Local delivery: Overseas storage centers deliver goods to customers through local postal or express delivery according to customer order information. Local value-added services such as drop shipping, return and label change management, warehousing and shelf loading and unloading, logistics and express delivery, and after-sales maintenance are also provided.

Risks faced by overseas warehouses

1. Policy and regulatory risks

Including product intellectual property risks and tax risks.

2. Operational risks

Susceptible to the problems of high initial investment and long profit cycle

3. Risk of unsalable inventory

According to data from Lianyu International in May 2017, 30% of Chinese cross-border e-commerce companies face the risk of unsold goods.

4. Customs clearance risks

Policy support

In 2016, Li Keqiang pointed out in his government work report that it is necessary to expand cross-border e-commerce, support export enterprises, build a number of "overseas warehouses" for export products, and promote the development of comprehensive foreign trade service enterprises.

References

• 1. Definition of overseas warehouse: Think Tank Encyclopedia [reference date 2018-03-06T16:00:00.000Z]
• 2. Reasons for the rise of overseas warehouses: Douban.com [cited on 2018-03-06T16:00:00.000Z]
• 3. Overseas warehouse operation entity: Baidu Library [reference date 2018-03-06T16:00:00.000Z]
• 4. Common business of overseas warehouses: Zhihu website [reference date 2018-03-06T16:00:00.000Z]
• 5. Policy support for overseas warehouses: Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission Leading Group for Cybersecurity and Informatization [cited on 2018-03-06T16:00:00.000Z]
• 6. Risks faced by overseas warehouses: Reference Network [cited on 2018-03-06T16:00:00.000Z]