The logistics dilemma is difficult to solve! The logistics expenditure of Dama Online Store is 65 million, and the cross-border business loses 9.88 million!

Today is the last day of April. I believe everyone has seen the performance reports of many big sellers at the end of Q1 2022. Among them , Anker, Giant Star, and Ecovacs have joined the "10 billion club" ; while cross-border big sellers such as Youkeshu and Zebao have been affected by the sequelae of Amazon's "account ban wave", and their revenue has dropped sharply. They are accelerating their multi-platform layout and are still in the recovery stage.

Yesterday, Amazon's first quarter financial report was released, and the news of a loss of 3.8 billion shocked many cross-border sellers. In addition to being surprised, some sellers are also worried that Amazon's investment losses will hit sellers again. After all, Amazon's previous method of reducing operating costs by increasing FBA fees has already caused a significant impact on sellers' logistics costs.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's statement also shows that the e-commerce dividends brought by the epidemic have gradually receded, but the obstacles to cargo transportation continue to spread. Coupled with the adverse impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, cross-border supply chains will continue to be under great pressure for some time, which can also be seen from the recent logistics situation of the China-Europe route .

It is learned that due to the recent outbreak of the epidemic in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and other places, there has been a labor shortage in important ports in many parts of the country. This has led to a decline in the operating efficiency of port terminals, insufficient container loading and unloading capacity, and frequent problems such as cargo backlogs and export delays.

According to Windward data, one-fifth of the world's container ships are currently waiting to berth due to port congestion, and nearly a quarter of the ships are stranded in Chinese ports .

Among them, there were large-scale delays in goods shipped to Europe. According to data from Project44, in March this year, the delays for containers shipped from Shenzhen Yantian, Tianjin and Shanghai to Rotterdam, the Netherlands were as high as 11.1 days, 10.6 days and 10.0 days respectively.

The delay level for containers shipped from Shenzhen Yantian to Hamburg, Germany even reached 15.7 days .

It is reported that due to the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the EU has banned Russian-registered ships and road transport companies from entering EU ports and roads . Most of the channels for China-Europe truck shipping in the market are out of China, which means that the number of available trucks has dropped sharply , which may result in sellers' orders not being delivered on time.

We also learned that there were thousands of vehicles lined up in front of the customs supervision warehouse designated by the Belarusian government for reloading/replacing vehicles. However, there are only a hundred vehicles (sometimes less than a hundred vehicles) processed every day in the three supervision sites. China-Europe Airlines expects that the delay this time may be greater than the incident at the Kazakhstan port last year, and the goods in May and June may even arrive during the National Day or Christmas .

Sellers are reminded to evaluate the efficiency of shipping channels , adjust the logistics network in a timely manner, and never miss out on promotional opportunities due to cargo problems.

In addition to logistics efficiency, how to reduce logistics costs has always been a problem that has troubled cross-border sellers. Even large cross-border sellers face the problem of high transportation costs.

It is learned that Xunxing Co., Ltd., the parent company of Cross-border Big Price Chain, recently announced its 2021 annual performance report. During the reporting period, Xunxing Co., Ltd. achieved revenue of 2.26 billion yuan , an increase of 42.25% over the same period , and net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 126 million yuan , a decrease of 37.12% over the same period .

▲ The picture comes from Xunxing Shares' performance announcement

It is understood that Xunxing Co., Ltd. has two main businesses: zipper business and cross-border e-commerce business . The e-commerce business is mainly conducted through third-party platforms such as Amazon and Shopify independent stations.

However, its online sales revenue in 2021 was 520 million yuan , a year-on-year increase of 49.8% , but the total profit of its cross-border e-commerce business was -9.8891 million yuan , a year-on-year reduction of 74.98% .

  ▲ The picture comes from Xunxing Shares' performance announcement

It is worth noting that in 2021, Jiazhilian’s logistics expenses on the first and second legs of cargo transportation amounted to 65.8492 million yuan .

In addition, more than 30% of Jiazhilian's inventory is stored in FBA warehouses in Amazon's European, American, and Japanese sites , and the other 70% of the goods are stored in rented temporary turnover warehouses , and storage fees are paid according to the actual volume of goods stored and the number of days of storage. In 2021, a total of 12.4158 million yuan in storage fees were generated.

This shows that even large cross-border retailers cannot afford the high logistics costs. In order to reduce this cost in the long run and share in the skyrocketing profits of shipping companies, many large retailers have already started to enter the logistics field .

For example, in January, Lechuang Holdings announced that it would spend 200 million yuan on shipbuilding . Its official statement said that although this investment would lead to a decline in profits in the short term, once the ships were put into use, transportation costs would be greatly reduced, delivery cycles would be shortened, and Lechuang's profit level would increase again.

  ▲ The picture comes from the announcement of Lechuang Holdings

It was also learned that according to Leckey's disclosure, the US$23 million it received from the sale of its overseas warehouses in February will be used to build larger overseas warehouses, taking a further step towards the model of "merging small warehouses and building large warehouses" and further improving its overseas warehousing and logistics system.

This shows that Leckey has already laid the seeds in advance in the transportation and warehousing of goods, building higher logistics barriers for future competition with other cross-border sellers.

If you have anything to say about this, please feel free to share and discuss in the comment section.