Breaking news! A well-known cross-border company went bankrupt, the amount involved was as high as hundreds of millions, and many sellers were affected

Doing cross-border e-commerce is like playing a minesweeper game.

The mines under feet are cleared one after another.

In recent years, the cross-border e-commerce industry has seen many bankruptcies, from Amazon’s large-scale account suspensions to GlobalE-Commerce’s bankruptcy filings to the bankruptcies of multiple freight forwarders. Some sellers have no hope of appealing, some suppliers have no way to collect debts, and some cargo owners have tried to save themselves by redeeming their containers.

Recently, another freight forwarder was suspected to have gone bankrupt. Due to the great influence of this freight forwarder, cross-border sellers were wailing all over the screen!

An industry benchmark freight forwarder goes bankrupt?

Cross-border Knowledge has learned that recently, a freight forwarding company in Shenzhen that provides dedicated logistics services to Japan is suspected of bankruptcy, and more than 200 sellers were innocently implicated, involving goods worth over 100 million yuan and tens of millions of freight .

It is understood that the freight forwarder was established in 2014 and mainly operates a dedicated Japanese logistics line, providing full-link services such as Japanese transportation, customs clearance, warehousing, card delivery, consignment, and returns to the country. It is a major dealer in the Japanese direction and has a very good reputation in the industry. More than half of the crowdfunding sellers in Shenzhen have cooperated with it, and this sudden bankruptcy caught most people off guard.

In the chat group organized by the victimized sellers, we can see that most sellers have goods with a value ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands , and the losses are very heavy.

A seller revealed that the freight forwarder had previously issued an emergency announcement stating that the company's Japanese warehouse was temporarily unable to deliver goods.

The freight forwarder stated in the announcement that the company's original Japanese partner refused to fulfill its obligation to distribute goods on the grounds of paying back taxes, which led to a backlog of goods for some of the company's customers , causing serious losses to the interests of both customers and the company. The company also stated that it would sue the Japanese partner for breach of contract and illegal acts, and encouraged customers to contact the Japanese partner directly to handle the goods and reduce losses . However, according to information from multiple channels, most of the affected sellers are not buying into this plan.

According to information from multiple channels, most sellers believe that there are two reasons for the freight forwarding company’s bankruptcy:

As we all know, there is a "reverse calculation package" operation on the Japanese line. For sellers, if they pay taxes based on the reverse calculation of the selling price according to the tax collection standards of Japanese e-commerce, their profits will be very low. The "reverse calculation package" service can reduce logistics costs a little, and sellers can still make profits on the Japanese site, so it has a considerable market. However, "reverse calculation package" often exists in a gray area and cannot withstand tax inspections by the Japanese tax department. Once something goes wrong, a huge fine will be issued, and the end result is bankruptcy.

Now, this industry benchmark freight forwarder has run into problems, which is likely just a prelude. If the Japanese tax authorities step up their scrutiny, more freight forwarders that provide similar services will run into problems. Sellers need to communicate with freight forwarders as soon as possible to check the status of their goods and replace them with compliant freight forwarders as soon as possible if necessary.

It is worth noting that all the information disclosed so far are just rumors. Even the announcement from the so-called freight forwarding company is not stamped with an official seal. Sellers might as well relax and let things take a turn for the better.

It’s so difficult to be a cross-border seller!

In recent years, due to the unstable external environment and the fact that some freight forwarders have limited risk resistance, various financial crisis incidents have occurred frequently.

When a freight forwarding company falls into crisis, the impact is often not limited to the company itself, but will spread to multiple related parties in the entire supply chain, including other upstream and downstream freight forwarding companies. With many freight forwarding companies suddenly closing down due to suspected financial problems or poor management, instability in the industry is accumulating, and this turmoil may lead to a chain reaction, which in turn affects more innocent sellers .

In June last year, many sellers reported that a well-known freight forwarder in Shenzhen had major operational problems due to a broken capital chain . Since a large number of goods were in transit and could not be processed, sellers were likely to pay sky-high redemption fees.

"Ten tons of goods are on the way, and it is very likely that we will have to redeem them ourselves." "We went to the warehouse of this logistics company to pick up the goods, and were charged 2,000 yuan per cubic meter ." The high fees frightened the sellers. If customs clearance is not done in time, the subsequent sellers will also face high detention processing fees.

Some people said that they could not get their goods back even after paying, and the money they transferred was swallowed up.

There was also a freight forwarding company in Shenzhen that was exposed to have absconded with 20 million yuan. What's more fatal is that someone revealed that a freight forwarding boss disappeared after his capital chain broke, and then reappeared with a different company to continue to solicit cargo in the international logistics industry .

Various freight forwarder default incidents have made sellers feel uneasy. After all, if they encounter such an unscrupulous freight forwarder, they will end up losing both money and goods, and no one wants this to happen to themselves.

According to Qichacha data, a total of 44,600 freight forwarding-related companies were deregistered and revoked in 2023 , an increase of 10.4% compared to 2022. Therefore, for cross-border sellers, when choosing a freight forwarder, they must strengthen their risk control awareness. The market risk has increased greatly. At this time, reliability is more important than price!