A monthly salary of 30,000 yuan, quick purchase of luxury cars... this group of people’s “wealth-making myth” in the cross-border circle!

Is freight forwarding really profitable?

There is never a shortage of stories about how the cross-border e-commerce logistics industry can make you rich.

"A car every 7 days, an apartment every half a year", "A freight forwarder earns 500,000 yuan a year, I'm jealous", "This year, it's normal for freight forwarders to earn more than 100,000 yuan a month"... The legends of getting rich overnight with a huge investment are spreading everywhere, adding fuel to the booming freight forwarding industry.

In the past two years, cross-border e-commerce export transactions have been hot, and logistics has benefited a lot , especially sea transportation. The editor learned that when containers were in short supply, even a container with a fixed price of $35,000 was in great demand, and there was still a market for it at $40,000. The soaring sea transportation prices have made people believe that freight forwarders are "making money without doing anything"!

Wealth seems to be too easy to obtain, which not only attracts cross-border sellers to become freight forwarders, but also inspires ordinary people outside the cross-border circle who have the most basic worldly desires to continue to join in. Data shows that the number of new companies entering the freight forwarding industry in the past year exceeded 9,500, while only 15,000 freight forwarding companies were established in the past three years.

The fast-growing freight forwarding industry not only has the halo of "getting rich quickly", but also bears a lot of infamy. Money never sleeps, and the freight forwarding industry, which is still in its lucrative period, has exuded more of a rotten smell under the catalysis of the epidemic, and the frequent news of freight forwarding bosses running away is proof of this.

Various theories are prevalent, however, these freight forwarders at the center of the topic obviously feel very aggrieved and puzzled.

"Freight forwarders make money without doing anything? Then why don't you come and do it!" During the editor's interview, many freight forwarders expressed their frustration in a questioning tone. Unlike the rumors of a lucrative income, many freight forwarders in reality are cursing: they have a rubbish job and are worse than a dog. In addition to denying the rumors of income one after another, a group of small and medium-sized freight forwarders are also complaining, "The epidemic is putting them through a stress test. Almost every link in the logistics chain is in trouble. Many of our peers are walking on a tightrope!"

When rumors and reality are fighting, the real income of freight forwarders deserves to be carefully considered; when the chaos is visible to the naked eye but there is nothing that can be done about it, how freight forwarders can regain the public's trust is also an important issue ...

How much money can a freight forwarder earn?

“I heard that the freight forwarding industry has taken off, and the average monthly salary is 30,000 yuan, and those who do a good job can get 300,000 yuan a month! “This kind of statement is not uncommon in the past two years.

" My friends who work as freight forwarders , this year's year-end bonus is more than my entire year's salary . " During the year-end competition for year-end bonuses, a cross-border seller once again found that he was not as successful as the freight forwarder. Sellers generally feel that after working hard all year, they are actually working for the freight forwarder.

"In the past few years of cross-border e-commerce , all the freight forwarders I have worked with have gone out on their own. The freight forwarding industry has really taken off in the past two years ! "   More and more people are working independently in the freight forwarding industry, which has once again made sellers believe in the fact that this industry is profitable.

"I want to switch to freight forwarding!" With the prevalence of the saying of getting rich quickly, the freight forwarding industry is becoming more popular than ever. According to statistics, there are more than 30,000 international freight forwarding companies registered with the competent authorities in my country, with more than 2 million employees, and the number is increasing at a rate of 5% to 10% per year. According to industry estimates, apart from these formally approved freight forwarding companies, there are still more than 100,000 "second-generation" and "third-generation" companies affiliated with them, and the number of employees is roughly estimated to be tens of millions.

The improvement of the "status" of freight forwarders occurred after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and freight forwarders engaged in ocean shipping were the main ones. Ocean shipping has always been an important part of international trade, with about 80% of global trade volume and more than 70% of trade value completed by sea transport. During the repeated epidemics, factors such as increased demand and limited supply have led to a shortage of containers, resulting in a continuous increase in freight rates, which has also ushered in a second spring for the development of cross-border shipping .

An industry insider who has been in the business for nearly 20 years said that in the past two years, many logistics service providers have indeed made a lot of money, and there are even cases where they can earn as much as a house in Shenzhen in a month. When information asymmetry and resources are scarce, in the entire chain of cross-border logistics, not only the top-level agents, but in fact every link will have people who "get rich overnight."

The freight forwarding industry creates miracles, but miracles do not come to everyone.

" Some people can quickly get a luxury car in a short time. " A freight forwarder saw the soaring income of his peers working alone. He envied them and lamented that his peers had different fates. He said that freight forwarders did not make so much money in the past two years. Freight forwarders with resources have indeed made money in the past two years. The degree of money earned can even be described as ten years in one year . "However, all this is only limited to the case of having resources. In addition, freight forwarding business can make money quickly, provided that it is done well. Other directions are hard . "

In real life, a monthly income of just over 10,000 yuan may actually be the most realistic living condition for most freight forwarders.

A person who switched from foreign trade to freight forwarding burst his imaginary bubble of wealth creation by freight forwarding. " 2021 has passed without me noticing . In the past year, I have always felt that I did not make much money and did not get promoted. It was very painful and tormenting. Without performance, I could only get a basic salary of less than 3,000 yuan. "

After switching from foreign trade to freight forwarding, there are more than one freight forwarder in the same situation. At the end of the year, Xiao Zhang is now particularly annoyed by the way freight forwarders work, and he even doubts that it is not worth it to give up foreign trade and become a freight forwarder. "I make calls all day long, and there are almost no inquiries every day, but my life has come to this point. In 2022, I will be 25 years old, and I don’t know how long I can persist in this industry."

After entering the industry, many people found that freight forwarding was not as profitable as they imagined, nor as easy to do. This is the consensus of many people. One freight forwarder said that he earned 3,000 yuan in 2015, and started to earn 10,000-20,000 yuan in 2018. He worked from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., and received a lot of calls. He had to do all kinds of work, familiarize himself with various international trade terms, manage related costs and risks, and master the art of speaking ... The following dialogue may be familiar to you:

Customer : Please give me a price in the United States.

Freight forwarder : To which address? Send it to me.

Customer : Other companies can give quotes without an address, why do you have so many questions?

Freight forwarder :……

Freight forwarder: Dear, it is like this (explaining)

A freight forwarder said that many customers think that freight forwarders are omnipotent, but the ships are not built by freight forwarders, nor are they sailed by freight forwarders. When encountering emergencies, he is willing to explain patiently, after all, this is his job. However, many times, he still hopes that customers will look at the issue of shipping delays rationally .

It is reported that the people that freight forwarders have to deal with include customers, peers, shipping companies, venues, customs brokers, fleet drivers, dispatchers, factory workers, and even customs, etc. The quality levels of these personnel vary. The biggest difficulty may not be problems with the operating procedures or documents, but problems that arise when dealing with this group of people.

" The captain of the ship is a god, the customer is God, the driver is the boss, the warehouse is the sister, and I am a freight forwarder, sandwiched in the pancake, squeezed to death ." In real life, complaints about freight forwarders are everywhere.

“Freight forwarders are really dogs. My weekends are filled with work. What about the promised double weekend off? My goal this year is to escape from freight forwarding next year.” A freight forwarder said that during the holidays, he always feels weird if he doesn’t turn on the computer, “Has it been released? Has it entered the port? Is the port open? I have to check it before going to bed, only then can I wash and sleep with peace of mind.” He worries too much. He feels that he is in his 20s but has a face of a 30-year-old. The repeated epidemics and rising prices have once again increased the difficulty of his work but have not increased his income much .

An industry insider also said that the higher the freight price, the harder it is to be a freight forwarder:

1. The unit price is high. For the same quantity of goods and the same payment period, the freight forwarder needs to advance more funds and the capital pressure is higher.
2. Not to mention the turnover problem, the risks will also increase.
3. Profit. When the UPS is 30 yuan/kg, the profit is 1-2 yuan. When it is 80/kg, the profit may also be 1-2 yuan. The profit margin is greatly reduced. Some people say that the operating fee is additional profit, but in fact it is collected by the official.
4. The statute of limitations is chaotic, which may easily lead to delays and compensation.
5. The payment terms with the shipping company have changed, and the financial pressure has increased.

“Many freight forwarders are losing money, being driven to death by customers on one hand and by prices on the other … ” said a freight forwarder, who felt he would soon be unable to sustain himself in this industry.

On one hand, they are making a fortune, while on the other hand, they are struggling to make ends meet and have to change careers. The living conditions of freight forwarders show us the magical reality of this industry.

Participants in cross-border logistics: Who is making money without doing anything?

Over the past year, due to the continued impact of the global epidemic, there has been a labor shortage in major overseas ports, a general decline in terminal operating efficiency, a surge in waiting for ships to berth, insufficient global effective transport capacity, and a prominent contradiction between supply and demand. An international authoritative shipping research institution estimates that due to factors such as port congestion, the global effective transport capacity loss is 17%, but as the congestion in recent months has intensified compared to the previous period, the actual effective transport capacity loss will be higher .

" The pandemic has pushed transportation costs to the sky in the past two years. It's the capitalists who are taking advantage of us . " In the eyes of freight forwarders, the pandemic is putting them through a stress test. Almost every link in the logistics chain is in trouble. Many of their peers are walking on a tightrope! Freight forwarders have to take the blame for any problems, but shipping companies are sitting back and reaping the benefits.

“ If you compare shipping companies to landlords, freight forwarders are the middlemen. Freight forwarders have limited profits, and it is shipping companies that really make money!” It is widely rumored that freight forwarders are making a lot of money. This statement has been criticized by many freight forwarding colleagues, but when it comes to shipping companies making money, everyone’s views are surprisingly consistent.

Shipping companies make money without doing anything: a series of soaring data is the best proof of this.

Recently, Evergreen Marine, Taiwan's largest shipping company , began distributing year-end bonuses to its employees. Some people even received bonuses of more than 40 times their monthly salary. Based on a basic salary of NT$60,000 (approximately RMB 13,900), they received more than NT$2 million (approximately RMB 463,000) in one go.

"I've never seen so much money", " The year-end bonus is just like handing out paper " ... Many people's first reaction after seeing the news was that their cognition was refreshed again. As the news of the year-end bonus distribution of other shipping companies continued to leak out, the majority of cross-border people started to exclaim non-stop:

Yang Ming Marine's employees were dissatisfied with their company only paying out bonuses for eight months. The company's chairman, considering the gap with its peers, decided to pay out bonuses for 12 months.

Wan Hai Lines' year-end bonus package is 12 times the monthly salary plus NT$1 million (approximately RMB 230,000);

My boyfriend works at COSCO SHIPPING Group, and this year the cleaning ladies all received a year-end bonus of more than 30,000 yuan ...

In the face of the shipping companies' rising net profits, the public has assumed that all news about the shipping companies' year-end bonus distribution is true.

It is reported that COSCO SHIPPING Holdings announced an announcement of expected annual performance increase in 2021. The announcement shows that the company expects to achieve a net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of approximately RMB 89.28 billion in 2021 , an increase of approximately RMB 79.35 billion compared with the same period last year, a year-on-year increase of approximately 799.3%.

COSCO SHIPPING Holdings' annual profit is 89.28 billion yuan, which is more than 240 million yuan a day. This figure is so high that ordinary people dare not even think about it. It is foreseeable that the annual performance of other shipping companies in 2021 will definitely be unmatched. The following is a summary of the performance of nine major shipping companies including Maersk, CMA CGM, and COSCO SHIPPING Holdings in the first half of 2021:

Maersk : Operating revenue was US$26.6 billion and net profit was US$6.5 billion. The full-year profit is expected to exceed the sum of the past seven years;

CMA CGM : operating revenue was US$22.48 billion, and net profit was US$5.55 billion, a 29-fold increase year-on-year;

COSCO SHIPPING Holdings : operating revenue was RMB 139.3 billion (approximately US$21.54 billion), and net profit was approximately RMB 37.098 billion (approximately US$5.74 billion), a year-on-year increase of nearly 32 times;

Hapag-Lloyd : operating income was US$10.6 billion and net profit was US$3.3 billion, an increase of more than 9.5 times year-on-year;

HMM : Operating revenue was US$4.56 billion and net profit was US$310 million, compared with a loss of approximately US$32.05 million in the same period last year, turning losses into profits.

Evergreen Marine : operating revenue was US$6.83 billion and net profit was US$2.81 billion, an increase of more than 27 times year-on-year;

Wan Hai Lines : Operating revenue was NT$86.633 billion (approximately US$3.11 billion), and net profit after tax was NT$33.687 billion (approximately US$1.21 billion), an 18-fold increase year-on-year.

Yang Ming Marine : operating income was NT$135.55 billion, or about US$4.87 billion, and net profit was NT$59.05 billion

Currency, equivalent to approximately US$2.12 billion, an increase of more than 32 times year-on-year.

ZIM Shipping : operating revenue was US$4.13 billion and net profit was US$1.48 billion, an increase of nearly 113 times year-on-year.

Relevant institutions predict that the global effective shipping capacity is expected to lose 12% in 2022, and the container market will still be in a state of supply shortage in 2022.

The status of shipping companies making money without doing anything will not change, at least in the short term.

Freight forwarding reputation crisis

The shipping industry has finally made a comeback after struggling since 2008! Is today's shipping bonus period honey or poison for the freight forwarding industry?

"As long as cross-border e-commerce exists, cross-border logistics will always have opportunities, and the development prospects are still quite good," a freight forwarder told the editor. The shipping bonus period under the epidemic has not disappeared. In the past two years, many freight forwarders have seized the opportunity to make small or big profits. In fact, as cross-border e-commerce exports became more and more popular, the number of participants in cross-border logistics has been increasing year by year.

The freight forwarding industry is facing a reputation crisis in recent years due to the mixed quality of the industry.

A freight forwarder with a reasonable profit margin can provide good services and optimize products, thus providing better services. This is a virtuous circle! Most freight forwarders also abide by this market rule, however, there are always people who break the rules.

"In the past two years, more people have entered our industry with the mentality of making quick money. Few people stay. Many of them run away after defrauding a group of people." It is reported that low prices are a tried and tested stepping stone for some people to make quick money. After receiving the goods at a low price, they mess around abroad. If the money is deducted, they run away. If it is not deducted, they will continue to do it. In 2021 alone, there are countless such things.

"Scammers will satisfy sellers' demands for low prices, delay compensation, long payment terms, etc. Sellers will not realize until something goes wrong, and all the advantages they have taken will be returned." People familiar with the matter revealed that although some freight forwarders will sign high compensation clauses with sellers, this is based on the premise that the seller offers a price n times higher than the market price. The special channels promised by freight forwarders are actually betting on the probability of risk, and they are actually operating according to normal procedures. When a problem really occurs, small amounts may be compensated, but large amounts are basically hopeless. Even so, they can still change their vests and resume business. "Last year, the company had a big problem. This year, we changed the company name and legal person and continued to dig holes."

In fact, there are many more outrageous operations in the freight forwarding industry, such as buying empty ships and sending out the Mercer express, buying the Mercer express and sending out the slow ship ... "A colleague of mine bought goods at a low price from Mercer, and shipped some on January 26th and some on February 2nd. The trick is really deep," a freight forwarder told the editor. The price difference between the Mercer on the 26th and the 2nd is 6-8 yuan per kilogram. For 100 kilograms, 30 kilograms will be shipped on the 26th, and 70 kilograms will be shipped on the 2nd. The profit is terrible.

In general, there is no regulation in this industry, so there are always people digging holes and jumping into holes. Is the extensive growth of the freight forwarding industry driven by dividends sustainable?

" The entire cross-border logistics industry is entering the stage of technology logistics and capital logistics. If logistics service providers only rely on information asymmetry and earning price differences to make money, it is definitely not a long-term solution . " A senior freight forwarder said that the freight forwarding industry is easy to do. If you put a low price, you can get the goods. This industry is also difficult to do. "It is not a long-term solution to treat it as an assembly line. How to make it more refined and treat it as a career, I am still exploring!"

This senior practitioner has personally experienced the international freight forwarding

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