China-Korea cross-border delivery speeds up, AliExpress adds North China's preferred warehouse to achieve 5-day delivery

On August 23 , AliExpress, Alibaba's cross-border retail e-commerce platform, announced that it would officially launch a 5-day delivery line for cross-border parcels between China and South Korea in cooperation with Cainiao, providing Chinese foreign trade merchants with lower-cost and more efficient cross-border logistics solutions and exploring emerging markets.

AliExpress Korea 5-Day Delivery Venue Product Logo

Since last year, China's cross-border e-commerce has grown rapidly, and Chinese products have gained favor among consumers in major markets around the world, among which the Korean market, as a close neighbor, has performed particularly well.

According to Huanqiu.com, from January to June 2020 , China surpassed the United States for the first time and became the country with the largest number of cross-border online shopping by Korean consumers , accounting for 44.2% . South Korea's Financial News mentioned in the report that there are many types of products on Chinese shopping websites, which are not inferior to those on American shopping websites, and shopping is also very convenient, forming a new trend of Korean consumers cross-border online shopping for Chinese products.

South Korea is also one of the emerging key markets for AliExpress. AliExpress data shows that sales in South Korea have maintained rapid growth, and Korean consumers' demand for Chinese products has continued to surge. In the first half of this year, the number of packages exported to South Korea by AliExpress increased by nearly 100% year-on-year. During the 618 period, the platform's sales increased by nearly 100% year-on-year.

AliExpress's 5- day delivery line for cross-border parcels between China and South Korea relies on the North China Preferred Warehouse in Shandong . After placing an order, Korean consumers who choose this line can receive the parcel within 5 working days, and some areas can even be delivered in as fast as 3 days (within 72 hours). Compared with the direct delivery line, the 5-day delivery line to South Korea has been optimized in terms of both timeliness and cost. In terms of timeliness, stocking goods in the North China Preferred Warehouse saves the time for domestic collection and allocation, and the parcel can arrive at the Korean port within 12 hours by sea ; in terms of cost, the warehouse delivery line is nearly 30 % lower than the direct delivery line .

The packaging and shipping lines in the AliExpress Preferred Warehouse

"The 5-day delivery time indicates a further improvement in the speed of cross-border delivery between China and South Korea. It is expected that the penetration rate will reach 30 % of the total order volume by the end of the fiscal year . " Zhang Rui, head of the Korean market of the AliExpress platform, said that this time AliExpress made full use of digital technology to systematically integrate the merchants' warehousing and stocking, digital sorting and distribution and delivery in the supply chain warehouse process, improve the digitization of goods in the warehouse, greatly improve the logistics timeliness, and at the same time reduce logistics operations and delivery costs.

The launch of the 5- day delivery service in South Korea coincides with the launch of AliExpress’s end-of-summer promotion in South Korea. This end-of-season promotion brings together high-quality popular products from merchants on the AliExpress platform to create a 5-day delivery venue. The main selected products include consumer electronics such as headphones, mobile phone accessories, and outdoor equipment.

Zhang Rui said that in the future, AliExpress will continue to increase its investment in the Korean market, gain deeper insights into consumer needs, integrate China's supply chain capabilities, and provide Korean market consumers with more high-quality and low-priced goods as well as extremely fast logistics and delivery services.

At this point, the layout of the preferred warehouse network established by AliExpress and Cainiao in North China, East China, South China and Hong Kong has been completed. A transfer network has been formed between the preferred warehouses, which automatically helps merchants match the best trunk logistics, save logistics costs and improve fulfillment time.

It is also reported that this year, AliExpress has also joined hands with Cainiao to increase the frequency of charter flights by 50%, and the frequency of daily charter flights has reached the level of last year's Double 11. The areas that can enjoy the "10-day delivery" shopping experience will also be expanded to 20 leading market countries of AliExpress, including Spain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal and other countries, covering major regions such as Europe, Russia, Brazil, and the United States.

AliExpress

Cross-border delivery between China and South Korea