Many bombs exploded at the same time! The freight forwarding industry has entered a period of high incidence of bombs

Recently, it seems that we have entered a period of high incidence of freight forwarding failures. In early July, Yien just published an article "Two freight forwarding companies failed within a month". Soon after, many companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen encountered problems one after another. Various news such as broken capital chain, detained containers, running away, and crowdfunding for redemption of goods were rampant. Now, as August is approaching, the thunder in the freight forwarding industry has not stopped. On July 23, a freight forwarding company in Shenzhen suddenly issued a notice that its capital chain was broken and hoped that peers would give some time to deal with it.

An 8-year-old freight forwarder suddenly encountered an accident

Broken capital chain seems to have become a fixed combination for most of the freight forwarders that have gone bankrupt. Now, there is another one. In a widely circulated notice, Ai** Logistics Supply Chain (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. stated that due to the company's recent problems and broken capital chain, the goods were not transferred in time.

The company asked its peers to wait patiently for a few days so that it could deal with several things, including internal rectification, researching the origins of all goods, formulating a disposal plan, and collecting unpaid customers. Ai** Logistics particularly emphasized that during the collection process, those companies that are indifferent will be prosecuted.

Today (July 27) is the time that Ai** Logistics promised to provide a solution. I don’t know whether the affected cargo owners have received it and whether this solution meets their expectations.

Qichacha shows that Ai** Logistics has been established for quite a long time, having been established in 2016 for 8 years. But even after such a long time, the company is still in deep trouble due to financial problems.

The notice did not explain the specific reasons for the break in its capital chain, but judging from the current status of the logistics industry, it is inseparable from the following reasons:

First, the market competition is fierce. There are many participants in the cross-border logistics market, and the competition is fierce. In order to compete for customers, some companies may adopt a low-price strategy, resulting in a squeezed profit margin. For example, some small cross-border logistics companies have pushed prices too low in order to obtain orders, and with rising operating costs, they are prone to spending more than they earn, which ultimately leads to a tight capital chain.

The second is that the payment period is too long. In cooperation with upstream and downstream companies, there may be a long payment period. Customers delay payment, while suppliers require timely payment. The time difference in between can easily lead to difficulties in capital turnover. Some large e-commerce customers often have a payment period of 3 months or even longer, which is a huge test for the cash flow of cross-border logistics companies.

The third is the detention of goods in the destination country. When goods are detained in the destination country, the freight forwarder may need to bear a series of additional fees and costs. For example, it may be necessary to pay high storage fees, handle fines, or invest a lot of human and material resources to resolve the detention problem.

If the quantity of seized goods is large and the seizure problem cannot be resolved for a long time, these accumulated costs may quickly consume the freight forwarding company's capital reserves. In addition, the seizure of goods may also trigger a series of chain reactions. For example, it may cause customers to delay or refuse to pay because the goods were not delivered on time, affecting the customer's business operations. At the same time, the reputation of the freight forwarding company may be damaged, affecting the development of future business, thereby reducing the source of income.

Many mines have already exploded in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Yiwu

Before Ai** Logistics announced that its capital chain was broken, several logistics companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen had already collapsed. The first were three companies in Shanghai: Shanghai Yu* Supply Chain, Shanghai Jin* International Logistics, and You* (Shanghai) International Logistics.

It is understood that these three freight forwarders are engaged in air transportation to the United States. The actual controller of one of the companies has "fled" to Japan. The amount of debt currently confirmed to be owed is more than 50 million yuan. Many cross-border e-commerce sellers, including Amazon sellers, have been innocently implicated.

However, an insider pointed out that the "50 million yuan" is just the tip of the iceberg, because a company familiar with him was owed 20 million yuan.

Through Qichacha, Yien.com found that the three companies were established more than ten years ago and the shortest was five years ago. However, they were all involved in multiple lawsuits. The one with the most lawsuits had 14 lawsuits. 83% of the cases were filed as defendants, and about 67% of the cases were freight forwarding contract disputes.

The mines in Shenzhen exploded almost at the same time as those in Shanghai. It is reported that the three companies in Shenzhen that had accidents were Shenzhen Ze**Da International Logistics, Shenzhen Chang**Ye International Supply Chain Co., Ltd., and Shenzhen Zhong**Tong Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd.

Not long ago, a freight forwarder reminded in the industry exchange group that the above three freight forwarders owed a large amount of freight to overseas warehouses, and hoped that colleagues would pay attention and not fall into the trap again. Just when people were doubting the authenticity of this news, the freight forwarder quickly gave a positive answer: he was already redeeming the goods.

Different from the three companies in Shanghai, the oldest of the three companies in Shenzhen was established only five years ago (established in 2019), and the other two companies were all new companies established in January and April this year. However, according to reports, the actual controllers behind the three companies are the same person. The clues found by Yien from Qichacha further confirmed this statement. After inquiry, it was found that the legal person of Ze**Da served as a supervisor in Chang**Ye, and the legal person of Chang**Ye was the same person as Zhong**Tong.

The Shenzhen freight forwarding industry has been in a turbulent period in the past month, with thunders constantly rumbling. Before the problems of the above companies were solved, other thunders were imminent.

First, Shenzhen Mi* International Supply Chain Co., Ltd. was reported to have a broken capital chain. At the same time, 31 containers were seized, involving more than 60 companies, involving more than 20 million yuan. The company owed the most was about 15 million yuan, including customs clearance fees and booking fees. A large number of freight forwarding colleagues came to the door to defend their rights.

It is reported that Mi* International is engaged in European railway lines and currently has accounts receivable of about 5 million yuan. However, this is far from enough compared with its outstanding debt of more than 20 million yuan. Therefore, there are reports that it has declared bankruptcy.

While the Mi* International incident was making headlines, many companies in Yiwu, Shenzhen, and Dongguan were in trouble due to account leakage, and a large number of goods were detained. According to the notice issued by the company involved, the reason for the detention was that the main account in the United States had a large amount of fees (adjustment fees, rebound fees, fines, etc.) that had not been paid. The main account involved multiple sub-accounts in the market (the one starting with 1Z59YR98 is one of them). *Ren, *Hong, *Yun Logistics, etc. were all involved, but some companies have already come up with compensation plans.

The logistics industry is in turmoil, and cross-border e-commerce sellers are also worried. After all, every explosive incident means that countless sellers are implicated. At the very least, they lose both money and goods. At worst, they miss sales opportunities, and their store’s performance suffers and rankings drop.

In this case, sellers must formulate some countermeasures, such as strengthening supplier evaluation and selection, diversifying logistics channels, optimizing inventory management, strengthening contract management, establishing risk warning mechanisms, and purchasing logistics insurance.

We sincerely hope that the logistics industry will be more orderly in the future, strictly abide by various laws and regulations, and maintain a stable trend. Let every link have rules to follow, every transportation is safe and reliable, provide solid, strong and continuous support for cross-border e-commerce and other related industries, and promote the prosperity of the entire industrial chain.