Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao has launched a dedicated China-US West Coast ocean freight service, including door-to-door delivery, guaranteeing receipt 30 days after departure from China.
The service was unveiled by Cainiao’s customer solutions specialist Si Yu on Sunday at the Shenzhen International Cross-Border E-commerce exhibition.
Working with its shipping affiliate Transfar Shipping, the service will involve three weekly shipments, each carrying 2,000-4,000 teu from major Chinese ports Shanghai, Ningbo, Qingdao and Yantian to Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Explaining how the service guarantees timely deliveries, a Cainiao spokesperson told WPO:“The cargo departing from China to the west coast of the US usually takes approximately 15 days. After arriving at the ports in Los Angeles or Long Beach, Cainiao will work with the local ports to expedite the discharging of the containers by offering trailer frames at the ports.”
Cainiao has also rented an open area near the ports for holding discharged containers. Each customer’s containers are numbered and placed in order. Cainiao’s spokesperson said these measures help the containers to reach recipients within 15 days after berthing.
Mr Si said the service can improve delivery timeliness by more than 30% and save an average of 20% of logistics costs for merchants.
As the Covid-19 pandemic continues, supply chains have been disrupted and shippers have been hard-pressed to secure containers.
Mr Si explained: “It’s against this background that Cainiao took the lead in integrating shipping, ports, customs clearance and other logistics resources to serve cross-border merchants, and further reduce export costs through highly deterministic price and time-sensitive shipping services.”
He continued: “Due to congestion in major overseas terminals, containers are stacked, making it difficult to retrieve containers at the bottom. In peak seasons, this not only means waiting for 10 days for container retrieval, but also generates large dwell fees and other extra expenses. In this regard, Cainiao has set up a container yard near the terminal to sort and stack the containers of different customers, so the containers can just be picked up and sent off.”
