JD.com is shipping European exports to China by rail, cutting transport costs and also offering customers the chance of ordering goods already in transit on the ‘rolling warehouse’.
The Chinese e-commerce giant’s first-ever fully chartered freight train, packed with JD-procured European products, has just completed its inaugural, 10,000km journey from Hamburg, Germany to Xi’an, the capital of central China’s Shaanxi province, where JD operates one of its most important distribution hubs for cross-border imports.
Many of the products carried on the inaugural journey are expected to be sold during JD’s forthcoming June 18th Global Shopping Festival, one of the most important online sales events of the year in China.
Moreover, the train functions as a ‘mobile warehouse’ – as soon as goods are logged and loaded onto the train in Germany they can immediately be listed for sale on JD.com’s e-commerce platform in China. This means that consumers can place orders for the products even while they’re in transit, shortening wait times for consumers while further reducing warehousing costs and increasing stock management efficiency for brands and retailers.
JD said the China Railway Express rail freight service offers an innovative, highly efficient and cost-effective answer for merchants looking to get their products from Europe into the hands of consumers in China, faster than by sea and cheaper than by air. By sea, the method traditionally favoured by European producers to get their goods to China, the journey would have taken twice as long at up to 35 days, while the rail route is 80% cheaper than air transport.
While the company has long included rail freight as a transport option from Europe, this is the first time it has utilized an entire train. The train travels along a network of rail lines connecting East Asia and Europe, passing through Poland, Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan before reaching its destination in China.
Thanks to this new addition to JD.com’s sophisticated cross-border logistics network, the company can now ship goods from most European markets direct to consumers in China – creating significant cost savings for retailers and suppliers. Since JD handles all customs procedures, retailers and suppliers also benefit from a “one-stop shop” service solution, with JD handling every aspect of the freight process from the train station in Germany to the consumer’s doorstep in China. JD is also building a transfer centre in Hamburg to extend this convenience to more merchants across Europe.
Liu Han, General Manager of International Supply chain at JD Logistics, said, “At JD, logistics innovation and efficiency is all-important, because we know that speed, cost and choice are what matter most to our suppliers and our consumers. Through our use of a train from Germany to China fully dedicated to carrying goods destined for JD.com, we are dramatically reducing the time to market for European retailers and suppliers, and providing our consumers with even more product choices at cheaper prices. With demand for imported European products soaring on JD, we expect to launch a regular service later this year, and we look forward to seeing this train make many more trips in the months and years ahead.”
