To deliver goods from China to anywhere on our planet within 72 hours. Each business day, the average order volume processed by CaiNiao Shipping is around 160,000 orders. Both Amazon and Alibaba are looking into the global eCommerce market for capturing a large share, which is expected to grow by $1.4 trillion by the year 2025.
“It all depends on the ground.” Says Jeremy Townson, head of research from Asia Tech Strategy. “It’s all about who’s faster on the ground and who’s focused where.”
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The entire Alibaba and Aliexpress, the world’s biggest retail product sourcing platforms, are constantly evolving and revolutionizing. As new shipping ways, platform features and products keep rolling out even during the pandemic. In 2018, Alibaba finally launched CaiNiao shipping as an extra shipping option to both platforms as a powerful and direct conversion tool.
CaiNiao shipping is a global logistics platform launched by Alibaba group, offering a variety of range of shipping methods both on Aliexpress and Alibaba ecommerce platforms. CaiNiao’s shipping rate is usually cheaper than other competitors. However, it takes a slightly longer time to fulfill your order.
CaiNiao (Cainiao Smart Logistics Network Limited), is a China-based global logistics service provider founded by Alibaba in 2013, its headquarter is based in Hangzhou city, China.
Throughout the booming years in China, CaiNiao managed to snowball and expand the fulfillment network across China. Now, CaiNiao international is working with selected global partners to offer worldwide shipping services.
Alibaba’s fast-tracking service is already gaining traction across European cities and collaborating with various shipping carriers as it intends to build a fulfillment network different from Amazon’s.
Also, via retail platforms like Aliexpress and Alibaba, CaiNiao claims to offer delivery services within 24 hours to any fixed domiciles across China.
Before we introduce CaiNiao’s intelligence warehouse, some of the fun facts are worth being noticed.
The global supply chain disruptions during the past year have shed new light on the urgent demands for a highly intelligent and self-running logistic management system that is capable of alleviating external disruptions and highlighted the urgent need to accelerate innovation within the logistics industry.
Cainiao’s proprietary warehouse management system leverages artificial intelligence (AI), cloud infrastructures, and warehouse automation throughout each step of the warehouse process to support the exponential rise in automation demand and parcel volume during global shopping high seasons such as black Friday. This is supported by smart logistics resources such as autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), automatic guided vehicles (AGVs), a central warehouse management system (WMS), and more.
In Southeast Asia, another frontier of Cainiao, who also had announced its first international partnership with Flash Express, a Thai eCommerce logistics vendor. The 20,000 square meters host facility is the largest smart warehouse in the region with 100 AGVs used within a 5,000 square meters area.
Alone in the warehouse in Hangzhou, 800 automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) are running days and nights by tireless delivering parcels to pre-set locations. These small robots are doing all the heavy lifting and transporting parcels. The less the warehouse employees walk around, the higher efficiency could be achieved purely from robots and accurate data synchronizations.
There are several shipping options offered by CaiNiao on Aliexpress, it ranges from economy to a standardized service. Each shipping rate is dependent on the destination country, the value of the goods and the size of the parcel.
Take a look at CaiNiao’s shipping options.
The Super Economy and Super Economy Global are the most economical Shipping options on AliExpress. The transit and fulfillment time is generally within 30 – 50 days and shipping is nearly free of charge. A small shipping fee may be applicable, depending on the destination and size of the parcel.
It’s imperative to notice that shipping via Super Economy or Super Economy Global won’t enable you to track the shipment orders. Even though a tracking number, it will only be able to provide visibility within China.
The Special Goods delivery method could fall into two categories, super economy and standard. However, the eligibility for acquiring the shipping method is that the total value of the item must be less than $5 and weigh less than 2 kg.
The difference between the non-special goods and special goods category is the cost, speed and tracking ability. Shipping for the special goods category is usually faster at about 20 – 40 days unless the economy method is selected.
The special goods method is typically more expensive and gives you the ability to track your shipment end-to-end.
Cainiao’s Expedited Standard shipping choice is basically the same as the special goods category, without the value and size restriction for the items. As a trade-off, this shipping method is much more expensive than the Super Economy Global method. However, it allows you and your customers to track the shipments throughout the fulfillment lifecycle.
It's hard to compare directly between CaiNiao's expedited shipping with DHL or UPS. However, a shorter delivery window around 20-40 days could be expected and similar to the special goods category.
The Heavy Parcel Line Shipping option is catering to parcels or products that do not meet regular shipping product dimensions, like oversized ones, or extra-heavy items.
The shipper will automatically provide that option if applicable and will restrict other shipping methods such as economy and standard. End-to-end shipping times are about 30 – 50 days.
To be honest, many merchants select CaiNiao since its shipping cost is so affordable and indeed cheaper than the rest of the competitors. Dropshipping, as a most popular eCommerce business model, now is suffering from the reduced shipping capacities from China due to the pandemic and lockdown reasons. But you can still use CaiNiao as a great shipping option when you plan and order your products prior to the sales.