Steven Wang: The rapid development of the full-managed and semi-managed models of cross-border e-commerce platforms in the past two years is lowering the entry barriers for the entire cross-border e-commerce industry. As a result, more factories from industrial clusters with no foreign trade or e-commerce experience are accelerating their entry into the cross-border e-commerce sector, and the overall industry workforce is expanding rapidly.

The fast growth of the full-managed model has brought massive demand for air transport of cross-border e-commerce parcels, resulting in a tight supply of wide-body cargo planes globally. This has led to a shortage of overall capacity in the upper stream of the industry, with air freight rates remaining high, and logistics costs for cross-border e-commerce direct parcels have skyrocketed.

The semi-managed model has boosted demand in the sea freight and overseas warehouse market. In 2024, overseas warehouses with direct fulfillment capabilities for single-item orders will remain scarce. With air transport capacity reaching its peak, all e-commerce platforms are shifting their focus to the "sea freight + overseas warehouse" semi-managed model for future growth.

The full-managed model will mainly cater to long-tail products and categories with rapid product turnover. In contrast, a large volume of standard products and essential goods will inevitably shift back to the semi-managed model with sea freight and overseas warehouses. Since the "Four Little Dragons" of cross-border e-commerce platforms have locked in substantial air freight resources in advance due to their volume advantage, other small e-commerce platforms, independent sellers, and inventory-based sellers relying on direct air freight logistics will face limited growth opportunities.

The direct shipping logistics market for small parcels is evolving into a competition where the company with the most air freight resources will gain more room for growth. Companies without access to significant air freight capacity will face clear growth bottlenecks.

The number of chartered flights and cargo space a company owns will determine how much volume and revenue they can handle. The entire industry is transitioning from an era where customers are king to an era where capacity is king. Customers will gravitate toward companies with stable transport capacity.

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WeChat Public Account: Cross-border E-commerce Logistics Baixiaosheng