Compared to the currently booming air cargo market, I may have higher expectations for the development of the shipping market in 2025. Although sea freight rates have dropped to rock-bottom levels this month, partly due to overseas Christmas holidays and partly because of the intense restocking rush in the first half of this year, which kept sea freight rates at a high level. So why, at this moment, do I favor the shipping market over the air cargo market?

The air cargo market is now an open book. All airlines are aware of the lack of aircraft capacity. Whether it's charter flight prices or block space agreement prices, they have all been pushed up significantly. Take the Europe route as an example: airlines may offer direct contracts to e-commerce platforms at a rate of RMB 35/kg for 2025, while the annual contract price for air freight agents may be RMB 45/kg. These agents, after securing high-priced space from airlines, have to turn to e-commerce platforms for base-load cargo.

The entire air freight market has become extremely irrational and unhealthy. A large number of air freight agents have turned into financing tools and operational agencies for e-commerce platforms, making it difficult to earn a margin from freight rates. They can only make a small profit from handling fees. Moreover, with high air freight rates, the financial pressure on air freight agents is even greater as they bear upfront costs on both ends. The number of freight forwarders capable of running regular charter flights is rapidly decreasing. As airlines compress the share of space available to agents, the growth bottleneck becomes more apparent.

In contrast to air freight, the shipping market benefits from the fact that there are plenty of ships owned by shipping companies. Even a basic vessel can carry several thousand containers, and there are enough ports to accommodate this volume. Shipping companies have a plethora of agents in ports across various cities to help them secure cargo. As a result, the shipping market enjoys a more diverse and robust ecosystem due to sufficient vessel capacity and the decentralized nature of agency space resources.

The full-managed model of e-commerce logistics is constrained by the bottleneck in air cargo capacity, and if e-commerce platforms want to seek growth, they will inevitably focus on developing a semi-managed model that combines sea freight with overseas warehouses. E-commerce requires high turnover rates, so the demand for fast sea freight services will continue to rise. Additionally, in recent months, due to the significant delays and congestion of European road freight and rail freight caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, more goods are expected to shift to the sea freight mode.

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Public Account: Cross-border E-commerce Logistics Baixiaosheng