Shein’s recent IPO prospectus is instructive in many ways. It confirms that cross border e-commerce is not such a great business. Other platforms such as Temu, AliExpress and Amazon can afford to either lose or make very little money from their international operations thanks to large profitable domestic and cloud computing businesses. Changes in the customs treatment of low value direct shipments from China are already leading to fundamental changes the way cross border fulfilment functions. Lastly, it shows how precarious the relationship is between the global air logistics industry and a segment that accounts for almost one fifth of intercontinental airfreight. Time to start thinking about the future.
Posts tagged as “deminimis”
International air cargo is highly reliant on global supply chains and cross border e-commerce traffic. Both look like they will take a beating in 2025. In January we were still expecting growth of between 3.5% and 7.4% but our latest forecast foresees a range of between -0.1% and +0.7%. This is driven a weaker economic outlook globally as well the potential loss of about one third of transpacific air cargo volumes due to US de-minimis rule changes.