Southeast Asia Cross-Border eCommerce Delivery: Between Challenge and Technology

Southeast Asia (SEA) is poised to surpass China to become the fastest growing digital economy region in Asia Pacific. With the support of a 250 million customer base, there is an impending need in the region to accelerate digital transformation goals from the domestic economy to the international economy.

Due to high internet and smartphone penetration, increasing cross-border eCommerce traffic, and a growing portfolio of online goods across multiple digital channels, the region will reach an eCommerce value of USD 360 billion by 2025.

The increasing demand for cross-border eCommerce will put tremendous pressure on global supply chain networks. Manufacturers, eCommerce providers and retailers will partner with multiple logistics service providers to ensure SLA compliance, cost efficiency and delivery agility. There is also an urgent need for businesses in the region to set up customer-centric logistics operations.

According to research, 34% of consumers in Southeast Asia are unhappy with their eCommerce delivery experience while more than 90% of customer complaints are related to late deliveries and poor communication about delivery status. The challenges in eCommerce delivery across borders are spread throughout the process inefficiencies that make shipping and costing and a labor-intensive affair. Unfortunately, a large investment in man-hours and capital still does not guarantee a smooth delivery experience.

There are several types of challenges in cross-border logistics and can be classified according to the three stages of delivery, namely pre-shipment, delivery execution, and post-shipment.

Typical pre-shipment challenges consist of choosing a shipping line, getting quotes from shippers, communicating with buyers, and sorting documents via email. This stage is prone to major expense leaks, largely due to manual negotiations, lack of insight into current market prices, and time-consuming communication via email.”

After the procurement of goods, the execution of the shipment begins. This includes export carriage, customs clearance, documentation handling, and most importantly shipment tracking. The manual process and lack of visibility of delivery status is a major setback at this stage. The absence of a centralized view of delivery progress makes the supply chain reactive rather than proactive.

Logistics management technology platforms can address shipping-related challenges so that cross-border eCommerce delivery becomes efficient, scalable and more transparent. First, it makes it easy for businesses to submit Requests for Quotations (RFQs) with multiple vendors using one click. It also allows companies to compare offers from all these vendors under one dashboard, access historical data port-pairwise, assess deviations from current market rates, and derive shipping rates thereby reducing shipping costs by 6%.

In addition, logistics management technology can reduce investment in manual processes as all documents are uploaded online by stakeholders for direct and easy access, including real-time updates of container locations available on the dashboard.

Another advantage, SaaS-based logistics management solutions can integrate communications across multiple platforms, such as calls, emails, texts, and social media. In this way, all information about each package across different carriers is available to every relevant stakeholder at all times. Having end-to-end visibility of customer location information helps resolve incoming queries faster, reduces ETA SLA violations by 37%, and can increase customer satisfaction by 64%.

The logistics management platform can reduce unexpected costs by up to 34%. In addition, the Smart 3PL management solution offers granular visibility into delays and exceptions, to avoid unnecessary cost leakage.

Another important benefit is analytics and reporting with precise visualization. Easy-to-understand reports that readily provide actionable insights into all processes, and drive better, strategic business decision making.

SHIPSY MEDIA CONTACT

arjun.alva@shipsy.io