Royal Mail’s European parcels subsidiary GLS today unveiled a new partnership with China’s ZJSExpress to target Chinese exports to Europe with slower but cheaper deliveries than premium express
services.The partners will focus mostly on Chinese B2B parcel shipments to Europe offering fully-trackeddeferred deliveries but also on B2C deliveries of small products ordered by European onlineshoppers from Chinese websites. They will start offering Europe-China deliveries shortly.
Under the cooperation, announced at a press conference in Beijing, GLS and ZJS Express, one ofthe largest private Chinese parcel delivery companies, will offer Chinese businesses acompetitively priced, fully-tracked, business-to-business delivery proposition for the 3-5 workingday parcels delivery market segment. The existing China to rest-of-the-world delivery market islargely made up of premium providers offering delivery within two to three days, Royal Mailstated.
ZJS Express will become a GLS global partner, bringing China-wide coverage and local knowledge.ZJS, with some 20,000 staff at more than 3,000 locations, has a network that covers more than 2,000towns and cities in the People’s Republic of China. The association will trade in China as ‘EuroBusiness Parcel’, an established GLS service brand which offers value-for-money express servicestargeting less time-sensitive items.
GLS was not immediately able to respond to CEP-Research queries about the volumes expected underthe partnership or which export industries in particular would be targeted.
In operational terms, ZJS will feed parcels destined for the European market into the GLSnetwork. The Chinese firm will send parcels by air freight from Beijing to Frankfurt or London andwill set up gateways in Shanghai and Shenzhen. The GLS UniQue software and its scan stations willbe used to handle the parcels destined for Europe in China to ensure all the necessary data, suchfor customs clearance, can be sent in advance. Chinese consignors will also have access to parceltracking service throughout the whole of Europe.
Parcels for delivery in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland will be fed into the current GLSnetwork via London with delivery made by Parcelforce, Royal Mail’s express parcels business in theUK. All other parcels for European destinations will be distributed via Frankfurt. TheIATA-licensed GLS airport office at Frankfurt airport will ensure they are cleared by customs anddistributed throughout the whole of Europe through GLS’ Europe-wide network.
“Together with the USA and the Asia-Pacific region, Europe is China’s most important tradingpartner,” commented Rico Back, CEO of the GLS Group. “We are delighted that ZJS Express has suchfaith in the quality of our services in Europe.”
Goods are still sent predominantly by sea in trade with China but parcel deliveries are steadilygrowing in importance to meet the need to supply customers with goods in smaller quantities. Thisapplies especially to spare parts or to specific products sold through e-commerce, GLS pointedout.
The new partnership will initially involve the dispatch of parcels to Europe, but GLS will alsobe shortly passing parcels on from its customers to ZJS for delivery throughout the People’sRepublic of China.
The GLS Group, which also has strong partners in Russia, India, the Middle East and Hong Kong,aims to position itself as a Europe specialist. “GLS will continue to focus on expanding its ownnetwork in Europe”, Back explained. “We are able to offer a worldwide service by working in closepartnership with established companies with a strong local presence.”
For consignors, this primarily means that their shipments can be handled rapidly, reliably andtransparently. Interfaces between the IT systems of the different partners make it possible tomonitor deliveries continuously. Using the track & trace system, GLS customers are thereforeable to track the delivery of their parcels to their destinations also in countries outsideEurope.
Meanwhile, Royal Mail stressed that the alliance between GLS and ZJS is part of its overallparcel strategy. As letter volumes decline, the group is focused on generating profitable revenuestreams in parcels and marketing mail. In the year ending March 2012, the group had total parcelrevenues of some £4.2 billion, with GLS generating £1.6 billion.
Mark Thomson, Managing Director International at Royal Mail Group, said: “China is a key tradingpartner for Europe. The China-to-Europe parcels market is growing rapidly. Last year, China was thebiggest exporter of goods to the EU. This presents us with a great opportunity to link our Europeanoperations with ZJS Express’ network for the benefit of Chinese businesses exporting toEurope.”
Chen Xianbao, President of ZJS said: “ZJS Express has a well-established, trusted reputation forproviding high quality next-day and two-day parcel service in China across provinces, cities,counties and districts from remote outposts such as Huoerguosi Port in Xingjing to great citiessuch as Shanghai and Xi’an. This cooperation now enables us to meet our customers’ demands toextend our high-quality service to major European countries.”
