Impact greater than the Red Sea crisis? Temu and SHEIN's daily cargo volume approaches 10,000 tons

According to data released by Cargo Facts Consulting, the number of packages shipped to the world every day by China's "Four Little Dragons" AliExpress, SHEIN, TikTok, and Temu can fill 108 Boeing 777 cargo planes.

Among them, SHEIN's daily freight volume reaches 5,000 tons, Temu reaches 4,000 tons, AliExpress also has 1,000 tons per day, and TikTok has 800 tons per day, totaling more than 10,000 tons.

According to a previous report, SHEIN and Tmue deliver approximately 600,000 packages to the United States every day, and 210 million packages per year.

The two platforms also deliver about 400,000 parcels to Germany every day, close to 150 million per year. Although there is no specific data for the UK, some people speculate that the number should be similar to the number of parcels shipped to Germany, reaching six figures.

In comparison, the peak freight demand of Apple, the global supply chain management master, is only about 1,000 tons per day.

Generally speaking, the fulfillment of e-commerce platforms is completed by fulfillment centers in the United States, the United Kingdom and other European regions, or fulfillment centers in the region where the platform sites are located, so these packages are usually shipped by sea in containers. However, SHEIN and Temu usually ship from China, which means that their goods are usually shipped by air.

Basile Ricard, Operations Director of Greater China at freight forwarding company Bollore Logistics , said that the biggest impact on air cargo is not the Red Sea crisis, but the package boom brought by SHEIN and Temu. It is reported that the total volume of packages shipped to the world by SHEIN and Temu alone requires the capacity of 100 Boeing 777s every day.

Industry insiders interviewed also said that SHEIN and Temu are increasingly occupying market share and attracting consumers with fast package delivery times; this situation has led to a shortage of air freight capacity and pushed up freight prices from China.

Faced with this situation, German logistics company Schenker increased its transport capacity, but a company spokesperson revealed that the increased capacity had already been booked for a long time and in large quantities.

However, sources said that SHEIN has begun building warehouses in the United States, and Temu has also announced that brands from the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States can be sold on the market. In addition, there are reports that Temu is seeking to lease more than a dozen large transport aircraft to transport packages on its platform.

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Freight volume