AliExpress Invests Heavily in Fashion, Safeguarded by Cainiao's Cross-border Fashion Line

On February 29th, Cainiao unveiled its "Cross-border Fashion Line" catering to clothing manufacturing hubs such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Yiwu and Dongguan. This digital cross-border fashion solution provides strong support to AliExpress fashion merchants and factories venturing into international markets. As a result, fashion products manufactured in these five cities can be delivered to European consumers within five days.

Earlier, media coverage revealed AliExpress' recent introduction of a cross-border fashion merchandising initiative, accompanied by a series of concentrated efforts targeted at the fashion industry. These endeavors have been widely interpreted as the cross-border e-commerce sector's foremost investment and the most resolute commitment to restructure the fashion supply chain at the beginning of the year.

To this end, AliExpress has introduced an eye-catching addition to its homepage, namely the Viva women's fashion channel. They have also rolled out a comprehensive set of exclusive services, such as substantial platform subsidies, intensified promotion in dedicated channels, increasing both on-site and off-site traffic, unprecedented marketing investments and personalized assistance through one-on-one customer support. Moreover, AliExpress has organized multiple investment fairs in cities like Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Yiwu, targeting the source factories in these industrial clusters where apparel sales are thriving.

Cainiao's "Cross-border Fashion Express" provides a semi-managed solution for pre-stocking inventory in "Fashion Warehouses" situated near these five cities, in close proximity to fashion retailers. Leveraging advanced logistics technologies like cross-warehouse smart consolidation, apparel packages from various merchants are aggregated in Cainiao's warehouse and automatically bundled into a single package to reduce logistics expenses. Moreover, this service guarantees worry-free logistics with "X-day delivery," greatly enhancing distribution efficiency. In countries like the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and others where "Global 5-day Delivery" is available, consumers can receive fashion items from China in just 5 days.

Unlike other product categories, fashion items have a distinct seasonal nature, requiring dynamic adjustments in SKU inventory and variety, which poses high inventory pressure in stock management, making efficient international expansion a persistent core challenge for cross-border fashion enterprises.

It is worth noting that semi-managed fashion retailers can take advantage of Cainiao's Just-in-Time (JIT) logistics to independently manage and adapt their inventory, thus establishing a flexible supply chain for on-demand production. JIT logistics ensures a seamless logistics experience for merchants, with pickup services available within 24 hours and swift outbound processing within the same timeframe. In cities like Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Yiwu and Dongguan, the JIT pickup service can be completed in 13 hours.

To help fashion merchants new to cross-border e-commerce reduce costs and improve efficiency, Cainiao has introduced the self-developed Tianji measuring device. This device accurately measures the volume, weight and shape of clothing packages in just 2 seconds, allowing for one-click upload to the system without the need for manual work. According to the responsible person of Cainiao's JIT solution, for clothing products with irregular shapes, Cainiao uses advanced smart devices to precisely calculate the volume and logistics expenses. By reducing costs at the first step, it enhances the price competitiveness for merchants.

As the world's largest cross-border e-commerce logistics company, Cainiao's global smart logistics network has a presence in more than 200 countries and regions. In the 2023 fiscal year, Cainiao handled 1.5 billion international parcels, serving 133 million cross-border consumers, as well as over 100,000 businesses and brands.