Compared with the traditional manufacturing industry, the international freight forwarding industry is a pure service industry, and its enterprise scale and economy are not obvious。The geographical advantages of freight forwarding enterprises, the service attitude of employees, professional quality and skills, and even the emotional relationship with customers are all important factors in the market competition。It is because of these factors that thousands of small and medium-sized freight forwarders coexist with a few large freight forwarders。
According to the analysis of "2021-2025 China International freight forwarding industry Panorama analysis and development strategy Research Report"。
At present, the overall capacity of the international freight forwarding industry is oversupply, and the competition between freight forwarding enterprises is fierce。In general, China's freight forwarding logistics enterprises are mostly small and medium-sized enterprises, mostly small scale, the level of operation is uneven。Although a few peers have formed a strong comprehensive competitiveness and brand influence, most of the domestic freight forwarding logistics enterprises are very different from the international advanced level, and it is difficult to compete with large companies in Europe, the United States and Japan in a short period of time in terms of scale, facilities and technology。
Domestic freight forwarders are also faced withInternational freight forwardingCompetition (based overseas)。Although China is the world's factory, it does not master core technology, market channels and other factors, and exports are entirely in the buyer's market。The Chinese shipper has no right to speak, and the trade terms are becoming more and more FOB(delivery alongside the ship to the shipper), that is, the consignee designates a foreign agent, and the foreign agent entrusts its partners or branches in China to book the space。For this kind of business, domestic agent enterprises can only play their own advantages in certain links, play a certain complementary and bridge role, but the price is transparent and the profit is low。
Current situation of international freight forwarding industry。
At present, more than 30,000 international freight forwarding agencies have been registered with the competent authorities in China, with more than 2 million employees, and the proportion is increasing by 5% to 10% every year。In addition to these officially approved freight forwarders, there are more than 100,000 second - and third-generation freight forwarders with tens of millions of employees, according to industry estimates。Although these second and third generations do not have the qualifications approved by the relevant authorities, they may have better relationships with carriers, bankers or customs and can obtain good rates to ensure smooth shipments。Compared with large companies with strict and rigid management, their accounting deadlines and customer returns are more flexible, which will bring more fierce competition to the international freight forwarding industry, especially small and medium-sized freight forwarding enterprises。
According to incomplete statistics, coastal international freight forwarding enterprises account for nearly 80% of the total number of freight forwarding enterprises, while other areas only account for about 20%。According to the statistics of more than 57,150 agent enterprises included in China International Shipping network, Guangdong, Shanghai, Shandong, Tianjin, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangsu and Liaoning are about 1.9万家。Specifically, Guangdong, which includes the most enterprises, accounts for about 33% of the total number of included enterprises, Shanghai, which ranks second, accounts for about 20%, and other regions account for: Shandong: 11%, Tianjin about 10%, Zhejiang about 7%, Fujian about 4%, Jiangsu about 4%, Liaoning about 3%。In this collection, the proportion of coastal freight forwarding enterprises is as high as 92%, accounting for the vast majority, while freight forwarding enterprises in other areas only account for 8% of the included enterprises, indicating the imbalance of China's international freight forwarding enterprises。
At present, the business of international freight forwarding companies not only provides general sea and air services, but also provides integrated logistics solutions according to the customer's industry characteristics, cost targets, production processes, supply chain network and other information。Therefore, the development of international freight forwarding business to lean production, supply chain management, process reengineering and enterprise resource planning puts forward higher requirements for employees' knowledge level, knowledge breadth and information application level。Therefore, the core business of international freight forwarding is gradually turning to value-added consulting services, and low-value-added business is gradually outsourced to other enterprises。Knowledge freight forwarding will become the future development trend of international freight forwarding industry。