With that timetable,compared to sea shipping we're talking about 3-5x faster time, but the cost will be about double - $8K-10K/container. But of course that saves money in warehousing and financing. So financially, today it makes sense for the more expensive goods, at $1.5M per container. And it's best because there's not a lot of capacity vs sea routes.
But i wonder: could those prices, with more/better trains etc, become close to sea shipping, such that aliexpress, which is extremely cheap but uses very slow sea shipping, start using rail ?
Because at those timelines, even if using a local fulfillment center, the storage period is very short, so the cost becomes quite low, and without lots of trouble, suddenly aliexpress can offer much cheaper goods than Amazon, all across Europe, with fast shipping. Heck, they may not even need to build warehouses, using uber like warehouse model(i.e. flexe).
> But i wonder: could those prices, with more/better trains etc, become close to sea shipping, such that aliexpress, which is extremely cheap but uses very slow sea shipping, start using rail ?
Absolutely! China's labor costs are not the cheapest anymore, but their tight infrastructure saves more than enough money to keep over-all production costs extremely competitive. This is simply a continuation of their economic strategy.
However, I doubt Europe will let Aliexpress dominate... China will be required to let other companies purchase and ship out of China as well.
Even if this only makes the e-commerce battle balanced, that's a big win for Aliexpress, after all the Amazon investment.
But I suspect China will find a way.Maybe it would just be as simple as cheaper costs in the Asian part. Maybe it will be nudging Chinese companies to be "patriotic" now that it doesn't cost them more. If there's a will, there's a way.
Ships are also incredibly unregulated on the type of fuel they use and their emissions, which, while bad for the environment, lowers the cost significantly.
> aliexpress, which is extremely cheap but uses very slow sea shipping
This depends on the destination country. Recently the dutch postal service has entered some sort of agreement with aliexpress, all my stuff is here within a week nowadays.
But i wonder: could those prices, with more/better trains etc, become close to sea shipping, such that aliexpress, which is extremely cheap but uses very slow sea shipping, start using rail ?
Because at those timelines, even if using a local fulfillment center, the storage period is very short, so the cost becomes quite low, and without lots of trouble, suddenly aliexpress can offer much cheaper goods than Amazon, all across Europe, with fast shipping. Heck, they may not even need to build warehouses, using uber like warehouse model(i.e. flexe).