Many Chinese warehouses 'sprout' close to the Vietnamese border

A series of large-scale warehouses have been built by Chinese enterprises in areas close to the Vietnam border.

Chinese warehouse, located near the border with Lao Cai province (Vietnam), convenient for transporting goods - Photo: BONG MAI

Many businesses even invest hundreds of billions of dong to build warehouses and sorting centers right in Vietnam to shorten delivery speed.

Thanks to the well-invested warehouse system and sorting center, many Chinese orders placed in just 1-2 days can reach customers in Hanoi , and 3-5 days in Ho Chi Minh City.

Build warehouses and store goods at the border

Walking around many roads around the Bang Tuong border gate area (China), bordering Lang Son province, we witnessed a series of container trucks moving busily, many vehicles parked right at large warehouses, ready to transport goods to the nearby border gate.

Some other cars, heading from Vietnam back warehouse China at the border, empty container, shipment completed.

Just about to set foot in the "Livestream Zone" e-commerce "Pingxiang International", we witnessed a red container truck parked in front of a large warehouse and loaded with sacks of goods, with the words "specializing in transporting the China - Vietnam route" written on the side of the truck.

Previously, when we arrived at the gate of the "China - ASEAN Cross-Border E-Commerce Logistics Industrial Park (Hekou)", with an investment of about 13,100 billion VND, covering an area of 128 acres bordering Lao Cai province, we were overwhelmed by the large-scale, modern buildings used to store goods exported to Vietnam.

In this industrial park, there are functional subdivisions including: logistics warehouse center, center customs clearance... only about 295km from Hanoi.

Mr. Hoang (Chinese, working in this area) shared that thanks to the warehouse near the border, after Vietnamese customers order via livestream on the e-commerce platform, the goods will be quickly picked up and shipped.

To verify, the reporter went on TikTok and ordered a set of titanium jewelry from the store where Mr. Hoang worked. The online sales broadcast was conducted right in Ha Khau. Only five days later, the goods were delivered to an address in Ho Chi Minh City, free of charge, and undamaged.

According to our research, in three border localities of China, Hekou (bordering Lao Cai), Pingxiang (bordering Lang Son) and Dongxing (bordering Quang Ninh), a series of giant warehouses have been and are being built, Vietnam border 3 - 4km. Warehouse helps sellers and floors shorten shipping time and ordering time. The closer the warehouse, the lower the cost.

According to some logistics companies, many warehouses near the border area were built by businesses themselves to serve sales activities. Even though they do not border Vietnam, businesses in Guangzhou have sought out the Dongxing border area to build and rent warehouses, creating convenience for transporting and trading goods through Vietnam.

In the border area of Hekou (bordering Lao Cai, Vietnam), many Chinese sellers have both large warehouses and showrooms, serving wholesale and retail customers - Photo: BONG MAI

Investing in warehouses and sorting centers in Vietnam

Not only building warehouses to store goods right next to the Vietnamese border, a series of Chinese companies in the logistics and e-commerce sectors have poured money into investing in warehouses in Vietnam.

A typical example is Best Inc., which has just entered the market. Vietnam market In 5 years, this Chinese transportation "giant" has invested a total of 50 million USD (nearly 1,300 billion VND) in warehouses in Vietnam.

In addition to the well-invested automatic goods sorting center in Cu Chi (HCMC), at the end of 2021, this group put into operation its largest sorting center in Southeast Asia, located in the Vietnam - Singapore Industrial Park (Bac Ninh).

By mid-2024, this enterprise will have covered 36 goods sorting centers, more than 700 post offices, 7,500 delivery staff, and a warehouse area of 100,000 square meters.

Mr. Vuong Hao - General Director of Small and Medium Enterprises supply chain A Chinese logistics group's foreign subsidiary - said it has researched the Vietnamese market and forecasts that in the next 10 years the logistics industry will be very vibrant.

"We have signed a contract to lease warehouses and open smart warehouses. From now until the end of this year, we will launch in the North and South of Vietnam," he said.

According to Mr. Vuong Hao, this group decides to invest in warehouses based on the level of market development. In Vietnam, this enterprise will open dozens of smart warehouses, including opening itself or organizing warehouse franchises.

In addition, the group also cooperates with Vietnamese enterprises that own warehouses to provide technology, strategies, and sources of goods to jointly operate warehouses, optimizing costs and performance.

Responding to Tuoi Tre, a Shopee representative also said that they have built an optimal logistics network with a well-invested warehouse system, concentrated in modern sorting centers such as Cu Chi (HCMC) and Bac Ninh.

These warehouses enable delivery partners to meet 24/7 delivery volumes, while helping Shopee expand its reach and serve users in more regions.

"With the goal of speeding up delivery, we also choose to cooperate with large shipping units in the industry that have invested in professional sorting centers, owning a regional delivery model (HUB) with the closest receiving address to the user to minimize delivery time," he said.

Trucks transporting goods from China to Vietnam are parked at Bang Tuong warehouse (bordering Lang Son province) - Photo: BONG MAI

Race to shorten time, reduce costs

During the journey of more than 10,000km following the source of goods from China to Vietnam, we were told by many businessmen in the logistics industry that in addition to modern logistics systems, businesses have invested in a series of large-scale warehouses near the Vietnam border, even in Vietnam, to store goods with the goal of shortening delivery time and reducing costs.

According to these businesses, in the race for low prices and delivery times, warehouses (containing all kinds of goods from electronics, household appliances, cosmetics...) play a very important role. And in reality, many Vietnamese consumers "love" to buy goods on Chinese platforms because of the very low prices and delivery in just a few days.

Speaking to Tuoi Tre, Mr. Cuc Uy Giang - Cross-border director (in charge of cross-border shipping) of a Chinese logistics company, serving Shopee, Lazada and Tikok - said that sellers or e-commerce platforms all rent border warehouses or warehouses with ready-made goods in Vietnam.

According to Mr. Giang, previously, orders took a long time to collect and ship from mainland China to Vietnam. In addition, a series of related procedures caused orders to be delayed in reaching customers, not to mention the costs also increased. However, things are different now.

Many Chinese-invested e-commerce platforms operating in Vietnam have built warehouses at the border or rented them from third parties, such as Best, to store goods in advance. "There are even platforms that have prepared goods in Vietnam. When there is an order, the goods from the warehouse will go directly through the last-mile shipping units to be delivered to customers," said Mr. Giang.

As a professional seller on TikTok and Shopee in Vietnam, Ms. L. - a KOC (consumer influencer) with 1 million online followers - revealed that preparing a large-scale livestream session usually takes about 1-2 months. After signing a contract with the KOC, the factory in China quickly transported the goods to the available warehouse in Vietnam.

"With the current way of doing things, Chinese goods will be reduced. shipping cost and delivery time, adding advantages to penetrate deeper into the Vietnamese market through e-commerce platforms Shopee, Lazada, TikTok Shop...", a business specializing in trading Chinese goods on e-commerce platforms said and expressed concern about the slowness of Vietnamese businesses in this race.