Chinese clothing retailers are taking up a growing share of air freight – Kommersant

Chinese low-cost clothing retailers such as Shein and Temu are growing sales while taking a larger share of global air cargo. This is reported by Reuters with reference to experts in this field. Shein, Temu and other similar Chinese retailers fall into the category of ultra fast fashion – cheap, quickly produced clothing that is not designed to last. In this segment, speed of delivery is especially important, which is why overseas delivery by air is popular among these retailers.

According to estimates by Cargo Facts Consulting, Temu ships about 4 thousand tons daily in this way, Shein – 5 thousand tons, Alibaba – 1 thousand tons, TikTok, which has its own online clothing store, – 800 tons. This corresponds to loading 108 Boeing 777 freighters per day. Ultra fast fashion retailers account for about half of all cross-border shipments from Chinese online retailers and about a third of global long-haul air cargo, according to shipping company Baixiao.

According to Reuters, citing sources in the cargo transportation industry, demand for them from such retailers increased sharply in the second half of 2023. This became especially noticeable at the end of the year, when shipping was disrupted by Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, and some companies tried to deliver some cargo by air. Chinese clothing retailers are changing the game and are becoming “the single most important factor” influencing the industry, according to Mark Schlossberg, vice president of air cargo at logistics company Unique.

How the situation in the Middle East affected logistics, read the Kommersant FM article “The Suez Canal is overloaded with attacks”.

Yana Rozhdestvenskaya