The United Kingdom Warehousing Association (UKWA) is organising a trade mission to China and Hong Kong for the UK logistics industry.
The five-day trip, which takes place this October, includes a stand within the dedicated UKWA Pavilion at the China International Logistics and Transportation Fair (CILF), site visits, business matching meetings and a number of networking dinners and other high profile receptions.
Translators will be provided throughout to ensure that delegates can communicate clearly with the contacts they make.
The CILF is held in Shenzhen on 12-14 October and, this year, the China International Internet and E-Commerce Expo will run alongside it. An annual show, the Fair attracts many thousands of visitors from across China and the Far East.
“This trade delegation offers wonderful opportunities for UK logistics service providers who are seeking to capture the huge opportunities opening up in the Far East, with a significant growth of trade in both directions” said UKWA’s CEO, Peter Ward.
“Today’s technology has empowered a new breed of consumer, and China has 750 million of them now capable of shopping worldwide. The Chinese logistics industry is poised for major growth over the next five years and is expected to be worth $450 billion.”
Whiteley Shopping Centre, near Southampton, has become the latest location to sign up as part of the CornerDrop click-and-collect network. This allows customers to send online deliveries, from any online retailer, to the centre for free and be collected at a more convenient time from the shopping centre.
CornerDrop founder, Andrew Lasota, said: “We are extremely excited and pleased that Whiteley have adopted the CornerDrop parcel process in their wonderful shopping centre in Whiteley, Hampshire. It shows great vision to bring together the online and bricks and mortar retailers together in this way. It means visitors get all the benefits of online retail at the shopping centre. No more wasting time sitting at home, everyone can now get their online purchase sent to Whiteley.”
Whiteley Centre manager, Neil Carter, said: “We are delighted to become a CornerDrop location, providing our customers with an additional service and another reason to visit Whiteley. Customers will be able to collect their parcels from 9am to 8pm Monday to Friday, 9am to 7pm Saturday and from 10am to 5pm on Sunday.”
CornerDrop operates over 1,100 local parcel drop locations across the UK, and has partnerships with epay, Nisa, Age UK.
Global Freight Solutions (GFS) has begun working with Panther, one of the one and two-man home delivery provider.
GFS commercial director, Daniel Ennor, said that the addition of another leading logistics operator to the GFS Checkout system represented a unique opportunity for retailers looking to capitalise on rising sales of white goods.
“Evidence from the retailers with which we work has underlined how consumers are becoming ever more confident in ordering larger goods online.
“Even in the last few years, there has been a clear progression from merely researching items such as fridges, freezers, washing machines and large TVs online before buying in store.
“Now, shoppers are quite prepared to complete transactions online and that means being able to offer appropriate and specialist support of a firm like Panther, given that not every delivery company is able to ship such large products.”
GFS Checkout was launched as a new, free plug-in in September 2014 following intensive in-house development. GFS, which was founded in 2001, has managed more than 15 million parcels over the course of the last 12 months.
wnDirect has signed a five-year contract with processing specialist TPC Ltd. TPC has supported wnDirect since it launched its international ecommerce solution in 2012. During that time both companies have grown significantly, sharing a common ethos which has enabled a partnership based on trust to be founded. wnDirect traffic that leaves the UK goes via TPC for processing making their operation business critical to the successful delivery of our retailers items. The signing of this five-year contract endorses the positive relationship they share.
Tara Bathija, head of operations at wnDirect said: “The phrases ‘trust’, ‘partnership’ and ‘working with integrity’ are often bandied about. However, our relationship with TPC genuinely reflects those things. TPC has been flexible enough to enable us to grow as a business and, in the coming weeks we will be celebrating the delivery of our 30,000,000th parcel together – quite an achievement.”
