Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Eugene Laney, Head of International Trade Affairs at DHL Express (Part 2)

Eugene Laney: We also have a hybrid model where we have customers working with e-commerce companies using those companies as their domestic mailboxes. You have an individual who might be in the UK and wants to purchase a number of e-commerce goods from a domestic-only retailer who sells through e-commerce. Their goods would then be consolidated in the US held by that e-commerce mailbox. Then that e-commerce company would then use DHL or other logistics providers to send all of that products to him. It’s like a consolidator type of model. Those are the new models that we see emerging now.

Sramana Mitra: From our point of view, we’ve encountered all of these trends including the one that’s probably slightly off-center—cross-border e-commerce where there’s a third-party intermediary that’s processing these international shipments and customs. We’ve done a couple of stories. One was a company called Bay.rue that handles Russian e-commerce. Then we’ve done a story on Mall For Africa, which handles e-commerce shipments to Africa. We’ve seen these trends. International e-commerce is a very interesting phenomenon. What are the key trends that you’re seeing in that area?

Eugene Laney: I think the biggest is that the traditional way of selling your goods is becoming more unpopular. What I mean by that is, no longer are you seeing corporations or huge companies entering into e-commerce. You’re seeing more individuals signing contracts and figuring out ways to sell their goods globally leveraging logistics companies and their own websites to then reach that global market place. Particularly, you’re seeing this a lot in specific clothing and fashion apparels, certain types of jeans and toys.

There’s a story that ran about one logistics company who took advantage of the demand in China for skis. What he did was he collected all the used skiing equipment here in the US, setup his own website, and began to sell used skiing equipment to China. We’re seeing more of the individual entrepreneur using e-commerce and logistics providers to go global, which is very positive. They go through logistics providers because they may not know if their product fits into that destination. They may not know the regulation or they may not know how to be compliant or how to get their goods there. A lot of companies are jumping over that hurdle by using logistics providers. That’s why you see, in DHL, the number of e-commerce customers that we have is just multiplying.

This segment is part 2 in the series : Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Eugene Laney, Head of International Trade Affairs at DHL Express
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