The "warehousing war" in cross-border e-commerce logistics is quietly escalating in Europe. Recently, Cainiao has successively made new moves in the European market. According to logistics real estate developers in many European countries such as the United Kingdom and Spain, Cainiao has completed long-term leases of large-area warehouses there, with some leases lasting as long as 10 years. Among them, in the Spanish market, Cainiao rented a 37,000-square-meter warehouse. This is one of the seven largest warehouse property transactions in Spain since 2025, attracting widespread attention from local business media.
In this regard, on April 30, Cainiao Vice President and General Manager of Global Supply Chain Division Shuai Yong responded that Europe is a key market for Cainiao’s continued investment in overseas warehouses and import business. Since the beginning of this year, Cainiao has opened four new warehouses in Europe, located in Daventry, England, Paris, France, Madrid, Spain, and Rochitno, Poland.
Shuai Yong said that these new warehouses will mainly serve China's leading cross-border e-commerce platforms, focusing on supporting high value-added "Made in China" products such as sweeping robots and 3D printers to enter the global market. At the same time, Cainiao also provides European cross-border merchants with reverse logistics channels to enter the Chinese market through its global supply chain network.
It is reported that Cainiao also plans to invest in building a batch of climbing robot warehouses in Europe to improve the level of warehousing automation and operational efficiency through independently developed logistics technology. This means that Cainiao’s layout in Europe is upgrading from “expanding area” to “improving efficiency”.
Observer.com noticed that behind Cainiao’s accelerated warehousing deployment in Europe is the strong growth of China’s foreign trade exports. In the first three months of this year, the foreign trade industry showed the characteristics of "low season but not slow season". On social media, many foreign trade factories have reported that they will be slow to receive orders after the new year and that their production lines are operating at full capacity.
Customs statistics show that in the first quarter of this year, my country's import and export of goods trade reached 11.84 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15%, and the scale hit a record high for the same period in history. Among them, imports and exports to developed economies such as the European Union maintained overall growth, and the growth rates of imports and exports to ASEAN, Latin America, Africa and other regions were above double digits. Data from Cainiao also confirms this trend: in the first three months of this year, the outbound volume of Cainiao’s European overseas warehouses surged 32% year-on-year.
Industry analysts believe that there are two core driving forces behind the surge in demand for overseas warehouses in Europe.
First, China’s cross-border e-commerce “semi-managed” model is accelerating its penetration into the European market. Compared with the platform's full hosting, the semi-custody model gives merchants greater operational autonomy. It also puts forward higher requirements for merchants' stocking depth and contract fulfillment capabilities, which directly drives the demand for overseas local warehouses.
Second, high-quality consumer electronics products continue to gain recognition in the European market. Take Cainiao's French warehouse serving a leading platform as an example. The warehouse's overall storage capacity utilization rate in the first quarter was close to saturation, and the replenishment demand for categories such as smart home appliances, 3C digital, automobile and motorcycle parts, and furniture was particularly obvious. These categories generally have the characteristics of large size, high unit price, and fast turnover. They are much more dependent on overseas local stocking than small items.