The secret to "lightning-fast" shipping orders lies in large-scale livestream centers and warehouses established in Vietnam's interior. Tuoi Tre newspaper reporters have just made a 10,000km journey, starting from Ho Chi Minh City to Chinese localities including: Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Nanning... Then continue to the border areas of Bang Tuong (bordering Lang Son ), Ha Khau (bordering Lao Cai). From there, the secret behind the impressive cross-border export model via online channels in terms of quantity, price and delivery time was deciphered.

Vietnam is in the top of Chinese goods purchasing list.

At nearly midnight, Ms. Duong (HCMC) ordered a mini neck fan from a Chinese store on Shopee. She thought she would have to wait 7-10 days because the product was shipped internationally, but surprisingly, three days later, the product was delivered to her home. "It's faster than buying from some stores I ordered from in Hanoi. They didn't deliver quickly and then increase the fee, but they offered free shipping. The product is good and the design is pretty," Ms. Duong praised. According to the itinerary reported on the shopping app, this fan had to go through a series of stages: from the Shenzhen warehouse, to the Bang Tuong border gate (adjacent to Lang Son), imported into Vietnam, then delivered to a shipping unit in Vietnam, to a sorting warehouse in HCMC, and to a delivery station in Binh Thanh district.

To learn about Chinese logistics "technology", in mid-2024, Tuoi Tre reporters traced the route of transporting goods to Vietnam, to the "capital" of the Dongguan logistics area (Guangdong province), specializing in gathering international transit goods. After customers place orders through e-commerce platforms, large volumes of goods from many localities in China are gathered here, traveling thousands of kilometers to Vietnam. This warehouse is operated by Best Inc - a Chinese "logistics giant". This is a business that owns a closed ecosystem, transporting goods for large e-commerce platforms Shopee, Lazada, TikTok. Not only operating in the country of a billion people, they also expand in Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, the US... Taking us on a tour of the warehouse in Dongguan, Mr. Cuc Uy Giang - director of Best Cross-border (cross-border transportation business) - said that this place is one of the important links in the closed ecosystem. Sellers only need to type in a key/order, the shipping unit will receive the goods, transport them, clear customs, and bring them to Vietnam. They will deliver them to customers in just a few days, cutting out the intermediary step through other units in the traditional way, thereby optimizing costs. Inside the e-commerce warehouse for international transit, there is an area of ​​over ^3,000m2 . Small, large, bulky boxes... from many provinces and cities in China are continuously delivered. The staff here checks the weight, size, and labels to distinguish goods shipped to Vietnam or other countries in the Southeast Asian region, and at the same time tracks the delivery route. In the Southeast Asian bloc, Mr. Giang reported that Vietnam is always in the top group receiving the largest amount of goods from this warehouse, at some times only behind the Philippines. Customers include: Chinese businesses operating in Vietnam, Chinese individuals and businesses with stores on e-commerce platforms in Vietnam, and Vietnamese e-commerce platforms. Popular items include household appliances, electronics, clothing, machinery... On the side of this warehouse, dozens of vehicles and containers are neatly lined up, waiting to be loaded with goods to go to the border.

Goods pass through the border gate at night and reach Vietnamese customers in the morning.

Standing next to a container truck waiting to load goods, Mr. Hoang (driver, Chinese) shared that every week he has several trips full of e-commerce goods to Vietnam. The distance is far but short because it runs on the highway, at least 80km/h, the road is clear. The vehicle is rarely stopped or checked along the way. Randomly choosing a cargo box with the symbol VN-L and the bill of lading code BSO924..., we followed the transportation route, many interesting things appeared in the race for speed and cheap fares. At exactly 14:50 on July 3, the container containing the full batch of BSO924... started moving to Bang Tuong border gate (adjacent to Lang Son) with a distance of more than 800km. The next morning, it arrived, completed customs clearance procedures through Vietnam in the afternoon. After that, the shipping unit in Vietnam received, classified it on July 6 and was ready to deliver it to the customer in Thanh Khe district, Da Nang . Thus, the total time from when the container truck left the Dongguan warehouse (China) until it was ready to be delivered to the customer in Da Nang was only about three days with a distance of more than 1,700km, including customs clearance and import procedures. Note that before leaving the warehouse, this shipment (including goods ordered by businesses and goods purchased by customers on e-commerce platforms) waited for about a week. The goods were sent by ZTO (a "big" Chinese domestic logistics company), for Best to bring to Vietnam. Notably, there is another way for the seller to coordinate with a Chinese logistics company to deliver goods "lightning fast" and at a cheap price. Going back to the Lang Son border, we picked up a container shipped from China. This shipment was transported by the Chinese seller himself to the border gate area (in the form of Seller Own Fleet), then Best immediately received it at the border and took care of the remaining distance. Passing the border gate at night, reaching the Vietnamese customer in the morning is what we witnessed.

Vietnamese people, Vietnamese warehouse, Vietnamese sewing machine move very fast

At 7:30 p.m., a container truck with license plate 12F 002... carrying Chinese e-commerce goods gradually rolled out of the Huu Nghi border gate area (Lang Son), heading towards Best's cargo sorting center in Bac Ninh . On the night bus, Mr. Thinh (48 years old, Vietnamese driver) confided that he had 20 years of experience, from driving dump trucks, trucks to large containers. In recent years, e-commerce goods have developed, work has become more stable, he has money to take care of his family. Every day, this container driver drives about 300km. At about 10:45 p.m., after more than three hours of travel, we arrived at the Vietnam - Singapore Industrial Park in Bac Ninh. Here, Mr. Thinh brought the truck to the Best Express cargo sorting center, which is more than 45,000m2 wide and has an investment of ^5.5 million USD. Arriving at the door of the container, Mr. Thinh cut the sealing lead wire, proving that the goods were "original".

As soon as the container door opened, many employees immediately unloaded the goods. Large sacks of Chinese goods were put on the conveyor belt, then separated into small packages, passed through the barcode scanner, and automatically sorted into the storage compartments of each different post office, very quickly. Randomly picking a package that had just been unloaded from a container truck traveling from the border here, we continued to monitor the journey. At about 1am the next morning, this package and many other goods were loaded onto large and small vehicles, waiting to be sent to the post offices. Before 6am, the vehicles arrived at the post office in Vinhomes Ocean Park urban area (Gia Lam, Hanoi). That same morning, post office staff contacted and delivered to customers. On the morning of June 30, holding in his hand a bean bag chair ordered from China for only 390,000 VND, Nguyen Van Phap (20 years old) said he had ordered it on Shopee on June 22 (so the total time was about eight days, not too fast). However, Phap said: "The price is quite reasonable, the product is bulky in size 110x110cm, but the shipping fee from China according to the quote is only 10,000 VND. This order has a promotional code, free shipping fee". Often buying Chinese goods, Phap said that before he had to wait about 14 days, but now it has been shortened a lot. Because of the cheap price, diverse designs, and stable quality, he accepted it. The bean bag chair was just received, most of the time related to the stages in China. When the goods just passed the Vietnamese border gate at night, they were received in Hanoi the next morning.