U-Freight grows in South Korea with e-commerce fulfilment centre

U-Freight Korea, part of the Hong Kong-based U-Freight Group, has opened a new logistics hub in Incheon to support its growing e-commerce business.

The E-commerce fulfilment centre (EFC) will process domestic and cross-border e-commerce shipments for business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) fulfilment.

With the anticipated increase in e-commerce logistics volumes, especially from South Korea to Vietnam, U-Freight Korea decided to invest in a bespoke temperature-controlled facility with easy access for e-commerce vendors and buyers based in South Korea.

U-Freight Korea’s new EFC in South Korea will also house the company’s headquarters, which is moving from the the existing multipurpose warehouse located in Incheon airport’s free trade zone.

This multipurpose warehouse, which is not suitable for e-commerce logistics operations, will continue to be used for more conventional general and bulk freight forwarding operations.

Over the course of 2020, the U-Freight Group will also roll-out e+ Solutions, its logistics product designed for e-commerce start-ups, to the South Korean marketplace.

Launched last year, e+ Solutions is designed to help the growing number of small businesses, which are looking to capitalise on the global e-commerce market, with their logistics needs.

Often those start-ups have limited resources and are looking for cost effective behind-the -scenes assistance with order fulfilment, plus associated logistics and administration operations.

The e+ Solutions service will be rolled out to the new e-commerce fulfilment centre to offer a comprehensive e-commerce logistics package: from dedicated storage space for the entrepreneurs' products, to order processing and fulfilment services, including final delivery to customers.

The new EFC will offer the owners of these small start-up e-commerce businesses the constant support of a workforce that already has significant experience in fulfilling e-commerce orders on an international level.

In U-Freight’s EFC in Incheon, investment has been made in the necessary hardware for storing and order processing, plus the associated software that is required for system integration and end-to-end data transparency. A wide range of value-added or customised services are also available.

By using e+ Solutions, small entrepreneurs in South Korea will now have more time to concentrate on adding value to their products and optimising their marketing and sales development initiatives.

They will benefit from complete data transparency, with real time inventory updates, plus web and mobile app access for immediate management and status updates of order instructions, plus subsequent live reporting of delivery tracking.

The customers of these small start-up e-commerce entrepreneurs will receive push notifications on order status, and the service will be backed by a 'live chat' facility enabling instant customer services follow up.

And, of course, those small business start-ups who have regular orders and want to expand their business to overseas markets, can take confidence from the fact that the U-Freight group has been successfully providing international freight forwarding services for the last 50 years.

U-Freight Group chief executive officer, Simon Wong says: “For several years, U-Freight has been showing its commitment to developing e-commerce logistics services; initially for cross-border e-commerce in China, but increasingly with other parts of the world.

“The decision to remodel many of our multiple warehouses across our global network so that they are capable of providing e-commerce logistics services, as well as open new EFCs is a further demonstration of our commitment to delivering the type of logistics services that will be required as a result of the wholesale change in the way that manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and consumers are coming to the market through e-commerce.”