China Southern enters the e-commerce arena

Guangzhou-based China Southern Airlines this week launched a cross-border e-commerce platform under the name Southern Cross-Border Purchase.

This is not a service offered by the airline to carry packages for the likes of Alibaba or Amazon, but rather an in-house e-commerce business aimed at Chinese consumers who wish to buy goods from other countries, including Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the US.

According to a report in the WCARN news service, China Southern Cargo actually entered the e-commerce business at the beginning of this year when it “cooperated with cross-border e-commerce operators and overseas producers and suppliers to create B2C procedures and develop transport channels.”

In the first half of 2015 China Southern carried 1,500 tonnes of cross-border e-commerce packages (0.7% of its 206,000 tonnes of international cargo), but this package volume should rise now that the carrier’s own e-commerce platform has gone live.