European Warehouses Not Enough: Cainiao Urgently Expands Capacity
The “warehouse war” in cross-border e-commerce logistics is quietly escalating in Europe. Recently, Cainiao has announced new moves in the European market. According to logistics property developers in the UK, Spain and other European countries, Cainiao has completed long-term leases for large-scale warehouses locally, with some lease terms lasting up to 10 years. In Spain, Cainiao leased a 37,000-square-meter warehouse, one of the largest warehouse property transactions in Spain since 2025, attracting widespread attention from local business media.
On April 30th, Cainiao Vice President and General Manager of the Global Supply Chain Business Unit, Shuai Yong, responded externally, stating 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 intensively launched four new warehouses in Europe, located in Daventry, UK; Paris, France; Madrid, Spain; and Rokitno, Poland.
Shuai Yong stated that these new warehouses will primarily serve several leading Chinese 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 a logistics channel for European cross-border merchants to enter the Chinese market through its global supply chain network.
It is reported that Cainiao also plans to invest in the construction of a number of climbing robot warehouses in Europe, improving the level of warehouse automation and operational efficiency through self-developed logistics technology. This means that Cainiao’s layout in Europe is upgrading from “expanding area” to “improving efficiency.”
Observer Network noted that behind Cainiao’s accelerated warehouse layout 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 a characteristic of “not being slow in the off-season.” On social media, many foreign trade factories reported receiving a flood of orders after the Chinese New Year, and production lines have entered a state of full-load operation.
Customs statistics show that in the first quarter of this year, China’s total import and export of goods reached 11.84 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15%, reaching a record high for the same period in history. Among them, imports and exports to developed economies such as the EU maintained overall growth, and the growth rates of imports and exports to regions such as ASEAN, Latin America, and Africa were all above 10%. Data from Cainiao also confirms this trend: in the first three months of this year, Cainiao’s European overseas warehouse outbound volume increased by 32% year-on-year.
Industry insiders analyzed that there are two core driving forces behind the surge in demand for European overseas warehouses.
First, China’s cross-border e-commerce “semi-managed” model is accelerating its penetration into the European market. Compared with the platform’s full management, the semi-managed model gives merchants greater operational autonomy, while also placing higher demands on merchants’ inventory depth and fulfillment capabilities, directly driving the warehousing demand for local overseas warehouses.
Second, high-quality consumer electronics products continue to gain recognition in the European market. Taking the French warehouse serving a leading platform as an example, the overall warehouse utilization rate in the first quarter has approached saturation, with particularly obvious replenishment demand for categories such as smart home appliances, 3C digital products, auto parts, and furniture. These categories generally have the characteristics of large volume, high average order value, and fast turnover, and their dependence on overseas local inventory is much higher than that of small items.