Alibaba’s Cainiao Revolutionizes Cross-Border Deliveries: Launches Next-Day Service via New Hong Kong-Zhuhai Route

Alibaba's shipping company, Cainiao, has initiated next-day international deliveries via Hong Kong. With a newly established path from the Hong Kong airport to Zhuhai, online orders can arrive at customers in Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu in as little as 24 hours.

The service enables merchandise, kept in a Cainiao storage facility close to the Hong Kong International Airport, to be transported over the Pearl River Estuary to Zhuhai, located in the Guangdong province. From there, the items will be air-shipped to Hangzhou, the main city of Zhejiang province, and finally delivered to clients, as per the company's announcement on Wednesday.

At present, the novel service is exclusively accessible to inhabitants of Shanghai, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu who have bought items from overseas through online shopping, given that these regions boast the quickest cross-region package delivery.

The Zhuhai route disrupts the existing transportation method which primarily uses trains or trucks, a comparatively slower option, or flight services from Hong Kong to Shanghai, which is an expensive alternative. The newly introduced service – named Gangzhufei, loosely translating to "Hong Kong-Zhuhai by air" – can cut down the shipping time by at least a day. According to Cainiao, customers in certain regions could receive their packages just a day after they've placed an order.