The growth of B2C (Business-to-Consumers) industry is a result of constantly increasing online shopping. B2C has become a common term since the start of e-commerce, which basically means businesses that are selling directly to their consumers using the internet. Facebook is about to bring a lot of changes to B2C after purchasing Whatsapp for $22 billion. Consumers will be able to purchase products through text messaging, more details are in this article. The popularity of B2C has been leading couriers to have higher volumes of parcels, and as a chain reaction, airlines had their share of impact as well.
Sodexi Express Hub at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport
On January 5, 2015, Sodexi, a company owned by Air France KLM Martinair (75%), and Geopost (25%), announced the opening of its new 7,600 sqm express hub, which the company leases from Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG). FedEx, too, takes advantage of the geographic location of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, and has it's European Hub housed at the airport.
Construction of the new express hub facilities started in 2012, and was completed in fall of 2014 with the total investment of 22 million euro. The hub is designed to process cargo, coming through with the Equation service, and equipped with the latest technology used for express bar-code scanning & automated sorting, warehousing, and tracing. The new technology can handle 6,000 parcels an hour, 55,000 tons of shipment per year from 160,000 commercial flights. Furthermore, each warehouse operating vehicle is equipped with the GPS positioning system. The X-Ray technology scans import, export, and transit cargo at every stage of handling, and all data instantly becomes available on the website for tracking purposes, giving you the status of your shipment. This will optimize routes of shipments, and particularly support e-commerce, and remote retailers with their shipping challenges.
““With the new Express Hub, located right next to the passenger terminals, SoDExI has acquired a modern, high performance facility, ideal for processing flows of international express freight, particularly e-commerce-related. Located just a few minutes from the aircraft parking stands, we will be able to offer our customers extremely rapid transit times between two commercial flights, just like passengers making a connection at Paris-Charles de Gaulle. A parcel collected at the end of the previous afternoon in Hong Kong will arrive in Paris early in the morning, and can be connected straight away to a flight to southern Europe or Scandinavia, for example, with delivery in the early afternoon.
High-performance sorting, electronic customs clearance linked to French customs, the powerful Air France and Skyteam aviation network and an ideal geographic position in France are the major assets that will help to make Charles de Gaulle a central European hub for the processing of international express flows.””
Let's talk a little about what Equation Service is - it is airport-to-airport service offered by every airline worldwide, and means express shipping. To give you a better understanding, here is the list of privileges you get if shipped via Equation:
- Last minute acceptance of the cargo
- Highest boarding priority
- Guaranteed capacity on the first available flight
- Faster processing at transit airports, and faster connection time
- Route optimization for speed
- Faster transit time from shipper to recipient
These privileges a shipper will be able to take advantage of at a higher rate, but in a timely manner.
Find out how My Shopper program can help you purchase products in the U.S. that are limited to the local Americans only.