BFD Logistics Co., Ltd.
Beijing, China Site Visit
July 21, 2016
By
Eric Xiang
Key Personnel:
Mr. Liu Shiyu, Founder
BFD Logistics is a fairly new logistics company focused on cold chain business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer (C2C) and business-to-business (B2B) clients, including both first mile and last mile. The company was established in 2010 in Beijing and expanded to Shanghai and Wuhan. It has more than 300 employees. Its founding business was cold chain warehousing. In March 2015, BFD Logistics created the new brand name “Black Dog” to prompt the service quality for cold chain logistics.
BFD Logistics has a 34,000 square meter cold chain warehouse in Beijing that can reach a temperature of -25 degrees Celsius. BFD Logistics also has 200 temperature-controlled trucks and temperature-controlled motorcycles for distribution. Each truck has three separate sections for three different temperature conditions. The temperature-controlled motorcycle can reach -11 degrees Celsius. This ensures that the last mile, even the last 100 meters, are temperature-controlled.
To cover its B2C business, BFD Logistics has more than 20 branch stations in Beijing for both pickup and delivery. Each station has a 50-60 square meter cold chain warehouse used for temporary storage. Small sellers (popular through WeChat) also use BFD Logistics’ warehouse at each station to store their C2C shipments.
B2C shipments are handed from 9AM-6PM. B2B shipments are arranged during 5AM-9AM to avoid morning traffic jams and cut down manpower cost. This also helps the drivers’ performance for better income. Of course the delivery of B2B shipments in the morning is welcomed by the final customers as more than 2,000 stores, including McDonald’s, need their goods early in the morning.
For B2B shipments, BFD Logistics arranges delivery according to customers’ instructions. For B2C and C2C shipments within the city area, BFD Logistics can arrange same day delivery. It picks up the goods in the morning and delivers them in the afternoon. The distribution process is very efficient. Both temperature control and transit time are important when handling food products.
With its experience in Beijing, BFD Logistics expanded its business in Shanghai and Wuhan successfully. For cargo that needs long haul transportation between Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan, BFD Logistics uses subcontractors’ for cold chain transport, which are easy to control in the market. BFD Logistics focuses on less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments. The transport time for cold chain is 36-48 hours. In order to promote the service quality, BFD Logistics also offers the option of transporting the long haul LTL shipments via train using the high-speed rail as the transit time between Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan is only 4-5 hours.
According to Mr. Liu Shiyu, BFD Logistics plans to set up branch offices in eight cities in Tianjin, and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong. The company has plans to expand business in 35 cities in 2016 and is open to any investors with venture capital interested in BFD Logistics.
Cold chain logistics has lots of potential in China and e-commerce business is growing rapidly; therefore, the cold chain B2B and B2C markets will have good growth in the future. With the small sellers getting more popular through WeChat, more and more C2C business for cold chain will emerge. Since BFD Logistics covers B2B, B2C and C2C business, we believe that BFD Logistics will have a bright future and can see that its new Black Dog brand name will be popular in China very soon.
Sources: A&A Primary Research, http://www.higo-express.com/