A year ago, FedEx acquired Bongo International, now it is going cross border with it

What is it?

It was maybe a year ago when the news of FedEx Corp. purchasing a startup named Bongo International, created a stir in the market. This was the first step in helping the retail merchants navigating successfully the complex world of cross-border transactions. Then there was news about Amazon buying Boeing cargo planes to expand its business and cut short the delivery times.

Cargo air crafts fly day and night to deliver air cargo to Pakistan and other international destinations. This really encouraged FedEx to step into e-commerce world so this week, it expanded the Bongo service on a huge scale and re-launched it under FedEx CrossBorder brand.

What CrossBorder says about it?

Chip Hull, vice president of the new CrossBorder has said in a recent statement “Actually, it’s about time we dropped the ‘e’ and just called it ‘commerce’. This is really how most commerce is being done now. The flow of information is exceeding the flow of goods.”

Hull added “If you’re not dealing in the e-commerce space now, you’re at risk of falling behind.” FedEx estimates the e-commerce has recently grown into a US$1 trillion-per-year industry when it comes to sales, and in about four years, it is expected to double in volume.

How this happened?

FedEx has been working rigorously to make Bongo Service a global product, the purpose was to handle all that immense volume that is related to this industry. So the result is in shape of FedEx Trade Networks (FTN) subsidiary freight forwarding arm, the CrossBorder.

The edge this new business has is its capability to speed up the process in a single platform and simplification of international shipping by calculating the usual cross-border trade hassles, such as regulatory compliance, customs, package tracking, duties and currency exchanges.

What’s coming ahead?

Hull further added that “Only about one-third of U.S. based global e-commerce sites accept foreign currencies. Research tells us that customers are more likely to abandon shopping carts that only show U.S. dollar pricing. CrossBorder accepts more than 80 currencies and offers 15 payment options and can also handle multiple delivery options to more than 200 countries in FTN’s network.”