Whistl and One World Express have joined forces to offer ecommerce importers into the UK a tracked postal service, Insight, from 220 countries worldwide.
Under the agreement, ecommerce importers will be able to print one label for an individual item in the country of origin and track it through the various transit stages, including customs clearance. When Whistl receive the item in the UK it will be processed in the network and handed to Royal Mail for delivery to the end consumer.
Established in 1998, the then One World Express Group (OWE) started as a UK-based cross-border express carrier. Today, it has become a data-driven IT platform currently managing 10.000+ tariffs on behalf of its clients to destinations worldwide. In 2016 OWE started to extend its integration library, integrating with marketplaces like Amazon, eBay and Lazada and also various ecommerce platforms such as Magento, allowing its customers to manage orders from all their sales channels using a one-stop-solution through their technology platform “Smarttrack”.
This will doubtless be an attractive option for sellers in the Far East looking to sell on Western marketplaces and that will be unwelcome competition for UK sellers. There’s nothing wrong with Chinese sellers selling to the West, but even with the tightened despatch requirements they are still just loose enough for sellers in China to lie about their location, produce a label claiming to be in the UK and rush the shipment onto the next plane. Is it time for marketplaces to make despatch times for sellers registered outside the UK to be tightened if they are claiming to have UK stock?
“With the unprecedented expansion of the ecommerce industry globally and the rise of imports into the UK, consumers are looking for greater transparency on the delivery journey from country of origin to their home. Whistl is delighted that we will be working with One World Express to enable ecommerce importers from 220 countries to semi track every item they import into the UK before handover to Royal Mail via Insight.”
– Nick Wells, CEO, Whistl
“By collaborating with the leading delivery management company in the UK, global customers who are importing into the UK, now have access to the experts who understand the importance of the customer experience from origin to handover to the consumer. We look forward to building our Insight relationship together.”
– Atul Bhakta, CEO, One World Express Group
