All Three Chinese Marketplaces Are Now Pushing Sellers Into Local Warehouses
AliExpress is opening an official warehouse in Germany in mid-September, according to Chinesellers' logistics digest, joining a scramble that has Temu, Shein, and AliExpress all converging on the same infrastructure model at once. The three platforms are approaching it with very different terms, and if you sell in Europe or you're weighing any of these as a channel, those differences matter more than the shared direction.
Why All Three Moved at the Same Time
The trigger is the same for everyone: the EU eliminated its €150 customs exemption on July 1, replacing it with a flat €3 duty per product category on cross-border parcels. That change directly attacks the economics of shipping individual low-value parcels from China, which was the foundational cost advantage all three platforms were built on.
Local warehouses sidestep the problem entirely. Goods shipped from an EU warehouse generally don't trigger import duties at the point of sale, since the customs event already happened when inventory entered the bloc in bulk. That's why every one of these platforms is pushing sellers toward local stock rather than treating it as an optional upgrade.
The Three Platforms Are Offering Very Different Deals
Temu's semi-managed model now requires sellers to ship from overseas warehouses, according to the same digest. That's a mandate, not an option. Temu already operates a self-owned warehouse network weighted heavily toward Europe, with facilities across Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, and Austria that handle a large majority of its European orders.
Shein is opening its European and US warehouses free of charge. Shein's semi-managed model has been aggressive on cost from the start, launching with zero upfront store costs and waived commissions and deposits. The tradeoff is entry difficulty: only corporate registrations are accepted, products must weigh over 400 grams, and several categories including apparel, wigs, jewelry, and food are excluded.
AliExpress runs a hybrid. Its Local+ program partners with more than ten third-party warehouse providers across the UK, Spain, and Germany rather than owning the facilities outright, with participating sellers earning a badge on their listings and a seven-day delivery promise. The mid-September German launch adds an official AliExpress-operated warehouse to that third-party network.
That mix, platform-owned warehouses alongside certified third-party ones, has become the standard peak-season setup across all three.
The Demand Signal Behind AliExpress's Expansion
AliExpress has real numbers driving this. During its August promotion, orders through its official overseas warehouses hit five times normal daily sales levels, and the number of merchants using those warehouses tripled.
That tracks with what I covered when AliExpress turned operating profitable in Alibaba's June quarter, a result the company attributed primarily to logistics optimization rather than revenue growth. Local fulfillment is doing real work on AliExpress's cost structure, not just its delivery times.
What This Means If You Sell in Europe
The delivery speed gap that separated these platforms from Amazon and local European marketplaces is closing fast. A Temu or Shein order fulfilled from a German or Spanish warehouse arrives on a timeline comparable to any domestic seller, which removes one of the few structural advantages European sellers have held over Chinese cross-border platforms.
If you're evaluating any of these three as a channel, the warehouse terms are now a core part of the decision rather than a logistics footnote. Shein waiving warehouse fees is a meaningfully different proposition than Temu requiring overseas stock as a condition of participation, and AliExpress's third-party network gives you more provider choice but less consistency in how the warehouse actually operates. Run those costs against what you'd pay for FBA or your own 3PL before assuming any platform's warehouse program is automatically the cheaper path.
