CEO Drives a Truck: Thai Retail Giants Compete for "Delivery in Minutes" in Southeast Asia
Text by | Wang Yi
On March 27, at the headquarters of Cainiao Group in Hangzhou, CP AXTRA, a retail giant under Thailand's Charoen Pokphand Group, officially signed a strategic cooperation memorandum with Cainiao.
Two days before that, at Cainiao's warehouse in Wuxi, CP AXTRA CEO Xie Yuchen spent a day as a "warehouse worker" with robots and drove a new - energy van for "last - mile" delivery for the first time.
Speaking of this experience, Xie Yuchen said, "Cainiao has a great digital system and robotic warehousing facilities. Even a novice can easily complete picking and packing with high efficiency."
According to Cainiao CEO Wan Lin, the Wuxi warehouse has been operating stably for eight years and is currently "one of the best - run warehouses" of Cainiao, with nearly a thousand robots being dispatched and operating simultaneously in one venue.
The management's on - site experience intuitively verified the effectiveness of Cainiao's logistics technology in terms of efficiency and usability, and also set the tone for the signing of this strategic cooperation memorandum: This retail giant in Thailand and the entire Southeast Asian market is firmly and pragmatically joining hands with its Chinese technology and operation partner to systematically replicate in the local area a retail revolution that has been proven successful in China - the instant retail and front - warehouse model.
The two parties started digital supply - chain cooperation in 2023, and now it has been upgraded to a strategic partnership. This cooperation, which started with efficiency, aims directly at the core of future competition in the Southeast Asian retail market.
01 The President Drives a Van: "An Elephant Turns" Meets "Chinese Speed"
On - site experience is a work habit that Xie Yuchen has carried over from Thailand.
In the past few years, at CP AXTRA's warehouses in Thailand, he often sorted and packed goods with employees. For Xie Yuchen, this is not only to understand the front - line situation but also to test the actual effectiveness of the warehouse management system (WMS) and transportation management system (TMS) in their cooperation.
This "down - to - earth" management style stems from his anxiety and strategic thinking about the transformation of traditional retail.
In November last year, when CP AXTRA officially reached a strategic cooperation with Cainiao, Xie Yuchen mentioned that "in the past, it was the big fish eating the small fish, but now, whether it's a big fish or a small fish, the fast fish can eat every fish."
This reflects the common sense of crisis among traditional retail giants in the wave of digital transformation.
CP AXTRA, affiliated with Thailand's Charoen Pokphand Group, operates two major brands, Makro and Lotus's, with business spanning 10 countries. Undoubtedly, it is a huge "fish." However, in today's context where the Southeast Asian e - commerce is booming and consumers' requirements for delivery timeliness have shifted from "next - day delivery" to "hour - delivery" or even "minute - delivery," this "big fish" must make itself faster and more agile.
To this end, Xie Yuchen has defined three transformation tasks for the company: digital transformation, adapting to the drastic changes in customers' demands such as "hour - delivery," and comprehensive upgrading of the supply chain.
His on - site practice in Wuxi made him once again convinced that Cainiao's "Chinese speed" and its technology system verified in extreme scenarios are exactly what CP AXTRA needs. On the one hand, Cainiao's stable technology verified in extreme scenarios like China's "Double 11" and its rapid implementation and response are key advantages.
On the other hand, the execution speed of the Cainiao team is also very fast. According to the project team, Cainiao sent a 30 - person team to the site in the first week of cooperation, and the core system was launched in three months. This joint co - creation model ensures that the technology can be deeply adapted to CP AXTRA's large - scale and complex business scenarios, providing a solid engine for its "elephant - turning" transformation task.
When it comes to retail itself, whether it is through the development of digital systems, AI, or robots to improve business efficiency, technology is always a tool. Regarding the ultimate goal of the cooperation, Xie Yuchen and Wan Lin expressed similar views, which is to jointly explore what value new models and technologies can bring to customers.
"For our end - consumers, creating lower prices, better experiences, and better forms is our common goal," said Wan Lin.
02 The Southeast Asian "Showroom" of Chinese Flash Delivery
Judging from the cooperation results, a series of quantifiable data have initially verified the feasibility of "Chinese speed."
Currently, several key digital supply - chain systems jointly developed by CP AXTRA and Cainiao have increased the picking and packaging efficiency of Makro stores by 140%.
According to the data disclosed by Xie Yuchen at the signing ceremony of the strategic cooperation memorandum, the order - processing capacity of a single picker at CP AXTRA has increased from 5 orders per hour to 12 orders. More importantly, in the wholesale business with an average customer order value of about 700 yuan, thanks to the optimization of multiple digital systems, the daily delivery order - processing capacity has increased from 15,000 orders to 100,000 orders, with the total daily order amount reaching about 56 million yuan.
This has supported the explosive growth of its online business - the daily online order - processing capacity of a single store has increased from 300 orders to 1,500 orders, a five - fold increase. It is precisely with this leap in efficiency that CP AXTRA will become the top online wholesale and retail company in Thailand in 2025.
Looking ahead, with the signing of this strategic cooperation memorandum, the cooperation between CP AXTRA and Cainiao has entered a new stage of systematic model replication and ecological co - construction from single - point efficiency improvement. Its strategic blueprint is clearly visible:
First, build the "digital + physical" dual foundation for instant retail. In terms of digitalization, the cooperation between the two parties is extending from key digital systems such as store warehouse management and transportation management to overall warehouse network layout.
In terms of hardware, the two parties have started to promote the front - warehouse construction plan, which has been implemented in multiple locations such as Bangkok, Thailand. This is the core measure to replicate the Chinese flash - purchase and front - warehouse system in Southeast Asia. By arranging small - scale warehouses at urban nodes to bring goods closer to the market, it is the physical prerequisite for achieving the "hour - delivery" experience.
Second, seek higher - level competitiveness from AI and automation. Xie Yuchen has repeatedly mentioned his interest in AI and large - scale models. He believes that in the face of the changeable market environment in Southeast Asia, such as weather and sudden demands, AI can provide more flexible supply - chain decision - making.
Based on this market characteristic, Cainiao is also jointly exploring with CP AXTRA to use large - scale AI models to optimize the supply chain and gradually introduce automated robot solutions. However, the consensus of both parties is that the introduction of technology needs to match the business development stage, adopting a gradual approach starting from semi - automation and gradually upgrading, rather than blindly pursuing full - scale automation.
Wan Lin also revealed that Cainiao is developing a new generation of robots, which have already been applied on a large scale in its own scenarios, "and may be announced to the market soon."
Beyond the supply - chain upgrade, from a higher perspective, CP AXTRA is using its cooperation with Cainiao to start a comprehensive linkage with the Alibaba ecosystem.
Xie Yuchen clearly stated that the cooperation with Cainiao is "the beginning of a broader cooperation with Alibaba Group." Currently, CP AXTRA is planning to introduce its products to China through Tmall Global and explore access to Alibaba Cloud and Tongyi Qianwen large - scale model.
This means that this cooperation has gone beyond the simple output of logistics technology and evolved into an all - around ecological linkage covering logistics, e - commerce, cloud computing, and AI technology, depicting a grand vision for CP AXTRA to become a "leading retail technology platform in Southeast Asia."
03 A "Joint Co - creation" Defining the Future<2>
The strategic cooperation between CP AXTRA and Cainiao provides an excellent sample for observing the overseas expansion of Chinese retail technology. Behind it lies a clear business logic and industry inspiration.
For CP AXTRA, this is a precise acceleration that shortens the trial - and - error cycle and cost. Facing the high - growth and unbalanced e - commerce market in Southeast Asia, independently building a mature instant retail system would be time - consuming and risky. Introducing Cainiao essentially means introducing a full - link solution from algorithms, systems to operations that has been verified in the world's most complex markets.
This enables it to build the core barrier for future competition at a faster speed and with higher certainty - the ultimate efficiency driven by data algorithms and the instant experience supported by the reconstruction of the warehouse - distribution network. Xie Yuchen previously proposed a "three - year vision" to make CP AXTRA "truly become a retail technology company," and this cooperation is the key lever to achieve this vision.
For Cainiao and more Chinese technology companies on their overseas expansion journey, this cooperation is also expected to verify the feasibility of "capability and model output."
Wan Lin proposed that Cainiao is "driven by both globalization and logistics technology." It is a very unique company in the market that has both global logistics business and R & D capabilities in logistics and supply - chain technology. Its technology has been tempered in a large number of domestic business scenarios, with technology and business relying on each other, and it has also formed a competitive market - oriented solution. At the same time, cooperation with overseas retail partners also helps them better understand the local market.
Taking the cooperation with CP AXTRA as an example, from adapting to the Thai consumers' habit of "face - to - face signing" to adjusting to the packaging material supply chains in different countries, Cainiao has demonstrated not a simple copy - paste approach but the ability to deeply understand and integrate into the local market scenarios. This joint co - creation that respects localization and is problem - solving - oriented is the key for Chinese technology companies to successfully take root in overseas markets.
From an industry perspective, in the past, the competition in Southeast Asian e - commerce mainly focused on traffic acquisition and front - end marketing. However, the cooperation between CP AXTRA and Cainiao is shifting the competition to the back - end supply - chain efficiency and experience.
When local retail giants start to systematically integrate the Chinese instant retail model, it will set new industry standards in terms of cost, timeliness, and experience, and then force retail and e - commerce players in the entire region to accelerate their own supply - chain digital transformation.
This may mean that a new round of retail competition centered on efficiency and experience has quietly begun in Southeast Asia.
The current cooperation is a strategic choice made by the Thai retail giant after deeply recognizing "Chinese speed" and "Chinese solutions." It is also a key step for Chinese logistics technology to move from product output to capability and model output. When CP AXTRA, determined to be a "fast fish," deeply binds with Cainiao, a leading Chinese logistics technology company, the new retail blueprint they jointly draw in the Southeast Asian market is accelerating from a vision to a reality.
This is not just a cooperation between two companies but an important experiment that is shaping the future business form in Southeast Asia.