FedEx launches in China and Japan

The company, which acquired Bongo International in 2014, is rebranding the business as FedEx CrossBorder. The company plans to expand its services to merchants in China and Japan by June 2016, said Chip Hull, vice president of the newly named division, wsj.com reports.

The company already consolidates shipments for global ecommerce retailers in the US., Europe and Peru. Asia “is the second-largest region from an export perspective in the cross-border space, on par with Europe, and [is] growing at a faster rate,” Mr. Hull said, the source cites.

The services seek to simplify the international shipping process for merchants who can’t track varying tariffs, shipping times and other factors when sending their products to different countries, a cumbersome and opaque process that experts say can turn shoppers off. Some larger retailers employ dozens or even hundreds of staff to arrange and track packages, while smaller merchants say orders that simply disappear or are indefinitely delayed can lead to unhappy customers demanding refunds.

As part of its newly branded cross-border business, FedEx will also be offering the cross-border services to freight-forwarding customers for the first time, said Jack Muhs, president of FedEx Trade Networks. The combination could make it easier for business-to-business customers to calculate international shipping costs for larger shipments, he said, the source cites.