Hyundai Glovis Partners with Shopee to Serve 700 Million E-Commerce Users

Hyundai Glovis began operating an end-to-end logistics partnership with Shopee Korea this month, taking over the complete supply chain for domestic cosmetics brands expanding abroad.

The agreement links the freight forwarder to Shopee’s customer base of about 700 million users across Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Brazil, packaging international shipping into a single contract.

Announced on Monday, the collaboration handles cross-border operations as Hyundai Glovis targets raising non-affiliated business to 40 percent of its total revenue by 2030.

Consolidating the Cross-Border Chain

Under the arrangement, merchants receive a single service point covering domestic cargo pickup in South Korea, air and ocean line-haul, export-import customs clearance, in-country regulatory filings and destination fulfillment. Previously, cosmetics labels contracted separate logistics handlers for domestic trucking, international freight and destination deliveries. That fragmentation created handoff delays and customs clearance bottlenecks at regional entry ports.

Cross-border cosmetics exporters regularly encounter divergent health authority approvals across Southeast Asian jurisdictions, where labeling regulations and ingredient clearances vary between markets. Handling domestic regulatory compliance directly allows merchants to avoid third-party agency handoffs that routinely slow inventory onboarding.

Diversifying Beyond Captive Car Hauling

For Hyundai Glovis, handling consumer parcel flow serves a long-term commercial balance sheet target. The company wants non-affiliated commercial contracts to generate 40 per cent of its total corporate revenue by 2030.

Carriers serving South Korean e-commerce have historically struggled with unit economics on low-weight parcel shipments compared to bulk automotive and industrial cargo. Running cross-border beauty logistics shifts Glovis into higher-frequency retail operations, competing against dedicated regional integrators and postal networks. Success depends on whether consolidated freight pricing beats the decentralized local forwarders merchants currently use.

Export Demand Drives Freight Integration

South Korean cosmetics manufacturers have leaned harder into direct platform exports as consumer appetite for premium skincare formulas climbed across Southeast Asia and Latin America. Rather than building local retail store footprints or signing sole distributorships, mid-tier beauty labels increasingly use marketplace storefronts to test market appetite before committing physical capital.

Shopee operates dominant marketplace market shares across Southeast Asia, alongside expanding operations in Brazil. Supplying those territories with consolidated freight infrastructure gives platform sellers predictable delivery timelines against local beauty retail alternatives.

Next Steps for Latin America

Initial rollouts focus on South Korean sellers fulfilling consumer orders into Southeast Asian markets. The companies plan to extend the service footprint into Brazil and other Latin American territories once operations across the primary Asian hubs stabilize.

Execution hinges on Glovis meeting delivery timetables while building non-captive freight volume toward that 2030 target.