Customs officers inspect returned e-commerce products at a dedicated zone within a bonded warehouse. [Photo/Tide News]

Taizhou Comprehensive Bonded Zone in Taizhou, East China's Zhejiang province, launched cross-region returns for bonded e-commerce imports on Aug 19, becoming the third site in Zhejiang with this function after Hangzhou and Yiwu.

At the zone's e-commerce warehouse, over 4,000 returned items from Taizhou Fuli — a logistics company — were inspected by customs officers and admitted into bonded storage.

Previously, returns required goods to be sent back to the original bonded warehouse where they were imported. Now, consumers can return products to Taizhou instead of shipping them back to distant warehouses, allowing quicker refunds and reducing costs for businesses.

Taizhou Fuli, a key operator in the zone, mainly handles international athletic brands such as Adidas and Nike for the Dewu App, an e-tailer of fashion brands. The company runs bonded warehouses in Shaoxing, Ningbo, and Taizhou, with the Taizhou site processing about 240,000 orders monthly and handling over 40,000 returns. The new policy is considered vital to managing such frequent, large-volume returns.

To support the service, Taizhou Customs guided enterprises to expand the return warehouse from 200 to 900 square meters and upgrade systems for data sharing and regulatory checks across districts.