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Suning Commerce Group Co Ltd expects to invest RMB 20 billion to construct a self-owned logistics cloud system including 12 purchase hubs, 12 automatic sorting centers, 60 large logistics bases and 5,000 distribution outlets, along with 10,000 Suning.com delivery vehicles and a team of 50,000 couriers over the next three years, Vice Chairman Sun Weimin told the media on July 5th. Fifty percent of the construction was completed in H1 and Suning expects to have 24 logistics bases in operation by the end of 2013, according to Forbeschina.com.Suning won licenses to provide regional express delivery services in 14 provinces and cities in December 2012 and won approval to add 20 more in June 2013.Min Juanqing, Deputy Director of Suning.com's Content Product Operation says, "Suning's purpose of applying for express delivery licenses is not to operate in the third-party logistics sector, but to provide consumers and suppliers with better logistics services" the National Business Daily reported on July 8thDespite 20 years of experience building logistics systems for "warehouse-to-store" delivery, Suning is a new comer in the e-commerce sector and faces difficulty in providing direct delivery to customers. In the long term, Suning may open the self-owned logistics platform and become a third-party platform provider to cut the cost of building the logistics system. Noticing shortages in the logistics sector, e-commerce operators are turning their attention away from price wars to building-up logistics systems. Jingdong Mall launched an official website on August 7th to provide logistics booking, trucking, and third party logistics, while Suning is considering establishing a third party logistics company. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd joined other firms and started the China Smart Logistic Network (CSN) project on May 28th to construct national logistics infrastructure facilities. The war on building logistics systems is about to break.