On May 19, 2026, the Global Shipping Alliance (GSA), formed by 12 major international shipping companies including Maersk, DSV, and Hapag-Lloyd, officially launched the ‘Delivery Promise Visibility Protocol’ (DPVP), namely the ‘official website delivery promise visualization protocol’. This protocol supports Chinese export enterprises in synchronizing the actual production scheduling and shipment plans in their ERP systems to the ‘Production & Shipment’ page on their official websites in real time through standardized APIs. This move has a substantial impact on B2B manufacturing exporters directly serving Europe and the United States, cross-border supply chain service providers, and parties involved in procurement decision-making, marking that delivery certainty is shifting from a back-end management metric to a core competitive factor at front-end customer touchpoints.

Event Overview

On May 19, 2026, the Global Shipping Alliance (GSA) launched the ‘Delivery Promise Visibility Protocol’ (DPVP). This protocol allows Chinese export enterprises to push the confirmed production schedules and shipment plans in their ERP systems in real time to designated pages on their official websites (such as the ‘Production & Shipment’ section) through standardized API interfaces. Official GSA test data shows that for Chinese suppliers enabling this function, the contract signing cycle with their European and American customers is shortened by an average of 11.2 days, and the conversion rate of signed deals increases by 37%; this capability has become a key admission criterion for GSA’s new batch of ‘high-certainty suppliers’ whitelist.

Which Sub-Sectors Will Be Affected

Processing and Manufacturing Enterprises

These are the most directly affected. Because DPVP requires ERP data to be authentic, connectable, and displayable, enterprises need to ensure that their production planning modules are capable of output with sufficient granularity (such as by order/batch), sufficiently high update frequency (recommended ≤24 hours), and sufficiently standardized status definitions (such as ‘production scheduled’, ‘materials prepared’, and ‘container loaded’). The impact is reflected in customer due diligence response efficiency, weighting in qualification evaluations for major client tenders, and the ability to secure long-cycle orders at an early stage.

Direct Trading Enterprises (Including Integrated Industry-and-Trade Enterprises)

As the first customer touchpoint, their official websites are the final presentation end for DPVP implementation. If the official website does not embed the API or the display logic is unclear (for example, failing to distinguish between ‘promised delivery date’ and ‘historical delivery date’), customer trust will be weakened. The impact is mainly reflected in lower ‘supplier reliability scores’ in European and American buyers’ procurement processes, which in turn affects RFQ response priority and negotiating position for credit terms.

Supply Chain Service Enterprises (Including Freight Forwarders, VMI Service Providers, and Digital SaaS Service Providers)

DPVP relies on data connectivity between ERP systems and official websites, placing new requirements on middleware system integration capabilities. For example: ERP vendors need to adapt to DPVP data field specifications; independent website-building platforms need to open API embedding permissions; if freight forwarding systems undertake part of the delivery coordination function, they need to complete bidirectional status feedback transmission with factory-side ERP systems. The impact is reflected in rising demand for service product upgrades, increased technical integration workload, and differentiated opportunities for whitelist qualification cooperation.

Channel Distribution Enterprises (Such as Overseas Warehouse Operators and Regional Distributors)

Although they are not directly involved in DPVP implementation, their replenishment decisions increasingly depend on dynamic delivery data disclosed on upstream factory official websites. If partner factories have not enabled DPVP, the accuracy of their inventory turnover forecasts may decline, and safety stock levels may need to be passively raised. The impact is concentrated in delayed replenishment response risks and the intensified structural imbalance of simultaneous slow-moving inventory and stockouts.

What Key Points Should Relevant Enterprises or Practitioners Focus On, and How Should They Respond at Present

Confirm Whether Your ERP System Meets DPVP Basic Field Output Requirements

What deserves more attention at present is the DPVP core field list already disclosed by GSA (such as Order ID, Promised Shipment Date, Current Production Status Code, Container Ready Date, etc.). Enterprises should compare this with their current ERP output capabilities, identify missing fields and differences in status definitions, and avoid doing only superficial integration that cannot pass GSA validation.

Assess the Degree of Support in the Official Website Technical Architecture for API Embedding

From an analytical perspective, DPVP does not merely require “having an API”; it requires the official website front end to stably render structured delivery data and support differentiated display by customer role (such as logged-in purchasers). Enterprises need to verify whether their CMS or website-building platform supports JSON Schema parsing, whether it has a cache refresh mechanism, and whether it retains data call logs for audit purposes.

Distinguish Between GSA Whitelist Admission Signals and the Actual Pace of Business Conversion

From observation, DPVP is currently a voluntary protocol led by GSA and has not yet become a mandatory prerequisite for port entry or pre-booking. Enterprises should avoid equating ‘connected’ with ‘whitelisted’; instead, they need to pay attention to whether tiered certification (such as Bronze/Silver/Gold tier) will be introduced subsequently, whether it will be linked to shipping company slot guarantees, and whether it will be included in supplier profile fields on mainstream procurement platforms (such as SAP Ariba and Jaggaer).

Map Out Delivery Verification Stages in the Procurement Processes of Key European and American Customers in Advance

From an industry perspective, some large retailers (such as Walmart and Carrefour) and industrial buyers (such as Siemens and Bosch) have already added ‘official website-verifiable delivery dates’ clauses to their RFPs. Enterprises should compare the latest versions of major customers’ Supplier Handbook or Quality & Delivery Requirements to identify whether DPVP capability has already been embedded into their supplier performance KPI systems, and then plan a phased rollout path accordingly.

Editor’s Viewpoint / Industry Observation

Observably, DPVP currently looks more like a ‘credible delivery infrastructure co-building signal’ initiated by leading shipping companies, rather than a fully closed-loop business rule. Its value lies not in the launch of a single function, but in placing the authenticity, timeliness, and verifiability of factory-side production data at a front-end visualized node in the global procurement decision chain for the first time. This means that delivery certainty is shifting from a competitive dimension of ‘post-performance fulfillment results’ to one of ‘pre-commitment credibility’; ERP systems are no longer merely internal management tools, but are gradually becoming part of B2B digital identity. What the industry needs to continue watching is whether cross-alliance mutual recognition will emerge later (such as potential coordination with THE Alliance or 2M), whether it will trigger standard-setting organizations such as ISO or GS1 to launch related data specification initiatives, and whether small and medium-sized manufacturers can achieve lightweight compliant access through third-party SaaS.

Conclusion:
The launch of DPVP is not merely a technical upgrade event, but a concrete entry point in the evolution of the global supply chain trust mechanism. It reflects that the way European and American buyers measure ‘certainty’ is undergoing a shift—from reliance on historical performance to reliance on the verifiability of real-time data. At present, it is more appropriate to understand this as: a qualification pre-review for advanced supply chain collaboration capabilities, rather than a universal operational guide; enterprises do not need to immediately carry out a full-scale system transformation, but they do need to clearly define the boundaries of their data responsibilities in the customer delivery promise chain, and initiate a validation closed loop in the minimum viable way.

Information source note:
Main source: announcement on the official website of the Global Shipping Alliance (GSA) (published on May 19, 2026);
Parts requiring continued observation: the specific review rules for the GSA whitelist, progress in compatibility adaptation between DPVP and mainstream ERP vendors and website-building platforms, and whether leading European and American buyers will incorporate this capability into mandatory supplier admission clauses.