Europe provides a huge opportunity for ambitious UK brands.
With a large, digitally mature customer base, the EU is a natural expansion opportunity for many UK eCommerce brands.
However, selling across the UK and EU simultaneously introduces decisions around customs, inventory location, delivery, technology and returns.
Much of this can be solved by choosing the right operational partners, but making the right pick isn't always straightforward.
Throughout this blog post, we'll look at the state of play in the EU today, the strategies available to UK brands for EU eCommerce expansion, and how to make the right choice when it comes to nailing your European order fulfilment.
European order fulfilment is the process of storing inventory, processing orders, picking, packing, shipping and managing returns for customers across European markets, often using warehouses located within the EU.
When it comes to brands based in the UK looking to serve European customers effectively, there are typically three main approaches, all of which will provide benefits to certain brands.
| Model | How it works | Main considerations |
| UK-based cross-border shipping | Stock located in the UK and individual orders are shipped into the EU | Customs processing, international shipping costs, delivery times |
| EU-based fulfilment | Stock imported into an EU warehouse and EU orders dispatched locally | Upfront stock positioning, import procedures and VAT obligations |
| Combined UK and EU fulfilment | Inventory held in both regions, with orders fulfilled from appropriate locations | Coordinating stock, systems and costs across warehouses |
One thing to keep in mind is that UK and EU fulfilment aren't as interchangeable and flexible after Brexit. A warehouse in the UK is outside the EU customs territory, so goods entering the EU may require customs clearance and incur import costs, depending on the products and arrangements involved.
For growing brands looking to branch into Europe, choosing where to hold inventory can be as important as choosing who delivers the parcels.
As more regulations and requirements are introduced, fulfilment and localisation play an increasingly important role in customer experience and margin protection.
There are three main topics to consider when trying to understand the opportunities and the challenges cross-border EU growth brings:
Taking these areas into consideration, brands need to strike an operational balance.
Brands shipping individual parcels from the UK into the EU may need to revisit landed costs and processes, while holding stock in the EU could bring benefits to brands shipping sufficient volumes – however, bulk imports still have their own customs and tax obligations.
The key takeaway for brands eyeing up EU expansions is that it's not simply about finding cheaper international shipping, but about designing an operation that works commercially and delivers a positive customer experience.
So what does it actually take to succeed in both the UK and the EU? Finding the right operational partners is the best place to start.
Here's what to look for.
Physical location has always played a big role in logistics, but the impact is greater than ever thanks to growing regulatory and import challenges.
Your warehouse locations influence delivery distances, transit times and shipping costs, so they need to be strategically placed in order to serve your customers most effectively.
To land on the right locations, you need to work backwards from your existing demand or your growth roadmap.
You don't necessarily need a warehouse in every country you want to serve, especially when it comes to the EU, where logistics pathways are mature.
Regional stock positioning within the EU supports local delivery services and reduces your brand's reliance on shipments crossing the UK-EU customs border.
Once goods have been imported and released into free circulation within the EU, they can generally move between EU member states without additional customs duties. That can make EU-based fulfilment more efficient than shipping individual customer orders from the UK, although VAT and other obligations may still apply.
Regulatory compliance seems to get more confusing by the day.
There's plenty for your brand to consider, a lot of which can be taken off your hands by the right partner or operational setup.
A few things to consider before expansion:
It's also important to understand the difference between importing stock in bulk and shipping individual parcels from the UK into the EU; there's no right answer here, it'll all depend on how your brand is set up today.
Ask any prospective providers how customs documentation and shipping data are handled, and which responsibilities remain with your business.
A provider can support you in the process without automatically becoming legally responsible for your imports, VAT or product compliance.
Fragmented stock records can become a big problem when your inventory is spread across multiple warehouses.
As your brand grows and spreads stock across several locations, having a central place to view your global inventory and its status can make a significant difference.
As well as visibility, real-time information and stock synchronisation can be your best friends as your brand scales.
By having orders flow automatically into fulfilment and update your stock counts in real-time, you'll reduce overselling across websites and marketplaces – a key factor in maintaining global customer trust.
With a multi-site strategy, you also need the insight and expertise of an international provider. For example, if a bestseller is running low in a German warehouse but remains available in the UK, your brand needs visibility before deciding whether to replenish the EU location, reroute eligible orders or adjust promotions.
When order import, order routing, stock updates and tracking information are all automatic, it gives your team time back to focus on other areas of the business.
As your brand grows, integrations of this nature become essential.
A brand selling through Shopify and Amazon in multiple countries shouldn't need to manually send orders to fulfilment partners or reconcile several inventory spreadsheets to know where they're at.
Tech should always make international expansion easier to manage, not add another thing for your team to stay on top of.
A big mistake is to consider the EU as one market when it comes to consumer preferences for delivery services and returns.
Carrier options and delivery preferences differ market to market, and the value of local carrier expertise and reliable delivery services can't be overstated.
Having multiple carrier options in place gives your customers flexibility when choosing how and when they'd like to receive their orders, and also allows you to provide transparent delivery charges and realistic estimated arrival dates.
For example, across Europe, there's an ongoing desire for out-of-home (OOH) delivery and returns. Nearly half (49%) of EU shoppers redirect their parcels to OOH locations, while only 40% do so globally. The number of shoppers who return items via a parcel shop is also higher in Europe (42%) than globally (35%).
Carrier flexibility also helps your brand manage disruption and different parcel requirements when needed, often vital during peak months.
Over the years, effective returns have shifted from a back-end logistical requirement to a make-or-break driver of conversion, retention and loyalty.
It's something that can even break a relationship before a purchase is made: 90% of Europeans prioritise fast, free delivery and easy returns when shopping online, while 73% would abandon their cart entirely if their preferred returns options aren't offered.
As well as the impact on customer experience, cross-border returns can quickly eat into margins if not handled effectively.
Local EU returns locations can help reduce unnecessary cross-border movements – and therefore costs – reducing the overall impact of products being sent back by customers.
Again, there's a balancing act. A fashion brand – an industry with high percentages of returns – may benefit from processing eligible returns within the EU, while a brand with historically low return rates might find it more worthwhile to process everything domestically in the UK.
On top of customer experience and costs, your provider should offer services such as inspection, grading, restocking and returns reporting to ensure sellable products are made available as efficiently and safely as possible.
When looking for a new provider, you should always evaluate potential partners against your expansion plans, not just today's volume.
The ability to add new sales channels and fulfilment locations, as well as handling seasonal peaks and promotional spikes, should be key to making your final decision.
Your brand might start in the UK and ship into Europe, but having the option to localise stock in the EU is beneficial for when the time's right.
If you're serious about EU growth, choosing a provider with the network and local expertise within the region can make all the difference to your future performance.
Some questions to ask:
Your fulfilment partner should support the growth of your brand without forcing you to recreate your logistics setup every time you grow.
Costs are always going to be a major influence on your final decision. However, that doesn't mean you should simply go for the cheapest.
As with many other areas of life, cheapest doesn't always mean best, and the areas that a cheaper fulfilment provider might let you down could damage the customer experience.
Instead of focusing too heavily on the advertised pick-and-pack rate, you should calculate the total cost delivered order, taking into account:
It's also a good idea to think of some realistic scenarios rather than generic rates: a UK customer, a German customer and a French customer, for example, and how each of the models discussed earlier in the article would serve these different buyers.
Local EU fulfilment isn't always automatically cheaper; it might reduce last-mile shipping costs and avoid customs processing on individual orders, but it does introduce additional inventory, inbound freight and administrative costs.
We'll say it again: there's no right answer for your brand. You just need to find the solution that bests suits your operational needs (of today and tomorrow).
Throughout 2026, several meaningful changes to EU regulation made a huge impact to how brands ship products into the EU.
From 1st July 2026, the EU introduced a temporary €3 per-item duty on low-value imports from outside the EU.
The charge is applied according to tariff classification within a consignment, not simply as a flat €3 per parcel.
However, from 1st November 2026, a €2 handling fee on all packages entering the EU was introduced, regardless of the parcel's value.
Therefore, brands shipping orders – especially those of low value – from the UK into the EU face higher costs. If volumes are high, these costs could become significant.
The EU's OSS (One Stop Shop) and IOSS (Import One Stop Shop) are schemes put in place to simplify cross-border VAT reporting for online businesses selling to consumers in the European Union.
It's important to note that, even if you use IOSS to collect and report VAT at checkout, your packages are still subject to the new €3 customs duty at the border.
Plus, holding stock in an EU country can create local VAT registration or reporting obligations that OSS doesn't necessarily eliminate.
The EU's General Product Safety Regulation has applied since December 2024, with requirements relevant to many non-food consumer products sold online or offline.
There are also new packaging rules to consider. The EU's Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), is a major legal framework in place to overhaul the packaging lifecycle across the European internal market.
The regulation generally began applying on 12 August 2026, with different requirements and transition periods applying to packaging design, recyclability, labelling and other obligations.
EU consumers generally have a 14-day withdrawal right for eligible online purchases, subject to exceptions.
These rules will inform how your brand designs its return policies and logistics, as consumer rights throughout the EU will be different from those enforced domestically.
The 14-day withdrawal period generally begins when the customer receives the goods, rather than when the order is placed. Certain products and circumstances are exempt.
There are typically two options here: separate local providers in each market or one provider with a connected UK and EU network.
| Separate fulfilment providers | One connected UK and EU partner |
| Can offer specialist local expertise | Can provide one operational relationship |
| May require multiple technology integrations | Can offer a single inventory and order platform |
| Separate contracts and reporting processes | More consistent reporting and oversight |
| Different processes and service standards | Standardised workflows across the network |
| Flexibility to choose providers individually | Easier coordination as markets are added |
Again, it's a case of what best suits your situation. Separate providers may be appropriate for unusual product requirements or very specialised markets, but for brands expanding across several countries, one connected partner can significantly reduce the number of systems, relationships and operational processes they need to manage.
fulfilmentcrowd offers brands the capability of not only managing multiple global warehouses via one platform, but also DTC, B2B and marketplace fulfilment.
With a one partner and one platform approach to global, omnichannel fulfilment, everything stays in one place and updates in real time.
Here's a quick breakdown.
With six fulfilment centres in the UK and seven in the EU, fulfilmentcrowd gives your brand multiple options to split stock across different regions, all while keeping everything in one platform.
fulfilmentcrowd's technology brings real-time inventory visibility, order tracking, returns and reporting together across multiple locations, giving your brand one place to understand what's happening across the entire fulfilment operation.
We give you the ability to serve customers across direct-to-consumer and wholesale channels through the same connected network, meaning you can expand across channels without managing separate fulfilment operations.
The fulfilmentcrowd business model brings together a group of fulfilment network partners (FNPs), providing localised expertise to brands wanting to expand globally. All network partners operate with the same technology and processes, retaining a familiar operational view, wherever you sell.
European eCommerce expansion offers a huge opportunity, but successful operations depend on much more than international shipping rates.
The right provider should help you position inventory effectively, maintain visibility across markets, manage orders and returns efficiently, and scale without adding unnecessary administrative burden.
And remember, when choosing a provider, find one capable of supporting where you want to go, not just where you operate today.