News / Ecommerce and a need for flexibility reshaping fulfilment

Photo: © Ilia Burdun

Ecommerce is fundamentally reshaping how shippers think about seasonality, contracts, and risk, according to Sam Coiro, head of global business development ecommerce, at Maersk.

Speaking to The Loadstar on the sidelines of Manifest in Las Vegas, Mr Coiro described a marked pivot from the traditional cross-border ecommerce direct-to-consumer model, in which international sellers ship individual parcels by air from origins such as China straight to US buyers.

Instead, many are adopting what he termed a “local-to-local” model, largely driven by the desire to reduce costs and prepare for volatility.

“Rather than flying one item at a time, they’ll take a million units and move them in bulk into a US warehouse,” he explained. “The customer still buys on a marketplace in China, but fulfilment is local, because the inventory is already in the US.”

Bulk imports allow sellers to clear customs in one go, rather than paying tariffs and duties on every parcel. By using free-trade zones, inventory can also be stored for a period before duties are triggered, improving cash flow and mitigating penalty risks.

The shift comes amid continued expansion of global ecommerce logistics. According to Transport Intelligence (Ti), the European market grew strongly between 2022 and 2025, with domestic ecommerce logistics rising from €336.7bn to €486bn ($396.6bn to $572.5bn). Cross-border flows were up 52%, from €63.3bn to €96.1bn.

In the US, the removal of the $800 de minimis threshold last August increased duties, compliance costs, and customs friction for low-value imports, particularly high-volume parcel flows from Asia. Similar reform is expected in the EU mid-2026, potentially creating further structural headwinds for cross-border ecommerce into major consumer markets.

Against that backdrop, Mr Coiro’s “local-to-local” model reflects a broader move towards regional fulfilment and nearshoring strategies designed to mitigate regulatory risk and customs delays. But the knock-on effect is a structural change to peak season dynamics.

“Twelve months ago, if you had all your customers in one facility, peak season was bonkers,” said Mr Coiro. He explained that in multi-tenant warehouses, five customers all selling into Black Friday meant labour requirements could surge tenfold, with heavy reliance on temporary staffing agencies.

But with inventory now spread across multiple facilities and fulfilment more regionalised, volumes can be processed with significantly less ‘human overhead’. Orders still spike around predictable events such as Black Friday, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, but the operational shock is cushioned.

“There’s predictable chaos,” he noted. “We know every Black Friday there’s going to be a wave.”

What is less predictable in the ecommerce landscape, he suggested, was the sudden surge triggered by social media.

“An influencer posts about something, and the next thing you know, three million units get ordered. You have to adapt.”

That need for resilience is also changing carrier relationships. Mr Coiro explained that, while large integrators remained known for rigid volume commitments, regional providers were becoming more flexible – albeit with safeguards. Some waive strict daily minimums, but introduce exit clauses that allow them to terminate unprofitable contracts after a set period.

“It’s like you fired the customer,” Mr Coiro said. “If the volumes promised don’t materialise, you need a lever you can pull.”

For logistics providers with multi-carrier networks, aggregated volumes strengthen their negotiating hand, enabling better rates and more flexibility to shield customers from short-term market volatility.

Looking ahead, Ti forecasts both domestic and cross-border ecommerce logistics in Europe to “expand steadily” through to 2030. However, as regulatory friction increases in the US and Europe, higher compliance costs could either suppress low-value cross-border trade or further accelerate the shift towards regional inventory positioning.

As both shippers and carriers seek to build networks capable of absorbing predictable waves and viral-driven shocks, traditional peaks could be smoother, and there could be more shifts from air to ocean in bulk.