Ant International's Antom has partnered with Google Gemini to expand access to Google's AI services across Asia, combining localized payments, subscription management, and digital distribution infrastructure in a collaboration that has already reached approximately 10 million users in Indonesia.

The partnership connects Google AI Plus with Antom's extensive network of digital wallets, e-commerce platforms and other digital services across the region. Beyond processing payments, Antom is providing infrastructure covering billing, tax management, risk management, marketing and account services throughout the subscription lifecycle.

The initiative initially launched in Indonesia in July 2026 and is now expected to expand into additional Asian markets. It provides another example of how global technology companies are increasingly relying on local payment ecosystems to scale digital products across highly fragmented markets.

For the payments industry, the partnership also demonstrates how payment orchestration is evolving beyond transaction processing. Providers such as Antom are increasingly combining payments with customer acquisition, localization, risk management and digital commerce services — capabilities that could become even more important as AI platforms move toward agentic commerce.

Antom and Google Gemini target Asia's fragmented payment landscape

Asia represents an enormous opportunity for global digital services, but it is also one of the world's most complex payment environments. Consumers across the region rely on a wide variety of digital wallets, bank transfers, QR-based payment systems, and local payment methods rather than a single dominant payment infrastructure.

For international companies, supporting those methods individually can require multiple technical integrations, commercial relationships and compliance processes. Antom's role is to simplify that complexity.

The Ant International subsidiary allows merchants to access more than 300 payment methods through a single integration, reaching consumers in more than 200 markets and supporting payments in more than 140 currencies. In Indonesia alone, the payment landscape includes digital wallets such as DANA, GoPay, OVO, and ShopeePay alongside QRIS, bank transfers, and numerous online banking options.

For a global service such as Google Gemini, connecting to this fragmented ecosystem through a payment orchestration provider can reduce the technical and operational complexity of entering individual markets. The partnership therefore extends beyond simply adding another payment method to Google AI Plus. Antom is effectively providing part of the commercial infrastructure required to distribute and monetize Google's AI services locally.

Indonesia becomes the first market

The collaboration began in Indonesia in July 2026 with a campaign offering a 12-month free trial of Google AI Plus to eligible students aged 18 to 25. Consumers can access the offer through several widely used digital channels, including DANA and GoPay, as well as Indonesian e-commerce platform Tokopedia. The campaign also extends to physical retail through participating MomoYo locations, a dessert and beverage chain operating in the country.

According to Ant International, the initiative has already reached approximately 10 million users in Indonesia. The scale of the initial rollout demonstrates the potential of combining payment infrastructure with distribution. Instead of relying exclusively on Google's own channels to acquire subscribers, Gemini can appear within digital wallets, e-commerce platforms and other services consumers already use.

For Antom, the model creates what the company describes as a "two-way growth engine": global digital businesses gain access to local users, while payment platforms and merchants can add new services and promotions designed to increase engagement.

A+Rewards connects Gemini with local digital ecosystems

A central component of the partnership is A+Rewards, Antom's digital marketing platform. A+Rewards is integrated into more than 30 major digital platforms and provides in-app entry points through which consumers can discover offers from participating brands and digital services.

According to Ant International, the wider network connects approximately 2.85 billion active digital payment users. For Google Gemini, this creates a distribution channel that extends far beyond conventional advertising or app-store discovery. Users can encounter Google AI Plus offers while interacting with services they already use for payments, shopping, and everyday digital activities.

The infrastructure uses AI technologies and privacy-preserving computing to support customer acquisition and promotional campaigns. In Indonesia, for example, Google AI Plus trials can be discovered through DANA, GoPay and Tokopedia.

This integration of payments and marketing is increasingly important in digital commerce. Payment providers historically entered the customer journey primarily at checkout. Platforms such as Antom are attempting to participate much earlier, helping merchants acquire customers before subsequently processing and managing their transactions.

Antom manages more than payments

One of the most important aspects of the Google partnership is the breadth of services Antom is providing. The company is consolidating billing, tax management, risk management, marketing and account services alongside payment processing.

This lets Antom support much of the subscription lifecycle for AI companies entering new markets. For global digital businesses, these operational requirements can become significant barriers to international expansion.

Local taxation rules vary. Payment preferences differ between countries. Fraud patterns change between markets. Subscription billing requires recurring payment capabilities, while customer acquisition may depend on partnerships with local digital ecosystems.

A payment provider that can combine these functions can reduce the number of separate systems and partners a global company needs to manage. The model is particularly relevant for subscription-based AI services, which increasingly compete for paying consumers worldwide.

As AI platforms expand internationally, the ability to accept local payment methods and manage recurring billing could become almost as important as the underlying technology itself.

Southeast Asia emerges as a major AI market

Google's decision to expand Gemini through local Asian payment ecosystems also reflects the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence across Southeast Asia. Google says interest in AI in the region is approximately three times the global average, while the number of active Gemini users in Southeast Asia has more than doubled over the past year.

The region is also overwhelmingly mobile-first. About three-quarters of Gemini requests in Southeast Asia come from mobile devices, and younger consumers in particular often use apps rather than traditional desktop browsers.

Indonesia illustrates that behavior particularly clearly. According to Google, around 82% of Gemini prompts in the country originate from mobile devices. Language localization is equally important. Approximately 84% of Gemini prompts in Indonesia are made using local languages.

These characteristics create a natural connection between AI services and mobile payment ecosystems. Digital wallets in Southeast Asia are often much more than payment applications. They can function as broader digital platforms combining payments, promotions, financial services, shopping, and other consumer activities. Integrating AI subscriptions into those environments gives companies such as Google another route to reach highly engaged mobile users.

Payments become a distribution channel

The Antom-Gemini partnership illustrates a broader transformation occurring within the payments industry. Payment providers are increasingly attempting to move beyond the final transaction. Traditionally, a payment service provider became visible when the customer reached checkout. Its primary responsibilities were authorizing the transaction, moving funds and managing associated financial risks.

That model is expanding. Modern payment platforms increasingly provide fraud prevention, currency conversion, subscription billing, tax services, customer analytics and marketing tools. Antom's A+Rewards network takes this development further by turning payment ecosystems themselves into customer acquisition channels.

Digital wallets can expose users to subscription offers. E-commerce platforms can distribute digital services. Merchants can become physical acquisition points for online products. Payments therefore become part of a broader commercial infrastructure connecting global brands with local consumers. This can be particularly valuable for cross-border commerce.

A company entering Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia or another Asian market does not necessarily need to reproduce its existing Western payments strategy. Instead, it can connect with the local digital ecosystems consumers already trust and use.

Antom builds an infrastructure layer for global digital commerce

The Google collaboration also demonstrates Ant International's ambitions beyond its traditional association with Alipay. Antom is positioned as Ant International's merchant payment and digitization services business, providing payment infrastructure to companies operating internationally.

Its platform supports more than 300 payment methods through a single integration and allows merchants to accept payments across more than 200 markets and over 140 currencies. The company describes its payment architecture as AI-native and combines payment processing with risk management, digital marketing and other merchant services. This infrastructure is particularly relevant in Asia, where payment fragmentation remains a significant challenge for international merchants.

Instead of integrating independently with dozens of wallets, banks, and alternative payment systems, businesses can use an orchestration layer that connects them to multiple local options. The approach resembles developments elsewhere in global e-commerce, where infrastructure providers increasingly compete to become the layer connecting merchants with multiple marketplaces, payment systems or logistics networks. Complexity itself is becoming a business opportunity.

The connection with agentic commerce

Although the Google Gemini partnership is focused primarily on distributing and monetizing Google AI Plus subscriptions, it arrives as the payments industry prepares for a much larger transformation: AI agents capable of initiating and completing purchases.

This distinction is important. The current collaboration does not mean Gemini is autonomously purchasing products through Antom. Instead, Antom is providing payment and commercial infrastructure around Google's AI service. However, the same capabilities required to sell AI subscriptions internationally — payment orchestration, local payment methods, identity, risk management, recurring billing and cross-border settlement — are also likely to become important components of agentic commerce.

Antom is already developing agentic payment and agentic commerce capabilities. The broader industry is moving rapidly in the same direction. Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Stripe, and other payment companies are developing infrastructure designed to identify AI agents, authenticate consumers, and allow authorized software agents to execute transactions.

Commerce platforms are simultaneously adapting their systems so AI agents can discover products and interact with checkout environments. The challenge becomes particularly complicated when those agents operate internationally.

An AI assistant purchasing something for a consumer in Indonesia may need access to completely different payment methods from an agent operating in Germany, the United States, or Japan. Payment orchestration platforms that can translate between global AI services and local payment ecosystems could therefore become an important layer in agentic commerce.

Localization could become critical for AI commerce

Much of the current discussion around agentic commerce focuses on whether AI agents can discover products, compare prices and complete checkout. But international commerce introduces another problem: localization.

An AI agent may understand what a consumer wants to buy, but completing the transaction requires access to payment methods that the merchant accepts and that the consumer actually uses. That problem becomes significantly more complicated across borders.

Asia provides perhaps the clearest example. Payment behavior varies substantially between countries, with digital wallets, QR systems, bank transfers, cards, and other alternative payment methods competing for consumer adoption.

A global AI platform attempting to interact directly with every local payment system would face considerable technical complexity. Payment orchestration can provide an abstraction layer between the AI service and those local networks.

Instead of building hundreds of individual integrations, AI platforms could connect to infrastructure that routes transactions through the appropriate payment method for each consumer and market. Antom's existing reach across hundreds of payment methods puts it in a strong position as that ecosystem develops.

AI, payments and commerce continue to converge

The Antom-Google partnership is another indication that the boundaries between artificial intelligence, payments and digital commerce are becoming increasingly blurred. Google wants to expand access to Gemini across Asia.

Antom provides access to local payment ecosystems, digital platforms and merchants. Digital wallets become distribution channels for AI subscriptions. And the payment provider manages much more than the transaction itself, including marketing, risk, billing, and account services.

For now, the objective is straightforward: make Google AI Plus easier to discover, access, and eventually monetize across diverse Asian markets. But the underlying infrastructure has broader implications. As AI assistants evolve from tools that provide information into agents that can act on behalf of consumers, they will need connections to the same commercial systems humans use today: merchants, marketplaces, payments, identity services, and logistics networks.

The companies controlling those connections could become increasingly important intermediaries in the next generation of digital commerce. Antom's partnership with Google Gemini offers an early example of how that infrastructure may develop—not by replacing local payment ecosystems, but by connecting global AI platforms directly to them.

The post Ant International and Google Gemini expand AI payments partnership across Asia appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

UPS has partnered with TikTok Shop to introduce box-free and label-free returns for participating sellers across the United States, connecting the fast-growing social commerce marketplace with the nationwide reverse logistics network operated by UPS-owned Happy Returns.

Under the new integration, shoppers returning eligible TikTok Shop purchases can take products to approximately 10,000 Happy Returns locations without printing a shipping label or packaging the item themselves. Returns are scanned at the drop-off point before being consolidated into larger shipments and transported to processing hubs.

The partnership gives TikTok Shop access to an established physical returns infrastructure as the platform continues expanding its U.S. e-commerce operations. For UPS, meanwhile, the agreement strengthens its position in reverse logistics, an increasingly important segment as parcel carriers look beyond traditional delivery services toward higher-value e-commerce solutions.

The announcement comes as returns remain one of online retail's largest operational challenges. U.S. retailers expected approximately $849.9 billion worth of merchandise to be returned during 2025, according to the National Retail Federation, with 19.3% of online sales expected to be sent back.

TikTok Shop integrates Happy Returns into its marketplace

The new service integrates Happy Returns directly into the TikTok Shop returns experience.

After initiating an eligible return through TikTok Shop, consumers can select the Happy Returns option and take their product to a participating Return Bar. These locations include The UPS Store, Staples, Ulta Beauty and other authorized locations across the United States.

Customers do not need to find a suitable shipping box, package the product or print a return label. At the Return Bar, employees scan and verify the item before preparing it for transportation.

Returned products can then be grouped with other merchandise into larger consolidated shipments that are transported to Happy Returns processing facilities.

This consolidation is one of the important differences between the model and conventional individual parcel returns. Instead of every consumer generating a separate packaged shipment moving independently through the parcel network, multiple returned products can share transportation and processing infrastructure.

For merchants, that can reduce the logistics costs and operational complexity associated with individual returns.

The Happy Returns service will be available to participating TikTok Shop sellers regardless of whether they manage their own fulfillment operations or outsource fulfillment through TikTok Shop.

UPS connects TikTok Shop to 10,000 return locations

The scale of the Happy Returns network gives TikTok Shop an immediate physical returns footprint across much of the United States.

UPS expanded the network to 10,000 Return Bar locations earlier this year after adding more than 1,700 sites through partnerships with Annex Brands and PackageHub Business Centers.

According to UPS, approximately 79% of the U.S. population now lives within five miles of a Happy Returns location, while more than one-quarter of Americans live within one mile of a Return Bar.

The network is now more than three times larger than what UPS describes as its closest alternative in consolidated returns.

That physical infrastructure could be particularly valuable for a marketplace such as TikTok Shop. Unlike established retailers with extensive store networks, social commerce platforms do not necessarily have thousands of physical locations where customers can return online purchases.

By connecting to Happy Returns, TikTok Shop can effectively offer a nationwide physical returns network without building one itself.

Returns become a $850 billion retail problem

The partnership also highlights the growing economic importance of reverse logistics.

U.S. retailers estimated that consumers would return $849.9 billion worth of merchandise during 2025, equivalent to 15.8% of total retail sales, according to research from the National Retail Federation and Happy Returns.

Online retail faces an even greater challenge. Approximately 19.3% of online sales were expected to be returned during the year.

Returns also create costs extending far beyond transportation. Retailers must process returned products, inspect their condition, determine whether they can be resold, issue refunds, update inventory and potentially move products through additional logistics networks.

According to Blue Yonder figures cited in reporting on the UPS-TikTok Shop agreement, the cost associated with a return can average approximately 27% of the product's original purchase price.

That makes returns a major profitability issue for e-commerce companies, particularly in product categories where margins are already narrow.

For parcel carriers, however, the same challenge creates a growing market for specialized reverse logistics services.

UPS and FedEx have both been expanding their capabilities in this area, while Amazon has also normalized box-free and label-free returns for many consumers.

The competition is therefore moving beyond who can deliver an e-commerce order fastest and toward who can manage the entire lifecycle of that order most efficiently.

Happy Returns consolidates individual returns

Happy Returns' model is designed to change the economics of traditional parcel returns.

In a conventional e-commerce return, a customer typically places an item in a package, attaches a shipping label and sends it individually through a parcel carrier. Thousands of customers returning products can therefore generate thousands of separate shipments.

Happy Returns removes several steps from the consumer experience while consolidating transportation behind the scenes.

Customers take unpackaged products to a Return Bar, where individual items are scanned and verified. Eligible products can then be grouped into larger reusable containers and transported together rather than moving as separate parcels.

For retailers, consolidation can reduce shipping costs and the number of individual packages that must be handled.

It can also accelerate the process of moving merchandise back into inventory.

UPS says products moving through its integrated Happy Returns network can reach retailers in as little as 3.6 days, while the average return transit time across customers is approximately seven days.

Faster processing can be particularly important for fashion, beauty and other categories where products may lose value rapidly because of seasonality, trends or inventory turnover.

AI targets return fraud

The TikTok Shop partnership also introduces an artificial intelligence component into the returns process.

Happy Returns uses an AI-powered system called Return Vision to identify potentially fraudulent returns. The technology applies behavioral risk scoring and can flag suspicious products or packages for additional inspection.

Higher-risk returns can then be examined before the refund process is completed, with human auditors making the final determination when fraud is suspected.

Return fraud has become an increasingly important issue as online return volumes have grown.

Fraud can include consumers returning a different product from the one purchased, sending back used merchandise, returning empty packages or manipulating return policies.

The NRF's 2025 research found widespread participation in costly returns behaviors including "wardrobing" — purchasing products for temporary use before returning them — and "bracketing", where shoppers deliberately purchase several sizes or versions of a product knowing that most will be returned.

For TikTok Shop sellers, fraud prevention is particularly relevant because the marketplace connects consumers with a large and diverse ecosystem of merchants, many of which do not have the scale or technology required to build sophisticated returns-management systems independently.

Easier returns could strengthen trust in TikTok Shop

Returns are not simply a logistics problem. They can also influence whether consumers are willing to purchase from a retailer or marketplace in the first place.

The NRF and Happy Returns found that 82% of consumers considered free returns an important factor when deciding where to shop. Meanwhile, 76% said they were more likely to select a return option that provided an immediate refund or exchange.

A poor experience can have the opposite effect. Approximately 71% of consumers surveyed said they were less likely to shop with a retailer again after experiencing a problematic return.

This makes the UPS partnership particularly relevant to TikTok Shop.

The platform's social commerce model encourages consumers to discover products through videos, livestreams, creators and influencers rather than beginning their shopping journey with a traditional product search.

That model can generate highly spontaneous purchases, including transactions with sellers or brands that consumers may not previously know.

A convenient and recognizable returns network can reduce some of the perceived risk associated with those purchases.

For TikTok Shop, therefore, Happy Returns is not merely a logistics service. It can become part of the marketplace's consumer trust infrastructure.

TikTok Shop continues building its U.S. commerce ecosystem

TikTok Shop launched in the United States in September 2023 and has since developed into one of the country's most closely watched social commerce platforms.

Its model combines entertainment, creator content, advertising and commerce within the same application. Sellers can promote products through short-form videos, livestream shopping and partnerships with creators, allowing users to move from product discovery to purchase without leaving the TikTok ecosystem.

The marketplace has attracted established retailers including Ulta Beauty and PacSun alongside a large ecosystem of independent merchants.

However, scaling a marketplace requires considerably more than generating demand.

As transaction volumes increase, platforms must develop or integrate payments, fulfillment, customer service, returns and fraud-prevention infrastructure capable of supporting both merchants and consumers.

The Happy Returns partnership strengthens one of those post-purchase components.

Rather than developing a national physical returns infrastructure itself, TikTok Shop can connect participating sellers with a network already operated by one of the largest logistics companies in the United States.

UPS pushes deeper into reverse logistics

For UPS, the agreement fits into a broader strategy of developing specialized logistics services that extend beyond conventional parcel delivery.

UPS acquired Happy Returns from PayPal in 2023, bringing the returns-management company into its logistics ecosystem. Since then, it has expanded the Return Bar network and integrated Happy Returns more closely with UPS transportation infrastructure.

The company now describes its network as an end-to-end reverse logistics system capable of supporting the entire post-purchase journey from consumer drop-off through transportation and eventual return to the retailer.

The TikTok Shop integration gives UPS access to return volumes generated by one of the fastest-growing social commerce ecosystems in the United States.

It also demonstrates how parcel companies are increasingly becoming technology and services providers for e-commerce platforms rather than simply transporting packages.

Warehousing, fulfillment, inventory management, returns processing, fraud detection and software are becoming increasingly important parts of the logistics industry's value proposition.

Reverse logistics becomes a competitive battleground

The UPS-TikTok Shop partnership also illustrates how returns are becoming another major competitive battleground within e-commerce logistics.

Amazon has spent years making convenient returns an important part of the Prime customer experience, including box-free and label-free drop-offs at selected locations. FedEx has also been developing its reverse logistics capabilities.

UPS is responding by combining its physical parcel network with Happy Returns' software and consolidation model.

For retailers and marketplaces, the competition between these networks could expand the range of outsourced returns services available while reducing the need to develop proprietary infrastructure.

The economics are attractive for logistics companies as well. Specialized reverse logistics services can generate higher-value relationships with merchants than simply transporting an individual parcel from one location to another.

Instead of participating only in delivery, logistics providers can become involved in the entire post-purchase process, including consumer interaction, product verification, consolidation, fraud prevention, transportation and inventory recovery.

Social commerce needs traditional logistics infrastructure

There is a broader lesson behind the partnership.

TikTok Shop represents one of the newest forms of digital commerce: algorithmic product discovery, influencer marketing, livestream shopping and transactions embedded directly within a social entertainment platform.

But once a product has been purchased, the physical challenges remain remarkably traditional.

Orders still need to be stored, picked, packed, transported and delivered. When customers change their minds, products must travel back through the supply chain.

The partnership between TikTok Shop and UPS demonstrates how the next generation of social commerce increasingly depends on established logistics infrastructure behind the scenes.

For TikTok Shop, easier returns could remove an important source of friction as it competes with larger e-commerce marketplaces. For participating sellers, access to Happy Returns provides infrastructure that would be difficult to replicate independently.

For UPS, the agreement provides another source of e-commerce volume while expanding its role from parcel carrier to reverse logistics platform.

As online returns approach one-fifth of e-commerce sales, that role is becoming increasingly valuable.

The battle for e-commerce logistics is no longer only about delivering the order. Increasingly, it is also about what happens when the customer sends it back.

The post UPS partners with TikTok Shop to bring box-free returns to 10,000 U.S. locations appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

Amazon is expanding Seller Central beyond its own marketplace by introducing new multichannel selling tools that let merchants manage listings, orders, inventory, and profitability across Shopify, Walmart, eBay, and TikTok from a single platform. Announced during Amazon Accelerate 2026, the initiative marks a significant step in the company's strategy to become a central technology and logistics provider for merchants, regardless of where their customers shop.

The expansion brings together AI-powered product listings, unified order management, consolidated sales reporting, and Amazon's existing Multichannel Fulfillment infrastructure. For merchants operating across multiple marketplaces and independent storefronts, the objective is to reduce the complexity of managing separate sales channels while giving Amazon a greater role in their day-to-day operations. Amazon is introducing the new tools gradually to US sellers at no additional cost, with more capabilities expected as the rollout progresses.

Amazon expands Seller Central beyond its own marketplace

For years, Amazon Seller Central has primarily served as the operational interface for merchants selling through Amazon's marketplace. Sellers use the platform to manage product listings, inventory, orders, advertising, and business performance. However, as e-commerce has become increasingly fragmented across marketplaces, independent websites and social commerce platforms, many merchants have been forced to manage several separate systems simultaneously.

Amazon's new multichannel selling tools are designed to address that fragmentation. Merchants can connect external sales accounts, import and link existing product listings, and monitor orders and performance across channels without leaving Seller Central. The initial integrations include Shopify, Walmart, eBay and TikTok, bringing several of the most important e-commerce platforms into Amazon's management environment.

The decision reflects the increasingly multichannel nature of online retail. Merchants can no longer rely exclusively on a single marketplace to reach customers, especially as social commerce, direct-to-consumer websites, and alternative marketplaces continue to develop. However, expanding into additional channels also introduces operational challenges, from maintaining consistent product information to coordinating inventory, processing orders, and evaluating profitability.

By bringing these activities into a single interface, Amazon is attempting to make Seller Central a broader operating platform for e-commerce businesses. Rather than competing exclusively for transactions on Amazon.com, the company is extending its relationship with merchants to include sales generated elsewhere.

AI-powered product listings reduce multichannel complexity

Artificial intelligence is central to Amazon's expanded Seller Central offering. The company is extending its generative AI capabilities to help merchants create, optimize, and synchronize product listings across connected sales channels, reducing the administrative work of maintaining separate catalogs on multiple platforms.

A merchant selling the same product through Amazon, Shopify, Walmart and eBay, for example, may need different product descriptions, formatting and listing attributes for each platform. Amazon's AI-powered tools are designed to adapt product information to each channel's requirements, helping sellers maintain consistency without manually preparing every listing.

The company has already invested heavily in generative AI for marketplace sellers, including tools that create product descriptions and other listing content from basic product information. Expanding these capabilities beyond Amazon's own marketplace increases their potential usefulness, particularly for smaller businesses that lack dedicated catalog management teams.

The new approach could also simplify product launches. Instead of preparing listings separately for each marketplace, sellers could use Seller Central to coordinate product information across several channels. This would reduce duplication and allow merchants to spend more time on commercial activities such as product development, marketing and customer acquisition.

However, the benefits will depend on how effectively Amazon's tools accommodate the different technical requirements, product categories and listing policies of each connected platform. The company is introducing the capabilities progressively, meaning the full range of multichannel automation will not necessarily be available to every seller immediately.

Unified inventory, orders and profitability reporting

Beyond product listings, Amazon is introducing a consolidated approach to multichannel operations. Sellers will be able to view orders originating from connected marketplaces and storefronts, monitor sales performance and manage fulfillment through Seller Central, creating a more comprehensive picture of their e-commerce businesses.

This addresses one of the most persistent challenges facing multichannel retailers: fragmented operational data. A merchant selling through several platforms may have to reconcile separate order reports, inventory records, fulfillment costs, and marketplace fees before obtaining an accurate understanding of business performance.

Amazon's new tools are intended to bring these activities together. Consolidated reporting will help sellers compare sales across channels, identify operational inefficiencies and evaluate product-level profitability. By reducing the need to switch between multiple dashboards, the company aims to simplify the administrative processes that become increasingly complicated as merchants expand.

Inventory visibility is particularly important for businesses using shared stock to fulfill orders from different marketplaces. Without effective synchronization, merchants risk overselling products, maintaining unnecessary safety stock or allocating inventory inefficiently between channels. Connecting multichannel management with Amazon's existing fulfillment infrastructure could help sellers coordinate inventory and order processing more effectively.

For smaller retailers, the attraction lies in reducing the technical and administrative resources required to operate across multiple marketplaces. For larger merchants, consolidated data could support more sophisticated decisions about inventory allocation, channel performance, and fulfillment costs.

Amazon expands Multichannel Fulfillment beyond its marketplace

The expansion of Seller Central is closely connected to Amazon's broader logistics strategy. Alongside the new management tools, the company is expanding Multichannel Fulfillment (MCF), its third-party logistics service that lets merchants use Amazon's warehousing and delivery network for orders placed outside Amazon.com.

MCF lets businesses store products in Amazon's fulfillment network and use that inventory to process orders from independent websites, marketplaces, and other sales channels. This reduces the need to maintain completely separate fulfillment operations for Amazon sales and transactions generated elsewhere.

Amazon is also expanding fast Prime delivery on merchants' own websites. Eligible merchants using MCF can offer Prime delivery benefits without requiring customers to complete their purchases through Amazon's marketplace. The initiative lets Amazon extend the reach of its logistics infrastructure while merchants retain control of their independent storefronts and customer relationships.

To encourage adoption, Amazon has introduced additional pricing incentives for eligible MCF merchants, including fulfillment discounts of up to 25% during the initial promotional period. These incentives are intended to make Amazon's logistics services more attractive to businesses managing orders across several channels.

The combination of multichannel management and fulfillment is strategically important. Amazon is no longer simply offering merchants access to its warehouses and delivery network. It is developing an increasingly integrated environment in which sellers can manage their external sales channels and connect those transactions directly with Amazon's logistics infrastructure.

Amazon strengthens its position in the global fulfillment market

Amazon's growing emphasis on multichannel commerce also reinforces its position as a third-party logistics provider. The company's extensive network of fulfillment centers, sorting facilities and delivery infrastructure gives it an opportunity to support merchants whose businesses extend well beyond its own marketplace.

Traditionally, retailers selling through several channels have relied on a combination of marketplace fulfillment services, independent warehouses, third-party logistics providers and parcel carriers. Amazon's strategy brings more of these activities into a single ecosystem, potentially reducing the number of separate operational relationships merchants need to manage.

For fulfillment providers, the development introduces additional competition. Amazon can combine warehousing, inventory management, order processing, transportation, and last-mile delivery with the software used to manage commercial activities. This integration could appeal to merchants seeking simpler operations, although businesses will still need to evaluate the costs and operational implications of relying heavily on a single provider.

The expansion also creates opportunities for Amazon to better use its existing logistics infrastructure. By processing more orders originating from Shopify, Walmart, eBay, TikTok, and independent storefronts, the company can generate additional fulfillment volumes without requiring those transactions to take place on Amazon.com.

This represents an important evolution in Amazon's logistics business. Its fulfillment network is increasingly being positioned as infrastructure for the wider e-commerce industry rather than a service primarily supporting its own marketplace.

Amazon introduces new tools for international e-commerce expansion

Alongside its multichannel initiatives, Amazon announced additional services intended to help sellers expand internationally. According to the company, only 30% of its sellers list products in multiple countries, even though merchants operating internationally generate about 70% more revenue than those selling in a single country. The new initiatives aim to simplify international expansion by addressing common operational barriers, including regulatory compliance, inventory positioning, and cross-border transportation.

One initiative introduces a streamlined compliance testing process that Amazon says can reduce eligible testing costs by up to 60%. The company is also expanding Global Warehousing and Distribution to eight countries, with potential storage cost savings of up to 45%. These services are designed to allow sellers to position inventory more efficiently and enter additional markets without building separate logistics operations in every destination country.

The international expansion strategy complements Amazon's new multichannel tools. Merchants increasingly need to manage not only several marketplaces but also operations across multiple countries, each with its own regulations, consumer preferences and logistics requirements. By connecting international warehousing, compliance services and centralized sales management, Amazon is seeking to simplify both dimensions of e-commerce expansion.

What the expansion means for Shopify, Walmart, eBay and TikTok sellers

Amazon's decision to integrate competing marketplaces into Seller Central could change how merchants organize their e-commerce operations. Rather than using separate management systems for each platform, sellers can coordinate a larger share of their business through Amazon's infrastructure. This could be particularly attractive to small and medium-sized merchants seeking to expand their sales channels without significantly increasing administrative costs.

However, the announcement does not mean that Shopify, Walmart, eBay, or TikTok are transferring control of their marketplaces to Amazon. Merchants will continue operating their external accounts, and the new tools are designed to connect those accounts to Seller Central. According to Amazon, sellers will retain control over their information, and data imported from external platforms will not be shared with other sellers or used to inform Amazon's own retail decisions.

The expansion also introduces additional competition for independent multichannel software providers. Businesses offering marketplace integrations, inventory synchronization, order management and consolidated reporting may find themselves competing with capabilities available directly within Seller Central. Nevertheless, merchants with complex international operations or specialized requirements may continue to need independent software, particularly where Amazon's integrations do not cover every marketplace or business process.

Amazon moves toward becoming the operating infrastructure of e-commerce

The broader significance of the announcement lies in Amazon's changing relationship with independent merchants. Seller Central is evolving from a management platform primarily tied to Amazon marketplace transactions into a system that can support businesses across multiple sales channels. Combined with Amazon's warehousing, international transportation, fulfillment, and last-mile delivery services, the new tools extend the company's presence across more stages of the e-commerce supply chain.

This approach creates opportunities for Amazon to generate additional revenue from merchants even when their customers purchase products elsewhere. A transaction completed through Shopify, Walmart, eBay, or TikTok could still involve Amazon's inventory management tools, warehousing infrastructure, or fulfillment network. For merchants, the attraction is a more integrated operational environment; for Amazon, it is an opportunity to expand the reach and utilization of its existing infrastructure.

The strategy also reflects a broader transformation in digital commerce. As retailers diversify their sales channels, the distinction between the marketplace where a transaction takes place and the infrastructure supporting that transaction is becoming increasingly important. Amazon's latest initiatives position the company to participate in both, extending its influence beyond its own marketplace while creating a more comprehensive set of services for multichannel and cross-border sellers.

The initial US rollout will provide an important test of the new model. Its longer-term significance will depend on merchant adoption, the effectiveness of Amazon's external marketplace integrations and the company's ability to extend the offering internationally. If successful, Seller Central could become a much broader commerce management platform, connecting marketplaces, independent storefronts and fulfillment operations within a single ecosystem.

The post Amazon turns Seller Central into a multichannel commerce hub for Shopify, Walmart, eBay, and TikTok appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

JD Logistics is accelerating the international expansion of its fulfillment network, positioning overseas warehousing at the center of a global logistics model that combines cross-border transportation, inventory management, fulfillment, last-mile delivery and returns. The Chinese logistics group is expanding through its international brands JoyLogistics and JoyExpress as it seeks to reproduce more of its domestic end-to-end supply chain capabilities across Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific.

As of June 30, 2026, JD Logistics operated more than 200 overseas warehouses across 26 countries and regions, with combined gross floor area exceeding 2 million square meters. The network represents a substantial expansion from the more than 100 bonded, direct-mail and overseas warehouses, covering over 1 million square meters, that the company reported at the end of 2024.

The expansion comes at an important moment for global e-commerce. Regulatory changes, particularly in Europe, are increasing pressure on the traditional model of shipping millions of low-value parcels individually from China to consumers. JD Logistics' warehouse-centered approach offers an alternative: move inventory into destination markets in advance and fulfill orders locally.

JoyLogistics puts overseas warehouses at the center of international expansion

JoyLogistics is JD Logistics' international supply chain and third-party logistics brand. Its services cover cross-border transportation, bonded and overseas warehousing, inventory management, order fulfillment, last-mile delivery, reverse logistics, large-item delivery and installation, and supply chain technology.

Rather than treating international transportation, warehousing and final-mile delivery as separate services, the company is attempting to connect them into an integrated logistics network. Inventory can be transported internationally, positioned in an overseas warehouse and subsequently distributed according to local demand.

The strategy is designed to serve both Chinese companies expanding internationally and local companies looking for integrated supply chain services. During the first half of 2026, JD Logistics said it expanded relationships with Chinese consumer electronics companies in the United States, extended European partnerships with home appliance and drone brands into additional countries, and increased warehouse capacity for customers in the Middle East.

JD Logistics is also exporting its warehouse technology. The company said it has begun providing its internally developed smart warehouse automation technologies to overseas customers, expanding its international business beyond the physical movement and storage of goods.

More than 200 overseas warehouses now cover 26 markets

JD Logistics' international warehouse footprint now extends across major e-commerce and logistics markets including the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Japan and Malaysia.

The scale of the expansion becomes clearer when compared with the company's position only a few years ago. JD Logistics has historically built its competitive advantage around an extensive self-operated logistics infrastructure in China. It is now attempting to reproduce elements of that model internationally rather than operating primarily as a China-based cross-border carrier.

Warehousing forms the foundation of the strategy. From these facilities, JD Logistics can provide localized inventory management and fulfillment while connecting international freight with domestic distribution networks.

This creates a different model from traditional direct-mail cross-border e-commerce. Instead of waiting for a European consumer to order a product before shipping it individually from China, inventory can be imported in larger quantities and stored closer to anticipated demand.

Europe becomes a core market for JD Logistics

Europe is becoming particularly important to the company's international strategy. JD Logistics management described Europe as a core market during its latest results discussions and said the company is continuing to increase the density of its warehouse and delivery network across the continent.

The expansion is closely connected with JD.com's renewed European retail ambitions through Joybuy. JD launched JoyExpress in Europe in early 2026 to provide dedicated last-mile delivery services initially supporting Joybuy.

The network began operating in core areas of the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and France and has subsequently expanded its European coverage. JD has been developing a network of more than 60 warehouses and depots to support the service, using trucks, vans and electric bicycles for final-mile operations.

The objective is ambitious: same-day and next-day delivery in major European cities, supported by locally positioned inventory.

JD Logistics has also introduced services normally associated with its mature Chinese logistics network, including doorstep delivery, reverse logistics and integrated delivery and installation for large products such as home appliances.

From Chinese parcel delivery to European fulfillment

The timing of the expansion is particularly significant for the cross-border e-commerce industry.

Europe is tightening its treatment of low-value e-commerce imports. Since July 2026, the EU has applied a temporary €3 customs duty to qualifying low-value imported goods following the removal of the previous customs duty exemption for consignments below €150.

The consequences are already becoming visible in trade and logistics data. Chinese low-value and e-commerce exports to the EU fell sharply during July and August, placing pressure on a direct-to-consumer logistics model that helped Chinese marketplaces expand rapidly across Europe.

This does not necessarily mean European consumers are abandoning Chinese products. Instead, the structure through which those products reach consumers may be changing.

For Chinese retailers and manufacturers, moving merchandise into European warehouses before it is sold can reduce dependence on millions of individual cross-border shipments. Goods can enter Europe in consolidated commercial loads, be positioned closer to customers and subsequently move through domestic or intra-European fulfillment networks.

JD Logistics appears particularly well positioned for such a transition because warehousing, rather than parcel forwarding alone, sits at the center of its international strategy.

JD builds its own European last-mile network

JoyExpress adds another important component to that model.

While JoyLogistics focuses primarily on integrated supply chain and 3PL services, JoyExpress operates as JD Logistics' self-operated express and last-mile delivery brand. This allows JD to connect international transportation and warehouses with the final journey to the consumer.

In Europe, JoyExpress initially launched alongside Joybuy in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and France. The network is designed to provide same-day and next-day services in major cities and includes dedicated delivery teams and branded vehicles.

JD Logistics has subsequently continued to densify its European network and expand geographical coverage. Company management said during its 2026 results that it had strengthened service coverage across markets including the UK, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

This vertical integration is important. Rather than handing inventory to an external parcel carrier immediately after it leaves the warehouse, JD can potentially control a larger proportion of the customer journey.

The approach resembles the infrastructure strategy JD has developed over many years in China: combine inventory visibility, warehousing, transportation and delivery within a highly integrated technology platform.

JD Airlines adds another layer to the network

JD Logistics is simultaneously expanding control over international transportation.

As of June 30, 2026, JD Airlines operated 13 dedicated freighter aircraft. The company is developing what it calls its "11668" global air network plan, which includes a global aviation hub in Wuhu, a main operating base in Nantong, six regional air hubs and 68 freighter stations.

Europe and North America are among the principal international corridors targeted by the network.

JoyLogistics also combines air freight with ocean shipping, road transportation and rail services, including China-Europe rail connections. The company has additionally secured capacity through partnerships with six major international airlines.

This multimodal approach gives JD more flexibility over how inventory reaches its overseas fulfillment centers. High-priority merchandise can move by air, while larger inventory replenishment flows can use ocean, rail or road transportation depending on cost, demand and delivery requirements.

Middle East expansion adds another strategic region

JD's international ambitions extend well beyond Europe.

In the Middle East, the company has been expanding logistics infrastructure across the UAE and Saudi Arabia. JD Logistics operates multiple warehouses in the UAE, including a facility exceeding 10,000 square meters in Dubai's Jebel Ali Free Zone.

The group is also developing a 70,000-square-meter smart logistics hub in Abu Dhabi through a partnership between JINGDONG Property and Abu Dhabi Airports Free Zone.

Saudi Arabia has become another important market. JoyExpress launched there in 2025 with a self-operated B2C delivery network offering services including same-day and next-day delivery, cash on delivery, scheduled delivery, reverse pickups, customs clearance and cross-border transportation.

JD is therefore developing regional ecosystems rather than isolated warehouses. Warehouses, sorting facilities, transportation infrastructure and delivery stations can collectively support both domestic commerce and international sellers entering those markets.

JD Logistics increasingly competes as a global 3PL

Another important element of the strategy is that JD Logistics is not building this infrastructure exclusively for JD.com's own retail operations.

The logistics division has increasingly positioned itself as an independent 3PL and supply chain provider serving external businesses. In the first half of 2026, JD Logistics generated RMB 124.7 billion in total revenue, an increase of 26.5% year-on-year. Revenue from external customers increased even faster, rising 29.3% to RMB 85.4 billion.

External customers therefore accounted for approximately 68% of total revenue during the period.

That changes the significance of the international expansion. The warehouses supporting Joybuy can simultaneously become infrastructure through which manufacturers, retailers and other e-commerce companies access JD's fulfillment capabilities.

Greater warehouse density can subsequently improve delivery economics, which attracts additional customers and volumes. Those additional volumes can in turn improve utilization of warehouses, transportation and delivery networks.

It is a logistics model that depends heavily on scale.

Local fulfillment could reshape Chinese cross-border e-commerce

JD Logistics' expansion also illustrates a broader transformation taking place within Chinese cross-border commerce.

For much of the past decade, the dominant international e-commerce model focused on connecting China's enormous manufacturing ecosystem directly with consumers overseas. Cheap air transport, simplified customs treatment for low-value goods and increasingly sophisticated digital marketplaces made it possible to sell inexpensive individual products across thousands of kilometers.

That environment is changing.

Governments are tightening customs rules, consumers increasingly expect domestic-level delivery speeds, and marketplaces are seeking greater control over fulfillment and returns. The result is increasing pressure to position inventory closer to the consumer.

Under this model, international e-commerce begins to resemble domestic commerce. Products cross borders in bulk before the customer places an order. Warehouses become more important, while final-mile delivery and reverse logistics become competitive differentiators.

JD Logistics is effectively building infrastructure for that transition.

A new logistics battle is emerging in Europe

For the European logistics industry, JD's expansion introduces another powerful competitor into an already rapidly changing market.

The company is not entering Europe simply as a parcel carrier. Its model combines international freight, warehouses, automation, fulfillment, returns and increasingly its own final-mile network.

That puts JD Logistics into competition across several layers of the supply chain simultaneously, including with traditional freight forwarders, contract logistics providers, fulfillment specialists and parcel delivery companies.

At the same time, the shift could create new partnerships. A network spanning more than 200 overseas warehouses still depends on ports, airports, line-haul operators, customs specialists and local transportation infrastructure. JD's international growth could therefore generate both competitive pressure and new volumes for existing European logistics providers.

JD Logistics prepares for the next phase of global e-commerce

JD Logistics' international expansion suggests that the next stage of Chinese e-commerce globalization may look very different from the previous one.

Instead of relying primarily on individual parcels moving directly from Chinese warehouses to overseas consumers, companies are increasingly building inventory, fulfillment and delivery infrastructure inside their destination markets.

JD already has more than 200 overseas warehouses across 26 countries and regions, over 2 million square meters of overseas warehouse space, a growing European last-mile operation and its own international freighter fleet.

That combination gives the company the infrastructure to participate in virtually every stage of an international e-commerce transaction: moving goods out of China, storing them in destination markets, processing orders, delivering purchases and handling returns.

As customs rules become stricter and consumer expectations for faster delivery continue to rise, that warehouse-centered model could become increasingly important.

The future of Chinese cross-border e-commerce may therefore depend less on how quickly individual parcels can travel from China to Europe — and increasingly on how efficiently Chinese companies can operate fulfillment networks inside Europe itself.

The post JD Logistics accelerates global fulfillment expansion with 200+ overseas warehouses appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

Chinese low-value and e-commerce exports to the European Union fell by 65% year-on-year in August 2026, providing one of the clearest indications yet that Europe's new customs regime is fundamentally changing cross-border e-commerce flows. The decline follows the EU's introduction of a temporary €3 customs duty on low-value imports and comes after China-to-EU shipments had already fallen 54% year-on-year in July.

The figures, reported by The Loadstar and based on data from Trade and Transport Group, show how rapidly the economics of direct-to-consumer shipping from China are changing. For marketplaces and sellers that built their European operations around inexpensive individual parcels shipped directly from China, the removal of the EU's long-standing customs duty exemption for consignments below €150 has introduced a new cost into a business model heavily dependent on extremely low prices and enormous shipment volumes.

Chinese e-commerce shipments to Europe fall sharply

According to Trade and Transport Group managing director Frederic Horst, Chinese low-value and e-commerce exports to the EU dropped 65% year-on-year in August. The contraction accelerated from the already substantial 54% decline recorded in July, suggesting that the disruption is becoming more pronounced rather than representing a temporary adjustment immediately following the introduction of the new rules.

Separate data from Aevean points in the same direction. Its latest figures indicate that China's overall e-commerce exports fell approximately 16% year-on-year in August, the largest decline recorded so far. Europe was the main contributor to that contraction, with Chinese e-commerce exports to the region falling approximately 40%.

The discrepancy between the 40% and 65% figures reflects differences in datasets and measurement methodologies, but both show an exceptionally sharp deterioration in China-Europe e-commerce traffic. Other regions experienced much smaller reductions, while Africa was an important exception, with Chinese e-commerce exports reportedly increasing 71% from a comparatively small base.

The EU's €3 customs duty changes the economics of cheap parcels

The turning point came on 1 July 2026, when the European Union abolished the customs duty exemption previously available for consignments valued at €150 or less. A temporary flat customs duty of €3 now applies to qualifying low-value imported goods and is scheduled to remain in place until July 2028, when the EU expects its broader customs reform and Customs Data Hub to become operational.

Although frequently described as a €3 "parcel tax", the mechanism is more nuanced. The duty is calculated according to the different categories of goods contained within a shipment and their tariff classification. A parcel containing several products belonging to the same relevant category may therefore attract €3, while a shipment containing products falling under several different tariff classifications can generate multiple €3 charges.

For ultra-low-cost e-commerce, even a relatively small absolute charge can substantially change the economics of a transaction. The impact is particularly significant for products costing only a few euros, where customs costs represent a much larger percentage of the total purchase price. This directly challenges the economics that helped Chinese marketplaces build enormous European businesses around inexpensive products shipped individually to consumers.

Europe processed 5.9 billion low-value e-commerce items in 2025

The EU's decision follows years of extraordinary growth in direct e-commerce imports. According to the European Commission, approximately 5.9 billion low-value e-commerce items entered the European Union during 2025, around four times the volume recorded in 2022.

European authorities argued that the previous €150 customs exemption had become increasingly unsuitable for an e-commerce market handling billions of individual items. The Commission has also raised concerns about undervaluation, customs fraud, product safety and the competitive difference between European retailers importing merchandise commercially and overseas sellers sending products directly to individual customers.

The temporary €3 duty therefore represents only one component of a much broader overhaul of European customs rules. From November 2026, additional Product Identifier requirements are also scheduled to become mandatory for relevant import distance sales, giving customs authorities more information to identify products and detect potentially unsafe or non-compliant goods.

Temu, Shein and AliExpress face a changing European market

The change is particularly important for Chinese marketplaces such as Temu, Shein and AliExpress, whose international expansion has been closely associated with direct cross-border fulfillment. Trade and Transport Group previously estimated that China accounts for more than 80% of global cross-border e-commerce revenue, with Temu, Shein and AliExpress responsible for the overwhelming majority of Chinese e-commerce exports.

Direct fulfillment from China offered several advantages. Sellers could maintain centralized inventory, avoid duplicating stock across European markets and offer enormous product catalogues without placing every SKU in regional warehouses. Air freight and highly optimized parcel networks then connected Chinese suppliers directly with European consumers.

Europe's new customs environment weakens some of those advantages. The alternative is increasingly to move products into Europe in bulk, clear them through customs before individual orders are placed and fulfill purchases domestically or regionally. This does not eliminate customs costs, but it changes how those costs, inventory and compliance obligations are managed.

Chinese marketplaces could accelerate European warehousing

The decline in direct parcel traffic does not necessarily mean European demand for Chinese products will disappear. Instead, the regulatory changes could accelerate a transition already underway: moving inventory closer to European consumers.

Chinese marketplaces have increasingly experimented with local seller programs, European warehouses and hybrid fulfillment structures. Under this model, products can be imported in larger commercial shipments, stored within the EU and subsequently delivered as domestic or intra-European orders.

This would represent a fundamental change to the logistics architecture behind Chinese cross-border e-commerce. The competitive battleground would move partially away from ultra-cheap China-to-consumer parcel delivery toward inventory positioning, European fulfillment capacity, last-mile delivery and increasingly sophisticated demand forecasting.

For European fulfillment companies and logistics providers, that transition could create significant opportunities. Marketplace volumes that previously moved directly through airports and postal or parcel networks may increasingly require warehousing, pick-and-pack operations, returns processing and domestic delivery inside Europe.

European retailers are already reporting an impact

There are also early signs that European retailers may be benefiting from the changes. Polish fashion group LPP, owner of the Sinsay brand, has linked stronger online growth to the EU's new treatment of low-value imports. Sinsay's online sales reportedly began growing between 20% and 30% from mid-August, with the company pointing to the new import regime as one factor affecting competition from Chinese platforms.

Polish marketplace Allegro has similarly cited reduced competitive pressure from Chinese sellers among the factors supporting stronger domestic performance. The company recently increased its 2026 outlook, including raising its expected Polish gross merchandise value growth to between 11% and 13%.

The situation remains complex, however. Chinese marketplaces are unlikely to simply withdraw from Europe. Their scale, supplier networks, technology and ability to modify logistics models mean that the current decline in direct shipments could eventually be followed by a different type of expansion based on localized inventory and European fulfillment.

Air cargo could be one of the biggest losers

The consequences extend far beyond marketplaces and retailers. Cross-border e-commerce has become an important source of global air cargo demand, particularly on routes connecting China with Europe and North America.

Trade and Transport Group estimated earlier this year that cross-border e-commerce represented almost 18% of intercontinental air cargo traffic in 2025 despite accounting for only around 6% of global online sales. The disproportionate impact reflects the industry's reliance on air transport to deliver inexpensive Chinese products to international consumers within competitive delivery windows.

A sustained reduction in direct China-to-Europe parcel traffic could therefore affect freighter demand, airport volumes and airfreight capacity allocation. Major European cargo gateways that developed significant e-commerce operations over the past decade could be particularly exposed to changes in the direct parcel model.

The industry is already adapting. Senior executives from logistics companies including DSV and DHL have highlighted the need for greater flexibility as regulation, geopolitical disruptions and changing e-commerce patterns repeatedly alter global cargo flows. Rather than assuming that established gateways and routes will continue handling the same volumes, logistics companies are increasingly building networks capable of shifting capacity between markets.

The UK is proving more resilient

The European picture is also not uniform. Chinese e-commerce exports to the United Kingdom declined considerably less than shipments into the EU, according to Trade and Transport Group data.

Volumes to the UK fell approximately 13% year-on-year in August after declining only 5% in July. While still negative, the figures are substantially less dramatic than the 54% and 65% declines recorded for the European Union during the same months.

The divergence provides another indication that regulation is playing an important role in changing shipment patterns. The UK operates outside the EU customs system and is therefore not directly subject to the bloc's new €3 low-value import duty.

The US shows how quickly e-commerce flows can change

The United States provides another example of the ability of Chinese e-commerce networks to adapt to regulatory disruption. Direct low-value shipments from China to the US have reportedly been expanding again since May, although rolling 12-month volumes remain at only around 65% of the levels recorded before May 2025.

The pattern demonstrates how quickly cross-border e-commerce flows can be redirected or reorganized when governments change customs rules. Marketplaces can alter sourcing, consolidate shipments, move inventory into destination markets or develop alternative fulfillment structures.

Europe may now be entering a similar adjustment period.

What happens next to China-EU e-commerce?

The 65% decline in August should therefore not necessarily be interpreted as a 65% collapse in European consumer demand for Chinese products. It primarily measures a dramatic contraction in a particular cross-border logistics model: low-value products moving directly from China into the EU.

The distinction is critical. If Chinese marketplaces respond by moving more inventory into European warehouses, some of the lost direct airfreight volume could reappear as bulk freight, ocean shipments or alternative logistics flows. At the same time, local fulfillment would place Chinese marketplaces in more direct competition with European retailers on delivery speed, warehousing efficiency and returns management rather than primarily on cross-border parcel economics.

More regulatory changes are also approaching. The €3 duty is a transitional mechanism expected to operate until July 2028, after which the EU intends to apply normal customs tariffs through its reformed customs infrastructure. New product identification requirements and a planned handling fee will further increase the regulatory and operational requirements associated with selling low-value products into Europe.

A structural change in cross-border e-commerce

Two consecutive months of exceptionally steep declines provide the first substantial evidence that Europe's customs reforms are already influencing international e-commerce flows. A 54% year-on-year contraction in July followed by a 65% decline in August suggests that the impact extends beyond an initial period of implementation.

For Chinese marketplaces, the challenge will be preserving the price advantages that drove their European expansion while adapting to an environment where direct low-value imports no longer receive the same customs treatment. For European retailers, the rules could reduce part of the structural cost difference between locally stocked merchandise and individual products shipped directly from outside the EU.

For logistics companies, meanwhile, the transformation may be even more significant. The extraordinary growth of Chinese cross-border e-commerce helped reshape global air cargo during the first half of the decade. If Europe continues moving away from the direct-parcel model, the next phase of that transformation could increasingly take place inside European warehouses, fulfillment centers and domestic delivery networks.

The 65% decline is therefore more than an e-commerce sales indicator. It may be an early sign that one of the defining logistics models of global e-commerce is being rewritten.

The post China-to-EU E-commerce Shipments Plunge 65% as New Customs Rules Reshape Cross-Border Trade appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

A major strategic divide is emerging over the future of agentic commerce. Shopify is opening its merchant ecosystem to Meta’s new AI shopping agent, Muse, while Amazon has taken the opposite approach and blocked the same agent from shopping on Amazon.com. The contrast reveals two very different visions of how AI should interact with online retail. Shopify appears willing to let third-party agents become a new commerce channel, while Amazon is defending tighter control over its marketplace, customer experience and commercial infrastructure.

On one side, Shopify is working with Meta so Muse can help users discover products and complete purchases across Shopify-powered stores using Shop Pay. On the other, Amazon says Meta did not obtain permission for Muse to access its marketplace and has blocked the agent from shopping on behalf of customers. The dispute raises a wider question for the entire e-commerce industry: should AI agents be welcomed as a new layer of distribution and checkout, or treated as external intermediaries that could weaken retailer control over customers, data and monetization?

Shopify embraces Meta’s Muse as an AI commerce channel

Shopify has chosen the more open approach. The company is partnering with Meta to integrate Shop Pay agentic checkout into Muse, allowing the AI assistant to facilitate purchases from merchants operating on Shopify. Shopify had already started preparing for this shift earlier in September by adding Meta as an AI channel inside Shopify Admin. Merchants can manage whether product catalogs are shared with Meta, control direct checkout access and monitor performance from within Shopify’s agentic-commerce settings.

This is significant because Shopify is not merely allowing Muse to browse merchant websites. It is connecting Meta to structured commerce infrastructure, giving the AI cleaner access to product data, availability and checkout functionality. That reduces the need for the agent to interpret conventional websites designed for humans. Instead, Shopify can act as the commerce layer beneath the AI interface, providing the product and transaction infrastructure while Meta controls the consumer-facing experience.

Shop Pay becomes the transaction layer

The partnership also highlights the strategic value of Shop Pay. Muse users will be able to complete purchases through Shopify’s accelerated checkout infrastructure across participating stores. That means the customer may begin and remain inside Meta’s AI environment while the transaction itself still flows through Shopify’s commerce stack. For Shopify, the loss of the traditional storefront as the primary interface does not necessarily mean losing the economic value of the transaction.

This is a critical distinction in the emerging agentic-commerce model. Shopify does not primarily depend on consumers visiting Shopify.com, because its business is built around providing infrastructure to merchants wherever commerce happens. If discovery increasingly moves into AI assistants, Shopify can still capture value through product feeds, checkout, payments and merchant operations. Its strategy therefore appears less focused on protecting the storefront and more focused on becoming indispensable infrastructure underneath AI-driven commerce.

Amazon takes the opposite approach

Amazon has chosen a far more restrictive position. The company blocked Muse from shopping on Amazon.com after Meta reportedly declined Amazon’s request to exclude its marketplace from the agent’s shopping capabilities. Users attempting to shop on Amazon through Muse began seeing a message stating that continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violated Amazon’s Conditions of Use. Amazon says the issue centers on authorization, transparency and how third-party agents interact with its platform.

According to Amazon, Meta did not provide advance notice that Muse would shop on Amazon.com, the agent does not adequately identify itself while browsing, and the company has concerns around customer credentials and account access. Amazon argues that third-party applications making purchases on behalf of users should operate transparently and respect whether a service provider wants to participate. The company’s position is that consumer permission alone is not enough; the merchant platform should also be able to decide whether an external agent can access and transact through its systems.

Meta disputes the credential-risk concern

Meta has said Muse does not directly see users’ passwords or payment credentials. According to the company, credentials are stored securely and can be used by the AI without being exposed to the model itself. Muse operates inside a virtual machine and can use a browser to interact with services when a public API is not available. Meta also says the agent seeks confirmation before taking sensitive actions such as sending messages or completing purchases.

This difference in interpretation is central to the dispute. Meta views the consumer as authorizing the agent to act on their behalf, while Amazon argues that the platform being accessed also needs to consent. That tension could become one of the most important legal and commercial questions in agentic commerce. It effectively asks whether an AI agent should be treated like a user-controlled browser, an automated bot, a commercial intermediary, or something entirely new.

Amazon wants AI agents to identify themselves

Amazon’s position is also closely linked to transparency and identity. The company argues that an external AI agent entering customer accounts, browsing product pages and initiating transactions should clearly identify itself to the retailer. This reflects a broader issue emerging across e-commerce and payments: merchants increasingly want to know which agent is acting, who authorized it, what permissions it has, whether it is operating within those limits and who is responsible if something goes wrong.

These are no longer theoretical questions. Payment networks including Mastercard and Visa are already developing identification and authorization layers specifically for AI agents. Amazon is effectively applying the same logic at the marketplace level. If agentic commerce is to scale, retailers may demand a standardized way to recognize trusted agents, verify user intent and establish accountability before allowing automated systems to interact deeply with their commerce infrastructure.

Shopify sees AI agents as another distribution channel

Shopify’s strategy appears fundamentally different. Rather than requiring consumers to begin every transaction within a Shopify-controlled environment, the company is treating AI assistants as another sales and distribution channel. This resembles the way Shopify already connects merchants with Google, social networks, marketplaces, mobile commerce and point-of-sale systems. Agentic platforms now become another route through which merchants can reach potential customers.

That approach fits Shopify’s architecture particularly well. Its value lies in powering merchants across multiple channels rather than owning a single consumer destination. If an AI platform becomes the place where shoppers discover and compare products, Shopify can still remain the system handling structured catalog data, merchant operations, payments and checkout. In that model, losing control of the interface does not necessarily mean losing control of the transaction infrastructure.

Amazon has more to lose from external agents

Amazon’s incentives are very different because its marketplace is not simply a transaction engine. The company controls product discovery, search, advertising, reviews, recommendations, checkout, fulfillment and customer service inside one highly integrated environment. External AI agents could bypass several of those layers by searching, comparing and selecting products on behalf of users without presenting Amazon’s traditional marketplace interface.

This matters because Amazon has built a huge advertising business around product discovery. Sponsored placements, search positioning and marketplace visibility are all tied to shoppers navigating Amazon directly. If an AI agent evaluates products based mainly on price, reviews, availability and delivery terms, some of the commercial value of those interfaces could be reduced. Amazon therefore has more strategic incentive than Shopify to preserve control over how shoppers discover and select products.

The fight is about who controls product discovery

This is why the Shopify-Amazon split matters beyond Muse itself. Agentic commerce is changing where product discovery happens. Today, shoppers typically search, browse, compare products, open listings, add items to a cart and complete checkout. An AI agent could compress that process into a single instruction such as: “Find me the best stroller under €500, with strong reviews and delivery before Friday.”

The agent could then search across multiple merchants, evaluate the available options and complete the transaction according to the user’s preferences. If that behavior becomes common, the center of gravity in e-commerce may move away from individual marketplace interfaces and toward AI platforms. The strategic question then becomes less about who owns the product listing and more about who owns the interface between shopper and merchant.

Shopify is betting on infrastructure, Amazon on ecosystem control

The two companies are effectively making different bets on the next phase of e-commerce. Shopify is betting that infrastructure remains valuable even if another company controls the consumer interface. Its role can still include catalog data, merchant operations, payments, checkout and order management. Amazon appears more determined to preserve control over both the infrastructure and the customer-facing environment, including search, advertising, recommendations and transaction flow.

Neither position is necessarily permanent. Amazon could eventually negotiate access agreements with selected AI platforms, while Shopify could impose stricter controls if agentic commerce creates problems for merchants. But the current split exposes two competing models. One is open and infrastructure-led, while the other is more closed and ecosystem-driven. Those models could shape how retailers interact with AI agents over the next several years.

Amazon is already challenging other AI shopping agents

Muse is not the first AI shopping agent Amazon has opposed. The company has also attempted to restrict access by agents from Perplexity, Google and OpenAI. Its dispute with Perplexity has already moved into the courts, where Amazon initially secured a preliminary injunction before a US appeals court later rejected part of its argument under federal anti-hacking law. Contractual claims based on terms of service remain a separate issue.

That legal background helps explain the language Amazon is now using with Muse. The company is framing the dispute around authorization and contractual access rather than purely around cybersecurity. This suggests Amazon is trying to establish a broader principle: AI agents should not assume unrestricted access to its commercial environment simply because an individual user authorizes them to act.

Amazon itself uses agentic shopping technology

Amazon is not opposed to AI shopping agents in principle. The company has developed its own agentic-commerce capabilities, including Buy for Me, which can help customers purchase products from external merchant sites, and Alexa for Shopping, which can research products and provide recommendations. Amazon argues that the difference lies in transparency and merchant consent.

According to Amazon, Buy for Me identifies itself when interacting with external merchants and allows businesses to opt out. That distinction reinforces the company’s central argument: the problem is not autonomous shopping itself, but how external agents enter and use another company’s commerce environment. In other words, Amazon supports agentic commerce when the rules of access are negotiated and visible to all participants.

Muse is gaining traction quickly

The dispute matters partly because Muse is already attracting significant attention. Meta launched the personal AI agent on September 8, positioning it as a system capable of handling multi-step tasks including shopping, appointment booking, email management and other everyday activities. Shortly after launch, Muse climbed rapidly through Apple’s US App Store rankings, indicating strong early consumer interest.

Growing adoption increases the urgency for retailers and commerce platforms to decide how they want to interact with these agents. For Shopify merchants, Meta represents a potential new source of product discovery and checkout. For Amazon, Muse currently represents an unauthorized intermediary operating inside a commercial environment Amazon has spent decades building and monetizing.

Agentic commerce could disrupt e-commerce advertising

Advertising may become one of the areas most affected by this shift. Traditional marketplaces monetize shopper attention by selling visibility within search results and product pages. Retailers pay to move products higher in rankings or increase exposure across marketplace interfaces. AI agents may operate differently, especially if they prioritize objective criteria such as price, delivery speed, return policies and product specifications.

If consumers increasingly delegate purchasing decisions to agents, traditional sponsored placement could become less influential. An AI may not respond to the same visual hierarchy and advertising formats as a human shopper. That creates a potential challenge not only for Amazon but also for Google and other platforms whose commercial models depend heavily on monetizing search and product discovery.

Merchants face their own strategic decision

Retailers will also need to decide how open they want to be to AI agents. Participation could bring significant benefits by creating new channels for product discovery, customer acquisition, conversion and cross-border sales. At the same time, merchants may lose some control over brand presentation, customer relationships, upselling and the overall shopping journey.

A consumer who shops entirely through Muse may never see the merchant’s homepage, marketing funnel or carefully designed product pages. Competition could therefore shift toward machine-readable factors such as price, stock availability, delivery speed, product attributes and returns. That would change how retailers think about optimization and could make structured product data increasingly important.

Structured commerce data becomes more valuable

Shopify’s role demonstrates this shift clearly. When Shopify shares catalog data directly with Meta, Muse does not need to scrape and interpret every merchant website independently. Instead, the agent can access standardized commerce information such as product descriptions, variants, prices, stock levels and checkout capabilities.

That gives Shopify an important strategic position in the agentic ecosystem. The company already sits between merchants and numerous external sales channels, and AI assistants can become another distribution layer connected to that infrastructure. As more shopping moves through agents, the platforms controlling high-quality structured commerce data may become increasingly valuable.

The future could split into open and closed commerce ecosystems

The Shopify-Amazon divide may point toward a broader fragmentation of agentic commerce. Some platforms may operate as open commerce infrastructure, allowing multiple AI agents to access catalogs and transactions through standardized integrations. Others may remain more closed, allowing only approved agents or proprietary AI experiences to participate.

The result could resemble earlier battles over mobile operating systems, app stores and platform APIs. Retailers and marketplaces may have to choose between reach and control, while AI companies may need to negotiate access to the largest commerce ecosystems rather than assuming they can browse and transact freely.

A defining battle over the next e-commerce interface

The dispute between Shopify, Amazon and Meta ultimately comes down to control. Meta wants Muse to become an interface through which consumers can complete everyday tasks, including shopping. Shopify sees an opportunity to make its merchant ecosystem accessible through that interface. Amazon sees an external agent entering a shopping environment it has spent decades building, optimizing and monetizing.

All three positions are commercially rational, but they point toward very different futures for e-commerce. Shopify’s model says the consumer can shop anywhere while Shopify provides the infrastructure underneath. Amazon’s model says the shopping environment itself remains strategically important and should not be accessed by third-party agents without permission. As AI shopping agents become more capable, the next major battle in e-commerce may not be over assortment or delivery speed, but over which AI is allowed to stand between the shopper and the store.

The post Shopify Opens Its Stores to Meta’s Muse While Amazon Blocks the AI Shopping Agent appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

Salesupply has expanded its international logistics network by opening a new fulfillment center and returns hub in Switzerland. Located in Embrach, in the canton of Zurich, the facility lets international e-commerce brands store inventory, fulfill domestic Swiss orders, and process returns without repeatedly moving goods across the Swiss-EU border.

The location is situated close to Zurich Airport and the surrounding customs infrastructure, positioning the facility to support both domestic distribution and international inventory flows. For Salesupply, Switzerland becomes the latest node in a fulfillment network that already covers multiple markets across Europe, North America, and other international regions.

The expansion is particularly relevant for cross-border merchants because Switzerland is not part of the European Union or the EU customs union. Consequently, an e-commerce shipment entering Switzerland from an EU member state is treated as an import and must comply with Swiss customs and VAT requirements.

Local fulfillment could simplify selling into Switzerland

For European online retailers, Switzerland represents an attractive but operationally distinct e-commerce market. Unlike shipments moving between EU member states, goods entering Switzerland are subject to customs procedures and potentially import VAT.

Switzerland currently applies a standard VAT rate of 8.1%, while certain categories of goods qualify for the reduced 2.6% rate. Import VAT can therefore become an important part of the customer experience when retailers sell into the country from warehouses located elsewhere in Europe.

Depending on the shipping and customs arrangement the merchant uses, customers may face additional charges for taxation, customs processing, or carrier handling when their parcel enters Switzerland. These additional steps can make the buying experience less predictable compared with a purely domestic transaction.

By placing inventory in Switzerland before fulfilling individual customer orders, merchants can ship subsequent orders domestically. Salesupply argues this can provide customers with clearer pricing while reducing the customs administration associated with individual cross-border parcels.

Salesupply targets the cost of cross-border returns

Returns are another area where the Swiss border can add complexity.

When a product originally shipped into Switzerland is subsequently returned to a warehouse in the European Union, the parcel crosses a customs border again. Depending on how the process is structured and documented, merchants can face customs-clearance requirements and additional administrative costs.

For categories with relatively high return rates, these costs can matter more. Fashion, footwear and consumer electronics retailers, for example, may need to manage substantial volumes of merchandise moving back through their supply chains.

Salesupply's new Swiss returns hub is intended to keep returned merchandise in the country. Products can be received and processed locally before the retailer decides whether they should be restocked, consolidated or otherwise handled.

The model effectively separates consumer returns from international inventory movement. Rather than sending every individual return back across the border, merchants can manage the return locally and potentially consolidate subsequent international movements.

Embrach facility supports domestic Swiss fulfillment

The new center in Embrach gives Salesupply customers the option to hold stock directly in Switzerland and fulfill orders through domestic delivery networks. For international brands, this approach can help create a customer experience that more closely resembles purchasing from a Swiss-based retailer. Inventory is already in the country, customer orders don't need to complete an individual import process, and returns can be directed to a domestic location.

Local inventory can also become more valuable as consumers expect shorter, more predictable delivery windows. Cross-border shipping can add variables, including customs processing, documentation requirements, and potential border delays. A Swiss fulfillment operation removes the international customs process from the final delivery leg once inventory has entered the country.

Swiss fulfillment can support marketplace sellers

The new operation may also be relevant to brands selling through Swiss marketplaces, particularly Digitec Galaxus.

Switzerland's largest e-commerce platforms place significant emphasis on product availability, delivery performance, and reliable after-sales processes. Sellers operating internationally therefore need logistics infrastructure that meets Swiss consumer expectations while complying with individual marketplace requirements.

Salesupply specifically highlighted Galaxus when announcing the new facility, noting that delivery speed, availability and returns infrastructure can influence marketplace operations. The company says that sellers on the platform require access to a Swiss returns address.

For brands entering Switzerland through marketplace channels, combining local inventory with a domestic returns operation can therefore provide both logistical and commercial advantages.

Instead of treating Switzerland simply as another European destination served from an EU warehouse, merchants can operate with a dedicated local logistics setup.

Switzerland remains a distinct cross-border e-commerce market

Switzerland represents an unusual opportunity for European e-commerce businesses. Geographically, it sits at the center of Western Europe and borders major EU economies including Germany, France, Italy and Austria. From a customs perspective, however, it remains a separate market.

This distinction means that fulfillment strategies commonly used across the European Union do not necessarily produce the same results in Switzerland. A retailer can, for example, serve customers in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and many other EU markets from a single European warehouse without customs declarations for every intra-EU consumer shipment. Sending the same product into Switzerland creates a formal import. That difference makes inventory positioning especially important.

Moving goods into Switzerland in larger inventory shipments and then fulfilling consumer orders domestically can shift customs processing from the individual customer transaction to the retailer's supply-chain operation. For companies generating sufficient Swiss order volumes, local fulfillment can therefore become increasingly attractive.

One integration across Salesupply's fulfillment network

Salesupply says the Swiss facility will operate using the same infrastructure as its other international fulfillment locations. Customers using multiple Salesupply warehouses can manage operations through a single IT integration and a real-time inventory dashboard. The company also monitors the network through its Fulfillment Control Tower, which oversees operations and identifies potential disruptions across fulfillment locations.

The objective is to allow existing Salesupply customers to add Switzerland to their fulfillment footprint without establishing an entirely separate logistics system.

For brands entering the country for the first time, the company says the service combines local inventory management, domestic order fulfillment, returns processing and support with Swiss VAT and customs operations.

Salesupply continues expanding its international fulfillment footprint

The launch in Switzerland is part of Salesupply's wider strategy to help online retailers position inventory closer to consumers in individual markets. The Dutch e-commerce service provider offers international fulfillment, customer service and returns solutions. According to the company, more than 500 online brands and retailers use its services, including Carhartt, Segway Ninebot and Panasonic.

Salesupply also provides customer service in more than 25 languages across three time zones and operates fulfillment infrastructure designed to help merchants expand internationally while delivering locally. The company is headquartered in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and operates across markets including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Poland, Spain, Italy, and the Nordic region.

Adding Switzerland gives Salesupply another strategically important European fulfillment location while addressing a key challenge of Swiss cross-border e-commerce: the customs border separating the country from the European Union. For retailers with meaningful sales volumes in Switzerland, local fulfillment could reduce customs interactions affecting individual customer orders while creating a more predictable domestic delivery and returns experience.

The post Salesupply opens fulfillment center and returns hub in Switzerland appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

Is it cheaper—and ultimately more profitable—to employ someone working from home or sitting in an office? The answer is more complicated than simply comparing salaries or office rent. Profitability depends on at least four variables: how much an employee produces, how much it costs to provide their workplace, how likely they are to leave, and how effectively the company can recruit the people it needs.

A growing body of research from Stanford University, Harvard, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the OECD, Nature, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provides enough data to start putting numbers behind the debate.

And the numbers vary enormously. In controlled studies, working from home has produced results ranging from an 18% productivity decline to a 13% productivity increase. A newer study found a 10% increase. Hybrid work, meanwhile, has produced essentially no measurable productivity penalty while reducing employee departures by 33%.

Perhaps the most commercially interesting finding arrived in 2026: researchers found that bringing fully remote employees into an office only one day per month generated enough productivity and retention improvements to produce an estimated benefit-cost ratio of approximately 5:1.

So which model actually makes more money?

Remote vs office work by the numbers

The research provides some strikingly different results depending on the type of work being performed.

These numbers immediately reveal something important. No universal productivity premium is associated with either the home or the office. The economic advantage depends heavily on the type of employee, the type of task, and how remote work is organized.

The famous Stanford experiment: home workers produced 13% more

One of the best-known experiments was conducted by Stanford researchers at Chinese travel company Ctrip. The company employed approximately 16,000 people and randomly assigned eligible call-center workers either to work from home or remain in the office for nine months. The home workers produced 13% more output.

That gain had two components. Around 9 percentage points came from employees working more minutes during their shifts because they took fewer breaks and sick days.

Another 4 percentage points came from employees processing more calls per minute, which researchers linked partly to the quieter home environment.

Employee turnover also fell by approximately 50%. Then something even more interesting happened. After the experiment, Ctrip allowed employees to choose whether they wanted to work from home or return to the office.

More than half changed their original working arrangement. Once employees had sorted themselves into the environment they preferred, the measured productivity advantage of homeworking increased from 13% to approximately 22%.

That suggests an important profitability factor companies sometimes overlook: The most productive workplace may not be the same for every employee.

Another experiment found remote productivity 10% higher

A newer NBER study published in 2025 examined a large call center in Turkey after it shifted to fully remote work. Researchers found that workforce productivity increased by 10%.

Remote employees completed calls faster, with the researchers again pointing to the quieter home environment as one explanation. But there was another economic advantage.

Going remote allowed the company to recruit from smaller towns, rural locations, and demographic groups with lower labor-force participation. As a result, the share of university graduates employed by the company increased by 14% without increasing wages.

From a profitability perspective, this is potentially as significant as the productivity result. Remote work did not merely change where existing employees performed their jobs. It changed the company's available labor market.

But another randomized experiment found home workers 18% less productive

The case for remote work becomes much less straightforward when looking at another randomized controlled trial. Researchers studying data-entry employees in Chennai, India randomly assigned workers to either home or office environments.

Employees working from home were 18% less productive. Approximately two-thirds of the productivity difference appeared immediately. The remainder developed over time because office workers learned faster.

Even more surprisingly, employees who actually preferred working from home experienced particularly large productivity losses when doing so. Workers who preferred WFH were about 27% less productive at home than in the office, compared with a 13% reduction among workers who preferred office work. This provides an important counterweight to the Ctrip findings.

Homeworking can produce a double-digit productivity gain in one workplace and a double-digit loss in another.

Another Fortune 500 study found an 8–12% remote productivity gap

Research published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics examined call-center operations at a Fortune 500 company. Before COVID-19, employees working remotely handled approximately 12% fewer calls per hour than employees based on site.

When office closures forced everyone to work remotely, part of the difference disappeared. However, an approximately 8% productivity difference remained between employees who had originally selected remote jobs and those originally hired into office positions.

The researchers concluded that savings from lower turnover and office rent could offset the direct productivity disadvantage of remote work—but not necessarily the cost of attracting less productive workers into remote positions.

This introduces yet another variable into the profitability equation:

Who applies for the job can matter almost as much as where the job is performed.

Hybrid working may solve much of the productivity problem

The clearest evidence in favor of hybrid work comes from another randomized controlled trial involving Trip.com. Researchers followed 1,612 engineers, marketing employees and finance professionals.

One group continued working in the office five days a week. The other worked from home two days a week and went to the office three. The result? There was no significant difference in performance ratings. Promotions did not decrease measurably.

Software engineers did not produce less code. Yet employee attrition dropped from 7.2% to 4.8%. That is a reduction of 2.4 percentage points, or approximately 33% relative to the office-only group. For profitability, that difference matters enormously.

What does a 33% reduction in turnover actually mean in money?

Trip.com estimated that replacing an employee cost around $20,000 in recruitment and training.

Consider a hypothetical company with 1,000 employees experiencing the same turnover rates found in the experiment.

Under the office model: 

• 7.2% × 1,000 = 72 departures

Under the hybrid model:

• 4.8% × 1,000 = 48 departures

Difference: 24 fewer employees leaving over six months

At $20,000 per replacement: 24 × $20,000 = $480,000

So the hybrid organization would save approximately:

• $480,000 per 1,000 employees over six months purely through lower recruitment and training costs.

A simple annualized extrapolation would be:

$960,000 per 1,000 employees per year

However, that annual figure should be treated as an illustrative extrapolation rather than a measured result because the experiment itself measured the relevant attrition difference over six months.

More importantly, this calculation includes zero office-space savings. It includes zero energy savings. It includes zero commuting effects.

And it assumes zero productivity advantage for hybrid employees. The economic gain comes almost entirely from retaining more workers.

Employees themselves value homeworking at approximately 5% of salary

Another large international NBER study covering workers in 27 countries provides a different way to quantify the value of remote work.

Researchers asked employees to place a monetary value on working from home.

On average, workers valued the ability to work from home two or three days per week at approximately 5% of their salary.

Consider an employee earning €50,000.

Five percent of their salary is:

• €2,500 per year

For someone earning €70,000:

• €3,500 per year

At €100,000:

• €5,000 per year

This does not mean employers can automatically cut salaries by 5%.

But economically, it means flexibility functions partly like a non-cash employment benefit.

For a company competing for workers, the ability to offer hybrid work can therefore carry considerable recruitment value without appearing on the salary line of the P&L.

Other Harvard-linked research also found that 21% of workers would accept a pay reduction greater than 10% in exchange for retaining the ability to work remotely, although the median teleworkable employee was not willing to sacrifice compensation.

Homeworking saves an average of 72 minutes per day

Time provides another measurable economic benefit.

Researchers examining workers in 27 countries calculated that employees save an average of 72 minutes every day they work from home by eliminating their commute.

But employees do not use all 72 minutes for leisure.

Approximately 40% of the saved commuting time is reallocated to work.

That equals:

72 × 40% = 28.8 minutes

of additional work-related time for every homeworking day.

For an employee working remotely two days per week:

28.8 × 2 = 57.6 additional minutes per week

Across 50 working weeks:

57.6 × 50 = 2,880 minutes

or approximately:

48 additional hours per year

That is roughly six eight-hour working days of time redirected towards work.

Again, this should not automatically be interpreted as six additional days of productive output. But it illustrates why commuting time is economically relevant when comparing home and office work.

The U.S. government data also points towards lower operating costs

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics examined the relationship between remote working and productivity across 61 private-sector industries.

Its findings are particularly useful because they consider not just labour productivity but the broader combination of inputs required to generate output.

After accounting for pre-pandemic productivity trends, a one-percentage-point increase in remote workers was associated with approximately 0.05 percentage points higher total-factor-productivity growth.

The cost effects were even more interesting.

Every one-percentage-point increase in remote working was associated with approximately:

–0.10 percentage points in unit labour-cost growth

–0.27 percentage points in unit capital-cost growth

–0.18 percentage points in unit energy-cost growth

–0.16 percentage points in unit materials-cost growth

–0.20 percentage points in unit services-cost growth

and approximately:

–0.38 percentage points in unit office-building-cost growth.

These are industry-level statistical associations rather than proof that each percentage point of remote working directly causes an equivalent cost reduction.

Nevertheless, the pattern is notable.

Industries where remote working expanded more tended to experience slower growth in multiple categories of business cost.

Offices can cost thousands per employee per year

Real-world property data helps put the office component into perspective.

The UK Crown Prosecution Service reported £33.1 million in annual estate running costs in its 2025–26 property plan.

The organization had approximately 7,240 full-time-equivalent employees and 3,900 workstations.

That equates to roughly:

£4,572 in annual property running costs per employee

while providing only:

0.54 physical workstations per employee.

This is not directly transferable to a private company, but it demonstrates how hybrid working can fundamentally change the economics of office capacity.

Instead of requiring:

1 employee = 1 desk

the CPS operates at approximately:

1 employee = 0.54 desks

In another UK government example, an independent review calculated that the IOPC's Canary Wharf office cost approximately £7,428 per FTE per year.

At actual average attendance, however, the effective cost per occupied desk rose above £56,000 per year because so much space was unused.

Underutilized office space can therefore become extraordinarily expensive.

Madrid prime office rent has reached €45 per square metre per month

The office-cost argument is particularly relevant in expensive European cities.

JLL reported that prime Madrid office rents reached approximately:

€45/m²/month

by the second quarter of 2026.

For comparison, the UK central government office estate reported average space utilization of approximately:

7.2 m² per FTE

in 2024–25.

Using those figures purely as an illustrative scenario:

7.2 m² × €45 × 12 months = €3,888

That represents approximately €3,888 of prime annual rent per employee, before service charges, electricity, cleaning, furniture, security, insurance, IT infrastructure and other workplace costs.

For 1,000 workers:

€3.89 million per year

in illustrative rent alone.

Again, this is not a market-wide employer average: it combines a prime Madrid rental benchmark with a public-sector office-space benchmark simply to demonstrate the scale of the property variable.

Fully remote work may still carry an average productivity penalty

Despite the positive examples, Stanford researchers reviewing the wider evidence estimate that fully remote work is approximately 10% less productive than fully in-person work on average.

The researchers identify communication difficulties, weaker mentoring, company culture and motivation among the likely reasons.

But their economic conclusion is particularly important.

They argue that the cost savings from fully remote work—especially office-space savings and access to lower-cost global talent—can be larger than the productivity loss.

That distinction is central to the profitability question.

Imagine that an office worker produces €100 of economic output at a cost of €80.

Profit contribution:

€20

Suppose moving the job remotely reduces output by 10%:

€90 output

But employment and infrastructure costs fall from €80 to €65.

Profit contribution becomes:

€25

The employee is now less productive but more profitable.

This is only an illustrative example, but it demonstrates why productivity statistics alone cannot answer the remote-work profitability question.

Office work has measurable economic advantages too

Physical offices are not simply an expense.

They can generate productive interactions.

A major Microsoft study examining communication patterns among 61,182 employees found that company-wide remote work made collaboration networks more static and siloed.

Employees developed fewer connections between different parts of the organization and shifted from synchronous communication towards more asynchronous communication.

Another recent study of software engineers found that physical proximity to teammates increased coding feedback by 18.3% and improved code quality.

The gains were particularly concentrated among younger and less-experienced employees.

But proximity also imposed a cost: experienced engineers produced less code when sitting near colleagues because some of their time was effectively being transferred into helping others.

From an organizational perspective, that may still be profitable.

The senior engineer produces less today, but the junior engineer becomes better tomorrow.

This type of knowledge transfer is extremely difficult to capture in conventional productivity statistics.

What if remote workers only came to the office once a month?

Perhaps the most interesting recent experiment was published by the NBER in June 2026.

Researchers randomly divided 248 fully remote customer-service employees into two groups.

One remained fully remote.

The second group came into the office together just:

one day per month.

The results were surprisingly large.

Employees attending the monthly office day eventually handled:

7.8% more calls per hour.

They also spent:

36 additional minutes communicating with colleagues

during the week after attending the office.

Workers randomly seated next to each other were:

11 percentage points more likely to communicate afterwards.

And employee attrition fell by approximately:

one-third.

Researchers calculated that the combined productivity and retention gains generated an estimated:

5:1 benefit-cost ratio.

That means approximately $5 of economic benefit for every $1 spent implementing the coordinated monthly office day in that particular setting.

This result changes the remote-versus-office question considerably.

The optimum arrangement may not require choosing between zero office days and five office days.

In some organizations, the economic value of an office may be concentrated into a surprisingly small number of strategically coordinated interactions.

The OECD reaches a similar conclusion: two to three remote days

The OECD surveyed managers and workers across 25 countries and found that both groups generally viewed teleworking positively.

But neither extreme emerged as the preferred model.

The estimated ideal was approximately:

2–3 remote days per week.

The OECD describes the relationship as an inverted U.

At low levels of remote work, employees gain from reduced commuting, fewer distractions and greater autonomy.

As remote intensity becomes very high, however, communication and knowledge flows begin deteriorating.

The highest efficiency may therefore occur somewhere between the two extremes.

Interestingly, OECD managers estimated that approximately 42% of the workforce should have teleworking arrangements, while only around 5% should work completely from home.

A hypothetical 1,000-worker profitability calculation

Consider a knowledge-based company employing 1,000 people.

Assume that its workforce behaves similarly to the employees in the Trip.com hybrid experiment.

Moving from five office days to two home days produces:

Measured productivity effect: approximately 0%

Turnover reduction: approximately 33%

Six-month departures avoided: approximately 24

Replacement cost per employee: $20,000

Result:

$480,000 saved every six months

or an annualized theoretical figure of:

$960,000

before property savings.

Now assume each employee values hybrid working at approximately 5% of salary, consistent with the international NBER research.

At an average €60,000 salary:

€60,000 × 5% = €3,000

of perceived annual flexibility value per worker.

Across 1,000 workers:

€3 million of employee-perceived benefit

without necessarily adding €3 million to payroll.

Finally, two remote days each week generate approximately:

48 hours of commuting time annually redirected towards work per employee

using the international commuting study's averages.

Across 1,000 employees:

approximately 48,000 hours per year.

Not every one of those hours converts directly into saleable output, so it would be incorrect to add them mechanically to profit.

But together, the numbers show why hybrid work can have a powerful economic proposition even when measured employee productivity remains exactly the same.

So what is actually more profitable: home or office?

The evidence increasingly suggests that asking whether “home” or “office” is more profitable is the wrong binary question.

Fully remote work can generate impressive savings and, in some jobs, productivity increases of 10–22%.

But other controlled experiments have found homeworking productivity losses reaching 18%.

Full-time office work can improve learning, mentoring and cross-team knowledge transfer, yet companies pay substantially more property and commuting-related costs to maintain it.

Hybrid work currently produces the most consistent economic evidence.

One of the strongest randomized studies found:

0% meaningful productivity loss

combined with:

33% lower employee attrition.

International research suggests employees value that flexibility at approximately:

5% of salary.

OECD research suggests the optimum is around:

2–3 remote days per week.

And the newest randomized experiment suggests that even predominantly remote organizations may capture substantial office benefits through coordinated physical interaction as infrequent as:

one day per month

with researchers calculating a:

~5:1 benefit-cost ratio.

The emerging economic argument is therefore not that the office has become unnecessary.

It is that companies may need considerably less office than they once assumed.

For many knowledge businesses, the most profitable model may be one in which employees perform concentration-heavy individual work remotely while offices are deliberately used for the activities where physical proximity produces the greatest return: collaboration, training, mentoring, innovation and relationship building.

In other words, the financially relevant question may no longer be:

“Are home workers or office workers more productive?”

It may be:

“How many office days does a company actually need to pay for in order to capture the economic benefits of being together?”

Current experimental evidence increasingly suggests that the answer may be considerably fewer than five.

The post Homeworking vs Office Work: Which Is More Profitable for Employers? appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

By Ron Healy - A strange version of pass-the-parcel takes place in international eCommerce.

• A customer buys something from a merchant. 
• The merchant passes it to a fulfilment provider. 
• The fulfilment provider passes it to a first-mile carrier.
• The first-mile carrier passes it to a consolidator, airline, customs broker, postal operator or another carrier. 
• Eventually - as if by magic - the final carrier passes it to the customer.

The physical parcel moves from player to player. So does the information associated with it - although not always as successfully. Each organisation has its own reference number, its own system, its own data structures and its own particular view of what’s inside the box. Some manage detailed product data. Others manage a description, a value and a shipping label. Somewhere along the way, “Men’s 100% cotton knitted pullover, manufactured in Turkey” becomes “clothing” and eventually “gift”, if enough information is lost and somebody becomes sufficiently (un)creative.

When the music stops partway through (i.e. at the border), somebody is left holding the parcel without knowing what’s in it.

From inherited decisions to cross-border orchestration

The problem for logistics providers is that many important decisions have been made before they ever see the box.

• The merchant decided what information to collect about the product. 
• The merchant or their web store / platform decided how to classify the product.
• The checkout decided what to charge the customer. 
• Somebody chose whether duties and taxes are included or not. 
• A delivery promise was made. 
• The transaction was paid for and the customer quite reasonably believes the difficult part is over.

Then the parcel enters the logistics network and those decisions become physical.

If the product description is inadequate, somebody must improve it. If the classification is wrong, the consignment may be delayed or reassessed. If the customer wasn’t told that import charges will be collected at the door, the carrier becomes the bearer of bad news. If information is missing, somebody must find it, while the parcel - and the customer - wait.

In other words, consignment data is becoming part of the consignment. 

This raises a more interesting question than how to become better at repairing incomplete information downstream:

Why should the organisations with the greatest practical understanding of cross-border execution wait until after the transaction and then deal with the fallout?

Instead, why not contribute upstream? Moving upstream does not require a shipper or 3PL to become an eCommerce platform. It means connecting to the transaction early enough to improve the data that will determine what eventually happens to the parcel.

Customs authorities are also placing greater expectations on everyone. While customs may not expect the carrier to originate every piece of data for parcels crossing the border, they do expect accurate, timely and complete information – whoever creates it. This is evidenced by a wider global movement towards advance electronic data, product-level scrutiny and greater accountability for increasingly high volumes of low-value consignments. 

The EU’s new €3 ‘flat rate (but not quite)’ duty and the suspension of duty-free de minimis by the United States are different responses to different priorities but both increase the significance of the information attached and/or related to individual parcels. The World Customs Organization’s cross-border eCommerce framework reflects the same emphasis on advance data, data quality and cooperation between supply-chain participants. 

Fully landed cost as a logistics product

Fully landed cost has traditionally been treated as something the merchant or checkout provider should calculate. That makes superficial sense because the customer needs to see a price before paying and the checkout has the fullest view of the transaction data.

However, the checkout does not necessarily know how the order will be fulfilled, which carrier will be used, where the goods will actually leave from or whether the order will be split. It may not know what information the downstream carrier requires or which delivery-duty arrangements are available.

A logistics provider often does.

This creates an opportunity for shippers, 3PLs, 4PLs, carriers and logistics aggregators to upsell fully landed cost as part of their own merchant proposition. They do not have to develop tax, customs and classification capabilities internally. They can package those capabilities alongside fulfilment, shipping and delivery. Imagine a logistics provider offering:

• Guaranteed Delivery and No Extra Charges – DDP fulfilment backed by revalidation and exception handling. 
• Landed Cost in the Checkout – duty, tax and shipping shown and collected. 
• Delivery Rescue – DAP-to-DDP conversion and intervention before the border. 
• Cross-Border Ready – validated data and international documentation. 
• Cross-Border Optimised – compliant selection of the best tax, customs and carrier route. 
• Cross-Border Intelligence – analytics, audit evidence and recommendations for improving cost and conversion.

The key product is remarkably easy for a merchant or customer to understand: Guaranteed delivery - no extra charges.

Customers do not particularly care which organisation calculated the import VAT, selected the customs treatment or paid the duty. They care that the price they paid is the real total and their parcel arrives without a ‘ransom demand’!

For the merchant, this removes one of the most uncomfortable uncertainties in international selling. For logistics providers, it creates a differentiated service beginning at checkout and continuing through to the doorstep.

Making this work requires an independently available and easily verifiable identifier that travels with the parcel from checkout to doorstep. This identifier would be added to a permissioned blockchain, allowing authorised stakeholders to verify the original checkout data. Instead of repeatedly copying selected information from system to system, the original transaction remains connected to the physical consignment. Each downstream stakeholder simply maps their own reference, created throughout the journey, to the independent reference. The merchant generates their order reference, the payment provider generates their payment reference, the warehouse generates their dispatch reference and each carrier generates a shipping reference. Customs will eventually issue their reference. 

With an independent reference mapped from each and with a lookup capability available to stakeholders, nobody needs to abandon systems or references they already use. Independent mapping allows the transaction to be revalidated when the physical world takes over. At fulfilment, handover or customs presentation, the actual contents can be automatically compared with the original checkout. If they match, the existing calculation and evidence can be confirmed. If they do not, the customs, duty and tax information can be recalculated. This could even be done before the parcel begins its journey.

Since each reference is associated with the same underlying consignment identity, suitably authorised participants can use their own reference to lookup the parcel’s status any time. A QR code on the parcel validates the data record from a scanner, or an API call can do it automatically. Ultimately, every authorised stakeholder can view the original data associated with any parcel they will be involved with delivering - all the way from checkout to doorstep.

Rehabilitating DAP for eCommerce

The same connection creates another opportunity for consignments sold under DAP shipping. DAP has a bad rap, mostly because it’s been the source of many painful emails, calls and text messages where consumers are told they must pay tax and duties (and a handling fee on top) to receive the product they thought they had already paid for. Or equally painful for merchants as consumers refused delivery and they lost not only the sale but the shipping and the reverse logistics.

With ePAL’s recent DAP-to-DDP innovation, a merchant, shipper, 3PL or other participant can use its own mapped reference - or simply scan a QR code - to trigger a request to the customer before collection or while the parcel is travelling towards the border. The outstanding landed cost is calculated and the customer given the opportunity to pay before the consignment reaches customs. 

Where timing, jurisdiction and carrier processes allow it, the consignment can then be converted from DAP to DDP treatment before reaching the border.

Where the customer declines, this can be captured, minimising doorstep refusals for “surprise charges”.

Today, that payment request often begins when the parcel is already stopped at the border. Moving it earlier allows the problem to be resolved while the parcel is still moving… or even before it even leaves the warehouse.

The new control point in cross-border eCommerce

There is a backstage layer within international logistics that most people never see. A parcel enters the network through one stakeholder while transport, clearance and final delivery are performed by others. The same digital identity and orchestration capability becomes more valuable each time the parcel passes between providers.

Aggregators and orchestration platforms already allow shippers, carriers and other providers to sell, buy and coordinate capacity between themselves. These platforms already coordinate parcel transport. The opportunity is to coordinate the data and decisions travelling with it.

If a parcel has a persistent digital identity, handing it off it to another carrier doesn’t mean rebuilding the data. The new carrier simply retrieves the original data associated with the transaction, maps its own reference to the same identity and add its subsequent events to the chain.

The aggregator therefore becomes more than a marketplace for transport capacity. It becomes a control point connecting capacity, consignment data, compliance status and commercial decisions.

There are obvious operational benefits. Better data should mean fewer customs holds, fewer information requests, less manual rekeying and fewer parcels waiting for somebody to decide who should pay. Revalidation can identify discrepancies before customs does. Earlier collection of duties and taxes can reduce refusals and returns.

The commercial benefit may be larger.

A logistics relationship traditionally begins after the sale. The merchant wins the customer and decides how the transaction will work. The logistics provider executes what it receives. Moving upstream changes that relationship. The provider becomes part of how the merchant sells, not simply how it ships.

Conclusion

Connecting checkout to doorstep allows post-checkout providers to influence the transaction before it becomes a physical problem. Fully landed cost becomes an offer to merchants. “Guaranteed delivery - no extra charges” becomes a product rather than an aspiration. Traceability, revalidation and intervention make that product more credible and the resulting merchant relationship more valuable and much harder to replace.

Pass-the-parcel will continue. The opportunity is to make sure that when the parcel passes from one participant to another, its identity, information and history travel with it.

Instead of inheriting somebody else’s decisions and repairing them downstream, logistics providers take advantage of ePAL Global’s orchestration layer to help make better decisions upstream – right from the checkout.

ABOUT OUR AUTHOR:

Ron Healy is Co-founder and Head of Product at ePAL Global, a cross-border e-commerce technology company focused on simplifying tax, customs, duties and compliance for international merchants. An experienced product and innovation leader, Ron has worked across startups, large enterprises, the public sector and academia, specializing in turning complex regulatory and operational challenges into practical digital solutions. At ePAL Global, he leads product strategy and innovation, with a particular focus on making cross-border e-commerce simpler, more transparent and cost-effective for merchants.

The post Playing pass-the-parcel in the new eCommerce reality appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

Amazon, Temu and TikTok Shop are facing renewed scrutiny over product safety after a Reuters investigation found more than 20 skin-lightening products previously identified as containing prohibited levels of mercury still being offered through major online marketplaces.

Published on September 16, the investigation found that products appearing on banned-product lists were still available to consumers through Amazon, Temu and TikTok Shop in the United States, as well as through Amazon’s third-party marketplaces in France, India, the United Arab Emirates and Belgium.

Reuters noted an important limitation: it could not independently confirm that every product currently listed still contained mercury. However, regulators and public-health authorities had previously tested or identified several products as containing prohibited levels of the toxic metal.

The findings raise a broader question for global e-commerce: how effectively can large marketplaces prevent unsafe products from reappearing when they are sold by third-party merchants operating across multiple jurisdictions?

Mercury skin-lightening products remain available online

The Reuters investigation identified more than 20 products available online that had appeared on banned-product or warning lists because of mercury concerns. Some were still being offered despite years of international restrictions.

Mercury is sometimes added to skin-lightening products because it suppresses melanin production, but exposure can cause serious health effects. The US Food and Drug Administration warns that repeated use of mercury-containing skin products can lead to kidney damage, neurological problems and other potentially permanent health consequences.

The FDA also states that mercury is not permitted in cosmetics except under very limited circumstances that do not apply to these products.

Reuters found products across several countries

The problem is not confined to one marketplace or one jurisdiction. Reuters found suspect products available through marketplace listings accessible in:

• The United States
• France
• Belgium
• India
• The United Arab Emirates

That geographic spread matters for cross-border commerce. Products sold by third-party merchants can move quickly between markets, while seller identities, product names, and listings can change.

This makes enforcement more difficult because a product removed from one platform or seller account may later reappear under another name or through another merchant. Reuters reported that some listings also failed to disclose mercury in their ingredient information.

The core issue is marketplace seller oversight

The investigation highlights one of the most persistent challenges facing global marketplaces. Amazon, Temu and TikTok Shop do not manufacture most of the products sold by third-party sellers.

Instead, they provide the platform, payments infrastructure, traffic and, in some cases, fulfillment. That model creates enormous product selection and international reach.

It also creates a regulatory challenge. Platforms must monitor millions of listings and large numbers of independent merchants while attempting to identify products that may be unsafe, illegal or mislabelled.

The scale of the marketplace model makes manual review impossible, meaning platforms rely heavily on automated systems, seller verification, regulatory databases and consumer reports. The Reuters findings suggest that these systems do not always prevent prohibited products from reappearing.

Amazon, Temu and TikTok say prohibited products are not allowed

The platforms involved maintain policies banning illegal or dangerous products. Reuters reported that the companies said they prohibit products that violate applicable safety rules and take action when they identify problematic listings.

Marketplace policies alone, however, do not guarantee that unsafe products will never appear. The more important question for regulators is whether platforms have effective systems to identify risks, verify sellers and prevent previously removed products from being relisted. That distinction is becoming increasingly important in Europe.

EU rules are placing greater responsibility on marketplaces

The European Union has significantly increased obligations for online marketplaces through the Digital Services Act and the General Product Safety Regulation.

Under the Digital Services Act, marketplaces must make reasonable efforts to verify traders, improve product traceability and reduce the circulation of illegal products. The European Commission says marketplaces must also check that products offered through their services are safe and compliant.

If a marketplace becomes aware that an illegal product has been sold, it must also inform affected customers, identify the seller and provide information about possible remedies. These rules increasingly shift regulatory focus away from individual sellers and toward the systems marketplaces operate.

Temu is already under EU scrutiny over illegal products

Temu is already facing regulatory scrutiny in Europe over product safety. In July 2025, the European Commission preliminarily found that Temu had breached its obligations under the Digital Services Act by failing to properly assess the risk of illegal products being sold on its marketplace.

The Commission's own mystery-shopping exercise found a high risk that consumers would encounter non-compliant products, including toys and small electronics. That investigation makes the Reuters findings especially relevant.

The issue is no longer simply whether an individual unsafe product appears online. Regulators are increasingly examining whether marketplace systems are structurally capable of preventing illegal goods from repeatedly reaching consumers.

EU enforcement is becoming more aggressive

The European Commission has already demonstrated that failures around illegal products can result in significant penalties. In July 2026, the Commission fined AliExpress €550 million for breaches of the Digital Services Act related to the dissemination of illegal, unsafe and counterfeit products.

The Commission concluded that AliExpress had failed to adequately assess and mitigate the risks created by illegal products on its platform. That enforcement action established an important precedent. Large marketplaces are expected to show they have systematic safeguards in place, rather than simply removing individual products after problems are reported.

For Amazon, Temu and TikTok Shop, the Reuters investigation therefore arrives at a time when European regulators are already demanding stronger marketplace accountability.

Product relisting remains a major challenge

One of the biggest technical problems is preventing products from returning after they have been removed.

A seller can potentially:

• Change the product title
• Alter the images
• Use a different seller account
• Modify the product description
• Move the listing to another marketplace
• Slightly change packaging or branding

This makes enforcement a continuous process rather than a one-time removal. Platforms increasingly use machine learning and product-matching systems to identify duplicate or suspicious listings.

But cross-border marketplaces also have to deal with inconsistent product information, different languages and sellers operating from multiple countries. The Reuters investigation suggests that prohibited products can still bypass these controls.

Unsafe products create a cross-border enforcement problem

Traditional product-safety regulation is largely national. E-commerce is not. A product can be manufactured in one country, sold by a merchant in another and delivered to a consumer somewhere else entirely.

That creates gaps between different regulatory systems. The FDA, for example, can issue warnings and take enforcement action in the United States. European authorities can impose separate restrictions.

But sellers can still attempt to reach consumers through marketplaces operating globally. Reuters reported that regulators and public-health organizations have increasingly called for stronger international cooperation to address the problem. For cross-border e-commerce, this is becoming one of the most difficult compliance challenges.

Why mercury-containing cosmetics are especially concerning

The health risks associated with mercury make these products particularly serious. The FDA says mercury exposure can affect the nervous system and kidneys and may cause symptoms including tremors, memory problems and changes in vision or hearing.

Exposure can also affect other people living in the same household because mercury may contaminate towels, clothing and other surfaces. The FDA specifically warns that children and pregnant individuals can be particularly vulnerable.

This makes the issue substantially more serious than conventional marketplace problems such as inaccurate product descriptions or counterfeit branding. Unsafe cosmetics can create direct public-health consequences.

Marketplace compliance is becoming a competitive issue

The investigation also highlights how product safety could increasingly affect competition between marketplaces. Consumers typically choose platforms based on factors such as:

• Price
• Selection
• Delivery speed
• Convenience
• Returns

Regulators are increasingly adding another requirement: trust. A marketplace that cannot effectively verify its sellers or products may face greater enforcement costs, reputational damage and stricter regulatory oversight. Large platforms therefore have a commercial incentive to improve product-safety controls beyond simply satisfying regulators.

Third-party marketplaces face growing responsibility

The broader direction of regulation is clear. Governments increasingly expect marketplaces to take responsibility for the ecosystem they operate. That does not mean platforms are automatically responsible for every illegal product offered by an independent merchant.

But regulators increasingly expect them to demonstrate effective seller verification, product monitoring and rapid removal systems. The European Commission's current approach under the DSA illustrates this shift particularly clearly. Large marketplaces must assess systemic risks and show that their mitigation measures are effective.

Cross-border e-commerce makes enforcement harder

The rapid international growth of platforms such as Temu, TikTok Shop and Amazon Marketplace makes the challenge even larger. A seller can potentially reach customers across dozens of markets without maintaining physical retail operations in those countries.

This greatly expands opportunities for SMEs and manufacturers. But it also allows problematic products to spread quickly across borders. Regulators are therefore attempting to make marketplaces part of the enforcement infrastructure.

Instead of monitoring every overseas seller individually, authorities increasingly require platforms to verify who is selling and what is being offered.

The Reuters investigation exposes a persistent marketplace weakness

The presence of previously flagged mercury products on some of the world's largest e-commerce platforms shows how difficult product-safety enforcement remains. Amazon, Temu and TikTok Shop all have systems intended to prevent prohibited products from being sold. Yet unsafe or previously identified products can still reappear.

For marketplaces, the challenge is no longer simply removing listings when regulators identify them. The next stage is preventing those products from returning under new sellers, names or packaging. As regulators strengthen rules around seller verification and product traceability, this issue is likely to become increasingly important for cross-border e-commerce.

The Reuters investigation ultimately highlights a central tension in the marketplace model. The same open infrastructure that allows millions of third-party sellers to reach global consumers also makes it difficult to guarantee that every product offered is safe and compliant. For regulators, platforms and consumers, solving that problem is becoming one of the defining challenges of global marketplace commerce.

The post Amazon, Temu and TikTok Shop Face Scrutiny After Banned Mercury Cosmetics Found on Marketplaces appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.