The volume shift: How Asian online retailers move from individual parcels to bulk inventory

The landscape of international trade and e-commerce logistics across Europe has undergone a fundamental structural realignment. For years, the European Union’s long-standing low-value customs duty exemption—the de minimis threshold—allowed billions of individual parcels valued under 150 euros to flood into member states from Asian manufacturing hubs completely free of standard import duties. This mechanism served as the bedrock for the direct-to-consumer (DTC) models deployed by ultra-fast-fashion giants like Shein and Temu.

However, legislative changes implemented by the European Union abolished the duty-free exemption for low-value packages, replacing it instead with a transitional flat-rate customs handling fee per tariff classification line. This means that as of July 1, 2026, all 27 EU member states have removed the 150 euro de minimis duty-free exception and temporarily replaced it by a flat-rate customs duty of three euros per parcel. This regulatory pivot was explicitly designed to level the playing field between domestic European retailers and cross-border platforms.

Three euros per parcel

But there is a caveat as the three euros customs duty only targets parcels shipped individually from outside the European Union. Once inside, it does not apply. Therefore, rather than absorbing the cumulative financial penalty of per-parcel charges, passing prohibitive costs onto consumers or scaling back their total European market share, major e-commerce players have executed a pre-emptive operational pivot by fundamentally changing how goods enter the EU: They now import inventory in bulk via standard business-to-business (B2B), paying standard commercial container duties once, and stocking goods in regional European fulfilment hubs. For example, Shein has actively expanded its warehouse footprint in locations like Wrocław, Poland, to fulfil EU orders locally.

The numbers confirm this: According to official data from the European Commission and the European Parliament, low-value e-commerce imports into the EU under the old 150 euro de minimis exemption skyrocketed from 1.4 billion items in 2022 to 2.3 billion in 2023, 4.6 billion in 2024, and 5.8 billion to 5.9 billion items in 2025, with approximately 91 to 97 percent originating directly from China via platforms like Shein and Temu. This equated to an average of 12 million to 16 million small parcels entering the EU daily.

Parcel volumes drop overnight...

France implemented its small-parcel-tax of two euros already on 1st March 2026, causing small-parcel clearance volumes at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport to plummet by 92 percent almost overnight according to B2B data and analytics company Freight Waves. After the broader EU-wide rollout of a flat three-euro interim customs duty per product category, FreightWaves confirmed that online giants faced double-digit drops in direct China-to-doorstep parcel routes. Hence, direct-from-origin air parcels are rapidly giving way to high-volume, containerised B2B freight movements destined for regional European distribution centres.

Industry analysts note that this shift represents a calculated manoeuver by platforms owning the logistics stack. “Cross-border regulation aimed at parcel-level flows is easy to route around with warehousing,” explains Antoine Huet, CEO of logistics intelligence group Nova Analytics. By shifting inventory closer to European consumers well ahead of enforcement deadlines, these platforms neutralised the intended friction of the new tariff structure.

The immediate consequence of this transition has been a measurable contraction in individual cross-border air-parcel volumes entering Europe from Asia. The sudden erosion of the hyper-cheap, single-item shipping model could cause an immediate cooling effect on direct-from-China parcel counts. “Air shipments of e-commerce goods into the EU could fall by 10 to 35 percent in the weeks after the fees take effect, with likely repercussions for global air cargo volumes”, said Derek Lossing, e-commerce and air cargo consultant at Cirrus Global Advisors, according to Hong Kong daily The Standard.

... while bulk inventory movement surges

According to data by market research company Mordor Intelligence, the volume of bulk inventory moving into European warehouses—particularly across logistics powerhouses like Germany, Poland and the Netherlands—has experienced a dramatic surge. Logistics networks have raced to secure regional capacity to handle incoming container loads, completely altering traditional port-of-entry dynamics.

Trade bodies such as the European Express Association (EEA) and commercial carriers like DHL, FedEx and UPS have closely monitored these rapid adjustments. “Without a stable and practical legal framework, there is a real risk of cargo pileups at EU borders,” warned the CEOs of the latter, Mike Parra, Wouter Roels, and Daniel Carrera, respectively, in a joint letter to EU finance ministers prior to the 1st July deadline. They caution that complex data requirements and unresolved legal procedures could add to the bottlenecks at EU borders without sufficient and even stall industrial production across the continent.

Market observers emphasise that this strategic migration changes the competitive arena rather than subverting it. “Temu and Shein are among the best equipped to absorb the change because they own the logistics stack,” notes Adam Clermont in supply chain magazine The Loadstar. Smaller e-commerce merchants relying on individual fulfilment lots face rigid cost additions that larger, localised competitors have successfully engineered around. However, until March 2029, they have a way out too as the UK does not plan to change its de minimis requirement until then, making it an attractive market to sell to or distribute small parcels from.

Ultimately, the volume shift from individual parcels to bulk warehouse stock underscores the limits of traditional parcel-level trade barriers. As ultra-fast retail platforms mature into localised inventory models, the European supply chain has been forced to adapt to a permanent baseline of regionalised, high-density distribution.