You’ve survived peak season and are almost out of the busiest time of the year. The Black Friday madness is over, the Christmas rush has subsided, and the end of the returns tsunami is near.
If you are like most ecommerce leaders we speak to, the last few months were a mix of record-breaking highs and some stressful, “let’s never do that again” lows. Maybe your delivery times slipped in key international markets. Maybe your returns pile grew into a mountain that is still costing you a fortune to process.
It is tempting to just pat everyone on the back and move on to the next quarter. But if you felt the strain in your fulfillment operation this peak season, you can bet it will be twice as hard this year if you don’t change anything. Low season isn’t just for clearing the hangover; it’s the best time to identify those weak spots and upgrade your infrastructure while the pain points are still fresh in your memory.
While there are obviously more quick fixes to consider, – from adding extra last mile delivery contracts or a shipping intelligence solution to making sure your D2C orders are being fulfilled by a B2C fulfillment specialist – we focus on the more complex cross-border logistics challenges. Here are two strategic, yet not too complex, upgrades you should consider implementing now to make your next peak season smoother, cheaper, and more profitable.
1. ‘Localise’ your fulfillment operation
International orders are more prone to errors and delays due to the international handovers, even more so during peak season when resources are stretched to the fullest. We don’t need to tell you about the consequences of a failed or delayed international delivery.
There are many reasons to opt for local or regional fulfillment regardless of the season. Delivery costs are far lower, and orders are delivered faster than if they need to come from the central warehouse.
Imagine you have a strong customer base in Scandinavia. Shipping from a local warehouse in Sweden or Denmark doesn’t just knock days off your delivery time; it can save you up to €5 per parcel on last-mile delivery costs. That is pure margin going straight back into your pocket.
Interesting from a cost saving point of view of course, but with free (or cheaper) local shipping and faster delivery you also become far more interesting for international consumers, leading to more orders.
There is more: simply the fact that your foreign customers see their trusted local last mile delivery companies or delivery options stated at check-out can do wonders for your conversion rate.
One of our clients grew 25% in Italy just by being able to incorporate cash-on-delivery as a payment/delivery option. This is only possible if you fulfill your orders locally from within Italy.
Considering all the above, this seems like a no-brainer in terms of cross-border business decisions.
Historically speaking, the elephant in the room has always been the complexity of such a multiwarehouse set-up. We understand the argument but – like the previous sentence already indicated, this is an argument from the past. Managing multiple fulfillment centers no longer means you need IT to create multiple WMS connections, or that you need to deal with multiple contacts and several ways of working.
Solution: Salesupply’s flexible fulfillment network
Before diving into our ever-expanding international fulfillment network, we would like to stress the word ´flexible´. You do not have to give up your current central warehouse to work with the fulfillment centers in our network.
Now that’s said, back to our ever-expanding international fulfillment network. Our fulfillment network currently exists of 50 fulfillment centers spread worldwide. Thanks to our proprietary OMS, integration issues are a thing of the past. All it takes to connect with our entire network is a single integration with our OMS (with APIs available for nearly all ecommerce platforms, ERP’s, warehouse management systems and marketplaces).
The Salesupply fulfillment network also provides you with:
- one way of working across all centers
- one dashboard for performance and reporting
- one point of contact
- a consistent invoice structure
Maybe even more important than the advantages mentioned above: you are set up for scalability. Every time you enter a new market or region that requires local fulfillment, all you need to do is activate the warehouse.
Next steps:
- Identify the weak points gaps in your international fulfilment operations
- contact us for the rest
2. Tackle the returns beast (and stop burning money on international reverse logistics)
Returns are the silent profit killer of ecommerce. During peak season, return rates often spike, and if your process isn’t optimised, you are bleeding margin on every single parcel that comes back.
The goal isn’t to stop returns entirely, let’s stay realistic. The goal is to reduce the avoidable ones and make the unavoidable ones cost less.
Avoid the avoidable returns
A surprising number of returns happen simply because the customer didn’t quite get what they expected. That’s often on us (the retailer), not them.
These are your lowest-effort, highest-impact moves to arrange this:
- upgrade product information: be obsessively clear on materials, dimensions, fit, compatibility, what’s included, what isn’t, care instructions. make it hard to misunderstand.
- use high-quality imagery + video: multiple angles, “real life” shots, close-ups, and short clips that show scale and use.
- make sizing idiot-proof (especially apparel): size guides, fit notes, measurement instructions, and “model info” if relevant.
- lean into reviews (especially visual reviews): customers trust customers, and reviews reduce mismatch-driven purchases.
- close the loop with returns data: if “not as expected” is showing up too often on one sku, that’s a merchandising/content problem, not a warehouse problem.
this is unglamorous work. it’s also one of the cheapest ways to protect margin, more tips here
Tighten the returns policy without damaging the customer experience
your returns and refund policy is part conversion lever, part cost control. it has to do both.
a few policy tweaks that often work well when communicated clearly:
- clarity first: make the policy easy to find, easy to read, and consistent across channels and marketplaces.
- extend the return period: counterintuitive, but longer windows can reduce “panic returns” and spread inbound volumes so your returns operation doesn’t get crushed in early january.
- introduce paid returns (carefully): this used to be taboo. it’s not anymore. the trick is to apply it in a way that feels fair:
- free returns above a minimum order value
- free returns if only a small portion of the order is returned
- free in-store returns, paid postal returns
- add pre-return support: for categories like electronics, devices, or anything that needs explanation, a quick chat can prevent a return entirely (or turn it into an exchange).
the key is tone: don’t make customers feel punished. make the process feel sensible, transparent, and consistent. Read more here
Stop running returns through email threads and spreadsheets
An online returns portal is one of those “how did we live without this?” upgrades because it lets you:
- capture return reasons (properly, at scale)
- manage return windows and rules automatically
- offer exchanges as an alternative to refunds
- see the expected inbound return volume days before parcels arrive (useful for staffing and warehouse planning)
- redirect returns if one site is overloaded
Bonus: it reduces customer service noise because customers can self-serve most of the process.
Now to the star of this segment: international returns
International returns: act local, even when you’re not
If you are selling cross-border, returns can be a logistical nightmare. Asking a customer in France or Germany to post a parcel back to your central warehouse in the UK or the Netherlands is a conversion killer. It’s expensive for them (or you), it takes ages, and it frustrates people.
Cross-border returns are where costs and complexity explode:
- shipping a single parcel back across borders is expensive
- the refund timeline gets longer
- customer trust and conversion drops (“what happens if i need to return it?”)
The upgrade here is simple: go local. If you sell internationally, a local return address in-market is a conversion advantage. it’s also an operational upgrade because you:
- receive returns locally, then consolidate shipments back in bulk (instead of paying for lots of individual cross-border parcels)
- speed up refunds, because the product doesn’t need to travel back to your home country before you can process it, improving the customer experience.
- Reduce “where is my refund?” contacts, which spike in January
- Meet marketplace requirements in certain countries where a local return address is expected (or required).
International returns are an important part of the cross-border ecommerce set-up. At Salesuppy we offer a network of 20 international return hubs to tap in to. Read more about it here .
Summary: Don’t wait until next November
The “we’ll fix it later” mindset is dangerous in retail. The operational cracks you saw last month won’t disappear; they will just widen as you grow.
Use this quieter period to look at your data. Where did you lose the most margin on returns? Which country caused you the most shipping headaches?
By optimizing your returns process and moving your stock closer to your customers, you aren’t just patching a hole—you are building a fulfillment operation that is faster, cheaper, and ready to scale.
Here’s to a profitable (and calmer) year ahead.
