Logistics & Fulfilment
Your customers in Europe should feel like they are buying from a European brand.
Hold stock in the UK and the Netherlands and that becomes true. Delivery windows measured in days. Returns handled inside Europe rather than shipped back across an ocean, and a checkout price with nothing more to pay when the parcel arrives. Expandly puts your inventory in-market and runs the tax, the compliance, the warehouse and the channels as one connected service, so you launch on a date you can plan a campaign around.
In short
Expandly provides third-party logistics for ecommerce brands selling into the UK and EU, with warehouses in the UK, the Netherlands and the US. Stock held in-market ships domestically, which brings delivery down to a few days and moves the customs event from every parcel to every shipment. Expandly also handles the VAT registration, EPR and product compliance that holding stock in a country creates, so one company is accountable for the launch date rather than four.
- Warehouses in the UK, the Netherlands and the US
- Marketplaces, your own site and trade orders from one stock pool
- On-time in-full performance consistently above 99%
- Compliance, warehousing and channels under one contract
The opportunity
Your European demand is bigger than your European sales
The demand usually arrives before the strategy does. If European customers are already finding you and buying anyway, despite a delivery estimate in weeks and a charge to pay before the parcel is released, then what you are looking at is the floor of the opportunity rather than the ceiling.
Moving stock in-market changes what a European customer experiences at every point. The delivery estimate becomes days. The price at the checkout is the price they pay, with nothing to settle before the parcel is released. A return goes to a European address and stays inside its own customs territory on the way back. On marketplaces, local fulfilment is what makes you competitive on the placement that drives the sale.
It changes your economics too. Ship in bulk and your goods cross the border once, as a single customs event you plan for, rather than once per order at a cost and a delay you cannot control. Everything after that is a domestic delivery at domestic rates. That difference is what turns a European channel from something you tolerate into something you invest in.
+18%
growth in UK and EU online purchases, Q2 2025
48%
of UK shoppers abandon carts because of high shipping fees
2,000+
ecommerce brands supported by Expandly
Why this is different
The warehouse is the easy part
Plenty of good 3PLs will store your pallets and pick your orders. The question worth asking is what has to be true before any of them can.
The moment your stock sits in a European country, you are trading there, and the obligations start at that point rather than at your first sale. You need to be VAT registered in that country. Your packaging carries producer responsibility obligations. Depending on what you sell, you may also need a Responsible Person appointed inside the market and labels that meet the local standard.
A warehouse on its own hands you that list and then waits, because your stock cannot be received compliantly until the list is done. Every week it takes is a week your container sits somewhere expensive.
At Expandly the people registering your VAT work for the same company as the warehouse expecting your container. Both sides of the problem are being solved by one team, against one plan, with a launch date somebody is actually accountable for.
Fulfilment is the last step to go live and the first one worth planning, because everything before it sets the date your stock can be received. We sequence the whole run so the two meet.
What you get
What we handle for you
Capability 1 of 4
Your stock, close to your customers
Inventory sits in the UK and the Netherlands, positioned for the markets you are actually selling into. Orders leave the same country the customer is in, at the delivery speeds European shoppers now treat as normal.
Warehouses in the UK, the Netherlands and the US.
Capability 2 of 4
Every channel, one pool of stock
Your marketplaces, your own site and your trade orders all draw on the same inventory, with levels syncing back to each channel as they move. You stop holding separate buffers for separate places and stop overselling across them.
Direct-to-consumer, B2B and wholesale, Amazon FBA and FBM.
Capability 3 of 4
Returns that stay worth processing
A European return goes to a European building, gets assessed on arrival and goes back into sellable stock, or gets reworked until it can. UK customers return to the UK warehouse. EU customers return within the EU. Either way the parcel stays inside its own customs territory, which is what keeps a return cheap enough to be worth processing.
Condition assessment, relabelling, re-boxing and rework.
Capability 4 of 4
Amazon handled properly
FBA prep is done before your stock reaches a fulfilment centre, so nothing gets refused at the door. FBM orders ship from in-market inventory at the speeds your seller metrics are measured against.
Prep, labelling, palletised inbound, removals and Transparency codes.
Carriers
Choosing the carrier, order by order
Delivery is the last thing your customer experiences and a large part of what they judge you on. We connect to a selected group of carriers across the markets we ship in, chosen on performance rather than convenience, so the service on each order suits the product and the promise you made at checkout.
That choice is commercial as well as operational. A light, high-volume line and a heavy, high-value one should not be shipping the same way or costing the same, and the right mix looks different for a supplement brand than it does for a furniture brand. Carrier selection is one of the levers we work with when we look at your rates, which is why a 3PL quote is a conversation about your profile rather than a number off a page.
The standard we hold
When we ship, we are your brand
A customer in Rotterdam or Manchester does not know a third party picked their order. They know what turned up, when, and what condition it was in. That experience belongs to you, so we treat it as ours.
On-time in-full is the measure that captures both halves of it, and it is unforgiving by design. Late is a miss. Short is a miss. Early counts as a miss too, because it lands stock nobody planned space for.
99%+
on-time in-full, sustained
100%
achieved in many weeks
A named person, not a shared inbox
Your account has a dedicated contact who knows your SKUs, your channels and your peak. When something needs a decision, you are not explaining your business from scratch.
ISO 14001 accredited
Waste is minimised and materials recycled wherever possible, under our environmental management accreditation. It matters to your customers and increasingly to your retail partners.
Full visibility, down to the location
You can see what you hold, where it sits and what is moving, in the same platform that carries your listings and your compliance record.
Go deeper
Pick the part that matters to you
Fulfilment models behave differently and suit different brands. Each one has its own page.
Fulfilment model
Everything Amazon expects done before your stock arrives, so your inbound is accepted first time and your listings go live on schedule.
Learn more →
Fulfilment model
Keep control of the customer and the margin, with dispatch speeds that protect the seller metrics your placement depends on.
Learn more →
Fulfilment model
Your own site, your own brand experience, delivered locally across the UK and EU from stock that also feeds every other channel.
Learn more →
After the sale
Recover value from returns instead of writing them off, put right anything that needs relabelling or repacking, and recycle responsibly.
Learn more →
The network
Where our buildings are across the UK, the Netherlands and the US, and how to decide which one your stock should land in.
Learn more →
Most brands we work with are moving stock from the US into the UK and EU, so those two buildings do the heavy lifting here. Expansion runs the other way as well. If you are a UK or European brand looking at America, our US warehouse does the same job in reverse.
Your sector
What this looks like for brands like yours
Segment 01
Sports, Fitness & Active Lifestyle
Shipping equipment across an ocean one unit at a time prices you out of the category before you start. In-market stock puts your delivery cost in line with the European brands you are competing against.
Segment 02
Health, Wellness & Nutrition
Subscription and repeat purchase only work when delivery is reliable and quick. Holding stock locally makes a monthly reorder something your customer stops thinking about, which is exactly what you want.
Segment 03
Beauty, Personal Care & Cosmetics
Discovery in this category happens fast and buys happen on impulse. A short delivery promise and a European returns address turn that interest into orders rather than abandoned baskets.
Segment 04
Home, Garden & Lifestyle
Bulk and value rarely travel well together. With stock already in Europe you can sell larger items at a price that works, and take the seasonal peaks without air freighting your way through them.
Segment 05
Technology & Consumer Electronics
Warranty and returns both get harder across a border. Local fulfilment gives you a European service address, plus the serialised tracking that protects your listings from counterfeit sellers.
Segment 06
Fashion, Apparel & Accessories
Customers buy two sizes and send one back, and that only works when the return is quick and stays inside Europe. Holding range depth in-market lets you sell the full size run instead of the safe middle of it.
In practice
From container to first order
The operational detail is ours to worry about. This is the shape of it, so you know what you are signing up to.
Step 01
You tell us what is coming
A shipping notice raised in the portal tells the warehouse what is arriving and when, so the labour and the space are ready before the vehicle turns up.
Step 02
We receive and check it
Goods are counted, quality checked and booked in. Where a shipment meets the standard we set out with you at onboarding, that happens the same day.
Step 03
It goes live in the platform
Stock appears in your inventory and syncs out to every channel you sell on. Nothing needs uploading twice and nothing sits invisible in a back room.
Step 04
Orders ship to your service level
Picked, packed and dispatched inside the agreed window, with tracking and performance flowing back into your reporting.
One platform
The warehouse is a screen, not a separate supplier
Stock levels, inbound shipments, orders and returns sit in the same place as your listings, your VAT position and your compliance record. There is nothing to reconcile between systems, because there is only one.
Running underneath your fulfilment
Everything below is included for every customer on every tier. The tier decides how much expert support sits alongside it.
Inventory & Order Management
Product Compliance & EPR
Listings & Translations
Shipping Management
Reporting Suite
Triggers & Alerts
Expandly AIComing soon
API
Where fulfilment sits in your expansion
Logistics is the third stage of the Global Expansion Pathway, Andy Hooper’s six-stage framework built from seventeen years and 2,500 brand expansions. The stage is delivered as the Distribution Success Method™, covering warehouse selection, 3PL configuration, cross-border shipping and where your inventory should physically sit. It follows Compliance for a practical reason. The paperwork has to clear before the stock can move.
Explore
Compliance
Logistics
Omni-Channel
Growth
Strategy
Working with us
Same platform, same warehouses. Different amount of us alongside you.
Every customer gets the full platform and the same onboarding process. What changes is how much expert support sits next to it, and what that means for your 3PL rates.
Expandly Self-Serve
With Email Support
£1,150
per month
- ✓Full platform and onboarding wizard
- ✓Success knowledgebase and email support
- ✓Standard 3PL rate card
Expandly Guided
With Account Manager Support
£3,000
per month
- ✓Dedicated onboarding and success manager
- ✓Quarterly business review and annual compliance audit
- ✓Warehouse tech fee included
- ✓Preferential 3PL rates
Expandly VIP
With VIP Consultant Support
£5,000
per month
- ✓Dedicated VIP onboarding and success consultant
- ✓Monthly business reviews and an annual site visit
- ✓Warehouse tech fee and SLA fee included
- ✓VIP preferential 3PL rates and a tailored shipping plan
Questions
Questions we get asked
When is the right time to move from shipping cross-border to holding stock in Europe?
There is no single threshold, but the signals are consistent. European orders becoming a meaningful share of your volume in one country. Delivery estimates running past a week. Customs charges and delays generating support tickets and refund requests. Returns you write off because processing them costs more than the unit. When two or three of those are true at once, the arithmetic has usually already changed. We will run the numbers with you before you commit to anything.
Do I need to be VAT registered before you can receive my stock?
Warehouse onboarding starts once VAT numbers have been issued and Responsible Person approval is in place, so your stock can be received compliantly and you can sell from the day it lands. Because we handle the registrations and the warehouse, both sides run to one plan rather than waiting on each other.
Can you handle B2B and wholesale orders as well as direct-to-consumer?
Yes, and from the same pool of stock. Trade orders are picked by carton or by full pallet rather than as individual units, and the paperwork a retail customer expects travels with the shipment. Running both from one inventory position is what stops you holding a separate buffer for your wholesale channel that sits idle most of the year.
How long does onboarding take?
The warehouse setup itself is quick. What sets the timeline is the compliance work in front of it, and VAT registration lead times vary considerably by country. That is the honest answer, and it is the reason we start the tax work before the logistics work rather than alongside it. On a strategy call we can give you a realistic date for the markets you want.
Can I use Expandly for fulfilment without the compliance services?
Every arrangement is scoped to what your business actually needs, and that conversation is worth having properly rather than through a web form. What is worth knowing is that holding stock in a country creates tax and product obligations there whether or not anyone is handling them for you, so the two are connected in practice even when they are separated on paper. Ask us how it works for your setup.
How is 3PL pricing worked out?
It follows your profile rather than a standard rate. How your stock arrives determines how it can be stored, how it is stored determines the daily rate, and how orders are picked determines the cost per order. Carrier mix is another lever. A brand shipping a few large pallets and a brand shipping thousands of small parcels should not be paying the same shape of cost, which is why we quote against your actual volumes rather than off a page.
Find out what your European operation should look like
Thirty minutes with someone who has moved 2,500 brands into new markets. We will look at your volumes and your channels, and show you what holding stock in Europe would do to your delivery times and your margin.