The Event

Home Delivery World 2027 Orlando · May 25–27 2027

Home Delivery World runs for three days at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, and the organiser bills it as the world's most important ecommerce logistics event. The programme sits squarely on delivery cost, speed, supply chain visibility, automation and reverse logistics, and the floor mixes retailers and brands with carriers, 3PLs, fulfilment providers and technology vendors.

The 2026 edition drew more than 3,000 registered attendees from 1,400 companies and 34 countries, with more than 200 speakers across more than 100 sessions. Those figures belong to 2026. The organiser has not published projections for 2027, so read them as the shape of the event rather than a forecast.

View event site → What this means for EU expansion

The Room

Who's expected at Home Delivery World 2027

Orlando gathers both sides of the delivery relationship. Retailers, brands and grocers turn up with a cost or a speed problem, and carriers, 3PLs, fulfilment providers and technology companies turn up to solve it. At the 2026 edition the organiser reported that 70% of attendees held purchasing authority or influence over it, which tells you how the exhibitors pitch.

The centre of gravity is American. That is worth knowing in advance, because the delivery expectations and returns economics being debated on stage are US ones, and they do not transfer cleanly to European shoppers.

Retail and brand supply chain leads Heads of Ecommerce Carriers and last-mile operators 3PLs and fulfilment providers Grocery and quick-commerce teams Warehouse automation vendors Returns and reverse logistics specialists

For a growing brand seeking the next step up, is Home Delivery World 2027 a good fit?

If your delivery costs are the thing holding back margin at home, this is one of the strongest rooms in the calendar for it, and the vendor density means you can run a serious comparison in three days. Where it is weaker is Europe. The carriers, the shopper expectations and the returns maths on that floor are American, so a US brand planning a European launch should treat Orlando as the place to sharpen the questions rather than the place to find European answers. Go, learn how the best operators think about cost per parcel and reverse logistics, then test every one of those assumptions against a market where next-day domestic delivery is the baseline and returns come back to an address a few hundred miles away rather than across an ocean.

Retail and brand supply chain leads

Operators who own the delivery profit and loss at retailers, brands and grocers. The most useful people on the floor for a growing brand, because they have already made the mistakes you are about to price.

Carriers and last-mile operators

Parcel networks and last-mile specialists working the US market. Strong on density economics and delivery windows, though very few of them will be the answer to a European delivery promise.

3PLs and fulfilment providers

Warehousing and fulfilment operators, some with international footprints worth asking about. If a provider claims European coverage, this is a good floor on which to interrogate what that actually means in practice.

Returns and reverse logistics specialists

A category that has grown into its own section of the programme. Relevant well beyond the US, because returns are where an unexamined European launch tends to lose its margin.

Programme

What's on at Home Delivery World 2027

The organiser builds the programme around reducing delivery costs, supply chain visibility, delivery speed, customer experience, automation and AI, and reverse logistics. Session titles below are indicative of those confirmed themes rather than a published agenda, and for a brand with Europe on the roadmap the returns content repays the most attention.

01 Reducing Delivery Costs

The spine of the event, and the reason most brands buy a ticket. Network design, carrier negotiation, zone strategy and the arithmetic of cost per parcel. The thinking transfers to Europe even when the numbers do not, since the underlying question of how close your stock sits to your customer is the same everywhere.

Cost per parcel: where the money actually leaks
Network design when volume is growing unevenly
Carrier mix and negotiating from a smaller volume base

02 Reverse Logistics and Returns

Returns have earned their own place on the programme, and rightly so. Expect content on returns cost, processing, resale and the customer experience around them. This is the track a US brand looking at Europe should sit through twice, because European shoppers expect easy local returns and a cross-border return to a US address is slow enough to erase the margin on the original order.

The true cost of a return, line by line
Designing returns that customers accept and the business survives
Resale, refurbishment and recovering value

03 Automation, AI and Visibility

Warehouse automation, forecasting and the supply chain visibility layer that sits over both. The vendor claims run hot here, so the useful sessions are the ones where an operator walks through what they deployed and what it returned. Relevant to Europe mainly as a way to judge which providers can actually support a second continent.

Automation payback periods at mid-market volumes
Forecasting demand across multiple stock locations
Visibility that tells you something you can act on

04 Delivery Speed and Customer Experience

How the delivery promise shapes conversion, repeat purchase and brand perception. Worth attending with a European filter on, since the baseline expectation differs by market. What reads as a premium service level in parts of the US is closer to the minimum a Dutch or German shopper assumes.

What the delivery promise is worth at checkout
Speed against cost: where the curve bends
Communicating delay without losing the customer

Live Intelligence

What's being said about Home Delivery World 2027

These are the themes the Events Intelligence record points to for Orlando in May, and the block will be rebuilt around actual coverage as the event approaches.

Every published scale figure belongs to the 2026 edition

EVENTS INTELLIGENCE · SEP 2026

The 3,000+ registered attendees, 1,400 companies, 34 countries, 200+ speakers, 75+ start-ups, 200+ sponsors and 100+ sessions all describe 2026. Nothing has been published for 2027, so treat those numbers as a description of the event's scale and not as a projection of what May will bring. The dates and the Orlando venue are confirmed.

Delivery cost is still the organising question

ORGANISER SITE · SEP 2026

Reducing delivery costs leads the organiser's own list of themes, ahead of speed, visibility and automation. That ordering has held for several editions now. It reflects a market where growth has stopped covering for an expensive network, which is exactly the pressure that pushes brands to look at holding stock closer to the customer, in Europe as much as in the US.

Reverse logistics has been promoted from footnote to theme

ORGANISER SITE · SEP 2026

Returns now sit alongside cost, speed and automation as a named pillar of the programme rather than a single afternoon panel. For a US brand planning a European launch this is the most portable content on the agenda, because returns are the line item that most often turns a promising European forecast into a disappointing one. European shoppers expect easy returns and expect them handled locally.

A buying room, by the organiser's own account

EVENTS INTELLIGENCE · SEP 2026

At the 2026 edition the organiser reported that 70% of attendees held purchasing authority or influenced it, alongside 1,400 companies on the floor. That density is the practical case for going: three days of provider comparison that would otherwise take a quarter of scheduled calls. It also means the exhibitor pitch is direct, so arrive with your own criteria written down.

The bigger picture

Your US delivery playbook does not survive the Atlantic crossing

A US brand that has spent three days in Orlando learning how to shave cost out of a domestic network has learned something genuinely valuable, and something that will mislead it in Europe. The geography is different, the carrier landscape is different, and the shopper's baseline expectation is different again. In the Netherlands and Germany, next-day domestic delivery is close to the minimum, and neighbouring markets are reachable within a day or two by road from a single well-placed warehouse. Shipping each order from a US facility cannot meet that, whatever the carrier contract says.

Returns economics differ sharply: European shoppers expect easy local returns, and sending a return back across the Atlantic is slow and expensive enough to erode the margin on the original sale
Local stock also changes the customs picture, because goods clear once in bulk instead of parcel by parcel, and customs rules on low-value goods entering the EU are tightening
VAT (value-added tax) registration is triggered wherever you hold stock, so the decision to warehouse in Europe is a tax decision as much as a logistics one
Packaging registration under Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) rules is per country, so a single EU warehouse does not exempt you from registering in each market you sell into

Expandly builds the European delivery operation and the registrations that sit under it as one sequence, using the Global Expansion Pathway (GEP™) so the fulfilment decision and the tax and compliance decisions are taken together. Our Netherlands warehouse is the usual starting point, for the reasons the Orlando cost sessions would predict.

What European shoppers assume

From a well-placed EU warehouse, next-day domestic is normal and the neighbouring markets are a day or two away by road. That is the bar, not the upsell.

1–2 days to neighbouring EU markets by road

Shipping direct is getting dearer

Customs treatment of low-value goods entering the EU is tightening, which raises the landed cost of every parcel sent from the US and adds delay the customer sees.

Rising landed cost per US-shipped order

Fulfilment and compliance together

The Global Expansion Pathway (GEP™) is how Expandly sequences the warehouse, the VAT registrations and the compliance work as one build for 2,000+ brands.

GEP™ Global Expansion Pathway

Good to Know

Questions about Home Delivery World 2027

When and where is Home Delivery World 2027?

Home Delivery World 2027 runs from May 25–27 2027 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. It is a three-day conference with an exhibition floor. Ticket pricing is not published in the source we hold, so check the organiser site for current rates.

How big is Home Delivery World, and who is in the room?

The 2026 edition drew more than 3,000 registered attendees from 1,400 companies and 34 countries, with more than 200 speakers across more than 100 sessions, and the organiser reported that 70% of attendees held purchasing authority or influence. No figures have been published for 2027. The room mixes retailers, brands and grocers with carriers, 3PLs, fulfilment providers and technology companies.

Is Home Delivery World useful if my delivery problem is European?

Partly. The thinking on cost per parcel, network design and returns is portable, and that is genuinely worth three days. The specifics are not: the carriers, the geography and the shopper expectations on that floor are American. Use it to sharpen your questions, then answer them against European conditions, where local stock and a local returns address do most of the work.

How should a US brand handle European fulfilment and delivery?

Hold stock in an EU warehouse so orders ship locally, fast, and at lower cost than shipping each parcel from the US. A central location such as the Netherlands reaches Germany and neighbouring markets within a day or two by road. Returns also need a local address, since cross-border returns are slow and expensive.

How do returns work when selling into Europe?

Returns are a core cost, not an afterthought. European shoppers expect easy returns, and cross-border returns to the US are slow and expensive enough to erode margin. A local returns address and process in-market keeps costs down and meets the expectation, which is why fulfilment and reverse logistics are planned together.

How do EU customs charges affect shipping from the US?

Customs rules on low-value goods shipped into the EU are tightening, which raises the landed cost of shipping direct from the US to European consumers. Holding stock inside the EU avoids per-order import friction, because goods clear customs once in bulk rather than parcel by parcel. Confirm current thresholds before modelling costs.

Make Your Move

Learn the delivery maths in Orlando then redo it for Europe

Three days of serious argument about cost per parcel, delivery speed and returns is worth the flight if delivery economics are what stands between you and better margin. The part Orlando cannot give you is what those same numbers look like on the other side of the Atlantic.

We can model that side for you: what a European warehouse changes about your landed cost, what a local returns process actually costs to run, and which registrations have to be in place before any of it ships. Bring us the vendor claims you collected on the floor and we will tell you which of them hold up in the markets you are aiming at.

If Orlando is in your May and Europe is on your roadmap, a short conversation first will make the three days count for more.