What’s moving in postal, parcels and cross-border eCommerce

The Director General warned that rapid, uncoordinated customs changes threaten the universal postal service and could shut small businesses out of cross-border eCommerce. The UPU has updated its messaging standards and launched a global delivered duty paid solution.

Held during the Council sessions in Bern, the Forum looked at how reliable services, stronger partnerships and innovation can turn the postal network’s reach into business value.

New UPU analysis finds that giving posts more notice before regulatory changes reduces volume losses and helps keep postal corridors open.

The Dubai Business Plan turns the new UPU strategy into 39 work proposals, each with outcomes, KPIs and resourcing, with progress reported to every Council of Administration session.

The typical postal corridor shrank by 10%, real postal revenues fell to US$563.4 billion in 2024, and delayed decisions could cost the sector US$411 billion over 2026–2030. The UPU calls for coordinated, agile policy across posts, regulators and customs.

A four-year digital transformation with FarEye took mail on-time performance from about 51% to 95% and parcels to 92%, while courier productivity rose from about 35 to 90 parcels a day.

The Federal Register notice makes the new postal compliance date official, and CBP has changed its Entry Type 13 test so filers can submit a mail entry before partner government agency data is complete.

CBP moved the compliance date for the new electronic informal entry process for international mail back 90 days, from 22 October 2026. From 20 January, postal shipments subject to Section 201, 232 or 301 duties, or regulated by a partner government agency, must be filed in ACE as Entry Type 13 or as a formal entry.

For shipments up to $2,500, CBP proposes electronic filing before arrival, holding mail until an entry is filed, extra shipper and tracking data, and a customs bond for every filer (docket USCBP-2026-0298).

USTR confirmed that the Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods in place since 2018 will remain. Existing Section 232 tariffs of 50% on steel, aluminium and copper products are unchanged.

Phase 3 of CBP’s refund system covers finally liquidated entries that the Court of International Trade ordered reliquidated. As of 2 October, CBP had validated claims covering 27.4 million entries and about $136.6 billion in potential and certified refunds.

CBP is issuing more CF-28 requests for information triggered by data analytics, and the Department of Justice now treats trade fraud as a core enforcement priority.

The Council approved the reform of the Union Customs Code on 3 September and the European Parliament gave final approval later that month. It creates an EU Customs Authority in Lille and a single EU Customs Data Hub, opening for eCommerce consignments in 2028, voluntary for other importers from 2031 and mandatory in 2034.

Member states must start collecting a new EU handling fee from 1 November on each item sent direct to consumers from outside the EU, on top of the €3 duty. It is €2 per item type on the declaration, paid by the platform or seller, with VAT due on the fee. Product identifiers become mandatory from the same date.

The temporary flat €3 duty applies per item category on goods worth €150 or less imported from outside the EU, until the full customs reform takes effect.

The new DPP registry stores commodity codes so customs can check a product has a registered passport before release, linked to the EU Single Window for Customs. Batteries are the first products that need one, from 18 February 2027.

The European Commission’s largest DSA penalty so far followed mystery shopping that found unsafe chargers and baby toys with chemical levels above legal limits.

Europe’s top 100 marketplaces will generate about €175.8bn GMV in 2026, of which €139.8bn (79.5%) is cross-border, rising about 10% to €154bn in 2027. Amazon, Temu, AliExpress, eBay and Etsy lead, with Vinted, OLX Group and Zalando also in the top 10. Regulatory readiness (customs, VAT, EPR, packaging) is named as a key driver.

European cross-border B2C eCommerce reached €108bn in 2025, about 25% of all online sales, as growth stabilises. The TOP 500 cross-border brands turned over €86bn, led by IKEA, JYSK, H&M, Zalando and Lego.

Drawing on Landmark Global research across 12 markets, shoppers value predictable delivery over speed (3–7 working days is accepted in Europe), 76–92% track their parcels, and they expect the full price including duties and taxes before checkout.

Preliminary customs estimates put cross-border eCommerce trade at about 2.18 trillion yuan for January to September: exports of about 1.75 trillion yuan (up 4.6%) and imports of about 434 billion yuan (up 3.3%). Shanghai port exports passed 100 billion yuan in eight months, up 28.7%.

B2C cross-border exports reached US$52.84bn (down 5.8%), but rebounded in June (+7.8%), while B2B cross-border exports more than doubled (+119.7%). ASEAN has become the largest destination for China’s B2C eCommerce exports, exports to Russia rose 202%, and Latin America held steady. Exports through overseas warehouses rose 3.3-fold and 115,000 more firms began trading internationally.

TikTok Shop’s global GMV rose about 92% to US$50.3bn, with the US now its largest market by value, and Temu and SHEIN grew North American sales by double digits. Semi-managed models are moving sellers from direct shipping to pre-stocking overseas. Shanghai to US West Coast container rates rose over 70% by May, and China to US/Europe air rates passed 35 yuan per kg.

Compliance is now the baseline as duty-free thresholds disappear; brand building and localisation will separate winners from losers; overseas warehouse networks keep growing; AI moves to the centre of operations; and ASEAN, Russia and Latin America offer both opportunity and risk.

In the first four weeks after the summer holidays, sales fell 26% at SHEIN, 19% at Temu and 24% at AliExpress, according to Joko data reported by Les Échos. The new taxes have eroded the price advantage Chinese platforms relied on.

Sellers now prepare stock three to six months ahead, up from two to three. Cross-border taxes and fees in the EU have risen nearly 70% in a year, and AliExpress has expanded warehouse capacity 2.5 times across Spain, France, Poland, Germany, the US and South Korea.

TikTok Shop took 48% of Thailand’s physical goods GMV in Q2, ahead of Shopee on 45%. Its first-half GMV in Thailand reached US$9.9 billion, up 116% year on year.

Global volume rose 24.8% year on year, with Southeast Asia up 44.5% to 2.886 billion parcels and new markets up 159.5%. Daily volume has now topped 100 million for two quarters running.

SHEIN has launched a cooperative logistics service in Spain with GLS, FedEx and CTT, shipping local sellers’ orders to Germany, France, Italy and Portugal. Its logistics centre near Wrocław, Poland, added more than 3,000 jobs in 2026, with thousands more planned.

Goods exported under customs codes 1210, 9610, 9710 and 9810 and returned unsold or by customers within six months stay exempt from import duty, VAT and consumption tax until the end of 2027, easing the cost of bringing back overseas warehouse stock.

Since the EU’s €3 duty, Temu’s fully managed model has fallen from 80% to around a third of sales. Temu now runs 13 self-built overseas warehouses and aims to fulfil more than 80% of European and US orders locally.