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Act before the market
Across Europe, the last-mile delivery landscape is rapidly evolving, driven by consumer preferences, sustainability pressures, and regulatory changes. Recent data from delivery providers, postal services, and consumer surveys across 13 European countries - Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania - reveals distinct regional patterns in how online purchases reach consumers.
A recent analysis from our e-commerce database, based on data from over 140,000 webshops across these countries, provides deeper insights into how extensively online retailers offer different delivery methods.
Nordic countries have strongly adopted out-of-home (OOH) delivery methods, including parcel shops and lockers. Sweden traditionally favours parcel shops, with Tembi’s data showing 36.1% of Swedish webshops offering this method. Denmark stands out with parcel shop deliveries offered by 57.6% of webshops, reflecting extensive and convenient networks.
Finland is a leader in parcel locker adoption - 34.1% of Finnish webshops offer locker delivery, supported by a widespread network of accessible 24/7 lockers. Norway balances between home (52.1% of webshops) and parcel shop deliveries (33%), with locker installations growing at 9%, indicating increasing preference for flexible, automated solutions.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania showcase exceptional acceptance of parcel lockers. In Estonia, a remarkable 71.8% of webshops offer parcel lockers, validating Estonia’s leadership in locker infrastructure. Lithuania and Latvia follow closely, with 66.4% and 54.7% respectively offering parcel lockers, strongly supporting consumer preferences for convenience and reduced environmental impact.
In Western Europe, the Netherlands strongly prefers collect-yourself options, with Tembi data showing 76.4% of Dutch webshops offer this method. Home delivery remains prevalent, offered by 27.5% of retailers, aligning with the Dutch consumer's primary preference for doorstep delivery but complemented significantly by collect-yourself options.
Italy, traditionally a home-delivery market, now shows a strong adoption of collect-yourself options, offered by 64.9% of Italian webshops. Out-of-home delivery is now Italy's second most popular delivery option after home delivery, driven by convenience and reliability.
Eastern European markets like Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria traditionally favoured home delivery but now rapidly integrate OOH options. Slovakia prominently features home delivery (76.9%) but also offers parcel shops through 42.9% of webshops, echoing the region's evolving preferences.
Hungary continues to favour home delivery significantly (82.6%), but parcel lockers have rapidly expanded, with about 37.7% of webshops offering this method. Romania, while strongly home-delivery oriented (83.9%), sees parcel lockers emerging as supplementary (21.2%).
Bulgaria uniquely highlights workplace delivery, offered by 36.2% of online retailers, underscoring its importance in urban logistics. This method provides practical advantages in urban areas where home deliveries may face reliability challenges.
Belgium recently mandated online retailers offer at least two delivery options at checkout, including one eco-friendly alternative such as parcel shops or lockers. Effective from 2024, this regulation aims to reduce failed deliveries, lower emissions, and encourage sustainable consumer choices (bpost, 2024). This legislative move sets a precedent that other European countries might soon follow.
Parcel lockers and out-of-home delivery significantly reduce last-mile delivery emissions, potentially cutting CO₂ by approximately 30% compared to home delivery, especially when consumers collect parcels using sustainable transport methods (McKinsey, 2024). Dense networks of lockers and collection points, common in Estonia, Finland, and the Netherlands, enhance urban delivery efficiency, reduce traffic congestion, and improve consumer satisfaction.
European last-mile delivery is undeniably trending towards flexible, sustainable methods that reflect varied regional consumer behaviours. As OOH options mature and consumer awareness grows, home delivery will increasingly coexist with alternative methods. Carriers and retailers who proactively adapt will lead in delivering not just parcels, but also consumer satisfaction and sustainability.
Our recent analysis of aggregated data from webshops in selected European countries confirms two straightforward insights about cross-border selling: webshops typically target neighbouring countries or seek out larger markets to grow their potential customer base. While these findings may seem intuitive, the data illustrates clearly how consistently webshops employ these strategies - particularly when supported by strong partnerships with local logistics providers and prioritised investments in localisation.
The obvious role of proximity
Webshops in Denmark primarily target Sweden (18.9%) and Germany (18%), reflecting straightforward cross-border logistics and cultural familiarity. Similarly, Dutch webshops predominantly sell to Belgium (17.4%) and Germany (13.5%), confirming that short distances and established regional logistics make neighbouring countries natural first choices. Swedish webshops follow the same logic, favouring close neighbours Denmark (17.2%) and Finland (15.9%).
Targeting larger markets beyond proximity
Webshops strategically pursue larger markets with robust consumer bases, such as Germany and France, regardless of direct proximity. For instance, Italian webshops commonly sell to Germany (14.2%) and France (14.1%), driven significantly by the size and high purchasing power of these markets, alongside geographical closeness.
Distinctive patterns in Eastern Europe
Webshops in Hungary display notably low cross-border priority: only 4.4% offer shipping options to Germany, Slovakia, and Romania. This cautious approach likely reflects specific economic calculations, infrastructural limitations, or less developed cross-border logistics partnerships, rather than purely geographical factors.
Latvian webshops clearly illustrate the proximity factor again, heavily targeting neighbouring Lithuania (16.8%) and Estonia (15.9%), highlighting ease of trade through geographic and cultural closeness.
Notable differences in cross-border engagement levels
A significant finding from the data is the variation in how actively webshops pursue international markets. Factors driving these differences include the maturity of the domestic e-commerce market, logistical infrastructure, consumer purchasing power, and particularly the level of investment into localisation and logistics solutions. Engagement levels notably decline with increasing distance, indicating logistical complexity and higher costs likely deter webshops from extensive international expansion beyond neighbouring or well-established larger markets.
Concluding remarks
Our aggregated data confirms proximity and market size as primary drivers for cross-border e-commerce decisions. However, the diverse patterns and varying engagement levels suggest that webshop decisions are influenced by more complex strategic factors, including infrastructural readiness, economic conditions, logistical capabilities, and the willingness to invest in localised consumer experiences. These factors ultimately shape cross-border success far more than geographical closeness alone.
Last‑mile delivery shapes the online shopping experience, influencing conversion rates, repeat purchases and brand perception.
At Tembi, we analysed over 600,000 webshops to understand two aspects of last‑mile competition in 17 European markets, the market share of the top delivery provider and the number of distinct delivery partners each webshop integrates, and how these factors drive innovation and strategy.
Rather than estimating parcel volumes, we examined the presence of delivery providers in webshop back‑ends. Every integration represents a commitment by the webshop to offer that carrier at checkout. By counting integrations, we capture:
• Breadth of choice available to consumers
• Carrier prominence within each market
For each country - from Belgium to Slovakia - we identified the top three providers by share of webshop integrations and counted the total number of providers in active use. We excluded providers that have less than 1% market presence.
These figures show that while national postal services still lead in many markets, no single carrier dominates everywhere, and the number of options ranges from three providers in Iceland to more than twenty in the Netherlands.
We classify markets by the checkout presence held by the leading provider:
Adding the count of distinct delivery partners shows where compeition is the hightst:
Most fragmented markets, such as the Netherlands, Romania and Sweden, offer webshops a broad selection of carriers to tailor delivery options by region, price‑point and service level. In the Netherlands, for instance, there are over twenty distinct last‑mile providers active across the market. By contrast, in Iceland and Bulgaria webshops have fewer providers to choose from, simplifying management but concentrating risk, and less consumer choice. Finland sits between these extremes, with around fourteen partners in use yet Posti being present in 62% of all webshop checkouts.
Geography plays a crucial role in shaping last‑mile dynamics. In countries with vast rural areas and archipelagos - most notably Finland and Sweden - webshops need delivery partners that can reliably serve both remote villages and dense urban centres. National posts excel at this: Posti’s 62 percent presence in Finland and PostNord’s 33 percent in Sweden reflect their ability to cover every corner of the country, from Lapland to the Helsinki suburbs, or from the Stockholm archipelago to the far north. This extensive network cements their leadership and makes it challenging for smaller couriers to compete on a truly national scale.
At the same time, urban populations in these markets demand faster and more flexible options. That’s why even highly consolidated markets like Finland still see around fourteen delivery partners in use, and Sweden nearly eighteen. Specialist providers focus on city‑centre same‑day deliveries, parcel locker networks and niche eco‑services, carving out space alongside the national postal incumbent.
By contrast, in highly fragmented markets such as the Netherlands, Italy and Romania, geography is less of a barrier - population density is higher and distances shorter - so webshops routinely offer 18 to 22 different providers to meet varied consumer preferences. National posts such as PostNL and Poste Italiane must innovate continually, rolling out premium services like carbon‑neutral shipping, click‑and‑collect lockers and advanced tracking, and partnering with crowd‑shipping or on‑demand couriers to fill gaps.
In moderately consolidated markets - Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland and the Baltics - the mix reflects mid‑range geography and market size. National posts share the stage with regional specialists (such as GLS and DPD), driving innovation in service differentiation, tech integration and sustainability (electric fleets, bike couriers, offset programmes).
Finally, in smaller or more remote markets like Iceland and Bulgaria, webshops often layer core postal services with a handful (three to five) of local same‑day or on‑demand couriers to ensure coverage. Even here, national posts are expanding parcel‑locker footprints and app‑based tracking to meet rising consumer expectations - while keeping a watchful eye towards rapidly growing new digital-first ventures.
Understanding these overlapping factors - market consolidation, provider fragmentation and geographic realities - allows e‑commerce leaders to tailor last‑mile strategies. In widespread, low‑density regions, deep partnerships with national posts ensure full coverage; in dense, competitive markets, robust multi‑carrier technology and innovative niche services deliver the flexibility consumers expect.
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or e-commerce consumers, delivery costs often represent the final hurdle before completing a purchase. Set too high, delivery fees can drive potential buyers away; priced competitively, they can boost conversions and foster customer loyalty. At Tembi, we closely track these shifts, monitoring what webshops across Europe charge consumers for different delivery methods.
We analysed webshop delivery pricing data across nine markets from October 2024 to March 2025, examining variations across three key delivery methods: parcel box, parcel shop, and home delivery.
Over 300.000 webshops are part of this analysis and we've removed the outliers when calculatin average deliver prices (free delivery and delivery of large and/or heavy objects).
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Parcel boxes have become a popular choice due to convenience and lower operational costs. However, pricing varied significantly:
Parcel shops offer flexibility for consumers who prefer to pick up orders at convenient locations:
Home delivery remains the premium service and is generally priced highest:
These shifts in delivery prices reveal strategic decisions by webshops rather than direct changes in logistics provider pricing. Webshops balance several factors:
For commercial leaders in e-commerce, understanding these pricing strategies is critical. Lower delivery prices may indicate aggressive market positioning or efficiency gains, while increases might signal tighter operational conditions or reduced competition.
Webshop delivery pricing is a powerful indicator of market conditions and consumer expectations. Regular monitoring of these shifts is essential to stay competitive and agile - regardless if you're a retailer selling directrly or inderictly, or operate a last-mile delivery provider.
s we approach the year's final quarter, the stakes for last-mile delivery companies couldn't be higher. With the majority of revenue generated from B2C webshops, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the Christmas season represent crucial opportunities to maximise profits.
However, preparation for these peak periods involves more than ramping up staff, fine-tuning routing, and increasing throughput.
At Tembi, having helped over 40 last-mile providers across Europe, we understand that strategic planning on the commercial side can make or break your Q4 performance. To help you in the process we have collected a five of our key learnings on the topic.
Instead of focusing solely on acquiring new clients, ensure you're optimally positioned with your existing ones. Monitoring your position in their checkout process can yield significant returns. Being positioned as the top delivery provider at the delivery checkout can dramatically increase the number of orders you receive, often doubling or even tripling them.
From several of our Last-mile delivery clients, we have witnessed an average of 30%-50% increase in top-1 rankings working tactically with this. Typically, this amounts to a total increase of 20%- 33% in revenue from the existing client base!
Strategic client acquisition is essential. Focus on attracting webshops that boast a strong infrastructure, high order volumes, and the right geographical locations that align with your logistics.
These targeted efforts can significantly enhance your profit margins and operational efficiency.
On the other hand, failing to identify the clients that are right for you means losing time and money on unsuccessful outreach, attending irrelevant meetings, and seeing your closing rate decline. And even worse, potentially attracting a non-profitable client for your business.
Market research or a good market insight & sales intelligence tool will help ensuring you target the right clients. More is not always better.
Understand where you stand out compared to your competitors and highlight your unique selling points to differentiate yourself in a crowded market. Are your delivery times faster? Do you offer more sustainable options? Is your service reliability superior?
Tembi’s E-commerce Market Intelligence solution provides users with a comprehensive, data-driven market overview. This enables last-mile delivery companies to understand their performance and how they measure up against competitors. Our data not only visualises your strengths but also serves as credible evidence of your advantages.
Combining this data with comprehensive insights into each webshop in your market provides a significant advantage in sales meetings. You can tailor your pitch using up-to-date information, demonstrating how your solution will enhance the delivery experience for your customers' clients. This personalised approach showcases the specific benefits and improvements your service offers, making a compelling case for why your company is the best choice.
Q4 is a vulnerable time for webshops, where faulty shipments and slow deliveries can be extremely costly. Success often stems from a partnership approach between webshops and last-mile providers.
Engage deeply with your clients to ensure they see you as a trusted partner they can rely on during these critical periods.
In essence, this is where you want your sales and account management team to spend the majority of their time, which can be enabled by strong processes and the right tools/technologies to help your team be even more efficient.
Effective planning and execution require time, structured outreach, and meticulous account management. There is no easy way. The sooner you start, the better positioned you'll be to capitalise on the high season's opportunities. The time is now – not in October.
At Tembi, we bring years of experience in delivering market insights and partnership services that drive success.
Our market intelligence solutions provide last-mile delivery companies with continuously updated data and insights into webshops, delivery provider rankings, export markets, technology usage, product categories, and much more - allowing companies to react swiftly to changes, maintain top rankings, and increase revenue from their existing client base.
We tailor our supportive services to each client's needs, and we would love nothing more than to set up a free, non-committal session to discover how our e-commerce market intelligence solution could help your business achieve its revenue goals—both in Q4 and throughout the year.
iscover data and insight around webshops in Sweden, Denmark, Finland & Norway. This report is free and available on LinkedIn for download.
We've visited and analysed over 70.000 active webshops in Sweden, Denmark, Finland & Norway. Orginsed around three topics you'll find:
➜ Insights around distribution of product categories
➜ Data on delivery prices and delivery methods
➜ Discover which technology platforms power the webshops
And much more ⏩
Go to our linkedIn page and view, or download your copy.
Baltic E-Commerce Market Intelligence Report (Published January 2024)
Nordic e-commerce Market Intelligence Report (Published October 2023)
n the ever-evolving landscape of e-commerce, the race to secure customers and meet their delivery expectations has never been more intense. Last-mile delivery providers are constantly seeking new e-commerce clients, but what if I told you that there's a critical factor many overlook? It's not just about acquiring new clients; it's about optimising your position in their checkout process. Here's why:
At Tembi, we understand the significance of where a delivery provider stands in the checkout process. Did you know that up to 60% of final package orders go to the top-ranking delivery provider? This means that by being ranked number 1 instead of 2, 3, or 4 at your clients, you could double or even triple the number of orders from a client.
Interestingly, but not surprisingly, our data shows that the top-ranking delivery provider is the cheapest option in up to 80% of cases.
End-user delivery fees depend on the independent deal between last-mile providers and webshops. Other than lowering the delivery price paid by the e-commerce company, there are several ways to affect this.
Progressive discounts based on order volume, collaborative logistic offerings, reliance on service, and related solutions are all options that can help e-commerce companies offer your last-mile delivery service as the cheaper option for the end user.
However, it's about more than just being the cheapest option. Factors such as delivery time, delivery method, sustainability options, and collaboration with the delivery company also play significant roles. One or more of these are always present when the cheapest option differs from the top-ranked delivery option.
Consumers are increasingly conscious of environmental impact and delivery speed, making these factors crucial in their decision-making process. Therefore, they are also weighed in terms of the webshop owner's priorities and systems.
Losing your top ranking can be disastrous, but it's often discovered too late. Sometimes, you only realise this at the end of a quarter when financial results reflect the drop in orders. It's crucial to act swiftly on changes at your clients.
The Tembi Market Intelligence Solution for e-commerce gives you updated insights into your market's webshops, including delivery providers, checkout rankings, export markets, technology use, product categories, and much more.
This not only enables you to identify new ideal client profiles but also to quickly react to changes in your existing clients – like when you lose or win a top 1 position.
Many of our clients establish a business case for using our market intelligence solution for e-commerce based on new client acquisition alone. However, the value of working strategically and tactically to monitor and react to changes in checkout positions at existing clients often significantly exceeds the value of client acquisitions alone.
From several of our Last-mile delivery clients, we have witnessed an average of 30% - 50% increase in top-1 rankings working tactically with this. Typically, this amounts to a total increase of 20%- 33% in revenue from the existing client base!
Curious to learn more? Eager to get started?
Contact Tembi for a commitment-free discussion about our solutions and services to help you optimise your revenue from your current and future e-commerce clients. With Tembi's market intelligence, you can stay ahead of the competition and secure your position at the top of the checkout page.
In the fast-paced world of e-commerce, every advantage counts. By focusing on client acquisition and optimising your checkout positioning, you can ensure your last-mile delivery business thrives in today's competitive market.
Click here to schedule a call today.
n the fast-paced last-mile delivery sector, market intelligence is essential for success. By understanding your customers, competitors, and market trends, you can make informed decisions that lead to growth and profitability.
Market intelligence can help you identify new market opportunities, improve operational efficiency, and develop new products and services. It can also help you stay ahead of the competition and differentiate yourself from the crowd.
In this blog post, we have outlined a few specific examples of how last-mile delivery companies are using market intelligence to grow their businesses.
Staying ahead of the competition
Market intelligence can help last-mile delivery companies understand the competitive landscape and identify new ways to differentiate themselves. For example, a company might use market intelligence to identify new technologies that can help them improve their delivery services, or to develop new pricing strategies that are more competitive.
Identifying new market opportunities
By tracking market trends and customer behaviour, last-mile delivery companies can identify new markets to expand into or how green delivery is developing. For example, a company might identify a growing demand for same-day delivery in a particular city or region, or an understanding of the competitor's solution and market penetration of different delivery solutions.
Understanding website traffic patterns and consumer purchase behaviour
Last-mile delivery companies can today track which product categories are growing and which webshop’s are growing in popularity, as well as which international sites are exporting to one’s country. By doing so, last-mile delivery companies can establish early partnerships abroad and better equip themselves for future demands and growth.
Developing new products and services
Market intelligence can help last-mile delivery companies understand the needs of their customers and develop new products and services that meet those needs. For example, a company might develop a new service that delivers packages to customers' workplaces, or a possibility to get delivery at very specific times in the evening.
Improving operational efficiency
Market intelligence can help last-mile delivery companies optimise their delivery routes, reduce costs, and improve delivery times. For example, a company might use market intelligence to identify the best locations for new warehouses, or to develop more efficient delivery schedules.
Getting good data for Market Intelligence is not easy, as it requires a lot of time, and quite often a big investment in data infrastructure and a plan to keep high quality and ensure data is actualized. Hence, many decisions are taken without bringing external factors into the mix or using poor data as a ground.
Different Market Intelligence platforms collect different types of data and can help companies better understand the market dynamics. Here are a few tips and suppliers for getting started with market intelligence.
As with any strategic decision, starting the process, you need to define your goals. Market intelligence is not an answer, it is a tool. Are you looking for growth within a particular type of webshops, or price development of different delivery methods? Or a more complex question around identify new market opportunities. Once you know your goals, you can start to identify the data and insights you need.
Collect data
There are many different sources of market intelligence data, including customer surveys, industry reports, and government statistics. You can also collect data from your own internal systems, such as sales data and customer feedback.
Analyse the data
Once you have collected data, you need to analyse it to identify trends and insights. You can use a variety of tools and techniques to analyze data, such as data analytics software or more advanced methods using machine learning.
Share the insights
Once you have gained insights from your market intelligence data, you should to share them with your team to gather input, feedback, and get new ideas so you can keep iterating your work. You can either do a presentation or set up a dashboard that monitors the data and actualises your insights.
Our E-commerce Intelligence Platform – EIP – monitors every webshop on the market, and provides data around providers, prices, and delivery methods. This data can be filtered from a webshop category perspective or for example revenue, providing a comprehensive overview and intelligence of the market and competitors. Hence, EIP both collects and analyses the data, and provides (shares) the insights in simple overview. In other words, decision-ready intelligence.
ith our E-commerceMarket Intelligence Report, we have taken a deep dive into the e-commerce industry in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway to better understand delivery price differences, who are the dominant delivery providers and i.e. which technology providers power all the webshops.
The report is packed with data & insights to give the reader a better understanding of the market as well as the competitive landscape.
The nordic e-commerce is growing fast, with a market size of over €38 billion distributed over 76.000 webshops. Out of the regions 27 million people, more than 19.5million are online shoppers. It's also an exciting place for startups — over the past three months, 4,848 new webshops have opened up online.
All data in this report comes from Tembi’s E-commerce Intelligence Platform (EIP).
We don’t talk about consumer data in this report. We only focus on the businesses in thee-commerce industry, such as webshops, delivery providers, and technology providers.
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he Nordic eCommerce report dives into the eCommerce market in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. The report is free and available for download here.
Looking into data from 79.000 online retailers that sell physical goods we analysed what type of commerce platforms are popular, which payment providers are mostly used as well as delivery methods and product categories.
Interested in knowing more about our data, or are you looking to reach a specific type of webshops? Contact our sales here for a short intro.
Baltic E-Commerce Market Intelligence Report (Published January 2024)
Nordic e-commerce Market Intelligence Report (Published October 2023)
