THE MIDDLE MILE IS WHERE SUPPLY CHAIN RESILIENCE IS WON OR LOST By Carlos Barbosa
threshold with a two-item order — per-line fees are a rounding error at that price point. But low-value, multi-item sellers and especially subscription businesses face a different calculation. For a subscription box priced at €50 per month containing five items, the July 1 fee alone could add €15 per shipment before any additional customs costs are considered. As a result, more companies are positioning inventory closer to end customers through regional fulfillment hubs. Moving inventory in bulk often allows businesses to clear goods through a B2B customs process at wholesale value rather than paying duties and taxes on the final retail value of individual consumer orders. What starts as a customs change can quickly become a fulfillment and inventory strategy decision. That is increasingly what makes the middle mile so important in the package lifecycle. It has become the area where regulatory change, transportation strategy, inventory planning, and customer experience converge.
or years, if you asked brands shipping internationally where their logistics attention went, the answer was usually the final mile. Delivery speed, carrier options, and last-mile tracking was optimized, invested in, and obsessed over, while the middle mile quietly did its job. As long as freight moved and parcels cleared customs, most brands didn't think much about it. But that time has come to an end. Over the past two years, a wave of changes to tariffs, customs, and regulations has become the most impactful factor in cross-border logistics, and the pressure is landing on the middle mile. The end of de minimis in the US, tightening customs data requirements, and new duty levies in markets like Australia and New Zealand have all added friction to international shipping. Each change that governments make adds cost, complexity, or uncertainty to the middle mile.
Carrier Performance Matters More than Ever The regulatory changes are also exposing something that was always true, but easy to overlook — carriers are not equally capable in the middle mile. As customs requirements increase, the performance gap between carriers widens. According to ePost Global's 2025 Shipping Intelligence Report, there’s a 96-point gap in delivery performance between top-performing and underperforming carriers across its network. Historically, carrier selection often centered on transit times and shipping rates. Today, questions surrounding which carrier clears customs fastest, which has the infrastructure to handle delivery duty paid (DDP) in a specific market, or which can absorb a regulatory change without service disruptions are just as important. A customs delay, documentation error, or clearance issue can quickly erase any savings achieved through a lower shipping rate. The cost isn't limited to transportation. It extends to customer service inquiries, delayed deliveries, abandoned purchases, and damaged customer relationships. Working with a shipping partner that monitors regulatory changes across markets and knows when new rules or fees are coming can make the difference between reacting to a cost increase, and preparing for one.
The Growing Impact of Regulatory Change Upcoming changes in the EU alone illustrate how quickly the economics of cross-border shipping can change. As of July 1, 2026, a new €3 per-line item fee applies to every imported parcel under €150. In November, an additional €2 customs handling fee follows. By 2028, the €150 IOSS cap disappears entirely and full customs declarations apply to all consignments. These changes force businesses selling into the EU to decide whether they absorb the costs and take the margin hit, pass them to the consumer and risk competitiveness, or restructure operations. But that decision looks different depending on what a merchant sells and where they sell it. A brand selling luxury shirts at €80 each hits the €150
Customs Strategy Is Now a Business Strategy Brands should also reassess how parcels clear customs and what makes the most sense in this changing environment. Many cross-border shipments still default to delivery duty unpaid (DDU), where the consumer pays duties and taxes upon arrival, but this model creates problems when duties change. Some carriers are still figuring out how they’ll handle fees like the EU’s July 1 charge, and customers don’t respond well to surprise delivery costs. DDP, where duties are pre-cleared before shipping, removes that uncertainty. DDP shipments already deliver significantly better performance than DDU in European lanes, and that gap is likely to widen as fee structures get more complex. Brands
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24 PARCELindustry.com JULY-AUGUST 2026