Setting Up Cross-Border Fulfillment the Right Way – Answers from the even Webinar with Active Ants

In a nutshell: When is the right moment to grow beyond your home market? And what does it really take to fulfill orders professionally abroad? Daniel Wien, Business Development Manager at Active Ants, shared 25 years of cross-border experience in the even Webinar – no sugar-coating.

Missed the Webinar? Click here for the full recording.

Many e-commerce companies start with a great product idea, build a strong presence in their home market – and eventually realize that logistics is eating up more time than the actual business. That's when the question arises: how does an international market entry really work? Daniel Kerber explained in the even Webinar what matters most.

When do you realize that the home market alone is no longer enough and it's time to think beyond borders?

Daniel: It's a bit of both. Sometimes you plan it actively, sometimes you simply notice: orders are coming in from abroad, the demand is already there. But as a general rule: first, your home market needs to be solid. You start in the market you know – linguistically, culturally, operationally. Once you have stability there, the question of the next step almost answers itself.

You put it this way: at some point, you're spending three-quarters of your time acting as a logistics manager rather than an online retailer.

Daniel: That's exactly the signal. When orders take five days to leave the warehouse, when customer complaints pile up, when repeat buyers become fewer – the problem usually isn't the webshop or the product, it's the logistics. Consumers have been spoiled by the big American player with the A. You don't have to match them entirely – but you at least need to be in the same league.

Gerd asked in the chat whether a decision like this doesn't require a holistic calculation – shipping, warehousing costs, everything together.

Daniel: Absolutely. Profitability must always come first. What I call the critical mass is different for every company – for one it might be 100 parcels per month in a given country, for another it's 1,000. It depends on the overall size of the business and how the product range is structured. The decision to open a second warehouse isn't purely a shipping decision – it's a business decision.

Sales and marketing are one thing. What else tends to catch people off guard?

Daniel: Administration. Especially when you're looking to enter Germany from the outside – it's a highly documented country. Business registration, tax number, local compliance. Someone coming from Australia, used to just getting started, can quickly hit a wall here. That's why it's essential to work with people who already know the setup and have on-the-ground experience.

Your approach isn't just one location, but several – and the technology behind them is the same across all of them.

Daniel: Exactly. All our locations run on the same software platform. The user works with a single, unified interface, regardless of whether they're fulfilling from Germany, Belgium, France, or the Netherlands. This also makes it possible, for example, to redirect inventory flexibly: if stock in Germany is running low and goods from the Far East have a four-week lead time, you can simply fulfill orders from the Dutch warehouse. The end customer doesn't notice a thing – from their perspective, everything runs through the German webshop.

You have a lot of infrastructure. What do I need as a merchant to get started with you?

Daniel: First of all, an online shop – that sounds obvious, but it's the starting point. Then mainly two things: openness to technology and clean data. Anyone who has never worked with a highly automated fulfillment operation needs to be ready for that. And data is critical: how many items per order, how is the order split distributed, what volumes do we need to store? These questions may sound trivial, but they're the foundation for a financially sound offer. Garbage in, garbage out – that applies here too.

Conclusion: Cross-border fulfillment isn't a sure thing – but it is plannable

Anyone looking to grow internationally needs more than a translated shop page. It takes a realistic look at your own logistics, a holistic calculation, and partners with local experience. Active Ants demonstrates how automated multi-warehouse fulfillment can help you take this step in a structured way.

Missed the Webinar?

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