How OneStock OMS Capabilities Support Retailers Facing EU Customs Reform

What is the EU Customs Reform?

The EU Customs Reform represents a major overhaul in how goods entering the European Union are declared, controlled, and taxed. The changes have been driven by the EU’s desire to address the ongoing rapid growth of cross-border e-commerce to increase competitiveness within the block. A key element of the reform therefore is the introduction of a flat customs handling fee of €3 on every low-value parcel (defined as under €150 in value) shipped directly to EU consumers from outside the EU.

Additionally, the reform also lays the groundwork for more digital, centralized customs processes, through initiatives such as the incoming EU Customs Data Hub. It signals the EU’s desire to move towards greater transparency, automation, and accountability in cross-border trade.

As the customs duties and new processes impact low-value cross-border parcels, an effective Order Management System (OMS) becomes more important than ever. It becomes a strategic tool for compliance, cost control, and, ultimately, customer experience.

With the new handling fee, a retailer operating with international warehouses may apply a flat price across all markets if it cannot predict in advance which warehouse will fulfill the order. Consequently, the issue stems directly from the implementation of unified stock, which was originally designed to maximize availability.

The question therefore is: How can a retailer maintain the advantages of leveraging high availability while mitigating customs fees?

By utilizing an Order Management System, such as OneStock’s OMS, retailers have a number of options that may be used in combination to help them to navigate these changes efficiently, such as stock view segmentation, applying orchestration logic, or utilizing Ship from Store. Let’s take a look at these in practice.

1. Stock View Segmentation

One way retailers can respond to the EU Customs Reform is by using Stock View Segmentation to control which inventory is exposed to each sales channel. By defining channel-specific stock views, for example showing only EU-based warehouse or store inventory to EU e-commerce sites, retailers can structurally avoid triggering cross-border parcel fees and reduce customs complexity at source.

Overall, this approach simplifies compliance and protects margins by ensuring that orders placed on EU channels are automatically fulfilled from within the EU customs territory. However, the trade-off is reduced availability: inventory held in neighbouring non-EU markets, such as the UK, would no longer contribute to EU online stock pools.

As a consequence, retailers may see lower product availability or missed sales opportunities depending on their specific structure. Any impact should therefore be carefully considered, as orchestration rules, carefully balanced to weigh customs cost versus incremental revenue, could also be required, either as an alternative or in addition to this approach.

2. Order Orchestration: Intelligent, Cost-Aware Order Fulfilment

OneStock’s Order Orchestration provides a core logic layer that can decide where and how to fulfil each order based on business rules, inventory availability, geographic factors, and performance goals.

Relevance under EU Customs Reform

As we have seen, new customs duties can introduce variable costs based on fulfilment strategy. In mitigation, smart orchestration enables:

• Cost-based routing: Decisions consider not just distance and delivery time, but also customs cost, number of parcels, and fulfilment fees (important when customs duties change margins).
• Minimized parcel splits: Avoiding splits reduces the risk of multiple duty charges per order, vital when the EU is applying fees per parcel.
• Fulfilment location optimization: The OMS chooses the best stock point (including stores, warehouses, partners, or drop shippers) balancing delivery promise with cost and customs considerations.

Configurable, agile workflows mean that business users can create and modify fulfilment rules without IT support, allowing rapid responses to any regulatory changes, such as this reform or any such customs duties reforms in the future.

3. Ship from Store: Turning Retail Stores into Fulfilment Hubs

Using OneStock Ship from Store, retailers are able to source and ship online orders directly from retail stores instead of only from central warehouses. This is clearly crucial when managing cross-border duties and delivery costs.

Why this matters post-EU reform

With new import duties on low-value parcels, retailers should utilize OMS to:

1. Reduce customs fees and logistics costs by selecting store candidates that avoid fees, rather than distant international warehouses.
2. Avoid multiple parcel charges by consolidating shipments from stores close to the customer.
3. Better manage duties on international orders by planning fulfilment locations that benefit from regional stock or customs simplifications.

Embedded business intelligence

Embedded business intelligence becomes equally critical as retailers adapt their fulfilment strategies to this new regulatory environment. With analytics, retailers might monitor how often cross-border shipments are used, measure the cost impact of customs fees by location or channel, or compare store-based fulfilment against warehouse fulfilment. Insights can allow operations teams to continuously refine orchestration rules, ensuring that fulfilment strategies remain cost-effective and compliant as regulations evolve.

Strategic Benefits for Retailers

Ship from Store and Order Orchestration deliver benefits that directly support business resilience under the EU customs reforms:

• Cost Mitigation
• Lower shipping costs by using local stock
• Avoidance of multiple customs charges by intelligent parcel consolidation
• Custom rule configurations that let retailers balance business priorities (cost vs. speed vs. customer satisfaction)
• Compliance and Operational Control
• Real-time visibility of inventory and fulfilment steps that allows better tracking of where and how orders cross borders, critical as customs data digitization increases
• Flexible orchestration logic that adapts quickly to regulatory changes without heavy IT involvement

By providing real-time inventory visibility, intelligent, cost-aware routing, and flexible operational control, OneStock empowers businesses to adapt fulfilment strategies that minimise cross-border fees, reduce logistic complexity, and safeguard customer experience in a changing regulatory landscape.