Europe’s online shoppers continue to desire high-end and specialty American-made products, but the difficult decision of whether to pay for expensive express service or go with cheaper, less definitive shipping through postal services cause many of these sales to fizzle.
That is why third-party logistics services provider Geodis said it has recently launched an e-commerce shipping service that provides a more comfortable price point and transit time between express carrier and postal services.
Geodis MyParcel offers a four-to-six-day, end-to-end transport service between U.S. retailers and European customers. The service’s all-in rate is cheaper than two-to-three-day international express and closer to postal rates, without the 8-to-12-day or longer transits, Ashwani Nath, vice president and global head of e-channel solutions for Geodis, told American Shipper in a phone interview on Wednesday.
MyParcel allows e-retailers to automatically validate delivery addresses, select customs tariff codes, provide a tax and customs duty calculator, offer an option to reschedule delivery, and track shipments door to door.
Nath said MyParcel can be easily integrated into e-retailers’ online ordering systems through APIs (application programming interfaces). The service appears as a shipping option to the European customer.
Another benefit to MyParcel for small e-retailers is the ability to directly control their transportation pricing and avoid paying commissions to online marketplaces for shipping services.
Geodis started MyParcel to serve e-commerce shipments from the U.S. to Europe. Currently, consumers in 27 European countries can use the shipping option when ordering U.S. goods online.
Geodis, so far, has signed up about a dozen U.S. e-retailers of specialty products, including apparel, herbal medicine, archery supplies, gaming technology, and tattoo ink, and more shippers continue to sign up daily, Nath said.
Currently, MyParcel shipments are funneled through Geodis’s operation at Chicago O’Hare airport and transported on board either Europe-bound passenger flights or the company’s own charter freighters to Amsterdam.
Nath said Geodis arranges expedited ground transport of MyParcel shipments from the e-retailer’s door to O’Hare and does the same between the destination airport to the customer’s door.
Early next year, Geodis will offer the MyParcel service directly from Los Angeles, New York-JFK, and Miami airports to Europe. Nath also said the company is looking to expand service in 2021 to e-retailers in Asia and Europe to serve U.S. e-commerce customers.
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Click for more FreightWaves/American Shipper articles by Chris Gillis.
