DELIVER Asia 2026 Conference Recordings

Global e-commerce continues to expand rapidly, reshaping the expectations placed on supply chains.

Speaking at DELIVER Asia 2026 in Singapore, Thorsten Mendel and Affiz Adlan from DHL explored how fulfilment strategies must evolve to support this growth.

Although global e-commerce growth has stabilised after the pandemic surge, the market continues to expand significantly. Annual growth is currently around 8–10%, and global online spending is expected to exceed $5 trillion.

At the same time, internet penetration continues to grow worldwide, bringing millions of new consumers into digital commerce every year.

This expansion is transforming consumer expectations around product availability and delivery speed.

Today’s online shoppers expect to purchase products from anywhere in the world.

Consumers increasingly discover products while travelling, through social media, or via international online marketplaces. Once they find a product they like, they expect to be able to buy it again regardless of location.

This behaviour has driven the rise of international e-commerce purchasing. According to DHL data, around 59% of global shoppers now buy products internationally.

As a result, brands must consider how to make their products available across multiple markets while maintaining a consistent customer experience.

In a competitive e-commerce market, fulfilment is no longer simply a logistics function.

Instead, it has become a key factor in customer acquisition and retention.

Consumers expect fast and reliable delivery regardless of where the product originates. In many markets, buyers now expect delivery within two to three days.

If delivery options are too slow or expensive, customers frequently abandon their purchase. DHL highlights that 23% of shoppers abandon carts due to long delivery times or costly shipping options.

For brands, fulfilment performance directly impacts sales conversion and long-term customer loyalty.

Expanding internationally introduces several logistical and operational challenges.

Shipping products from a single country into global markets often leads to long delivery times and high transportation costs. Cross-border logistics also introduces regulatory complexity around taxes, duties and compliance requirements.

These challenges are particularly significant in high-growth markets such as Southeast Asia, where e-commerce demand is rising quickly.

Countries such as Thailand and Indonesia are experiencing annual e-commerce growth exceeding 20%, creating major opportunities for brands but also increasing supply chain complexity.

To remain competitive in these markets, businesses must find ways to position inventory closer to customers.

One solution to these challenges is the development of distributed fulfilment networks.

Instead of shipping products internationally from a single location, companies store inventory in multiple regional warehouses. This allows orders to be fulfilled locally, significantly reducing delivery times and costs.

Local fulfilment also simplifies compliance with regional regulations and improves the customer experience for returns and exchanges.

For many brands, the challenge lies in building and managing these networks without creating excessive operational complexity.

DHL highlights four key principles that enable successful international fulfilment strategies.

Customer experience standardisation ensures that shoppers receive the same quality of service regardless of location.

Partner ecosystems provide access to local expertise and operational flexibility when entering new markets.

Optimised logistics flows use strategic warehouse placement and multimodal transportation to balance cost and delivery speed.

Finally, data visibility enables companies to monitor inventory, orders and performance across global operations in real time.

Together, these pillars create the foundation for scalable international logistics.

DHL’s Asia Fulfilment Network is designed to simplify global expansion by providing a unified logistics platform.

The network operates across more than 41 countries, enabling businesses to expand into new markets through a single operational framework.

Companies integrate once into the DHL platform and can then access multiple fulfilment sites worldwide.

This approach provides a single system for monitoring inventory, orders and logistics performance across different regions.

It also simplifies compliance and operational management by centralising customer support and logistics coordination.

During the session, DHL shared a case study illustrating how this model works in practice.

The company partnered with a global brand selling private-label products internationally. The brand wanted to deliver products worldwide within 48 hours while avoiding the complexity of building its own supply chain infrastructure.

Using the DHL fulfilment network, the company gradually expanded into multiple markets.

Over a period of less than two years, DHL established 24 fulfilment locations worldwide, launching a new warehouse approximately every four to six weeks.

This distributed network enabled the company to scale rapidly while maintaining consistent delivery performance.

The results of this approach were significant.

With global fulfilment capabilities in place, the company was able to process between 2.5 million and 5 million orders annually.

Importantly, the company maintained a single integration point and a centralised management structure, avoiding the complexity of managing dozens of independent logistics providers.

This allowed the brand to focus on marketing, product development and sales while DHL handled the operational infrastructure.

The session concluded with a simple but powerful concept: be a global brand, but fulfil locally.

By positioning inventory close to customers and leveraging global logistics networks, companies can expand internationally while maintaining fast delivery and consistent service.

As e-commerce continues to globalise, fulfilment networks will play a critical role in enabling brands to reach new markets while maintaining operational resilience and customer satisfaction.