Growth in the Americas: helping scale-ups expand

The e-commerce market across the Americas – just like in other regions – is seeing tremendous growth. A huge boom has occurred across in North America, where revenue is projected to reach US$1.46tn in 2025. Latin America’s 300 million digital shoppers are expected to grow 44% by 2029. (Sources: Statista). This growth spans both companies selling from their own websites, and those selling through the growing number of online marketplaces.

Tapping into these opportunities takes some consideration, however, and some knowledge of the global fulfillment solutions that can help. Leonardo Ottoni, Head of Americas for the DHL Fulfillment Network, talks about the challenges companies in this region experience. “Companies face a lot of uncertainty around the overall sales levels they will achieve and specifically around which channels will be the most successful, be that their own website, online marketplaces (and which ones) or retail partners.” Market uncertainty, particularly across borders, can be hard for companies to navigate too. “It’s daunting putting stock in a new warehouse location when you’re not sure if your sales forecasts for that location are going to hold out at times of volatility,” notes Leonardo.

“Another hurdle is turnaround time. A company may see a new opportunity but can find it hard to react quickly enough to grasp it. A delay means they’re leaving precious profit margins on the table.”

“If it’s a totally new area to you, or even a totally new country, then you might find you’re working with a logistics provider you’re unfamiliar with, and the last thing you need is to choose badly and for them to let you down,” Leonardo explains. It's important to work with providers who are resilient. “Business continuity and risk management are really important. Does your logistics partner have the skills and size to reduce any disruption that may occur?” With the right logistics partner, especially one that’s an expert in global fulfillment services, companies can avoid negative financial impact like damaged or lost stock, legal impact like penalties for not adhering to customs requirements, and loss of reputation if orders arrive late.

“When you’ve reached the point where your expansion into a new market is more stable, a great next step is to move a portion of your stock to that location,” explains Leonardo. “The advantages of this? Reducing your last mile costs and your carbon footprint.” You can be shrewd and take the tack of moving only your fast-moving SKUs to your new warehouse location, which will maximize the cost efficiencies of using that other node. You might do this for peak season and then scale back down. “The DHL Fulfillment Network is built on this kind of flexibility and scalability,” says Leonardo.

And what about grasping opportunities quickly? “Set-up with the DHL Fulfillment Network takes only a matter of weeks,” Leonardo tells us. “That includes integrating your webshop and all onboarding. It’s plug-and-play, so if you come on board with us in one location then expand into more, the expansion is an easy roll-out. All customers also get access to our Advanced Inventory Insights: visibility of their stock movements per location, on a dashboard, equips them to make informed decisions.”

“Let me give you an example of the kind of growth a customer can experience when they move to the DHL Fulfillment Network. UP2Tech, a reseller of consumer electronics in Brazil, have more than doubled their sales in a year, with monthly revenues now nearly BRL 90m (USD 18m),” notes Leonardo. They have achieved this growth in the domestic Brazilian market alone, but based on this success, they are now setting their sights on increasing their overseas reach and their product offering.

A client in the apparel field that was shipping from the UK to the US found a great solution in the DHL Fulfillment Network. “We hold stock in the US for this client and fulfill their orders from the US,” Leonardo explains, “so their costs, carbon footprint and leadtimes have gone down.”