Shipping from Spain to France e-Commerce Solutions

Why is cross-border shipping expensive?

• Cross-border pricing:

  Cross-border shipments may be affected by duties and taxes depending on different reasons. We recommend you to research and take duties and taxes into consideration in your pricing strategy, especially for any key international markets you are targeting.

  Remember: Duties are calculated based on a fixed percentage per destination country (and sometimes per state or province).

• Learn about the country's regulations:

  While certain countries prohibit some products completely, others may restrict them. Being familiar with the rules and regulations may affect your shipments and can help your eCommerce to ensure a smooth delivery.

• Carrier options:

  Postal carriers are usually more economical, but may not offer many options in terms of package types and speed delivery. Express carriers are faster, may handle heavier or larger packages, and offer more service options, but they tend to be more expensive. Local couriers can handle any "last mile" issues.
  
         Find the best parcel delivery options in Spain and the best carriers in France
  
  
  
• Cross-border fulfillment:
  
  You can optimize shipping costs and delivery times through international warehousing (Spain and France in this case). We've said cross-border is expensive, but it won't break your bank account either. Because there are many strategies you can find in order to save money. Storing the goods in a fulfillment center in the destination country can help you substantially reduce delivery time and costs.

            Learn more about cross-border e-commerce.

How much does it cost to ship a parcel from Spain to France?

This is a challenging question to answer because it depends on many aspects. For example, it depends on the number of orders, the delivery alternatives, the dimensions of the products, the storage capacity needed at the warehouse, and other aspects. To give you an idea: the cost of a parcel more than 1 to 5 kg in the same county, costs an average of 13,18 €.

3 Options for Shipping from Spain to France

The increase in shipping costs, especially cross-border, can present some challenges for both retailers and consumers. Many e-commerce companies have experienced an increased freight rate to transport their products. For this reason, finding a wise solution that fits your shipping needs is essential: 

1. Classic cross-border shipping

Classic cross-border shipping is the simplest option and the one that most merchants initially start with. For example, you can store your inventory in Spain and fulfill all French orders individually. 

Advantages of Classic Cross-Border Shipping

• Simplest to set up
• Lowest financial risk per shipment
• You can use the existing warehouse setup in Spain

Disadvantages of Classic Cross-Border Shipping

• High shipping costs
• Slow delivery
• Increased chance of delivery problems

When to use Cross-Border Shipping

While shipping your e-commerce parcels from Spain to France with this method comes with high costs and relatively long delivery times, it is a preferred initial strategy to fulfill orders when you’re just tapping into the French e-commerce market. There are no initial investments associated and you don’t commit to pushing sales in France.

However, if the number of sales in Spain’s neighbouring country increases, you might want to think of other fulfillment strategies.

 2. Direct-Injection

This method is not as well known as other shipping options, however, it comes with some proper advantages. Direct-Injection means that you bundle multiple shipments to another country and transfer it across the border. From there it will be picked up by local parcel delivery companies and shipped to the customers.

Example: A truck picks up your bundled deliveries from your Spanish warehouse and brings it across the French border. From there it is picked up by La Poste or other carriers.

Advantages of Direct-Injection

• Faster shipping
• Cheaper shipping
• Delivery with national carriers

Disadvantages of Direct-Injection

• Depending on location (best when close to the border)
• Only makes sense when the shipping volume is high

When to use Direct-Injection

Providers like Seven Senders offer this kind of service, however, you’ll only be able to benefit from it when you have a certain amount of shipments in the other country. As a rule of thumb, the shipping volume should be around 100 shipments per day to make up for cost for the collection and feed-in costs. Don’t worry if your volume is lower than that, byrd can bundle their customers' orders and offer beneficial access even with less than 100 orders a day. Besides the number of orders, the location of your warehouses is decisive if you want to save money. Storing your inventory closer to the border and close to logistics hubs will facilitate Direct-Injection substantially.

3. Cross-Border Fulfillment

The third and most elaborate option is operating multiple warehouses in various countries. In this case, that would mean you store your stock both in Spain and France. This method is more complex than the other two, however, it provides you with many advantages of location-based fulfillment.

Advantages of Cross-Border Fulfillment

• Fast delivery
• Reduced cost for delivery
• Most sustainable option
• Use of national delivery companies
• Maximal flexibility

Disadvantages of Cross-Border Fulfillment

• Complex coordination
• Only makes sense when the shipping volume is high

When to use Cross-Border Fulfillment

While all three methods can be used complementary, a multi-warehouse strategy is the most complex one. When you operate your warehouses in-house, it leads to a massive increase in coordination needed, and a substantial investment is needed to build it up. However, using service providers like byrd will allow you to use multiple warehouses while still keeping costs variable and without needing a big investment upfront. Additionally, a pre-built dashboard will allow you to keep a bird-eye overview of your operations.

How byrd’s services can help you fulfill orders in Spain and France

A 3PL helps you to reduce logistical workload, especially if your e-commerce is shipping across borders. The reason is that they take care of all the customs procedures, you don't have to do anything about it. With byrd, for example, when a customer places an order with a retailer, the products are automatically organized and shipped from our warehouse. In the case of fulfillment in Spain and fulfillment in France, we have warehouses in both countries. This facilitates shipping between them and lets you choose between the three fulfillment strategies explained above.

Advantages of working with a 3PL

• We take care of coordinating and processing returns.
• The storage and management of your inventory are handled by a team of experts, you can focus on your key strengths instead.
• Since we take care of all customs documentation and border crossing, we guarantee that your package arrives quickly at its destination.

Our prices for e-commerce fulfillment include many benefits to doing your business; among them are acceptance of goods, storage, commissioning, packaging, and dispatch. We offer individual services such as oversized shipping, insurance, express shipping, etc. Find out more about our fulfillment prices.