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/ Kevin HA / 25 min Recently updated

E-Commerce and the Iran Crisis: Three Fronts, Three Shocks

e-commercesupply chainIranlogisticsPetCareIoTCotton BirdSMEDTCmarketplace

The Iran-Israel crisis that began on February 28, 2026 entered the history books the day it started. American and Israeli strikes triggered the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz1 by March 2 — the maritime chokepoint through which a fifth of the world’s oil exports and a substantial share of Asia-Europe container traffic passes. Brent crude jumped from $72 to $126 a barrel within days2. European natural gas (TTF) surged 70% in under two weeks34. Asia-Europe container rates doubled, then kept climbing5. The euro slid from 1.20 to 1.15 against the dollar6, squeezing importers who invoice in euros but buy in dollars a little further still.

But here is what the macro analysis pieces are not saying: this shock is not hitting e-commerce uniformly. Whether you sell paper printed in France, GPS-connected collars sourced in Shenzhen, or garden furniture loaded into containers in China, the shockwave arrives through entirely different channels — and demands entirely different responses.

I have had the luck, or the misfortune depending on the year, of navigating all three of these models up close, as a practitioner. Large-scale garden furniture imports I practiced for several years — that is where I first learned what an $8,000 container actually means. Made-in-France stationery I then had the opportunity to work alongside closely, at Cotton Bird. And connected IoT PetCare is the project I am working on today. This piece is a synthesis of what these three experiences, in that order, are teaching me about the current crisis.

The verdict, for readers who do not have twenty-five minutes: DTC small businesses that have built a brand, diversified their sourcing, and locked in freight contracts in advance are holding up. Marketplace resellers whose only edge is price are dying slowly. And between these two extremes, there is a large middle ground navigating blind.

For the broader geopolitical context of Q1 2026, I described in my NFT analysis for March 2026 how the same crisis led to the cancellation of TOKEN2049 Dubai and forced BlackRock to reposition its crypto ETFs. The Iran crisis does not respect sector boundaries.

Paper, energy, and the case for domestic manufacturing

Having recently led Cotton Bird, a French stationery company specializing in wedding and birth announcements, I can see firsthand how made-in-France manufacturing looks, at first glance, like a fortress against this crisis. No containers, no Suez, no Hormuz — Cotton Bird prints in France, sources its paper in Europe, and delivers within France. The closure of the strait should not concern them.

Reality is more nuanced.

Tactile quality as the core value proposition

Cotton Bird operates in a market where tactile quality is the core value proposition. Heavy-coated paper, Scodix or MGI finishes, spot varnish — these are precisely the things couples refuse to sacrifice when they choose paper over a digital invitation. The upmarket drift in this segment is structural, even if it means turning toward smaller handcrafters capable of offering genuine exclusivity — an increasingly atomized market where perceived value outweighs volume7.

Gas as a collateral effect on the paper supply chain

Cotton Bird prints on Indigo digital presses in Perpignan — not on industrial offset. The gas price increase does not strike its workshops directly. But it does strike its paper suppliers.

The paper industry upstream is a heavy consumer of natural gas. Ink drying, calendering, fiber cooking — all of it depends on heat. Fastmarkets, the industry benchmark for the global paper sector, has quantified the exposure: for recycled coated board, the energy bill represents 92% of variable costs; 72% for newsprint, 68% for testliner8. Every 10 EUR/MWh increase in TTF translates directly into approximately €20 of additional costs per tonne produced9.

At 54 EUR/MWh following the March spike, this pressure feeds back mechanically through the value chain. A stationery operator buying paper from a European supplier will see its purchase prices revised upward in the weeks ahead — on finished products whose prices are set in catalogs and difficult to revise quickly. The effect is collateral, but it is real and hard to negotiate away.

NBSK pulp (northern bleached softwood kraft), the baseline raw material for premium paper, was trading at $1,530 per tonne in February 202510. The Hormuz crisis does not directly strike that market — Scandinavian pulp does not arrive by container from Shanghai — but raw materials markets have a contagion logic that any experienced industrial buyer understands.

The last mile under diesel pressure

The most immediately visible impact for Cotton Bird is not the paper — it is the delivery driver. Diesel is up 20% since the February 28 strikes, and any e-commerce operator knows what that means: the fuel surcharge, or SGO.

The SGO is the recurring bad surprise for every e-commerce operator. Carriers — Colissimo, Chronopost, DPD, GLS — pass fuel price fluctuations through as indexed surcharges, revised monthly or even fortnightly. In stable periods, the SGO sits at 5 to 10% of the base rate. In an oil crisis, it can climb to 15, 20, even 25% — applied to every single parcel, without exception. It is a cost the end customer never sees in the listed price, but one the e-commerce operator absorbs entirely against its contribution margin.

For a stationery company delivering wedding announcements with a 48-hour turnaround and fragile contents to protect, the last mile is non-negotiable. You do not switch from Chronopost to a pickup point to save two euros on an €80 product — the customer experience is at stake. Last-mile delivery already absorbs 53% of the total logistics costs for the average e-commerce operator11. When diesel spikes, this is the line that explodes first — and the hardest to optimize.

Perhaps the most telling signal comes from fulfillment providers themselves. In April 2026, a European production and shipping partner specializing in print-on-demand sent its clients a letter of unusual candor: the surcharges linked to the Middle East situation, absorbed until then, would have to be passed through “at cost” in the coming weeks. The tone of the message — cautious, empathetic, but unambiguous — said it all: even the players whose role is to act as shock absorbers in the chain are reaching the limit of what they can absorb.

The made-in-France paradox in 2026

This is where the situation becomes strategically interesting. Domestic manufacturing insulates against maritime freight chaos and dependence on Asian supply chains. It does not insulate against European energy costs — and European energy is under a level of stress not seen since the winter of 202212.

But, and this is the point I often hear underestimated: made-in-France is also a selling proposition in this context. You might think that Cotton Bird’s customers are not comparing on price. The reality is more nuanced: in a crisis period, everyone is affected, including premium buyers. And in stationery, competition does not only come from digital — it also comes from the local printer, the one doing custom work on demand with a proximity relationship, and from the very high-end artisanal operator justifying its price through absolute exclusivity. Cotton Bird finds itself squeezed between the accessible local and the unreachable handcrafter. The crisis sharpens this polarization: customers under pressure trade down (local printer, digital) or trade up (bespoke exclusivity), and it is the industrial mid-range that suffers most.

The global wedding stationery market is valued at $2.5 billion with a 7.5% CAGR7 — but that figure is misleading viewed from Europe. The bulk of that growth is being driven by emerging markets: India, Brazil, Southeast Asia, where an expanding middle class is discovering premium stationery for the first time. In mature European markets, the category is flat or in slight decline, under pressure from digital alternatives and couples’ tightening budgets. Cotton Bird can navigate this period, provided it has hedged its paper purchases at per-tonne prices before the increases — and evolves its vision to incorporate a digital dimension. I have left Cotton Bird, but my conviction has not changed: pure print alone is no longer enough.

My conviction: for an operator like Cotton Bird, the way out is through print+digital hybridization. Not one against the other, but both together, built around shared creative assets. This is already what a player like Minted does in the United States — facing an all-digital Paperless Post, it offers collections that live simultaneously in physical and digital form, with a unified customer journey. In France, this is exactly the ambition of Anatole: allowing couples to design a wedding identity that flows into printed announcements, a matching website, and digital communications, without having to choose. In a market polarized between the local printer and the all-digital option, this hybridization is probably the best structural response to margin compression.

Connected devices, China, and PetCare

As part of my current work on a connected device project in the PetCare sector, I am watching a situation that perfectly illustrates the tension between a favorable market dynamic and a fragile supply chain.

The connected PetCare market is one of the few sectors maintaining nominal growth despite the geopolitical crisis. The global connected pet device market is estimated at $4.72 billion in 2026, with a 13.6% CAGR13. The GPS tracker segment specifically represents $1.79 billion with a 12.5% CAGR14. Pet owners are not deferring the purchase of a GPS collar because Brent is at $126.

The problem is that even when the intellectual property is European, the silicon travels through Asia. GNSS/cellular modules come from Quectel, based in Shanghai. Nordic Semiconductor’s Bluetooth and cellular SoCs are designed in Trondheim but manufactured by Asian foundries — Nordic is fabless. Ignion’s chip antennas are drawn up in Barcelona but assembled in Asia. Add lithium batteries, PCBs, plastic housings: virtually the entire physical bill of materials for a connected GPS collar transits through China or Southeast Asia.

A fractured IoT supply chain

A GPS tracker for a pet is a PCB, a GSM/GNSS module, a lithium-ion battery, firmware, a plastic housing, and a strap. For most design houses developing this type of product, assembly is handled by an EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Services) provider in China — the design is conceived in Europe, the components are sourced in Asia, and final assembly defaults there for economic reasons. The project I am advising has made the choice of European assembly, which changes the equation for finished goods freight but does nothing to reduce the dependency on components: silicon, batteries, and PCBs all travel through Asia regardless.

The active components question is the first and most urgent issue. In late March 2026, a European electronics assembler specializing in SMD and conventional assembly sent an alert letter to its customers15. This type of communication, unusual in its tone, deserves to be quoted in some detail because it captures, better than any macro analysis, what is actually happening in electronic component supply chains right now.

The communication announced immediate price increases on semiconductors ranging from 15% to 85% depending on the reference, effective April 1, 2026. More troubling still: DRAM (DDR) components were no longer deliverable in 2026 — systematically pushed back to 2027. Active components — integrated circuits, MOSFETs — were going on NCNR (Non-Cancellable, Non-Returnable) allocation, meaning orders cannot be cancelled or returned once placed. PCBs themselves were facing base material shortages. The assembler’s recommendation was explicit: communicate requirements as far in advance as possible and build strategic buffer stocks.

Lithium, the hidden variable

The battery is the second constraint. Lithium — specifically lithium carbonate used in lithium-ion batteries — has moved from $8,259 to $13,003 per tonne over the past five months, a 57% increase16. This surge technically precedes the Iran crisis, but it compounds it, creating accumulated pressure on the bill of materials for battery-dependent IoT devices.

For a GPS PetCare tracker sold DTC at €79, a 15% increase on active components and a 57% increase on the battery can potentially erase the entire contribution margin — especially once you add freight surcharges on the containers shipping modules from China.

The end of low-cost dropshipping — and that is good news

From July 2026, the European Commission will remove the customs duty exemption on e-commerce purchases under €1501718. The measure was explicitly designed to target the Temu and Shein model — those platforms shipping individual parcels directly from China while sidestepping customs duties. In the United States, Trump had already suspended the de minimis exemption at $800, forcing Temu to pivot toward local sellers and American warehouses.

For a structured IoT operator importing by batch through a European warehouse, this measure changes nothing. On the other hand, it cleans up the market by eliminating the unfair competition from Chinese gadget dropshippers at €15 all-in shipping included. That is good news for brands investing in product quality.

Is China really tanked?

It is tempting to read the Trump-China trade war as a Chinese collapse. Reality is more nuanced. Chinese exports to the United States have certainly fallen by 20%, but Beijing has redirected its flows: +13% toward ASEAN, +8% toward the European Union, +26% toward Africa. Chinese GDP is targeting 4.5 to 5% in 2026 — the lowest objective since the 1990s, but far from a collapse. In February 2026, the US Supreme Court even invalidated part of the tariffs imposed under IEEPA, bringing the effective rate down from 35% to approximately 28%.

For a European importer of IoT components, this means China remains an operational supplier — under pressure, certainly, but not broken. The real short-term threat is not the Sino-American decoupling: it is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz physically blocking maritime routes.

China+1: the right strategy, the wrong timing

The structural response to this dependency is called “China+1”: diversifying production toward Vietnam, India, or other Southeast Asian countries1920. It is the right strategy. The implementation timeline — 12 to 18 months to qualify a new EMS, transfer manufacturing files, validate first production batches — makes it inoperable for the current crisis19.

A project like the one I am advising does not necessarily have 18 months ahead of it. The coming months will be spent securing orders, building the buffer stocks its suppliers are recommending, and deciding whether to reprice for a bill of materials that has potentially increased by 25 to 35% since January.

The connected PetCare market is growing. The supply chain needed to serve it is in crisis. These two realities coexist, and that is precisely what makes the situation potentially so uncomfortable to manage.

Large-format imports, containers, and the marketplace trap

Having spent several years in large-format furniture imports, I can picture fairly well what players in this sector are probably dealing with today. I left that world six years ago, but the fundamentals have not changed: importing bulky furniture from Asia — garden sets, outdoor furniture, sofas — is a business where logistics is not just another cost line: it is the variable that makes or breaks the entire economic model.

Alice’s Garden — rebranded as Sweeek in October 202321 — is a company I helped build from 2011 to 2019. From a Prestashop site at €1 million in 2011 to a proprietary Symfony + Elasticsearch infrastructure with integrated WMS/OMS at over €55 million in revenue, more than 70 employees, and 200,000 customers per year in 2019 — via Magento at €14 million in 2013 and expansion across several European markets through marketplaces. This trajectory allows me to project, with appropriate caution, the strains the large-format import model is probably absorbing in 2026.

When freight doubles, the product stops being competitive

For garden furniture, maritime freight typically represents 15 to 20% of product value under normal conditions. This was a structural parameter our supply chain teams had internalized, and it is the reason this sector is structurally more exposed to freight crises than, say, consumer electronics where the value-to-volume ratio is far more favorable.

Drewry’s World Container Index, the market benchmark, showed rates in March 2026 at $2,552 for the Shanghai-Rotterdam route and $3,474 for Shanghai-Genoa5. These base rates must be read alongside the war risk surcharges imposed by major carriers: CMA CGM charges $2,000 per 20-foot container, $3,000 for a 40-foot, and up to $4,000 for reefers22. Total costs quickly double or triple pre-crisis levels.

There is an additional complication: 170 container ships representing 450,000 TEUs were trapped in the Persian Gulf when Hormuz closed22. These vessels do not disappear — they wait, and while they wait, they are not loading other cargo. The capacity shortage creates its own inflationary dynamic on rates.

The Cape of Good Hope as a forced detour

Ships that cannot transit Hormuz must round the Cape of Good Hope — assuming the Red Sea is open, which is not a given. This detour adds approximately 15 days of transit time23. Fifteen extra days of inventory at sea means working capital tied up in transit. For an importer turning over €65 million, the cash impact is concrete and immediate: goods ordered in December arrive in June instead of May, spring stockouts worsen, and the cash cycle stretches at exactly the wrong moment.

I have lived through exactly this type of situation — not with Hormuz, but with other freight disruptions — and managing cash in a high-inventory, long-lead-time import model is probably the least visible challenge from the outside. When freight doubles and transit times extend simultaneously, working capital requirements can balloon by 30 to 40% in a matter of weeks.

The marketplace as a margin trap in a crisis

The other dimension of the problem is distribution. Imported furniture moves predominantly through Amazon and the major European marketplaces — Cdiscount, Fnac Marketplace, Leroy Merlin Marketplace, and their national equivalents. Commissions range from 8 to 20% depending on the category and platform, on top of FBA or equivalent logistics fees. Amazon adjusted its FBA fees again for 2026: between $0.08 and $0.31 extra per unit depending on the price tier24.

A nuance is worth making here: operators who entered these channels in the early 2010s, when marketplaces were actively seeking catalog volume, often negotiated advantageous commercial terms — reduced commissions, sponsored visibility, dedicated support. That longevity provides a relative cushion against fee increases. A newcomer arriving in 2026 with a catalog of imported furniture pays full rack rate with no negotiating leverage, in a context where its margins are already being ground down by freight.

In isolation, a few extra cents per unit sounds negligible. But on a €150 item with 25% freight costs and 15% marketplace fees, the available net margin becomes a race between perceived product value and the total sum of variable costs. When freight doubles, net margin evaporates.

Last-mile delivery alone absorbs 53% of total shipping costs11. For bulky furniture, it is even higher — two-person delivery, assembly, damage returns — costs that the marketplace model externalizes onto the seller while taking its commission regardless.

Sklum, the Spanish competitor with revenues around $276 million25, imports from the same Asian factories and absorbs the same freight surcharges. Yet Sklum is holding up better. Why? Not because of its supply chain — which is structurally identical — but because of its perceived value chain. Near-editorial-quality product visuals, a 3D configurator that lets customers see furniture in their own interior before buying, a brand identity consistent from website to packaging. All of this reduces returns, strengthens product attachment, and above all justifies a higher price point that absorbs freight increases without destroying the margin. Sklum’s real secret is not logistics — it is that the customer is paying for a brand, not a garden set.

When “affordable” is no longer affordable

The economic logic of large-format furniture imports rests on a simple arbitrage: the production cost differential between Asia and Europe is large enough to absorb freight, duties, and margin. When freight doubles, that arbitrage deteriorates rapidly.

This is not hypothetical. SeaRates, which publishes container cost scenarios, distinguished in March 2026 between a baseline scenario of $2,400–$3,600 per FEU and a stress scenario above $9,50026. In the stress scenario — which we are approaching on certain routes today — a corner sofa imported at $180 FOB China can land at a European warehouse for $280–$300 before any distribution or marketing costs.

At that cost level, the “affordable” positioning disappears. What remains is either a genuine quality positioning, or no positioning at all — which, in e-commerce, is a synonym for a slow death by price wars on the marketplaces.

For a more detailed analysis of e-commerce platforms and their fit across different logistics models, our guide on e-commerce platforms compares the available options by supply chain model.

Freight is not destiny

The picture needs tempering. Spot freight is exploding, but freight is not monolithic — and operators who planned ahead have tools available.

Contract rate vs. spot rate: the gap that changes everything

The fundamental distinction in maritime freight is between the spot rate — the market price on any given day — and the contract rate, negotiated in advance for a defined volume and duration. In March 2026, the gap between these two levels was considerable. Xeneta, the freight data platform, showed for the Far East–Mediterranean route a contract rate approximately $2,200 per FEU below spot27. For the Far East–North Europe route, contract rates were settling around $2,010 per FEU while the spot market was moving far higher27.

An importer who signed annual contracts with carriers in December 2025 is operating in an entirely different economic reality from one buying spot right now.

BAF and hedging mechanisms

It is also worth understanding fuel surcharges — BAF (Bunker Adjustment Factor) — which are added to the base rate and reflect the vessels’ fuel costs. National Shipping communicated a BAF increase for Q2 2026 in March, moving from $1,150 to $1,225 per container28. A moderate increase by comparison, but it illustrates the mechanic: BAF rises, importers with capped indexation clauses in their contracts are protected, others absorb it directly.

Alongside this sits the CAF (Currency Adjustment Factor), which covers part of the currency risk — particularly relevant when EUR/USD slips from 1.20 to 1.15 over two months6 and purchases are denominated in dollars.

Accessible to the large, out of reach for the small

The limitation of these instruments is accessibility. Fixed-rate freight contracts require minimum volumes — typically 50 to 100 containers per year per lane — and an established relationship with major freight forwarders (Kuehne+Nagel, DB Schenker, Bolloré Logistics). For an SME importing 20 containers a year, these contracts are either inaccessible or too rigid to manage.

The European assembler’s advice cited above applies here as a direct parallel: as with electronic components, the optimal strategy is to share requirements in advance, build buffer stocks, and formalize volume commitments with logistics partners. Those who did so before March 2026 are managing. Those who were buying on a rolling basis are now paying the premium.

The insurance analogy holds perfectly: you pay a premium in calm weather, you benefit from it when the storm arrives. Except that unlike insurance, freight contracts require a critical volume threshold that many SMEs have simply not reached.

Three lessons for DTC small businesses

These three journeys — stationery, IoT, furniture — converge on a set of lessons I would summarize as follows.

1. Local production shields you from freight, not from energy

Cotton Bird is insulated from the container chaos. But it is exposed to an energy crisis hitting the printing industry through TTF. Made-in-France manufacturing is a durable competitive advantage, but it does not eliminate dependence on European energy inputs. The good news is that this exposure is manageable — fixed-price energy contracts, energy efficiency audits, investments in cogeneration. These are levers that few SMEs activate outside of crisis periods.

2. Market growth does not protect you from your supply chain

The connected PetCare sector is growing at 13% per year. The buyers are there. The problem is not demand — it is the ability to deliver on time and within budget. A growing market with a fractured supply chain is an opportunity that looks like a threat until you have secured your inputs. The assembler’s message — buffer stocks, early orders, upstream communication with suppliers — is not standard-issue prudence advice: it is an operational survival condition for the quarters ahead.

3. Price is not a durable advantage when freight is a variable

This is the hardest lesson from large-format imports. For years, the Asian cost arbitrage made imported furniture competitive even after freight. That era may be over — at least temporarily. Operators who have invested in brand, customer experience, and tools like Sklum’s 3D configurator have a price justification that survives freight increases. Those whose only asset was price have very little left to sell.

4. DTC brands beat marketplace resellers in a crisis

Marketplaces absorb growth in good times and amplify margin compression in bad ones. A DTC operator with its own customer base, CRM, and SEO content can adjust prices, communicate on delivery timelines, and retain customers. An Amazon reseller without a proprietary brand is squeezed between rising fees and prices that cannot increase without losing search ranking.

5. Supply chain diversification cannot be done in an emergency

China+1 is the right strategy. Twelve to eighteen months to qualify a new supplier is the industrial reality. Which means decisions made in 2024 provide protection in 2026, and decisions made today will provide protection in 2028. The current crisis is not the time to begin this transition — it is the time to regret not having already done it, and to start anyway.

6. The assembler’s advice applies to every industry

The European assembler’s recommendation — share your forecasts early, build buffer stocks, do not wait until you are out of stock to replenish — applies equally to stationery (paper stocks), furniture (pre-season finished goods inventory), and electronics. Just-in-time inventory management worked for two decades of stable supply chains. It shows its limits the moment the environment deteriorates. Just-in-case is becoming a virtue again.

Frequently asked questions

What is the impact of the Iran crisis on e-commerce in 2026?

The Iran-Israel crisis that began on February 28, 2026 triggered the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a 70% increase in European gas (TTF), and a doubling of container rates on Asia-Europe routes135. B2C e-commerce is affected through three channels depending on the business model: energy costs for industrially intensive made-in-France operators, component shortages for China-sourced IoT manufacturers, and freight rates for large-format product importers. DTC SMEs with strong brands are structurally more resilient than marketplace resellers.

How much does a container from Asia to Europe cost in March 2026?

According to Drewry’s World Container Index5, rates in March 2026 stood at $2,552 for Shanghai-Rotterdam and $3,474 for Shanghai-Genoa. These base rates must be read alongside the war risk surcharges imposed by major carriers — up to $3,000 per 40-foot container from CMA CGM22. In a stress scenario, SeaRates estimated costs potentially exceeding $9,500 per FEU26. Importers on annual contracts benefit from rates significantly below spot27.

Is the Strait of Hormuz closed in 2026?

Yes, the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed to commercial traffic since March 2, 2026, following American and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 2812. This closure affects a fifth of the world’s oil exports and a significant portion of Asia-Europe container traffic. Ships are being rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope, extending transit times by approximately 15 days23.

Does the energy crisis affect made-in-France e-commerce?

Yes, indirectly but concretely. European natural gas (TTF) has risen 70% since the February 28 strikes34. The printing industry — a key sector for stationery operators like Cotton Bird — is energy-intensive: gas represents between 68% and 92% of variable costs depending on the product8. Every 10 EUR/MWh increase translates to approximately €20 in additional costs per tonne produced9. Diesel is also up 20%, weighing on last-mile delivery.

Is the PetCare market growing in 2026?

Yes. The connected pet device market is estimated at $4.72 billion in 2026 with a 13.6% CAGR13. The GPS tracker segment represents $1.79 billion with a 12.5% CAGR14. Demand is structurally solid, driven by the increase in pet-owning households and a growing willingness to spend on them. The constraint is supply chain, not market.

How does the crisis affect batteries and IoT?

On two fronts. Lithium — the raw material for lithium-ion batteries — has risen 57% over five months, from $8,259 to $13,003 per tonne16. Additionally, electronic component suppliers are reporting increases of 15% to 85% on semiconductors, DRAM (DDR) shortages pushing deliveries back to 2027, and active components on NCNR allocation from April 1, 202615. Assemblers are unanimous in their recommendation: order early, build buffer stocks, lock in commitments.

Does Alice’s Garden still exist in 2026?

Alice’s Garden no longer exists under that name since October 2023, when the brand was rebranded as Sweeek21. The commercial entity continues to operate with revenues of approximately €65 million and a presence in nine European countries, having expanded its catalog from outdoor into indoor furniture. The rebrand reflected a strategy of upmarket positioning and diversification — a decision that looks prescient in an environment where the outdoor import model is under significant pressure.

Are marketplaces still viable for furniture in 2026?

Increasingly difficult. Amazon raised its FBA fees again for 2026 — between $0.08 and $0.31 extra per unit depending on the price tier24. Last-mile delivery alone absorbs 53% of total shipping costs11, a figure even higher for bulky furniture. Combined with rising freight costs, these fixed distribution costs make net margin extremely fragile for resellers without meaningful differentiation. DTC operators with proprietary brands and direct channels are holding up better than pure marketplace players.

Should you diversify your supply chain away from China?

Yes, but with a clear-eyed view of the timelines. The China+1 strategy — supplementary sourcing in Vietnam, India, or Thailand — takes 12 to 18 months to become operational (supplier qualification, file transfers, batch validation)1920. It does not solve the current crisis: it prepares you for the next one. For operators who have not yet started, now is the time to begin anyway — bearing in mind that the inertia of 2024 is precisely what explains the vulnerability of 2026.

What strategies should e-commerce SMEs adopt in response to the crisis?

Six levers to activate in parallel: hedge energy purchases on long-term contracts for industrially intensive operators; build buffer stocks of critical components before further price increases; secure annual freight contracts rather than buying spot; invest in brand and customer experience to justify premium pricing versus marketplace competition; begin supply chain diversification immediately to build protection at an 18-month horizon; and share volume forecasts with all critical suppliers well in advance — this is the European assembler’s first piece of advice, and the one that is most consistently ignored.

Sources

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  19. MoveToAsia, Beyond China+1: New Era of Supply Chain Diversification 2026, 2026. https://movetoasia.com/en/beyond-china1-the-new-era-of-supply-chain-diversification-and-global-manufacturing-trends-2026/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  20. Gembah, China Plus One Supply Chain, 2026. https://gembah.com/blog/china-plus-one-supply-chain/ ↩ ↩2

  21. sweeek.fr, Découvrez Sweeek, 2023. https://www.sweeek.fr/cms/decouvrez-sweeek ↩ ↩2

  22. container-mag.com, Strait of Hormuz Closure: Container Shipping Dual Chokepoint Crisis, 2026. https://container-mag.com/2026/03/01/strait-of-hormuz-closure-container-shipping-dual-chokepoint-crisis/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  23. Asia Times, Long way round: Cape route filling the Hormuz gap, 2026. https://asiatimes.com/2026/03/long-way-round-cape-route-filling-the-hormuz-gap/ ↩ ↩2

  24. Amazon Selling Partners, Update to U.S. referral and FBA fees for 2026, 2026. https://sellingpartners.aboutamazon.com/update-to-u-s-referral-and-fulfillment-by-amazon-fees-for-2026 ↩ ↩2

  25. ECDB, Sklum retailer profile, 2026. https://ecdb.com/resources/sample-data/retailer/sklum ↩

  26. SeaRates, 5 Key Factors of Container Costs in 2026, 2026. https://www.searates.com/blog/post/5-key-factors-of-container-costs-in-2026-pay-2200-or-9500 ↩ ↩2

  27. Xeneta, Red Sea Return: What It Means for 2026 Contract Rates, 2026. https://www.xeneta.com/blog/red-sea-return-what-it-means-for-2026-container-shipping-contract-rates ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  28. National Shipping, Q2 2026 BAF Increase Advisory, 2026. https://natship.us/national-shipping-customer-advisory-march-11th-2026-2nd-quarter-2026-bunker-adjustment-factor-baf-increase/ ↩