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Dmitry Kalinovsky
While ecommerce is one of the fastest-growing segments in global logistics, it remains a tough business to make money in.
“It is a very razor-thin industry,” Sam Coiro, head of global business development ecommerce at Maersk, told The Loadstar on the sidelines of Manifest in Las Vegas.
“The trick is volume, the more volume you can push through your network. Even though you’re making pennies, there’s lots of pennies adding up.”
He explained that for carriers and logistics providers, the cost-versus-benefit equation in ecommerce has always been delicate. High service expectations, tight delivery windows and complex returns processes drive up operational costs, while intense competition keeps pricing under pressure.
Yet the scale of opportunity is undeniable. Maersk handled more than 83 million ecommerce parcels last year alone, underlining the segment’s growing weight within its logistics portfolio. The company formally launched its final-mile product under the Maersk banner in April 2024, building on acquisitions that created an end-to-end network spanning fulfilment, middle-mile and last-mile.
“If you’re a company that’s shipping 50 boxes and that’s all you do, you might as well go home,” Mr Coiro said bluntly. But profitability hinges not just on volume, it is also on how efficiently those parcels move through the system.
And this is where digital advancements are shifting the economics of the trade, he explained.
“If you look at the past five years, the cost to serve a parcel has exponentially decreased, versus five years ago,” he said, pointing to automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence as key drivers.
Inside fulfilment centres, fleets of small autonomous robots now guide workers to precise pick locations.
“You just go where the flashing light is and there’s a screen that says, ‘pick this green box and put it in this blue bin’,” Mr Coiro explained. The result is higher productivity, fewer errors, and better use of labour.
“The combination of technology, automation, robotics and human interaction has improved the quality of life,” he said. “I could deploy my staff on an eight-hour shift and 100% of their time is utilised.”
Beyond the warehouse floor, technology is also reducing transport costs. Dynamic routing systems can automatically divert parcels around weather disruptions, capacity constraints, or labour action, helping avoid surcharges and delays. AI-driven tools are used to monitor carrier performance and optimise partner selection across multi-carrier networks.
The cumulative effect is a steady erosion of cost per parcel, even as service expectations rise.
Ecommerce logistics may never be a high-margin game, but digitalisation is improving the balance. As Mr Coiro put it: with the right mix of volume and optimisation, “that margin starts to get better and better and better”.