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The Dispatch by ShippyPro · Issue 02 · July 2026 · 5 min read
The regulations shaping European e-commerce shipping are moving faster than most teams can track, and this issue cuts through it. Below: why Italy's €2 parcel fee keeps coming back only to get pushed again, how Amazon quietly sidestepped the EU's new duty, and the two dates every merchant needs on the calendar — the ESPR unsold-goods ban and the start of EU PPWR compliance steps for businesses.
Editor's pick: everyone's reporting Italy delayed its €2 fee. Almost nobody's asked why it keeps coming back only to get pushed again
Italy's €2 fee on extra-EU parcels under €150 was due to start July 1, alongside the EU's new €3 customs duty. It didn't. On June 22, the government pushed it to October 1 — the second delay this year, after an earlier slip from January to March to July.
The fee itself hasn't changed. What has is the timing — and there's one detail worth knowing: Italy's decree ties this fee to the EU's own "Union handling fee," a bloc-wide charge the Commission has proposed for as early as November 2026. If that lands close to schedule, Italy's fee may not last long once it returns.
This is really a story about eu de minimis reform: the €150 threshold under which parcels have historically escaped customs duty is being dismantled, and Italy's €2 fee is one national piece of that wider shift. For now, only the EU's €3 duty applies in Italy. From October 1, the €2 fee is due back on top — unless it slips again, which wouldn't surprise anyone at this point.
Industry pulse
Amazon starts showing customs charges before checkout — because it mostly doesn't have to
Amazon says 97% of its EU shipments last year were fulfilled from warehouses inside the bloc, largely sidestepping the EU's new €3 per-item duty. For the remaining shipments — sent directly from outside the EU — customers now see import charges disclosed before checkout, rather than discovering them at delivery. It's a small UX change with a clear message: Amazon's fulfilment footprint, not its pricing team, is doing the heavy lifting here. For merchants without EU warehousing, checkout-stage duty disclosure is quickly becoming the baseline shoppers expect.
Source: Euronews, July 2026.
Your Shopify checkout rates could vanish this October, unless someone configures them. ShippyPro makes sure they don't
From API version 2026-10, Shopify stops automatically adding new carrier services to a store's shipping profile. Until now, activating a carrier integration made its rates appear at checkout by default. From October, apps and integrations must explicitly assign rates to a shipping profile, or shoppers simply won't see them. It's a quiet, developer-facing change with a very unquiet consequence: checkout rates disappearing with no error message and no warning. If you manage carrier integrations directly in Shopify, put this on your October checklist now — not when a customer complains a carrier vanished.
If your rates run through ShippyPro's Rates & Checkout module, that mapping is handled for you — nothing to add to the checklist, nothing that silently drops in October.
Source: Shopify changelog.
Regulatory radar
ESPR: EU bans destroying unsold clothing and footwear — July 19
What changed: From July 19, 2026, large enterprises are banned from destroying unsold apparel, clothing accessories, and footwear under the EU's Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). Companies must also disclose what happens to discarded unsold goods, starting with the 2025 financial year.
Who is affected: Large enterprises only — over 250 employees, or over €50M revenue, or over €25M in assets. Micro and small enterprises are exempt.
What to do: If you're a large fashion or footwear retailer holding excess inventory, confirm your disposal process now — donation, resale, or recycling — and start documenting it.
Source: European Commission.
EU PPWR compliance steps for businesses: packaging rules start phasing in — August 12
What changed: From August 12, 2026, the EU's Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation enters into force. Packaging — including e-commerce parcels — must be no bigger or heavier than necessary; misleading designs like false bottoms or double walls are banned. Online marketplaces become explicitly responsible for packaging compliance on sellers' behalf. A PFAS ban in food packaging also starts this date.
Who is affected: All economic operators placing packaging on the EU market — no SME exemption.
What to do: Review packaging formats now; the specific 50% empty-space cap doesn't bite until 2030, but the general minimisation duty is enforceable from August 12.
Source: Regulation (EU) 2025/40; European Commission guidance, March 2026.
Every shopper who switches to OOH lowers cost-to-serve for both carrier and merchant
In Italy, GLS appears in 48.7% of online retailer checkouts and holds the first-position slot — the default option shoppers see — in 29.8% of cases, ahead of DPD BRT (26%) and Poste Italiane (22%), according to Tembi's checkout data. Out-of-home delivery costs noticeably less than home delivery in Italy — see Data Corner for the exact gap — which is why Poste Italiane, DPD BRT, and InPost keep investing in locker and parcel-shop networks: every shopper who switches to OOH lowers cost-to-serve for both carrier and merchant.
For merchants shipping into Italy: check which carrier holds first position in your own checkout. If it's there by default rather than by negotiation, you may be missing a cheaper OOH-first option a smaller, better-integrated carrier could offer instead.
Source: Tembi last-mile analysis.
Nearly half of shoppers have used AI to write a return claim
One in four refund dollars is now abusive, according to Riskified — and AI is why. 85% of shoppers admit they'd use at least one dishonest return tactic; nearly half have used AI to build a claim, including AI-generated damage photos. This isn't an EU-specific problem, but it's arriving at the worst moment for EU merchants — right as the mandatory withdrawal button makes cancellation easier by design. A policy that used to be a competitive advantage is quietly becoming a liability. If your return checks still run on trust, tighten them: proof of purchase, packaging condition, timestamped photos before pickup.
Source: Riskified refund abuse analysis.
TikTok lets AI agents run your ad campaigns now — global rollout, no geo restriction
TikTok launched Agentic Hub on June 30 — a marketplace of AI "Skills" that create, manage, analyse, and optimise ad campaigns automatically, built on TikTok's own Model Context Protocol server. Fourteen partners are live already, including HubSpot, Wix, and Kochava. This is a global rollout, not a US-only feature — any EU merchant running TikTok Shop ads can use it today. The bigger shift: TikTok now controls both the ad inventory and the layer that decides how to spend on it. If you run TikTok ads and haven't looked at Agentic Hub yet, campaign management is about to look different, whether you opt in or not.
Source: TikTok Agentic Hub.
ShippyPro spotlight: control your shipping costs — in seconds
An Excel file. An invoice tool. An automated process. At the speed regulation and geopolitical shifts are moving — with AI in the mix — is that still enough to stay ahead?
Shipping is most companies' biggest variable cost — and the hardest to understand. Companies overpay 6% a year on average, not because the data's missing, but because nobody built a tool to read all of it. ShippyPro's agentic AI ingests every carrier invoice — parcel, freight, any format — the moment it lands, normalises it into one view, and surfaces every anomaly, overcharge, and saving before anyone opens a spreadsheet.
The vision goes further than reading what already happened: cost-centre allocation that updates as your carrier mix shifts, alerts before a surcharge lands, patterns caught while they're still cheap to fix. The invoice was the part everyone could see was broken. What's underneath it wasn't visible to anyone — until now.
See what's hiding in your own invoices
Start a free ShippyPro trial and let its agentic AI read every carrier invoice for you.
Data corner
€6.5 vs €5.8
Average cost of home delivery vs out-of-home options in Italian checkouts — an ~11% gap that's a big part of why carriers keep racing to build locker networks. Source: Tembi, Italian last-mile market analysis.
6%
Average billing gap on carrier invoices, per ShippyPro's own invoice analysis — in line with the 3–9% error range reported across freight-audit industry benchmarks (IOFM, Ardent Partners). Source: ShippyPro Financial Intelligence.
Italy's €2 parcel fee deferred to October 1
The tax authority's own account of the decree, including why the fee keeps slipping.
Read →New EU rules to stop destruction of unsold clothes and shoes
The source guidance behind the July 19 ban — who's covered, and what counts as a valid exemption.
Read →Italian last-mile delivery market analysis
The checkout data behind this issue's GLS and out-of-home pricing numbers, broken down carrier by carrier.
Read →Ship smarter before the next deadline lands
PPWR, ESPR, the EU de minimis reform: start a free ShippyPro trial and stay ahead of every change.
ShippyPro is the complete shipping software for online and offline retail. With Label Creator, Track & Trace, Easy Return and Analytics features, our software simplifies your shipping operations. ShippyPro integrates with over 180 carriers and 80 sales channels, making it compatible with a wide range of products and use cases.
