In-House Warehouse or Fulfillment? Slovak E-Commerce Stores Are Missing Out on Savings and Expansion

Fast delivery, accurate tracking, and hassle-free returns – these have become baseline expectations for today's shoppers. As a result, both small and large online retailers are under growing pressure to manage their logistics efficiently while scaling without unnecessary costs or stress. One solution is fulfillment: a service that takes care of the entire process for the merchant, from warehousing and inventory management to packing and dispatching orders directly to customers.

The continuous rise in online shopping is pushing customer expectations higher than ever. Today's buyers expect lightning-fast delivery within a few days of placing an order, cash-on-delivery options, real-time shipment tracking, and a seamless process for returns and claims. This puts enormous strain on the logistics operations of both small and large e-commerce businesses. Merchants are expected to ship orders on the very same day whenever possible. On top of that, maintaining consistent quality and preparing for the peak holiday season demands immense effort — often leaving business owners with little energy left to plan for strategic moves, such as expanding into new markets.

The solution? Fulfillment handles shipping for you

Instead of relying solely on internal staff, online stores can hand over their operational headaches to a fulfillment center. A fulfillment center is a warehouse facility that not only stores all of an e-shop's inventory, but also prepares, packs, and dispatches orders via couriers to the end customer in real time.

The entire journey — from the moment an order is placed on the website to its delivery at the customer's doorstep — can be fully automated without any manual intervention from the store owner or their team. This frees up crucial time for merchants to focus on website optimization, marketing, and product development.

In Slovakia, fulfillment services are currently used by only about 2% of e-commerce businesses. Although this number is growing, in neighboring Czechia, up to a third of all market players either use or are considering outsourcing their logistics. Among top-tier retailers with annual revenues exceeding €10 million, as many as 80% utilize fulfillment centers at least partially.

~2%of Slovak e-shops use fulfillment today

⅓of Czech players use or consider it

80%of retailers over €10M revenue use it

"Small business owners are often afraid of high costs. They believe they'll save money by doing everything themselves early on, including packing parcels and running them to the post office or courier drop-offs. The reality, however, is often the exact opposite – you have to factor in fuel costs, wear and tear from driving between the warehouse and drop-off points, and the hours spent physically packing goods into boxes. Once you factor in hiring additional staff for your own warehouse, fulfillment is clearly the more cost-effective choice."

— Alexander Jančo, Business Development Manager at isklad

Slovakia-based isklad currently serves over 150 online stores across Slovakia, Czechia, and broader international markets, operating 23,000 m² of warehouse space. It ranks among the most technologically advanced fulfillment providers in Central Europe, utilizing a robotic warehouse system capable of dispatching up to 20,000 orders a day.

Cost savings even for startups shipping fewer than 100 orders a month

One frequently overlooked advantage of fulfillment centers is access to discounted shipping rates.

"Any store owner can look up rate cards for Packeta, GLS, DPD, or other courier services. However, a startup merchant will never get the discounted rates that a fulfillment warehouse shipping thousands of parcels a day receives. Volume discounts also apply to cardboard boxes, packaging, and void-fill materials. Most importantly, customers often receive their orders as soon as the next day – without the store owner having to rush around, package items themselves, or transport them anywhere."

— Alexander Jančo

Czechia, Europe, or global? Fast and safe expansion for enterprise players

It is not just startups that rely on third-party fulfillment – major Slovak brands like Isadore, Shooos, Zajo, Bloom Robbins, and Be Lenka use fulfillment centers instead of managing their own warehouses. For these enterprise players, the biggest advantage lies in the flexibility that fulfillment offers – flexibility that is hard to match with an in-house warehouse setup.

"With a fulfillment partner, you can start shipping to Czechia, Poland, Hungary, or much further virtually overnight. At isklad, we ship to 220 countries worldwide, supporting cash-on-delivery, local pick-up points, and parcel lockers. An e-shop can activate a new destination country and its most reliable local carrier in just a few clicks within their portal. I can't imagine a small or medium-sized e-shop negotiating individual contracts with every carrier in Czechia or Spain, transporting parcels there themselves, or dealing with local service disruptions and claims on their own."

— Alexander Jančo

According to Jančo, fulfillment also protects merchants from overextending their growth:

"When you experience a seasonal surge in order volume – such as during the Christmas rush – you simply pay for more processed parcels or additional rack space at the end of the month. Once demand normalizes, your costs automatically decrease month-over-month. With in-house logistics, a business would have to hire extra staff or consider moving to a larger warehouse facility. During market downturns or sudden drops in sales, these high fixed costs can quickly overwhelm a business. Conversely, during peak season, in-house operations often struggle to ship orders on time, leading to disappointed, angry customers whose holiday gifts may not arrive on schedule."

— Alexander Jančo

Inside isklad's robotic warehouse

Take a look at how an order travels from your e-shop to your customer's doorstep — fully automated, with no manual intervention from you or your team.