Fulfill Team·Updated October 24, 2026·Add Fulfill as a preferred source on GoogleFive figures show where logistics stands in 2026:
This guide follows eight trends. Each has its own section below, with the data behind it and what to do about it.
| Trend | What it means for an ecommerce brand |
|---|---|
| E-commerce keeps taking share of retail | More orders ship as single parcels, so compare per-order fees and parcel rates, not only storage. |
| Trade policy is redrawing supply chains | Low-value imports no longer qualify for duty-free de minimis entry, so landed cost, tariff codes and where you hold stock need a fresh look. |
| Warehouses are automating | What a 3PL can handle depends on the equipment in the building that ships your orders. Ask what it runs. |
| AI moves from pilots into planning | Forecasting, slotting and routing tools now pay off in specific uses, but adoption is uneven. |
| Real-time visibility becomes the default | Live inventory and tracking through an integration is a baseline to expect from a partner. |
| Sustainability means fewer, fuller trucks | Inventory closer to customers and right-sized boxes shorten trips and fill trucks. |
| The workforce is changing, not disappearing | Warehouse employment has leveled off below its 2022 peak, and at Amazon the work is shifting toward technical roles. |
| Cybersecurity is an operations risk | An outage at one partner can stop your orders, so security belongs in choosing a provider. |
E-commerce sales reached $340.2 billion in the second quarter of 2026, seasonally adjusted, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That is 17.1% of all US retail sales. Ten years earlier, in the second quarter of 2016, the share was 7.8%. Online sales also grew faster than retail overall: up 12.2% from the second quarter of 2025, against 6.7% for total retail.
The one break in the line is 2020. The share jumped to 16.3% in the second quarter of 2020, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, eased to 14.2% by the second quarter of 2022, and has set new highs since the third quarter of 2025.
Parcel volume is growing too. US parcel volume reached 23.1 billion shipments in 2025, up 3.3% from 2024, according to the Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index, and Amazon Logistics delivered more of them than any other carrier: 6.9 billion. For a brand, more online orders mean more single parcels to pick, pack and ship, each with its own last-mile delivery. When you compare 3PLs, compare their per-order fees and the parcel rates they can get you, not only the storage rate.
Two changes stand out for ecommerce brands. First, the United States suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for all countries. Executive Order 14324 of July 30, 2025 applies the suspension to goods entered on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on August 29, 2025, and Executive Order 14388 of February 20, 2026 continued it. Low-value parcels that used to cross the border duty-free now owe any duties that apply to them, which changes the math for brands that ship orders to US customers from overseas.
Second, imports are shifting toward Mexico. Mexico supplied 15.5% of US goods imports in 2024, $505.9 billion, ahead of China at 13.4%, $438.9 billion, according to Census Bureau trade data. In 2017, China supplied 21.6% and Mexico 13.4%.
What to do: confirm the HTS code and duty rate for each product, price your landed cost with duties included, and compare holding stock in a US warehouse against shipping each order across a border.
Automation has moved from pilot projects to fleets. Amazon said in July 2025 that it had deployed its 1 millionth robot, in a network that spans more than 300 facilities worldwide, and that a new AI model it calls DeepFleet would improve the travel time of its robot fleet by 10%. The same kinds of equipment, from mobile robots that bring shelves to pickers to an automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS), are sold to other warehouses too.
Many brands meet automation through a 3PL rather than building it. If it matters for your orders, ask each provider what equipment runs in the building that would ship them, which products it can handle (small parcels, heavy or oversized items, temperature-controlled goods), and how orders keep moving when it is down.
The 2026 State of Logistics Report from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), written by Kearney and presented by Penske Logistics, says artificial intelligence "has made the crossover from a technology to try, to one that delivers measurable commercial returns in specific, well-defined applications." It groups those uses into four capabilities: interpreting, predicting, recommending and executing. It also finds that adoption "remains uneven" across shippers and logistics providers. The same report puts US business logistics costs at $2.4 trillion, 7.8% of GDP.
In a warehouse, AI in logistics shows up as demand forecasts that set reorder points, slotting that puts fast-moving products near packing stations, carrier and route selection for each order, and customer service that answers "where is my order" questions. When a provider says it uses AI, ask which of those jobs it does and what changed after it started.
Scanners, sensors and connected systems, often grouped as the Internet of Things (IoT), now report where inventory and shipments are as events happen. A warehouse management system (WMS) records each receipt, pick and shipment, carrier scans feed tracking, and integrations pass both to your store and your customers. The result is supply chain visibility: you see stock levels and order status without having to ask anyone.
When you choose a logistics partner, ask how inventory and order data reach your systems (a native integration, an API or a scheduled file export), how often stock counts sync, and whether tracking updates reach customers automatically.
Transportation produced 28% of US greenhouse gas emissions in 2022, more than any other sector, and medium- and heavy-duty trucks produced 23% of transportation emissions, according to the EPA. For a brand, three levers cut shipping emissions and shipping cost together:
Green logistics covers the wider practice, from packaging to carrier choice.
Will AI and robots replace logistics jobs? The data so far shows a shift more than a collapse. US warehousing and storage employment was 1,831,800 in September 2026 (preliminary, seasonally adjusted), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is about 107,500 below its March 2022 peak of 1,939,300, and well above the 1,088,200 of December 2017.
The work itself is changing. In its July 2025 robotics announcement, Amazon said it had helped upskill more than 700,000 employees since 2019, and that the advanced robotics at its fulfillment center in Shreveport, Louisiana require 30% more employees in reliability, maintenance and engineering roles. The 2023 version of this guide called labor a shortage. In 2026 the warehouse workforce is steady in size and, at least at Amazon, shifting toward technical roles.
Every trend above adds connections: store platforms, warehouse systems, carrier APIs, EDI links with retailers and robots on the warehouse floor. Each connection is a way in for an attacker, and an outage at one logistics partner can stop orders for every brand it serves.
When you evaluate a 3PL or a carrier, ask who can access your data and how, whether systems are backed up and how they are restored, how the provider would tell you about an incident, and how orders would keep moving if a system went down.
This guide first ran in December 2023 with a list of trends. Most held up: e-commerce, automation, AI and sustainability all appear above with newer evidence. One did not. The 2023 version said blockchain "has the potential to revolutionize the logistics industry." TradeLens, the blockchain-enabled shipping platform Maersk and IBM announced in 2018, was already on its way out: on November 29, 2022, the two companies announced that they would discontinue it, and said they intended the platform to go offline by the end of the first quarter of 2023. Maersk said "the need for full global industry collaboration has not been achieved." Blockchain in the supply chain still has uses, but TradeLens shows how hard a shared, industry-wide platform is to build.
Logistics operators come in a few types: carriers that move parcels and freight; freight forwarders that arrange international shipments; warehouses and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) that store inventory and ship orders; and fourth-party logistics providers (4PLs) that manage several of those partners for a brand. Most of the trends above reach a brand through these operators, which is why each section ends with questions to ask them.
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