Distributor, classic 3PL,
or your own European operation?

A local distributor buys or takes your product and sells it on under its own customer relationship, so the customer becomes theirs and a heavy cut of the margin goes to the middleman. EFC is a European operating base where you retain the client and the margin is entirely yours, while customs, the bonded warehouse, VAT, and returns run inside the operation. The distributor owns the market; with EFC you do.

A classic third-party logistics vendor stores and ships your goods but leaves customs, import VAT, fiscal representation, and the regulatory layer to you and to external brokers at the seams. EFC runs those inside the same operation: customs clearance and import handling in-house, a bonded warehouse, the Importer of Record function, OSS VAT, and the GPSR Responsible Person credential. You keep what a 3PL gives you and lose the complexity a 3PL leaves behind.

A distributor can make sense when a brand wants someone else to own demand creation, local selling, and the customer entirely, and is willing to give up the margin and the relationship for that. EFC suits a brand that wants to keep the customer, the margin, and the data while still operating physically inside Europe. The honest line is that a distributor takes the market with it, and EFC keeps the market yours.

Yes. Brands commonly move to the EFC model when a distributor relationship has capped their margin or hidden their customers, or when a 3PL has left them carrying customs and VAT. The operation takes over the import, the bonded intake, the VAT, and the fulfilment, so the transition is about moving stock into the base and pointing orders at it. What changes is who carries the complexity, not who owns your brand.

Yes. The models are not mutually exclusive: a brand can keep a distributor for one channel or territory while running direct European operations through EFC for D2C, marketplace, or key accounts. Because the customer and the margin stay yours in the EFC lane, the two can run in parallel without EFC taking ownership of your buyers. The split is a commercial choice, mapped to where you want to keep the relationship.

Yes. A European buyer that needs a local supplier, a domestic delivery address, and the regulatory boxes already ticked sees EFC as a local European operation rather than a foreign supplier shipping in from outside. That removes the foreign-supplier image that costs tenders, a barrier the third way is built to clear. You appear local while keeping the account yours.

Customs clearance and import handling run in-house inside the operation, with a bonded customs warehouse so duty and import VAT defer until each order ships. VAT obligations across the 27 member states are met through OSS, and the Importer of Record function lets a non-resident brand import legally. In the distributor model these are out of your sight; in the classic 3PL model they are left to external brokers; with EFC they run inside the same operation.

Returns and repairs are handled locally inside the European operation, so the customer returns to a European address and you touch nothing on the reverse leg. A distributor typically handles returns slowly through the middleman, and a classic 3PL hands you the reverse logistics to manage. EFC keeps the returns and repairs inside the base.