Stop running a warehouse. Start running a brand.

There is no catch — the number reflects a different operating model, not a worse one. Three structural reasons make it work in Ukraine where it does not in the US or Western Europe. First, labour: a trained warehouse picker in Kyiv earns roughly $850 per month all-in (gross plus payroll taxes plus benefits) versus $4,200 for the same role in a US Tier-2 metro. Second, real estate: Class B logistics space inside the Kyiv ring road runs €4.50 per square metre per month versus $14 in a comparable US suburban park. Third, our pricing model is single-line and bundled — pick, pack, box, label, and Nova Poshta dropoff are one fee, not seven. We do not charge per-pick, per-additional-line-item, per-box, or per-label separately. So the $0.41 is the all-in number for a typical 1–3 SKU consumer order; what you see in our quote is what you pay on the invoice.

Native turnkey: Shopify, WooCommerce, OpenCart, Magento, PrestaShop, and Horoshop (the dominant Ukrainian SaaS storefront for the local market). Native API: KeyCRM and SalesDrive (the two leading Ukrainian DTC order-management systems). Marketplace channels: Prom.ua, Rozetka, Hubber, and Allo via their respective seller APIs. Cross-border: we have shipped Etsy, eBay, and Faire orders out of Ukraine for European DTC brands. Custom: if you are on a bespoke platform we accept orders via webhook, REST API, EDI, CSV-over-SFTP, or in extreme cases email-parsed-to-order. The integration engineer on our side handles the connector work — your developers receive a webhook spec and can ignore the rest. Standard go-live is 5–7 business days from contract signature to first dispatched parcel.

You would not, for orders shipping to your home market. The economics flip in three specific cases. First, you sell into Ukraine and the CIS — running this channel from a US 3PL means every parcel pays $35–60 in international shipping plus 5–14 days transit, both of which destroy unit economics. We dispatch to Ukrainian buyers next-day for $1.20 per parcel via Nova Poshta. Second, you sell cross-border into Eastern Europe (Poland, Romania, Czechia, Slovakia, Baltics) and Ukrainian-origin shipping via Nova Poshta International beats DHL out of a US warehouse on both speed and cost. Third, you have a bonded inventory strategy where Ukraine is your low-cost holding location for SKUs you reposition to Western fulfillment as demand spikes — we run that for two German DTC brands today. Outside these cases, stay with your domestic 3PL.

Returns ship back to a dedicated returns dock at our Kyiv warehouse, separate from inbound receiving so fresh stock and returns never mix. Each parcel is opened, photographed, condition-graded on a four-point scale (A: new, B: open-box resaleable, C: damaged buyer fault, D: damaged our fault), and reflected in your inventory dashboard within 4 business hours of arrival. Your refund or replacement decision flows back through the same API channel that delivered the order. Storage of grade-D returns is free for 14 days while you decide on disposition (restock after rework, liquidate, donate, or destroy). Industry-baseline return rates we see in our 2025 dataset: clothing 14–22%, footwear 18–26%, electronics 4–7%, home goods 2–4%, supplements under 1%. Returns handling is invoiced at $0.18 per parcel for grades A/B and $0.27 for C/D (the latter includes photo documentation usable in chargeback disputes).

Monthly invoicing in arrears, net-7 by default with net-30 unlocked after the first 90 days of clean payment history. Currencies: USD or EUR on request, with NBU monthly average reference rates applied to convert UAH operating costs (transparent on every invoice). SEPA and SWIFT wires are standard. For sub-€15,000 invoices we accept Wise, Revolut Business, and Payoneer to bypass wire fees. Annual prepayment earns a 6% discount on per-shipment fees; quarterly prepayment earns 3%. We do not accept crypto. All invoices include a Ukrainian VAT-export note (zero-rated for non-resident clients under Article 195 of the Tax Code), so EU and US clients do not pay Ukrainian VAT on fulfillment service fees. We can also invoice from a partner entity in Lithuania for euro-zone clients who require an EU-issued VAT invoice for their bookkeeping.

This is the question every international client asks in the first call, and the honest answer matters. Our Kyiv warehouse has operated continuously since February 2022 through every wave of strikes, with two recorded business-day pauses — both fewer than 8 hours, both during city-wide air-raid alerts, both with zero inventory loss. Three reasons: physical hardening (reinforced roof, ground-floor location, no glass-frontage exposure on the dispatch dock); redundant power (diesel genset with 96-hour fuel reserve plus solar backup for WMS servers); and a written disaster-recovery plan that triggers parcel rerouting to a partner warehouse in Lviv (Western Ukraine, ~530 km from Kyiv) within 6 hours of a major incident. Cargo insurance covers up to €3M per incident through Lloyds and a Ukrainian war-risk syndicate. Our SLA holds at 24-minute pick window and 48-hour dispatch in 99.5% of months including the worst three months of 2024.

Both. The default contract is operational fulfillment — receiving, putaway, storage, pick, pack, dispatch, returns. Beyond that, we offer four optional layers that brands typically activate after the first 90 days. Customer-service tier 1: Ukrainian, Russian, and English-language phone and email response on order status questions, dispatched from our Kyiv office. Quality control: per-SKU inbound inspection with photo log, useful for brands shipping inventory from Asia and unable to inspect before container release. Kitting and bundling: assembly of multi-SKU promo bundles, gift sets, and influencer PR boxes. Subscription operations: recurring monthly box assembly with personalisation slips. Each layer is invoiced separately, transparent line items. We do not bundle these into the per-order rate.

Kyiv, Ukraine — specific address shared after NDA. The site is one continuous 4,200 m² facility with separate zones for high-velocity DTC, slow-moving long-tail, hazmat-rated, and returns. Yes, in-person visits are welcomed and organised within 5 business days of request — we cover ground transport from Boryspil airport. For clients who prefer not to travel during the war, we run a live video walk-through (60–90 minutes) showing the receiving dock, putaway, the WMS, the pick zone, the pack stations, the dispatch lanes, and the dedicated returns area. We can also share a recent fire-marshal certificate, the warehouse insurance policy summary, and references from three current international clients who have agreed to take a reference call.