The Australian retail landscape is changing. As housing affordability and lifestyle preferences drive populations toward outer-metro and regional corridors, the commercial opportunity is significant. In June 2025, online retail sales reached $4.70 billion[1], a 13.0% year-on-year surge[2]. With 33.1% of Australians now living outside capital cities[3], the goal for retailers is to actively capitalise on regional growth.
However, for eCommerce brands looking to follow their customers, success isn’t as simple as extending a delivery route. It requires a fundamental shift in logistics strategy and a partner who can support growth on the ground.
Servicing regional locations is by no means a one-size-fits-all proposition. While demand in some areas, like the Sunshine Coast and Wollongong is easier to meet, other areas such as Darwin and Alice Springs can be structurally difficult and expensive to service.
Youssef Elhariry, Digital Fulfilment Manager, Freedom, speaks from experience: “Once you move outside major metro areas, network coverage reduces, handovers between carriers increase, and the number of providers able to move large items drops quickly.”
At the same time, some retailers are relocating warehouses away from city centres for cost reasons, creating a two-way logistics challenge: it's no longer just about getting products from metro to regional, but regional to metro as well.
Operating around 60 stores across Australia and New Zealand, Freedom has some advantages Youssef explains, “Freedom has seen strong results where we can use stores as a closer fulfilment point, which reduces both cost and complexity.”
The popular retailer offers an incredible product range including more than 70,000 online items through a dropship program, which means it can offer a much broader range to regional customers.
Freedom’s dropship model is built on a simple but demanding principle: anything that can be delivered, will be delivered. But that only holds true because of the depth and efficiency of the network that sits behind it.
Youssef says: “Team Global Express gives us the network depth to make our dropship model work the way it's supposed to. The promise to our customers is simple: if it can be delivered, it will be delivered. That's only possible because of what TGE can do beyond the metro edge, and that's what makes the difference for Freedom."
Retailers are finding that as customers move away from major city centres, those shoppers still expect the same levels of convenience, choice, and speed they enjoyed in metro locations. The core of the issue is balancing customer expectations with commercial realities.
“We want to give customers as much access and choice as possible, but there are limits to where the economics work, especially in big and bulky delivery,” says Youssef.
While technology and logistics have made it possible to deliver almost anything anywhere, the reality is that customers may not always be willing to pay the associated costs. Navigating this requires a disciplined, data-driven approach to identify which markets are commercially viable and which partnerships can extend a brand's reach without creating unsustainable costs.
“Orders from regional areas have grown since our dropship program launched, particularly for medium and smaller items, a clear signal that demand is real and the economics, when managed carefully, can work.”
Freedom’s AI-first culture and omnichannel approach are focused on giving customers a great experience both in store and online, but this experience now extends to last-mile delivery. It’s become an important customer loyalty lever.
If a delivery experience is late, poor, or prohibitively expensive, it can overshadow the entire purchase journey. This is especially true for online retail, where the delivery is often the most significant physical interaction a customer has with the brand.
Getting the last mile right builds trust. Retailers that start building the right network, fulfilment models, and partnerships now will find themselves in a much stronger position over the next five years as populations continue to shift.
Team Global Express’s role is to help absorb operational complexity so retailers like Freedom can focus on the customer.
“For Freedom, operational efficiency and customer experience are not competing priorities, they are the same goal. There’s continuous pressure with shifting consumer behaviour, interest rate headwinds and shrinking budgets: doing more with less is the operating reality. The last mile is where that tension is most visible – and getting it right matters most.”
At Team Global Express, we believe a logistics partner should enable a business’s growth and provide much more than a transactional service.
Team Global Express is embedded in Freedom’s business across eCommerce, warehousing and everything in between. The partnership is built on providing a robust network that gives brands the confidence to test, grow, and scale.
“They’re a single partner helping our business offer more choice, run leaner, and still deliver on customer promises.”
Scaling into new markets isn't just about "switching delivery on", it requires:
Youssef summarises it well: “Growth cannot come from simply spending more; it must come from building a smarter operating model.”
By working with the right logistics partner, retailers can turn regional delivery from a challenge into long-term competitive advantage. The winners will be those who design fit-for-purpose regional models, protect service consistency, and partner early to scale sustainably.
[1] https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/retail-and-wholesale-trade/retail-trade-australia/latest-release#online-retailing
[3] https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/people-and-communities/location-census/latest-release
