Arena: Market Conditions Before Global-e
Brands and retailers selling from their own websites to shoppers in other countries · 2013 · UK and Europe, with US retailers as the comparison
Barriers to participationRegulatory constraints
A brand selling from its own website in 2013 could attract visitors from abroad, but the sale often failed at the border. Shoppers named high shipping costs and duties and taxes charged on delivery among their main reasons not to buy from foreign sites GE21, and seven in ten cited fear of fraud GE16. Selling properly abroad meant handling import rules, card fraud and foreign payment methods, and opening local operations took significant time and money and carried currency and tax risk GE22. The few outsourced specialists mainly served large US retailers such as Macy's, J.Crew and Nike GE22 GE34. Most brands shipped abroad with fees left for the shopper to pay at the door, and accepted many foreign visits that never became orders GE22.
What shaped the outcome
Step 1 of 4 · 2013–21
Global-e took Borderfree's seller-of-record model to European brands, plugged into the stores they already ran
Global-e's three founders were Bank Hapoalim executives in their forties; one, Shahar Tamari, had run e-banking business development at the bank and e-payments at 888 Holdings GE5 GE23 GE3. Amir Schlachet traces the idea to Nir Debbi being hit with an unexpected $60 fee on shoes he had ordered online GE3. The model already existed: Borderfree acted as merchant of record for 91 mostly US retailers such as Macy's and J.Crew in 2013, quoting landed costs and charging a percentage of their sales GE22, and Rick Watson, who later worked at Borderfree, wrote that Borderfree 'invented Global-E's model' GE38. Launched in 2013 GE1, Global-e became the seller to the shopper: it collects duties and taxes at checkout, carries the risk of loss in transit and handles customs GE26 GE33. Its first customers were UK brands such as Crabtree & Evelyn, Astley Clarke and Illamasqua, served from a London head office GE28. It attached to the brand's existing store on Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Magento, SAP Hybris, Shopify and other platforms GE2, and by 2021 priced in more than 100 currencies, offered over 150 payment methods, pre-calculated duties for more than 170 destinations and handled returns and service in local languages GE1. Schlachet says the company never took a deal that did not make a gross profit GE3, and it was profitable in 2020 GE5. Hugo Boss, whose foreign sites had mostly been catalogs, went from 15 to 45 transactional markets on Global-e and reported conversion doubling in Australia and Poland GE25.
Global-e's opening was the customer, not the idea. Borderfree sold the bundle to large US retailers GE22 and ESW carried US brands into Europe GE34; Global-e started with UK and European brands selling outward and fitted itself to whichever platform each one ran, so a brand could open a country without a local subsidiary or a new store. Owning the sale let one company quote a final landed price and absorb work the brand would otherwise split among carriers, customs brokers, payment providers and tax advisers. Schlachet says Global-e came to dominate Europe GE3; the prospectus described its competition as brands doing it in house and 'a limited number' of end-to-end platforms GE49.
Rivals Borderfree served 91 retailers with $448 million of GMV in 2013 GE22. ESW, founded in 2010, used an Irish customs arrangement to sell Nike and Victoria's Secret goods into Europe duty-inclusive GE34 GE19. A brand acting alone could set up local operations or ship with duties due at the door GE22. A Global-e insider told In Practise in 2023 that fewer than 2% of customers had left and none known had moved to eShopWorld; larger brands that looked elsewhere cited limits on customizing the checkout GE4.
End-to-End WorkflowDrop-In AdoptionTech-Enabled Services
Step 2 of 4 · 2016–25
Each country a brand opened paid Global-e twice, in fees on the order and in the DHL shipping it resold
Global-e is paid a percentage of what it collects for goods, duties and shipping, plus fulfillment revenue for the shipping it arranges GE1 GE26; in 2025 service fees were $451 million and fulfillment services $511 million of $962 million revenue GE13. Borderfree had charged retailers a percentage of sales plus fulfillment fees as well GE22. In March 2017 Global-e signed a Commercial Letter making DHL its exclusive express carrier, with DHL committing to prices, and DHL shipped 59% of its 2020 transactions GE49. DHL joined the 2020 funding round, held about 11% by 2025 and renewed its service agreement that year GE30 GE14 GE31; Shopify later sold Global-e's service with 'negotiated DHL express rates' GE11. Shoppers in 2014 named high shipping costs as their top reason not to buy from foreign sites GE21. Existing merchants processed 53%, 34% and 72% more GMV in 2018, 2019 and 2020 than a year earlier, and gross dollar retention stayed above 98% GE1. Hugo Boss went from 15 to 45 markets GE25; Marks & Spencer added markets six years running and LVMH added a brand almost every quarter after the IPO, by one investor's reading of the calls GE27. GMV rose from $211 million in 2018 to $774 million in 2020 and $6.6 billion in 2025 GE1 GE13.
The percentage fee was the category's standard, so it did not set Global-e apart; what compounded was that one integration let a brand keep adding countries, and every added order paid Global-e a service fee and a shipping margin without a new contract. Committing its express volume to DHL bought price commitments that fed the landed price shoppers saw, and later made DHL a shareholder. The 2020 jump also rode the pandemic surge in online buying, which the prospectus expected to last GE42. The costs were concentration, with the largest merchant a fifth of GMV in 2019 GE1, and reliance on a carrier whose terms the prospectus warned might be worse than an unrelated party's GE49.
Rivals ESW's carrier ties came through ownership: Asendia, the La Poste and Swiss Post joint venture, became its majority owner in 2017 and bought the rest in 2021 GE50. Shopify's Managed Markets charges 3.25% to 3.5% of an order GE33. Zonos tried to win merchants on price; a Global-e insider told In Practise that merchants shown the full list of services stayed GE4. A consultancy calls Global-e expensive for smaller retailers GE17.
Purchasing power
Step 3 of 4 · 2021–26
Shopify built its own cross-border checkout on Global-e, paid in warrants and a share of GMV, and kept the right to replace it
In April 2021, a month before the IPO, Global-e signed a partnership with Shopify that made it the exclusive third-party cross-border provider integrated into Shopify's checkout, for an initial three years to April 2024. Global-e pays Shopify a percentage of GMV from those merchants and issued warrants over up to 19.6 million shares, 7.75 million vesting at signing and the rest monthly over 24 months, amortized at about $117.5 million a year in sales and marketing for four years. The deal let Shopify offer its own merchant-of-record product to any merchant without limit and could be ended on notice GE1 GE49. In November 2021 Global-e agreed to buy Flow, whose lightweight tools served small brands Global-e had turned away, and gave Shopify a further warrant worth about $70 million to extend the partnership GE7 GE24. Shopify launched Markets Pro in September 2022, 'powered by our partnership with Global-e' GE11, renamed it Managed Markets in 2024 GE26 and charges 3.25% to 3.5% per order with Global-e as the seller GE33. Piper Sandler estimated in July 2023 that Global-e already processed about $1 billion a year of GMV from Shopify merchants GE41, against $3.6 billion of total GMV that year GE26. Debbi said version 1 had issues that held back wider adoption; version 2, with same-session onboarding, replaced it in 2026 and reached Canada and the UK GE15 GE29. The 2025 renewal kept Global-e as exclusive merchant of record for Managed Markets for three years but opened Shopify's third-party channel to other providers GE6, and Managed Markets payments move onto Shopify Payments, which Global-e's finance chief said it would stop recording as revenue GE46.
Shopify had the right to build this service itself GE1. By putting Global-e inside its checkout instead, Shopify turned the largest direct-to-consumer platform into a route to small merchants that Global-e's enterprise sales could not reach economically, and took a stake of about 13% GE12. The same contract made Global-e's place on Shopify renewable rather than owned. An executive interviewed by In Practise in 2025 said Shopify would accept losing merchants to Managed Markets if it kept them in its ecosystem GE45, and the 2025 terms show Shopify keeping other suppliers in play.
Rivals Shopify merchants could use Shopify Markets for currency and pricing without a merchant of record GE17, Flow before Global-e bought it GE7, or other third-party providers Shopify admitted in 2025 GE6. ESW had no comparable place in Shopify's checkout.
Distribution PartnershipsExclusive contractual access
Step 4 of 4 · 2021–24
Global-e bought Flow for Shopify's small brands and a shrunken Borderfree for large US retailers
Global-e bought Flow, a US cross-border provider for emerging brands with about $20 million of 2021 revenue, for up to about $500 million in cash and shares, closing in January 2022; Flow's chief executive took over a new small-business division and its technology chief became Global-e's chief product officer GE7 GE35. Debbi said Flow's small-merchant product combined with Global-e's enterprise one would make it a cross-border solution 'for any size of merchant' GE24. Borderfree had $125 million of revenue in 2014, when Pitney Bowes agreed to pay $395 million for it GE9; in June 2022 Global-e agreed to buy it for $100 million in cash, with more than $40 million of expected 2022 revenue, about 650 brands and retailers and a Pitney Bowes logistics partnership attached, and closed on 1 July 2022 GE8 GE37 GE39. Watson wrote that the deal brought Macy's, Nordstrom and Crate & Barrel to Global-e GE38. Schlachet said in November 2022 that Borderfree's teams had been folded in and its merchants would move onto Global-e's platform over several quarters GE43. Global-e added the logistics provider Passport in 2026 GE15. Revenue rose from $409 million in 2022 to $753 million in 2024 GE26.
Each purchase took Global-e into a segment where it was thin: Flow among small Shopify brands, Borderfree among large US retailers. Flow cost five times Borderfree for half the revenue, so Global-e was paying for Flow's technology and fit with Shopify rather than its sales. Borderfree, the model's pioneer, had lost about two thirds of its revenue under Pitney Bowes before Global-e bought it for a quarter of Pitney's price. Rick Watson named ESW, the largest independent rival, as the deal's main loser GE38.
Rivals ESW reported 2020 revenue of €965 million and set a target of more than $5 billion by 2026 GE51, with Nike as its anchor client GE12. By 2025 an executive interviewed by In Practise described ESW as stagnating while Global-e grew above 30% a year, and Glopal won Dior and Christian Louboutin GE44; ESW cut up to 77 of 906 roles that April, saying trading was not the cause GE52. The alternative to buying Flow was building lightweight self-service tools in house.
M&A Strategy