Cross-Border E-commerce in 2026: What DHL's Trends Report Means for Automation and Agent-Ready Stores

> In brief: DHL eCommerce's new 2026 E-Commerce Trends Report, based on responses from 29,000 online shoppers and 5,800 e-commerce businesses across 29 countries, shows cross-border shopping accelerating worldwide while AI steadily moves into the purchase journey itself. Merchants who haven't automated their e-commerce presence — and prepared it for AI-driven buying — are already falling behind.

Published in mid-2026, the report compares what online shoppers expect against what e-commerce businesses actually deliver, across cross-border commerce, delivery, payments, AI and sustainability.

Cross-border shopping is accelerating

International shopping keeps growing: 70% of shoppers now buy internationally, up 10 points year-on-year (from 60% in 2025), and 45% of shoppers buy across borders more than once a month. Over 3 in 10 orders are now sent internationally. For businesses not yet selling cross-border, a quarter (25%) are prioritizing cross-border delivery capabilities within the next 12 months — a clear signal that domestic-only e-commerce is becoming a competitive liability.

Trust remains a friction point: 51% of Baby Boomers worry about fraud when buying internationally, yet 69% still buy overseas for lower prices — showing price sensitivity often outweighs caution.

Cart abandonment still comes down to delivery

Only a quarter of shoppers say they never abandon a cart — most drop off at the final step. 67% of shoppers have abandoned a cart because of the delivery offering, and 52% of businesses report the same top reason. Free shipping remains the number one factor that would push shoppers to complete a purchase; for businesses, it's discounts and offers — a gap worth closing.

AI is going mainstream in shopping — with limits

The most striking shift in the report: 38% of shoppers and 36% of businesses are already using AI-powered chat or virtual assistants to buy and sell. But adoption isn't unconditional — 41% of all shoppers say they would not want voice-enabled search, and automated reordering and predictive needs rank as the next least-wanted features. Businesses broadly agree: 28% wouldn't want voice search themselves, even though 26% already offer it to customers.

The takeaway isn't that shoppers reject AI — it's that they want AI to be useful, not just automated for its own sake.

Sustainability and delivery remain dealbreakers

35% of shoppers have abandoned a purchase over a lack of sustainability credentials, and 58% would engage with a retailer's recycling or buy-back program if returns were free and easy. On delivery, 7 in 10 shoppers won't shop with a brand they don't trust for delivery and returns — and will abandon their cart if their preferred delivery option isn't offered at checkout.

Why e-commerce automation can no longer wait

These numbers echo something Busony has worked on with e-commerce clients for a while: automating the backbone of an online store — synchronized catalogs, structured product data, real-time pricing and availability — is no longer a nice-to-have, it's table stakes. That's the foundation we build on WooCommerce and PrestaShop for our clients.

But the most telling data point in DHL's report is this: with over a third of shoppers already using AI assistants to buy, and adoption climbing, being visible to a human clicking a link is no longer enough. A store also needs to be understandable, comparable, and actionable by an AI agent shopping on someone's behalf — what Busony calls becoming agent-ready: complete Schema.org structured data, a catalog exposed through protocols like WebMCP, and consistent product information across every channel.

To go further, our Agentic Optimization: become agent-ready page details how to prepare your site to be discovered, compared and actioned by AI agents — human-directed and autonomous alike.

Key takeaways

Cross-border e-commerce keeps accelerating, and AI is steadily moving from a nice-to-have to a real channel shoppers use to buy. Merchants who automate their catalog, product data and agent-readiness now will have a head start that gets harder to close later.

Source: 2026 E-Commerce Trends Report — DHL eCommerce