What happens after you click buy? Counted in parcels

In 1899 two men started a mail order company in Insjön in the province of Dalarna.^{16, 20} The first product was a framed oleograph, a printed copy of an oil painting, of the royal family, which sold 100,000 copies.^{16, 20} A few months later came the first catalogue, with just over 270 products carefully pictured and described.^{16, 20} From 1904 it came out twice a year, and in 1906 the village post office closed and moved into the company's own premises.²⁰

According to the Centre for Business History, the company had more than 250 employees in 1909, and the number of parcels sent that year passed a quarter of a million.^{16, 21} Those two figures have only that one source. Sweden then had 5,476,441 inhabitants.⁷ The business logic is the same as today: a catalogue instead of a shop, an order form instead of a conversation, a parcel instead of a carrier bag, and a payment at a distance instead of cash over the counter.

The museum's record for a photograph of the same department two years later describes the routine: an extra sheet, a sale catalogue, was packed with each shipment, or sent out separately to customers from a customer register.¹⁹ So targeted marketing based on customer data is no newer than 1911.

This article counts the same thing for the years 2024 to 2026, and then goes through what happens to the parcel after you click buy. The figures come from data collected by the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS), from Statistics Sweden (SCB), Swedish Customs, the National Board of Trade and the National Board for Consumer Disputes (ARN), from two laws and an EU regulation, and from two industry surveys of how parcels are delivered.

Three counts that must not be added together

E-commerce is measured in three ways in Sweden, and they answer different questions.

The first is the number of parcels. The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority collects it under the EU's parcel regulation, as a duty to report and not as a survey.^{8, 17} The second is turnover at the consumer level, what Swedes spend in kronor. The third is turnover at the company level, how much of companies' sales comes in through a website or an app. Statistics Sweden puts that share at 12% of turnover at companies with ten or more employees in 2024, and 17% in the retail and wholesale trade.⁶

The figures sit at different levels and must not be added together. This article is built on the parcels, because their number is affected neither by prices nor by who answers a survey.

313 million parcels

The whole market, and per inhabitant

During 2024, 368 million parcels were distributed across the whole Swedish parcel market. Of them, 313 million were delivered in Sweden. Domestic parcels were 256 million, imports 57 million and exports 55 million. Total turnover in the market was about 24 billion kronor.^{1, 17}

Divided by the population at the end of 2024, 10,587,710 people, 313 million parcels make 29.6 per inhabitant per year.^{7, 17} Spread over the 366 days of the leap year, that is about 855,200 parcels a day. Counted that way, e-commerce is a logistics chain with a screen at one end.

Who sends, and the growth since 2018

Of the parcels delivered in Sweden, 74% go from business to consumer, 20% between businesses and 7% have a consumer as the sender.¹⁷ Of the three customer types, purchases grow the slowest. During 2024, sales to consumers grew by 6% in volume, while the flow with a consumer as sender grew by 46%.¹⁷ The authority reads this as a sign that the second-hand trend is holding up, and it also counts parcels between private individuals in the same flow.

The trend since 2018 is uneven between the parts of the market. Domestic volume grew 58% between 2018 and 2024, imports 64% and exports 35%.¹⁷ Measured by turnover, the same parts of the market grew by 60%, 104% and 46% respectively.¹⁷ Imports grow faster in kronor than in number. Turnover per imported parcel rose by about 24% between 2018 and 2024, roughly in step with the general price level, so in real terms the parcel is no more expensive to distribute today.²⁴

What counts as a parcel

The definition is shared across the EU and is set out in the parcel regulation. A parcel is a postal item that is not a written message, that contains goods with or without commercial value, and that weighs no more than 31.5 kilograms.⁸ So it is the weight and the contents that decide, not who sent it or why.

Some e-commerce items are counted as letters instead. During 2025, 964 million letter items were sent in Sweden, of which 71 million were so-called parcel letters, small goods in letter format.^{2, 18} While traditional letters fell by 9% in volume, parcel letters rose by 7%.^{2, 18}

After the click, in four steps

The first step is legal, and probably the most useful piece of information in the whole article. Under the Consumer Sales Act, the goods are delivered when you have them in your possession, and only then does the risk pass to you.¹⁰ If you hired the carrier yourself, the goods count as delivered as soon as they are handed over to it, but not if it was the seller who offered that delivery option.¹⁰ So a parcel that goes missing on the way is the seller's problem and not yours, as long as it was the seller who offered the delivery.

The second step is the way home, and it does not look the way it did ten years ago.

The third step is the cooling-off period. With a distance contract you have 14 days, and the period starts on the day you have the goods in your possession.⁹ It never starts before you have been told about your right to cancel, but it ends at the latest one year after it would have run out if the information had been given.⁹ The law lists fourteen exceptions.⁹ Since 19 June 2026, anyone selling through an online interface must also provide a function for using the right to cancel, easy to reach throughout the period and clearly labelled, and must send a receipt without delay.⁹

The fourth step is added if the parcel comes from a country outside the EU. On 1 July 2026 the customs exemption for items worth 150 euros or less was removed and replaced by a customs duty of 3 euros per item line.¹¹ The 3 euro duty is temporary and will be replaced by a percentage duty on 1 July 2028.¹¹ The fixed Swedish amount for 150 euros is 1,655.30 kronor.¹¹ The duty is 3 euros per item line. Identical goods usually count as one line, but can be declared as separate lines.¹¹

If something still goes wrong, there is the National Board for Consumer Disputes. During 2025 it received 24,603 cases, against 25,685 the year before.¹⁵ The consumer was found fully or partly right in 39% of the cases tried, and 76% of the recommendations were followed.¹⁵ The decisions are recommendations and not binding.

The map of where parcels are collected

The parcel lockers and the distances

This part of everyday life has been rebuilt in four years. The number of service points that are a parcel locker or parcel cabinet went from 1,446 in 2021 to 8,242 in 2025.³ Their share of all service points rose from 14% to 44%, while the total number of service points went from 10,608 to 18,778.³ At the start of 2026 there were 8,953 unique places for dropping off and collecting parcels, of which 5,164 were tied to a single operator.^{2, 18}

The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority has calculated what this meant for distances in 2024. Having competing service networks shortened the average distance to the nearest service point by 250 metres, and the arrival of parcel lockers by 350 metres.^{1, 17} The two measures measure different things and cannot be added together, as the authority states.^{1, 17}

The differences within the country are large. In 2024 the average distance to the nearest service point was 350 metres in Solna, the shortest of 290 municipalities, and 7,200 metres in Bräcke, the longest.^{1, 17} That is just over twenty times the distance to the nearest service point.

How the way of delivery has shifted

The shift can be followed over time in the industry's own annual report. Between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the fourth quarter of 2025, the share who had their latest purchase delivered to a pickup point fell from 64% to 41%, while the parcel locker rose from 2% to 19%.^{14, 23} Delivery to a letterbox or building mailbox stayed at around 17% to 19%, and the share who had the parcel left outside the door rose from 5% to 13%.^{14, 23}

Two independent surveys point the same way. The annual report finds 41% for pickup points in the fourth quarter of 2025, and the monthly survey the figure is based on finds 42% in July 2026, despite different panels, different survey companies and seven months between the surveys.^{14, 22, 23}

What looked like growth

Statistics Sweden's retail trade index for industry 47.91, mail order and internet retail, comes in two versions. In current prices, that is in kronor, the annual average was 100.0 in 2021, 98.8 in 2022, 98.4 in 2023, 104.3 in 2024 and 117.8 in 2025.⁵ The series looks almost flat for two years and then rises.

In constant prices, that is adjusted for price changes, the same period looks different. There the annual average was 99.8 in 2021, 92.5 in 2022, 84.7 in 2023, 88.2 in 2024 and 99.3 in 2025.⁵ So volume fell by 7.3% in 2022 and by a further 8.5% in 2023, and was back close to the 2021 level only in 2025.⁵ The annual averages are our own calculation from Statistics Sweden's monthly values.

The difference between the two series is the whole point. During two years of high inflation, sales volume in constant prices fell while turnover in current prices looked unchanged. E-commerce statistics are usually quoted in current prices. That gives a question that needs no background knowledge: is the figure in kronor or in things?

What comes from abroad

The National Board of Trade (Kommerskollegium) states that 5.8 billion low-value items were imported into the EU during 2025, about 16 million a day, against 4.6 billion in 2024 and 1.4 billion in 2022.¹² Of the items in 2025, 93% came from China.¹² They make up about 98% of all imported units of goods into the EU but only about 2% of the import value.¹²

What happens when the price of such an item changes can be measured without guessing. The Swedish Trade Federation's monthly survey for July 2026 shows that the share of consumers who bought from the two big low-price platforms fell from 18% in July 2025 to 8% in July 2026, after the customs duty was introduced on 1 July.^{13, 22} The Swedish Trade Federation itself says it is too early to call it a permanent fall.¹³

Who is left out

In 2025, 86% of the population aged 16 to 85 had bought or ordered goods or services online in the past year.⁴ At the same time, 517,500 people, or 6%, had never done so.⁴ Among those aged 75 to 85 the share is 24%, and among those aged 65 to 74 it is 13%.⁴

Income matters, but less than you might think, and geography even less. In the lowest income fifth, 73% had shopped online in the past year, against 93% in the highest.⁴ In big cities 86% had done so, against 83% in sparsely populated areas.⁴

And it does not always go well. Of the population aged 16 to 85, 19% said a delivery had taken longer than promised, 12% that it was hard to find information about guarantees, 7% that it was hard to complain or return a faulty item and 2% that they had been victims of fraud.⁴ The share who reported no problems at all was 41%.⁴ The share hit by a late delivery has fallen from 24% in 2021 to 19% in 2025.⁴

What is worth taking away is simple. Ask whether an e-commerce figure is counted in kronor or in things, and remember that the parcel is the seller's responsibility until it is in your hand, when it is the seller who offered the delivery.¹⁰

What to take away

During 2024, 313 million parcels were delivered in Sweden, or 29.6 per inhabitant, and 74% went from business to consumer.¹⁷ At the same time, retail volume in constant prices fell in 2022 and 2023 while the kronor looked unchanged.⁵ The force is structural rather than fast: the number of service points that are parcel lockers rose from 1,446 in 2021 to 8,242 in 2025, and a network of pickup points, laws and customs rules is rebuilt over many years.³ Follow the parcel volumes in the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority's annual report on the parcel market,¹⁷ Statistics Sweden's retail trade index for industry 47.91 in constant prices⁵ and the number of cases at the National Board for Consumer Disputes.¹⁵

The next episode is S5:E3 Financial Inclusion, about what an account is and who still does not have one.

Education, not advice.