{"id":7965,"date":"2026-06-26T10:22:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shaoke.com\/?p=7965"},"modified":"2026-06-26T10:46:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T10:46:15","slug":"summer-logistics-in-europe-what-to-expect-and-how-to-prepare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shaoke.com\/zh\/summer-logistics-in-europe-what-to-expect-and-how-to-prepare\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer Logistics in Europe: What to Expect and How to Prepare"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Summer in logistics means something different than it does for most people. Not holidays. Not downtime. A driver shortage that peaks every August, cargo sitting in vans that hit 50 degrees, and demand that doesn’t follow the usual patterns. It’s its own kind of peak season, just with less predictability and fewer people to manage it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staff shortages hit all segments<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the biggest summer challenges is staffing. In Europe, July and August are peak holiday months. In Germany, nearly 40% of workers take time off in August; in France, it’s closer to 60% in some regions. That includes drivers, warehouse staff, and customs officers. The truck driver shortage across Europe was already at 7% in 2023 and was expected to rise to 11% by 2025, and this strain becomes more visible every summer. For last-mile delivery companies, it means shifting resources, rerouting deliveries, or facing longer handover times at terminals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heat-sensitive cargo at higher risk<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Temperature becomes a real issue in summer logistics. Pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, batteries, and electronics are all affected by heat, yet many smaller vans and last-mile vehicles don’t have active temperature control. Average temperatures in uncooled delivery vans can reach up to 50\u00b0C in direct sunlight. This affects shelf life, battery integrity, and in some cases leads to regulatory non-compliance for temperature-sensitive goods. Some logistics providers respond by adding early-morning delivery windows or installing passive cooling insulation as a temporary measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summer brings shifting demand<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consumer behavior changes too. While B2B volumes may dip slightly as factories shut down for annual maintenance, e-commerce orders often rise in July with summer sales and pre-back-to-school promotions. In Southern Europe, courier parcel volumes in July often rise 8 to 10% compared to the spring average. Seasonal goods like camping gear, fashion, air conditioners, and festival products spike alongside that. Logistics networks need to stay flexible, not just in volume handling but in route planning, especially in tourist-heavy regions where road congestion increases significantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Planning ahead is the only constant<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether you’re managing full truckloads across borders or same-day parcels in city centers, summer means dealing with staffing gaps, heat-related disruptions, and demand spikes that don’t always follow forecasts. The companies that handle it best are the ones that plan early: securing temporary labor, rebalancing hub capacity, and adjusting delivery time windows before the season hits rather than during it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How SHAOKE can help<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Navigating summer in logistics takes preparation, flexibility, and the right partners in place before the season hits. At SHAOKE, we help brands across Europe manage exactly these kinds of shifts, from capacity planning to last-mile coordination across markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curious how we can support your operations this summer? Get in touch<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sources<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources for this article include driver shortage data from the IRU (International Road Transport Union), vacation statistics from Statista, heat impact research from DHL Trend Research, road congestion data from Eurostat, and seasonal parcel volume reporting from PostEurop and IPC.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summer in logistics means something different than it does for most people. Not holidays. Not downtime. A driver shortage that peaks every August, cargo sitting in vans that hit 50 degrees, and demand that doesn’t follow the usual patterns. It’s its own kind of peak season, just with less predictability and fewer people to manage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":7139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,21],"tags":[188,187,184,180,198,285,185,179],"class_list":["post-7965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized-en","category-blogs","tag-careers","tag-digitalisation","tag-ecommerce","tag-logistics","tag-onlineshopping","tag-summer","tag-supplychain","tag-warehousing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaoke.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaoke.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaoke.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaoke.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaoke.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7965"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/shaoke.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7970,"href":"https:\/\/shaoke.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7965\/revisions\/7970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaoke.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaoke.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaoke.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaoke.com\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}