Masterclass | Cross-border e-Commerce: From Basics to Business Growth

Mandy Deakin-Snell

Welcome from Your Facilitator

Hi, I’m Mandy Deakin-Snell, founder of MDS Alignment and creator of this course.

After more than three decades working in international logistics, eCommerce, and supply chain leadership roles, I’ve seen first-hand how quickly our industry is evolving and how essential it’s become for freight forwarders and service providers to understand the eCommerce landscape from the inside out.

This course was developed to bridge that gap. My goal is to give you practical knowledge, real-world examples, and a clearer perspective on where your business fits, and how you can grow confidently within the eCommerce ecosystem.

As you go through the modules, take notes, reflect on your current processes, and think about how each concept applies to your clients or operations. The more you connect the learning to your day-to-day reality, the more value you’ll take from it.

I hope you enjoy the course and come away with new insights, ideas, and opportunities to strengthen your eCommerce offering.

Cross-border eCommerce: From Basics to Business Growth

This course has been designed to help you understand how eCommerce really works from the operational and strategic lens of a freight forwarder.

You’ll explore the eCommerce ecosystem, from online order to final mile, and discover where traditional forwarding, fulfilment, and logistics models need to adapt to meet the expectations of digital-first customers and retailers.

We’ll break down key terms, metrics, and concepts that every eCommerce client expects you to understand, helping you to speak their language, spot opportunities for collaboration, and build solutions that go beyond “moving goods from A to B.”

By the end of this course, you’ll be able to:

Learning outcomes

• Map how eCommerce supply chains operate across borders
• Identify your place and value within that chain
• Understand the terminology, KPIs, and expectations of eCommerce retailers
• Recognise where your services could expand or diversify
• Confidently engage with eCommerce clients to drive growth for your business

This is a practical, insight-driven guide designed for freight forwarders, logistics teams, and anyone in the supply chain who wants to stay relevant, credible, and commercially sharp in a fast-changing digital marketplace.

Let’s get started!

How to Get the Most Out of This Course

You’ll need around 60 minutes to complete this course in one sitting. It’s designed to be completed at your own pace, so take your time to explore each section and reflect on how it applies to your own business.

At the end, you’ll find a quiz with 10 short questions to help you check your understanding. You’ll need to score 80% or higher to pass, but don’t worry, you can retake it up to five times.

A few useful notes before you begin:

• You can leave the course at any time and return whenever you’re ready. Your progress will be saved.
• You can review the course as often as you like and revisit any section using the course menu.
• Any attachments or external links shared during the course will remain available below for the duration of your enrolment.

Before you start, there will be a short anonymous questionnaire to help us understand which user groups are accessing the training, and to help make future improvements.