AUTODOC accelerates customs clearance by 50%

For AUTODOC, customs is not a back-office formality. It is a critical part of the supply chain engine that helps keep customer promises in a fast-moving e-commerce environment.

Founded in 2008 by three car enthusiasts, AUTODOC has grown into a leading online retailer for automotive spare parts. Today, the company ships to 27 countries and manages an assortment of 7.8 million SKUs. Three important markets – Switzerland, Norway, and the UK – add customs complexity to daily operations.

“Customs authorities used to consider the automotive industry to be the ultimate challenge due to its complexity. However, the rise of e-commerce introduced an entirely new set of high-volume challenges—and AUTODOC operates right at the intersection of both. We face a unique combination of these two demanding worlds every day,” says Selena Kuveljic, Head of Customs and Trade Compliance at AUTODOC, to describe the level of complexity AUTODOC faces in its cross-border operations.

This complexity is the reason the broker-based export process AUTODOC originally used no longer matched its requirements for speed, data quality, and auditability. The team needed full traceability and auditability at MRN level, transparent shipment status, and a process able to handle high volumes: a single shipment contains from 900 up to 1,500 parcels, ending up with multiple MRNs per consignment, with every MRN consisting of 999 line items.

AUTODOC decided to centralize export operations in Poland and insource export filing with AEB. The project focused on one warehouse serving Norway, the UK, and Switzerland while keeping the setup flexible enough to support exports from Poland or Germany.

AEB Customs Management gave AUTODOC the foundation to build an export process around its own operational needs rather than broker limitations. The team designed templates, uploaded shipping manifest data, and created a process that supports warehouse, transport, and customs requirements.

The project became a cross-functional transformation. Customs, transportation, supply chain, and other teams reviewed internal processes in depth – from sourcing and pricing to customer communication and transport flows.

“We learned in six months what you would learn in three years in a traditional corporate environment,” says Selena Kuveljic.

Before go-live, AUTODOC even presented the setup to the local Polish customs office. The response was positive and strengthened the cooperation with the authorities.