Estonia’s e-commerce is high-level – but bureaucracy threatens its momentum

In the latest Äripäev Radio episode “E-commerce Development and the Future,” Klick’s Head of E-Commerce Gunnar Obolenski described Estonia’s online retail sector as mature, stable, and highly competitive. The “wild west” phase is long gone: today, even small merchants are able to deliver top-tier shopping experiences. Yet behind this positive picture lies a growing frustration. Merchants report an overwhelming burden of state- and EU-driven overregulation, which increasingly drains time, money, and focus from actually serving customers.

In the newest episode of the series, the overall health of Estonian e-commerce was examined and according to Obolenski, it is in excellent shape. Just a few years ago, merchants were still wrestling with decisions about platforms, delivery setups or payment solutions, but today this hygiene level is well-established for almost everyone. Online stores are fast, secure and visually appealing, and thanks to the Estonian E-Commerce Association’s trust labels, consumer confidence is high even toward newly launched shops.

But alongside technological capability and quality, the episode sharply highlighted an issue that remains hidden from the average customer – the regulatory burden that threatens to undermine merchants’ efficiency.

Lawmakers and reality are not in sync

According to Obolenski, it increasingly feels as though lawmakers and those drafting regulations are not themselves customers of online stores and do not understand how the sector actually operates. The result is requirements that create costs for merchants but offer no meaningful added value to consumers.

As a striking example, he pointed to the rule requiring sellers to add separate information when an electronic device is sold without a charger in the box. “Why do I need to add an extra picture somewhere and put a line through it? I already describe in the product description what’s included in the package,” Obolenski said critically. This kind of duplication is tedious work that creates no real value.

An even bigger headache is the bureaucracy tied to the green transition. Obolenski describes the process of filling out packaging reports as something pushed to an absurd level of detail. Merchants and logistics partners spend hundreds of working hours preparing reports to specify different packaging materials with millimetre-level precision. “The fact is that a large number of people waste a huge amount of working hours on something that is unlikely to change anything – we will still see the same piles of packaging in stores,” Obolenski noted.

Differentiation happens through service and physical presence

As the technical level has evened out and competing on price with Asian giants is impossible, the only real advantage for Estonian merchants is reliable customer service and a strong omni-channel strategy.

Klick’s experience shows that a network of physical stores is critically important in e-commerce – nearly 50% of their online customers choose in-store pickup. This creates an opportunity for direct interaction: the customer can see the product before final acceptance and ask the sales staff for advice. “People often don’t know how to configure something or understand which products work together,” Obolenski explained.

This has also created the so-called showroom effect, which works in both directions: customers visit the store to touch and test the product and then buy it online, or they do their research on the web and complete the purchase in a physical shop.

AI does half of the work

Looking to the future, the role of artificial intelligence is unavoidable. In Klick’s customer support, AI already handles roughly half of all inquiries independently or with minimal human involvement. Routine questions are answered by the bot, while more complex or empathy-heavy issues are forwarded to a human agent. This does not mean the disappearance of human work, but rather the ability to provide faster responses at a time when customers have become accustomed to “right-now” expectations.