• Location and transit-time performance to key customer zones
• WMS/Warehouse automation and integration capabilities
• Scalability of space types (ambient, chilled, frozen)
• Fulfillment SLA history and returns processing
• Total cost-to-serve including labor and transport

Szeged benefits from the M5 motorway, regional rail corridors, and short overland distances to Romania and the Balkans, enabling 24–72 hour regional delivery windows. Intermodal options increase carrier flexibility and reduce reliance on long-haul trucking for cross-border distribution.

• Integrated e-fulfillment with marketplace connectivity
• Efficient returns processing and reverse-logistics workflows
• Kitting, light assembly, and subscription fulfillment
• Cold-chain management and temperature monitoring
• Customs clearance support for cross-border shipments

Key cost drivers include facility rent, labor rates and productivity, energy for climate control, transport lane density, and IT integration costs. Szeged generally offers lower facility and labor costs than capital-region sites, but cold storage and automation raise unit costs—evaluate tradeoffs in TCO modeling.

Assess Szeged as a southern node for Balkan and eastern EU coverage: run transit-time and cost-to-serve models, segment SKUs by service-level needs, test inventory placement scenarios, and validate carrier connectivity and cut-off times to ensure the node meets SLA and cost objectives.