How Coop Estonia replaced email chains with one view

Coop Estonia is one of the largest retail cooperatives in Estonia, operating close to 320 stores across the country under the Coop, Konsum and Maksimarket brands. The central association, Coop Eesti Keskühistu, handles shared services for all member cooperatives, including central logistics and the direct import of goods. As that share has grown, so has the demand on the team coordinating transport.

Hannes Oks, Logistics Director, and Mihkel Mäehans, Head of Transport, describe how the move to Cargoson came about, and what changed afterwards. Before the platform, transport requests were handled through a mix of emails, phone calls, messages, Teams calls and two separate Excel files, one for quotes received and one for confirmed shipments. As import volumes grew, the team looked for a better way to manage the process.

A cautious start

Before committing to new software, Coop wanted to be sure the investment made sense. For Hannes Oks, the move to Cargoson didn't happen quickly. At the time, Coop's freight coordinator was spending only around 10% of their time on transport coordination, and on paper, the payback case for a dedicated transport platform wasn't obvious.

"At the start, we weren't sure the investment was justified, we didn't have the volume that would normally drive that kind of business case," Hannes Oks recalls. What tipped the decision was a conversation that went past the standard demo.

"We met up with the Cargoson team and showed them what we do today and how we do it. As we talked, solutions we hadn't seen before became visible," he says.

We got to the point where we could see that we needed to have this kind of software. And then, as you start using it, your appetite grows. I'm sure there are still hidden wins we haven't found yet.
Hannes Oks, Logistics Director at Coop

Onboarding carriers went more smoothly than expected. Most were already on the platform, and the few who weren't adapted quickly.

From scattered files to one shared view

Before Cargoson, the picture was similar to many companies of Coop's size. "Excel, email, phone," is how Mihkel Mäehans sums up the old way of working.

The shift to a single platform changed the day-to-day quickly. Repeat shipments with the same routes, volumes and addresses no longer need to be entered from scratch.

With a couple of clicks, I can see the previous shipment, the volumes and the destination. I'm not typing things in one at a time anymore, waiting for emails, going through Excel sheets. That alone changed how the work feels.
Mihkel Mäehans, Head of Transport at Coop

The shift also changed how information moves inside the organisation. Before Cargoson, each department worked from its own files. Now, purchasing, accounting and logistics all have access to the same data in one place. "We shook up our internal information flows quite significantly," Oks says. "There are no secrets. If someone needs a broader view, it's all there."

Solving a cost-of-goods problem they didn't set out to solve

One of the more significant outcomes came from a challenge the team had been trying to solve separately: calculating the full cost of goods. Additional charges such as customs duties, excise fees and other transport costs had been matched to goods receipts manually, gathered from emails and accounting records. Tying them back to specific shipments was slow, and additional costs often turned up weeks after the goods themselves.

"We were living in the blissful belief that there were no more extra costs on a given shipment, and then they'd appear from somewhere. With high volumes, that distorted our cost-of-goods picture, marginally, but enough to matter," Oks explains.

Working with logistics, IT and accounting together, the team realised the answer was already in front of them.

"We already had this environment in use. Why integrate something extra? Instead, we could route the same partners who provide those additional services, customs, excise duties, the rest, through Cargoson too, and collect that data through the same place," Hannes says. "We hadn't seen that we could get there. But that's where we ended up."

Comparing prices without the back-and-forth

Sending the same freight inquiry to multiple carriers at once and seeing all responses in a single view has replaced what used to be a round of individual emails and waiting. The team can compare offers side by side and make a decision quickly.

The visibility also gives Coop a clearer record of how carriers perform over time. Oks notes that with some carriers, Coop has negotiated fixed rates, and seeing market prices alongside those rates helps them judge when the agreed price is still fair and when it might need revisiting. "We know our partners well enough," he says, "but before we had no evidence. Now we have a record."

That clarity extends to the carrier relationships themselves. With around ten core carrier partners managed through the platform, Coop's approach isn't to push for the lowest possible price.

Measuring exact cost savings has been difficult, partly because import volumes have grown considerably over the same period, making direct comparisons hard. What matters more to the team, Hannes Oks says, is having access to the best available rate on the market at the time of booking.

Knowledge that stays in the company

Hannes Oks also points to something less visible but just as important: institutional memory. Under the old setup, pricing history and carrier performance data lived in personal spreadsheets and email inboxes. If someone went on holiday or left the company, that knowledge was difficult to hand over.

"How does the next person know which services we used, at what prices, with what quality, and why those choices were made?" he asks. "Before, it was impossible to package that up and pass it on."

Now that the history is in the system, the team can cover for one another without it becoming a major disruption.

It used to be a real headache to step in for someone else. That's no longer the case.
Mihkel Mäehans, Head of Transport at Coop

Who would benefit?

When asked who they would recommend Cargoson to, Oks keeps it practical. "If you already have a meaningful volume of freight that you're managing manually today, it makes sense to consider moving to an environment where all your data is in one place, with a full cost overview," he says. "It doesn't have to be a logistics company, an importer, or anyone specific. The deciding factor is volume and manageability, not industry."

For Coop, the work is ongoing.