Is selling to the EU worth it for a small ecommerce business?

Start with contribution profit

The useful first question is commercial: how much gross contribution do your EU sales generate before EU-specific overhead? Top-line revenue alone can hide an uneconomic market.

Separate EU-specific overhead

Model only costs that arise because you serve the EU: provider quotes, registrations, internal admin time, translations, additional returns handling, fulfilment differences and other known costs.

Find the threshold

Divide annual EU-specific overhead by your gross margin rate. That gives a planning break-even revenue level before target profit.

Use the result as a screen

Below break-even means investigate before expanding. Positive but tight may justify narrowing countries or products. Strong headroom may justify deeper compliance work.