E-commerce order volumes are climbing, but bottom-line profits aren’t keeping pace. 

In this episode of Supply Chain Now, Scott W. Luton and Tevon Taylor are joined by Lori Boyer, Head of Content Marketing at EasyPost and host of Unboxing Logistics. They explore how to protect margins by moving away from broad averages and toward customer precision and AI-driven routing strategies.  

Lori explains how unmanaged growth creates a hidden operational tax for businesses. She makes the case for focusing on order quality over pure volume, calculating the true contribution margin per order, and using technology to treat delivery as a customer retention tool rather than a standard cost center. She also shares a case study where an operator leveraged practical AI tools to save $2 million annually and drastically cut late deliveries without changing carriers or contracts.  

Tevon and Lori discuss core operating principles for winning organizations; breaking free from baseline defaults, segmenting customers by economic value, and building multi-carrier optionality to safeguard against rate spikes. They highlight how moving past standard averages helps operators stop losing money and ensure top customers receive the elite experience they deserve.

Jump into the conversation:

(00:00) Intro

(06:50) The e-commerce growth vs. profit gap 

(08:41) How today's e-commerce complexity is different 

(12:12) Shifting from broad growth to order profitability 

(14:12) Rising customer acquisition costs and retention value 

(18:22) Dashboard lies and the death of averages 

(21:44) Breaking down the true cost of customer margin 

(23:57) Starting with a simple profitability spreadsheet 

(26:33) Segmenting customers by order economics 

(28:18) Automating logistics decisions with practical AI tools 

(37:18) Prioritizing reliability and visibility over delivery speed

(41:00) Redefining optionality as a bottom-line margin strategy

(44:34) Traits that separate winning operators from those struggling

(48:39) Leveraging Luma AI workflows to locate hidden shipping costs

(51:05) Prioritizing customer lifetime value over broad funnel acquisition

Additional Links & Resources:

This episode was hosted by Scott Luton and Tevon Taylor, and produced by Trisha Cordes, Joshua Miranda, and Amanda Luton. For additional information, please visit our dedicated show page at: https://supplychainnow.com/more-orders-less-profit-whats-going-on-1608

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