Unboxing Logistics

Many small businesses want to incorporate sustainability initiatives into their operations but aren’t sure how to get started. Veena Harbaugh, director of sustainability at Sendle, reveals that sustainable shipping doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive—even for the smallest organizations.

With limited time and resources, how are small businesses supposed to compete with larger ones? Veena believes they can use constraints to their advantage. “Where there is a barrier for small businesses, those are the exact entrepreneurs finding solutions. … They can embed that [sustainable solution] into the core of what they do.”

Do you have to choose between sustainability and the financial health of your business? Surprisingly, no. While sustainable solutions are often seen as an “elite or more expensive option,” they actually go hand-in-hand with cost savings. By eliminating waste, businesses save money and minimize their carbon footprint at the same time. 

The following sustainability measures are simple but can make a big difference. 

• Rightsize packaging. Save money by not paying to ship half-empty boxes, and save the environment by packing trucks more efficiently. 
• Cut down on returns. Keep products out of landfills and avoid paying for return shipping. Try improving product descriptions and sizing charts so people know what they’re getting.
• Work with eco-conscious partners. Solutions like Sendle and EasyPost offer 100% carbon neutral shipping at no extra cost. 

• Connect with Veena on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/veenaharbaugh/ 
• Visit Sendle’s website: https://www.sendle.com/en-us

International shipping is complex, but it opens the door to billions of new customers. Guy Gemmill, president and co-founder of APC Postal Logistics, joins Lori on this episode of Unboxing Logistics to explain how consolidators simplify cross-border shipping.

Guy explains that shipping consolidators “receive shipments from various merchants in the U.S. on a daily basis, [then] consolidate those shipments into drop areas overseas and into Canada.” 

The advantage of this system? “Because the economies of scale are better, the cost is going to be lower.” Merchants can save up to 60% on international shipping by taking advantage of a consolidator’s bulk discounts.

The consolidated vs. expedited choice comes down to individual preference. Guy says, “[Some] consumers want products within a certain timeframe, and others are going to be shopping based on the cost and shipping rate.” When cost is the main concern, consolidated shipping is the way to go. When time matters most, expedited is the better option.

Is international shipping worth it for your company? According to Guy, you should turn to data to answer that question. “Understand what your website traffic is. Are international consumers hitting your website? Are they looking at your products? How long are they spending on your website?” If you have enough international traffic, it may be time to start tapping into that new market. 

• Connect with Guy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/guy-h-gemmill-64b3481b/ 
• Visit APC Postal Logistics’s site: https://www.apc-pli.com/ 

On this episode of Unboxing Logistics, Jeff Goeters and Jeff Skaistis unveil a new EasyPost platform for high-volume shippers: EasyPost Enterprise. “When out-of-the-box won’t do, that’s what we do,” says Goeters. Skaistis adds, “EasyPost Enterprise is a shipping platform that grows with you over time.” 

Enterprise businesses have to run a tight ship when it comes to shipping—no pun intended. Jeff Skaistis explains why they don’t have room for error. After noting that enterprises ship hundreds of thousands of orders (or more) per day, he continues, “For these companies, shipping is a business-critical operation. You can't have your shipping system go down and expect to make your numbers.” 

Small businesses usually start with an off-the-shelf shipping product, and it works great for a while. But as the organizations scale, things get more complicated. According to Jeff Goeters, many new factors come into play: additional retail locations, online returns, and more. That’s when “you need an enterprise product, which is designed to help you plug all those pieces together.”

EasyPost Enterprise is built using new technologies, and it was created with flexibility and adaptability in mind. While many legacy enterprise products are suffering from age, says Jeff Skaistis, EasyPost Enterprise “gives us a lot of opportunity not to just build what has been built before, but to build new things for the future.” 

• Connect with Jeff Skaistis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/skaistis/ 
• Connect with Jeff Goeters on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffgoeters/ 
• Visit the EasyPost Enterprise site: https://www.easypost.com/enterprise

“You're never too small to ship or get great rates. You're not.”

Kelli Martin is the digital marketing advisor at FedEx, but she likes to refer to herself as a small business champion. This week, she joins us on Unboxing Logistics to share advice for small businesses and highlight some of the resources FedEx provides to help them succeed. 

The current economic climate makes running a small business challenging. Kelli shares the struggles she’s heard about from clients she’s worked with: “[One thing] we're all hearing about and experiencing in some way is inflation and the rising cost of everything … and just finding good labor.”

Shipping can be overwhelming for small business owners! Two things that people often don’t get right? DIM weight and packaging. 

Kelli recommends, “Know your DIM weight … understand it. A lot of people think it's just the weight of the package that makes the difference. Like, no, no, no. It's the combination of the weight, the size, and the distance.”

She adds, “I cannot stress enough the importance of proper packaging. If [a product is] breakable—fragile in any way—proper packing is so important to avoid damage.”

FedEx isn’t just for big companies—they want to help businesses of every size thrive. Check out these helpful resources:

• FedEx Small Business Grant. Ten FedEx customers will win a significant grant to grow their business. The application will open around March 2024. 
• Small Business Center. As Kelli puts it, you can find “loads of information on just about everything under the sun,” including articles on optimizing your shipping, packing, and fulfillment.
• Making It Work podcast. The podcast doesn’t just focus on shipping—it covers all the complexities of small business operations, including hiring and firing, finding investors, and more. 
• Post-Peak and Trends Reports. Next Spring, read these reports for a deep dive into ecommerce trends and statistics. 

• Follow Kelli on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelli-d-martin/ 
• Visit the FedEx Small Business Center: https://www.fedex.com/en-us/small-business.html 
• Listen to the Making It Work podcast: https://www.fedex.com/en-us/small-business/making-it-work-podcast.html

Jicara Gorski, principal product manager at EasyPost, explains how companies can achieve a net zero carbon footprint through carbon offsets. 

In this special episode of Unboxing Logistics, Lori and Jicara discuss a major announcement from EasyPost: Starting on November 1, 2023, every shipment that comes through EasyPost will be carbon neutral, at no additional cost to shippers. 

Jicara explains, “This is not a light investment. … This is an effort in our continuing partnership with our customers—listening to them, understanding what their end customers are expecting of them, and coming to the table with a viable solution.”

If trucks and planes continue to transport packages as normal, how can a company achieve carbon neutral shipping? While carbon offsets don’t eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, they do help balance them.

Jicara explains how it all works: “[Packages are] going from point A to point B. So we take inputs based on the mode of transportation and the distance that they’re going, and we calculate the amount of carbon emissions that are associated with a particular parcel.”

“At the end of the quarter, we'll take the amount of emissions that we've calculated for that particular period, and we will purchase a decarbonization project to offset those emissions.”

The result? A 100% net neutral carbon footprint.

Sustainability is one of the most pressing issues for businesses today. Everybody’s talking about it, but many aren’t sure exactly what to do about it. As Lori points out, the numbers show it’s time to make a change: 

• 11% of all global greenhouse gasses come from freight transportation.
• 64% of consumers say they're willing to pay more for a company that uses sustainable products.
• 81% of global consumers feel strongly that they should be helping the environment.

Listen to the full episode to learn more about how EasyPost carbon neutral shipping works—and why sustainable shipping is so vital. 

• Connect with Jicara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jicara-gorski-8a110682/ 
• Learn more about EasyPost’s carbon offsets: https://www.easypost.com/sustainability

In case you haven’t heard, October is cybersecurity awareness month! This episode of Unboxing Logistics focuses on the importance of cybersecurity in the ecommerce space.

What are the risks? What responsibilities do businesses have to protect consumer privacy? Iskander Sanchez-Rola, director of privacy innovation at Gen, joins Lori to answer these questions and more.

Web tracking involves monitoring and collecting data about users' online activities. Tracking can have visible results (like targeted ads), but it’s also used in the background for data analysis or data sharing between companies.

So, is web tracking bad? Not necessarily. As Iskander explains, everything comes down to choice and transparency. “I'm not explicitly saying that web tracking is bad, because it's not. What we are saying is that we should allow the users to decide what is happening.”

Though Iskander is quick to point out that he’s not a legal expert, he knows that neglecting cybersecurity is never a good idea. If an ecommerce store doesn’t protect their customers’ personally identifiable information (PII), they can face major legal repercussions—not to mention a damaged reputation. 

Sometimes, business owners aren’t sure if their sites are secure—with cookie ghostwriting, it can be hard to tell if third parties are tracking user data. Iskandar recommends digging deep and looking for signs of unusual activity on the backend of your site.

If bad actors do get away with tracking user data via your site, you could be in trouble. “[The trackers are] not controlled by you, which means they can … attack the privacy of your customers.”

• Connect with Iskander on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iskander-sanchez-rola/ 
• Visit Gen’s website: https://www.gendigital.com/us/en/

For the first time in years, it’s a shipper’s market. Tyler Diestel, senior product manager at EasyPost, explains how ecommerce stores can take advantage of the lower rates. 

What’s the difference between a carrier’s market and a shipper’s market? 

Tyler explains that a carrier’s market is created when “there's a lot of shippers … and not enough carriers. The carriers can hike up their rates and just fulfill deliveries for the shippers that are willing to pay those high prices.”

As the Covid-19 pandemic has ended and shipping volume has slowed, carriers now have to compete for business. These days, “The shippers have the option to say, which carrier should I go with? Which [one] is offering me the best prices?”

Lori and Tyler agree that getting paralyzed by FOBO (fear of a better offer) isn’t a good idea. Rates are really low right now—and businesses should take advantage of it! 

Tyler says, “If you can lock in a rate for a longer term, I think that would be very beneficial. … Right now, the rates are so good that it's hard to see them getting even better.”

Tyler gives a word of caution: don’t get complacent with your shipping strategy, even if you feel like you’re getting good rates. He recommends finding the best carriers and rates using technology. In the old days, it could take months to integrate with a single carrier. With technology, you can connect with many carriers almost instantly.

• Connect with Tyler on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tdiestel/ 
• Or send him an email at [email protected]
• Visit the EasyPost website: https://www.easypost.com/

It sometimes seems like the right technology can solve every problem. But when it comes to relationship building, software can only go so far. In this episode, Jill Barron, practice lead for supply chain operations and strategy at Summit Advisory Team, shares her approach to building and maintaining great relationships with suppliers. 

Jill explains, “If you're a retailer, you set certain rules of engagement. … And when your suppliers don't follow those guidelines, it creates friction. It [takes time] to unravel problems, and time is money.”

She believes that when you clarify expectations, follow up often, and address issues—without going straight into chargeback mode—you can solve problems in a mutually beneficial way.

After analyzing how suppliers are performing, you should set up a regular cadence of meetings to discuss progress and pain points. Jill recommends meeting once a month at first, then transitioning to quarterly reviews. She adds, “I need to stress here, have [these meetings] with your good partners as well as your poor-performing partners.”

The goal of building supplier relationships is to always get what you want—right? Actually, Jill believes it’s sometimes better to let the supplier win. “Even though you may feel at your heart that you are right … that concession sometimes really starts to build trust. It will come back and benefit you.” 

• Connect with Jill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jill-barron/ 
• Visit Summit Advisory Team’s site: https://summitadvisoryteam.com/ 
• Visit RVCF’s site: https://www.rvcf.com/

Tom Butt, chief customer success officer at Summit Advisory Team and Elevate, was first featured on the second episode of Unboxing Logistics, where he and Lori talked all things peak season. Now, Tom is back to explain how merchants can improve profit margins by decreasing their cost to serve. 

Cost to serve (CTS) encompasses four main costs: cost of goods sold (COGS), shipping, labor, and supplies. When you drive these costs down, profit margins go up. 

While all these costs influence a business’s supply chain, Tom points out that “it's that shipping piece that people are really struggling to figure out.” 

Are your customers buying things in the store? Buying online and picking up at the store? Having the product shipped to them?

Tom explains that you should “be intentional with placing your merchandise in the place that your customer wants to buy it.” Before you can cut costs, you have to understand the customer buying journey through data analysis. 

One of Tom’s go-to metrics is operating margin. To calculate, determine your revenue, then subtract all your costs.

Operating margin = revenue from sale – (cost of goods + shipping cost + labor cost + supplies cost)

“If you can look at that at a granular order level, you can see how much money you made on any particular order.”

• Connect with Tom on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/tombutt/ 
• Visit the Summit Advisory Team Site – https://summitadvisoryteam.com/ 
• Visit the Elevate Site – https://elevate.dev/

When your behind-the-scenes supply chain processes run smoothly, the front-end customer experience improves. In this episode of Unboxing Logistics, Matt Boland (senior director at Körber Supply Chain) and Jill Barron (practice lead at Summit Advisory team) explain how you can leverage the supply chain to give your customers a better buying journey.

What products are available, and where are they located in relation to customers? Inventory management is “probably one of the most important pre-purchase elements of a dynamic supply chain,” according to Matt.

When you don’t update inventory online, customer experience plummets. As Jill puts it, “there's no quicker way to lose loyalty and trust … than to not accurately communicate to your consumers that an item is back-ordered or out of stock.”

Matt and Jill both agree: customers want a fast, frictionless return process. Jill suggests that most people prefer “either going quickly and dropping [a return] off at a local store or setting it out on [the] front porch for someone to come pick it up.”

Preventing returns is just as important as making them easy for consumers. Matt points out that “you greatly reduce your risk for returns if you dramatically increase your ability to deliver on time and in full.”

With the rise of Amazon, free shipping became a necessity for many consumers, and sellers offered it to stay competitive. But now, according to Jill, “There are retailers out there … putting thresholds on the purchase" so their customers have to spend a certain amount of money to get free shipping.

• Visit Körber’s website: https://www.koerber.com/en/ 
• Connect with Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mtboland/ 
• Connect with Jill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jill-barron/