Name: Mastering modern logistics: Turn your operations into a growth driver
Uploaded: 2025-03-12T20:16:05.246Z
Duration: 1 h 1 min 32 s
Description: Mastering modern logistics: Turn your operations into a growth driver

Transcript for "Mastering modern logistics: Turn your operations into a growth driver": Full session at Saltbox's virtual conference. We'll be closing out today's events with a discussion on how to master your logistics, specifically how to turn your operations into a growth driver. You may have seen my face at the other sessions throughout the day, but if not, hi. I'm Monica. Thank you for joining. I'm the senior content marketing manager here at Saltbox, and I'm gonna be your host for the next hour or so. Couple housekeeping items before we dive into the content and meet our speakers. One, we're gonna have a q and a at the end, so make sure that you're dropping any questions you have into the q and a tab in the right hand corner throughout the session, and we will answer them towards the end. Second, we will be launching a couple polls throughout the session. You will see that pop up on the bottom left of your screen or maybe in the center depending on your settings. Make sure you answer those if it's applicable. That will kind of help us guide the conversation. And then lastly, this is being recorded. So lucky for you, you will have access to the recording after the fact if you wanna reference any content. Alright. And diving into our content. So before we get started on the juicy details, I wanna introduce our expert panelists who are gonna be sharing their insights on global shipping, returns as a growth strategy, and optimizing domestic fulfillment. So joining us today, we have Tony, VP of partnerships at FlavorCloud, Emma, our senior partner senior partner marketing manager at Loop, and Thomas, the cofounder and CEO of Parcel. So now I'll pass it over to Tony to introduce himself. Awesome. Hello, everyone. My name is Tony Tavares. Fun fact about me is that I am the Time person of the year for 02/2006. I'm gonna let you Google that. I'm not actually that famous. But in 02/2006, this was relevant, and I was a great Internet user at the time even before going to college. So I'll let you guys figure that one out. As far as who I am, I'm a supply chain technology geek, super sport enthusiast, especially electronic sports and physical sports. Go Chiefs. Go Leafs. I spent sixteen of the past years, in my career in three PL land. I'm mostly doing, you know, implementations, big retail, big ecommerce, implementations across Canada and The US. My record, for our team is a million parcels per day just to kinda scale that up and and put that in perspective as as far as the experience and all the gray hairs in my beard and my hair and where they came from. As far as the last one year, I've been at FlavorCloud. We've helped brands and three p l's go global. I want you to think about us as the digital conveyor belt, which helps parcel and pallet volume go anywhere to anywhere, with a guaranteed promise, and we carry all of the customs and compliance risk for all of those transactions. Thank you so much to Saltbox and the team for having me. Of course. We're happy to have you. And another fun fact, Tony, myself, and Thomas, who you'll meet later, have all worked at Shopify. So, we have a little bit of a reunion happening today, so you'll you'll see some fun conversations happening, I'm sure. Next, I wanna bring on the stage, Emma, who is the senior partner marketing manager at Loop. Welcome, Emma. Hi. Thank you. I, I wish I was part of that that high school reunion vibes, but I'll, I'll try to keep up with the energy all the same. Thanks so much for having me. So, yeah, my name is Emma. I'm a partner marketing manager at Loop Returns. My fun fact is nowhere near as interesting as Tony's. I was never person of the year, but I am absolutely going to Google that after today. So my fun fact is that I am the twenty third Amelia, my middle name is Amelia, in my family, and that's been passed through down, passed down to me through nine generations. So that's all I have. I'm not nearly as interesting. For those that don't know, Loop is really all about, turning your operational challenges into opportunities, into a profit center. So Loop is a return management software, and many brands today really do see returns as a headache, as a thing that has to happen, and you might need to kinda see it as, like, a box to check. But, ultimately, it really is an opportunity, to be a profit center, drive incremental revenue, and retain significant return revenue as well. And it's also a great opportunity to surprise and delight your customers. So I'm gonna be talking about that a little bit more later on. One of the key themes I know we're gonna be talking about today, on today's session and why I'm so excited to be here is about the importance of reliability and speed of order delivery. And so I'm excited to be here today because Loop actually recently acquired Wonderman. For those that don't know, Wonderman is a proactive order tracking platform, that actually has AI powered delivery estimates to help brands give more accurate delivery windows to your shoppers. So, yeah, that's me. I'm excited to be here, and chat with you all today. Awesome. Thanks, Emma. We're excited to hear you and especially excited to hear about the AI systems you guys are implementing because that is huge right now. And last but not least, we have Thomas from Parcel, which used to be, with us here at Saltbox. We still use Parcel. All of our members use Parcel, so want him to jump on and introduce himself. Welcome, Thomas. Thanks, Monica. Thanks for having us today. Emma, you and I are also times person of the year, but, you can figure that out via Google. I got a few more gray hairs in my beard than Tony. My fun fact is that my ecommerce career started in our last century. So cofounded a business called Uncommon Goods. We scaled that from pre revenue to triple digit millions top line. And then in 2018, I was recruited up to Shopify to build the launch team for the Shopify fulfillment network. So I've lived the journey that many of you are on. Love entrepreneurship, love what you're doing. It is the single greatest way to create new jobs, to close a wealth gap in a single lifetime. So applaud all of you for the journey that you're on. Having seen all of, you know, from that pre revenue struggling to just make payroll all the way to a, you know, pretty significant business. When I joined Shopify, Uncommon Goods was, we were the top five, merchant on Shopify. Like, Kylie Jenner's business was bigger than ours, but we were grumped right up there. So, anyway, I've seen most of this top to bottom. What I know is that smart logistics can really delight customers. It can get repurchase rates up. It can delight your team. It can make much better to work with you. And there are really significant profit opportunities that, we should take we'll take a deeper dive on this later about how this can be unlocked. And the last thing to call out here is that, you know, you've been paying attention. You've seen some major changes in the national carrier, shipping ecosystem. You know, whether that's big changes announced on UPS earnings calls or changes in leadership with the US postal system, these are gonna be significant profitability headwinds for all of us, because the rates are going up. What's really exciting about Parcel, and I'm happy to show you this, you know, demo of the software later, is that carrier diversification strategies that we power, they can deliver 2 to $3, on average per shipment savings. So there's some serious profit unlocks for your business, and and, again, grateful to be here and, look forward to sharing all this with you. Thank you. Yeah. Also, you say the last century. So that means you're what? Thirty, thirty five. Right? Just kidding. Okay. Awesome. So moving into the content you all have been waiting for. But before we dive in, I wanna set the stage a little bit. So it's important to understand how consumer preferences have changed in the last two years when it comes to shipping. So what we're seeing is that reliability is in, speed is kind of out. So what we mean by that is consumers are now placing a high value on items being delivered within the promised arrival window that you set versus more focused on it arriving, you know, two days fast or one day fast. So we see a stat here from McKinsey showing that 50% of respondents in a survey that they ran recently actually tracked the status of online orders to ensure that their shipment is going to arrive on time and that it's progressing. So now that we've set the stage and we understand why we're here, I want to bring Tony back on the stage to start with a conversation on going global. And, jumping right into the challenge, like we said, that every d to c brand faces with global shipping, I'm curious, Tony, what are some common mistakes that you've seen brands make when expanding into new regions, and how can they avoid those from happening? Amazing. Thank you. Thank you, Monica. International shipping and international commerce is hard. I'm just gonna say I I'm gonna start there. And the main reason it's hard is global markets for expansion, they just aren't well understood. There are three main areas where people make risks, where people make mistakes here, Monica. And I'm gonna break them down essentially for three different, three different ways and for three different audiences really. And especially for the some of the brands here, most of you founders are doing all of these yourselves, but if you have some teams, then these points are gonna echo, you know, for your teams. So first from an opportunity in a sales perspective. You know, first, you you make a mistake right on the get go. Right? How big of an opportunity is the international market for your brand? What are your competitors doing in this market? Is there a pricing strategy that you and your team have come up with to win or that you're gonna analyze from those competitors? Are you going to test growth in these markets? Are you just gonna turn it on and make mistakes? All in all, you have to make a go to market plan. So that's the mistake. Right? The brands are not thinking about international. They're not being, respective to a go to market plan when they are entering them. And so from that perspective, you there are third parties that can help. There are third parties with a ton of cross border order data, and they can help you inform and build a growth strategy and a plan that are helpful. They've seen what apparel brands, beauty brands, wellness brands, that they they've done on these inputs to accelerate go to market or create these strategies. They they know that subscription models work in Japan and that London buyers gasp that free shipping still isn't an option. They can help you leverage your existing traffic data and they can also unlock access to some regions or potentially even the globe. Even if you get a few orders per country, you're still over overall lowering your customer acquisition costs, because those consumers were more likely already coming to your site. From a compliance standpoint, and if this, of course, is the is the biggest one, this is where the most risk is for your brands if you don't know what you're doing. Do you know what the import requirements are going to be? As an example, subscriptions in Canada, where I live, have a special requirement. There has to be at least ninety day supply when you're importing them. Them. For duties, taxes, and, fees, do you know them? Can you add them as a real cost to your checkout? Are you making sure that your buyer experience is aware of this? Data, big one. HS codes. To me, you know, fifteen years of ecommerce in in, three PL land, international to me was two things, country of origin and HS code. It's a lot more than that, of course, but it starts there. Today, six digit HS codes are required. If you even knew that, maybe you didn't. 10 digits are probably going to be required here soon. Country of origin. Are your products really made in The USA? Fun fact, shipping from a country does not make it its country of origin. This couldn't be more relevant today with everything going on from China and Mexico and Canada and the latest government, posts on x. So from that perspective, you really have to be sure of your data. You have to decide who's going to be the importer and the exporter of record. These are the entities that own risk in these types of transactions. They're always in every single cross border transaction, there is always one of each of those. They are real things. And if you get them wrong, there are significant penalties, financial, jail time, ban from that country. Traditional carriers like FedEx, DHL, or UPS, they'll never ever take on this customs liability risk, from you and pass it along to you or your customer. So working with companies that own importer of record and exporter of record responsibility removes liability from you, the merchant, and and of course your buyers. There is, another risk perspective, and that's from a financial and a brand operational. So the CFOs out there or the CEOs wearing the finance hat and putting your board decks together. When you're going international, it's very important that you're controlling your brand narrative. You want your brand to be appearing on your consumer's credit card. You want your brand, to essentially be working through all of these fraud risks and payment types. You don't want a payment provider to do this for you. A merchant of record model disrupts your your ownership of the brand and then, of course, the data that you own from your consumers. You have to understand your actual costs here. So ensuring full transparency is in duties, taxes, imports fees. These are all significant costs to you that you're not going to take into consideration potentially from the get go or that are going to come and be a reconciliation voice or something that you're, eating later on. Because once you once you've passed checkout, you can't go get more money back from your buyers. The transaction is over. So making sure that you're working with a tech provider that can put this into your checkout, with delivery times, with a guaranteed promise is significant. The other the other portion, and this will be the last of it, Monica, I'll wrap up the the risk and the mistakes that people make, but scale can come very, very quickly. You have to make sure that you're evaluating your shipping partners and your carriers' capabilities. Because once you start shipping, you know, as an example, I start shipping into Canada, I have a great product. Well, Costco Canada wants to pick me up. Now all of a sudden that great three PL I had or that great tech stack that I was using, they have to handle b two b and they have to handle it now because Costco is not gonna wait forever to for me to cash in on that PL. They want to create it. So can your provider handle this? Can you do b two b? Can they handle international? These are all things that you have to be aware of, even right before you're getting started. And then these are all things that kinda bubble up in the mistakes that you're making when you're going international. Yeah. That was a really great overview, and we actually I love that you you mentioned Canada because we have a lot of folks who recently have been asking us about expanding into Canada from The US. So love to hear those real world examples. And speaking of real world examples, I would love to hear an example of a brand or two that maybe uses flavor cloud, to streamline their international logistics, and what have you seen them do that could be beneficial for the folks on this call? Amazing. Thank you. So there there's two two brands that I'll highlight. One in particular, I'll I'll just start with their brand their gifting platform. Their name is Postal. They're awesome. But I'm gonna use their anecdote for all of you. All of you here probably have gifts or or want to sell your items as gifts in new countries. And so imagine that a buyer is on your site and they purchase a gift for someone that they love, and now one, that gift just one never arrives, or two, they get a great duties bill or a customs notice, when that is arriving, at their at their door or at the border. And so especially for a gifting platform and and someone as great as postal, what was really important with them is that these parcels to to the earlier point that, that you had made, Monica, is reliability and delivery. That these are actually going to get there. That there is a partner, there's somebody helping me do this, and that in in this instance, it was FlavorCloud. FlavorCloud has helped Postal, it contribute to a 400% year over year growth. We've helped them increase their international shipments by 15%. And overall, which is really important back to that reliability, a 66% of customer retention. And that's because when they're ordering and these that this international experience is true right from the beginning in their checkout all the way through to the end. And if there are any issues along the way, FlavorCloud is dealing with them, not the buyer. There was a customs invoice or there was something else that happened. The buyer, your buyer, the merchant, the three p l, the shipping provider, none of them had to deal with it. FlavorCloud dealt with it. So from a customer retention perspective, there's nothing more critical than just ensuring that the transaction is smooth from the beginning until the end. And I'm really happy that we've helped postal the gifting platform, you know, figure this out and provide just an amazing customer experience. A second one that I'd love to highlight, and this is, you know, you can't quite tell in this tight suit. Right? But Animal House Fitness. I love their products for my home gym. Revolutionary. If you go right now, I want you to check out their monkey feet dumbbells. They're fantastic for my my home gym. From a perspective, we help them grow 25% overall revenue. From when we met them a couple of years ago, we we helped them ship into 45 countries now. And and more importantly, of those 45 countries, we really help them establish a footprint to grow b two b in four of them. So just starting out using FlavorCloud, I'm shipping to these countries oh, now I'm growing. Now I'm growing. Now I'm growing. I need to find a partner. I need to start shipping b two b. I need to start, shipping wholesale, and FlavorCloud has been able to do that with them. A lot of the e major ecommerce channels today actually still don't have great visibility to what your international conversion is. Well, how many orders are coming in international? How can you actually grow international? And and these like, the top platforms don't have this type of visibility even with some of their latest tools. And so the flavor cloud analytics platform and some of our AI, what we've been able to show these customers is this is you're actually killing it in these countries. You should double down, and we can help them with all of the data that we have saying this is what you should be doing in these countries. So really, really proud of animal fitness and postal both for for their growth and just excellent partners all the way around. I love hearing the examples and hearing that your customers are happy with the tools that you guys are recommending. I know you mentioned a little bit the analytics tool at FlavorCloud, but I'm curious what other tools, in addition to that, would you recommend brands to use to manage custom clearance and reduce that return friction? Amazing. The the first one, and I have to start here, and that's in today's climate, a worthy news source about what's actually happening in international and domestic trade is significant. So I can't stress this enough. Right? I have seen so many threads, especially in the past three weeks, just just derailment, people being so confused, brands being so scared of things that they're reading on social media. And so you really have to pay attention to true real government sources about what's actually changing and when. Of course, follow Trump on x.com because a lot of policy changes are coming through there. But, you know, if you don't wanna stay up on the social media, Flavacot has done a really great job. I I am so happy that we've done this. We have a trade and tariffs hub on our website, and we're really trying to stay as up to date as possible. And the only resources that we're posting are true verified government sources. So trade and tariffs hub, please use that. That's the number one tool that you can have in ecommerce today. Stay up to date on how rules are changing because they are changing overnight. There are massive countries that are changing regimes, that are changing policies, that are looking inward, and so you have to be aware of what those are. Second, to manage customs clearance, which specifically as a tool, you have to know your products and you have to know your risks. So an import of record partner is going to substantially help you understand what liabilities exist for your products as you're selling them and where expansion might or may might may or may not ever make sense. These partners help coordinate all details of your international shipping experience, since they're managing the risk on your behalf. There's a really great anecdote I wanna show you here in in perhaps the most famous one, but Nike currently is under investigation to the tune of $1,500,000,000, for errors it allegedly made in customs, duties, and VATS filings, for imports into the European Union. So this is real. Don't ever cut corners. Don't ever lie to the CBP. And if you don't have time to investigate all of these rules yourself, please find an import an importer of record provider. It's your best tool in your arsenal. Last but not least for returns mitigation as you asked, it all starts really in the checkout. You need a tool that's exposing all shipping and landing costs directly in the checkout. For most of my life as a Canadian, I know if I'm buying something and it's shipping internationally, I mean, they're going to get a bill from customs. It's not gonna arrive when it said it will, and unless I'm being told and paying duties in the cart, service level, promise date, cost, they all mean nothing. And I as a consumer, I can always reject that. So you as a brand know that. That can always put risk back on you if you're not shipping DDP. In 02/2025, it doesn't have to be like that with strong shipping checkout technology that can show you the fully guaranteed landed cost. But in unavoidable situations, now let's face it, ship happens. You need to show your RMA processes and technology are just as wired into your checkout. So using great technology partners, right, like Loop, these they are partners that will help you calculate the tax you can avoid or recoup on those returns as as well as ensuring they're actually treated as returns and not new parcels, and something that's gonna be a lot more significant as the de minimis changes in America. But overall, those are the three things. Your news, your your tools in your checkout, and having great return providers with IOR capabilities. I love that you mentioned returns because going into our next section, we are gonna be talking with Emma from Loop. So, not only do you need to be paying attention to returns before they happen, but also what can you do, after they happen or when they're about to happen, I should say. So, Emma, I wanna bring you on the stage. And, you know, like I said, it's in purchase operations. Really curious. You know, we often think of returns as a cost center. And I'm curious, though, how do smart brands turn returns into an opportunity instead of a cost center? Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And thank you thank you, Tony, for the shout out. I think to your point exactly, Monica, I think the very first and foremost step in that in turning returns into an opportunity is really a philosophical shift for a lot of brands. It's really taking the time to see returns as the point in a customer journey that you can really surprise and delight them. And when you're making a return or exchange process as easy as possible and handle it really well, it can ultimately extend customer relationship beyond the initial purchase and increase lifetime value. So for example, I was recently looking at data for a luxury retailer that uses Loop, and saw that customers that had a return through Loop actually came back and purchased again a hundred and sixty nine days sooner, than customers who hadn't. So that was really surprising and a great way, to see, and I think just speaks volumes about the impact of a positive return, on a customer experience and, like I was saying, the lifetime value. I think the second way that brands can really make the most of returns, is by leveraging their data. So returns are actually they can provide really invaluable feedback for brands to analyze. You can dig into the return reasons and really start to understand, you know, how can we update our product descriptions or refine our sizing guides, or maybe even if you are, an apparel brand, adjust your designs based on return reasons and feedback that you are getting in real time from your returns and from your customers. I think the third way, that you can turn returns into opportunities is really optimized for exchanges. So Loop really pioneered the experience of making a return feel like you're shopping. So it gives shoppers the ability to browse a full product catalog when they're making an exchange, And even you can encourage them to make an exchange instead of a return by offering things like a bonus credit, for exchanging in that moment. And then last but certainly not least, I think, brands today are well aware of how much their customers really care about the environmental impact, of their ecommerce orders. And so there are a couple different features that Loop offers in particular, but I think, brands can start to use these as ideas for how they can implement and and turn this into an opportunity to talk about or show how much they care about environmental impact. So some examples might be, bulk consolidation options for returns or direct routing, directly to recycling centers or the choice actually just to let your shoppers keep an item, instead of shipping it back, if that's what makes more sense, for your brand. So all of those features have the intention of helping demonstrate back to shoppers, that you care, and help reduce the carbon footprint for brands as well. So those are just some of the ways. Yeah. I love the point you made about sustainability. I think in the past couple of years, that's become a really big talking point for a lot of brands that we've worked with too. So happy that you guys are making that priority too. And you mentioned a little bit the some of the things that you can do. So whether it's, you know, doing an exchange or keeping the product instead of shipping it back. But I'm curious if you could break down maybe the key steps of best in class returns policy that you guys are using over at Loop. Yeah. For sure. So I can mostly answer that. I think the the one caveat being that really for every brand, a best in class return policy is going to look a little bit different. So Loop definitely has some advice, from powering 15% of Shopify's GMV. We have some some opinions, some some ideas that can help, but, really, it's ultimately up to each brand to kinda determine how flexible they want their returns and refunds policy to be. So while a super generous, no questions asked, you can send it back at any point returns policy might sound great and sweeten the deal to help, with conversions, it's ultimately like, that kind of flexible policy means that a brand would end up having to really eat the shipping and restocking fees themselves. And so I think it's just something to keep in mind. So what I can provide, maybe not the exact step by steps, but what I can provide, are some of the questions that brands can ask themselves when they're building out their returns and refund policies. So one of those questions is which products are eligible for returns. So most brands don't set the same return or refund policy for each product. So, for example, if there is a final sale item or an item that might have some personalization or customization to it, that might not be returnable. So, therefore, that would have a slightly different return policy. Another question that brands can ask is, how does the customer or how long, sorry, does the customer have to actually make the return? So the more time you can give your customers to return, often the better sentiment. So we often see somewhere between fourteen or thirty days, in order to to make that return, though we've seen, that actually the majority of returns happen within the first two weeks no matter how long your returns policy gives, which is an interesting thing to keep in mind. I think another question that, is really relevant for everyone here tuning in today and also speaking today, which is what condition should the product be in in order for it to be eligible for a refund? So for a lot of brands, it's really important that the customers are sending back products that are in like new condition. So that might mean they still need to have tags on them or it needs to be in its original packaging. But then for others, they might take a more lax approach. So for example, I'll talk about Allbirds who they have a generous return policy where customers can get refunds on their shoes, after thirty days even if they've been worn out in the wild, go for a hike, and then still return them thirty days in. And Allbirds makes that choice as a brand because for them, it's worth it, from a marketing perspective and a customer building customer trust perspective to have that refund policy even though, they would really be paying for that if somebody were to return shoes that they did go for a hike in. And then two more questions that brands can consider. So, how is the customer's money refunded? So when a customer processes a return, how should they expect to be refunded and how quickly? So some brands might offer different criteria. Some might say this is eligible for a cash refund versus a store credit. And then timing really matters too for each brand. So for some brands, they'll say as soon as the package arrives to the warehouse, issue the refund. For a lot of brands, what they'll say is they want to have the opportunity to have the actual inspection of the package itself, make sure that it is resellable, that's a word, before, that refund is actually processed. So that's another thing to keep in mind. And, again, keep on your refund and returns policy page. And then the last question is really about who covers the cost of return shipping. So some brands will cover the cost of return shipping themselves in the interest of, you know, really trying to create the best end to end customer experience that they can. But that's actually becoming a lot less common. We're seeing that 64% of brands are actually starting now to charge return fees. And charging for return fees ultimately and return shipping can provide a disincentive for customers who might be engaging in bracketing, which is a way of saying they might order a pair of jeans in three different sizes thinking I'm gonna return two if one doesn't fit. So charging those return fees might help to disincentivize that kind of behavior. Some brands might also choose to do a more tiered strategy where they'll charge a return fee for products they're refunding but offer free shipping if they're getting an exchange, for example, or store credit. So I know there was a lot of words, to say that, really, return policies aren't a one size fits all situation. So that's why it's really important for brands to think about what matters to them for their customer experience, but also work with partners and technology to really, like, customize that policy. Sounds like you guys have a lot of great options, or that you called out too that it's not a one size fits all approach. I think a lot of times brands forget that, yeah, you can copy what someone else is doing, but it might not be the best thing for your strategy. So definitely important to keep that in mind. And then my last question for you, I'm curious. So you mentioned a lot about reducing those return costs and how those can be very expensive. I'm curious helps brands reduce these costs while improving the customer experience. Totally. Yeah. So there's there's a couple ways, that brands can reduce their costs with returns. And it is possible. There is a world that you can reduce return costs, retain revenue, and keep customers happy. It is not a fictional land. It is a real land that exists. So some of the ways that you can accomplish that, really, again, like I was mentioning before, is incentivizing your customers to exchange instead of return an item. So with that shop now, what I again, what I was mentioning where they can actually shop the entire product catalog versus being forced to exchange for just a different size or just a different color of a shirt. They can go get a whole other shirt or a pair of pants, whatever the thing is. It really is shopping from the whole catalog. So one good example of that, Aviator Nation, they do that shop now experience, for exchanges, and they actually retain over 56% of revenue from returns, with that experience. And they actually even see an average upsell of $12 per return, which is really interesting. That upsell to me shows that you can really create a return and exchange experience that, one, you're not only reducing your loss your loss to returns, in that revenue, but there's actually an upsell opportunity as well. So that's cool to see. Another way that, brands can think about reducing their costs overall is, reducing customer support inquiries about returns or related to returns. So with an automated returns experience, shoppers can self serve most of their returns, which really frees up labor costs, for brands that can really add up over time. And it really reduces labor costs for those customer service teams that might otherwise be processing returns manually. And then last, I think brands can really reduce their return cost by doing a little a little shopping themselves, shopping around for the cheapest label rates. So Loop has some specific negotiated rates with selected carriers that allows brands to save additional money while offering, a great customer experience with auto generated return shipping labels. So that those are some of the sort of key areas to look at, when thinking about how to both keep customers happy and, retain some revenue on returns. Gotta have both. That's key. And I love too that you mentioned the labels because our next speaker, Thomas, he's gonna jump in and talk about not the return side, but the the shipping side in ecommerce and how you can save by, using parcel. So before we dive into that, though, I wanna let you all know that we're gonna be dropping a downloadable checklist in the chat based on all of those points that Emma made, all of those questions that you should be asking in order to help optimize your return process. So grab it from the chat. You can also access that at the session booth at the end of today's session. Alright. I'm gonna bring Thomas to the stage now. And now that we've explored that global expansion and returns a little bit, I wanna bring it a little closer to home, no pun intended. And we're seeing, you know, as those d two c brands are scaling, your domestic shipping is often becoming a critical component of the customer experience. But even with this, shipping faster, cheaper, and even more accurately can feel a lot like a balancing act. So that's why we have Thomas here today to talk to us a little bit about how those regional carriers and automation are gonna help you streamline those domestic fulfillment, strategies without having to sacrifice speed. So, Thomas, I'm curious for the audience here. What are the biggest misconceptions that d two c brands have about domestic shipping? Thanks for the question. Before I jump into that, I just wanted to say there was some serious ecommerce wisdom that was shared by Tony and Emma. Great job on what you what you're both offering. So I'm gonna tell you a couple of stories. One is about a mental model that you should kind of have in your mind when you're thinking about ecommerce and how Parcel will help you as you scale your own journey across that. So you can think of, ecommerce sort of as a giant pyramid. So at the top of that pyramid, you have brands that you've heard about, like the Allbirds or Nikes of the world or I was part of one in common goods, that have really scaled up. And, you know, there are relatively small number of them. As you come down the pyramid, that gets wider and you get more and more brands, and then you get all the way some of the folks on this call are where, you know, all of us have once been, where we're just starting, and we're doing five shipments a day or 10 shipments a day. And there are literally millions of those brands at the bottom of that ecommerce pyramid. They have a Shopify store. They're working with Etsy. They're doing other things to to grow their business and scale up that. So, yeah, that's the mental model that I want you to think about and and place yourself in there. And then as you're hearing more about the parcel offering, you'll understand that we can actually service you wherever you are on that journey. And I'll give you some examples of brands that are all across that spectrum today that are, that are using the parcel software. So now back to the the specific question. What's the biggest misconception? The biggest single misconception is that it's a, you know, it's kind of like a three player game. Everybody it they're from a data perspective, it's 90 plus percent of ecommerce shops all across that pyramid are using one or two carriers to fulfill their orders. So they probably have a contract with UPS or they have a contract with FedEx. Maybe some of them have DHL, and lots of them have USPS mixed in, when we're talking about, you know, US domestic shipment volume. So I wanna tell you a story about Uncommon Goods back in 2015. This is, we were about $80,000,000 top line at the time, and we had you know? And all of you know your p and l's. You've you know, you're you're running good operations. You're running these entrepreneurial, ventures where every dollar matters, and we were, you know, no different than that. So $80,000,000 top line was the first kind of marker where we could get the attention even of these regional carriers. So I'm gonna tell you about a company called OnTrack. OnTrack, now is a couple of decades old. At the time, they had come from, US the UPS execs who had realized that there was an opportunity to provide faster service and and cheaper cost if they were geographically concentrated. So at the time we talked with them, they were only servicing seven western states in The United States. That contract negotiation took us about six months, to get that complete. Once we got a contract with them, there was another three months of tech integration that occurred. But at the end of that journey, it was literally 7 figures of profit fell to the bottom line. So as you go back and look at your own p and l's, what you'll find is that you have all the costs up to the purchase. And then once that once somebody clicks and buys, 65 to 70% of your cost of getting that order to them is tied up in your shipping label. And so the fact that we were able to integrate Uncommon Goods with OnTrack and give them the volume for seven western states at the time and then eight western states, and now they cover off, it's, like, 70 to 80% of The US ZIP codes. It meant that our customers were getting one or two daytime in transit, which is much, much faster than the competitors, and we were paying even less than our mail innovation rates, for that service. So it was a massive profit opportunity, at the same time, a major customer delighter. So let's loop all of that back into what Parcel offers. So what we've done is brought together many of those carriers like OnTrack or Beho, who are doing some really interesting things with perfect placement where they allow your customer to take a picture of the front porch or the side yard or wherever it is they want that package delivered and then show the driver this is where the package needs to be. So in all of those cases, we have access to these emerging carriers as well as the major, national carriers. So we can provide you a % ZIP code coverage. But on average, our members who are using us today are saving more than $2 a label on those shipments. And, when you think about that in terms of gross contribution dollars, that that adds up quickly. Yeah. That's a good point. $2, like you said, seems pretty pretty low, but when you have a hundred orders a day or even 50 orders a day, it can it can seem overwhelming. And I know you are gonna be showing us a demo in a little bit, but I'm curious to talk a little bit about Parcel in terms of how the platform can really help brands reduce fulfillment times. So you mentioned those local carriers, but you also have access to the bigger carriers still. And then also the other side of that, increasing the delivery accuracy. So not only reducing the time it takes, but ensuring that the delivery is going to be accurate. Yeah. Let me give you a just jump in with a merchant example. So Brea who uses, she has a company called Shinery, and they use Saltbox. They fulfill their orders out of Saltbox. They have, some Amazon, shipments they do that are you know, run through that platform natively. And then they also have a really fascinating jewelry product. So if you wanna, you know, clean your jewelry day to day, they've created something. Like, many of you are on your entrepreneurial journeys, and you your business idea came out of meeting some need that you had yourself. And so that's what she's done with her brand. She's gotten some traction. She's gotten picked up on Good Morning America several times. And so when that happens, she gets a massive spike of order volume. And she was using, you know, one of the parcel competitors to print her labels, and we came to her and said, hey. We think that we can both save you money on doing that as well as we've, you know, having run some big operations, we know about automation. And so we built into the software, some native intelligence. And so you'll sync up your shop Shopify store. It's gonna download all those orders that come pouring in from that Good Morning America segment, and then we're going to look for smart batching. So maybe some of you have, good WMS software running big warehouses or whatnot that'll do some of this. But ours is you know, we'll we'll service across that stack. So, Shinery, they go in, they see these Good Morning America orders, they look at our batch software, they hit one of those batches, and it kind of auto magically goes in, makes the most efficient pick path. So they're going to travel the least distance within their salt box space while they're while they're gathering the goods to fulfill. And at the same time, it's doing this rate shop, finding the cheapest label possible, to fulfill that that order and also provide them a time in transit. That's the other thing that happens within, you know, within the major national carriers. They'll provide you a service level, you know, say that this is for example, Brook, in Common Goods, we have our warehouse in Brooklyn. And so, you know, if we're if we're shipping an order to Monica in New Jersey, and she wants that in two days, we might have to pay for a two day label. Well, UPS certainly isn't taking that to their world port in Louisville, flying it there, flying it back. They're just driving it across the river. And so there are some arbitrage opportunities there, where you could buy a ground label and still delight Monica in terms of her time in transit experience, but save your business a lot of money. Some of that calculation is hard to do in real time or to build into your software, so we've built it natively into parcel. But, basically, you'll be able to batch up everything so you're able to get the most efficient pick paths. And then in the background, it's pulling down the labels. And then it's also giving you the opportunity to say, do I want to pick this, a particular service? Like, I know that my customer wants UPS delivery, or I want to save the money myself and get it there, even faster using one of the, ecommerce specific built carriers. It's really awesome to see that you guys have those local carrier options and are helping brands save money. So I think in terms of a software platform like this, there's no better way to show the benefits of it than to do a live demo. So I would love to have you bring up Parcel on the screen and show a quick little one or two minute demo of how the audience here can tap into some of those features like you mentioned, batching, rate shopping, and more. So this is a test store that we have. So when you come in here, here's that group I was recommending. So you come into, you know, a traditional order view that'll show you all of the units, and orders that you have. You can go in and select these individually and work through them one at a time if you want, or you could select a group here, and it notices that you have a collection of liquid snowboards, that will pick up five of these units. So let's grab that batch, create a batch. And so it's gone out and rate shopped, and here's what I meant. So any of you who want to try this software, you can go to getparcel.com, and and you'll be able to log in and see this. It also gives you your first five labels free, and it allows you to, schedule some pickups for those if you're in one of our pickup zones. But, that's why these are all free here. But yeah. So a UPS ground label that would arrive on March 2 for these is going to be $10.50 on all of the typical platforms. OnTrack can get that same label there for much cheaper. So we're gonna select all of these, five shipments selected. We also have an insurance feature. So you can notice these snowboards are pretty expensive. So if I want to pay the $18.75 to ensure all of this beyond the normal carrier amounts, I can go ahead and, do that and then purchase the labels. I also wanna show you one other really interesting feature about the software. So let's say that, I'm a merchant. I'm in Atlanta or I'm in LA or something, and I don't wanna go to the post office or I don't wanna go to the UPS store to stand in line. What this what this allows me to do, if I is to schedule a time that a driver will come by and pick it up from you. So I'm gonna want this tomorrow. I'm gonna give you a window. I know that I'm gonna be available between eleven and noon. I'm gonna give you some details about that when that is, and then I can schedule that that hiccup. And so what this is doing is going out and find we have relationships with, carrier providers who are doing middle mile trucking. We also have relationships with, gig providers, and that's going to go out, find them, and, it's gonna save you the trip to the post office. It's going to find you the driver and bring it to your home. And then once you once that drivers, you know, picks up your packages, scans your packages, you'll see all the trans, transit routing right back to you, and back to, you know, the soft box facility where those will get you know, let's say one of your labels is on track and another label is UPS. We'll pick those both up at the same time. We'll sort them. We'll inject them into the right carrier, and they'll be off on the journey, and this is all a trackable event for you. So it'll, you know, help your customers know, what's happening from a time in transit perspective, when to anticipate their order, and, give you good visibility in your team, visibility on what's happening. I know that people, when they come to Saltbox, One of the biggest things is, oh, I had to wait in the post office line for, you know, thirty minutes just to ship one package. And now that you can have them pick up from your home or from Saltbox location is just a complete game changer. So I wanna mention before we go into our key takeaways here, I do wanna mention that, Thomas and the personal team, they're running a promotion right now where if you sign up today, you can get a $50 shipping credit. And it's free to sign up. So to join the platform, you don't have to pay any money. You're only gonna be purchasing those labels once you ship a product out. So we'll drop that in the chat. Make sure you sign up and get your $50 credit. And then, also, Thomas, there was one other thing that folks can get today if you wanna mention what that might be. Sure. So anybody who's worked in ecommerce logistics knows that the PLD, the package level detail, is kind of the holy grail of understanding and optimizing your shipping. So my email address is thomas@getparcel.com. And so if you send me a PLD, or if you go into our, getparcel.com and sync your Shopify store and then let us know, what we'll do is an analysis of your PLD. We'll be able to show you, if you were using parcel software today, what that looks like. And maybe you're working with a three p l and you've outsourced it. We've seen pretty incredible traction recently with three p l's because they're facing all of the same challenges. And so we've asked some pretty major three p l's to share their PLDs with us or had Shopify merchants who have outsourced connect us in with them. And, and so we'll be powering some of those three p l's shipping software as well. So either route, like, you're doing self fulfillment, go ahead and share your PLD with us. We'll show you what those savings could actually look like and get you on with our head of product or with me or somebody to talk through, how to act on that. Or if you're with the three p l today, it you know, make that introduction for us, and then perhaps we can help you there as well as their other merchants who are part of their operation, to diversify their carrier base and and get better time in transit and much lower costs. Awesome. Thank you so much, Thomas. I just want to quickly recap everything we learned, so that we can move into q and a strategically. So first, we learned you're gonna be expanding smartly. You gotta use those cross border tools to simplify global logistics. We heard that from Tony and team from FlavorCloud. Second, you're gonna be turning your returns into loyalty. Make sure you're creating a seamless customer friendly returns process. You wanna make sure that what works for your brand is being implemented and what your customers want is being implemented. Lastly, you're gonna optimize your fulfillment. This is probably one of the most important pieces, leveraging those regional carriers like Thomas mentioned within the parcel platform, and then also using those automation features like batch for more cost effective shipping. Hey, guys. How are you all? So no one's seen me yet, but I'm Tyler. I'm, cofounder and CEO of Saltbox, and I've got, the pleasure of, closing us out here with, a few more questions, and then we'll we'll wrap up. Okay. So, first question is in. Is there a maximum business size that you feel like Parcel and or these, innovative carrier services work best for? Thomas, I think that question goes to you. Hey. Thanks, Alex. It's actually, the largest businesses are tapping into these already. So if you're the director of ecommerce for Nike, you know about this. And so we can scale all the way up there. Right now, we're working with one of the largest, three p l's that services Shopify merchants. What's magic about Parcel is it brings it all the way down. So if you're just starting out, we can get you access to those same carriers today. Thomas, I think I'm guessing that the question actually is he's thinking maybe he's too large. And so, you know, how would you address that that consideration? So as I said earlier, it's a major profit opportunity. The larger you get, the more volume that's adding up. We had to get to about $80,000,000 top line before we were big enough that OnTrack was willing to talk to us or some of the other regional carriers. But, again, once that was done, that was 7 figures of profit that failed to the bottom line. And so there's a there's a pretty good opportunity. The one trick about that is then betting on what is the right regional carriers. So, transportation has, macroeconomic cycles, and so we will see, you know, winners and losers in the space. And so parcel also diversifies that carrier base so you have access to them all through a single integration with us. Awesome. Thank you, Thomas. Next question we've got. So what's the most common logistics mistake that holds businesses back from from growth? And, I'm not sure who wants to take this, but, just jump in, guys. Starting just since, you know, from forty minutes ago, I did say a couple of issues that that people are having with international and the mistakes that they make specific for national, but I'll just make this one broad and emphasize this right hand. It's just be informed. The world is changing right now. Commerce and supply chains are changing. Make sure you're well informed, as as you're starting a business, as you're figuring out what your supply chain is. As as your product market fit is established, stay informed. You know, there's so many great resources out there, all of us tonight, and throughout this, Saltbox event that I have shared many with you. So my my main thing is be informed. Logistics is complicated. Yeah. That's a great that's a great I'm sorry. Go ahead, Emma. Please. No. All good. All I was gonna add to that, I I absolutely agree. And I think, one thing I would say too is to remember that even if you are, just starting out or early on, it doesn't mean that you need to do all of these processes manually. I think we, like, talk to a lot of brands. They're like, it's fine. I'll just manage my returns in a spreadsheet for now until I hit this number. Or I'll just manage this in my warehouse for now until I hit this number. I mean, I think that there are ways financially, and just stuff like software that can help you no matter what stage you're at, and try not to bog yourself down with manual processes that can can be automated, and that will help you, I think, in the growth stage a lot. Yeah. That's a great point. Let me build on that for just one second. The single biggest mistake is, inadequate peak planning. So the worst thing the logistics team will do is go to the marketing team and say, you're making hay right now. You have a really attractive ad spend return on ad spend, and we have to turn it off because our logistics won't keep up with you. And so make sure you're choosing partners that you know scale well with you so that, you know, if whatever time of year your business makes hay and the sun is shining on you, your logistics team can keep up. Thanks, Thomas. This next question has come in. How can businesses turn logistics from a cost center into a competitive advantage? I would just say here briefly that, you know, echoing some of what we heard in the in the prior answer, the first thing is just awareness that this is a possibility. You know? I think so often, we see companies at Saltbox, who are very, very, very focused on their go to market, and and that is obviously critical, especially, you know, prior to finding product market fit. Nothing else really matters. But once you find that product market fit, I think being aware that you can and should turn logistics into a competitive advantage as you see it happening with the biggest brands, is itself, a benefit and something, you know, certainly to to think about. Tony, Tony, wanna add anything to this? Yeah. I think, you know, from all four companies that have kinda represented themselves, you guys, you just said Tyler with what Saltbox is doing and Thomas with Parcel and Emma representing Loop and myself with FlavorCon. I think all of our techno the technology is the answer here, because all of our platforms and all of our services are helping, you as merchants, you know, be custom and help yourselves figure out what your true costs are and then what and how to emphasize and escalate, that customer experience into that competitive advantage. So for FlavorCloud, an example, you know, we're letting you assign your cost and change your cost by market. Maybe in some products, you wanna embed those in your product. We're we're not even paying for shipping. You're just embedding those in your product display page, you know, or or loop. You have a a ton of different customized, ways to push that cost back to the consumer potentially or both of your business logic rules of how you wanna pay for the RMA. So, definitely, there's so many great technology solutions and logistics right now where all of your problems can be turned into advantages. Or before where you thought you were, you know, how am I shipping internationally is too expensive. Our m a's are too expensive. Well, not with this the way that these platforms are invented, and you can change change your business rule. Did we lose Tyler? I I think we lost Tyler on the next question. I'm your new host. I'm gonna say and with that, Tony, mic drop. You're the new host. Question. If you wanna put a change in the next question, I got you. I can pull one from the q and a here. Awesome. How should small businesses think about warehouse space as they scale? So, Thomas, I think I'm gonna start with you because you have the most experience from small warehouses all the way to mega large ones. So go ahead, please. So I think it's about inventory distribution. So there's the your largest single expense is your inventory cost on hand. Right? And so you've gotta think about, can I work with a partner like Saltbox? Saltbox has locations in many, many, geographies. And can I distribute my inventory? So, like, one of Parcel's, customers right now is using nine different Saltbox locations to get their items close to the end customer, and then using our software to to complete that middle and last mile delivery. But that don't make that jump too soon. And one of the earlier speakers in the session talked about having an East and West Coast. That's probably a great start for most of you. And so they'll again, that's that's something you should work with us or or somebody to consult on, you know, when to diversify into multiple soft box locations or when to just stick with a couple of them or your own. Awesome. Thank you so much, Thomas. We have Tyler back. Go ahead, Tyler. Close this out. Yeah. So, I think our we are we are we have our last question. Thomas, Emma, Tony, all the speakers we've had, so many, great sessions here. And, you know, I am, I've I've actually learned quite a bit myself just sitting back and and watching. By the way, to my team, it was great to be able to sit here and watch and not have to not have to be on the steering wheel. So thank you all. You did a phenomenal nominal job. I hope that everyone took a lot away from this. I think there's no better, way to learn than to learn from your from your peers and and people who, you know, are really living in the trenches of, this business that we all know, how difficult it is to run every day. And so, I I really appreciate, all of you. I hope that you will, continue to follow us here at Saltbox and, of course, Loop and FlavorCon and all the great companies that joined us today. There's much more to be, learned and discovered. And, you know, we are, at Saltbox, very committed to continuing to do more, of this sort of content, and, you know, to do everything everything we can to ensure that, you have the best chance of success you possibly can as you, go about starting and growing, your companies, in the, ecommerce space. So thank you to all who are here. Thank you to the Saltbox team and to our panelists and, of course, to our guests. We appreciate you very much, and we will see you guys again soon. Take care. Thank you.