Why Your 2-Pound Parcel Ships Like It Weighs 18

Matt: Well, hello and welcome to the eCommerce Podcast. My name is Matt Edmundson, and it is great as always to be with you. Thank you so much for joining us here on the show. We are a show which talks about all things ecommerce. I mean, the clue, as they say, is in the title, isn't it? So thank you for joining us. If you are new, let me just explain that if you want to find out anything about the show, about the links to today's guest, the notes, the other stuff we get up to, everything of course is on our website, ecommercepodcast.net. That's ecommercepodcast.net. You can find everything there, including information about Cohort, which are our free monthly kind of get-togethers with other e-commerces around the world. We just all jump on Zoom, and we all have a chat about how it's all going. They are great fun, loving that. Of course, you'll also find information about Slingshot AI Mentor, the new thing that we're launching. If you're wanting to get involved in AI and ecommerce, that's something you're definitely going to want to go check out. Some incredible stuff going on there. Of course, I'm going to say that I'm involved with it, but I genuinely go check it out. Again, all of that information is at ecommercepodcast.net. And before we get into this week's episode with our guest, let me just say a big thank you to everyone that's reached out to me since our last episode about the Instagram stuff. So we've made some interesting developments here around the Instagram. It is still going ahead, it's still going forward. We are starting to enjoy this rather than endure it, I think is maybe the right expression. Anyway, just want to say thank you to anyone that's reached out, given me some advice, which has been super helpful. A lot of you guys have given me some great advice. And also just, you know, just connecting with me and bigging me up in the messages. You're legends. Thank you for the encouragement. I really do appreciate it. If you want to know more about that, check out last week's episode where I talk about the Instagram challenge, or just can follow me on Instagram @MattEdmundson. Anyway, that's enough for me. I've probably talked enough. Matthew, yes, I probably have. Let's get into the episode with today's guest. Now we've got Leo from River Plate, who's a 3PL expert. He does everything logistics based in Southern California — say that right. They They are a great company. If you're looking for something 3PLs, you might want to reach out to them. Listen to what he's got to say. We have this great conversation. Now, full disclosure, I am recording the introduction after the conversation, which is not something I normally do. Normally, I just record the whole thing in one go. I would like to sit here and tell you it's because I intentionally did it, and it's not true at all. It's because we had a bit of a technical malfunction. We've had a few technical malfunction breakdowns today. so we're going to jump straight into the conversation. So yes, Leo introduced himself. He's a 3PL expert, great in logistics, helping with supply side chains and international deliveries and all that kind of good stuff. So we're going to get into a great conversation. We're talking about tariffs. We're talking, oh gosh, are we talking about tariffs? We even bring up Brexit at one point, where the world's all going and how you can save like $2 or $3 per parcel you ship. All of that is coming up. So definitely stay tuned, grab your notebooks. Here's my conversation with Leo. So it's fair to say, Leo, that you're obviously quite well versed in the areas of 3PL and logistics. I'm curious, guess a question I like to ask all the guests right at the start of the show, given this is your area of expertise, is logistics, moving a parcel from point A to point B and getting it into the hands of the customers. If you could wave a magic wand and solve the biggest single problem that you come across in that field, what would that problem be that you would solve and why?

Leo: Well, I'm gonna direct, to answer that question, it's probably directed specifically to wave that magic wand for the brand that I see to where there is a challenge that is often, you know, often reviewed, talked about is how do they figure out the right amount of inventory to keep within the facility and when to replenish, along with recognizing when, you know, specific SKUs or levels of inventory are just not selling through the velocity that they expect. And then how they're going to move that through other channels. So if they can, a lot of it is if they had, you know, they're able to predict or have that magic wand or crystal ball to make those decisions by Shopify, save them a lot of money. But there is, you know, now so many tools available. Obviously, big buzzword there, AI can help with that proactively. To identify and help you make decisions so as you can not sit there and collect storage fees or have items go obsolete or expire or have other type of issues.

Matt: So I'm curious about this then, Leo, that if the biggest issue is to figure out inventory or inventory or stock, you know, however we want to pronounce it. Are we predominantly overordering stock or are we not ordering enough?

Leo: Yeah, so it's a great question there. And let me start with this. I wouldn't— it's the first one that just came to mind because it's just a recent topic with a lot of different brands lately. I don't know if it's the biggest one, but it is, you know, up there that I've still, you know, we see regularly. But to go back to answer your question, it's You know, the landscape has changed and it's always evolving and changing. That's ever since I've been here. There's always something in logistics or supply chain. And as a 3PL, a lot of times we're essentially the last ones to touch the physical goods before it then goes out to, you know, into the commerce world, into either the consumer itself, drop shipped to them or to a to a distribution centre, retailer, wholesaler, right? But the— and what I mean by, you know, it changes is like, well, what we had, you know, we had COVID happen, right? And then, you know, jams up in supply chain, right? So there was— what were brands looking at? They were looking at, okay, can I, you know, bring in a ton of products? Am I going to have some clogs in, you know, Ocean imports, air shipments, prices skyrocketed. Do I bring it in in one shot? Then things calm down after that. But for a while there was a lot of brands that, you know, sat with a lot of extra stock, a ton of extra stock sitting here, right? Because, they wanted— they want to keep paying those, you know, heavy import fees, or just freight in general, right? that calmed down. Then we obviously see, you know, challenges more recently in the past, you know, a couple of years right now is with, you know, the increases in specific tariff codes, right, within specific products. There, you know, there is a lot of challenges there to where, okay, now do they— are they careful with how much inventory they're bringing, how they're classifying inventory? They're maybe doing smaller— instead of doing full 40-foot containers, they're doing, you know, LCL. So let me, you know, smaller shipments where they're consolidating with other, you know, other, you know, companies or brands or products, right? Bringing in pallets. So, it's— so I use— so I mean, long— that's a long answer here, but it's— it's— you're seeing on both ends, we're seeing to that. And then it's, it's buyers. So, you know, consumer market, the, you know, it's, it, it's It changes from, you know, some brands have it to where there's these big retailers to where they were ordering, you know, these buyers were submitting these projections to where they're, hey, you're gonna, we're gonna do X amount of sales for this forecast. And then they either don't even come close to that or they unfortunately, and sometimes good problems to have, they can't keep enough stock in, right? And then, you know, but with the challenges overseas or componentry, plastics, metals, trying to get their factory factories to produce, you know, those lead times all of a sudden, you know, we've seen have extended, you know, sometimes when we saw from 3 to 4 weeks, you know, to when it gets put onto a boat, they're seeing, you know, 8 to 12 weeks. So you do see it on both ends. it's, it really depends on the brands, the type of, the products, where they're manufacturing. You know, there's been a lot of change since these the increases in tariffs for specific products or specific material that strategically some brands have moved. Some done has done some nearshoring, some domestic manufacturing, but have also moved manufacturing into other countries. But that also takes a while to get that up and running and get that well-oiled, right? They spent so long in that front end of that supply chain manufacturing, getting that dialed in. And, you know, now it's, you know, they have to think of other solutions.

Matt: It's interesting because, I mean, I live in the UK, you're in the States. And, you know, there a few years ago in the— in Europe, we had this thing called Brexit. It was a tiny little thing where England decided to leave Europe. And the chaos that caused from a shipping point of view was quite phenomenal. now we have a business, I've got ecommerce businesses, one which sells just purely UK, I've got one which sells all over the world, right? So I, I'm, I've kind of got localized and I've got, worldwide. And even to this day, however many years after Brexit has happened, there are— it's almost like each country in Europe takes its turn to be an absolute moron in terms of how it processes the, the sales. So you can send, you know, all these parcels and then you'll get a bunch back, but they'll all be from one specific country, like, I don't know, Spain or Portugal. Who's going to be the plonker this week? We don't know. And but it kind of rotates and it goes around. Sometimes it's Germany, sometimes it's France, and they just send everything back because they can. And eventually we sort of, we figured out a way to sort of pay the extra import duties, but it's still not working even after all these years. I am curious, in the States, as soon as I heard about the tariffs thing, I'm thinking this is going to be another Brexit sort of fiasco where organizations and agencies, tax officers, every man and his dog involved in the chain is not going to have a clue on what they're supposed to do. And is it, is it like that? Is it cleared up? Is there a bunch of— is there clarity now around the tariffs, or is it still quite complicated?

Leo: Overall, from what I see from these conversations, briefings we have with our brands, specifically we're talking about international shipping, ecommerce shipping, and it's simple as small parcel, right? We're not even talking about like palletized shipments or loading containers, but specifically small parcel. There's still gray area. It's been, you know, last year and a half, it's been a moving target. And more specific to your question, you have these regulations or specific codes that apply that from country to country. It's not easy to identify. A lot of these brands will come to us and then they're just like, okay, we want to do international shipping. It's like, let's be maybe a little bit more pointed there, right? You have a— so let's take, for example, beauty brands, right? There are some countries that are very strict with cosmetics or anything that's applied to your skin, like skincare brands. You know, we know like Italy, you know, Spain, there's, you know, even to our neighbor down here in Mexico, you can do everything, you think you're doing everything right, and you go ahead and, you— and then, and look, some of these parcel carriers, you know, they have— if you're shipping through them, we use a multi-channel, parcel network, you know, with the DHL, USPS, FedEx, UPS, some regional carriers right there, right? But they all, they have, you know, they have access to, you know, help documents that you can essentially just even put them in AI and build an item profile construct of what the regulations are specifically for this commodity based off of the ingredients that are in there and making sure that not just only that you're classifying it on your commercial invoices electronically when you're sending it. So that would Customs sees it, they can identify it. Obviously, big part of it is that they need to have that registered to tax appropriately, but making sure that it meets those regulations for actually— for a consumer to actually receive it and, and use it, for whatever it might be, safety reasons. But we've seen it to where we've sent shipments in, we, we follow all those that, you know, I just mentioned. We review those on the item, individual item profile level Right? We're able to load that information within our backend systems. They're putting that into their systems, making sure that when we're doing these integrations, that, you know, anything that's any type of nuanced product, you know, that has, you know, an EXP or has an SPF, right, for, you know, for like specific lotions, that that's captured and documented. And because what happens is you can have 50 shipments, 100 shipments within a week go just fine. All of a sudden you have a customs agent, you know, that wants to nitpick, you know, for whatever reason. And there's a clog always in terms of communication. You're going through these support, support, you know, emails or portals where you're submitting, you know, proof of XYZ, whatever it might be, so that you can get it across. And sometimes they'll just ignore it, or it's just too late. They get reported and they're already sending it back, they're disposing it. That has been constant, right? So that's something I see more, you know, and there's just, there's some pain point country, like, like they're like, that's what I'm saying, like, oh, you can't just say, oh, I'm gonna just ship, it's, you know, my products all around the world. Is it necessary to ship to certain countries? Do you even have, is, is there a market there? You know, a lot of, see a lot of clients, the ones that, you know, really focus, they'll do, you know, 5, first open it up to 3, 4 different countries. We see obviously our neighbors up north, we do a lot, most of our, international business is going to Canada, then like essentially UK, Australia's tied second or third. And, you know, those are a little bit, you know, more well-versed. We have those, you know, you know, those, those workflows and, all those, those, systems set up properly. But, you know, you have some countries that are just— I, I don't know if they have that, customs infrastructure set up properly to do so, or they are going to just nitpick to tax you or figure out you know, other ways to monetize. It's strange. We've seen some weird— oh, they're going to put your harmonized code, your tariff code, to a— to classify to something that doesn't even apply to your product. But at that point, your product's stuck in their country in customs, doesn't get to the consumer. And then if you do that enough, well, in today's day and age where you can easily just leave a review, you know, they're going to blame it on the brand and then you have bad reviews. So, being a little bit more careful on, you know, just say, oh, we're just going to do international shipping and just fire away. But yes, you want to lean on your 3PL to go ahead and have that, you know, dynamic conversation of, you know, what, you know, on your specific product, goals, but really just making sure that from even at the point of manufacturing that you have the, you know, correct packaging language on there as well as making sure that you have your— you're submitting the proper documents to that country to register for taxation as well.

Matt: It's an interesting point you raise because it seems to be that free global trade is not actually that free and it can be done. It's just not as straightforward. Right. And You've got this, you've got to now have this thinking, this sort of joined-up thinking end-to-end from the point of design and manufacture. Like you say, the box needs to say the right thing. I need to make sure that the box is actually made out of the right stuff if I want to ship over here to this country, right? Because they have some quite strong restrictions on how we do that. And so it does require quite a lot of, joined-up thinking, and I get that. And it's It's not— it is not straightforward anymore. It used to be really straightforward. You'd put it in the postbox and somehow it would make its way to wherever. But as technology has improved and various governments have come and gone, the complexity seems to have increased quite dramatically when it comes to international shipping.

Leo: Absolutely. Yeah, it's been, it's been complicated. Now, again, I was saying there are so many now tools like, again, these brands are getting smarter. AI is day after day improving, able to recognise these patterns, already able to profile and set you up for success. So there is, specifically because like I was mentioning earlier, it is a moving target, right? Yeah. You have these regulations come out, so, oh, well, the de minimis is going to change or they're going to there's going to be this tariff code— you, I'm sorry, this country is going to now require these specific documents also, and they'll be submitted prior for you to, you know, actually submitting a, you know, a shipment to them. And some of them— and, you know, there's brands that are going to, you know, not really put their declare value accurately, right? So, that— there's going to be repercussions. They're, they're figuring that these— there's some, some of these countries are already seeing that, right? And they're putting systems in place to recognise that. And they're going to— they could come back and penalize. We've seen some notices like, fix this now, because they could backdate and go ahead and essentially audit and see if you're essentially trying to cheat the system, right? So, you know, there's, there's— yeah, again, moving target, just staying informed and, you know, collaborating with, you know, your 3PL if you're using one, or your carriers and doing your research. But not just go ahead and it's like, oh, it's as simple as just, all right, well, let's just get an international parcel carrier and ship out.

Matt: I wish it was that simple. I think it's one of those, isn't it, where you've got to do your research. You've got to be prepared for for the work now. I think it's, it's not as straightforward as it was. You've got to put the graft in, as it were, to get it right. But I think if you do, the rewards are there. I think the thing that I've noticed with international shipping more and more is the increasing complexity surrounding codes and tariffs and, and so on and so forth. And consequently the increase in frustration. And so I think because we think technology is getting better and better, surely this should be just made easier. It should just all work, right? But of course it doesn't. And so when there is like a tariff change, I don't know how it works in the States. I can have a guess at how it would work here in England. It would be really, really slow from the point of making the decision to implementation. Because all the systems won't talk to each other. It's not like if I'm changing the price on, on my website, you know, of a product, I just click, change the price, save, and it's done. I don't think it works like that. It's got to filter through 100,000 different systems, most of which will require manual entry. And so, and this is what I've noticed with Brexit, there are still some remnants of these changes that haven't occurred. And, and it's in that gray area between the decision— this is now the rule and the implementation of that properly by the systems just causes mayhem and chaos. And it really does.

Leo: Yeah. And a lot of confusion there.

Matt: Yeah.

Leo: And then also it's, it puts a jam like, so as while this, these first, you know, large tariff percentages were being applied to specific types of products, some of our brands, you know, let's So I'll give you some, you know, and now looking back and it's been very interesting seeing the smaller brands really did suffer the most, right? These bigger brands had a little bit more essentially buying power or leverage with these overseas manufacturers that they're like, well, if, you know, example, big brand is, you know, doing,, you know, a couple million dollars a year in manufacturing in China. If they moved that now, it's not just get up and uproot that and move it all at one point all over. But the discussions with those manufacturers saying, you know, well, maybe I go to a different, you know, maybe Malaysia or some other country, you know, Taiwan or wherever, you know, there's a lot of different ones that we, you know, our clients were discussing. They were able to, as soon as that kind of almost, and this is from firsthand discussions that I've heard from the logistics procurement teams over there and teams that are discussing directly with those manufacturers, they're like, "No, let's work together. What can we do? Can we, you know, we'll lower," of course, first thing is, "Okay, can we lower the per unit rate for manufacturing?" Those are one of 'em that they had advantages to. One of their clients actually, were able to get their manufacturer to full-on cover. Okay, we're going to cover full freight logistics, the Incoterm saying, to where from loading all the way to drop to our facility, they're covering all those costs, all the freight costs fully. Before, you know, so between like $6,000 to, you know, $4,000, $5,000 to $8,000, $9,000 per container, that was, being covered, you know. Well, hey, now smaller brands they didn't have that much of that leverage. They weren't able to, you know, again, firsthand, they were stuck. Some of these, some of these, the manufacturer, they invested a lot of money into getting this done overseas, and then they're essentially getting stuck because they also had a retail business, and for them to move it and inject it into the states and then pay those tariffs, it was so high. And then now those retail partners that they're going to do distribution for, they're like, hey, hold off, you know, or we might need to cancel half that PO. But wait, I already produced it. And now I was— they were banking on those big POs, right? They were. And it's— so I kind of saw, you know, we saw a pattern there where there was just like, I can't— I have goods overseas that I just produced and I, I'm having trouble to move it over. I can't pay these huge tariff fees right now. By the time, you know, we get paid on some of these terms, or even you see Commerce, it's going to be, you know, 6 months down the line. And it just really created a clog there, you know, while some of the other bigger brands were able to just again use that, the leverage of their size and, yeah, and that the buying power that they had, and, you know, and, and work out, work it out, right?

Matt: So yeah, yeah, somewhere in other— what do you where do you think it's all going to go to with it? Because of course you've got the tariffs and now you've got the war, right? And so you've got the Strait of Hormuz, just not doing well, right? And, that's causing shipping delays and all kinds of stuff. And I— and part of me is like, I don't see this changing in the next 2, 3 years. I just— I think it's— there's— there seems to be a cycle of disruption around that little part of the world. And, and, and also in, in the— I'm not getting political, but in the political arena, things change obviously every 4 or 5 years. So It's a fact. How do you see it? Where do you see it all going?

Leo: Yeah, you know, we're just having this conversation with some of our team members and some partners. It's, you know, within the last 2 months, you're seeing all these and it directly impacts, well, I guess all different channels, but Parcel directly is like, hey, we get pinged from all our Parcel carriers What's the first one? Fuel surcharge. Fuel surcharge just jumped up 20%. Yeah, 20%, 18%. It's like, wait, wait, we used to see fuel surcharge, it jumps around, it lowers, it jumps around, goes down and up a couple percentage points here and there. But some of these carriers, especially these like economy carriers, right, they can't support that low $5, $4 shipping anymore. They're just not going to happen. So immediately they're seeing like fuel jumped up tremendously, they just put that surcharge and they added on that. That puts, okay, the 3PL is, you know, having to communicate that to these ecommerce brands and hey, like these rate cards and what we've actually assisted in optimising, you know, dynamic shipping for your customer at checkout, that's going to change. So hey, review your, you know, your shipping profiles. because on some of the largest brands, it's free shipping, standard shipping, they charge for second day. Hey, we need to have a new conversation there and optimise this better to include and take in these new surcharges. Now, back again to your question there, you always wonder if it's— does this all of a sudden— okay, they moved it up 20%, but if things open up again, are they going to really lower it? Is it going to lower a little bit? Is this now the new norm? Because historically we've kind of seen that, you know, like they'll bump it up and then, okay, great, then we can lower it a little bit, but it doesn't ever kind of go fully back, even though, you know, you know, fuel has, you know, tremendously dropped. So yeah, it's going to be really interesting. Pattern has shown historically that, yeah, they're going to— and, and it, it just, it stays high, impacts everyone, that's, you know, materials, boxes, like, right, we got a 20, almost 30% increase just from anything that's made out of plastic. So like shrink wrap, right? you know, poly mailers. A lot of these, brands in general, the dropshipping, direct-to-consumer shipping in poly mailers, right? Bubble bags, you know, cost of those is, is increasing. It's not okay, didn't shoot out the roof, but all throughout this packaging material also affects— it's a little bit of It's affecting everything, right? So let's just hope that there's some solutions in place and that money just doesn't sit at the top and hopefully trickles down. I would like to say I'm optimistic, but I guess it's a wait and see.

Matt: It's always good to be optimistic. I hope for the best.

Leo: I am optimistic overall still. I think brands, you get smart and then you have to be resilient. Just you have to be resilient.

Matt: Yeah. No, I appreciate that. The whole world fascinates me at the moment with the way, with the way it all is. And do you see more and more businesses going, I've just had enough of all of this? I'm just like in the States, I'm just going to sell to US businesses now because it's just way too complicated. because I've seen a lot of people outside of the US going, I'm not shipping to the US anymore. That's just ridiculous.

Leo: You know, it's interesting, we've gotten, well, we have been receiving actually more of an influx of inquiries, requests for proposals coming through directly as emails or directly through our website. And that could also contribute to our marketing campaigns out there. But a lot of actually international business wanting to break into the US market. So not as much as the brands excited from the US ship out, Right. And so, yeah, I still see quite a bit that there's still commerce moving. Businesses are still there. It's impactful, but it's everything that we just talked about. But we still see that there's brands just strategizing around and build it into their pricing. But a lot of it is actually looking at You know, there's a lot of these exercises, a lot of research, benchmarking, and there's so many other aspects of where these brands need to look at in terms of to protect their margins, really. You know, there's a lot of waste that there's just, it's just paying a lot of attention, a lot of collaboration with your 3PLs, but, you know, and starting from that manufacturing point to where, you know, who are your customers gonna be? Why are you packaging these in specific case packs? That are not going to make sense for injection into either, you know, to your facility, to your 3PL, or if you're going to sell, you know, if you're going to have— if you're focusing direct-to-consumer, you know, why are you putting all these inner packs and all this extra packaging material when they're just all going to be broken down and you're going to get a ton of different fees there? Are you really spending the time to engage with your shipping partner or your 3PL to really dial in, those— because shipping costs are a big part of— sometimes the shipping costs are more than what your fulfilment fees is on a per-order basis. You know, are you, are you just, you know, say, okay, yeah, just put it into a, you know, whatever, or 3PL doesn't engage far enough to like put it into a 6x6x6 cart, right? And then you have void fill in there. It's like, you just went into different type of tiers of shipping where you could have saved $2 to $3 per package. Or using a multi-channel network where they're rate shopping based off of the specs. Cartonization is a huge one. What I mean by cartonization is these transportation management programs, TMSs, with logic, business rules, AI now obviously built into them, are able to understand the net dimensions and net weight of your product along with other products within the category of shipping and put it into— optimise that to put into the best type of shipper so that if you're to keep it as lowest cost as possible. For a lot of these brands, they're doing 100 orders a day, 200 orders, 300 orders a day. They're saving $2 per shipment. That adds up. That's a margin protector, right? There's other areas to where you can really help your brand succeed there. So it's definitely important.

Matt: It's an interesting one, is that I think there's a bunch of people I know who just sell 1 or 2 products, and so they're kind of like, well, I don't need AI to tell me what size box to put this in. but I mean, just the other day, we did this standard joke with Amazon, isn't it? We had a parcel arrive from Amazon. I opened it with my daughter, and by the time you took everything out of the brown box and then you took everything out of the actual box that it came in, the product was this big. The packaging was, you know, 10, 15 times the size volumetrically. And you're like, it feels like— I mean, I, you know, Amazon's a very different beast, isn't it? But it does feel like surely we can start to think this through a little bit more, not just from an eco point of view where the packaging makes sense, but like you say, you're saving a couple of bucks every time you do something like that, right?

Leo: Yeah, exactly.

Matt: Yeah.

Leo: So the thing that, you know, a lot of brands try to compare like that, like it's like that ecosystem, their ecommerce program to like the ecosystem of Amazon and they're their own animal. They have their own, you know, their borderline there as a monopoly, right? They, they, their carrier partners are— they have their contracts are different than any other contracts or whatever. And a lot of it now is they're doing their own— most of their now they're doing their own, parcel shipping, right? So, that decision— so yeah, it's because like you just mentioned, right, you get something the size of a toothbrush that's you know, in a packaging that you can fit, you know, 2 pairs of shoe in, and you're just like, what's, what's going on with all this waste? But for a lot of other brands that are not using Amazon as to ship out, you know, their, you know, DTC orders, you know, they, they really have to get smart and really kind of narrow. So because they— oh, because the expect— the expectancy of what these brands want to see is— or sorry, the consumers, like, they look at that Amazon model next day or the day after, right? And I can ship it anywhere I want. And it's, you know, it's very competitive, right? Now, Amazon obviously doing a lot of amazing things, crazy. I mean, I guess on which side, who you're asking, right? In terms of speed of service. And they are, there's a lot of things that they're now, they're doing that they, with all the data that they have collected, really went down this rabbit hole. Recently of them able to project already and know consumer behavior well in advance based off specific products to where to place a certain product before and really provide that to the brand to be like, this is where your brand is going to do really well, essentially in these hotspot zones, right? Because of they, through all their algorithm and they have the biggest databases of consumer behavior, right? And sales that they're able to to do so. So have fun competing with that. But now, the other— on the other side is that there's still a lot of— there's a lot of fees associated with that that adds up. And again, another one where there's a moving target. We have brands that get really like, you know, they, they get dizzy trying to, you know, all right, well, that, that we have to disperse the inventory all throughout these DCs, United States. They charge for, you know, per unit fee. They charge for ageing, they charge for seasonality or different tiers of storage for fourth quarter compared to first quarter. Then you have your fulfilment fees, something, then FBA programs, they take a percentage, right? You have the marketing platform, like, or marketing fees if you go and you opt into certain things. So is it for, yeah, is it a channel that brands like, if yes, obviously one of the most powerful marketplaces in the whole world or is the most powerful marketplace. But does every, is it the multi-channel, like having your own, you know, ecommerce or driving traffic through other websites, diversifying that is and really fine-tuning those programs so that you can have a little bit more control or predictability is something that we're seeing a lot more engagement with our accounts and helping them succeed because there's, They also, they don't know really, you know, with so much, they focus a lot on Amazon, but it's like they're changing fees and they're just putting up, they just added, I just saw on May 2nd earlier this month, they added an additional surcharge, I think like between, exactly quote me on this, I think it was around 3.5% on another fuel surcharge that wasn't there before, additional, right? So they'll sneak them in there.

Matt: well, they know how to add their fees. Amazon, they, they know how to charge, that's for sure. And, that's one word for it, sure.

Leo: impressive they get away with it.

Matt: So maybe, maybe that's another option. Yeah, yeah. I, I mean, it's a whole nother episode, like, should you build a business that is totally reliant on Amazon ecosystem? I think the answer lies in terms of how long you want to be around, really. yeah, but the— but you can't deny what they've done. And actually, it's challenged— like, in the UK, it's challenged the couriers that are here to up their game, right? Because Amazon have set a standard and everyone's gone, well, we need to catch up. Because people like me are going, I need you to be like Amazon, dude. And if you can't be like Amazon, I'm gonna go find someone that can, in terms of the way you deliver this, in terms of speed and efficiency. Yeah, by the way, I don't want to pay any money for it. I want to pay as little as possible. And I, I think we've seen— I think England's a slightly different animal to the US, mainly because of the size, right? It's like, it's easier to ship stuff around England when it's, you know, 4 inches wide and 6 inches tall, but it's, it's a little bit more complex when you've got, you know, Australia, or the US. I appreciate the size, the landmass is different. but I have been intrigued by, you know, the fact that shipping has got better. as a re— I don't know if it is the Amazon effect, or maybe it's just what I've noticed.

Leo: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot more— even with the, like you said, the Amazon effect, these— there's a lot more competition now. A lot of these, and specifically, again, I'm not too sure, you know, interna— internationally in terms of how that works, in terms of what we consider regional carriers that are really strong in these niche type of shipments or specific zones that you do zone skipping. So they're going to— they specialize in, hey, they're going to send it from, you know, Los Angeles specifically, then to Chicago, anywhere in that region. There's like— or those, you know, states on the, on the, on the, you know, on the outside right there, they're able to give you a crazy rate and take away a lot of these excess accessorials, right? Because that's something that is, you know, big. It's like these, you know, remote areas that these clients get hit with, like these called like dim factors. There's a calculation. So your shipment really is not being— if you're putting it in a, you know, 12 by 12 by 12 box and weighs only 2 pounds, you know, you're getting— there's a, you know, dim factor formulas where actually that shipment's getting rated at it. I'm sorry, I don't know, but like it's not a 2-pound shipment. It's getting rated at an 18-pound shipment, right? So, but these now there's so much sophistication in these transportation management system or carrier programs tech where that logic is able to, it's, you are essentially uploading these profiles, setting up these business rules or parameters and letting your rate shop and then choosing which carrier essentially to use. With speed. you know, sometimes you can even send a shipment— I can send it from, you know, Los Angeles to Miami, Florida with one carrier for 5 days, more expensive. I can actually just— the system's going to recognise it, you know what, no, I can actually get it there for 2 days using this specific carrier because that is a— that the specific service carrier and service in that lane is cutting the price half. But if you try to do that in another zip code or another state not happening. It's not going to be good, right? So having that sophistication with your carrier programs, and there's so many of them now, they're all fighting for the business. Amazon also now went public, right? They're doing their own, parcel freight, not just through them. You can actually get, contracts and agreements, and they do now their own parcel, like competing with the UPSs, the USPSs. Then they're doing, you know, they cut out a lot of these accessorials for now, right? These low low, low rates. So these big FedEx and UPSs, they're seeing that, that they're now a major— they build up that infrastructure, that freight logistics infrastructure to go ahead and, you know, enter that business.

Matt: Yeah, it was only going to be a matter of time, really. And you've been able to do that for a while. You just use Amazon anyway. Leo, listen, I'm aware of the time and I appreciate you've got a hard deadline and we've just been shooting the breeze here about logistics and I've completely lost track. Just getting engrossed in the conversation. If people want to find out about you, if they want to connect with you, maybe got some more questions, want to find out about the services that you guys offer, what's the best way to do that?

Leo: Of course, yeah, you can, you know, really it's reaching out. We have going to our website, putting an RFP, contacting the sales@riverplateinc.com. Our website is www.riverplateinc.com. There's, you know, there's bots, sorry, bots in there. You can go in there and chat with us directly, reach out to us on our socials. So River Plate Inc on Instagram as well as LinkedIn. Multiple ways you can reach out. Feel free. We actually are pretty open to even taking those phone calls and we can chat. We are not that business also that are going to, look, when somebody would talk to me directly, it might not be like right at the moment, but our team will take that message and send it through and it will organise in my schedule and we can chat more. And a lot of times is to find out that if I can provide business with value, they take that as like, hey, you know what, that's outside of what these other companies don't do maybe as much as just like, hey, you know what, we want to just first see all these volumes. We want to see what you're doing, you know, well, let's have a conversation. A 5-10 minute conversation doesn't hurt, you know, whether it's a fit or not. But if you want to learn more, feel free and reach out. you know, there's, there's, fantastic.

Matt: We will of course put Leo's links in the show notes, which you can get just by scrolling down on your podcast app or looking in the description in the YouTube channel. Of course, it will all be on the website at ecommercepodcast.net under this episode as well. But Leo, before you rush off, man, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate you coming on the show. It's been a great conversation. Thank you.

Leo: Thank you so much, Matt. Appreciate it. Thank you, listeners.

Matt: Okay. So there you go. Another fantastic episode wrapped up. Thanks again to Leo for joining me on this week's week's show. And as I said at the start, anything you want to know, just head over to the website ecommercepodcast.net. You'll find everything there, including the notes from today's show, including all the links that, Leo mentioned. They will be in there. And of course, the information about BigCommerce and Slingshot, everything on the website. Do go check it out at ecommercepodcast.net. There'll be a link in the podcast description, or in the YouTube description, depending on where you're consuming this this particular podcast. You'll find the links there. But yeah, thank you so much for joining us. Make sure you join us next week, wherever you are in the world. It's been great chatting to you. I'm just looking for the button on my pad. Here it is. Thank you so much for joining us. That's it from me. Have a great week wherever you are in the world. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.