Lori Boyer 00:00
Welcome back to Unboxing Logistics. I’m your host, Lori Boyer, and we are in the middle of an incredible two part episode, EasyPost Insider, where we are talking all about how you can take advantage of EasyPost this peak season to really make your your shipping go smoothly. So without further ado, we’re gonna jump back into our conversation.
I’ve got Joe Dieter here with us, and he is walking us through all of the different EasyPost products that you can use to really shine. We are going to move into a little bit of a pivot, and we’re gonna be talking about money. One of the things that I hear from everybody, we get to this time of year and everybody’s talking carriers.
Everybody’s talking surcharges. Everybody’s talking about how do I manage hidden surcharges? I mean last minute surcharges. High weight, and we’ve got the rounding up going on now. You know, there are so many ways that, again, if you’re just looking at a carrier and you think, oh, this is the price, but then those surcharges are really adding up and we are seeing dramatically higher each year as the carriers themselves are seeking to try to offset tariffs and offset all of the different things that they’re dealing with.
What strategies do you recommend for our EasyPost customers out there? How can they be avoiding these surcharges? How does EasyPost support in helping them protect their margins?
Joe Dieter 01:34
Yes, the infamous peak season surcharges, and as you said, they always kind of come new shapes and forms. Like we have this roundup thing where based on the dimensions of the package, we’re now rounding up to the nearest whole number for some, some major carriers, which this could be tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of extra dollars in, in shipping costs or certain shippers. And so you have all these new types of fees you’re gonna get hit with even fees associated with certain types of packages, of certain sizes. This is where EasyPost Wallet has been super helpful. So you not only through EasyPost, Wallet get discounted rates across major carriers like USPS and FedEx, UPS, DHL, list goes on.
But you’re also getting really a more seamless experience of using those carriers. You’re getting the information you need that’s timely on, ah, this great carrier just added this new fee. At EasyPost, we pride ourselves in having the largest carrier network, but we keep all of our thousands of shippers that rely on a taxes that network.
We keep ’em informed every time there’s a shift. How those carriers are doing business and how they’re performing. We have a whole department of our company that’s just about communicating the world of carriers and how they’re shifting, how they do business, to all of our shippers. So we, we notice how many great shippers are out there doing decent volumes that actually just don’t have access to the information, like no one’s keeping tabs on, oh, wow. Blank carrier just totally kind of changed the game on how they’re gonna ship and how they’re gonna charge us. And so we’re blindly going ahead and then come Q1, we get surprise invoices about how much we extra we have to pay down for all that holiday shipping that we had no idea we’re gonna have to pay.
So when you get Wallet, yes, you’re getting discounted rates that usually would be reserved for much larger shippers who are doing big volume. You don’t need big volume to get great rates if you go with Wallet Carriers. You’re getting one simplified billing, invoicing experience. We hear from so many shippers as they’re juggling through all the invoices and trying to make sense of all these extra fees.
And a lot of shippers can’t even read their carrier invoices, respect. Like they’ll tell us, listen, like, we don’t even look at the depth of it. We just look at the total and realize that was way more expensive than we thought it would be. So with Wallet, you’re putting your best foot forward and simplifying a lot, a lot of the process of just. Knowing how you’re gonna be more cost effective.
The other thing is, again, are you leveraging AI powered shipping intelligence in how you ship? Because if you do, you inherently avoid unnecessary costs. A tool like Luma, which came out this year, which has been very popular, is able to recommend the right shipping label based on your specific needs as a shipper.
So you set a rule and say, listen, I want to ship to a destination in this many days. I wanna do it within this sort of budget. I prefer to work with these sorts of carriers. And then Luma is able to really make sure you’re purchasing the right labels. In other words, choosing the right carriers and service levels based on those preferences.
Luma is taking into account knowledge of how carriers are changing in their fees. Loom is able to really understand a lifetime. How is the landscape changing? Ah, there are new fees coming into play. Most shippers right now are relying on, often it’s one person, even a large company, to be the all knowing database of everything all carriers are doing.
And it’s just, it’s unrealistic. It’s not how the world works anymore. Are you AI powered? Are you able to have agility and react as the carriers you trust this peak are changing up everything about how they might want to be charging you this peak? That’s, that’s. Where I’d start the conversation if you’re worried about surcharges.
Lori Boyer 05:13
I love that and I love that. Joe, I wanna say one of the cool things about first of all, I’m gonna shoot into the, the notes again into our description. You can subscribe to carrier updates through us. Joe mentioned this team. I meet with this team weekly who are incredibly smart. I was just meeting with them yesterday and I shot a Slack to a team member saying, man, I don’t know how they stay ahead of all of this.
We were going through huge lists of changes and what we needed to update, so. If you visit our website, go to carrier updates, you can read what’s going on, but you can also subscribe to get notified anytime there’s a carrier update. So I always recommend staying, you know aware of what’s going on. I also wanna say we’re seeing a big shift, and I think we’re gonna talk about this to some of these regional carriers, innovative carriers, alternative carriers.
Well, yes, our big major carriers tend to like kind of pile on the surcharges up the wazoo. We are totally carrier agnostic at EasyPost. We love all our carriers. They, I can’t say enough. Every carrier has a place and has, you know, some are amazing rural, some are amazing urban, some are really great at large packages.
Some are really great at fast, small. There’s really cool ways. But when you do look, there are some of these regional and kind of alternative carriers that are really expanding and don’t have a huge number of surcharges. That is maybe some of the way they’re setting themselves apart, whether it’s Sendle or whether it’s LSO or I think Amazon Shipping has become super popular.
There are a lot of really great regional carriers out there who maybe try to differentiate by not having so many surcharges. So keeping your options open I think is so important when it comes awareness and keeping your options open and, and being open to using some alternative shippers really can help soften some of those, you know, pile up of, of surcharges that we see.
Joe, beyond surcharges though. You know, there’s only so much we can always do about that. In general, costs in the shipping world have been going up. They’ve, they’re up $16 billion, just general shipping costs since 2022. Unfortunately, we’re also kind of seeing margins really tight. I’m hearing shippers say every single cent matters to us this year.
You know, maybe in the past we’d let some things just kind of, eh, we’ll figure that out. This year, margins are really, really tight. So beyond just kind of trying to avoid the surcharges or, or making sure you have this specific carrier, you know, the very lowest price or whatnot, are there other tools that we have at EasyPost. Something in billing or, you know, we mentioned claims earlier, that’s another great one.
Well, what are some of the tools that we have to help with all those kind of little penny nickel and dime savings that really, really add up in our industry over the peak season?
Joe Dieter 08:15
Yeah, absolutely. There’s two big, kind of parts of the shipping experience we look at, at, at EasyPost for this. One we can call upfront cost reductions.
So it’s a lot of what we’ve been chatting about in terms of, hey, how are you choosing what labels you wanna buy? Or what carriers and service levels are you choosing? Are you using EasyPost and our Shipping API? Are you using our Wallet Carriers to make sure you’re getting the best discounts and you’re also just jumping through the least amount of hoops so you protect your overhead, the time and money of what’s being spent in dealing with carriers.
So there, there’s that kind of upfront at the moment of the shipping decision of who you’re going to partner with to get a package out the door. But then there’s also this really post ship moment. And the post ship moment, we’re really talking about how are you saving money and time when something goes wrong?
How are you saving money and time in terms of a package being lost or stolen or damaged? Or there’s just some sort of a failed delivery. And this is where our Guard suite comes in, right? So our Shipping Insurance API, our Shipping Insurance API allows you across all our carriers to have the most hassle-free way to file a claim, to hold onto your money, to get a claim approved and to really have in instant coverage on a parcel package.
Our USPS Claims program, this is being considered the safest way to ship USPS this peak season. Has this been. So a third party said that historically a lot of folks wanna ship with USPS during the holiday season, but during the holiday season, things go wrong. We hit volume constraints or something happens with a particular package. 40% of claims go unfiled, right? So what we want to do is remove the friction from filing a claim. The reason a lot of folks kind of roll their eyes to the thought of having to submit a claim and hopefully get their money back if something goes wrong with the parcel, is that historically it involved lots of forms.
It was lots of back and forth. We’d have shippers sitting there waiting weeks or months after the holiday season hoping they get protection on a package that was lost during the holiday season. With USPS Claims from EasyPost, we have really upgraded that experience. We’ve removed a lot of the steps, and what’s ultimately gonna happen is a shipper feels like they’re not even filing a claim anymore.
It’s just nearly automated. Something goes wrong with the shipment. Boom, they’re seeing that cash come back into their pocket. This is critical. When you have, we have shippers out there losing hundreds of thousands of dollars during a peak season just because they’re not able to successfully file claims and everything that’s going wrong.
Now, we don’t just have a super USPS, we also have FedEx claims solution. And then we have a Package Protection as well. Our Package Protection program has been really popular among, I call them emerging sellers, so newer sellers that are looking for a way to have a trusted experience for new shoppers on their site.
You’re a new seller. You’re not an Amazon or a Walmart, but you have a really great priced item, or you have a new cool item that’s, that’s a exciting holiday gift. You have a new shopper come onto your site. They’re saying like, Hey, I, I don’t know if I trust this seller yet. But then they see the guarantee of package protection.
They see that if they buy from you, they’re gonna be taken care of if anything goes wrong with the shipment, which sellers are shoppers are skeptical by nature. We all are. If we’re not buying on our preferred retail storefronts, we’re not sure if we want to put down our credit card and complete a purchase.
We, we just inherently are this way. So why not have a guarantee of protection that, listen, if you do buy from us, you’re gonna be taken care of. The package will get there safely. If it doesn’t, you’re not gonna lose your money. You’re, you’re, you’re gonna be taken care of. So this is another element of Guard that’s really about, how do you hold on to your profits if everything doesn’t go a hundred percent perfect?
And during peak, nothing will ever go a hundred percent perfect. It’s unpredictable. So have peace of mind, but also make sure your bottom line revenue and, and your cash situation is a business is healthy as you go into the end of peak and, and into next year.
And, and so EasyPost Guard is gonna be a big part of that.
Lori Boyer 12:32
I, you know what? It’s so interesting. So we’re in this peak season where, you know, as I mentioned, every penny matters. And I was chatting with a friend recently who oversaw kind of the warehouse operations for really large, large electronics brand for many years.
And, and they had some specific goals in the warehouse to, you know, be able to meet, you know, certain goals for the year financially. And they were really struggling because it was kind of unrealistic for what they had. And, and he was chatting with somebody who oversaw kind of the shipping element and said, hey, you know what I can find, I can always find ways to save money through shipping.
You might not be able to through warehouse. And he is like, let’s work together and we can meet the, the overall company goals by finding ways to get your shipping less expensive. And I think that, similarly I’ve thought we can’t force necessarily. We can use great things like advanced tracking to try to encourage people to buy, but when the macroeconomic forces out there are really hard and people are holding on a little tighter to their money it’s hard to always encourage more sales.
But what you can always do is reduce the, the money. That is being bled out in shipping, whether it’s through the carriers that you’re using, whether it’s through the whole entire returns process. Claims. There is so much money. The reason I geeked out over USPS Claims specifically is because I’ve just, I’ve worked with so many shippers who it’s just so much of a headache that that’s money they basically write off.
It’s money you can get and, and so much easier. So just in this peak season where things are so tight, look for all of those ways, those pennies add up with your claims. Look into Guard. EasyPost customers, there are so, so many things that you can do with it that will help you save all the little pennies, nickels, dimes dollars that add up to hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in the end.
So. Anything else you wanna say on cost, Joe, before we move on a little bit, we’re gonna be talking visibility, which is kind of one of my other little favorite things to talk about.
Joe Dieter 14:47
No, I, I think well said, Lori. And the other stuff I have to say, it’ll be perfect to talk about it in the context of visibility, so we’ll talk.
Lori Boyer 14:55
Perfect. Sometimes I walk into the warehouses and my whole mind is like blown because there’s just packages and I just think this is massive and it’s 24 hours a day, seven days a week, multiplied by billions of, you know, warehouses. So it’s understandable. That just, lemme see my numbers, 6% of companies say they actually have full visibility into their package across the entire supply chain.
Research says 8 billion packages in the US every year are flying blind, basically shipping through the process. And everybody’s kind of, again, praying and hoping that they show up on time. Visibility and knowing what’s going on with packages is a massive pain point of shippers. So what tools do EasyPost customers have to kind of stay ahead of visibility?
Make sure that they are kind of aware of disruptions, not just kind of reacting too late, trying to be as proactive as possible. What can you do to help us, Joe?
Joe Dieter 16:01
Well said Lori. The warehouse and distribution center is a magical place, but it’s also a bit of a black box. It’s, it’s a place where most shippers, even some of the most mature, incredible iconic brands in the world, the reality is they don’t have full, comprehensive data and understanding of what’s really happening, what’s going right, what’s going wrong?
Where are we losing money? Where are we losing time? Some of the most incredible technology companies, actually, they may even specialize in data science, like they may sell hundreds of millions of billions of dollars in data science software to the world, but actually have they applied the latest data science to any part of, if they have a shipping arm to what they do.
So it’s, it’s super fascinating that I think one of the hardest pillars of society to get visibility into where can I get more efficient in every step of it. One of the hardest areas to do that is the greater logistics world of moving stuff from point A to point B. It’s tough. Supply chains are complex, obviously, so to your point, there’s three layers of visibility we notice that are really going on for, for most shippers. One is, I call it infrastructure visibility. What does that mean? Well, if you’re a shipper, you’re using shipping software, maybe like EasyPost. How reliable is that software? What is the infrastructure in terms of 99.99% reliability?
It’s staying up and running. It’s working efficiently. Even during the biggest stress test of all peak season I, I would start with there on visibility and we’re surprised how many shippers end up going into peak and they’re caught off guard. Systems go down, they have a huge backup within certain warehouses or across their entire distribution center network, and lots of angry end customers.
This is not uncommon, and this is going to happen.
Lori Boyer 17:45
I just wanna hop in. When we did a little inventory of like some of the top reasons people do move to EasyPost, and the number one was legacy systems. And it is because there are these incredible systems built. But 10 years ago we weren’t dealing with the same microsurges, we weren’t dealing with the massive number of carriers out there.
And these bigger systems, these older systems just weren’t built to pivot. So yeah, I just wanted to jump in and and let people know, if you’re feeling like my system’s a little slow, you’re not alone. That’s a very common problem.
Joe Dieter 18:18
I was chatting with a friend and it could be said who, who’s, who’s actually in AI an MIT and, and we were reflecting on the fact that shipping and logistics is one of the last pillars of what runs the world that is using 1990s legacy software.
It could be, it is not uncommon for a Fortune 1000 company who one of their main operations of what they do as a company is shipping. And if you actually look at the software that runs their entire operation. There’s good chunks of it that are what we call in the product software world, like 1990s legacy software is when actually the, the whole foundation of what you’re using was built.
And that’s a major risk, and that’s part of why it’s not uncommon to have massive inefficiency in how you’re shipping. And this is for some of the most reputable and important companies in the world. They’re gonna be responsible for a lot of holiday gifts this year. So, infrastructure visibility. Do you know the systems you’re using?
Do you know why you don’t have 99% uptime? Do you know why you lost X amount of millions of dollars ’cause you were down for X amount of moments during the key shopping, shopping part of the season. Key part of the shopping season. Another part of visibility, right, is what we typically think of at shipping, and I’d say it’s like parcel visibility.
So do you know package level data? Do you know your average cost or package? Do you know your average time of transit? Do you know every carrier and service level you’re using, how it’s actually performing? How many failed deliveries do you have that tried and true carrier and service level you use for two day or use for ground, how is that actually working out for you? And, and what we see, some shippers are actually scared to know if they’re on it because they, they signed a fancy contract and they feel like they were told they got a really awesome discount and so they just need to push more volume through that carrier and they actually don’t, oh, if I get visibility, that’s scary ’cause they don’t know the truth.
Lori Boyer 20:06
It’s like some weeks I avoid stepping on the scale ’cause maybe I just don’t wanna know what happened. Yes, exactly. We, we, don’t want visibility.
Joe Dieter 20:15
There’s freedom in truth. There’s freedom in knowing, oh wow. I was really reliant on that carrier and service level and I recently am offering a new type of product to a new part of the country, and I’m shipping down to Southwest, you know U.S. a lot and my costs are going up like crazy and my time in transits getting really long and I have angry customers down there. I need visibility into how I’m shipping. Like there will be a come, there will be a come to truth moment where you realize you need parcel visibility, so that, that’s the other thing.
You can’t make smarter decisions on how you ship until you really know the reality of how you’re currently shipping. So we have that through Luma Luma Insights, parcel visibility. We also have something called EasyPost Analytics for upper mid market to enterprise grade shippers that gives you comprehensive custom levels of visibility really across your entire supply chain.
What’s happening with your warehouse inventory? What’s happening outbound? What’s happening with every part of how you ship and do supply chain, we have that. Another tool we have is called Luma Advisor, and this is being considered the most reliable way to simulate the future. What does that mean?
Well, Luma is able to look at how you’ve been shipping historically and then really look ahead to tomorrow of if you continue to ship that way, if you continue to use these carriers and service levels and ship in the way you are here is how much money you’re going to lose, and here’s how much time you’re gonna lose if you continue to go down that path.
It’s really interesting. So it gives clarity, a clear spotlight into the dark future, which, which most shippers just don’t know what peak season’s gonna look like. It’s unpredictable. Luma Advisor is one of your best shots. Really understanding the implications if you continue down the path you’re currently on in terms of the carriers you partner with and how you’re shipping.
And so Luma advisor being considered the most trusted simulation in the market of, and this has been a really buzzy, popular thing the past couple years in the world of shipping, and especially a lot of the biggest retailers in the world are starting to invest in shipping simulations. I just wanna say.
The shipping simulation that’s backed by billions of historical deliveries, the shipping simulation that’s actually projecting the future based off knowing kind of every shipping scenario of the recent past across all the carriers. There’s only one of those and it’s through EasyPost, Luma. It, it should just be noted.
If you are a large shipper and you have really custom needs, you’re seeing lots of failed deliveries, you’re seeing your time and transit averages are going down, your time to label. So how quickly can you process a, a shipping label, get it on a box, get it out the door if those goals, those KPIs you’re tracking aren’t performing where you want ’em to be EasyPost Analytics is really that true enterprise great experience that we’re excited to chat with you about of, of how we can help.
Okay. The last part of visibility. Customer facing visibility. All that means is does the customer know where the package is? Do they have a lifetime status of where their order is? Do you want to decrease WISMO, where’s my order, angry customer care issues. Do you want a chance to, through branded storytelling, upsell in the middle of the tracking moment that can consumer.
Advanced Tracking from EasyPost is going to really, really help. We’re seeing lots of shippers as we’ve released this product recently. They’re going into peak and they’re already projecting more revenue, more profit ’cause they’re noticing they can more quickly expand the lifetime value of a consumer the moment they buy from ’em through putting their best upsell branded storytelling in the tracking notification moment.
This could be email, this could be the branded tracking page. This could be SMS text notifications, and instead of sending, sending them a spam, a spammy marketing email, put your best promotional messaging in the content that you know they’re gonna read. And that’s the tracking moment. ’cause they wanna know where the heck their package is.
So that’s the other part of visibility is like, does your customer know what’s up the moment they give you money and buy from you? Do they know where their their package is? We know that’s huge to retaining customers. That’s huge. To becoming like an Amazon is just this incredible, put the customer first, have transparency.
Always keep ’em in the loop. Never leave them in the dark. Always make sure they know they’re taken care of. That starts with really timely and branded tracking notifications. So.
Lori Boyer 24:29
I love it. And I wanna mention as well, just on the basic API thing, something that a lot of customers use, you can use set up really simple webhooks.
So at any point in your shipping journey, if you’re hitting an exception, you could set up a rule where maybe it’s been 24 hours since something has moved or since the label was created, but it didn’t move on to the next step. You can set up really easy webhooks with EasyPost’s API that will then notify you, you know, we’ll send you a Slack message or send you an email, or somehow keep your team aware that maybe you’ve run into some exceptions or, you know, a, a package has been stuck at a, at a certain carrier spot for a certain amount of time, or that maybe, you know, sometimes cer certain carriers don’t always scan as well as they should when things have moved. So it can give you awareness. So that is another little tip that I know a lot of our customers out there like to do. Easy. Just using a webhook on the API will also give you great visibility.
Joe, our last topic and one of my favorites because our whole life, our bread and butter, all our time is spent in the carrier world. I work with all the different carriers all the time. I love them. Honestly, everyone out there, I know it can seem tricky working with carriers, but they really are, for the most part, trying to figure out great ways to help you.
So carrier diversification is what we’re gonna talk about. Interestingly, so we kind of diversified a whole bunch around COVID when packages exploded and everybody needed more and, and nobody had space, nobody had capacity. And so we got a lot of new carriers in there and, and people kind of thought maybe they’d die off.
No. The opposite has happened. As people have been seeing the value of all these other carriers, regional, final mile carriers, alternative carriers to the big ones now are carrying one fourth almost of all package, all parcel volume. They, they’re not like the backup anymore. They’re an essential piece of it, and we have been seeing some really innovative ones.
Really love a couple of our partners. I’m gonna shout out Amazon Shipping. I’m gonna shout out Maersk. They are two really, really cool ones that have entered the market here in the last year or so. So Joe, how can our listeners learn more about some of these carriers? How do they balance, you know, the big carriers with regional and innovative carriers?
And of course. How do they use EasyPost to do that and, and not make it such a giant headache?
Joe Dieter 27:14
Yeah, absolutely. Lori, you mentioned regional final mile carriers. We’re seeing, right, 23% of parcel volume is that it is actually going through those. So a lot of shippers might not even know where to start in getting access to a carrier network.
It’s kind of a consolidated one experience where I have access to all of these newer regional final miles, but then also all of the standard major trusted carriers. But then also how do you get access to new innovative rising carriers? What do we mean by, what do we mean by rising innovative? Well, one obvious example is Amazon Shipping, so Amazon Shipping just to, to be transparent was one of our most highly requested new carriers we’ve ever seen at EasyPost. Amazon is obviously this incredible tech forward company who redesigned, rethought, what it means to move a parcel package. But perhaps most importantly is they came in and said, listen, we’re gonna do seven day a week pickup and delivery.
We’re going to decrease the amount of surcharges, we’re gonna remove residential surcharges. We’re gonna have hassle-free claims. We’re gonna have just lower prices across the board. We’re gonna have better around the clock support. Like they, they just looked at the whole game and said, how do we look at all of the challenges that most shippers face in shipping with really popular carriers, and how do we remove as many of those challenges as possible? So we applaud what they’ve done and we’ve just, you know, out of candor, seen a lot of our shippers allocate a lot of volume to Amazon Shipping. And we’re excited to see that continue to grow.
We also though have other rising carriers where we have exclusive relationships. Like Maersk is a really interesting thing that’s taking shape over, over the, the time ahead. Maersk is going to become, it appears if, if you ship through Maersk with EasyPost, one of the most cost effective ways, especially for smaller shippers or SMB shippers to move packages within the U.S.
We’re seeing they’re coming in with some of the most, pleasant pricing for smaller shippers we’ve ever seen in, in terms of moving, moving parcel within the U.S. And so we have a number of other carriers that we would put under our EasyPost innovative carriers that are specializing in next day, same day as well.
And we’re excited to make more announcements there. So what it means is that when you ship with the largest multi-carrier network, which is EasyPost, so you have a hundred plus carriers, including from the regional, the final mile, to the biggest, most trusted carriers. When you ship with EasyPost, you very quickly get access to all of those options.
And what’s really key during peak season is you’re getting good discounts with all those options. And if you use our Wallet Carriers, you’re quickly getting up and running and integrated. You’re not juggling multiple logins. Oh, yeah. We have our FedEx account login. Oh, we have our UPS login.
We recently spoke with one of the largest companies in the world, an iconic brand, who admitted that they have carrier logins and account numbers that are floating even across their party vendors. And I say that respectfully , this is an incredible brand that has, has done amazing things, but when it came to their shipping operation, even just doing something as basic as like, and I say basic in terms of you wouldn’t think this would be a huge issue for shippers, but listen.
If you are shipping volume and if you’re using multiple carriers, you may underestimate the amount of overhead and work it takes to successfully use multiple carriers. And you have to, ’cause you’re gonna hit volume constraints if you just choose one. So they were like, yeah, no, honestly, just having the right login information and like having the right account number that was attached to certain discounts, we realized that was in the hands of third parties and we realized, you know, there was all these issues.
So. Why do I bring this up? Well, Wallet just simplifies so many things you forgot, need to be simplified about using carriers and it removes the challenge of going directly in, in multiple ways. And especially with billing and invoicing, this has been a nightmare where folks end up losing a lot of money and a lot of hours just trying to make sense of, of the billing and invoicing situation with our various carriers and service levels.
So that’s where we start when we think about what does it mean to diversify carriers. It’s one thing to say, yes, I want to use a few different, or a couple different carriers even during this holiday season. So I’m not experiencing downtime. It’s another thing to actually manage that successfully. And it’s another thing to be able to do that in one simplified, I, I would say kind of consolidated experience, which is what you get through our EasyPost core API suites, our flagship product that thousands of shippers rely on during peak. Because they can nimbly get access to all the carriers they wanna work with, and they don’t have to like, use seven different products.
It’s all in one experience. So I, I would, I would start there. You also need an AI that lets you know this is how you diversify carriers. You need, don’t just rely on your own expertise. You don’t have time and capacity if you’re a shipper. You’re worried about your core business. You’re worried about your main business.
Leverage data. Leverage an AI that’s seen every scenario, how every carrier and service level’s performed in recent history, and let it recommend, ah, here’s gonna be the best carrier mix for you. Here’s gonna be the best kind of breakdown as you’re going expedited, as you’re going ground. We no longer have to be beholden on our own finite human minds.
We, we have too much stuff going on. We have too many priorities. Let a trusted advisor that’s seen every shipping scenario, that’s seen every success, every failure across every carrier make recommendations for you on how you diversify. That’s the other element you can get through EasyPost, Luma.
Lori Boyer 32:56
Yeah, I love that.
And I just wanna say as well, for those of you listening, we often mention, you know, these massive world class huge brands, but we also have some really tiny shippers out there. So if you’re a tiny shipper, signing up for EasyPost is free if you’re shipping under a certain amount. Luma is free if you’re shipping under a certain amount. There are still tools and options from the smallest person to the largest brand out there.
That is something that is really cool about EasyPost is it will completely grow with you. You can scale really well when you’re needing to add new carriers, and there’s pricing points that work for everyone within their budget, depending on where you are in your life cycle as a shipper. There’s just really some incredible options.
I love our carriers. There are I, I love talking about all the different options with carriers. We’ve got a couple of great webinars that we have just done recently that are gonna be all around picking carriers and which ones are best in which scenarios. But as Joe said, if you just wanna try it yourself, look at some of those Luma simulation options.
You can really kind of see what will happen if I move over to zone two or if I, you know, shift this amount of volume. And play those scenarios out because we hate uncertainty. So getting a little bit more knowledge is always helpful. Okay, Joe, this has been fantastic. We have learned so many great ways that our EasyPost customers out there should be taking advantage of new EasyPost programs and just the regular old, and of course, if anyone isn’t an EasyPost customer.
We love you too. We’re always happy to talk about EasyPost and if you have any questions for us, feel free to reach out. We are just here to try to help you in your peak journey, this 2025. Joe, before we end, I would like a quick sum up, maybe of just the top products that you feel like are, are new and may really help people who have forgotten through this last couple of episodes here that they may wanna look into as they are journeying into peak 2025 here.
Joe Dieter 35:07
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I, I think one theme across all these is that shipping this peak doesn’t have to be a dreaded, unpredictable cost center. Historically, shipping is something that absorbs a company’s time and money and the theme across everything, EasyPost is offering right in time for peak is that, no, no, no. It’s not a cost center. It’s a strategic growth lever. Do you wanna make more money this holiday season? It can actually happen through how you ship through each step of the shipping and supply chain journey, you can actually increase profit if you have the latest and greatest tools and systems.
And we here at EasyPost, we’ve worked hard to assemble the latest and greatest and build the latest and greatest tools across every step of the supply chain and shipping journey, to be honest. So what are some of the new stuff we’re, we’re, you know, we, we have in store number one, Wallet Carriers. How do you get discounted rates?
How do you have a simplified billing experience? How do you not juggle multiple logins? Use EasyPost Wallet Carriers. From USPS to UPS, to FedEx, to DHL, to Canada Post, the list goes on. The carriers you wanna ship with this holiday season, this peak, the seamless way to ship through them is through EasyPost Wallet, and you can get that through our Shipping API, our our most popular offering.
Another key thing is when the package goes out the door, are you taking care of, are you taking care of the consumer with lifetime status updates with lifetime tracking? That’s possible through advanced tracking. We have lots of shippers that like our tracking APIs, but just for a few cents per package, you add in this next level branded tracking that has 9 to 12 XROI.
When you plug it in on average. And the reason it gets that sort of return on investment is because you can tell your best branded storytelling, plus have AI powered estimated delivery dates so you and the consumer have a real time, really valid projection of when the package is gonna get there. But then you also tell your best branded kind of promotional storytelling to get the consumer to consider an accessory, a similar item, maybe a warranty, whatever you need to do to bring the consumer further value the moment they purchase from you.
Put that message within your branded tracking experience and you can get that through advanced tracking at EasyPost. This has been a very popular product. We recently launched it. We’re seeing a lot of sellers immediately take advantage of it. No, no upfront costs. And it, you can get onboarded within a matter of minutes, right?
So this is the other big one. And then lastly, I just wanna bring up EasyPost Guard. What is that? Well, it’s how we guard and protect you when things go wrong during peak. When you ship, no matter who you ship with, no matter which carriers, you will have packages that maybe get damaged. Maybe they get lost, maybe they’re stolen off the front porch.
Something’s gonna go wrong with a delivery. Have peace of mind. Sleep well and peacefully during peak season knowing that you’re not gonna lose a ton of money when things go wrong, because with Guard, we have really simple near automated claims. For example, USPS Claims is going to be how, if you’re shipping USPS, you nearly just remove all, all the forms, all the back and forth, all the cumbersome process that led to 40% of claims never getting filed.
Historically, 40% of the claims never got filed historically, but with USPS Claims at EasyPost. You have this more automated system where money comes back into your pocket if something goes wrong. Super key thing that a lot of shippers shipping, USPS and a lot of people love to ship with USPS as they should during the holiday season.
They’re like, I, I finally know I have my best shot at holding onto money for those few circumstances where, where the, the shipment has a, has an issue. So those are the big things we’d wanna highlight as well as, one last thing, Forge Forge is our product that a lot of marketplaces and even a lot of 3PLs are turning to, to white label the most reliable shipping software for all of the businesses that rely on them for shipping. If you’re a big marketplace, we work with some of the biggest in the world. We work with some of the newest. We, we just had a startup come to us last week and sign up for Forge because they created this really cool new marketplace to exchange a specific type of item.
But they didn’t have anything in terms of shipping expertise, they say we don’t even know where to start. We know we have to offer awesome, reliable shipping to everyone that’s trading this good on our platform. But I don’t have a logistics engineer. I don’t even know. I’ve never generated a label online, they told us. And so we’re like, okay, you’re gonna white label EasyPost through one simple platform called Forge. In a matter of minutes, they’re up and running with the most 99% reliable shipping software that exists. And they can now have all their sellers have a really cool, like almost Amazon esque, if I dare say, like a really cool quality, big enterprise experience, even though they’re a startup that just started. That’s where you can get through Forge. In a matter of minutes, you get the best from generating labels across a big carrier network to shipping insurance you get it there. Even AI powered shipping insights on what carriers and service levels you should use. You get it in Forge. And this is huge because historically a marketplace would spend months and years and millions of dollars contracting special logistics engineers to build them shipping software that actually helped all their sellers.
No, no, no. At a very reasonable fee, you sign up with EasyPost Forge and you’re up and running with the folks that already built the most reliable logistics software.
Lori Boyer 40:29
Joe is in product, he loves it. He lives, breathes, sleeps, everything. EasyPost, and I love it. I’m, I’m here for it Joe. So fantastic overview of some of the great tools. EasyPost customers, reach out to your CSM. If you’re wanting to learn more about some of these, you can reach out to us as well. If you’re not an EasyPost customer. I’ll include a link here where you can click to, to set something up where people can walk through exactly how it might work for your system. As Joe’s mentioned, some of our different shipping experts we have are really good at kind of helping you see where you could make some big changes.
Thanks again, Joe, for being here. This has just been fantastic. You’ve been a, an incredible guest as always.
Joe Dieter 41:15
Thanks, Lori. Fun chat. We’re excited obviously, and I, and I hope if anything, this really brought some insight and helped shippers. That’s what this is all about. Shipping during peak, not simple. We’re here.
A lot of folks rely on us to help them. So we’re excited to chat with anyone that that took anything of value away from this.
Lori Boyer 41:32
And hey, let’s use all the tools we’ve got at our disposal to kill up this peak 2025. We’ll see all next time.
