The holiday season is often the most profitable time of year for small businesses, but it comes with many challenges. How can small ecommerce businesses create a great purchase experience for customers? What logistical hurdles will they face?
In this episode, Maxwell Bonnie, co-founder of Saltbox, answers these questions and shares tips to help SMBs successfully navigate the upcoming peak season.
Peak season is always a busy time, but this year’s peak has the potential to be even more hectic than usual. That’s because there are only 17 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas instead of the usual 20 or 21, leaving businesses scrambling to ship more packages than ever in a short amount of time.
Maxwell also predicts that carrier capacity will be a concern. Due to changes related to USPS’s 10-year plan, “Brands are going to be shifting a little bit away from the Post Office and trying to go directly to FedEx and UPS to mitigate risk. … That means FedEx and UPS are going to be busier than they've ever been.”
What can your business do to keep things running smoothly during peak season? First, Maxwell suggests diversifying your carrier mix by using a combination of large, emerging, and regional partners to transport packages.
He also advises businesses to “[Ship] earlier. Having earlier cutoff times than normal with your holiday orders … build[s] in some buffer so that your customer gets the package on time.”
The bottom line? “You need some sort of plan, but know that it's not going to go to plan—and that is completely okay. But take the time to put something on paper so that you are prepared for this [peak] season.”
Lori Boyer 00:00
Welcome to Unboxing Logistics. I'm your host, Lori Boyer of EasyPost. And today's show is totally dedicated to our SMB audience, our small to mid sized businesses. Today is all about you. I get so many questions from this segment, this target audience, this small to mid sized audience around peak season.
Peak season is everyone's Goliath. And everyone's great opportunity as well. And so I brought in an incredible expert on this very topic. We're gonna be talking SMB and how you can just crush peak season. So I brought in Maxwell Bonnie. He is going to be sharing all his insights with us. Maxwell, can you introduce yourself?
Maxwell Bonnie 00:52
It's well, thank you for having me. Really excited to be here. Maxwell Bonnie. I just have the pleasure of being one of the co founders of Saltbox. We are basically a logistics brand for growing ecommerce from those just getting started in their homes to scale into a few millions, millions of dollars in sales. We provide warehouse space and logistic services and technology to make logistics as easy and accessible for growing brands as possible.
We have spent five and a half years building this and before then spent a career just obsessing about diagnosing problems and understanding what drives consumer behavior.
Lori Boyer 01:26
I love that. I love how you said that you were spent all your time obsessing about figuring out what's driving behavior because that is my jam, too.
If I have any hobby, I like to say that it's just learning new things. That's so nerdy, but that just really gets me excited. So, today though before we get started, a couple of things that we're gonna do. I'm going to ask you a question to get to know you, and then I want to hear a couple of key takeaways that you may have that if our audience doesn't get anything else out of today, that what should they remember?
But first, this season I've been asking all of our guests, what is your favorite comfort food, Maxwell?
Maxwell Bonnie 02:11
Oh, I have a very specific answer.
Lori Boyer 02:14
Okay, excited.
Maxwell Bonnie 02:16
Angel hair pasta with arrabiata sauce and shaved parmesan.
Lori Boyer 02:21
Okay, okay. Is this something you're making at home or are you?
Maxwell Bonnie 02:24
Yes, I'm making it at home. Probably so that I can eat a really big big bowl and have no one judge me for the size of the bowl.
Lori Boyer 02:31
Nice.
Maxwell Bonnie 02:32
And then I keep shaved parmesan, I keep fresh parmesan in the house almost all the time.
Lori Boyer 02:37
And you grate it yourself. How did you, how was it that you came across this as a comfort food? Did you grow up with it?
Maxwell Bonnie 02:47
You know, angel hair pasta. I remember the day I had first had angel hair pasta and it started melting in my mouth versus, you know, whatever brand pasta that I would have growing up.
It was at my friend's house in Connecticut when I was 12 years old, and I thought it was like manna from heaven. I was like, this is amazing. And so then I've been experimenting with different angel hair pasta dishes since then. And I love spicy food, so arrabbiata sauce has a nice little kick to it. And then the freshly shaved parmesan, it like has that little bitterness to it, a little bit of extra bite. And just the nice, like compliments the flavor profile, so.
Lori Boyer 03:23
Oh, that sounds amazing. Okay. I am gonna ask for our audience for a recipe. So you'll have to send me a recipe and maybe I'll include it here in our, our show notes or something, because that sounds amazing.
Maxwell Bonnie 03:36
Happy to do it. Yes.
Lori Boyer 03:38
Okay, awesome. It's not a big secret, honey, you haven't started a restaurant where we need to keep the, the recipe on the down low.
Maxwell Bonnie 03:44
Okay.
Lori Boyer 03:44
Okay. All right. So key takeaways today. SMB audience, they're approaching peak. It's upon us almost. What, what do you want them to remember from today?
Maxwell Bonnie 03:54
Yeah, I would say number one is just understand what really is peak season. I think, you know, education and being aware is key. And then taking away what's different about this year and how that's going to be explicitly, explicitly very important to be prepared for. And then I want to provide some guidance on how to ship on time and how to save on shipping.
Lori Boyer 04:13
And I guess let's start right with the very first one. What even is peak season? We could potentially, shout out if this is you have people who have never even experienced a peak season before. So, how do you, Maxwell, what is peak season? How do you define it?
Maxwell Bonnie 04:30
Right, so I define peak season as you know, for like, from a brand's perspective, this is the make or break time for your brand, right? We in the western world are the most, some of the, some of the most generous people. And we were looking to brands to help us express that generosity and thankfulness to our friends and family.
And so peak season is at that time where there is like 25 to a hundred percent greater buying activity. And hence there's like a rush of excitement and a rush of sort of operational burden that happens during this compressed period of time between mid October through the first couple weeks of January.
Lori Boyer 05:05
Okay. So the traditional peak season starts as you were saying, mid October, just even now, almost till the end of the year. My understanding in speaking with people or some businesses have multiple peak seasons or, or a different peak season, but can you explain that a little bit?
Maxwell Bonnie 05:23
Every business has a seasonality depending on sort of like, who are you selling to and why are they buying from you. You think about it, right? If you're selling to you know, kids going back to school, then your peak season will be when parents are thinking about replenishing their wardrobes, usually right before the beginning of the school year. And then right before the 2nd half of the year, right? If you're a bikini company, your peak seasons, February, April and March.
People, no one says in that order. It's usually February, March, April, but, you know, I'm jumping around. That's your peak season because people are, they've just spent all their time in the gym. Now they want to have their nice bathing suit to get ready for, for their warm travels. And so, and then there's the global peak season in the west, which is, you know, the holiday time, right?
Which is where we are all looking to, you know, buy those gifts for our friends and family. And or to find deals that we've been waiting for all year for that new thing we want for ourselves.
Lori Boyer 06:16
Yeah, peak season to me, for a lot of businesses, it is the Super Bowl and the Miss America pageant and the Olympics and I don't know, all the big things wrapped up into one.
I spoke with a business recently who said 90 percent of their business occurs during peak season. And, and it's huge.
Maxwell Bonnie 06:34
It really is.
Lori Boyer 06:35
So, so for small businesses, the first peak season, as we're talking about, you know, that can be intimidating, scary. Do you have any stories maybe that you can share about a business that experienced their first or one of their first peak seasons?
Maxwell Bonnie 06:51
Yeah, I've you know, it's funny. I've spent the past six years just intimately spending time with thousands of entrepreneurs, and one that really sticks out, there's a brand called Shinery. It's a in home jewelry care business, right? They're the first ones that come up with sort of washing your hands to clean your ring, which is awesome.
And I remember she came in mid October And eyes this big and just tears like, I don't know what to do to get ready for peak season. And, you know, like, my heart started melting for her. Because, like, I have all this stuff and I don't know what to do. Like, I don't know how to communicate. I don't know how to get ready.
What I do with my orders and just it's overwhelming, you know, and I was like, you know what, like, I'm so happy to figure out how to help you. And, you know, I actually asked her for advice recently about, like, how did that go? Right? And like, what made it most successful for you? And she said, you know, really taking time before peak season to optimize and standardize shipping is the most efficient way. And it's crucial for a successful peak season because everything, this is her, you know, her famous words, everything, including your mistakes and inefficiencies will get amplified during time, you know, and especially when you're just, just getting started is your baby, you're doing most of the work yourself.
And we're all imperfect people and so without without having some sort of plan that we can rely upon, it will all be exposed and lots of things kind of fumble going into peak season. And so she said, like, I made all the mistakes my 1st year. And now I know how to just to, like, be proactive as much as possible because that reduces the chances of errors heading into the craziest time where I'm not going to sleep for a month and a half or so.
Lori Boyer 08:26
Okay, I love it. I heard a few really key takeaways that I want everybody to make sure you, you take note of. First, reach out to partnerships. As Maxwell said, she reached out. I don't know what to do. You have a lot of people who have experienced peak season in the past. So reach out to those around you. If you are working with a 3PL, if you are working with software solutions, if you are, whatever it is, somebody has probably got some resources for you.
Get that Boy Scout motto going, be prepared, do everything you can to prepare. But then, the other piece I really loved that you mentioned, Maxwell, was, take it as an opportunity to like see where you do have those blind spots. Instead of freaking out over every little mistake that occurs, just think this is an opportunity for me to fix processes for next year.
So take note of where the mistakes occur and see it in a positive light instead of just doomsday falling apart. Instead, that means next year I'm going to be even better. You said she made all the mistakes the first year, but my hunch will be she'll find some other hidden mistakes, even down the road.
Maxwell Bonnie 09:32
She definitely will. You know, and I love where you ended about sort of you know, put in my words, like, enjoy the journey. One of the best things about growing a brand is, you know, it's, it, you are going on the journey with your company and maybe with your first couple of employees. And so don't take that for granted, really enjoy it.
A, it'll make it like, as opposed to fighting it, it'll make the experience better for you emotionally and psychologically. But two, by enjoying the journey, you're going to learn so much more about your business that you can take and help you grow in the future.
Lori Boyer 10:00
Yeah, I love that. So I really like talking with Maxwell. If you ever get a chance, To connect with him at a show or even on LinkedIn or something. He's so smart. He's so funny. He's so great. But in a previous conversation he and I were once having you said something that really has stuck with me. You said logistics was not built with SMB in mind. I have come back to that statement actually multiple times since you said that to me.
I've mentioned it to other people because I think it's brilliant and it is a big part of the problem that SMBs experience as you go into peak. What do you mean by that? How does that impact SMBs during peak season?
Maxwell Bonnie 10:42
Fundamentally, logistics are about scale. Right? Logistics are about doing something a million times and being perfect, you know, 999, 000 times of that million times. And logistics can be complex.
There's lots of terminology, lots of sort of like key aspects to it that make the big machine work. And they often happen away from where people live, right? So, in my words, that's, it's inflexible, it's inaccessible, and it's sort of like, not human. And SMBs are all the opposite. SMBs are human. SMBs need flexibility.
And then we need accessibility, right? We're like, small businesses can't just take up and bring it to where logistics are. Logistics needs to meet them where they are. And no one you know, like, I've thought about this now for six years. Like, that's a fundamental problem for the success of a small business.
Right. The best technology in the world, the best people are thinking about things. And small business doesn't have access to it, right? Because it's inflexible. It's inaccessible.
Lori Boyer 11:40
I, I, you know, something that's occurred to me since you said that as I've toyed with this just whole idea. It was just really obviously a light bulb moment for me. So the idea that sometimes small business. Ironically enough, as you said, they're the hands on, the all of this. Sometimes they get stuck with picking, as their partners, the very large scale organizations, who honestly, you are, this sounds terrible, my SMBs, you know, I love you, but you're nothing to them.
Right. Sometimes you're going to be better off, I think, going with another sort of smaller business as a partner, yourself, who understands and you are a big part and a big deal to them and they want to hear what's working with you. I don't know. What do you think about that?
Maxwell Bonnie 12:26
I would say, you know, I think fundamentally that's it. Lots of people forget to think about that. And then because it takes a little bit of work, right? It takes, you know, it's easy to Google. I find UPS, I find X company, that whatever. They're paying all the money in the world to be to be in front of your face. And so it's really, really hard to go find the right size fit.
Sometimes it takes a lot of time. And when you're running a small business, you don't have a lot of time. One way I like to think about it is if you, if you are a brand, the brand is very important, right? The unboxing experience, the communications, the timeliness, all of that. You need a, you need a set of services that match your brand experience because you like, you know, because as you're handing off to somebody, you want them to, to your point, care about as much as you do.
And so, the thing about that. You know, one way to think about it is employee to customer ratio. How many employees do I have versus how many customers am I serving? And the higher the ratio that is, meaning if, like, there's one employee only serving three or four customers versus one employee serving 10, 20, 30 customers, the more they're able to have personalized experience.
And if, if you have one employee serving thousands, that's just not going to work for somebody who has, like, wants customization, wants some care, and wants to be flexible and change things. You know, in the moment, right? So if you're a small brand and you're looking for a service provider, it's often time, it's often worth your time to do a little bit of digging and say, like, this is literally who I am and who has, who's the right size business where I can, I know who I can call, right, to get attention. I know I don't like what the SLAs are to change things. If I want to go see something, it's very accessible for me to go see it.
Lori Boyer 14:02
Yeah, absolutely. So I just encourage you, don't be afraid to, you know, experiment, whether it's local and regional carriers or, or whether it's service providers, there are just a lot of options that are probably a better fit for you for many of you than the large organizations who were developed with other large organizations.
Okay, Maxwell, I get a lot of questions around, obviously, one of the biggest challenges businesses face is getting the package from their beautiful little hands to the customer safely, securely, and even more importantly, on time. So, what the heck even is on time? What, what are consumers wanting today? What does that mean to you?
Maxwell Bonnie 14:49
Yes we all know Amazon, right? And the one of the benefits of it is we can press a button and get something sometimes, you know, in five hours, the worst case, quote unquote, is in two days, you know, and that's changed a lot of our behavior. So I'd say, like, that is the working hypothesis for the default of what a customer wants.
But what they actually really want is clear communication and, and something that they can trust. Right? So if you say this is going to be available in two days, they want you to match your promise. If you say it's going to take me a day to provide it and then three days to ship it. Great. Just be very, very clear about that and then ensure that that matches your brand experience.
If you're customizing something or whatever, they're okay if you are like very clear about why it takes whatever time it takes and that you match the promise. So on time is really matching, being clear about what you can deliver and consistently matching that promise. And I would say the more you customize, the more you have a unique brand, the more control you have over how much time it'll take you to like get the product from your hands to your customer.
Lori Boyer 15:51
Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think that we get hung up sometimes on that two day or whatever it is I think that if you're just transparent about being very clear and then following up on that exactly what you just said, that customers are totally fine with that. Now how big of a window?
So that's one of the questions like for me as a customer sometimes I like knowing like oh it's going to be here on Tuesday or on Friday, and sometimes I'll get a oh, it'll come in 3 to 7 business days. And I start to feel like I don't really know what that means. Do you have any recommendations? Is there a recommended window of too long of time?
Maxwell Bonnie 16:27
I think more than a one day window, is much, right? Because we want to know, which should I be home? If I live in a building, like, how do I tell my doorman? If it's a bigger thing or something very special to me, I want to make sure that, you know, there's not a chance that it will go missing when it gets to my door or my front steps.
And so more than a 1 day window. So, 3 to 4 days, you know, 4 to 5 days. That's great. More than that. I think that leads to the sense of, well, will this really be here? And how do I know? You know, and or this customer, does this company know what they're doing, right? So the world has, one of the nice things about the evolution of technology is there are lots of plugins, whether you use WooCommerce, Etsy, Shopify, that sort of, you can display pretty confidently what a cutoff time is for an order and then what that window is.
And then again, you have to make sure that you can match that. Whether if you're doing it yourself, you're in a like a shared warehouse space with a bunch of friends doing it, or you have a 3PL, you want to make sure that the cutoff window is clearly communicated, but then also that time is clear on when they are, when they go to check out and they see what the options are for them.
Lori Boyer 17:36
Yeah. So what would you recommend? So let's say that you'd said it would be there in two to three days and it ends up being four or five. Do you recommend reaching out? I mean, obviously let them know that it's going to be late, but you know, should you offer them an incentive or an apology? How do you manage that when you did, you know, sort of miss the mark?
Maxwell Bonnie 17:55
Yeah, I would say the, to me, this question goes back to brand and lifetime value. Right. If you are a very transactional brand, right, then you like, and that's fine. Like transactional is not meant to be dismissive as much as it's meant to be defining the relationship between yourself and your customer, right. Where you get lots of customers and then most of them don't come back and they're just buying a thing they really want really quickly versus a brand that has like lots of loyalty over time.
So your response should match your experience with your target customer, your desired experiences. Transactional brand, hey, sorry, here's where it's going to be. Here's 50 percent off, you know, with a simple, you use your code and boom, right? It's very simple, easy, clear, right? The, the more customized brands, your message should have some authenticity to them and then give them a reason to sort of like extend the relationship with you through that.
I built, I had one part of my career was in customer support. And the thing I learned is every time you make a mistake is an opportunity to like reinvest in that relationship with that customer. And brands don't take the time to do that. And it's actually one of the pleasures of having a small business is that you can do that yourself.
You can literally write the, write the templated email or write the email yourself and say, hey, we had an issue, you know, factory had a flood or whatever happened, your package will be two days. That is not what we expect. Two days late. That's not what we expect. Not the norm. But it happened this time.
Really sorry about that. You know, for your next three offers, we're happy to give you 15 percent off or this custom thing, whatever. It's just something that like shows I'm investing in this relationship long term. And put that in the messaging. That matches your brand experience, the customer would love it.
Lori Boyer 19:32
Okay, that was huge. And honestly, if our viewers only come away with that, you have killed it. Think of those mistakes, again, as an opportunity to improve your relationship. A mistake can actually be turned into a way that you make somebody more loyal and, and really wow and excite them in a way that they're not used to from other brands, especially the big name brands. So wow, that was really insightful.
I loved that. Thank you. So Let's talk 2024. So your second takeaway was, you know, understanding first, we kind of learned what peak season is. We've got that under our belt. 2024. What things are you seeing coming with 2024 that are different? You know, we've got a laundry list I think we can go through here, Maxwell, but what should people expect?
Maxwell Bonnie 20:25
So we talked about, you know, peak season, all this buying activity. This is going to be one of the shortest peak seasons in terms of operating days in recent history. What does that mean, right? Really, basically, what we're saying is, if you think about peak season between the, the peak of peak season, no pun intended between Thanksgiving and the end of Christmas, there are 17 operating days.
Between that period of time. That is, normally it's 20 to 21 days. There are only 17 operating days. That means the same amount of activity, buying, shipping, packing, sorting, delivery, all of that. The same amount of activity normally happens in 20, 21 days. It's going to happen in 17 days. And then including to that is like, you know, this is going to be a record year for ecommerce.
Then, you know, every year is getting more and more ecommerce. So there's going to be even more packages than normal during a shorter period of time. That's going to translate to a little bit of a mess this year. That's right. It's going to translate to I would say you can expect a slightly higher delay time in terms of when orders, like how orders either might get lost, or just like if if, if any provider is 99.2% on time, that 0. 8% is actually going to turn to a decent amount of packages of when they are off time. Another thing that is changing this year that's going to make this shortened peak season tough is the Post Office is going through a 10 year plan right now, where they're just trying to revamp the Post Office, make it more operationally efficient and very frankly, stop losing money, right?
That's really what the 10 year plan is about. So they're making changes to improve their, what their value chain and one of the changes they've made is really reducing the amount of places and increasing the cost that people can what's called inject packages into the Post Office. Meaning the Post Office is one of the best in the world.
It is the best in the world of delivering packages to any address in the United States. A lot of carriers, you know, UPS, FedEx, DHL used the Post Office to do some last mile delivery and then big brands often go directly to Post Office, Walmart, that sort of thing. Post Office said, great we're going to make some changes and those changes are going to affect now and that's going to, we're really going to feel the pain of it during peak season.
And so two things are going to happen. It's going to be a glut of activity in the same amount of space in less days. So that's going to lead to again, delays and more errors. And then two, brands are going to be shifting a little bit away from the Post Office and go trying to go directly to FedEx and UPS to sort of mitigate that risk.
So, then that means FedEx and UPS are going to be busier than they've ever been in previous years as well. And those big brands are going to get their on time delivery. Us small guys, they're going to forget about us a little bit because we're not the ones paying the millions of dollars to deliver packages to them.
And so, in short story, short heightened peak season, potentially lots of errors, and then the big guys are going to be very, very busy. And so, the advice there is for this peak season, see if you can diversify the mix of carriers that you can use for different ways to get the packages to your customer.
And then two, think about shipping earlier, right? Having earlier cutoff times than normal with your holiday orders to ensure that you build in some buffer so that your customer gets the package on time to have underneath the tree, underneath the mantle, whatever they do for the holidays.
Lori Boyer 23:43
Yeah, I think everything you said, spot on, and I want to get a little bit more into diversification of our carrier mix and multi carriers and how you manage that. But, you know, kind of going back to what you said earlier about creating a great experience. Plan now for if packages are late, what is it, what is your game plan? How are you approaching that assuming as as Maxwell said, you know, we may have a little bit of a higher rate of some of those. So how are you going to approach it if your package is late?
And I would think as well maybe a little bit of a suggestion reminding. As a consumer sometimes we just in our minds think of black friday to christmas as being just this straight period. Maybe reminding some of your customers if you have a list or you have social media following of hey, it's you know, Chris, thanksgiving's late this year.
Maybe you want to get a little shopping in early. Anything you can do to educate customers is always great. But let's talk multi carrier. What can, how, how do SMBs best take advantage of diversifying their carriers? I think I read something online once that said a small business feels like, oh, well, if I just picked FedEx as my carrier or UPS or, you know, any of the big ones and there's a mistake, nobody's going to get mad at me.
But if I've picked somebody else, then I'm scared. And they'll be like, why did you pick this person? And I, so sometimes those fears again, get us just stuck with, I'll just pick the big person. How can, how can they navigate the whole world of picking a multi carrier mix?
Maxwell Bonnie 25:13
Yeah, and this is one of those places where, like we talked about in the beginning, logistics can be complex and hard to understand. And then hence, you don't always make the right decision for yourself if you don't understand. So, happy to spend a couple minutes here. So, I think about carriers, right? People who take your small packages from what's called distribution center and deliver to the door of your customer. There's three buckets.
There are like the big three carriers, like we all know, FedEx, UBS, And the Post Office, then there are what's called emerging carriers. These are creative companies, usually veterans who've left some of the bigger companies who are using a mix of different technology and different ways to think about delivering packages to have an advantage over the big three.
And that advantage usually comes with a little bit of cheaper cost and more visibility. And there are what's called regional carriers, right? A set of a set of companies who specialize in only delivering in the Southeast or only doing runs from New York to Boston, or only doing I5 in California, where their advantage there is, I'm very, very good at doing this one region, we know the region very well, and then hence, we can deliver excellence at a reasonable cost for you.
Right, so those are, that's the three buckets of the carry mix. So then the question becomes, okay, great, those are three buckets. What do I do about that? Right? So the best thing to do is to ensure that you're where, however, you purchase labels, whether that's on your own through through through an app, whether that's through your 3rd party logistics provider, that that technology they use has access to all of the calories that are available, right? All these, all these carriers now are very tech forward. They all have, you know, things called APIs and connections, whatever that is, right? Technical term is they are, you are able to purchase a label in one digital platform from any carrier. And then also make sure that technology has what's called some logic, right?
Where you can apply rules. That's a this is what I want. I want to optimize for speed or costs or weight and then pick the right carrier that matches the rules that you want. And so that's the thing, right? It's those 3 big buckets for your business itself. You say, do I have technology I'm using that gives me access to these carriers?
And then do I understand what am I trying to optimize for? Right? Do I have heavy packages? I want to optimize for care. Do I have oblong packages and I want to optimize for minimizing the cost of shipping something oblong, but ensuring it still gets there on time? Or are all my customers actually, do I have a local brand?
And a lot of my customers are actually within 100 miles of me. Okay, maybe then, actually I need to look at a regional carrier. Because I am sending something to a national brand that's bringing it right back locally. I'm paying too much money for that.
Lori Boyer 27:48
Yeah, it's exactly right on. I think that sometimes that can sound complicated, but you know, there is technology as, you know, EasyPost obviously is just an example, but where you simply, you just get this one account and then you can access all the different carriers.
You don't have to get a million APIs. It's not as technically difficult. You use technology to simplify all of this for you. There's a lot of options available for you. Do you have any examples of, you know, maybe a small business who has used the multi carrier diversification strategy?
Maxwell Bonnie 28:18
Yes, there's a really awesome home goods brand we've worked with for three years. And they were going through this process as they were growing, realizing, wait, I have orders that are sub one pound. And then I have, that's about 50 percent of my orders. And I have another set of orders that are between two and five pounds. Right, and if you think about the carriers, carriers charge you for the weight of your packages and the size, right?
There's a thing called DIM weight, right? And we have to go into deeper into that. It's a weird made up term in logistics. But essentially they just say how big and heavy is your package and then boom, we're gonna charge you whatever's higher, not whatever's lower. And so this company realized that, okay, I have this, this pattern is emerging of sub one pound things, very small and easy and then two to five pound things.
And so what they did is they went into their shipping application and they said, great, I'm going to set rules that anytime I have something less than a pound, I'm going to use USPS Ground Saver, right? USPS is the best for like less than a pound if you are not optimizing for the next day. And set up a simple rule, less than a pound, USPS Ground Saver.
And then they did all their packages two to five, two to five pounds set up a rule where they're going to use OnTrac to set up those packages there, right? They did that. They just rate shops, look at the history and said, great, OnTrac, by and large, gives me the best rate for these, you know, two to five pound orders.
Some of them set a rule on my technology that led to about 10% increase to the bottom line for their orders that are two to five pounds, right? 10%. Sure, like, oh, does that sound a lot? It actually is a lot of money. If you think about sort of like, how much it costs after your cost of goods to sort of store, handle, and ship products.
And so they were able to just by adjusting the carriers add an additional 10 percent to the bottom line in two to five pound orders by doing that. It was really awesome to see
Lori Boyer 30:07
I there's so many examples exactly like that where you can find ways to save money. A lot of times I feel like SMBs I was at a show recently and actually was speaking with a large carrier and they had shared with me how you know a lot of SMBs will will see a certain rate. They see just the advertised rate and then they find just a slightly lower rate and they're like, oh great I saved some money. But they didn't know that there are a lot more rate options that are available.
And so that rate shopping really is critical. You can find out. It can make a huge difference for you in your bottom line. So I often hear as well questions about how do you balance being really cost sensitive, trying to cut your costs and be really good that way with the customer experience in general. Do you have any just sort of tips for our businesses out there?
Maxwell Bonnie 30:59
Yeah, I would actually say this is the one of the more complex questions to answer, right. Because if you're a small business, you know, the number one thing for you is make sure you don't run out of cash as you're looking to invest in your business. And so you could spend all the money in the world having the best packaging, the fastest cost, whatever.
But like, if you don't have enough cash, you know, from your free cash flow in your business to do that. It probably doesn't make sense. And most of us, unless you're selling diamonds online, you know, not like do not have the free cash flow in your business to optimize for everything. So the first thing I would say is what does your, what is the most important part of your brand experience to your customer? Right. I would understand that.
Lori Boyer 31:40
What are some examples?
Maxwell Bonnie 31:43
Yeah, so if you sell pillows, right your customer, your customer does not care about the unboxing experience of a pillow, right? They really don't care, right? They, you can shrink wrap it, get it, you know, suck all the air out, get it into the smallest package as possible.
And that that pillow will not be damaged if it's in a softer versus a hard package, right? And so then you can reduce weight that you can put in a poly bag and then like, you know, vacuum seal to get all the air out. They, the customer just wants when the pillow gets out of that package, doesn't smell. And it's like, when they rest their head on it, it it's like, it's going to be comfortable and they can fit whatever size king or queen size or they want. Right. That's on the pillow side. If you, you know you know, custom sneakers, right. Where there's like different tissue paper and then the you want the sneaker to like present a certain way when you open the box. And then your branding and the tape all that.
Okay, great. What do you really care about there is ensuring that the packaging maintains the shape of the shoe, obviously, and the thing doesn't move in the packaging that when they open it. Right. They're like, oh, great. That's what I bought. I saw that thing online. It's a shoe. And now I am so proud of myself for buying this thing when I open it up.
Great. Okay. So then there you need to understand, okay, like I'm going to make sure that my pricing model accounts for the cost to fully ship this beautiful brand experience to my customer.
Lori Boyer 33:06
And especially understand what that unboxing experience should look like is your first step to know where you might want to put money and where you might want to spend it. Anything else around saving money?
Maxwell Bonnie 33:15
There's a really weird, interesting rule for most carriers. There's the rule of 32. Basically, anything greater than 32 inches. Like in length, length or width, but really like, well, length. Or automatically go into a special tier pricing that drastically jumps up the price per order of shipping.
That's because of the, you know, they use sorting machines and they're a certain size and they want to make sure they can take a box or any sort of package, put it in the machine, let it just run through seamlessly through the processing. So, I would totally say, like, if you have any large or items, things that need to be rolled up, things that need to kind of be laid, lay flat.
We try to keep the packaging size to 32 inches or less in terms, in length. And then that you will not be penalized for it, right? You know, like it may be hard. Say you're like, oh, I, you know, I have this poster and it's 8 feet by 6 feet. Okay. All right. They may be hard to figure out how to roll that less than 32 inches, but we can probably figure out creative, creative things to do.
But most of us have the ability to make sure we're keeping our packages below that rule of 32. And that just like found money if you're not thinking about that right now.
Lori Boyer 34:22
Yeah, that's fantastic. The rule of 32. Keep that, write that down. Remember it. Let's talk in general about the shipping experience. What are some ways that SMBs can make a really great shipping experience for their customers? What are, what are consumers really looking for?
Maxwell Bonnie 34:38
Oh, man, they're looking for everything. They don't want to pay for it. That's the same. The noncynical version is as a small brand, you have ways to experiment and to sort of delight them while while sort of like controlling your costs.
So one of them is sort of like, you know, gamifying and or encouraging or your customers to bundle items together. Right. And so there's lots of plugins now in, on all the major shipping, but major ecommerce platforms where you can sort of have a, you know, hit the 75 dollar, hundred dollar mark, and sort of unlock, you know, free shipping. But also in the buying experience, show a little heat meter or show them how much money they would save if they go to that next thing. So they feel good about buying another item, you know,
Lori Boyer 35:21
I totally get sucked in by those. I totally get sucked in. So yeah, gamify, encourage people. Love it. Okay. What else?
Maxwell Bonnie 35:29
In relation displaying flexible shipping options on the checkout, you know, and be very transparent about that. But like, hey, there's this free option.
Great. It's going to take three to five days. But if you're really in a rush, you know, if you want to really don't, you know, surprise your partner in two days for 7 dollars, they'll be the happiest person in the world, you know, and just like displaying those really clear options, which is like sort of, I think oftentimes we feel afraid to show as a small business, like, will they value, will they not buy if I show them in full price?
If you communicate it very clearly, customers are very happy that they understand what it is, and then they have the choice, and now they've made the choice, and you've given them the option to flex their own independence, and they'll, they'll thank you for that.
Lori Boyer 36:09
Yeah, I, I completely agree. Giving options is so great. That can cover so many things, from whether it's you know, whether you offer insurance to cover your packages, whether you, you know, are offering free shipping versus, oh, well, you could get it later, but it's going to cost a little money or whatever it is, customers appreciate options. So I totally agree with that.
Maxwell Bonnie 36:30
I want to add to that. There's a big debate. You show all the options at once, or do you have multiple screens? There is no easy answer. I think the answer is like, what do you want the buying experience to be for your customer? What fits? If customers mostly on mobile and and it's like a very quick process to get something from the website into the cart.
Then you probably want a very, like, fast way to go through to get the different options. If it's a much more considered purchase where they're browsing oftentimes, they'll have multiple things in the cart, take two or three things out, then you can have a bit more of a prolonged process because that's a more thoughtful buying experience, so you're matching them where they are.
Right, so there's no easy, should I show all the options at one time, should I have multiple screens? It is what's the user experience you're looking to give to your customer and then match that checkout experience to that.
Lori Boyer 37:19
Yeah. And I completely, I just want to echo that. You've got to know your audience, you know, Maxwell and I can't get into every little niche market.
So you need to understand your customers. You need to understand what it is, as you said, are they mobile? Are they buying things on their computer? Are they older? Are they younger? But also then test. You know, it's, don't feel bad about doing some testing. That's great. Try it one way and if it's not going well, switch it up and try something else.
So, that's all part of that experimentation and, and the learning that you mentioned earlier, that all of the mistakes or challenges you see are opportunities to just kind of optimize and hone in what you are doing.
Maxwell Bonnie 38:01
Exactly right.
Lori Boyer 38:02
Okay, awesome. So, we're running up on time, so it's just been, there have been so many incredible takeaways you could have from today. But there's a couple of things I want to go into. First, if you have any final tips, any, you know, last things, and then also, I would love to hear a little bit more if you want to share a little bit about Saltbox and about what you do to help SMBs and, and how they could reach out to you if they're interested in learning more about you.
Maxwell Bonnie 38:28
There's a famous quote, plans are worthless, but planning is everything. Dwight D. Eisenhower, World War II. I, I've kind of lived by that motto right now, right? You need some sort of plan, but know that it's not going to go to plan. And that is completely okay, but take the time to put something on paper so that you are prepared for this season, right?
Even if it's a half an hour, and it's just a piece of white paper that you put on the wall to if you're like Excel, you want to plan everything out with multiple conditions. Whatever it is, create a plan, but also know it's not going to go to plan, but you can respond so much better and you'll be mentally at ease if you have some sort of plan and you're going into the peak season, but.
Lori Boyer 39:05
Mic drop. That is so true. Love that. And tell us about Saltbox and how to get a hold of you.
Maxwell Bonnie 39:12
Yeah, so you can reach out to myself directly I'm, very happy to talk to anybody about logistics and sort of helping grow and scale the operations of your brand. That's why we started this business, right?
We want to be accessible and flexible. And sort of invest in sort of how do I actually make smart decisions to grow? You know, I want to measure the success of Saltbox by how many brands do we change their failure rate, right? Do we say that, like, we helped them have more working capital in their business and reach, like, demanding customers while being a good operating partner?
So you can directly email me anytime, maxwell@saltbox.com, or you can just reach out directly to our team, info.saltbox.com, and just start with a question. Hey, I am in X position and I'm looking to achieve Y, and how can Saltbox help me? And we'll be happy to answer that question and engage with you in a conversation.
Lori Boyer 39:59
Yeah, and I love working with Maxwell. He is who he says he is, he's transparent. And he's gonna tell you, we'll work well for you, we won't work well for you. Here's suggestions of what you can do. That's one of the other final takeaways. I want to say for all of you, reach out to the resources that are available in the industry. There are so many who do know so much and are willing to help just like Maxwell.
So give Saltbox a look. Thank you so much for all of the amazing insight you gave us today so so just pleased to have you on.
Maxwell Bonnie 40:33
I really enjoyed the conversation. This is awesome I'll do it, I'll do this as many times as you'd like.
Lori Boyer 40:37
Okay, I may take you up on that. So we'll see everybody next time. Thanks so much.