Lori Boyer 00:00
Welcome everyone to Unboxing Logistics. Have we got something in store for you today? We are gonna be doing an EasyPost Insider episode. You guys know it, you know him, you love him. Those are the episodes where we kind of talk EasyPost specific. I’ve brought on the amazing Joe Dieter from product to talk to us, but I wanted to give you a heads up.
This episode was so full of incredible tips, amazing ideas of ways for you, if you are an EasyPost customer, to use EasyPost this peak season. Or if you’re not to, of course, welcome, we’d love to have you. But we’re gonna split it into two different episodes. So today is episode one. Next week, keep your calendar, you know, marked because we’re gonna get into episode two and we’re gonna be talking about all the really cool ways that you can take advantage of EasyPosts to just have an incredible peak 2025.
You’re not gonna wanna miss it. So, Joe, to kick things off.
Joe Dieter 01:02
Yes.
Lori Boyer 01:03
First of all, give everyone a tiny bit of background about your role here at EasyPost. And then I know that one of your big, you know, spoiler alert for everyone, but one of the big things Joe does is speak with customers a lot. And so I would love to hear kind of what’s the mood on the street?
What, what are people worried about? And, and what are you hearing? So take it away.
Joe Dieter 01:24
Sure. Yeah. So I lead our product marketing team. Here at EasyPost. And what are we hearing from customers? We’re hearing lots of things. Lori, as you were hinting at this peak season is unique and as a matter of fact, someone that we’re not working with yet, a, a newer shipper that I think we’re gonna be working with said it well, they said, you know, to be honest, we’re looking at the whole situation of the months ahead, and it feels different compared to last peak season or the peak season prior.
This peak season feels different now. What do they mean, it feels different? Lori, you and I know there’s a lot of things they’re implying there. We have rising costs. We know kind of every angle of what it means to get a shipment out the door is more expensive. It, it appears we have new peak season surcharges. Every peak season over the past several years. Those little surcharges for major carriers have increased year over year, and they have yet again this year. We of course have newer interesting things like tariffs. We have not faced a peak season with a tariff situation like we have. We also have like new dimensional weight roundups, right?
So now we’re rounding up to the nearest inch for certain carriers, and that’s going to mean tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars and more costs for certain shippers. So when someone says, hey, this peak season, this peak season feels different, yeah. Like on a, on a practical level, it’s different because there’s all these different costs associated with shipping as peak is is on, on kinda one hand.
There’s also another element that in spite of rising costs and new things to consider, you also have the consumer, the shopper, who also has said, this is a little bit different, this peak season for us, this holiday season, how we’re going to spend, or we’re going to be maybe a little bit more cost conscious.
We’re maybe going to hold on to more of our dollars. That that makes sense. You also though have consumers who expect speed nonetheless. They expect to be able to get the best shipping prices ever while also getting it faster than ever. And this is why you have innovative carriers like Walmart, who are actually retailers, but they’re really innovative carriers.
Like Walmart is saying, hey, we’re hitting 93% of U.S. households with same day delivery, and we want to increase that across the months and years ahead you have Amazon, you know, investing in several thousand rural areas to make sure they get kind of same day next day delivery. What about for everyone that’s not Walmart and Amazon?
What about for all the sellers and shippers out there that are saying, how do we rise to the occasion and meet these very high expectations while having all these new fun types of costs? How do you shoulder all that? So how do you face a peak season, unlike probably one we’ve ever faced? That, so probably more than you, more than you wanted, but that’s how I’d kind of summarize some of the conversations you’re hearing, especially with newer companies that approach us right now and say, hey, what, what, what do we do as we face kind of a very unique circumstance in, in the months ahead?
Lori Boyer 04:21
Yeah, I love it. ‘Cause in some ways. You know, as you said, that was a lot of information and I think that’s really what our shippers are feeling. They’re feeling overwhelmed with so many variables being thrown at them. They’re feeling that pressure of the, the demand is still there. And I am so guilty. I feel guilty every time you talk about it.
‘Cause I’m also a consumer and a mom and I shop online. And so I do have those high demands and, and yeah. So let’s break these down one by one so that we can kind of focus on them a little by little and kind of discuss some of the options that are out there for people. I’d really love to start with consumer demand.
We’ve done a few different surveys, and consumer demand has been one of the top areas that people have been worried as we moving into peak and rightly so. A study just recently came out that 49% of consumers say they’re planning to spend less or as little as possible in this upcoming peak season.
Interestingly, data hasn’t shown the spending slowing down too much. We’ve seen a little bit, but not too much. And so it’s just that uncertainty. It can be really hard for shippers to know how to prepare. Are there some tips? Are there tools? Are there ways to use EasyPost that can help shippers prepare for, you know, unpredictable demand and, you know, stay flexible when consumers keep sort of changing their mind about what they’re gonna do.
Joe Dieter 05:45
Yeah, no, it’s, it’s the golden question, right? As we go into the holiday season I, I think one thing, big picture, it’s a little bit more philosophical, is if you are shipping this holiday season, embrace the reality of volatility, embrace uncertainty. To your point we have data that shows we think consumers might be spending a little bit less.
We don’t know for sure, but this is kind of, this is the one tried and true thing that every peak season, every shipper will face. And that is one week, one day you might have a surge. The next week you might be seeing lower volume of orders and shipments than even expected. And the one thing that is tried and true of any peak season is expect the unexpected and be ready.
And that’s the key. You will not be able to perfectly forecast this peak season. We’re hearing that from lots of shippers and even some of the biggest sellers in the world where maybe in holiday seasons past, they felt pretty confident on what was going to happen. We hear for more and more shippers, there’s a few wild cards in place, so.
Do you have the systems in place? Do you have the operation in place that can really roll with the unexpected? And, and that’s, I, I think, kind of the best you can do. Be at peace with, you are not in control of everything that’s about to happen this holiday season. We hope everyone closes a ton of business and takes away a ton of profit.
That should be the goal of any online seller, for example. But do you have the right systems in place to roll with the unexpected? And, you know, in, in our end, selfishly, we know this is why a lot of folks work with us. We know this is why thousands of sellers and shippers across the globe and some of the largest marketplaces and sellers in the world work with EasyPost during peak season.
And there’s a few things there of, of why they do. Number one, one way to roll with change is to have a really reliable way to generate shipping labels online. So if you need to make sure there’s no, what we call downtime during peak season. You need to be using the one company that has gone through the past several peak seasons at 99.99% reliability. We like to brag about it, but it’s true. Third parties have confirmed there’s been no other solution out there when it comes to how do I have an API access point to 100 plus carriers? How am I able to choose the carriers I wanna work with as peak season and hopefully have multiple carriers lined up in case there’s volume constraints with certain carriers.
How do I get that with consistent uptime throughout the entirety of everything the peak season experience is gonna throw at me. EasyPost is the one company that has preserved 99.99% reliability over the past several peak seasons. It’s hard to pull off, and we have, but there’s a new thing we’re bringing to the table that really helps remind shippers of the types of carriers they, they might wanna work with.
And it’s called EasyPost Wallet. EasyPost Wallet is a new offering we have that allows you to get discounted rates no matter what size shipper you are, but also most importantly, perhaps, allows you to have a much more seamless, less overhead type experience as you ship with certain carriers. Everyone during Peak wants to go with reliable, trusted carriers.
I’m talking USPS and UPS and FedEx and DHL and even if internationally Canada you know, Canada Post and we have a few others. These sorts of carriers are most easily partnered with through EasyPost Wallet. We’re we’re observing. EasyPost Wallet is going to allow you to work with multiple carriers.
The exact ones you wanna work with during peak while having one invoice, one billing experience. It’s also a huge step for shippers, let’s say from smaller shippers to mid-market shippers if they were to go to one of these major carriers directly, the reality is they’re not the priority of these huge, incredible carriers, so they’re not gonna get the best rates.
They might get near what we call retail rates. That’s just reality. They’re not gonna be taken care of as something goes wrong. They’re not gonna be able to reach out and, and have support tickets or issues quickly handled. What you need is a trusted partner, like EasyPosts that removes the friction of working directly with multiple carriers but allows you to almost have this enterprise grade carrier experience. And so that’s what shipping with our Wallet Carriers gives you. You will pay less in shipping with our discount rates, but you also have way less overhead, way less time and money of really doing everything you need to do to ship with the major carriers during peak during the holiday season.
Another element of it, of it is this peak, are you AI powered in the decisions you’re making of how you wanna ship? So, are you actually choosing the right carrier and service level to begin with? What happens through the holiday season is shippers tend to go with their tried and true single carrier option historically.
The average story was this. We’re headed into the holiday season. The most important time of the year. We’re an online seller, and several years ago we signed a deal with fill in the blank major carrier, and we will continue to ship with them no matter what happens, because that’s all we’ve ever known. We ship with this carrier, they’re the ones we rely on.
But guess what’s going to happen? A lot of people are shipping through that carrier. There’s going to be volume constraints. There’s going to be downtime. And then you’re left saying, oh, wow, I need a backup and I need it now. This is why the world of multi-carrier shipping is our table stakes. If you are not multi-carrier how you’re approaching this peak, you are going to be exposed, you’re gonna be vulnerable when it matters most, when you have the most ex exciting amount of demand. When you’re making the most amount of revenue as an online seller this holiday season, are you going to have downtime and we’ll get into, are you going to have a lot of angry customers?
Are you going to have a lot of customers that churn and never buy from you again because you had backup? You had constraints, you weren’t ready, you were beholden to one carrier. So this is the other element of if you are AI powered in how you make your shipping decisions, you’re going to be able to have a tool like Luma.
Luma came out this year. It’s already being enjoyed by lots of shippers we work with because it allows them to look at, according to the data, here’s the best carrier and service level, this peak. And we’re seeing all sorts of insights that Loom is yielding for shippers. Certain shippers were really expecting they were going to ship with certain carriers and service levels for ground or two day or next day.
They’re now realizing Luma is revealing, they should be shipping to certain parts of the country during certain times of the year. If they’re shipping certain types of packages with a new particular carrier or service level, they never would’ve considered. And if they do that, they will save hundreds of thousands.
In some cases, we’re seeing towards millions of dollars in savings, and they’re actually gonna save a couple days in transit. We had a shipper who recently discovered they should be using a more economical carrier and near ground coverage to get expedite, what they consider expedited shipping. Now I bring this up ’cause what happens during peak season is a lot of shippers say we wanna be fast, we wanna be like the Walmarts and the Amazons and the next day.
So they go with a really premium, great carrier experience just to realize where they tend to ship during the holiday season, they could get there even more efficiently, get even a better time in transit and actually pay less in rates if they go with another carrier they did not expect to go with at all.
So probably giving you more nuance than than we wanted to on this question, but.
Lori Boyer 13:08
I love that. I just wanna follow that up with a couple of things that I hear frequently from, from our, our family out there. Our Unboxing Logistics family get questions. First of all, Wallet, it does not cost extra if you sign up with EasyPost to use Wallet Carriers, that’s part of the part and parcel you just, that’s part of of who we are, is you can have access to these Wallet Carriers.
We’re gonna talk a little bit later about having a multi-carrier strategy. You touched on that so well, Joe. It is critical in today’s day and age. As we talked about these microsurges, the big surges ’cause some YouTubers used your product or you know, the unexpected demand and those mid-level shippers, you are often not the priority, as Joe pointed out.
But being able to switch some of your volume around is important, but people ask me a lot, well, if I split up my volume, what is that gonna do to rates and whatnot? And that is where these Wallet Carriers and the already negotiated rates by EasyPost come into play, so that if you do split up your volume between different carriers, then you’re not gonna suddenly not have a good rate because of that, we’ve negotiated those rates kind of on the wholesale side, so. Those are a couple of things I always get around. Then another question though I have for you, Joe, is here in our community, we also have people listening who are marketplaces or who are platforms, things like that. Maybe not just your typical ecommerce shipper.
Is there a way to address these kind of issues for them?
Joe Dieter 14:40
We’re currently working with some of the largest, even the largest marketplace in the world, right? To your point at EasyPost. And so we get to see this firsthand. What happens with marketplaces during peak, it’s, it’s as you’d assume, they’re sitting here responsible for all the sellers on their platform, and thus they’re responsible for all the end consumers that are buying from all those sellers.
We know one of the number one reasons why consumers are angry during the holiday season is actually tracing back to the shipping experience, especially for these big marketplaces. These big marketplaces do an incredible job of being a marketplace, of allowing for the trading, the transaction of all the world’s goods and all, all the holiday gifts, but at their core, they weren’t about a shipping operation, so we created something called Forge. And we released this this year and it’s been a really popular solution for us. What Forge is, it allows any marketplace or 3PL or really any company that has other businesses or other sellers relying on them for shipping.
Forge allows a marketplace to instantly set up the most reliable shipping software you could possibly offer all the sellers, all the companies relying on your platform. So for example, let’s say you’re a big marketplace this holiday season, you should be focused on doing what you do best. It’s mostly around facilitating merchandising and selling for all your sellers.
You should not be focused on trying to build your own 99% reliable shipping APIs that connect to a hundred plus carriers that allow all of your sellers to be multi-carrier. What instead happens a lot of the time, if you don’t have a platform like Forge, is you are going right up to the brink of peak season and you’re a marketplace and you realize you have old kind of antiquated integrations with certain carriers.
You realize you have a lot of sellers dependent on one carrier that’s about to have major downtime or volume constraints. You realize you have a lot of sellers who have angry customers and you’re getting flooded with all these customer care issues. You realize you don’t have any sort of AI powered intelligence to recommend to all your sellers.
What carriers and service levels should they be using for their particular need? You realize you are juggling specific carrier invoices from all your sellers. You realize as a marketplace, you’re caught in the middle having to be this logistics supply chain expert. And that’s not your kind of that that’s not your ultimate talent as a marketplace at all.
That’s not what you should be focused on. And so this is kind of a, a tragedy we see a lot, especially during the holiday season this comes to a head. Where some fantastic marketplaces and, and we work with some big ones. We also work with some new you know, brand new propped up marketplaces. Who, they come to us and say, listen, I don’t know the world of logistics software. I don’t know the best way for all of my sellers to generate a shipping label online. I don’t know about address verification. I know I don’t know about realtime tracking, let alone branded tracking. We’ll get into that. I don’t know about shipping insurance.
We had some of the largest marketplaces in the world come to us over the past couple years and say, listen, we were gonna build our own shipping insurance ’cause we had so many failed deliveries and, and kind of shipment crises across our thousands of sellers. We looked across the market and realized you guys have built the most hassle-free insurance, so can we use yours?
That’s at the core of Forge. Forge is a way where you take the most reliable software from EasyPost and you extend it to any company that needs it in a matter of minutes. Now it’s considered white labeling. I want to be clear, when we talk about Forge, really saying that you get ti put your brand name, you get to, you could to kind of put your marketplace experience around our great software that thousands of shippers already rely on.
But that’s, that’s going to be the key. If you’re a marketplace, this peak, you have a lot of sellers and all their end consumers relying on you. And the number one reason consumers aren’t gonna be happy and not gonna buy from your sellers again, is often shipping related. If something is difficult, if something doesn’t work out, if they don’t have timely notifications.
If they don’t have easy hassle-free claims and protection, consumers have spoken, they will go elsewhere quickly and they’ll probably write an angry social media post about you online. So work, work with the most reliable logistics software company. If, if we can be, you know, so forward work, work with EasyPost, we’ve we’re the source behind a lot of the shipping for a lot of the marketplaces and sellers this holiday season.
That’s just reality. So we can get you set up now, in time for peak.
Lori Boyer 19:08
I love that Joe. I love Joe’s passion. You gotta love Joe. He loves EasyPost. He is our biggest EasyPost advocate out there, but in I, I, he applaud him. He does such good work in getting his message out. Platforms, marketplaces, a couple of things there that I really love that Joe mentioned.
This is your opportunity to really set yourself apart for your sellers. That’s so critical right now. That’s what we’re seeing with marketplaces. You can make their life so easy and that’s what keeps them around, right? And so yeah, Forge has really been very, very popular. I love how Joe kinda let you peek behind the curtain and say, hey a lot of marketplaces really are just using EasyPost.
So if you’re looking over and thinking, man, how do they do all that? It’s because they’re, they’re taking the credit for the incredible stuff that EasyPost does on the shipping side, and you’re able to take advantage of it.
Joe Dieter 20:05
As you’re talking, one thing we should note too, we just brought in AI powered shipping into Forge, and this has been a big request from some of the biggest marketplaces we work with.
They saw our new AI powered shipping tool called Luma. They saw how Luma tells any seller, here’s the carrier and service level that’s gonna be most economical. It’s gonna be the fastest time in transit you should be using. All these marketplaces said, wow, we wish we had that sagelike wisdom. We, we want to be the ultimate advisor to all of our sellers by not just giving them a way to ship and fulfill, but telling them exactly how to ship and fulfill.
And they’re saying, look, we, we don’t have that. And our competitors also don’t have AI powered recommendations for all of our sellers. They said, all of our sellers are different. We’ve just been getting sweeping kind of instructions where a lot of our, our sellers are overly beholden on a couple carriers, and then all of them at the same time have the same issue.
And so we really love the power of Luma being able to allow us as a marketplace to be the shipping expert. We’re not shipping experts. We’re, we’re a marketplace. We’re sellers, we’re merchandisers. We don’t, you know, we don’t know. But with Luma, all of a sudden overnight we get to position ourselves as being the all-knowing AI powered advisor of how each of our individual sellers are gonna make the most amount of money and have the fastest time in transit and kind of have that Amazon, Walmart, shipping experience.
We can do that with a tool like Luma, so that, that’s now embedded within Forge. You get that within Forge. And, and that’ll be, it’s gonna be a game changer for a lot of our marketplaces. I just wanted to say that this peak, so.
Lori Boyer 21:35
That was so huge, such a huge addition. I wanna mention as well, we have a, another EasyPost Insider past episode where we talked Forge.
Super popular episode thousands of views on that. So I, I’ll link to that in the comments, but you can or in the show notes. So go ahead and check that out. Learn about Forge, Forge for marketplaces. It, it, it really is an incredible product. Okay, so Joe, moving on from kind of that, how do we manage unpredictable delivery?
I wanna talk about delivery speed. Okay. I am a person who wants things fast and wants them yesterday, and all the community here knows I got a bazillion children. Seven. Feels like a bazillion. But boy, I have things down in the holidays to a spreadsheet minute by minute almost. When are things arriving?
How am I making sure. If anything falls apart, there’s chaos at the Boyer household, so. Delivery speed. I’m probably driving it myself. We got a few stats here. It says, over the past five years, same day shipping demand has grown 164%. Next day demand, 58%. Think this is, you know, we already wanted a lot, a few years ago. 84% of merchants out there are saying, this is driving up our costs, you know, six figures plus simply trying to get the packages to people quickly. Especially in a peak season like this where people are already being picky and already being like, I don’t know where I wanna spend my precious dollars. How, how can shippers manage these high fast delivery speed expectations?
Stay on their timeline and not blow their budget. It’s a constant balance. So how can we address that, Joe?
Joe Dieter 23:36
Yes. I mean, first off, just to highlight your point speed matters. You already see, as we mentioned, those big retailers, those innovative carriers like the Walmarts and the Amazons, rising to the occasion, not just being able to deliver quickly to major urban areas, but basically they’re covering.
All of the U.S. is now able to get near same day shipping if you’re, if you’re buying through a Walmart or Amazon. So again, what do you do if you’re not an Amazon or Walmart? What about all the other awesome online sellers and marketplaces and shippers this peak season? How do you hit speed? Well, it’s not just about speed.
It’s also how do you hit speed while still having a great seamless experience in retaining the trust of the consumer. That’s something to keep in mind. It’s not just about at all costs, let’s hit same day, let’s hit two day. How do you do this efficiently? So a couple things at EasyPost, we have to say about that.
One is the most reliable shipping APIs during peak season. Again, to say it again, it’s EasyPost. It’s our shipping APIs. If you want the largest carrier network, if you wanna go multi-carrier quickly, the most seamless way to do it is going to be us. And, we now have Wallet. To to mention Wallet again. Wallet’s going to allow you to quickly get up and running with those carriers and service levels that are going to allow you to hit the speed without breaking the bank, without juggling a lot of carrier relationships.
We work with a lot of shippers who just don’t have a sizable team that can go directly and do, and jump through all the hoops and do all the important partnership steps to work with some of these major carriers during peak. So the great thing about East Post’s Wallet is that when you work with one of our Wallet Carriers, you’re working with the trust, the largest, the most reliable carriers, without having to do all the enterprise grade carrier handling, if you will.
So you’re able to quickly be nimble and you’re avoiding even certain extra charges that are stacking up this peak. You have one simple billing experience. You have one invoice experience. You’re not having to submit all these customer care or support issues directly to carriers. We also have things again to mention like Luma AI. Luma is going to be able to look and say, listen, you’re overpaying by using this carrier and service level to get it there fast.
You think this two day or this next day service is your answer to speed. It is not. Actually, if you went with this carrier service level over here, you’re gonna get it there just as fast, but you’re gonna save X amount of dollars per shipment. So you need to be data-driven and you need an AI that’s seen billions of historical shipments, which is what Luma is.
It’s the only shipping AI that was trained and fed on billions of historical deliveries. And says listen, if you’re shipping to this part of the country and you’re trying to ship it as fast, and you’re trying to ship within this budget. Here’s the label you need to buy. That’s huge. Most shippers across peak season are in the dark.
They don’t, they don’t know how to hit this speed you’re, you’re referring to Lori, and so they end up overpaying and come January they get surprise invoices. Hey, we were faster than ever this holiday season. They look at, oh wow, we just lost X percentage of our profit, of all our sales, during our most important time of the year because we were so fast.
This happens all the time. So yes, be fast, be wise about your speed. Do not overpay for your speed. Don’t compromise your profit because you were speedy. You aren’t one of the big giant retailers maybe, but how can you nimbly ship like them? We think EasyPost is, is one of the ways. I’d also say that when it comes to speed, what we see happen a lot during peak is people try to go above and beyond and have the most seamless shipping experience.
‘Cause they know that’s key to keeping consumers happy and even getting repeat purchases in the same holiday season from a consumer. But what about when something goes wrong and things do go wrong during peak?
Lori Boyer 27:34
Yes. Even for the very best shippers. Yep.
Joe Dieter 27:38
To the very best. A package is lost. A package is damaged.
A package is stolen off the front porch. We all see the headlines. Something will go wrong, and when it does, how do you react? How quickly do you get money back in your pocket, in terms of a hassle-free claims process? This is something that historically, lots of shippers lost, lots of money, we’re talking millions of dollars.
Not even with enterprise shippers lost during from, from all their holiday revenue, profit were lost because something went wrong during the shipping experience. And so if you’re gonna go fast, please do, but also know, ask, am I protected? Am I being reckless? Am I overspending? And, and then if something goes wrong do I have hassle-free claims?
We have a new product called Guard. Guard brings together all our most popular protection solutions. This includes our Shipping Insurance, API. This has been, one of our most successful products, to be honest, over the past few years, because so many shippers spent years dealing with really long-winded claims processes, what does that mean?
A package is lost, is damaged, it’s stolen. It was not uncommon that historically if that happened for a major carrier shipment, a shipper would spend weeks or months waiting for claims to go through, waiting to get their money back in their pocket. And so what do we do with our insurance, API? We really simplified that we’re in some cases, in a matter of minutes.
Claims are processed, they’re approved. Money’s back in your pocket, you’re taken care of across our carrier network. We also have a part of guard called USPS Claims.
Lori Boyer 29:08
This is my favorite part, Joe, I’m getting excited. So just spoiler for everyone. USPS claims is one of the coolest, best things. If you are an EasyPost customer and you ship by USPS.
Please right now is whoa, whoa, whoa. Listen up. ‘Cause Joe is gonna tell you about something that is one of the Lori Boyer starred favorites. Joe, tell us about USPS Claims.
Joe Dieter 29:31
Lori, you and I are, are some of the few logistics nerds who really care about shipping claims. And I’ll be honest, I didn’t think this was the most exciting thing to talk about during peak until I looked at the numbers and talked to enough shippers.
I’m like, oh wow. This is one of the most important things we should talk about. So what happens with USPS Claims? Well, USPS is one of the most popular carriers during the holiday season. They’re going to be one of the most economical, they’re one of the most reliable historically. If you talk to a lot of sellers, they want to use USPS, but as we said, during peak, it’s the ultimate challenge.
Something will go wrong. And so with USPS claims, what we’ve done is we’ve really removed a lot of the steps. Historically, 40% of shipping claims never even get successfully filed a process that means millions and millions and millions of dollars isn’t going back to a shipper’s pocket when something goes wrong with the package.
Lori Boyer 30:18
Did you guys hear that? 40%. You, you know that it’s out there, you know that you deserve a claim. They, they don’t get filed. 40%. Because it’s such a pain in the, you know what? Sorry, Joe, I just wanted.
Joe Dieter 30:35
No, it’s, it’s true. And why is that? Well, ’cause there’s forms and there’s back and forth and we’re reaching out between the shipper and, and the vendor they’re using or directly with the carrier.
And, and it’s, it’s very kind of antiquated the way we would protect a shipper if something went wrong with a shipment. And so with USPS Claims from EasyPost, it’s being considered the easiest way to have peace of mind because we’ve removed a lot of the steps. And so as we go into the holiday season, it could be said, if you are shipping USPS, how do you sleep peacefully at night?
How do you know? Okay, I, I’m, I’m gonna have the easiest way to have a shot at getting my claim filed and getting money back in my pocket and holding onto my profit, EasyPost. USPS Claims is being considered the main product. It’s, it’s the easiest way to get protection on USPS shipping. We also have a FedEx Claims program that’s very similar.
We also have Package Protection, and this has become popular for emerging sellers, we call them. This could be what’s considered an SMB seller, a newer seller, all the way up to mid-market sellers. They’re finding value in offering package protection, but also kinda offering a reminder Package Protection throughout the shopping experience.
This has been proven to actually increase new customer conversion rates. They’ll actually buy more from you when you plant throughout the shopping journey a reminder that their purchase is going to be protected as something goes wrong. And this is something that you, you don’t pay up front for. Same with our claims program.
By the way. This isn’t like immediately your, you’re paying for this premium service, but it’s something that as soon as the, the consumer opts into it, then there, there’s a small fee, but with this Package Protection, it is really a game changer for certain type of sellers that might be new. They don’t have that major retail brand name.
They’re not an Amazon, they’re not a Walmart, but they have really great prices that are a really cool offering this peak season, this holiday season. They get a lot of new shoppers on their site and they see they convert more of those shoppers if they have a trusted Package Protection program that’s just planted there as a reminder throughout the shopping journey. So that, that’s another part of our Guard suite.
Ship fast, don’t ship reckless, be protected. And, and we, we can help with that.
Lori Boyer 32:46
I, I love that. And I wanna make another point as well. So you talk about, I, I love how you broke it down, ship fast, don’t ship reckless, be protected. So ship fast, but smart. One of the great things that I personally have really enjoyed about Luma our AI tool that you mentioned is the fact that it can tell you, you know, what is the percent probability that this shipment is gonna arrive within two days.
Or, you know, looking at the historical data so you’re not just like, well, it probably should. ‘Cause this is a big name. Or it, maybe it won’t, ’cause this is a name I’m not as familiar with that does pull the data. So you mentioned being data-driven. I love, love, love that. I wanna say, well, I’m gonna switch us a little bit here, Joe though, because as the consumer myself the shipping experience is really important.
I do have to say, but like I don’t really care what carrier brings it. And that is something that I think that our, our shippers don’t always think about. I just want my package to arrive. I don’t care if it came by FedEx or UPS or USPS, whatever, as long as it arrives. But I have expectations for, you know, what this process is gonna be like.
It, it’s become kind of this settled, like, I buy something and I’m expecting notifications. I’m expecting to know where my, my package is all along the route if there’s a problem with it. If something’s damaged, I’m expecting you know that you’re gonna take care of it. And you’re gonna take care of it. Well, so you mentioned the, the Guard suite, that’s awesome for, you know, claims and problems.
What about that kind of visibility piece? With expectations so high, is there, what are your recommendations, especially for EasyPost customers, making sure you get a great experience?
Joe Dieter 34:30
Yeah, it’s a key buzzword, right? Visibility. And there’s several layers of visibility a shipper needs to be concerned with.
When it comes to like visibility for the consumer and to your point of, hey, where the heck is my package? We’re going back to the big topic in the room of tracking notifications, right? So tracking notifications is kind of redefining itself in, in a few interesting ways right now. And it’s happening right in time for peak.
It used to be that great tracking notifications were about real-time updates of the consumer understanding, ah, here’s where my package is. Thus you would decrease the amount of WISMO issues. What’s WISMO? We all know in, in the world of selling WISMO is where is my order? So think of the angry customer care email or the angry customer care call, or the really nasty social media post.
It’s kind of like I will never buy from this seller again because I thought I was getting X days in in shipping delivery, and it’s been a week past that. So tracking notifications was how you gave the consumer visibility, and then as a means to make sure you didn’t have an angry consumer on your hands.
And now what’s happening with tracking, it’s much, much more strategic. That’s table stakes. If you don’t have real time updates and notifications to your consumer, we need to talk ’cause we can help at EasyPost. But what we’re really seeing is now hundreds, and we’re pushing towards thousands, of our shippers are engaging in a new tracking offering called Advanced Tracking.
So we just recently in time for peak released advanced tracking, which not only gives you realtime updates, it gives you comprehensive branded AI powered predictive tracking. What does that mean? Well, no matter what size seller you are, you can deeply customize across an email, tracking page, or even text message notification basis, the exact tracking story you want to send.
And I wanna emphasize the branded element of this. It’s not just about, here’s the latest update on all your packages. It’s also, here’s a story we want to tell you that’s going to further build that relationship with you, the consumer that just bought from us, but remind you, here’s an accessory, here’s a warranty.
Here’s a similar item you might want to consider. We are seeing with advanced tracking nine to 12 x ROI fairly quickly. Because of two things. One, the decrease in the amount of angry. Where is my order? Emails and that that plummets, but what increases is profit and revenue. The lifetime value of a consumer, in other words, how much you’re able to successfully sell a consumer starts to go up. Because it happens that consumers read your tracking notification communication way more often than your marketing emails or any other spammy communication you wanna send them to actually sell them something.
Lori Boyer 37:21
Imagine that. They’re actually wanting to read where their package is. Yeah.
Joe Dieter 37:24
We’re seeing within advanced tracking, we have an SMS text notification feature. Didn’t seem like a big deal until we started realizing, oh my gosh. Consumers read the text. If you’re a brand or seller sending a text message, consumers are much more likely to read the text if it’s tracking related obviously, than if it feels like a random, spammy message I don’t want you to bug me with as a consumer.
So what we’re seeing is marketing and brand departments love advanced tracking. They’re like, oh, wow, this holiday season, we know more customers are holding onto their money, but we have consumers that if they do buy from us, we can generate more lifetime value.
Or I’d even say peak season value. Or does that mean I, let’s not, not even talk about a lifetime, let’s say within the same peak season, what is the total value I can get outta a consumer? I can get outta a shopper? Well, that’s going to totally depend on how you upsell ’em the moment they buy. How about the moment they buy, the first point of communication is that tracking notification message. So make it strategic, make it your best brand in storytelling. There’s a really great example of a brand that’s been around for decades. I wanna say like it’s a hundred year old classic consumer brand. We would know it, we’d love it if, if I said the name. They found with advanced tracking, their most beautiful, it reminded me of their old holiday catalogs.
You remember those old holiday catalogs kinda like, ooh, what, what are we gonna buy this holiday? These, these, they kind of put that really cool holiday catalog experience within the header and footer of their tracking email. They would have strategic upsell moments of selling similar items, and they saw notable revenue growth from putting, again, like their best promotional message in the tracking moment because they knew that was the moment that they had the attention of a consumer. Of their customers.
So this is really strategic and it’s so interesting ’cause this is just a shipping notification. It is kind of a boring, like, yeah, you, you don’t want angry, mad customers, so you gotta get ’em real time tracking. It’s an inconvenience. You just gotta do it. No, no, no, no.
Your best opportunity to generate more profit is actually that tracking notification message. So I, it, it’s like a total mind shift from even some of the most incredible sellers in the world. We’ll talk with them or like, tell us about your communication. Is it lifetime? Is it like that Amazon Prime, like the moment you buy, you know, the status, like, no, we don’t really see the value and, and, you know, investing in that and we’re like, ah.
It’s not about angry customers, it’s about are you generating as much profit as possible, this, this peak?
Lori Boyer 39:49
Joe, my whole career. So I’ve spent decades, yes, I’m gonna age myself working in brand and working in marketing and I can’t tell you, this is so, so critical and so cool. You need to get your brand your, even just your logo being shown.
Even just that communication there is this whole psychological piece where your brand needs to be in front of someone five to seven times in order for them to, you know, start trusting you and thinking I’m gonna come out. That’s why you’re seeing ads like a whole bunch of times. And then on the sixth time you’re like, maybe I’ll look at this.
Having this in something that is so read. You know, again, I’ve worked in marketing forever. I’ve worked when email marketing was so awesome because everybody read all their emails. Not anymore, they don’t do that. But these are things, both emails and text messages that people are really reading.
They’re paying attention to it. What’s also really, really cool, we talk about those hiccups. So I was talking to one of our customers recently who uses advanced tracking, and so if there is a hiccup. Immediately sending a notification, hey, it looks like your package is actually delayed. We are so sorry.
Here’s a 25% off coupon. Hop back on the site, and you could actually get a lot of opportunities for people to purchase more to if it’s a return. Same thing, you know, you can actually build that loyalty. There, it, there are so many opportunities, so I say work with your marketing teams on this. We have the standard just notifications as well.
We’ve had this forever. Of course, everyone wants to know where their package is. That’s part of the sort of basic level of having a a, a good experience. This is taking it to the next step where you, you are getting your brand in front of them. You’re, you’re getting that awareness, but also the opportunities to upsell to get them coming back.
And yeah, it is really, really crucial from a marketing standpoint. So I’d love the advanced tracking product that we’ve got going now.
Joe Dieter 42:01
To your point with, with a product like this, a lot of sellers of varying sizes assume, oh, it’s too late, we’re already into the fall. In the fall, I, I have to make all the my decisions for how I’m gonna ship this holiday season, this peak now.
And how long does it take to get onboarded with something like this? Well, we just brought this into our core experience. What does that mean? Well, if you are one of our shipping API customers and a lot of sellers out there, a lot of three pls, a lot of the shippers this peak season are using EasyPost shipping APIs to be multi-carrier through the exact same UI, through the exact same product experience.
You can quickly onboard into advanced tracking, and it’s just a few cents more per shipment. So it’s, it’s a per usage.
Lori Boyer 42:44
It’s like pennies. It’s so worth it.
Joe Dieter 42:47
It’s important to note ’cause there’s a number of great, what we call post-purchase players out there. There’s a number of great brands that take from tracking to returns that really have this very slick enterprise grade, I call it experience to get started with them.
It’s lengthy. It’s like, okay, we, we have to do all these custom contracts and, and it’s gonna be months of integration and it’s this very fancy thing. The brilliance of advanced tracking is that it’s, we’re having folks that within a matter of seconds, like, wait, I’m onboarded. And now I have these really cool custom branded logo tracking notifications that I immediately have access to.
Whoa, immediately. So this is why it’s been a really popular product and we’re excited for everyone using EasyPosts, put your best foot forward. Have the best way to retain, trust and communicate and, and keep an air of transparency on all your shipment activity with all your, all your customers, this peak.
And, and you have it right there in your dashboard and in a matter of minutes, sign up and, and put your best foot forward with your customers. So.
Lori Boyer 43:48
Yeah, I love that. I, I love how you said transparency as well. Shippers out there, I’m gonna give you a best practice advice that sometimes feels a little scary.
Don’t just, hold and pray and hope that maybe the package will end up showing up on time. I think we’re gonna get into visibility a little bit later. ‘Cause sometimes we are kind of just crossing our fingers. If there is an issue, your consumers will rank your experience astronomically higher if you’re simply transparent. That reaching out and notifying them, letting them know there was an issue, how can we make up for it?
Simply being transparent. Research again and again and again shows people will say that that experience was fine. So I. This is a really awesome opportunity. I love that Joe mentioned that it is something that you can still do now. I know peak is here almost upon us. It is something really easy, really quick to do, and honestly really puts you up there in some ways, even ahead of some of the biggest companies out there.
I see some of their tracking notifications and they’re not that impressive. So this is a really, really great way to kind of set yourself apart. Awesome. Well, we are gonna stop there. Everyone stay tuned. Next week we’re gonna have part two of this incredible episode with Joe Dieter talking EasyPost and peak 2025.
