How to Ship Smarter and Greener with Sendle | EP. #103

Shipping can be a complicated and costly process. On this 103rd episode of The E-Comm Show, Andrew interviews Tom Byun, Sendle’s North America President, to learn more about their innovative shipping solutions.

Tom will discuss how Sendle makes delivery easier for small businesses and startups with their carbon-neutral shipping solution, as well as the importance of having a sustainable shipping strategy to stay competitive in today’s market. Tune in to learn more about Sendle and how you can ship smarter and greener with them.

If you enjoyed the show, please rate, review, and SUBSCRIBE!

Have an e-commerce marketing question you'd like Andrew to cover in an upcoming episode? Email: hello@theecommshow.com

• Listen on:
  
• Listen on:
  
• Listen on:
  
• Listen on:
  
• Listen on:
  
• Listen on:
  

Andrew Maff and Tom Byun

CONNECT WITH OUR HOST: AndrewMaff.com  |  Twitter: @AndrewMaff | LinkedIn: @AndrewMaff 

Tom Byun

Tom Byun, Sendle’s North America President, leads the company’s ongoing strategy for expansion and growth within the North American market. Tom has spent his 30+ year career working at companies such as Yahoo! and Google to provide essential services and products for small businesses. Before his appointment, the Harvard MBA graduate spent two years at Facebook, heading the SMB acquisition efforts, including the launch of Commerce solutions, and mentored a variety of start-ups across the Bay Area.

Transcript: 

00:03

What are the options I have? What's gonna be the most reliable and what's gonna be more cost effective and how can you ensure that I am also able to track that shipment so

Andrew Maff  00:18

I want to show you an awesome yes Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of The E-Comm Show. I'm your host Andrew Maff as usual and today I'm joined by the amazing Tom Byun who is the North American President over at Sendle. Tom, how you doing? Ready for a good show?

01:18

Yeah, I'm very excited. Thanks for having me on you.

Andrew Maff  01:21

Yeah, super excited to have you on. Really looking forward to this one. Love talking about everything between the operations all the way into shipping, and we're gonna it's gonna get, it's gonna be super fun. So let's kick it off. The usual way. I always like to do this. Pretend that no one knows who you are. No one knows anything about Sendle, and let you kind of do a little bit of an introduction. So why don't you tell us a little bit yourself? About sandal and we'll take it from there. Okay. Sounds great.

01:45

Yeah. So, as you noted, I head up our North America business. We provide we're courier, both in the US and Canada now. So I'll talk about that a bit. But I've been in the E commerce space actually, quite some time I started out my career at Yahoo. There's used to be something called Yahoo small business. So I used to back Yahoo stores business of I was the GM overseeing that business. So very familiar with E commerce. And that's where I kind of got my first foray into E commerce. From there. I then went into a couple of other companies. I was a company called LivePerson, which provided chat messaging, a lot of it was around e commerce as well, helping retailers online businesses do life support and marketing. And then, over the last 510 years, I've been also some some of the larger companies like Google. Before I came to Sandow, I was at Facebook, which eventually became meta. And I was also responsible heading up our go to market for Facebook's e commerce efforts when we started launching what's called shops, on Facebook and Instagram. So I was responsible for driving that rollout across our massive audience of SMB customers across various portfolio of businesses at Mehta. And then fast forward. After that, I joined cendol it was a great opportunity to join a company on a mission to really help SMBs and it's very much a mission that I believed in. And in many years I've been in, and where oftentimes you feel like small businesses often get the short end of the stick, they don't always have the great options, you know, they don't have the best prices, whether it's, you're talking about a software product, or you're talking about shipping. And in this case, James moody, who Timoteo who is our founder, who founded the company, back in 2014, in Australia realized like, there is a not a great, cost efficient, reliable shipping option, particularly in Australia. And that case, when he was running a secondhand business, for shipping. So he decided to launch a carrier and fast forward into the US when we launched 2019 essentially rolled out a we are as a carrier to help small businesses really have an alternate carrying carrier option versus kind of the your run of the mill or players out there. And especially because they don't often have the economies of scale. So we wanted to make sure that we're providing pricing that's competitive. And I'd be glad to go into also how, you know, shipping is very expensive for a lot of small businesses and why I think we're providing true value here. So

Andrew Maff  04:19

yeah, beautiful. So I know there is at least in their space, there's a handful of competitors. There's also the bigger like you're the ups and the FedEx and things like that. How do you differentiate yourselves from a three PL from the UPS the FedEx is of the world like What's What's the process like? And where do you stand?

04:40

Yeah, sure. Yeah, as you know, there are what's called Three pls. There's what's what you often also call aggregators. These are platforms that provide multiple carriers and provide shipping rates and print labels. We actually partner with fair amount of them both whether you call them the the shipping part from aggregators or through peels, but we are essentially an End to End carrier, we're here, we take a lot of the guesswork. If you're a small business, whether you are sending one package or 20, or 200 or more per month, whether it's in US or Canada, we are a carrier, much like UPS or USPS or some of the FedEx. And we have everything from a three day guaranteed all the way through, you know, kind of the longer haul, you know, like eight day kind of up to about a date type of solution. And we provide also customer support tracking, and how do we do this, we actually do this by actually building a what we call a multi carrier network, we work with a bunch of partners and cared to make sure that we optimized to the best reroute and pricing and reliable option. But again, as I mentioned, we try to take a lot of that lift out for you as a small business. It's all about you as a small business, how do I get? What are the options I have? What's gonna be the most reliable? And what's gonna be more cost effective? And how can you ensure that I am also able to track that shipment? So in that sense, we are carrying much like any other carriers out there.

Andrew Maff  06:07

Interesting. So that obviously stems a very slightly different question. At the time of this airing, it would have been long gone. But we did just find out I think it was today or yesterday that UPS will not be going on to strike. So we're all clean and clear there. But can you explain a little bit what would have happened if they actually went into a strike? Because that is, as far as I know, I can't remember the last time that ever happened. If it ever happened, I don't even know. So can you tell us a little bit about like, what would have happened. And then obviously, what the benefit of having something like a sandal in place would have helped from that situation,

06:43

for sure. And obviously, the news hit the war yesterday. And this did happen. Again, I'm trying to trace back, but it's been a while, but there wasn't a while back where there was a major strike. And it was highly disruptive. A couple of things, I would say against someone who's not necessarily a veteran in the shipping space with but as I've learned and kind of seeing what goes on and I talked a lot of small businesses day to day, as well as some of the larger merchants, one of the things that would have happened is that particularly if you're a larger shipper, you are, in many instances, many of the larger shippers or the larger commerce business are diversified, they're using it's a UPS or FedEx or one of the regional carriers. In the case, a lot of small businesses, you know, carry or diversification or it's like a foreign term, I don't even know what that means. And so I think what one of the impacts that you would have seen is one, for sure, whether you're a small business all the way up to a large business, there would have been some major impact, because ups, you know, is drives and delivers, you know, a huge amount of volume across the US. So if the strike would have happened, it would have been, you know, quite crippling, and it would have meant, like, you know, both us, FedEx and other carriers would have definitely helped pick up the lift. But having said that, it would have also been pretty quickly for a lot of businesses that just have not set up to, you know, have alternative carriers. The other thing I would have noted, I think small businesses would have been also impacted more because they, you know, they're often now they're not again, as I mentioned, they don't have these great contracts with FedEx or others where they are, they can have economy, better pricing. And this is where I think Senator would be extremely valuable. But even now, even the strike doesn't, hasn't has, you know, is not likely to happen. There's still benefit today. Again, I think whether it's now in the future, what we call diversification is something that's important for small businesses, regardless whether there's a strike, sometimes it could be some natural disaster that happens, it could be some other event that happens. And you want to make sure that whether you are using USPS and or any of us any other carriers, you think about making sure that you've got alternative options. And we saw this also during the pandemic, where it was a meteoric rise. And there was, you know, definitely a lot of demand and capacity, and it was really very, very much stretched.

Andrew Maff  09:08

Gotcha. So let me just make sure I have this right. So basically what happens, let's assume I'm an E commerce seller, I'm shipping out a product maybe I haven't in a warehouse, I use something like a cendol to help me figure out the diversification of these different carriers. And then the crazy pricing and stuff that they that they have. And then through their that basically gets all get all gets essentially mapped out through that direction is that more or less in the right area?

09:34

I would actually even simplify it further. If if you are a merchant, and let's say you are shipping you you know one of our customers actually does they build wooden toys. Well I have a customer that also sell supplements, you know, so we have customers variety of different ranges. And they're looking to ship something say from Chicago to New York or you know, something maybe from Canada, US they're going to go How to Send all that calm and actually look at different rates, and then essentially print the labels, and someone will come by to pick up their shipment, or they can drop it off as well. So it's really very straightforward. We are not a what you call a rate charting platform, meaning you're not going to go on Central and try to find, you know, FedEx or UPS rates, that's what someone like ShipStation or, you know, ShipRush, the platforms are out there, we work with them, we actually are a carrier, that will show up, you know, that, that you become available on these on these platforms as well. The other benefit, I didn't want to mention that in, you know, net it is we are also 100% carbon neutral. So one of the things that I've always been against yours, and I've heard this from merchants, too, is like, hey, that carbon neutral option is actually appealing to me, but also to people that are buying my products. And that's another thing I didn't want to mention as well.

Andrew Maff  10:58

Yeah, and now that's a really big push, right? Like, I would imagine that that is got to be a really big selling point simply because there's a ton of brands out there that are going to, you know, the carbon neutral shipping, the, you know, sustainable packaging, that kind of stuff. Like it's, in fact, we had a we had someone on the show a few months ago that was discussing that, that that was what they were doing, and it's gonna kill me that I can't remember the name there. But that so I know that whole approach becomes a really big marketing aspect for a lot of the different sellers. So is that how do you map that out? How are you able to kind of like, facilitate that?

11:35

Yeah, sure. There's a couple of things that we do one, let me also just provide some context, because I think the magnitude of, you know, carbon emissions, and, you know, everyone, obviously, now reading about, you know, warmer climate and what's happening. And I'll share a couple of stats, stats, you know, obviously, ecommerce has expanded, accelerated significantly, and ecommerce, shipping alone could grow from like three to 17% of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. So that's just gonna continue to grow. And one of the ways we as a company are not only educating shippers, you know, as you noted, like us, you know, maybe compostables, or we use repackaging, you know, there's things you can do as a commerce merchant that you should be doing with your packaging, options and shipping options. Second, we actually as a company, what we do is what we do is we do a carbon offset today. So for example, for every product, you ship, we do an offset, we work with a company called South Pole, where they reinvest in, say, projects in different parts of the world that helps offset emissions. Now there is one thing we're doing. I spoke at a conference in Washington DC a while back where I also mentioned Sandoz, a company is also looking at going what's called carbon net zero, meaning beyond what you call carbon offsetting. We're also looking at our operation, everything from you know, how we actually you work with partners are using Green Fleet, etc. But how do we make sure that we are actually reducing carbon emissions through our operations and getting to net zero as well?

Andrew Maff  13:15

Wow, so how is so the entire company just the operations is actually attempting to go into a complete net zero for that whole direction? So that's a that's gonna be a pretty big lift, right?

13:26

Yeah, it's a big lift. I mean, our goal is to get there by 2030. So it's not a easy lift, at some time, but we've started mapping out our strategy there, we're looking at everything from how, you know, the, you know, the partners we work with, you know, the the carriers we work with, as well as how employees are staffed and how the what kind of software we're using as well. So across the board, we're trying to map out what our mission is, and how do we get netzero, as I mentioned,

Andrew Maff  13:55

nice. So what about shipping times? It's a big issue, it's, you know, we do a lot of work with like, do you see sellers selling on their own website, who are constantly battling Amazon and trying to get to people stuff in like two or three days, or whatever it is now. And that's a constant headache of people, or, you know, they want to place an order on a website, but then they got to wait like a week or two before it shows up, and they're so used to Amazon, that becomes a problem. One of the things I was asking you about was the shipping time. So I know, you have the Amazon of the world, obviously, that's getting stuff to people in like a day, two days, three days, whatever. And so what's the shipping times like? How are people able to get to, you know, they want to see basically, what I'm trying to get at, we have these DC sellers all the time. They're like, I want to get stuff to our customers so much faster, because otherwise, why wouldn't they just go to Amazon? And so what is the shipping time? Like if they're working with sandal, is there any kind of option on how fast they can get to someone like what's that whole process? Like?

14:54

Yeah, sure. I'll actually answer two things. One, I'll talk about our options and then to some of the trends I'm seeing with shippers as well as peak consumers and adoption looking for. So we'd send all we have everything from what we call the three day guarantee. So we'll guarantee that it will go and get 30 in three days, if that will actually be fun shipping cost all the way up. And then we have what's called saver, which is kind of economy, our economy economical option, although we will call preferred and you know, save reviews, you will get there and up to about two to eight days, one of the things that we do is we want to make sure we're providing options. And so again, in the case, maybe some of the shipper you're highlighted there, someone wants to get a document someone the next day or, you know, it's a perishable item, or you know, whatever it might be, they want to make sure it gets done in a couple of days, or a day or less. So we have couple options or one. The other thing I do want to highlight is there was always there was kind of a module over last, you know, how many, you know, 510 years run faster is always better? And one of the things we're seeing is it actually depends, we're finding that there's a consumer sentiment and recognition that with faster human options, sometimes there is carbon emission impact as well. Secondly, is that for things like returns, you know, as I work with both companies that are doing providing return options, sometimes slower is okay. And because either as a company on E commerce merchant, I'm less concerned about how fast it comes back to me and also as a, as a consumer, it doesn't matter to me. So it really depends. And I think having options is important. But I agree that you know, kind of expedited option is important. That's why we introduced three day and make sure we have an offering that's also competitive to UPS and other carriers out there.

Andrew Maff  16:38

Gotcha. How does it work? If someone's leveraging a three PL or they can obviously if their order if they need cendol to do the pickup and everything? That's just another option as if they were to pick like a UPS or FedEx or something like that? Correct?

16:52

That is correct. Correct. So you know this, and then we do work with three pls. We also work with platforms that allow you do rate shopping, and we are on our carrier that just will appear on there. You can also get all the benefits, like tracking your shipments once you actually go through those partners as well, those shipment shipping partners as well.

Andrew Maff  17:14

So what if you have multiple three pls? Because I know from a delivery perspective, if you've got, you know, basically the whole reason Amazon's able to get stuff to people so fast, because they have warehouses all over the country. So if you've got if you're a large enough seller, and you've got, let's say several warehouses across the country, are there ways for them to offer different pricing tiers based on where that product is in a certain three? Pl like, how does that process work?

17:39

Yeah, actually, twofold. One is we do work with very, obviously, well, we'll call small, medium, merchants, some they're doing say 1000s of volume per day, if you are going to be you know, someone that actually has multiple warehouses and doing say, you know, over, you know, 1020 30,000 shipments a month Milanes always be the best solution. Because we do we did, we started with the premise of let's serve, with the small business all the way up to you know, growing small businesses as well. The second thing I would highlight is with if you are working with a three PL, as I mentioned, we work with multiple carriers. And that's where we are multi carrier network. So that if you are you've got your shipment going from one, one place to another. And you may have, you know, again, we take the guesswork out of like which carriers you may want to use. If you have multiple warehouses and your shipment is going in your work at the three PL we will work with the factory partner, but we're not actually designed for companies again, with very, very vast complex infrastructure.

Andrew Maff  18:42

Gotcha. Interesting. Okay. So where do you see this going? As time goes on, obviously cendol continuing to expand, like what is the next step? I clearly you're going into the whole net net zero carbon neutral things. So that's awesome. But we got some time on that one. So what what else is what's the next step? How is cendol kind of expanding from there?

19:03

Yeah, a couple of ways. And I'm very, super excited about, you know, having joined Sendle. And as we continue to grow in the US, we recently launched in Canada, and, and I talked to customers every day, and they're giving me feedback, Tom, like, I'm glad there's actually alternative carrier to, you know, call the incumbents, providing, you know, very low efficient, low pricing reliable. And not only that, you know, you providing good customer support, we provide customer support 24/7 Where's my shipment? Where's my parcel? That's often like the most, you know, basic question, or someone asked, and we have someone we have to provide support to do that. So I think we want to make sure we're continuing to get that story out there because I think a lot of folks still don't know cendol. So I think we have an opportunity to continue to kind of, you know, get the name out there and make sure we're helping small businesses. The second thing I would highlight is and as you probably well know, you know, covering ecommerce and working with merchants that also may be shipping to Canada, and also, you know, maybe Canadian companies shipping to us, one of the things that we know is that we want to make sure that we're also providing a great option for people that are doing cross border shipping. So that's an area that we have. We know we launched in Canada last fall, we introduced cross border shipping earlier this part of this year. And so I think that's something that we're going to continue to invest in and make sure we're providing that offering because ecommerce is not only a domestic business, it is a cross border business. And it's something that we're going to be focusing on, you know, one quick stat, we did a survey last year last fall. And with Canadians and something like I think almost three quarters of Canadians said they were frustrated with career services in Canada, nearly two thirds of Canadians consumers have abandoned their shopping carts, because of the shipping costs. And so I think we wanted to make sure that we would provide an alternative offering to small businesses, whether they're, you know, that are shipping domestically in Canada, but also shipping from Canada to the US as well.

Andrew Maff  21:04

That's awesome. Because I know that is a major complaint I we talked about it all the time about sellers that are looking to kind of start to venture into going a little bit more international. And obviously, if you're in the States, Canada's very likely next step, or if you're in Canada, the states is obviously a very likely next step. So it sounds like it's pretty nice that you can actually figure out a really inexpensive way to get some shipping done, because that was always the biggest complaint was like we can't do it. Because the price point.

21:32

Yeah, I fully agree with you. And it's a particularly pain point, from Canada to us or within Canada. So we're addressing that I think US International, I think, you know, we we have a product that's available today, we shipped to 180 countries. But that's an area that we all continue, we will continue to invest in the future as well.

Andrew Maff  21:51

That's awesome. Tom, thank you so much. Really appreciate you having on your show. There's a ton of information. Very awesome, really appreciate it. I'd love to give you an opportunity. Let everyone know where they can find out more about you. And then of course more about cendol

22:04

Great, yeah, you can look us up on sendle.com And that's where you'll get all the information everything I highlighted run from carbon neutral all of our activities all the way through our saber preferred and 3 day Guaranteed product and all the great things that we provide for small businesses. Thanks for having me on today's except super excited.

Andrew Maff  22:22

Yeah, thank you as well obviously everyone who tuned in thank you also, please make sure you do the usual rate review, subscribe on whichever podcast platform you prefer, or head over theecommshow.com to check out all of our previous episodes but as usual, thank you for joining us. We'll see you all next time.

Narrator  22:38

Thank you for tuning in to The E-Comm Show head over to ecommshow.com to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform or on the BlueTuskr YouTube channel. The E-Comm Show is brought to you by BlueTuskr, a full service digital marketing companies specifically for  e-commerce sellers looking to accelerate their growth. Go to bluetuskr.com Now for more information. Make sure to tune in next week for another amazing episode of The E-Comm Show.