Latest / Talk Commerce / The Next Wave of International Shipping Innovation Through ePost Global with Kelly Martinez at Shop Talk
Transcript
- Speaker 1 (00:03.202) All right, welcome to this special Talk Commerce edition of Shop Talk at Shop Talk. I'm going to do it again. OK. Welcome to the special Talk Commerce edition live from Shop Talk. Today I have Kelly Martinez, the president of ePost. Kelly, go ahead, do an introduction for yourself. Tell us your day-to-day role and one of your passions in life. Great. So I'm Kelly Martinez. I'm a co-president of ePost Global. And passion in life is travel. I love to see new places and go travel internationally. Alright, was the last fun place you were at? Last year last summer I was in Madrid and Barcelona and I loved the you know, the architecture the culture the food the wine Yeah There is a shop talk in Barcelona in June. There you go. So tell us a little bit of an ePost. Tell us what it does and what is the solution. Speaker 2 (00:54.85) have to. Speaker 2 (01:02.134) So ePost Global is an international and domestic shipping solution. And our company is really based on our extensive, strategically located final mile carrier network. And that network provides both reliable delivery for our customers, but also cost savings. And our real advantage that we have is that our company, our team is experienced and logistic. which is so important these days with all the changes and the dynamic nature of international and domestic shipping. And that really helps our customers, you our goal is to help them expand globally but also, you know, just to grow their business. Yeah, a lot of times people shipping or merchants don't think about that final mile and how important that in the United States the final mile is mainly is mainly done by the postal service. Although Amazon now has seemed to figure out how to do it, but they do only their own packages. And I imagine most other countries that final mile is also done by their post office or their equivalent. Yeah, it's really probably the last five years there's a lot of growth in regional carriers. And I think what's hard for some customers in the United States is hard to tap into those regional carriers. And that's what we can help customers with is our tech solution, our platform really lets us look and see what's the best carrier in a particular country. And that could be postal or that could be a final mile carrier which just covers a geographic area in Barcelona. Speaker 2 (02:50.118) And you know the same in the US there's been so many companies that have sprung up But companies customers here you tellers don't really want to say okay these postal codes will go with this carrier These postal codes will then manage you know that complex relationship with vendors So that's where we come in is we can you know pick up from customers bring it back to our facility process it and then you know give it to vendors whether those are domestic or fly it in And that was a real advantage in Canada when we just had the postal strike. We do have one of our solutions is Canada Post, but we could pivot and just divert that all to private carriers, which we have about six or seven. And almost all of our packages got delivered, just not those real rural areas that only the Canada Post delivered to. I know yesterday I interviewed quite a few people on the return side and the cross-border piece of returns was such a big part of it and you did mention that you're doing cross-border shipping. there more challenges now with tariffs and things like that coming up? Yeah, that's really been what we've been focused on the first quarter, trying to understand what the tariffs are. And there's not been a lot of leeway. So it's been communicated quickly and educating our customers on what they need to do to adhere to what's happening. And then being able to pivot quickly because sometimes we've been put on hold and then back and then expanding. So I think at this we've done a real educational job. It was a little surprising. of our customers hadn't heard what was happening in the news. so, you know, was kind of the first time they were hearing this difference. But really, you know, customers had to take a step back and decide, do we just start marking up our product? Do we communicate it? It's a Surtex. Do we eat it? Do we, you know, what are we going to do? So it was kind of an immediate, what do we need to do today? Speaker 2 (04:58.602) But then now really looking at their analytics and their data and trying to figure out, do we change our supply chain? Do we start manufacturing in a different country? So if it's going to Canada, for instance, do we start fulfilling from Canada? And so we've seen a lot of retailers that are looking, especially retailers that have brick and mortar in both the US and Canada, but they were doing their retail business from the US and shipping up, they're looking at just moving that to Canada. So those are some of the questions. And then really understanding how that impacts the business. think with USMCA in Canada, customers really defaulted to a US origin because that was beneficial. And really understanding that's not a good thing at this point. Yeah, and I think it sounds very complicated and I would imagine that you help the merchants themselves primarily to get through that and maybe even more importantly make them not worry about it, Yeah, mean, you know, our goal is to make things easy. Most of the time, our customers, 90 % of their business is United States domestic. And maybe there's a small portion that's international and they don't want to become experts. And that's where we come into play is we can do all that for them, we can look at, and especially if it's customers that have been shipping with us, we can look at their data and say, look, you know, these are the products you have that are origin US. This is what that's going to be in in dollars and cents, you know, let's brainstorm what some of those solutions might be to help you save on that sort of tech. Speaker 1 (06:43.086) So putting tariffs aside, what are you excited about now for shipping and especially going into this next Black Friday season? What is it that you're seeing that's trending and what's innovative in the shipping business? You know what I'm excited about is, you know, we continue to add final mile carriers. They continue to pop up in service areas that, you know, didn't have alternatives. I'm really excited about who we've added and how those deliveries will actually be even better than the solutions we're offering now. I'm also excited about some of the real growth areas. We introduced some new services last year to the Middle East and we had some customers that we saw, wow, you're really growing in Saudi Arabia and some other countries and we're really seeing that now with other customers and being able to go out to the market and help people understand what that market looks like and what the opportunities are. I think, know, there's Asia's always been a good market but there's even some pockets that I think some of our customers are finding that, you know, maybe they were ignoring that in the past and they're seeing that there's great opportunities. So I think that's good. I mean, we still see our customers growing and we still see great opportunities for them. So, you know, we're excited about to see what happens. There's also this sounds like doom and gloom but it's also opportunity is in May there may be another postal strike with Canada Post. We turn that around and see that as an opportunity because of what we can do and that we don't, you know, use the USPS or Canada Post exclusively so we have an alternative. So, you know, our customers know that that we can still get their packages delivered. Speaker 1 (08:27.246) We're at Shop Talk 2025. What have you been learning while you're here? You know what I find interesting is that there's so many of the exhibitors that you walk up to their booth and you know had no idea that this was part of the I guess food chain of e-commerce. So it's interesting to find you know what different niches are and then how much AI is a part of that equation. I was at another show recently and saw the robotics side but seeing all that you know around each eye. is so interesting and seeing how that's gonna be such a big part of logistics. And did anybody tell you that you're going to be doing 30,000 steps a day when you came into the show? I didn't know that and I do have a little injury to my Achilles so I'm definitely struggling a little bit but yeah a lot of walking. Speaker 1 (09:20.59) The solution you have, what's your best customer fit? Is it anybody on retail or e-tail or do you have a specific customer that you like to look at? Yeah, that's a good question. Really, we do work with anybody that's selling internationally or domestic. You know, obviously there are some restricted products, but generally what we're really good at is apparel, small electronics, any kind of accessories, books. So those are, you know, nutraceutical type supplements. Cosmetics is a big growing market. So those are kind of our sweet spots that we're experts in. And going into the holidays, what do you see as an e-commerce trend? And let's not, we can't use Dord.ai. Gosh, that's a good one. I'm going have to think about that one. think... Speaker 2 (10:23.182) I think I see so many customers diversifying their platforms and not only selling indirectly into different countries. And I think that's been something that I haven't seen in the past where people were not marketing into those countries, they are marketing now. So I see that really as a big growth area. Is there any specific products that you see that other countries don't have yet from the US that need it or vice versa? Like I'm thinking, you know, 15 years ago we didn't have marmite. Now marmite is not popular in the US but we have it. Yeah, it's funny. Someone walked up to our booth yesterday and it was a product that is similar to pickleball, but it's a sport played in Spain and they want to get into the U.S. market because they're getting some just ad hoc orders. So I think there's so many, you know, that's a little small niche, but definitely interesting. And I mean, always, you know, selling outbound the the big brands or the, know, the things that are popular on Tick Tock are attractive. and sell very, very quickly and grow very quickly. But you never know what's going to be the next hot item. Right. Kelly, as we close out the podcast, to give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug about anything they like, what would you like to plug today? Speaker 2 (11:46.798) I would just say at ePost Global, our team of experts are equipped to really go to retailers and e-tellers and really understand their shipping needs and make recommendations. And our network gives that ability to offer the best transit time, but also to offer a cost savings. And our team, our personalized service of customer service really helps to make it a seamless experience, you know, for our customers, then that enhances their brand as well. That's perfect. Kelly Martinez with ePost Global. Excuse me. Thank you so much for being here. All right, thank you.