Flash Back Friday: MATT’S CHATS Webinar | Peak Season Survival Guide for Brands, Warehouses, and Carriers
Welcome to Third Person’s Flash Back Friday series, where we take a look back at previous episodes of our webinar series, MATT’S CHATS.
MATT’S CHATS is a webinar series bringing together supply chain experts, e-commerce brands, and tech professionals for a dynamic panel discussion on the latest news in logistics, fulfillment, and beyond. Moderated by Matt Hertz, the founder and CEO of Third Person, each panel features one leader from a 3PL, brand, and tech company.
In this FBF webinar, Matt was joined by Thom Campbell (Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at Capacity), Alex Yancher (Co-Founder & CEO of Passport Global), and Lauren Ferguson (Vice President of Operations at r.e.m. beauty). They discussed how brands, warehouses, and carriers can survive and thrive during peak season.
Dive into the transcript below, or watch the episode on YouTube @ThirdPersonCo.
Matt Hertz: Right, we got Tom, we got Alex, and… Hopefully Lauren will be here in just a moment. I suppose I could've… I can move people manually as well. So, well, here we are. Thanks, Lauren. Let's get started here. Folks will trickle in, I'm sure, and we did… we did change the date of this webinar, so I know that we did have a bunch of registrations before, so there may have been a little bit of miscommunication, but In any event, obviously, this is recorded, and we'll have it on our YouTube channel and other socials later, so if you do miss the live. event, no worries, you will be able to, watch it at your leisure, later, but thanks everyone for joining. Thanks to Lauren and Tom and Alex for, participating as panelists. Really appreciative of your time, especially, where we are in the calendar. Truly peak season. Next Thursday is… Thanksgiving. So, we're there. We've almost made it. Hopefully we'll make it through it, but, yeah, thanks, thanks again for joining, and excited to kind of kick off another, monthly session of the Matt's Chats webinar, where I like to bring in, one representative from a 3PL, a logistics tech company, as well as a brand operator, just to really share sentiment on some of the biggest headlines in e-commerce and logistics and supply chain. So, excited for these three superstars to be here. If you've listened, to prior webinars of mine, I think you've seen Tom. You've certainly seen Alex a few times, particularly when the whole tariff issue became an issue earlier in the year and late last year, and I'm really excited for Lauren, a first-timer on one of my webinars, and I trust won't be the last… the last time she'll be here, so thank you all. Want to kick off by allowing the three panelists just to share, you know, a minute or two about their backgrounds, the companies they work for. And, what it is that their companies do. So, maybe we'll start with, Tom, and then Alex, and then, finally Lauren. So, Tom, welcome.
Thom Campbell: Thanks, Matt. Thanks a lot for having us, and thanks, Alex, and thanks, Lauren. So, I'm Tom Campbell, and I'm the co-founder and chief strategy officer for a mid-sized third-party logistics firm called Capacity. We're an omnichannel provider that does B2B and B2C order fulfillment, and we do it for A lot of beauty brands, we have other verticals we service, but, because one of our beloved clients is here, I'm gonna focus on that piece.
Alex Yancher: I'll go. Thanks, Tom, and Lauren and Matt for having me. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Passport Global. We're an end-to-end internationalization provider for brands, particularly built on Shopify. And we also, we love the, cosmetics, vertical, we have a lot of brands, there, and we collaborate a lot with capacity. So, it's a great space, it's a great, category for going global, especially cross-border. So yeah, thank you for having me, Matt.
Lauren Ferguson: So, I'm… Oh, I'm Lauren Ferguson, I'm VP of Operations at REM Beauty, which is the cosmetics company founded by Ariana Grande. I oversee all of operations and supply chain for us, so I work very closely with Capacity, our logistics provider, I oversee production, forecasting, as well as project management here. So, thanks for having me, excited to be here.
Matt Hertz: Thanks, Lauren. And I always like to disclose when there's any potential conflict of interest, and I think it's fair to share that I am personally an investor in Alex's company, Passport. I also say that I wouldn't be an investor if I didn't believe in the business and excited about what it is that he's building. And Alex is, similarly an investor in, my business, third person. now that we have that out of the way, I'm also an Ariana Grande fan, Lauren, and in a prior life, was a customer of Tom's back in my early e-commerce days at Birchbox. So, yeah, thank you to the three of you. so let's get into things. sort of mentioned it earlier, but a week away from Thanksgiving, you know, I think Black Friday, Cyber Monday, you know, not that I want to insinuate that I'm kind of, you know, an old guard here, but back in my early e-commerce days, 15 years ago, 17 years ago when I started, I feel like Black Friday weekend was, like, you know, the main event, you know, the main e-commerce event. You know, of the year, and, like, I feel like that's… it's starting to kind of elongate, where… you know, with, you know, Amazon having their multiple Prime events throughout the year, and, you know, some of the other large retailers kind of following that. I feel like Black Friday isn't as kind of prevalent, or important, significant as it was, a decade or so ago, but maybe I'm… delusional here, so I'm curious, just to kind of go around the horn, you know, maybe we'll start with, with Lauren. You know, how are you anticipating, you know, Black Friday sales? I mean, presumably your product is a very giftable product. I know you just launched that new Wicked to… what's the… what's it called?
Lauren Ferguson: Wicked for good.
Matt Hertz: Wicked for good, yeah, shows how much I know. Although I, you know, I didn't know that you had that collaboration. So, yeah, I'm just curious, you know, are you excited? Are you nervous? Is Black Friday still, like, a big thing, or, is it kind of boomerish to suggest that?
Lauren Ferguson: No, I think it's definitely still a big thing, but like you said, I feel like it's gotten diluted over the years. It's like, we start Black Friday in, like, July now. So, yeah, I think definitely excited for it. You know, we're definitely expecting a lot of volume to come through. It seems like no matter how early you promo it, then, it doesn't prevent people from still wanting to shop on Black Friday. You know, we're… I think, and I'm sure we're gonna dive into this later, but, you know, with the economic headwinds that we're all facing. With things getting more and more expensive, you know, tariffs, inflation, etc, you know, we're really focused on how we can get the most share of wallet, right, on… on Black Friday. People have so much money that I think they're willing to spend, and, you know, they're shopping for gifts, and how can we really make, the incentive or the deal look really good, to consumers. So, for us, it's like, how can we sweeten the deal? Is it adding, you know, a GWP with your purchase? Is it, I don't think people are always, promo-driven now. I think it's like, what else can I get within that purchase? Is it, you know, if I spend more, can I get an extra product with it? So I think it's being able to be really ROI-focused on what, how can we get more product into the hands of our customers.
Matt Hertz: Tom, from your perspective, given that you work with brands like Lauren's and, you know, dozens or maybe hundreds of others, maybe thousands of others, what are you seeing kind of collectively, when you throw it all in the hopper, Is Black Friday still a thing that, you know, like it was when you started, Capacity 25-some-odd years ago?
Thom Campbell: It's still a big thing. And across the section of the economy we see, which is admittedly a small-ish slice, it's really material to our business, it's very important to our clients' businesses, and yes, sales have been pulled forward, there has been a bit of dilution, but we consistently grow year on year, and we consistently see our highest concentration of activity in November and December. So, whatever, is going on in the American psyche where we need to show our affection to the people we love, in just this one time of the year, it hasn't changed that much.
Matt Hertz: Alex, what about you? From the, kind of, shipping parcel side, you obviously see a lot. I'm curious, you know, with your U.S. perspective, but as well as given your purview on the international side, be it Canada or other countries overseas. how big is, Black Friday? Is that… is that still kind of a thing?
Alex Yancher: You know, I would say for international, it's bigger abroad than it is even in the U.S. I… before starting Passport, I used to run a personal shopping service that helped people abroad buy products from the U.S. and Black Friday, and I'll even throw in Cyber Monday, because we serviced Amazon as well. That was… obviously, it's our biggest year of the year, but it was 25% that one day, that one, that two-day combo, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Or… was 25%. of all revenue for the entire year, just 2 days. Kind of crazy. And, we definitely see it in our numbers. It's when, cross-border shoppers, they're usually really savvy if they know to go on American stores and buy what they're looking for. They know that they're going to get good deals. Shipping is usually more expensive international, so they want to make it worth their while, so they've been saving up… all the things that they want to buy, instead of buying, you know, multiple, carts throughout the months. They kind of save it up, and… add a ton of stuff to cart, because they know shipping is going to be, like, a flat rate, $15 or something like that. So they're doing that mental math, they're getting the savings on… on the discounting. So Black Friday, Cyber Monday, it's even bigger abroad than it is in the U.S.
Matt Hertz: That is interesting. I, I, I wouldn't have anticipated that. If there's one thing that I've learned in my, 20-some-odd years here in the United States is that, Americans love buying stuff. We love spending money. We love making money. We love accumulating money, and we love… We love purchasing, we love transacting, so, yeah, fascinating that, It seems to be a bigger, a bigger event overseas. Lauren, I want to go back to you, as you… I think I heard you starting to mention, language around, kind of, you know, promotional, you know, events around the holidays. how do you think about, sort of Black Friday promos? I mean, I was just on your website, and I don't see anything yet, promoting you know, any sort of big one-day or, you know, weekend sales. Is that something that… and I realize, Lauren, you're also on the operations side. I don't think you're on the marketing side as well, but you obviously work with your… closely with your counterpart there. Are you looking at kind of having that, like, big blowout that, you know, I think many of us are kind of familiar with other brands, you know, buy one, get one free, or, you know, 75% off, or whatever it is, or is it more of a, kind of. You know, just everyday, you know, sale and merchandising for the business.
Lauren Ferguson: Yeah, I think, I think it's gonna be more of, like, trying to push through, you know, bigger deals with, like I said, trying to get more product into the hands of our customers, and… and something that's enticing for them to… to add more to cart. So definitely trying to, buy into the Black Friday hype. And I think it'll be a really big event for us this year. You know, I think additionally, we have other channels that we've added, so we're… we recently, started selling on Amazon with the new Wicked Collection. You know, we're part of Ulta Beauty in the US, we sell overseas in, Sephora, as well as Foods in the UK. So, you know, we're… we're kind of on promotion everywhere, during that next week. So, definitely just trying to create more brand awareness, get people to try our product, and Black Friday's a great day to do that.
Matt Hertz: Absolutely. It'll be a good time to, you know, for me to… purchase something for my wife. Hopefully she's not, listening to this, or won't listen to it. She usually doesn't like listening to me on webinars, so I'm pretty confident. I can tell her all the gifts I'll buy her, and she won't… She won't discover that.
Lauren Ferguson: It'll still be a surprise, yeah.
Matt Hertz: Yeah, yeah, exactly, right? Tom, I want to go back to you for a moment. You know, in terms of, you know, peak season preparation, I mean, I heard you say it's still very much a thing at capacity, but I'm curious, just over the last, you know, couple years, maybe since COVID, Sort of as a, as a, as a big milestone. How have you and the team, evolved your. peak season prep. Has anything materially changed? Is it, you know, has… has… you know, I don't want to lead the witness necessarily, but have… has the dynamic with labor evolved? You know, I know your facilities have a lot more automation, than they had when I was a client there 15 years ago. So I'm curious, you know, what are the kind of one or two or three things that, has sort of evolved as you and your executive team have thought about, capacity and their preparedness?
Thom Campbell: Yeah, it's a… it is a good question, and it's really… It is all about, you know, preparedness lowers your cognitive load when you're in a time of crisis, and it allows people to be present and just to execute, which is really what we need, because volumes go up 10x, in some cases more. There are clients that do a few hundred orders a day that will drop 10,000 orders a day during this period of time. And so there are 3 main legs to that. One is labor and HR strategy, and one is, One is IT and software, mostly, when I speak of that, and then one is material handling equipment, and I'll quickly touch on all three. With the labor, we're very exact when we bring it on early, so that we can train the associates who will be doing those tasks that we deem appropriate for people who are coming in for a short period of time. That can be, barcode-driven activities, light-driven activities, things that are a little bit like a video game that you can get up to speed on pretty quickly, but we still want to give them a little bit of time to acclimate to. In terms of IT, we undergo a code freeze at this time of year, but before then, we're doing really important things like getting hazmat diamonds on ground labels for clients like Lauren, so that we can move more of that wicked, for good launch faster. And then the final thing is. Preventive maintenance on all of our material handling equipment, like, we were out there, you know. late pretty much every night for the last week or so, just making sure everything is humming, because, if it can break, it will, and this is the time of year it will choose to do so. So… those are the key things. There are a few other things you want to… you do want to have some sort of, you know, wildcards in your back pocket, so… Operations has not needed the office staff to work for… I would say over a decade, but we still come in. And, with the exception of sales, who is not invited because they spend too much time on their cell phones, the rest of us are prepared to work, and, you know, at a minimum, you can buy them pizza or bagels, and people want to be seen when they're really putting in the long hours, and, it's important that the whole company come together during this period of time, so we still try to do that. That's… and all of that… some of that's recent and intensified recently, but a lot of it's been part of our DNA for a long time.
Matt Hertz: Yeah. Alex, we sort of mentioned this earlier, but the… this whole tariff thing… Dynamic, how… How do you anticipate that? Impacting the next few weeks of the year, you know, the final few weeks of the year. Do you see that, Yeah. What are your thoughts on… on… on sort of tariffs? And, you know, it feels like we're at a bit of a… I don't know if lol is the right word, but at least it's not as, the news hasn't been as vociferous as it once was. You know, there was a period early in the summer where every… every day there were policy announcements and changes and etc, and it feels like things have cooled, at least for a moment. So, yeah, how do you anticipate tariffs and that dynamic kind of impacting the last few weeks of sales here?
Alex Yancher: Yeah, yeah. Well, Liberation Day was crazy. We actually call it Liberation Quarter, at Pasper, because it was something, every other week, and then there was a trickle, you know, over the last, maybe, like. couple months. The most recent, big move or announcement was, Canada. ran some ads in the U.S. referencing Ronald Reagan. And that really upset Trump, and he issued an extra 10% tariff. I don't know if it ever went into effect, I'm not sure, actually, if it has or it hasn't, but that was the last announcement, that was maybe, like, a month ago, something like that. And now we kind of have some stability. The big question right now is whether or not the Supreme Court is going to rule in the Trump administration's favor or not in regards to using the IEPA powers to issue these tariffs. But, I mean, like, with, you know, peak season here, nobody should be making any changes or doing anything, so I don't think it's gonna make any impacts, whatever way it… people think it's gonna go or it's not gonna go. there's not… there aren't gonna be any major tariff moves or changes over the next few months anyways, you know, and nobody really wants to change things up. So, I think, if it's okay, Matt, I'll answer a question maybe a little bit further ahead. Because I think, like, Q4, nothing, really. Like, you're stuck with whatever, good or bad, you've done throughout the year, and this is where you're at. Going forward, as. as… ops people are planning, you know, their next move, this core case, adds a little bit of complexity to the calculation, because in theory, in theory, if the Supreme Court removes powers from the executive branch. of issuing tariffs, and, it goes back to the legislative branch. Congress has to enact tariffs as originally designed. It can change the dynamic, and a lot of the, Liberation Day tariffs can be rolled back, so that's a possibility. I don't think that that's what's gonna happen. my personal view. I think that, ultimately. the Trump administration is gonna find other… acts and laws that allow them to essentially, in effect, replicate what they had done under IEPA. I have some notes here, and it's like, Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act allows 15% tariffs for half a year, essentially. Like, you know, so there's… that's just one example, and there's, like, a list of another 5. that give the executive branch. They just need to do a better job of, You know, telling that story and justifying it. Because there's too many things going on for the Supreme Court in this current IEPA, where, like, they're trying to say it's not a tax, and basically, basically, they… through this whole process, I think that the Trump administration thought it was a given that this was just gonna go through, and it might not even be challenged. But I think for the next round, they're not gonna put themselves in this precarious position, and they're gonna try to follow the letter of the law, and there likely is, you know, frameworks by which they can implement tariffs under, existing laws, and also the Republicans still control, both, the House and Senate, so that's the other avenue the Trump administration can push tariffs through Congress while the Republicans still control, Well, the Republicans still control the House and Senate before the midterms next year. So, there's just so many avenues. So, I would assume, as a operations leader at a brand, I would assume that the status quo is… my best guess at what, you know, I have to use for my decision-making purposes. With some uncertainty, obviously, around the corner.
Matt Hertz: Yeah, Yeah, it is fascinating, right, because I, a chart that I've been following… the prediction markets, you know, some of you might be familiar with PolyMarket, and I've been kind of referencing it in my weekly newsletter for a few months now, when the When the, event was first listed for betting. on PolyMarket, it was roughly a 50-50% chance that the Supreme Court would overturn the administration's tariffs. And today, you know, now that we're about 2 weeks into the court case at the Supreme Court. I think when I checked it the other day, it was, like, 24%, or essentially the inverse. So there's, like, you know, 75% chance that the Supreme Court would or will overturn the tariffs. But, yeah, the sentiment that I've heard is very much aligned with what you're suggesting, Alex, which is that the Trump administration will likely figure out, you know, sort of six of one, half a dozen of another, right? If they don't get it under… IEPA or, you know, what it is, they'll get it under some other condition, whether, you know, they pass a bill or, you know, a law. So, yeah, I think the status quo is probably the right… the right approach, you know, going forward. Lauren, I want to ask you something, maybe, sort of a two-parted question, but… You know, you mentioned that, REM Beauty is on, Amazon, you know, you do sell on Amazon. I think you mentioned specifically that, that Wicked, collaboration, but maybe some other SKUs as well. I'm curious… what's sort of that decision factor to sell on Amazon when you have your own kind of D2C site, which looks, you know, which is a beautiful site, looks like it's probably built on Shopify. how do you sort of balance that kind of direct channel, you know, versus Amazon? And sort of my… my part B of that question is, you know, with the, you know, Amazon's kind of, you know, famous same-day, you know, or one day, maybe two-day, if you live in a more rural area, or it's a… you know, a rare SKU, you know, how do you sort of impact that effect with your own, sort of direct channel? And, you know, as great as Tom and the capacity team is at getting out orders, and I'm sure they get out all the orders same day. you know, by noon, you know, shipping out of New Jersey to Alex in San Francisco will take some time, right? It will take a few days. So, yeah, curious how you think about, you know, those two, channels.
Lauren Ferguson: Yeah, I mean, we've never had a late order ship from capacity. Every single order has been on time since the beginning of time. No, it, for us, I think, you know, we're trying to… figure out where our customer is. I mean, our brand is still relatively young. We've been in business for about 4 years now. We just had our fourth birthday last week. So I think we're just trying to figure out where… where people want to buy our product. I think Amazon itself, like, people really want that quick turnaround delivery when they're buying all the other things in their cart. So being able to be available where the customer wants us is absolutely we're trying to go for. You know, we're also, like I said, we're in Ulta as well, so, you know, for that instantaneous, want to buy it same day, you know, were available in store, and I think Ulta even offers now, like, delivery on DoorDash and other things where you can find another way to get it same day. So I feel like that's what a lot of retailers are leaning towards as well, is how can… like, I think I've ordered something from Sephora and had it delivered within 2 hours. When I was going to a wedding for that, that weekend, so… I think other retailers and places that we're at are kind of doing the heavy lifting for us, where we don't necessarily need to offer it on our brand, or on our website. You know, we're… you can find us somewhere and get it to you quickly. It's not necessarily always Amazon.
Matt Hertz: Yeah, it is, it is fascinating because, you know, I'm, I'm kind of, you know, Uber Eats, and not just for food, but for… you know, I ran out of Traeger pellets, the other day. You know, I was smoking something on my grill, and… you know, I can't remember whether… it was either Instacart or Uber Eats, and, I think I had something delivered from my local Ace Hardware, maybe it was Home Depot, right? And, you know, I open up a DoorDash app, and, you know, Ulta pops up, or Sephora pops up, and it's like, I can literally purchase your product and get it delivered to me here in Nashville in minutes, right? An hour if it's a really slow experience, versus the kind of traditional way of, you know, I say traditional way, but, you know, the way of the last, you know, 25 years, you know, you go online, and you place an order, and you wait for it to ship, and then, you know, you get it a few days later, and it's, you know, while that's not going away, and, you know, that act of e-commerce is, you know, will likely grow 8-10% this year, according to early signals from Adobe. who just bought SEMrush, FYI, for those familiar with SEMrush on the marketing side of the house, yeah. Yeah, it is… it is really incredible to kind of understand, how, as a brand, the channels that you sell into are essentially selling through some of these other, you know, super modern channels, like, you know, the Ubers and the DoorDashes and Instacarts, so… Yeah, very interesting.
Alex Yancher: You know, in China, they're doing drone delivery now. It's coming here, too.
Matt Hertz: Yeah, I'm… I'm ready for it. I'm still kind of curious how that will act. I mean, I, you know, I'm a little, maybe, too tongue-in-cheek, but I'm thinking, like, you know, you see something in the air, and like, why don't you just… grab it, but I guess it's just like mugging a delivery person, right? There's law and order in this country some of the time. But yeah, I… I would love to see it, right? I mean, I was, I was just… I mean, not that it's exactly the same, but I was in a Waymo last week for the first time, and I know, Alice, you're probably laughing because they're all over San Francisco, but… I was in Phoenix last week for a couple days, and took my first Waymo, and for those who have not been in a Waymo, it is… I mean, it was one of the very few moments in my… almost 40 years on this earth that I was like, holy moly, this is… like, I'm at a loss for words with how cool this technology is, and, like, how life… I shouldn't say life-changing, but how… how… how, yeah, just, you know, how… how, yeah, just, you know, how… how remarkable and special it is to be in a car that can take you from point to point, and there's literally no driver there, right? It's weird, but it's amazing, and that's the future.
Alex Yancher: There's a company, Aurora, that has been clocking Texas to… or, I'm sorry, Dallas to, Houston truck, rides, autonomous truck rides. So it's come into logistics as well. It's gonna, knock on wood, bring down everybody's cost, but it's, it's already basically here, it's just not widely distributed.
Thom Campbell: Also, bringing it back, Matt, to your question about the customer. Where we worked with, you know, maybe 3 or 4 carriers for a couple of decades. In the last year or two, we're adding a dozen carriers, and we're allowing our clients to ship, you know, overnight via ZoneSkip, and then get into an overnight network for two-day shipping for lower than ground pricing by the majors. So they're an extraordinary proliferation of options, even for brands that are you know, in only one location in this large nation. So, I think that competing with Amazon's service standard, which, honestly, as a consumer at least, I find has slipped. I don't get everything same day, next day, two days. I find it kind of comes when it comes, and a lot of it depends on the Amazon seller. But for our clients, there are so many more options, and so many more price points to enter with shippers, and I'm sure Alex knows more about this than I do, but there's also a lot more reporting, and they can really balance value with service, with speed, and use their own websites and their own options to compete with the retailers and what they have.
Matt Hertz: Just want to say we have, we have about 12, 13 minutes, I'd like us to get out, at the 45-minute mark. But yeah, please drop any questions you have, or comments in the chat. There's also a Q&A button if you want to be super official. You can pop questions there, but putting them in the chat is sufficient. I have a couple more questions, but Zach has asked a question. the question is, I work in the perishable D2C space. he can only ship Monday through Thursday due to deliverable zip codes and time of transit. What strategy would you recommend through the holiday season to maintain high on-time delivery with carriers and quick fulfillment times when we have the limitations of perishable products. I know, Tom, you've fulfilled for a number of, you know, temperature-controlled sensitive products. I don't know, Lauren or Alex, if you've had any experience in the perishable space, but yeah, I don't know, Tom, if you have any initial thoughts there.
Thom Campbell: It's a good question, Zach. And yes, shipping Monday through Thursday is prudent, especially if you, you know. you don't want things to sit in a truck over the weekend. We've had product that was both, you know, going onto trucks that were going to be very cold, where you literally have to have the carrier put blankets on it, and then stuff that's going to be potentially too hot, where you really do not want it to leave at the end of the week, and then sit over the weekend. There are carriers that specialize in this at this point, and they're definitely more of a premium offering, they're not… adhering to some of those value propositions I mentioned earlier, where there's some very low-cost options. But I think the key is to find a good partner. And in some cases, find partners who have enough data. We've done medical products, and we've had GPS and temperature tracking in transit. So, it really depends on the value of the product, and exactly where you want to balance that combination of service and cost. But there are a lot of options, and I think, especially as you scale something like that, you can have increasing control over your cold chain.
Matt Hertz: Zach, I hope that answered, your question sufficiently. Yeah, thanks, Tom. I want to go back to, to, to, to Alex, talking about, carriers, and specifically capacity, or, well, sorry, I don't mean, Tom's capacity, I mean operational capacity. What do you anticipate, you know, heading into, you know, the final month of the year here with, you know, there have been kind of horror stories over the last decade that I remember, you know, one year it's UPS, the next year it's FedEx, the next year it's the Postal Service with, and, you know, sometimes it's, you know, the regional carriers and some of the alternatives. With, you know, boxes being stacked up in the warehouse and just really, really slow. You know, sometimes it's geo-specific, other times it's, you know, more systemic across their network. So, you know, given that, you have a view on, on sort of carriers broadly. What do you… what do you… what do you hope for? What do you anticipate, happening, over… over the last few weeks here?
Alex Yancher: Yeah, so, everybody was caught, you know, when the tide came in in, in, during COVID, you know, us as well, like, we were behind on some packages, and… We've since course-corrected to the point where we had excess capacity last year, you know, and that's what we ultimately solved for. And I think most carriers, are… have the same approach. They don't want to be in the same situation that they were at. During COVID. I mean, what we do is we connect with our largest accounts, in 3PLs over Slack. And we're… we keep a very, very close, communication going, and we really try to get, as much, anticipated, volume predictions from… from our customers. They kind of know, at least to a certain extent, order of magnitude, because they know when they're running their sales. So, at the very least, it's good for brands to let us know when they're running their sales. And, we, we basically plan accordingly. I mean, our space can be flexed, we can handle triple the volume, it's not a big deal. But, but the labor is where, you know, you need to start to tap into some flex labor during the holidays, and, And, just being able to be on top of that and predicted and, and be ready is key, obviously. I think most carriers, frankly, have been burned during COVID, and now they've adjusted. We've had no problems with some of our partners, you know, on the, like, LTL side. Everybody's staffed up appropriately for peak season, and this peak season, it looks like it's going to be a little bit more spread out than… than usual. So, Black Friday, obviously, we already talked about it. Those are gonna be huge days, but we're already starting to see a ton of volume. In the weeks leading up to Black Friday. And that's actually been kind of the trend, you know, of brands, kicking off their Black Friday sales a little bit early, communicating that they're doing some discounting, ahead of… Ahead of Black Friday. So, that's been good for peak planning as well.
Matt Hertz: That's great. Yeah, I think I saw that. I might be butchering this, but I… I thought I read, last month or in the last few weeks that it was either UPS or FedEx, their seasonal hiring was, pretty much, kind of stagnant year over year. And I just remember in prior years, you know, you'd have these massive figures of bringing in you know, 50,000 seasonals, 100,000… 20,000 seasonals, and, you know, I think it could just be that, you know, function of automation in their facilities and other… other variables that allow them to be a little bit more, sort of staffing neutral, you know, during this time of year. But, you know, to your last point, Alex, I think it was Aaron Rubin from ShipHero, who many of us know, or know of, at least. You know, he has, you know, ShipHero's warehouse management software, you know, supports, I think Aaron says, over 1% of U.S. e-commerce GMV, so they do see quite a bit flow through their, system. And, he said yes… he said on Monday that, that that was the biggest shipping day of the year. So, I think to a point that was made earlier, I think, Lauren, you may have mentioned it, you know, sort of the health of the consumer. It seems like As a whole, people are continuing to spend money, and you know, we should anticipate this peak season being Bigger than last peak season, which, which… which is good for certainly everyone on this call. I see we have, yeah, it looks like Marcus, UPS hiring drop is due to automation and loss of Amazon volume. Well, yeah, that is… that is very true, Marcus. I think Amazon is now back in FedEx's hand for… for a little bit. You know, they just signed an agreement, so… Yeah, interesting to see sort of the game of hot potato with Amazon.
We have just a few minutes here. I want to ask, maybe Tom, you know, one quick question, and then, I do want to go around the horn, just sort of lightning round style. But Tom, you know, I'm curious, you know, given that you work with lots of e-commerce brands, many that are, I think most of us would consider startup brands, and I don't mean that as a pejorative, you know, just younger brands, you know, companies like Lauren's, and you've been working with her for some time now, so, like. Particularly as we go get, you know, get into 2026 and, you know, Q1 2026, which, in my experience, tends to be when brands are starting to kind of sniff around and probably blame all their shortfalls on their 3PL and start looking for a new 3PL. You know, like it or hate it, it's just the reality. what do you typically see are, like, common mistakes? Maybe, like, the most common operational mistake that, brands make as they scale from You know, kind of that 1,000 order a month level, or, you know, maybe, you know, you might only see them when they're kind of that 5,000 to 10,000 orders a month, but when they're scaling to. the point where Lauren's company is, and even larger, you know, what are, you know, maybe the one or two most common mistakes that you see brands making?
Thom Campbell: So, there's a big range, because we do sort of start at the 5,000 orders per month range, and the bigger clients are doing more than 100,000 orders a month. It's not easy to forecast e-commerce volume, and as Alex said, they certainly know when they're going to run their promotions, but it's extremely difficult to accurately predict, and we find that some of the young, meteoric brands will deliver 4X on their projections, and some of the more established often publicly listed brands that we work with. Their marketing team delivers a forecast. Their supply chain team cuts it in half. We cut that in half. That's what we build our labor plan around. So, we're both working with the brands, and we really appreciate forecasts, and many clients don't provide it, but of course, clients like Lauren do, and… We actually upload those forecasts, so we use those in aggregate to make a plan, so even if a client is only shipping 500 orders a day, or thinking they're gonna ship 500 orders a day, and even has a contractual cap at 500 orders a day, we're gonna go, you know, maybe to 4,000 orders for that client, because we know on that day we can deploy the resources to make it happen, but we're also going to try and balance our resources across all of our clients, get everybody clean from the peak season as quickly as possible, and also allow our people a humane quality of life, and balance out the OT costs. I think that the challenge for the brands really is forecasting. It's very, very tough to put your line in the sand and say, this is where I'm gonna be. You can, you know, you can look at aspirational, Numbers, but it's really hard to nail it.
Matt Hertz: Lauren, what do you think? Given that you're kind of in the shoes of that, you know, emerging brand? You know, what are maybe… You know, the biggest learning, or, you know, one or two of the biggest learnings that you've had, in your few years.
Lauren Ferguson: Yeah, I mean, echoing Tom, I mean, it's really difficult to forecast things, especially being a really young brand where we're consistently launching new products and trying to figure out what works for us. I think biggest learnings over the last, kind of, 3 years that I've been with the brand is One, I think the… I… I don't think I fully grasp the international star power that Ariana Grande has, and this is one of the… startups that I've worked at that has the largest international business. So, with, you know, working with Passport as well, you know, it allows us to serve those customers internationally. It wasn't, you know, a huge part of businesses that I've worked with in the past. But we really do, I mean, I think, you know, it… international is a really big, sizable part of our business. So I think that's been a big learning for us, is how can we tap into international customers? You know, we are… we do service multiple international markets and retail, but for us, you know, e-commerce continues to grow year over year. So being able to… to service those customers and, do it at a… cost-conscious, or do it in a cost-conscious way. I think that's been a really big learning for us.
Matt Hertz: Yeah, thank you, Lauren. So one final question with the minute we have left, just sort of, around the horn, lightning round, Whoever wants to start, but what is your biggest fear For this peak season. Nope, Tom, I think you're on mute.
Thom Campbell: I'm just thinking out loud. Uncertainty and soft volumes. I think that's, you know, obviously I could be afraid in the other direction, but I believe that we can handle a spike above forecasted volumes. So I think the amount of uncertainty, you know, we look at the complexity of the tariffs, but what does it really mean to business owners? What it means to me is, like. I don't know what's going on, and I don't particularly like that. There are lots of unknowns that I'm willing to deal with, but it's the unknown unknowns, so… That's mine.
Lauren Ferguson: I'll go. Alright, yeah, I'll go. I think, for me, it's probably stock outs or, you know, unforecasted volume. You know, we have an idea of what we're gonna do. But, you know, making sure that we have the right product at the right time. And then, you know, kind of once we recover after Black Friday, you know, where are we sitting in terms of demand? What do I need to get, you know, if we went out of stock of anything, what do I need to get back into stock of, to kind of really prepare for, you know, going into January?
Matt Hertz: Alex.
Alex Yancher: So, I've been hearing some rumblings that UK and EU are looking to drop their duty de minimis ASAP as early as 2025. So, you know, trying to, load balance our engineering team around peak season requirements and things. While also being ready to strike if, that's what's required in early 2025. So, worried that that, you know, news might hit that, that the de minimis is going away in 2025. I mean, 2026.
Matt Hertz: Excellent. Well, good. Well, thank you, everyone, for your time. I think we, we covered quite a… quite some ground. We asked a lot of questions, and appreciate the audience participation as well. As I said at the beginning, everyone who registered will get a link to this. This will be on our socials shortly, certainly by the end of the week. And, yeah, feel free to look up Alex or Tom or Lauren on LinkedIn. I know they'll each be happy to connect with you. I'm also happy to intro you if you send me an email. But thanks, everyone, for joining and taking some time out of your day this morning.
Thom Campbell: Thanks, Matt. Thanks, team. It's great to speak with you.
Alex Yancher: Ditto. Thank you.
Lauren Ferguson: Appreciate it!
