04 part 2: Cross-Border Shipping to Key e-Commerce Markets - Canada, UK and Australia

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Welcome back to Outside the Box

with Asendia USA.

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This is Nick Agnetti and I'm John Walsh.

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We continue our previous conversation

about the top three global e-commerce

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markets for U.S. shippers to target.

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Okay, let's pivot... UK.

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So UK is, you know, our second largest

what we as a organization

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in terms of our exports.

What are they on your notes there globally?

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Excuse me.

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I will take care of the notes. No problem.

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So what we've got here is an again, data

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December 2023, the most advanced

e-commerce market in Europe

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Revenue, which I love the name, is is being

remitted and reported to Her Majesty...

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Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.

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It's the third largest e-commerce market in the world

underneath China in the United States.

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And the the output annually is

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estimated at $169 billion with a B.

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Well, yeah. Wow.

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And so what we're looking

so any of these markets

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that we mentioned today,

which is also interesting.

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So if you're a seller listening

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and you're thinking,

he just talked about, you know,

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my section, my sector business,

So top, I think it's six

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or seven areas of exports

or however you... imports, if you want to call it.

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We're looking at electronics, fashion,

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skincare, cosmetics, self-care,

hobby and leisure.

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Feel like those last two

are a little broad,

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but the first four are pretty specific.

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So, I mean, we see it

all the time, all day long.

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Apparel, skincare, all those guys and they're

all doing a good amount of business

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to, again, these more affluent,

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developed and really top ranking countries.

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And the UK has some stringent...

Yeah, they have specific rules.

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VAT rules because of everything

that happened with Brexit.

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Because they're not officially part

of the the EU member states.

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Right.

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And so they require any seller

that's selling into,

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you know, to Canad... not

Canadian, UK customers

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to register and remit, collect

taxes, collect

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VAT and then remit

those funds on a regular cadence.

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And that's but it's also self-monitored.

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So there's really no official policing

at this point that we're aware of.

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It's very interesting situation.

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And the VAT’s, you know, it's 20% VAT.

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Yeah.

But...

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Go ahead.

...the service to the UK is fantastic.

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It's fantastic.

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So to that point is, what we see

average four days?

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Four to five business days.

It's amazing. Door-to-door.

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Oh yeah, process to delivery.

Full tracking, visability,

100%.

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Yeah.

It's a beautiful thing

Some things I was looking at

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so our parent company Geopost

has a website, they have a barometer on there,

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an e-shop barometer. Like they...

That’s a great tool.

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They post what...

That’s cool.

...each individual countries habits are.

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So some things that came up that were

a little different with the UK.

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And I think it's more

because there's a lot of brownstones

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and their tight neighborhoods

and things like that,

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and the deliveries.

Free shipping was number one.

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Oh.

Number two was no hidden fees at checkout.

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They like to see the complete delivery who that's going to... how that's going to...

So the final mile carrier?

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Correct.

Okay.

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Choice and speed of delivery.

So they like a choice in the shopping cart of

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to your point because I think

these transits are so good.

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I think there's some options there

that are more... some are postal,

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some are commercial. Right? Sure.

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The fifth one was clear return policy,

which I thought was interesting.

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That is interesting.

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And it was a very

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when I looked at some other countries,

they were much higher

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in these five categories, which is,

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I wouldn’t say the word interesting.

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I thought it was

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to your point is they're different

than everybody else over there.

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They have a different look of way it is.

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But again, I...

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I don't see them as challenges,

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but I see them as opportunities

for most shippers in the US. Right.

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There you go.

Yep, yep.

Turn that frown upside down.

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So the other thing I want to add on to

that too, is what's different than,

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and again, we're talking today

about Canada, Australia, UK,

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so UK VAT rules

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or you know, duty and tax rules

when you talk about de minimis,

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again my Latin term that I mentioned earlier

as a as a true scholar,

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what what I'd like to highlight is that

there is no de minimis for the UK, right.

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It's not.

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So taxes apply on everything

starting from zero all the way up.

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Duties don't apply until you get

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up to 150 GBP and then at that point

you've got taxes and duties.

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Now we're not... there's no provincial differences.

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It's a straight, you know, 20% VAT tax

and typically a shipper would have

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and you talk about landed

costs and details and a better experience

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and such would have it broken down

at the time of

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when you're purchasing,

when you go to checkout,

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they would have the the merchandise,

the goods cost, they'd have it

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you know, what the taxes are.

Right?

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They'd collect that

at the time of checkout,

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then they'd have the shipping costs,

then you got your total cart.

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But UK really, I mean with Brexit

and everything they did there, that

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I mean it is simple, there's no de

minimis and again 150 GBP and over

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duty and tax.

Awesome, awesome.

Pretty easy.

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Let's talk about the last country

which is Australia.

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Last, but definitely not least right?

Yeah very large economy,

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very large buying power.

Have very high de minimis, right?

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Can order a lot of merchandise.

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Interesting enough

they love buying from the US.

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They really do.

Obviously probably because of their de minimis,

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but where they can buy a lot of product.

But you know they're very consistent...

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I did notice in some stuff from...

that I was reading, they're very big

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into health care, health and wellness items...

Yes.

...and apparel.

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Self care.

I don't think that's a surprise.

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Most companies, most countries

are in those two topics.

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But these, those two particular verticals,

they're big into.

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Is that what your experience has been?

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I know you have a couple large

customers like that.

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Skin care, fashion, self care, all those things

are huge for Australia. Yes.

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And, you know,

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let's go back and I seem to be just

spitting out facts this episode here.

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That's my job.

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But I don't use, you know, talking terms.

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I mean, just give you numbers.

Alright we’ll switch it up this time.

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Got on the Goog machine

before we get started and here we are.

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So 11th largest e-commerce

market in the world.

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GST rules that we will discuss

st,: 2018

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So quite a while

it seems like like a lifetime ago.

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Right.

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But ultimately what it's saying that is

if you're an organization that's overseas

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or you're a US based seller selling into

or selling to Australian shoppers

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and you're selling over $75,000 AUD

worth of goods annually...

Right.

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you are required to register

for GST and collect

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the 10% GST at the time of sale and remit

those funds on a on a regular cadence.

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Now, what John was referring to

with the high de minimis

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is that there's a 1000 Australia

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Australian dollar de minimis

for duty threshold and so duties

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will not be assessed until you purchase

something over 1,000 AUD.

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So yeah, you'd have to buy quite a bit.

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Quite a bit.

Yeah.

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One thing... I was looking at something else

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I wanted your take on.

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They, apparently, I guess since the pandemic

their buying habits have changed, right?

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So they're more apt to buy

when there's a special.

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Okay.

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And they're more cost conscious

than they were before the pandemic,

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probably because they were

locked down for how many...

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they were locked down for a long time.

Yeah.

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But it's interesting that, ser...

the cost is more than service.

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but quite frankly, with our new...

our services have improved quite a bit.

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We're, you know, now we're inducting

in four ci... four particular cities

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in the in the UK.

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Our average transits are seven days now...

Australia.

Australia, I'm sorry.

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No, you're good.

I mean and it's full tracking.

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It's just it's been such

a better experience in what, the last

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seven, eight months

since we changed our strategy.

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Significant. It was...

Yeah.

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It was a little rough there for a while.

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I mean really, I mean they shut down...

we go back to

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not that I want to talk

about the pandemic,

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but the reality is this is that,

you know, Australia was very conservative

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with shutdowns and which led to

I mean, heck, the USPS pulled out for how long?

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Oh, months.

It was months that

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they just said, eh,

we're not shipping into Australia.

Yeah.

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And then on top of that,

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with significant air freight reductions

in terms of actual supply lanes of,

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you know, the ability to get material over

to Australia, it cut down the

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transit times were

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very high because we had delays

in parcel processing.

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But on top of that too,

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we were looking at

it was almost double, right?

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From what, if you look at 2019 to 2021,

probably double and now we're back down

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to getting close to what we had in 2019,

which is fantastic.

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Which, which, you know, if you look at it

from a domestic standpoint,

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if you've got 7 average domestically,

probably five years ago you were a star,

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you're doing seven day average.

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So a country that's half way around

the world, you’re getting seven business days.

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That's pretty impressive.

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So if that's something we can help

you all on the phone here... oh on the podcast here

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that's... it's a really good service, obviously,

to your point, it’s one of the largest

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lanes.

Absolutely.

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It's a real good opportunity

for a lot of companies to hop on that.

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Yeah, I agree.

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And I think just, you know, recapping

because we've been yapping for a while

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here, but we're going to recap.

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So today we focused on, you know,

the challenges,

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cross-border shipping to top

three e-commerce markets,

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and again, that's from the perspective

of a US-based logistics company,

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which is going to be in a direct-to-consumer,

which is going to be Canada, UK, and Australia.

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The... you know and so any, any questions

concerns that that you as a listener have,

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you know, add it to anything that you see

there. Send it into the the email address,

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the contact us, wherever you see this

add a comment and let us know.

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And also let us know if you if there's

anything that you want to hear about.

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We would love to get your

involvement as well.

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But John,

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is there anything else you want to recap

and kind of cap off of for today's talk?

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The only other thing I would ask

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the audience is if they want

any more Latin terms.

Oh, boy.

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And we can

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we can ask them if that's how they want

that presented and we'll go from there.

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Just one per episode.

That’d be...that’d be fine.

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Okay, I'll, I'll get on the Goog

and I'll figure it out. Okay?

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No no no. I’m just...I’m just joshing you.

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No, that was really good information today.

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All right.

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Thanks, everybody.

We'll talk to you next time.