21 part 1: Transforming Cross-Border Shipping: Asendia's Innovative Solutions for the U.S. Market

Gerry McGowan: 00:00:00

And when you look at how e commerce is generated in today's world, you know, you've seen the evolution of wow, I have to have a website. Wow, I have a website. How do I drive demand to it? Wow, I got demand. But nobody's converting, right? So you had all that for years.

Now it's like you don't even need a website, Right. You just need a product and advertising on Instagram or some social media. Everybody has three clicks on their thumb and they're ordering stuff.

Voiceover: 00:00:23

This is Outside the Box with Asendia USA, a podcast educating US based brands, marketplaces and e tailers on, on international shipping topics and how they can expand their global e commerce footprint.

Nick Agnetti: 00:00:36

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Outside the Box with Asendia USA podcast. We are here for day two, the final day at the Parcel Forum in Schaumburg, Illinois with my co host.

Jason Rowland: 00:00:47

Hey everybody, welcome back.

Nick Agnetti: 00:00:49

Jason Rowland. And we've got a special guest today. We have got Jerry McGowan, the executive director of the US Network for Asendia.

Hey Jerry, thanks for joining us.

Gerry McGowan: 00:00:57

No problem. Thanks for the invite.

Jason Rowland: 00:00:58

You're on time with us today.

Gerry McGowan: 00:01:00

Absolutely.

Nick Agnetti: 00:01:01

So, okay, we're at the Parcel Forum and we, there's been some, there's been some chatter about our, you know, what are we doing when it comes to what, what options do we have domestically as maybe a value add or just a part of growing our network.

So can you maybe explain maybe your role, what you've been doing, Give us a, you know, give us a five, five minute or you know, overview of what, what you've got, what you got going on?

Gerry McGowan: 00:01:25

Yes, absolutely.

So the legacy solution that the rest of the world of Asendia would sell into for the US was a mail consolidation solution, AKA Mail Innovations or even any one of those. But that doesn't differentiate you from the crowd, right? It doesn't give other options to do it.

And there's so many carriers, there's so much to do with speed and cost savings you can have in us.

So basically the project and what I'm putting together is like a diversified carrier network so that we can lower cost and we can get stuff there quicker. Starting off with we launched a ground service this year that's up and running and we'll add carriers to that as the months go on.

And then next I won't get in for peak but by next year we'll launch like an express service.

Okay, so now if they're in Singapore, if they're UK, we can have a diversified carrier Network for ground and then we can also have an express for people who want like a two day, let's say 70% of the market or something like that.

Nick Agnetti: 00:02:28

And just to clarify for viewers listeners, when you said you mentioned Singapore and UK but we're referring to a. That would be inbound.

Gerry McGowan: 00:02:37

Inbound.

Nick Agnetti: 00:02:37

Yeah.

Gerry McGowan: 00:02:38

So the sales. So our send you sales team will have a new product to sell for us Destination packages for, for, for customers who want to go into the U.S. okay.

So that, and that's what we're going to. So instead of it being a mail consolidation, cheap and cheerful, slow to get there, we'll have, we'll have a better solution for them.

Nick Agnetti: 00:02:57

I like it.

Gerry McGowan: 00:02:58

And to point we've been in, I get weekly updates from the origins and just as an ended, you know, as of last week the UK is reporting that their costs are down significantly with the new solution and also their service. You know you would come in on a Monday to the airport and it clears the broker.

Let's say it would get to the carrier Monday night because of the mail consolidation and resorting. The first delivery attempt might not be till Wednesday. Right, Right. Well now we're getting in the same process.

We're getting to the carriers Monday night but they're delivering it the next day on Tuesday. Wow. So the UK's reported like a 30% shift in volume that used to go 3, 4, 5 days delivery. Now getting 1, 2, 3. So that's huge.

We're already seeing the benefit of that and that's just the early stages. There's still multiple other regionals and other carriers I want to add that'll just continue to add to that speed.

Jason Rowland: 00:03:57

Is the product meant to be exclusively for extraterritorial companies sending things into the US or would domestic customers have ability to access the network also for their stuff?

Gerry McGowan: 00:04:08

Yeah, great question.

So when I came on board last year and met the US based sales team, that was one of the things when I was explaining to them hey, this is what I'm working on. The one thing we said is there's no reason why you go and tap into that, you know. So we are working with Broadreach right now.

There's a client that's coming down from Canada.

Nick Agnetti: 00:04:26

Okay.

Gerry McGowan: 00:04:26

And they're going to start injecting into it. That's awesome.

And then also there's various sales guys I've been in contact with from the US sales team that I've been going back and forth with questions on potential solutions they could tap into. So.

Jason Rowland: 00:04:40

So we had some good discussions Yesterday with International Bridge, is it contiguous 48 or is it not?

Gerry McGowan: 00:04:46

So basically right now, since all the packages, once they clear the broker, they, they just turn into a domestic shipment. Right. So it's the lower 48 in addition to the outlying area.

So we have the postal solutions, you get the Guam and all those Puerto Rico and all those things. So we, we do have those covered. We have options for them.

Nick Agnetti: 00:05:04

Yeah, that's phenomenal. So, okay, so, so for viewers and listeners.

So one of the things I want to clarify is because Asendia is a global organization, we have subsidiaries or offices throughout the world. Like Jerry had mentioned, Asendia UK, Asendia Singapore. We've got, you know, there's France, there's Italy and so the. I think just.

And you can tell me if I'm wrong too.

But right now those subsidiaries can take advantage of this network by transitioning what they were doing previously over to this new product to then utilize, cut down on the transit times and that's from the inbound from other areas outside the United States into the US market.

it's now or Maybe sometime in: 2026

Gerry McGowan: 00:06:04

Absolutely.

Nick Agnetti: 00:06:04

Is there a sweet spot in our, in this domestic network that you're creating in terms of weight distribution? What would you know for somebody that's listening or watching, what would be a good, a good fit really?

Gerry McGowan: 00:06:17

Well, when you, when you start adding like regional, the DSP carriers or gig carriers and things like that, for the most part they don't want the 25 pound packages big time. They really don't have the big cargo vans for that. So the sweet spot is your typical E commerce packages.

And when you look at how E commerce is generated in today's world, you've seen the evolution of wow, I have to have a website. Wow, I have a website. How do I drive demand to it? Wow, I got demand. But nobody's converting. So you had all that for years.

Now it's like you don't even need a website. Right. You just need a product and advertising on Instagram or some social media. Everybody has three clicks on their thumb and they're ordering stuff.

So because that you also don't get multi line orders. You know, it's so a lot of the orders I've seen over the years, there's more lightweight now than I've ever seen in the past.

Nick Agnetti: 00:07:10

You know, single sku, that type of thing.

Gerry McGowan: 00:07:12

Yeah, but, but that E Commerce direct to consumer, that's where we have low cost solutions. We have under pound pricing. Okay. Even though a lot of that went away, we've kept it.

We've been able to negotiate that into contracts so we can still provide outspace pricing for our customers. And that's big for a lot of these E commerce driven clients.

Jason Rowland: 00:07:30

Yeah.

So as you start developing that network and so walk me through a little bit about how you, what, what stands out to you for the vendors that you choose, what do they do well, what sets them apart? How do you make those decisions as well as you build out?

Gerry McGowan: 00:07:45

Without a doubt. I'm old school so you know, I believe in operations you manage by walking around and I need to do that for any vendor. Right.

So I have to visit their operations, I want to see their operations, I want to see, I want to understand their call center, how their customers. I want to know what they spend in technology, what's their technology doing, what are they doing in the future.

So it's not just about the price on a rate card, it's really about the company. And because I'm partnering like at the end of the day, you know, the final mile delivery is the face of the customer in many aspects. Right.

So you want to make sure that's a good experience in that. So you want to make sure that carrier is prioritizing that as much as we prioritize it.

So we got to make sure we're aligned on the customer first type attitude with everything they do just not cost or cheap or whatever. Right. And you'll see that out there with, with different vendors on how they're growing.

You know, some of the other side benefits, it wasn't the reason to pick it. But like when you go to a 100% postal solution, the undeliverables and returns is a nightmare. Right.

If the postal can't deliver it, there's only one attempt. They don't go three attempts. They slap a label, it comes back to your warehouse at probably like $13 a paid postage just to get it there.

That that's, nobody sees that. That's true cost. It has to go back before you even process the return. So what we've seen already is that now we're getting three delivery attempts.

Right. If it comes back to a sortation center, we, our customer service is going to get an email of all the. If any undeliverables. What do you want to do?

We can try to readdress the label. We can destroy, have the option to destroy or bring it back and return it if it's one. If they want to resell it. So we never had that before.

Nick Agnetti: 00:09:26

This is our.

Gerry McGowan: 00:09:26

This is right now? Yeah. Yes. Yep.

Jason Rowland: 00:09:28

Wow.

Gerry McGowan: 00:09:28

Absolutely.

Nick Agnetti: 00:09:29

Okay.

Gerry McGowan: 00:09:29

Yeah.

So it goes right to like for instance, if the, if the package came from the UK, the UK have a distribution list for every origin and they get the email and they make the decision what to do with the package. We also now have video proof of delivery. Never had that at the post office.

So there's all those, you know, yes, we wanted speed and we wanted other options, but there's also these other benefits you get when you pull away from the post office and go to what the new. What these newer companies, because that. They all have to do it because that's what the competition's offering.

Jason Rowland: 00:09:59

Right.

Gerry McGowan: 00:09:59

But so we have a. That's a huge customer sat pickup right from the beginning, you know.

Jason Rowland: 00:10:04

Thank you for listening. Tune in again next week when we continue this discussion.

Voiceover: 00:10:07

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