Hey everybody, I'm Lori Boyer and welcome to Unboxing Logistics, the fun, amazing, and so interesting podcast, if I say so myself, from Easypost. I am really excited to have you back today as always. We've got a really cool topic and an amazing guest. I'm really thrilled to have John Campo here with us. I'm going to have him introduce himself in just a minute, so don't, don't get too crazy.

Well, thank you Lori. Yeah, I'm John Campo. I'm the vice president of government and carrier relations for EasyPost. I'm domiciled in Washington DC and represent EasyPost's interests in all things Washington.

All things Washington. You guys know it. It's where we got to get all the work done. It's where he makes sure that our interests are taken care of in the logistics industry. So John, how long have you been in the industry?

I've been in the industry 38 years.

38 years. And tell me a little bit about your journey in the industry.

Well, the journey started in San Diego, California in 1985 working in the sales end of the logistic space. Pursued a 25 year career with a Fortune 500 company doing that. Transitioned over to the software side with the PC postage industry. And then about four and a half years ago, I joined EasyPost.

Oh, that's fantastic. So, I'm glad you mentioned the very beginning and all these years ago, because one of the fun things we like to do is to get to know our guests a little bit. And so in Season Two here, I've been asking all of our guests the same two questions. So, question number one is, what were you like, John, in high school?

I would be I would describe myself as a student-athlete.

Okay. All right. Awesome. What sport or sports?

Sports. Actually, it was soccer and baseball.

Okay. Positions?

I was a pitcher in baseball and a fullback in soccer.

Nice. That's amazing. Okay. So you were a student-athlete. What were your grades like?

I would say a stretch was about 3.4. I wasn't at the top, not at the bottom. Yeah, that's right.

And were you obedient, oh yes, mother, father? Were you pushing the boundaries? What was your personality like?

My personality was probably shaped by my birth order. I'm the oldest of five.

My mother is as well.

So I was maybe a little less rule-abiding than I should have been.

You're like, I, yeah, I get it. So that's so fun. I love it. Okay. Question number two, if you won the lottery today, how would your life look different?

You know, interestingly enough, I would continue on doing what I'm doing because I love the job that I have. It really, it's very rewarding. I think how it might look slightly different is living in a more rural part of the country that was a little warmer with a little more acreage and a few dogs.

Okay. Wow. Would you like to work on the acreage yourself?

Oh, absolutely.

Okay, really interesting. You know, if you're in my community, if you're some of our faithful followers out there, I have two guests this year that I have asked to share just about kind of, they're, they're such experts in the industry that I wanted to know what their predictions, not predictions, but what trends they think we need to look for.

That would be you, John, that we're going to discuss. And I also asked Dr. Chris Caplice from MIT, he's the head of supply chain at MIT. You two both said your lives would not change with the lottery. That's the only two people who have said that. So, go become an expert. Be that person and apparently, you know, you've got it set.

So that's incredible. I love it. Okay, so let's dive into that then. John, what do you feel like. So one of the things I like to do, one of the things that's really important for us here at Unboxing Logistics, is that when people watch or listen or however they partake of the show that they come away with a couple of like key takeaways that if they just stop listening, what's one thing they could do today?

One thing they should know today, something that's important. So I'm wondering if you have a couple of takeaways, we're going to start with that and then we'll back up and go over all the things. Questions dive into that, what you think are trends and whatnot. What are maybe two things that you feel like if somebody listened today and only remembered one or two things, what are those things that you would want them to come away with?

Well, I think the first one is that logistics can be seen as a commoditized business, but in order to successfully compete in that, in this space, the use of data and data analytics is absolutely critical. And in the old days, it was tracking and tracing, and that was about it. Now the data analytics is much more precise, much more rifle shot in its application.

I love that. I so agree with you on this point. Of course, I'm a little bit biased because I'm kind of a data nerd. I love data, but you know, the industry has been around for so long and in some ways it's a little slow in adapting to things. But in this business, everything is by the second, by the you know, how many packages and there's big changes with that.

And so I love that. Data can make a giant difference with one penny here. With one second there. And so I love that. Okay. Anything else?

Yeah. I think the second one would be reliability. Because every single package that's processed through EasyPost or anyone else represents goods and services that is vital to the company that's shipping it. So I think that a robust uptime of any system that supports that ecosystem of logistics is really important.

Okay, I love that because it's like a combination almost. We have the data, which is almost like forward thinking and moving into the next, you know, iteration of the industry. And we've got reliability, which is kind of like keep your foundation strong.

Okay. I think there are a couple of trends. One of them is that recently the carriers nationally have gone through some labor discord. There was a threatened labor action by one of the largest carrier’s unions. And then there's also, you know, pilots have concerns in that space. So I think what it did, and thank goodness these labor actions did not take place, they were avoided, but I think what it did is it caused shippers to say, hey, you know, I can't have a one-trick pony.

I have to have a multi-carrier system that will support me just in case there are disruptions, whether they're labor based or they're weather based or, you know, geopolitical or geopolitically based.

We've been seeing that over in the Red Sea and all the challenges there recently. So absolutely, I would agree with that completely.

I last year spoke with a few different shippers who had kind of put all their eggs in one basket and had run into fears and trouble. And, you know, a lot of that I feel like also happened during Covid. How do you feel like maybe this is. Is it just continuing to evolving? Do you think we're going to continue to need more and more multiple carriers? What are the pros and cons of multi-carrier, I guess, versus single?

Actually, I think the tailwinds that COVID provided the shipping industry, they've diminished. Okay, so you know, COVID is not what it was. It's just understood and controlled. So I think, however, during that time there was massive over-investment.

And there were, you know, every Tom, Dick, and Harry wanted to get into the logistics business, and so I think there's actually going to be more of a consolidation in the business. So that the strong ones, the ones with discipline, they'll survive and they'll thrive.

And they'll thrive. Yeah. So, there you go, you heard it here from John. Let's talk a little bit back about the data. Okay, so it's interesting that that was like your takeaway number one. How do you feel like maybe, how is data different today than 10 years ago even, or 20 years ago? And why is it emerging as such an important trend right now?

Well, I go back 20 years and data was simply in the ecommerce space having the confidence that you could securely use a credit card to buy a product on the internet.

Okay, so kind of consumer confidence.

Consumer confidence, absolutely. Then it became layered onto, that was tracking your package. It was, okay, I let go of the money via a credit card transaction, but now I'm waiting for the product to be sent to me. And it's important, so where is it? And when can I expect it?

So that was the nascent, you know, the beginning of track and trace. And customers’ interest in that. Where I, where I see it going though, Lori, is it's going into more, instead of a pull where a customer has to go onto a website and say, where's my package? I think the data is now going to be pushed out to the, the, the shipper or the customer saying ... automatically. So it's much more proactive.

Okay, so what kind of ratio do you feel like people, and I'd be interested to hear from you guys here, welcome to comment, but how many people are already doing that kind of push in terms of notification? Like I recently had a package that I had purchased internationally. So there's always a little bit of an extra challenge there. And I, it disappeared.

Not unusual.

And it reappeared a few weeks later, you know, but, I would have loved maybe some of those push, even with the poll it was just sort of in the dark out there. Is this something where you feel like most people are doing it, or is it one where most people still need to adopt it?

I think it depends on what the pack, what the contents of the package are. If it's, if it's what I would call something of passive interest, like a sweater that you ordered and if it gets here in 10 days, okay. If it's something that's more actively interesting to the recipient, something like important medicines, important electronic products, important legal documents, I think those are the ones where the customer would very much appreciate notifications without having to remember to look.

So that's really interesting. That's a great point, you guys. When, when you're looking at notifications, the more valuable, the more urgent, obviously, then the more important it is that you're looking at that kind of data. What, how else is data used?

Well, I think on that same theme, I think it can be used in a really decent marketing way to build confidence in the brand. So as an example, if I were to order an Apple watch and. An Apple watch, that's an expensive product. It may be important. If I'm running a marathon the upcoming weekend, I want to get it so I can use it. And if, if, if the shipper, i. e. Apple were to go ahead and say, Hey, it was shipped on Monday. It's now in Indiana. It will be delivered on Thursday in the afternoon after four o'clock. Then I have a level of confidence that I'm going to get what I paid for and when I need it.

That makes a ton of sense. I can totally get that. I recently went through a move myself. And so it was really the, the accuracy of when things were arriving was really important to me. Because we purchased our house, but we weren't arriving till a certain time. So we actually had a few things arrive early. Which became a big problem for me because they were valuable and sitting on my porch for several days.

So that kind of brings me to the idea of porch piracy and some of those kind of issues. It, is that, are there, what are the risks for carriers as well as for suppliers when it comes to kind of that accuracy and reliability of delivery?

Well, on the issue of porch piracy, it's a very real problem. You know, it's an endemic problem at times. I think that technology though does provide some answers here. One of the most expensive things that a carrier can experience is what's, it's known by an acronym FFA. It's a failed first attempt. Failed first attempt at delivery. So that's an issue. That's one issue. The second issue is you do deliver a product. It's on the porch and it gets stolen.

Okay, so let's back up. What, what would cause a failed first attempt?

If a product was delivered or attempted, to be delivered, and it required a signature, or it required an adult signature. It could be something of that nature. Then it, really what the carrier has to do is leave a sticker on the door, and then the responsibility falls upon the recipient to go to some industrial park and pick up a product at a facility, usually a warehouse facility. It's usually not that convenient.

No. Doesn't create a great customer experience.

Or, you know, to the carrier's benefit too, the carrier may keep it and attempt a second delivery. Which is very expensive. Because it's not in the original line of travel of the delivery on the first day. So, to your point if, if the delivery can be made to be as exact and precise as possible using data, then the customer wins, the carrier wins, the merchant wins, and it keeps costs down.

And there's several ways that that can happen. We can now do things like an intermediary message. For example, I'm in a facility in Salt Lake City. If I needed a computer, my computer delivered to me. I had a, and I originally asked for it to be delivered at my home in Virginia. I realized I'm going to be working here for a few days.

If I can utilize technology to reroute that product and have it delivered to a hotel where the conference is, then I get my product. It gets securely delivered. And you know, the whole chain of custody is maintained by data, but it doesn't sit on a porch unattended. Like perhaps yours did at your new home.

Yes. I have to say, and this is just a side story too, but I also had this experience. So I received so many packages, you know, you move into a new house, there's new furniture, whatever you need to get. I got in my mailbox a little card that said like, Oh, we missed you. We need, you know, you've got a package waiting.

Call this number. We can reschedule it. Blah, blah, blah. And I was like, Oh, I'll just run down. It said it was the USPS. I was like, I'll just run down to the USPS, pick it up. So I go down, I waited in line forever, because it was right before Christmas. I get up and they told me it was a scam. I didn't even know. So warning out there for some of you, carriers everyone alike. They said they're seeing this more and more. They're trying to get people to call that phone number and then they'll set something up and somehow get all your info. So there's so many ways out there with porch piracy and but the more visibility you have into it. I have no idea what the package even was. But because again, it was the holiday time, lots of people would have been getting packages. There's just a lot to be aware of, but visibility.

Visibility is one, and choice of delivery points is another. And I would look at, you know, you mentioned an international package. Well, in the international market space, the use of lockers, parcel lockers, is very, very common. Throughout, you know, all of Europe. In the United States, it's not so prevalent.

But it is becoming more and more common. One of the big Seattle-based ecommerce retailers, Amazon has seen that they put in lockers around the country in various apartment buildings where it makes it easier for the package to get delivered. Okay. The Postal Service is actually looking at rolling out a network of parcel delivery lockers that have, they'll be located in USPS facilities, but they'll have 24/7 access and instead of just a little P.O. box that can take a letter or an envelope, it'll be a much larger box that can be accessible via a code.

Oh, neat. That's really great. Yeah. I've noticed that on certain packages with Amazon, even with somebody else I used recently where I got the notification that said you can choose to come pick it up at the locker or we'll deliver it tomorrow. And I was like, wow, that seems pretty cool. So that's great, USPS.

And in today's world, you know, there's a lot of dual income families. And you know, you're not always home at the same time. And I think it, and in particular if it's a valuable product, what we call a high touch, high-value product, like a piece of jewelry, a watch, pharmaceuticals, things of that nature, what better place to deliver it to than a locker that is secure. Only you have the code that can open it. And in the Postal Services world, it's on a piece of federal property, which doesn't hurt.

Right, exactly. Are there other alternative kinds of delivery solutions out there?

Yeah, I think that the other places that, you know, you can have it rerouted, like I mentioned, from your home to, for example, a hotel, if you're traveling, okay.

Or to a locker facility that is either owned by, usually it's owned by the carrier, which is good. Or there are some third-party locations that might not necessarily be a locker, but be a secure place. Think of like a 7-Eleven that is contracted with a carrier. Or a pharmacy like a Kroger's, someone where it's a trusted entity, it has eyes on all the time, usually a camera around it, and it's a safe and convenient place for a customer to pick up a package.

Okay, that's great. So let's say that you're an ecommerce business or something out there. And you're thinking like, okay, maybe I should be offering some of this. Do they do it through their carrier? Is it through a certain technology? You know, how do they say like, okay, I want to select the option that my customers can have it picked up at a locker?

Yeah. Well, it's all done online, and it's all done via APIs. So it's easy to do, easy to implement. I think the challenge is standing up the actual physical attributes of locker systems. They're not inexpensive. But over time, they save a ton of money and provide a ton of convenience for users.

For different users. That's great. So when we're talking tech, we talked about data earlier. What do you feel are the most important kinds of elements of a business's tech stack? So I've talked to a bunch of even EasyPost customers and different people and they kind of have a variety of you know, are they using their OMS or their WMS? What, what do you feel like, where should they be going, I guess, to access their data? What, what are the most important elements of that?

Well, I mentioned reliability, and that's having access to the access of your data. That's, that's really important, and EasyPost is, one of the proud points of working for EasyPost is how much we've invested in the actual scalability and robustness of the architecture of our system.

Yeah. Right. So obviously using a shipping software or something like that, being able to get access to that data and then using the data itself to make those predictions.

Right. And there I go into the world of analytics because not all. In, in the shipping world, where you, where and how you ship a package is often called the swim lane of one zip code origin to one zip code destination.

And there are certain swim lanes for packages that are highly efficient. Ones that might go from Chicago, Illinois to Dallas, Texas. Highly efficient. There's other swim lanes, though, that may be because of geography or weather patterns or what have you that are less efficient. So, understanding time in transit.

That's really, really important. And where I circle back to why is it really important? A lot of ecommerce merchants and a lot of people that make a living selling on, you know, ecommerce platforms, they're rated by how well, you know, how well they perform. And part of that performance is how well they pick, pack, and fill an order and get it into the system on the intro side.

Then it's out of their control when a carrier is using it. So understanding carriers' performance, utilizing time in transit data is really critical.

Yeah. And I just have to say it's not very fair for you if you're shipping, but even when it's out of their hands, the customer still kind of blames the company that they bought from versus the carrier if it's delayed or something. So keeping an eye on that data.

Well, I've always felt that data is the coin of the realm and it helps everybody. It's a richness and robust offering that if properly executed upon. Well, look, there's always going to be mistakes, in logistics, it's not a perfect world. But if it's a world you have confidence in, then you can understand, Oh, there was a hurricane in the Gulf area.

I understand why my product was perhaps held for delivery in Atlanta and not brought down to Miami where it would be at risk. So, but understanding those data points can actually bring peace of mind to the recipient, the consumer, and also bolster the reputation of the carrier and also of the merchant.

And it goes back to the point you made earlier about like kind of those push notifications that if you're sending those out and saying hey this is delayed and and you can even probably put in delayed due to weather or whatever and really interesting studies that show that kind of transparency and visibility can significantly reduce the, you know, level with which people will rate something poorly, even though it was still delayed. They do understand. We're not completely irrational, just a little bit irrational.

Well, all of us, all of us fly as part of our jobs. And I always point people to one of my favorite websites. It's called flightaware.com. And you can, you can actually look it up and look up a flight that you're about to take and you can see the last roughly 30 days history of the performance of that airline on that flight, on that, that swim lane.

Let's say it's from Washington, D.C. to L.A. You can see, oh, that flight at 7 o'clock in the morning has a 98 percent on-time arrival. You can look at others, and perhaps some rural ones that have to deal with mountains and deserts and wind, you know, various things that can get in the way of flying, and you can see that, oh, this one's almost always late, okay?

So what it does is it can manage your business decisions as a traveler, but you can port that same experience into shipping. Because essentially when you're flying an airplane, you're shipping you.

Yes, exactly. No, I love that. And it reminds me. Data, it kind of in a way goes back to like your reliability piece as well. We use the data. You know, I may have people out there saying, well, how do I know that I'm getting a reliable vendor? How do I make sure that my supplier is reliable? And that's going to come back to the data as well. It's the same way when we're looking at our flight paths and whatnot, if it's going to arrive on time.

But there is data out there to let you know so that you can also let customers know. You know that maybe your package isn't gonna be able to make it in this time. Or there's a chance that it's gonna be late. I know that some of the cool data things recently, we are talking about porch piracy earlier.

I've even started predicting the areas that get the highest levels of porch piracy. You know, some neighborhoods, some apartment buildings, some cities have really high levels compared to others. And so there's a risk. And you may then want to tell your customer, Hey, you may want to go to a locker, right?

And that's precisely so. It's almost combining actuarial data like from an insurance claims business. Okay. Taking actuarial data about the possibility of theft or loss or damage and then merging that into what the carriers offer as a choice. And again, customers never lose when they have a choice. And I think that also allows carriers and ecommerce platforms to manage expectations.

Yes. And that whole post-purchase experience. I mean, it becomes so important. There are tools out there that you can use to offer package protection, to offer insurance, to offer. And again, it can be the choice of a customer.

And as John said so well, when they have the choice, it's kind of like they've taken the risk and they've made the decision whether or not they wanted to, to keep an eye on that. And it just improves your reputation with your own customer base. So I think that that's fantastic. Okay, John, I want to hear a little bit about how you've seen the industry change since you started day one.

Fresh, young, little Johnny. All the way to today. What are the things that have been most exciting for you? Most surprising? Just what are the biggest changes?

I think the biggest change is I, I began my career in an analog world. Okay. And it was a world prior to Amazon and prior to eBay and prior to the use of the internet to conduct commerce. I mean, it was virtually the DARPAnet back in those days. And so when I began my career, it was selling hardware with some moderate components that included software. And then, like you said, the logistics side of the business, mailing and shipping was a little slow. It's a fractured business or a fractured marketplace.

So if, if we have any of our audience there who don't know what PC postage is, I assume you guys do, but will you explain it just so that they do know?

Okay, it's, it is simply an offering that we have, EasyPost has and several other vendors provide. And it allows users of the software to print U.S., live U.S. postage on a four-by-six label that goes on a package. And it has various data attributes that we're required to include. And it works well.

And they can just print it at your own place. You're not going down to the post office anymore to sell all your stuff. So, okay. So, PC postage comes along around the millennium.

Around 19, yeah, around 1988, 1999. And it originally came about, you know, for letter mail. So, but what happened, and a lot of this innovation came out of Silicon Valley, and it was people who said, Oh, there's got to be a better way. You know, you mentioned going to the post office and standing in line forever.

For a scam.

Well, unfortunately there. But what, what, what's really happened is that it's, again, it's choice. It let the private sector provide good digital technology that gave customers and merchants and platforms the ability to print postage or also embed that same technology in a multi-carrier platform so that customers, again, had a choice.

Yeah, that's awesome. So once that gets in, what, you know, what, what changes do you see then over the last 25 years?

I would say I would go back to speed. You know, back in the day when AOL existed as a …

I remember those days, John, but it's embarrassing me, so.

You would hit send and you'd get the little beach ball that would go around and around. I would say speed and reliability has really dovetailed nicely with the technical abilities of firms like EasyPost and other ecommerce providers.

Yeah, that's awesome. So speed and reliability, and those seem to be kind of our theme. Speed in terms of technology and data and making sure that you are using everything to optimize to the nth degree but reliability, keeping that strong focus.

So, okay, well, I think that we are just about out of time, but do you have any final words? Anything you want to share? Or is there any way, are you on LinkedIn or something where people could connect with you if they want to follow you?

Sure. I'm on, I'm on LinkedIn. I don't have a broad digital footprint, but that's by design.

I know how that is.

Sure, look me up on LinkedIn.

Great. Look up John Campo on LinkedIn. It's been so great having him here. Again, please remember, I love his takeaways from today. Please take advantage of data. You have it. You have it with you. You have it in your systems right now. And even if you're a small business, even if you're the largest business out there, there are always ways that you can improve just a little bit more.

Pick one thing in your data that maybe you're going to try to take advantage of and then test it out, pick another thing. And then I really, really, really appreciated your reminder about reliability. Because we can get really stuck on the exciting, shiny new data and technology and everything else and kind of forget to make sure that you're keeping the core safe because no matter how cool and amazing and awesome something new may be, if you don't have that reliability, If everything goes down, you're going to be in big trouble.

Well, thank you very much. I'm humbled by your description of my career. And it was very enjoyable. Thanks, Lori.

Thanks so much. We'll see you guys next time.