Transcripts
So the funny thing that we've noticed is that stability now is
Speaker:kind of inching above that speed.
Speaker:Of course, it's a different type of product, but that stability factor
Speaker:now is really important for, for that market, even for an enterprise client.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Welcome to Unboxing Logistics.
Speaker:I'm your host, Lori Boyer, and today is one of our viewers'
Speaker:favorite type of episodes.
Speaker:I call these Meet the Carriers episodes.
Speaker:There are so many great carriers out there, and we get a lot of questions.
Speaker:Here at EasyPost, we work with hundreds of carriers.
Speaker:We have tons of carrier relationships, but each one is a little
Speaker:different and a little unique.
Speaker:And a really, really cool one that I like is UniUni.
Speaker:So raise your hand if you've heard of UniUni out there.
Speaker:I can see you in the great world.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:Jax has definitely heard of UniUni.
Speaker:He is here from UniUni.
Speaker:I'm gonna have him introduce himself.
Speaker:Jax, tell us a little bit about who you are, what your job role is, and maybe your
Speaker:background at UniUni, and then we're gonna really dive into who the heck is UniUni.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Thanks for that, Lori.
Speaker:Yeah, so I am I'm Jax Zheng.
Speaker:I am the director of global partnerships here at UniUni.
Speaker:I have been with the company now just about three years coming on October.
Speaker:The journey with UniUni on my end started when they actually acquired my company.
Speaker:So I had started a same-day delivery company in Toronto in
Speaker:the GTA back in the COVID days.
Speaker:So we ran that around 2020, did it for about two years and then we were able to
Speaker:kind of come up with a deal with Uni as we saw them growing very fast and rapid.
Speaker:So we were like, "You know what? Instead of competing with Uni, why
Speaker:don't we just hitch our wagon to the horse?" and then now we're here.
Speaker:Oh, that's fantastic.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:UniUni, give me… We're in an elevator.
Speaker:Your elevator pitch.
Speaker:Who is UniUni?
Speaker:What problem is UniUni trying to solve?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So at the heart of what-
Speaker:I work in marketing, Jax, so I'm ready to, like, judge your elevator pitch here.
Speaker:At the heart of what UniUni does I think, is flexibility and in customization.
Speaker:So compared to a lot of the older incumbent traditional
Speaker:carriers, your UPSes, your FedEx, they're a lot more rigid.
Speaker:They've been around for a long time.
Speaker:They have their own business models that are very difficult to change.
Speaker:They're these giant behemoths that are global.
Speaker:So it's really tricky for them to keep up with market developments, especially when
Speaker:we look at the last five, six years with the advent of COVID and online ecommerce.
Speaker:I think for them it was difficult for them to kind of pivot into this.
Speaker:Of course, everybody's trying to.
Speaker:So on our end, you know, we really focused on a tech-enabled
Speaker:focused solution to the last mile problem.
Speaker:So looking at kind of that specific, specific product category of ecommerce
Speaker:lightweight, up to 25 pounds.
Speaker:The market was not giving a service that was up to snuff for a lot of
Speaker:these sellers out there, ranging from enterprise all the way down to your
Speaker:onesie-twosies mom and pop shops.
Speaker:So at UniUni, we started as actually a grocery delivery company out in Vancouver.
Speaker:So we actually were very familiar with the need and the complexity of that last
Speaker:mile variables, understanding that there's a lot of flex that goes up and down.
Speaker:The fact that we use a gig economy as well allows us to kind of manage that flex.
Speaker:So a lot of the development of Uni was, all right, how do we in, in
Speaker:a way democratize the enterprise landscape of last mile logistics
Speaker:for any shipper of any size.
Speaker:And that's kind of our journey in the past six years.
Speaker:And we're continuing to offer new products that not only service the enterprise
Speaker:clients, but every client from your onesie, twosie mom and pop cookie shop
Speaker:up to a scaling business that's selling, you know, a bunch of phone cases.
Speaker:So we're really trying to give as many options as possible to the market for
Speaker:a last, a modern last mile solution.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So would you consider yourself a regional carrier, an alternative
Speaker:carrier a US, Canada only carrier?
Speaker:Kind of give us some more information around that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I would definitely say we are more in the alternative carrier category.
Speaker:Regional, I think we grew out of.
Speaker:You know, we might have started as a regional carrier in Canada,
Speaker:major NHL cities but now we're kind of scaling a lot larger.
Speaker:We are constantly coming up into competition against kind
Speaker:of the big three large shippers.
Speaker:So we're kind of seeing that, you know, a lot of that customer profile
Speaker:now is leaning towards that side.
Speaker:And we are looking to be a global shipper.
Speaker:At the end of the day, North America is where we started.
Speaker:We have a near and dear spot for the, for Canada, as we're a Canadian-based
Speaker:company, Canadian founded, Canadian grown.
Speaker:But we wanna be able to bring that to the to the rest of the world.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:We love UniUni.
Speaker:So at EasyPost, we have kind of what we call our Wallet
Speaker:carriers, our core carriers.
Speaker:They're the traditional legacy ones Jax is talking about.
Speaker:A- absolutely have their place.
Speaker:And then we have kind of like these disruptors, these sort
Speaker:of what we call edge carriers.
Speaker:They're these new, fun, innovative.
Speaker:In fact, we've had different debates exactly what to call them.
Speaker:But what they are is kind of revolutionizing and modernizing
Speaker:a lot of the way shipments work.
Speaker:And, and UniUni falls into that category at EasyPost, which
Speaker:is a fantastic place to be.
Speaker:It really does kind of cross the best of both worlds, where you are big enough
Speaker:and solid enough to be competing against the legacy carriers, but nimble and
Speaker:newer and what not to be able to not be bogged down by some of that legacy stuff.
Speaker:So absolutely check them out.
Speaker:Let's talk about who you feel like are the best fits.
Speaker:So if somebody's listening today, what is your ideal customer profile?
Speaker:What, what would make them say, "Okay, UniUni is a great choice for my business."
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:So as mentioned you know, our focus is still in that ecommerce space.
Speaker:It's a growing space.
Speaker:It's continually growing year by year.
Speaker:It's even easier for the market to start a business online.
Speaker:You know, I think nowadays even with the advent of AI, starting your own app,
Speaker:starting your own business, starting your own shop becomes that much easier.
Speaker:So for us, you know, originally our focus was kind of that large
Speaker:enterprise, high-volume shipper.
Speaker:But now that we have a solid roster of density from a lot of our 3PL clients,
Speaker:our aggregator clients folks like 3PB partners like yourself and EasyPost,
Speaker:you know, we've built that density.
Speaker:Now we can start offering the, our services to a whole new subset of clients
Speaker:because we've established that density.
Speaker:So, you know, if you're listening and you're a large shipper that
Speaker:is does massive volume in the US and in Canada, we are definitely
Speaker:one of your best choices on speed complexity super easy to get set up.
Speaker:What does massive mean, Jax?
Speaker:So we're looking, we're talking about, yeah, we're talking about
Speaker:in the US, you know, a 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 a day shipper.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:We're easily, we can-
Speaker:10, 20, 30,000 a day, call UniUni or, or hop onto the EasyPost app.
Speaker:You can pull them up and look at the different comparisons and
Speaker:whatnot, really easy, see they're a no-brainer a lot of the time.
Speaker:So what about smaller?
Speaker:'Cause you said one density.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So with the with our new product actually, so we've just- mm-hmm
Speaker:launched something out in Canada, which is basically our retail portal.
Speaker:So this is what- Right … I was mentioning democratizing
Speaker:the access to last mile.
Speaker:So what we've done is we created a brand-new portal.
Speaker:It has an easy integration with most of your ecommerce websites, Shopify-
Speaker:ShipStation, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker:And then we pair that with physical PUDO, pickup drop-off nodes.
Speaker:So now one of the highest costs for us carriers is that first-mile pickup, right?
Speaker:That's why it's always limiting for alternatives when we're looking at
Speaker:the midsize companies, is, ah, the pickup just doesn't justify it.
Speaker:Now, though, once we have the PUDO network, we have the option for folks to
Speaker:come and drop off, and then it gets flown right into our systems and operations, and
Speaker:they get the same level of service- Hmm as your 10,000 a day shipper would get.
Speaker:Wow, that's fantastic.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:Who is not a good fit?
Speaker:So who out there would you say, you know, maybe look somewhere else and
Speaker:in 10 years, m- you know, in two years in today's world, you know?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, so I would definitely say product types would be your big and bulkys.
Speaker:We're definitely not your choice for any big and bulky shipments.
Speaker:Anything related to kind of the food, perishables, those type
Speaker:of items, 'cause we use, we use.
Speaker:Which is funny, since you had your start in grocery, right?
Speaker:Yes, it's definitely funny to kind of see that.
Speaker:But a lot of it is due to because of our sorting machine.
Speaker:So a lot of our sort machines are automated.
Speaker:And with that automation comes slight limitations on the
Speaker:types of products we can take.
Speaker:So we're kind of limited, and we're focusing on that light
Speaker:lightweight ecommerce profile.
Speaker:Any misconceptions that you see out there around UniUni that you wanna answer?
Speaker:You know, I think any net new regional or alternative carrier are always
Speaker:gonna face a couple misconceptions, especially when you're looking at a
Speaker:company that did get our footing from a lot of overseas ecommerce volume.
Speaker:Definitely that's brought a couple of eyebrows.
Speaker:They're like, oh, who are these guys?
Speaker:Are they just handling overseas ecommerce?
Speaker:But you know, I think throughout the past couple of years, especially the last two,
Speaker:with our focus and development in the US we're kind of switching that perception
Speaker:and understanding that, no, we are truly a North American company that's here to
Speaker:benefit, you know, the community here, and we want to grow the logistics space.
Speaker:And grow it in an intelligent way, right?
Speaker:We wanna add in tech and AI and modern advances to this, this
Speaker:quite old and antique industry.
Speaker:I like that because I was reading some data earlier this year that did say
Speaker:shippers are starting to get a little more nervous of some, because there was
Speaker:a huge amount of carrier influx after COVID and everything, and, and so some
Speaker:of them were becoming a little leery of potential carriers that will come and go,
Speaker:you know, and, and suddenly shut down.
Speaker:UniUni, this is a third-party view here, is not in that category.
Speaker:That's not one of the things you really need to be worried about with UniUni.
Speaker:But it's always great to do your due diligence and, you know, check around.
Speaker:You mentioned big and heavy and, like, complex things like cold or,
Speaker:or perishable, perhaps medications, things like that not being a good fit.
Speaker:What about geography?
Speaker:So you're in Canada and the US, obviously.
Speaker:So if somebody ships most of their stuff to Europe or so- you
Speaker:know, what, what… Talk to me about cross-border stuff that way.
Speaker:So right now we are, we've just launched our north and south
Speaker:cross-border, so from US to Canada.
Speaker:Now you have, we have an ability for our clients to ship that service.
Speaker:On the roadmap is definitely an international shipping option.
Speaker:Now that we've already developed that network and that client base internally
Speaker:in North America, the natural next step is, all right, we can just open up the
Speaker:door and say, "Here we go. We have a couple partners that can offer that last
Speaker:mile to Europeans, to Latin America."
Speaker:So that's in the roadmap, but I think our main focus is making sure
Speaker:that we are seen in North America as basically that one-stop shop.
Speaker:You know, once we get that credibility up there of being that one-stop shop for
Speaker:last mile services, then we can really push a lot of these ancillary value-add
Speaker:services to our existing client base.
Speaker:So if I'm selling 99.9% of my necklaces to Bangladesh in my business it
Speaker:probably not gonna be an option.
Speaker:But if you're here in North America, fantastic option great cross-border.
Speaker:Anything else you feel like… So, you know, these would be EasyPost
Speaker:customers listening and just anyone in the industry, 3PLs we've got
Speaker:shippers, everyone who may be listening.
Speaker:Anything else about UniUni you would want, you'd want them to know, before
Speaker:I'm gonna jump into some questions I've kind of curated from our, our audience?
Speaker:Yeah, I think at the end of the day, it's we're here to work
Speaker:with our partners and our clients.
Speaker:You know, we view our business as less of a transactional, kind of like
Speaker:this is how we see a lot of FedEx.
Speaker:It's more transactional.
Speaker:I give you a rate, you give us volume.
Speaker:Versus for us, you know, we're very, very focused on giving bespoke
Speaker:customized solutions to our clients.
Speaker:So let's just say you're a smaller or a larger client, or you have specific lanes
Speaker:that you need discounts with, but you're, you don't wanna risk your discounts with
Speaker:the larger carriers for those lanes.
Speaker:Like, we have an ability to kind of analyze the data, go through it with you,
Speaker:and really nail down, like, this is what you can ship, this is what you can't.
Speaker:Be confident.
Speaker:We know our stuff.
Speaker:So it's really working with our clients and building that trust and relationship.
Speaker:Because at the end of the day, for us, this is a long-term
Speaker:company, it's a long-term goal.
Speaker:You know, we're not here to be two, three years.
Speaker:We want our clients to be with us for their lifetime, as long
Speaker:as their business is running.
Speaker:Yeah, and I love that.
Speaker:I, I speak often, I'm asked to speak a lot on developing multiple, you
Speaker:know, multi-carrier strategies and whatnot, you know, living in the
Speaker:EasyPost world with lots of carriers.
Speaker:And that's one thing that I wanna say is, you can always, you know, as
Speaker:Jax was saying, there may be certain routes or deals or, or, or things that
Speaker:you're not gonna want to move, or, you know, but we want to have a good solid
Speaker:mix for risk management, as well as customer experience, as well as price
Speaker:optimization of different carriers.
Speaker:So take a portion, try it out, start to test different things,
Speaker:and, and move forward from there.
Speaker:But if you are still… I know some of you dear, dear followers still have
Speaker:just a single carrier or you know, it's easy to get stuck in that trap.
Speaker:Don't do it.
Speaker:There, there are great carriers like UniUni that can really,
Speaker:really help you financially, and really in the customer experience
Speaker:and the risk management segment.
Speaker:So, okay, I gathered some hard-hitting questions.
Speaker:We're gonna put Jax in the hot seat now.
Speaker:And, and they're really just general shipping questions so that people
Speaker:can kind of know what, what, what are, like, the best practices here?
Speaker:What do you- what are people doing?
Speaker:How do we manage?
Speaker:So we're gonna start with talking about cross-border.
Speaker:Obviously, that is expertise for you, Canada to US.
Speaker:So one of the questions I got was that everybody always says
Speaker:Canada is a great opportunity.
Speaker:This is obviously a question from someone in the United States.
Speaker:Is that true?
Speaker:Do you… Am I just gonna lose money if I expand over there?
Speaker:How do I know cross-border is gonna make sense financially?
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:That's a great question, and especially nowadays with the
Speaker:whole the tariffs and the taxes.
Speaker:I think we've seen a lot of question marks from a lot of our clients.
Speaker:So actually we've, we… Some of our clients have even pulled back
Speaker:cross-border just to be like, "You know what? We'll wait until
Speaker:things die down to see what it is."
Speaker:But then it really comes up to discussing with your carrier
Speaker:partners and your brokerage partners.
Speaker:So we're very lucky that we have a very solid brokerage partner.
Speaker:They're very tied in and in tune with the developments of any of the laws, the
Speaker:legal matters, any of the taxes and duties because it definitely is a little bit
Speaker:more complicated on the cross-border side.
Speaker:You need to get the HS codes, the manufacturer of origin, so there's a lot
Speaker:of extra data points that are required in order for a successful border crossing.
Speaker:But because we have a very confident and competent partner that can do it,
Speaker:we're able to go out and comfortably sell the service for, you know, our
Speaker:clients who might be a little bit worried.
Speaker:So I think with a lot of that comes to trusting and having that
Speaker:open conversation with your, with your carrier partner like us.
Speaker:And in the past few months, you know, we've had extensive amounts of discussions
Speaker:with our clients due to cross-border.
Speaker:And to the folks in the US, it's funny.
Speaker:So I'm an American, but I live in Canada, so I can see, hear both sides.
Speaker:And, and it, it does definitely seems that a lot of times when the US companies are
Speaker:selling, Canada's kind of an afterthought.
Speaker:I don't blame them.
Speaker:Population size, we're about what?
Speaker:36, 37 million, and the US is 10X that size.
Speaker:So of course if you're selling, you're gonna go for that major market first.
Speaker:But what I'd like to say is, you know, once you find a competent partner in
Speaker:Canada who can deliver and execute, you can grow that line of business, and it'll
Speaker:be a really stable line of business.
Speaker:That's what we find a lot of our sellers in the US who are selling to
Speaker:Canada, is once you have that set up, there's not a lot of adjustments you
Speaker:have to go back and change, 'cause it's relatively straightforward.
Speaker:Once you get the process and the system down, and the partners are
Speaker:there, it kind of just starts running.
Speaker:So always, you know, yes, it's not attractive as a large market, but I
Speaker:think as a line of business that can keep a healthy margin, there's a, there,
Speaker:there's a, there's a reason to kind of investigate the Canadian market.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:So what I'm hearing is, reach out.
Speaker:You guys will walk them through.
Speaker:You'll talk them through the numbers.
Speaker:You'll figure out together, like, does this make sense, and where does
Speaker:it make sense maybe, and, and which lanes make sense, and which products.
Speaker:And so reach out and find out.
Speaker:As Jax said, there's lots of communication going on to help you.
Speaker:You don't have to be an expert on this.
Speaker:So that's the best thing.
Speaker:A follow-up kind of to this was they said they've got their
Speaker:shipping pretty dialed in in the US.
Speaker:I, I could flip it as well, like we're dialed in in Canada.
Speaker:Is it sort of like a copy and paste when you move from one country to the other?
Speaker:Do you have to rethink the way that things are, are working?
Speaker:It's, it's relatively the same.
Speaker:I mean, also keeping in mind that Canada has a much larger space, so
Speaker:your tr- the times and the travel times are gonna be a lot larger.
Speaker:So you will have maybe an increased amount of SLAs than you might have expected
Speaker:compared to your US to US domestic bound.
Speaker:But mostly it's the same, and I think it really comes down to
Speaker:the carrier that you're using.
Speaker:You know, we, we make it really, really simple for our clients,
Speaker:whether they're in Canada or the US, to utilize both services, right?
Speaker:We make sure that they have access to the APIs, they can track them.
Speaker:It's very straightforward.
Speaker:So I think it comes down to who you're working with.
Speaker:But generally we see, aside from kind of the geographical
Speaker:differences and some of the SLA differences it's roughly the same.
Speaker:So talking about carriers in general one of the questions I had was, if
Speaker:I'm looking to compare carriers, what should I be looking at besides price?
Speaker:'Cause price is the obvious thing we all look at.
Speaker:What, what are some of the other factors I should keep in mind?
Speaker:So I would think definitely one is gonna be SLAs, so service
Speaker:level times and transit times.
Speaker:You know, a funny thing that we, we've noticed recently is
Speaker:in the… I would say when COVID started, the market wanted speed.
Speaker:Amazon basically with their next-day Prime deliveries had kind of brainwashed
Speaker:almost the entire market and the consumer space to be like, "Oh, if
Speaker:they can do it, anybody can do it."
Speaker:"We expect a next-day, same-day delivery." and then as these new alternative carriers
Speaker:came up and started offering the same level of service, but the quality was
Speaker:so horrible, a lot of consumers got a bit of a burn, and especially shippers.
Speaker:So what we've noticed is shippers coming to us saying, "Look, it might not get
Speaker:there in, you know, two days or next day, but if you can guarantee that
Speaker:all my orders get there on three days consistently, I will give you my volume."
Speaker:So the funny thing that we've noticed is that stability now is
Speaker:kind of inching above that speed.
Speaker:Of course, it's dependent on the type of product, but that stability m- factor
Speaker:now is really important for, for that market, even for an enterprise client.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Jax, you are-- I'm, like, the biggest research nerd.
Speaker:All of the Unboxing Logistics family knows that.
Speaker:I just spend all my time in data.
Speaker:But a study came out this year where speed is now, like, number three or four
Speaker:for consumers' most importance, where number one is reliability, and then
Speaker:it comes down to, like, transparency.
Speaker:Like, they wanna know it's gonna come on time, and they wanna know where
Speaker:it is, like what's going on, and then they're okay with the speed coming.
Speaker:So you are spot on.
Speaker:What you're seeing there at UniUni is what the market is absolutely reflecting,
Speaker:and sometimes we are stuck in 2020 thinking, "But I gotta have it fastest.
Speaker:I gotta be there the first one." And that is not what the consumers are
Speaker:caring about nearly as much as that reliability and that feeling of, "It
Speaker:is gonna arrive, and I'm gonna know where it's at during the process." So-
Speaker:The transparency's super key.
Speaker:I'm happy you brought that up.
Speaker:You know, that's why the tracking, like we make sure that you as a shipper or
Speaker:the buyer, recipient know exactly where your parcel is at every touchpoint.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We're, we're a little funny that way now, aren't we, as consumers?
Speaker:We're like, "Where is my package? I need to know where it is, like, every
Speaker:s-" So yeah, we've gotten used to that.
Speaker:So somebody had asked, "Why are some carriers seem to be really dominant
Speaker:in certain cities, but then not in others, and a- is there a way to
Speaker:kinda figure out which cities are, are best for different carriers?"
Speaker:That's a really interesting question.
Speaker:I would think it's heavily dependent on geography.
Speaker:So wherever these, like, alternative or regional carriers started is usually
Speaker:where their initial volume base starts.
Speaker:So they kinda de- operations and their main sort centers from that
Speaker:hub, and then they kind of expand.
Speaker:You know, we kind of did the same thing in Canada, but we were lucky enough that
Speaker:we had a significant amount of volume overseas that we were like, "All right.
Speaker:No, we can't just open up one. We need to have three warehouses so that it can be
Speaker:transferred properly East Coast to West Coast." so that's kind of like how, how
Speaker:we kind of go about and think about it.
Speaker:But if they're testing a carrier, what kind of, like, percentage would
Speaker:you say for SLAs and when, like, what should be they be keeping an eye on?
Speaker:What is good, you know, for on-time delivery or what is concerning?
Speaker:Do you have any sort of benchmarks?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So definitely, I mean, when, when you're looking at that on-time
Speaker:delivery, you wanna be at least in that essentially above 96%.
Speaker:Like, you wanna be that 96, 97, 98% on that on-time delivery.
Speaker:You wanna be looking at NPS scores as well for some of your
Speaker:carrier partners of choice.
Speaker:I also say, you know, it's always a benefit to look at the reviews.
Speaker:Do a couple searches on your Glassdoor for employee reviews, right?
Speaker:That helps to kind of understand how the company and the culture operate.
Speaker:You know, and that's kind of where you can get a little bit of insight
Speaker:on some of these carriers as well.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So my last section's on technology, and I actually love that this
Speaker:question came up because Jax, you actually said this earlier yourself.
Speaker:So my question is, every carrier says they're a technology
Speaker:company, but I'm skeptical.
Speaker:Like, what does that even mean?
Speaker:And what does it mean to be a technology company?
Speaker:And I get it, right?
Speaker:We can go back to Wells Fargo wagon days.
Speaker:We can go back to Julius Caesar.
Speaker:We can go back to the, you know, car- being a carrier has been
Speaker:around since the beginning of time.
Speaker:So what does being a technology company mean?
Speaker:You specifically said UniUni was focused on technology, right?
Speaker:What, what does that mean?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So much like how we, when we, the reason why UniUni acquired Shippy was that
Speaker:we were focused on a technical approach to that last mile same-day problem.
Speaker:So essentially we built a platform that took into account the
Speaker:variables, that took into account the driver app, the operational side.
Speaker:So it's a lot of more of the back-end technology that helps
Speaker:run the system that's a little bit opaque to the external market.
Speaker:So it's always tricky for people on the outside to be like, "Well, are you,
Speaker:what… You're just moving packages."
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I don't see the technology.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But when you lift up the hood, especially with Uni, you know, we
Speaker:use extensive AI, for example, on the customer service side for verification
Speaker:of proof of delivery pictures, right?
Speaker:We're doing over a million deliveries per day, and each one of those deliveries
Speaker:has three proof of delivery pictures.
Speaker:There's no way a human being can sift through that, right?
Speaker:There's always gonna be some mistakes, driver mistakes, so we're using technology
Speaker:to enhance that portion and catch mistakes way early on versus- couple
Speaker:years back, you didn't have an ability to.
Speaker:Like, if something was misdelivered, you either had to wait for the client
Speaker:to tell you or somebody noticed it was misdelivered, so there's that lag in
Speaker:that customer service solution time.
Speaker:Now we're able to kinda cut that down 50%, so the efficiency
Speaker:gains are massive on that end.
Speaker:On top of that, it's being able to integrate with folks like yourself, like
Speaker:having an ability to have strong API endpoints, having a lot of ability to
Speaker:have service calls, making sure that the API documents are easy to read, right?
Speaker:Easy to integrate into.
Speaker:These are aspects that I think with a truly technology-based company,
Speaker:and you have a CTO, like we just hired our new CTO, who's very heavily
Speaker:involved in making sure that, you know, we're on that forefront of
Speaker:cutting-edge technology and last mile.
Speaker:So some of the things that are in the pipeline on roadmap, for
Speaker:example, are automated final mile automation for delivery.
Speaker:You know, how do we implement robots inside of the delivery van?
Speaker:So there's a lot of stuff in development on our end that I think in the next
Speaker:couple of years, it'll be an external ability for people to be like, "Oh,
Speaker:that's how they're using tech to to really make this a new company."
Speaker:I, one of the things Jax said here is the fact that good technology is something
Speaker:you almost don't notice occurring.
Speaker:It- it's just the smoothness of the process.
Speaker:But I do think you should be able to ask.
Speaker:You'd probe somebody at UniUni, probe somebody at any carrier, and say, "What
Speaker:are the technological innovations you're working on? What are the things that
Speaker:are making the processes smoother?" And then, from there, the whole point
Speaker:of technology is to make everything feel almost like it was magical.
Speaker:Like, it, all of that cool stuff didn't happen, that you didn't have 30
Speaker:pictures going on in the background, and then someone proactively reaching
Speaker:out and, and finding all that.
Speaker:So technology is just filling in those gaps.
Speaker:So ask about it.
Speaker:Find out what it is.
Speaker:But then, yeah, a lot of times you don't have to be having some fancy dashboard
Speaker:or some amazing apps or something for it to be a technology company.
Speaker:Anything in terms of the future there, Jax?
Speaker:You kinda mentioned, like, oh, in the future we're gonna maybe kinda
Speaker:see some of more of that technology.
Speaker:What should we be expecting?
Speaker:I think first, I, I… This question that I had was, like, what should
Speaker:I expect kind of from the carriers as we go into the next few years?
Speaker:What should I be looking for?
Speaker:But I also wonder, you know, what are signs that carriers are able to adjust
Speaker:and adapt to the future and technology, and aren't bogged down by legacy stuff.
Speaker:But also, you know, what, what do you imagine happening in the next few years?
Speaker:So that's a two-part question.
Speaker:So you know, I think a lot of it in the next couple of years is gonna be
Speaker:heavily on the AI growth of a lot of that efficiency gain side of things.
Speaker:So, you know, when I go to a lot of these conferences throughout
Speaker:the year you kinda, you kinda see what the new modern tech is.
Speaker:You know, a lot of these startups are kind of grabbing onto it,
Speaker:and right now AI is the craze.
Speaker:But a lot of it is just wrappers over LLM models and things that
Speaker:are not really truly innovative pieces into the AI landscape.
Speaker:However, there's always those gems that you find that have filled that specific
Speaker:niche of, let's just say, pricing, right?
Speaker:Pricing is one thing that AI could really, really optimize in the logistics space.
Speaker:You make it quicker for pricing, analyzed, more accurate.
Speaker:Th- those type of developments I think, again, it's a little
Speaker:bit on the back end, right?
Speaker:But it makes lives of the shipper and the merchants and the recipients
Speaker:a lot easier because they get the correct pricing, they understand
Speaker:where the pricing's coming from.
Speaker:It's transparent, as we mentioned.
Speaker:That's what a lot of people care about.
Speaker:I think AI's gonna have a lot to play in the efficiency
Speaker:gains of the logistics space.
Speaker:And then also pairing that with physical hardware.
Speaker:So your telematics inside of vans, inside of trucks.
Speaker:And even for our end, like a retail space, we're gonna have a footprint.
Speaker:We might have some retail spots open.
Speaker:You know, we might wanna do some data analytics there.
Speaker:So I think a lot of it comes down to basically, how do we look at the market?
Speaker:How do we apply the proper uses of AI to these specific niche cases that
Speaker:we know we can get efficiency gain, rather than just saying, "All right,
Speaker:we're gonna AI everything," right?
Speaker:'Cause that is never really gonna work.
Speaker:And I think some companies have tried that already.
Speaker:But we're kind of taking a more strategic approach to how we're implementing a
Speaker:lot of these, these these solutions.
Speaker:So I'd say a lot more AI is gonna be coming about in
Speaker:the next two to three years.
Speaker:Yeah, completely smart.
Speaker:I've interviewed a lot of experts, you know, those at at MIT, and
Speaker:all these around supply chain, and they're saying similar things.
Speaker:We're at the point where there's some really good niche use cases for AI, and
Speaker:but we are not at a blanket AI place yet.
Speaker:So if you're hearing from people who say, "Let me just do everything with
Speaker:AI," that's just a pretty shell.
Speaker:But there are niche uses that, especially I think in pricing, like you said, pricing
Speaker:and, and time to delivery, and, and different things where we just have so
Speaker:many data points, that w- that is where AI shines, in being able to take all that
Speaker:massive amount of disorganized information and let us see what is truly the picture.
Speaker:So I completely agree.
Speaker:Look for AI, but look for it in specific pain points and not just like, "I need
Speaker:to find AI and stamp it on my business." That's not gonna be a good use.
Speaker:Okay, we are out of time.
Speaker:I think Jax, you and I could go on and talk about the industry for hours,
Speaker:but if somebody wants to learn more about UniUni, or just wants to connect
Speaker:with you and, like, chat about living in Canada as an American or whatever.
Speaker:Not basketball.
Speaker:He's not a basketball fan, guys.
Speaker:So don't bring up basketball.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:How can they get ahold of you, Jax?
Speaker:So you can find me on LinkedIn.
Speaker:So Jax Zheng is my LinkedIn.
Speaker:And I'm very receptive to a lot of these messages, so feel free to reach
Speaker:out, shoot me a message set up a call.
Speaker:And if you're in Toronto, feel free to reach out and we
Speaker:can grab a coffee sometime.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:UniUni.
Speaker:Website, we can throw it down in the show notes here.
Speaker:Is that the best place for them to go to check out UniUni?
Speaker:Yeah, so we have our landing page.
Speaker:We also have our social.
Speaker:So we have our Instagram, if you wanna go follow our Instagram.
Speaker:We do all of our updates.
Speaker:You can follow our LinkedIn page as well, where we do a lot more of kind
Speaker:of the company-wide, more established- Mm-hmm … kind of, like, updates.
Speaker:So yeah.
Speaker:We're on all our socials, so feel free to kinda look us up.
Speaker:That's perfect.
Speaker:And if you're an EasyPost customer, which I know many of you are, who listen
Speaker:just check out UniUni through EasyPost.
Speaker:There's all kinds of information.
Speaker:We got a partner carrier page on them, and you can of course
Speaker:do it within EasyPost itself.
Speaker:So thanks so much for being here, and this has been a great
Speaker:Meet the Carriers episode.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Thanks for having me.
Speaker:Bye-bye
