UnBoxed with David Bilodeau
and Chris Giles

As shipping costs rise and rate structures grow more complex, shippers need more than awareness—they need strategy. In this episode, host Deb Menter sits down with Pitney Bowes shipping experts Chris Giles and David Bilodeau to explain how real-time data, visibility, and the right technology can help you make smarter, more cost-effective decisions.

Rate increases affect different services and lanes in different ways. Understanding your own shipping profile—what you send, where it goes, and how often—can reveal better service choices, meaningful savings, and opportunities to shift volume where carriers perform best.

Multicarrier shipping is no longer optional—it’s a strategic imperative. Businesses that embrace modern tools gain agility, insight, and control over costs. As Chris puts it, “When you control the data, you control the conversation.”

Key Takeaways:

• Visibility leads to savings: Knowing which carriers perform best in which lanes helps optimize delivery speed and cost.
• Know your shipping profile: Understanding what you send, where it goes, and how often uncovers better options and avoids overspending.
• Don’t rely on a single carrier: Strikes, surcharges, and rate changes make a multicarrier strategy essential for resilience and flexibility.
• Shipping software matters: Real-time, cloud-based tools unlock deeper discounts, better tracking, and the ability to adapt instantly.
• Prove your impact: With the right data, shippers can not only make smarter decisions but also clearly report and defend their savings.

Guest speakers:

David Bilodeau, Sr. Director, Product Marketing, Pitney Bowes
David is a veteran sales professional-turned-marketer, passionate about solving real business problems with creative approaches that improve how organizations mail, ship and communicate with their customers.

Chris Giles, Vice President, Sales and Analytics, Pitney Bowes
Chris is responsible for gathering and understanding client needs, together with developing the next generation of mailing and shipping solutions at Pitney Bowes to meet those needs and ultimately delight our clients. During his long career in the mailing and shipping industry, Chris has worked closely with sales, marketing, product management and postal authorities around the world from US and Canada, across Europe as well as Australia and Japan.

Host: Deb Menter, Pitney Bowes
Deb is on the Client Lifecycle Team at Pitney Bowes, where she helps clients navigate complex rate changes, mailing system migrations, and greater shipping savings and value. You’ll also find her moderating Pitney Bowes webinars, where she addresses common client concerns and provides actionable solutions.

The material, opinions, and information presented in the podcast are for general information purposes only and is not professional advice. Listeners should consult appropriate professionals for specific advice tailored to your situation. The podcast and its content is provided as-is and any use is at the listener’s own risk. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed by guests or hosts are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of any company.

The material, opinions, and information presented in the podcast are for general information purposes only and is not professional advice. Listeners should consult appropriate professionals for specific advice tailored to your situation. The podcast and its content is provided as-is and any use is at the listener’s own risk. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed by guests or hosts are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of any company.

Deb Menter
Hi everyone and welcome to UnBoxed, your source for all things shipping. We've started to see an increase in the frequency of rate changes with another seemingly always around the corner. So, we wanted to speak to some of the experts about what this means for shippers like you.

I'm excited to be joined today by two of our Pitney Bowes shipping experts, David Bilodeau, Senior Director of Product and Growth Marketing and Chris Giles, Vice President of Sales and Analytics. So, let's dive in. Chris and David, I always like to start with an easy question.

Just tell me a bit about your background and how you got to where you are today here at Pitney Bowes. Chris, let's start with you.

Chris Giles
Thanks, Deb. I've been at Pitney Bowes many years, came from engineering, trying to solve some of the ah problems on our products, going right through to product management and most recently in sales. I think getting to the sharp end of the process, you engage clients directly and you get a different perspective. and so Part of the reason to be here today is to get that voice of the customer into this conversation.

Deb Menter
Awesome. David, how about you?

David Bilodeau
So I did the reverse career of Chris in a little bit here. I started in sales, Pitney Bowes. I'm not afraid to say how long ago. It's been over 23 years now here.
And then made my way into marketing. I think what's really interesting though is in that 23 year career, it's you think about sales and then marketing, but there have been so many various roles in there, different product portfolios from mailing to shipping to things in between.

So yeah, it's certainly kept me on my toes.

Deb Menter
Excellent. Yeah, I think we've all been around a little bit and we have lots of knowledge to bring to the table.

So with that, we're recording this episode in June of 2025. But in reality, it started to feel like every six months, there's another rate change. Things just always seem to be changing. So what's your take on like what's happening now and what's happened over the last few years? David, and I'll start with you.

David Bilodeau
Yeah. You know, rate change used to be a way to set your clock. You know, the beginning of the year, you knew it was going to happen. The carriers, whether was FedEx, UPS, and then the USPS. So you could start the year knowing exactly what the rate change was going to be. know, it's going to increase by this percentage.

You know, for postal rates, the but new postal rates were going to be X. And then maybe five years ago, six years ago, the post office added this second rate change in the summer. And we thought, oh, it's just going be this this little summer rate change and it's only going to happen this one time.

And then it happened again and again. And then things started getting even more complicated where it wasn't just, oh, the USPS rate case. Now it was the USPS mailing rate case or market dominant, as they like to say.

And then their shipping rate case, which is their competitive products. And then all of these peak ah rate changes that happened right in time for Christmas and you know the USPS and all the major carriers participate in that.
And it just seems that you know, it went from that one, again, you could set your clocks by it, change to these multiple pieces, you know winter and then then summer, then you added peak and now it just seems like it's a free for all, you know almost you have no idea when there's going to be a new surcharge amount and announced or just a simple change in the shipping rules.

And it is, it there's a lot more around shipping. That is, well, first of all, complex, but those seem to be much more variable as far as the timing is concerned for the changes.

Deb Menter
So Chris, what do you hear? You talk to clients all the time and prospects. What are you hearing that is so what's concerning to them about this kind of constant rotation of rates?

Chris Giles
Yeah, I think frequency is one part of it, as David says. you know They're becoming more frequent, which is in itself a challenge. But it wouldn't be as hard as if the structure stayed the same, right? If rates were simply increasing by 3% and I'm doing the same amount of mail and it goes up by 3%, it used to be easy to work it out.

One of the big challenges now is when there's structural changes, which means how rates are determined. I remember years and years ago when first-class packages didn't have a zone component.

So you just could ship it across the US. And if it was under a certain number of ounces as a first-class package, you could just ship it. But the complexity, things like zones involved. And today even, we got to the point where it's no longer just about weight.

Heavy things are not necessarily more expensive if they're smaller. And so what I hear from clients so often is like, I just trying to work out what's going on is so difficult now. And as soon as I've worked it out, they change the rules again.

David Bilodeau
It's just, it's difficult, right? But even that, that's, I was just thinking of the other day, wasn't so long ago that there were no zones when it came to what used to be called, I mean, it's a, now it's a service, it doesn't even exist, first class packages.

You know, it was just a, oh, you a lightweight package, here's a great service to use, no zones involved, and and that was it. And then, yeah I remember distinctly that rate change talking about how, oh no, now there's zones.

Even with the dimensional weight that we're kind of referring to there, where like, ah yeah, a lighter package that is a large size. Yeah, it's going to cost more than possibly something heavier and a smaller package.

But there's even different pricing around that. like All the carriers have their DIM rating, but then you think about the USPS with this cubic pricing. That it's like, well, you know, outside of an abacus and a calculus major, it's how are you going to figure out how much, not even how much something's going to cost, but then look, how much is this thing going to cost with all these seven different services that are possible within one carrier, let alone the seven different services that are available with this carrier and the eight with this carrier?

There's so much complexity. And then that's just the base rate. You know the USPS, it's all kind of in there. But with these other carriers, I mean, the thing that changed last year, you used to always know that if you were shipping to a very populated area, like a city or a gigantic suburb, you typically weren't going to get these delivery area surcharges.

Well, now there's a delivery area surcharge for major cities. And so it's like, well, wait a minute. So, okay. So yeah, there's no more just doing this in your head and figuring this out on your own, right? You have to have some kind of guide to help you figure out like, you know, what are all of these costs that are going in to just this box I'm trying to send to grandma.

Deb Menter
Yeah, it's so true. And I think about, I mean, I've only, been a part of this rate change team for a few years and so much has changed in that short amount of time.

But I think zones existed, but even today we're still explaining how zones work because it's such a complicated piece of the puzzle. And I think that's also why, and I was in one of my previous episodes, we were talking about how, uh, any kind of shipping software is among the first things that people have to onboard because they have to worry about all of these things when they're sending things out. And you could be e-commerce, you could be office shipping, but if you're sending any amount of items, you have to onboard a shipping software to make it make sense.

Otherwise, it's just impossible. And it's impossible to budget for that because if you're going to directly to the to the carrier, it's significantly more expensive in most cases as well. So it's just impossible to keep up.

David Bilodeau
And I think that's one of the things that Chris and I you know chat about, either when we see each other at events or you know at work. We talk to clients, right? And we talk to prospects. Again, whether it's events or we've you know making client visits.

And everything we're talking about right now, and yes, we know it because we're into the industry, but it's all stuff we're hearing people tell us as well, right? All of our clients, everyone that's sending anything, they're saying these same exact things.

But what Chris and I typically find funny is that they go to the carriers then for the answers. And it's like, wait a minute, the people that are making your life so difficult, by the way, also do a great job getting the packages delivered just for the record. But, you know look this These rates are not made up by you know those of us outside the industry, right? It's the carriers doing these things. And then you know if UPS does something, well, then FedEx follows suit. If FedEx does something, UPS follows suit. And then the USPS is there as well.

So all of these changes that are happening are started by the carriers. But then all of the shippers then go to the carriers to help them figure out all of this complexity. And it's like, I don't know if that's the best strategy or they'll use the carrier website to try to find you know the best rate. It's like the best way to get your bill back with some extra fees is to probably use the carrier website when shipping something.

I don’t know, is that too harsh there, Chris?

Chris Giles
No, I think it's very true. When we talk to customers, one of the things customers express all the time is, it's just too hard to change, right?

And the carriers understand that. They know they're embedded in the process. They know there's relationships that long-term. They know there's an expectation around services, right? You know, when you ship things a certain way, you'd be confident with a certain carrier after years of service that's going to get there.

And that switching cost is difficult. And when you've got multiple different people shipping, you're not talking about one person in a warehouse now. You could be talking about you know tens, hundreds, thousands of people who've got to learn a new process. And so one of the things I often talk to clients about is you know standardizing how you ship.

Decouple yourself from a dependence on a carrier because then you have a choice. And if you have a choice, then you can at least control one of the elements in the process. And I think that's one of the things that we come back to often is like, is it really that easy to ship with lots of different carriers? Well, yeah, with the with the right software solutions, it is.

But taking that step is a difficult one. You've got to invest in doing that. But getting back in control, I guess, is the key. I often think about this process as I say to customers, you talk about you know just more fees, just give it to the carrier.

So I said, the carriers will often tell you, just send us the item. We'll tell you how much it costs. I'm like, I can't imagine anything in my life being that way. I'm going to go buy a new car.

And what I'm going to do, deliver the car, then tell me how much it is once it's here. I just don't imagine that happening, but it feels like that's what happens sometimes, right? We're willing to give our volume to whoever the carrier is and just say, feel me.

That doesn't seem to be a very clinical business decision. And I think that's part of the challenge. You need to get in front of it and say, it's going to take a bit of work, but the benefit's there. And so I think that's why hear very often is how do I get in front of this one?

David Bilodeau
But that multiple people shipping thing, you know I think, Deb, you mentioned office shipping at the very beginning as we started talking. And it makes me think about how, I mean, just some of the guests that have been in the previous episodes of the podcast here, where look, a university that's sending packages is very different than a large financial institution who is sending packages, which is very different from an e-commerce startup, which is very different from ah a 3PL or some large warehouse.

And we often think of, oh, higher volume must mean all this this complexity. And it's probably not true. Most of the time when I visit a 3PL or warehouses, I mean, there are some different workflow changes, but 80 to 90% of what they they do is what's called this this happy flow where it's, oh yeah, we're gonna pick back the order, it's all in this box and you know off we go, the rates are, yeah it's all it's a perfect little workflow.

It's when we deal with places like college universities and these folks that you don't think about as shippers, like a big bank, but they have people all across the country working from home or working in maybe just you know multiple locations where it's not even from home, but it is or a site for that that company.

And they're all sending different things. And how and it's like, how in the world do you even control that, let alone establish a workflow that they might all use yet or establish what carrier account they're all going to be using?

It's like a camp run amok out there that you're inviting yourself to participate in.

Chris Giles
The other thing I hear often as well is, you know I have clients who tell me, I got really good discounts. And I hear that so often from me. And, oh, my UPS rep got me a great discount. I've got 80% off this. Or my FedEx rep got me 80% off this. Or even my USPS, I'm using Ground Advantage with cubic rates and I'm getting 60%, 70% discounts. It's like, are you?

Across all the services you use? What's the split of services? Do you know that? And I always go back to data's king. If you understand what you're doing, and how you're doing it, then you can make different choices.

And we hear this all the time. The anxiety around a rate change is typically driven out of not knowing. What is the implication of that rate change? How does it affect me?

Whenever I'm talking to customers, they really don't care how it affects anyone else. It's how it affects you. Because that's the only thing that's really amazing. course yeah If you don't get underneath the rate change detail, and assume 6% increase is 6% on your cost, and the fact is there's a 20% increase on a certain service that you use extensively, you're going to have a shock.

And I think that's the reality of the world we live in. There's an obligation to get in front of the process, understand what you do, so you can at least assess and then make decisions going forward. And I think the investment in that time and effort is key because without it.

You might just hand over your wallet. It's easy, right? Just keep paying the bill.

Deb Menter
Yeah. And it's wild. One of the questions we ask, one of the polls that we ask in a lot of our webinars is how are you budgeting for this rate change?

And there's they know the standard, oh, the average 5.9%, more than that, less than that. And the percentage of people that are budgeting for the average or less than that or just don't budget at all is wild to see.

And the average is no longer the average anymore. Because as you were saying, Chris, like it might be a 20% increase here, but a 4% increase here. And if you don't know how that's going to affect you personally and your shipping, the way you ship, then it's really but becomes a really big problem really fast.

David Bilodeau
Yeah, last event we were in, we had a client tell us, you know, their volumes increased 10%, but their costs have gone up 30%.

Chris Giles
Yeah. And it was like, and then and then we asked, how was that? We're like, we don't know. Like, well, you know what? I'd find out pretty quick. What was it about that that rate change, that volume increase? And then it's back to that point I made, right? If the 10% of your volume increase is in the wrong bucket, that's where it's gone.

You've got to get under the data. You have to understand what you're doing so you understand the implication to you. That's the key. Where everything is so data driven these days. And if you don't have that data at your fingertips, you're just going miss the mark.

Deb Menter
So both of you have mentioned being at events this year, and I know you've been to some of the big ones and you've been hearing a lot a lot of stories from people, like you just said, David, but what else, what are some of the big trends that are coming or what are the other things that people are thinking about and are concerned about that you've heard?

David, I'll start with you.

David Bilodeau
Yeah, you know I think one of the biggest trends that I'm seeing, I mean, outside of concerns, look, there's a lot of concerns, but just trends, just go positive here first.

One of the trends that we're seeing, and this is pretty amazing because it's across industries. So we talked about these more like office kind of shippers and then you know true, like what we think about like e-commerce shippers.
Across the board, this idea of regional carriers or alternative carriers, it's every single conversation I'm in. And oftentimes it's people asking like, oh, do you do you guys work with any regional carriers?

Our salespeople are like, oh, do we work with this regional carrier? So it's clearly there's something... that everyone's seeing like, wait a minute, you know Amazon's come in and has disrupted the market, right? I mean, we can all agree with agree with that. If they can do it out of nowhere, now granted, they're billions of dollars to at you know at their like expense yeah at their expense.

But these other carriers have kind of been around just kind of holding their ground. It almost like they see this opportunity that shipping volumes have increased the main carriers have acted, it's not a monopoly, right? But essentially it's, you know, the duopoly and you know, with the USPS in there, then DHL sprinkled in for international a lot, right?

So they just said, wow, this like, if not now, then when? And they must be making enough noise because if, you know, again, a regional bank is asking me about a regional carrier, it's like, whoa, but you know I know on my street and I live in a you know a town in Pennsylvania, not near Philadelphia, not near Pittsburgh, right? So not near a major city, but in my neighborhood, I have seen different regional carriers delivering.

So it's something that people are looking for, shippers are looking for alternatives to you know those major carriers. And why? I mean, look, cost is probably going to be one of those number one reasons, but it could also be transparency. You know it could also be just to help you manage a better rate, a better contract with you with your main carrier.

So I think that's that's one of the trends, just from an actual like execution standpoint. I think the other piece is the data the data thing, which, I mean, shocker, I know in this day and age that you know people are talking about analytics and data. But it really is like we're being asked like, hey, I need to know if we were to ask you for this, can I have that?

And what's interesting about that trend of wanting more data, the folks that are starting to use more regional carriers and really looking to get control of their costs are the ones that are looking for the data.

The clients that I talk to who are like, oh, no, no, no, we've got a great vol relationship with a carrier you don't want to change. Those are the ones that have no need for data. And it's kind of like, I see what's happening here.

Chris Giles
It's funny because a lot of the clients, they say, you know, we want to measure the carriers.

You know, are we are we getting the service we pay for? One of the things I saw recently is, and everyone's familiar with Priority Mail from USPS, and Priority Mail is a one, two, three-day delivery depending on destination. That's typically what it is. Not guaranteed, but that's what it does.

And then ground is two to five, seven days, again, depending on the distance. I have customers now saying to me, how quickly does that ground actually get there? Is it a real alternative to priority mail? Can you tell me that?

Because the USPS says two to five days. And so what we do again, back to the client's own information, when they're shipping from one origin to one destination, being able to measure that carrier performance, to know when that first induction scan happened.

So I print a label on a Friday and didn't hand it off till Monday. Monday starts the clock. Again, devil's in the detail. And I saw it delivered Tuesday. And historically, you print a label on a Friday, deliver Tuesday, you think us a two-day delivery. Well, they didn't get the first scan until Monday. So getting under that ah can help clients say, you know what, I don't have to spend the priority service or the overnight service to get something in a timely manner, even though the carrier says it's a two-day service.

We're now seeing many cases with local deliveries where even grant advantage from USPS is getting there in one day. which is not something declared by the post office. Then that ripples across to all the other carriers as well.

The fact that you can monitor carrier performance, you can understand exactly what they're doing. One of the big things with packages is as a recipient, that reliability, and you sort of touched on that, Dave, the idea of reliability of tracking detail.

The single biggest cost to most people shipping is the call after the shipment to say, where's my stuff? And if the tracking detail is reliable, consistent, and it has the right level of detail, you avoid the call.

So again, there's another layer to this is that you've got to get that data back to your clients. But you also want inspect and say, actually, how are these carriers doing? Am I making the right choice? Should I start to pull some of this volume out to a regional carrier, as David said?

And which pieces should I do that with? And again, it comes back to informed decisions. That's the key.

David Bilodeau
And you say monitor the carrier and in their performance, right? And I hold them to account too, get your money back when they don't deliver.

That's what I'm saying too, right? Of course. But you're also saying catch them when they're doing things right, though. Yes. you know If they're delivering consistently to a zone two from where you are, you know one day when you're shipping ground, great. Well, that means that, hey, take advantage of that. And maybe if you're using a priority from another carrier to get to that same zone, well, well no. Put those packages, shift to that volume to where the carriers are really doing well, where they really are performing well.

Chris Giles
Often there are specific lanes for certain carriers that are very optimized because the volume is so large.

While their standard delivery timeframes, it's like a rate increase of 5.9%, it's an average across all their lanes. But if you start to inspect and you understand your origin destination, you'll find there are lanes that are actually really efficient. And you can exploit that and choose a lesser service if you know what's going on.

But you have to know what's going on for your packages. That's it.

Deb Menter
Data, data, data.

Chris Giles
Did I mention data?

Deb Menter
In one of our previous episodes, I made the mistake of saying data isn't sexy, but when you think about it, I mean, please.

Chris Giles
I'll give you another example. So I've got some clients and we talked right at the beginning about rate changes becoming more complex. The fact that dimensions are part of the conversation and weights part of the conversation, destinations part of the conversation and contents are part of the conversation.
And then the USPS come out with flat rate boxes. And I love the tagline. I think the tagline is amazing, right? If it fits, it ships. Who doesn't get that, right? It's so clear.

And so in this case, USPS increased complexity and then put a product on the table that made it simple. So why would they do that? What was the logic of that, right?

The logic is very simple. Flat rate boxes are not cheap. They are not the most efficient way to send something. Again, this is another way to inspect. If you know what the cost is between an origin destination and you choose to use a flat rate box.

I think in many cases, you'll actually find out you're paying more than you would if you rated it based on the origin, destination, the weight, and the dimensions. But the use case is wonderful. If it fits, it ships.

If it wasn't a great idea, FedEx wouldn't have copied, UPS wouldn't have copied and done the same thing, right? So clearly it was a great idea. But I have customers who come to me and I'll say, you know, we'll talk about our shipping software and all the value. Now, you know what? That's all too complicated. I use flat rate boxes. It's great. I'm like, okay, how much more does that cost you than normal?

And then you get the blank stare. They're like, I don't know. And that's the moment where you go, maybe you should take a look. Maybe you need to understand what that choice of simplicity is actually doing for you. And maybe it's not so hard to get the details into the transaction to make a better choice.
And we're not talking about pennies. We're talking about dollars of difference. And so it adds up very, very quickly. It's always going to be a trade off, right? Between simplicity and and the efficiency play. But it's one of those things.

Deb Menter
I remember, David, when I think it was when Cubic Rate first came out, like, what, two, three years ago, maybe? For the USPS specifically, because we were talking about it. But you had a client call you I think, and said, you know, this box is costing me $13 less than it did yeah last week. Is that right? What happened? And I think, you know, the beauty of any shipping software is that it you don't have to worry about that anymore because you don't have to make those calculations yourself.

The rates are going to go in and whatever they are in that moment, that's what they're going to be. And that's what they're going to show you. But it's wild to think, how big those gaps are between what things could be with a commercial rate or a retail rate and what they actually are with some of the discounted software that you can get.

David Bilodeau
Oh yeah. I mean, my, my favorite story ever is actually, know, Chris Giles here, sending me an email while on site with a client.

Chris Giles
They were adamant our software was wrong.

David Bilodeau
Oh, I mean, the number savings was it was over twenty dollars for this one package. I was thinking like, oh, no, here we go. And I went and checked it and I said, oh, yeah, that's right.

No, this is right. This 100 percent correct. Just like I know I never doubted it for a second. And but for Chris and I like to to have that exchange. right? First of all, like it's the, the savings are real, right? Cause they used to be pennies. I think that's, ah you know, we didn't really talk about this in the beginning, but it used to be pennies, 20 cents, you know, 17 cents.

And now it's dollars. And now in this case, and this was not a gigantic, mean, it was 16 pound package, maybe if I recall correctly, maybe 12 pounds, but it was an over $20, $20 savings on this one item.

David Bilodeau
And then, you know It was great for me to be able to validate the number. But then for Chris, I mean, it must have been a great feeling to like tell the client, no, no, this is how we're helping you.

Chris Giles
Well, and the thing was that being on site with the client, you get a different sense of urgency for one, right? Because they're telling you our software is wrong. and they're going to get their mail returned. They're very upset with us. Then when you give them the explanation, even it's not even over them because in this particular case, through the software, they're accessing the cubic rates.

That's where the big discount came from. and They've got their mail machine right beside it and they go, but it doesn't even show up on the mail machine. It wasn't even present on the mail machine. And so then you get into this conversation. Well, you only get access to that particular rate group when you're using shipping software.

So you can't compare it your mail machine because it's not actually relevant to that form of payment. And so eventually you get that magic moment where the customer goes.

It was so clear that the advantage was there. The fact that I got the ping saying, your software's broken, and I had to get under the details of what was happening. And this is a customer that I actually spoke to recently at NPF. They stopped by to see me, and they were telling about some of the other things that they're now doing. And any transaction that they put through, there's a package, does not go near the mail machine now.

It just doesn't because they know every single time they put it through the software, they get the choice. And the choice and access to all the services that are available to them. And yeah, they're hard lessons, you know, to lose 20 bucks on every single package would be a difficult pill to swallow, I think. But, you know, some customers get there quickly.

David Bilodeau
And I guess we're assuming, right, the folks listening to this podcast know what we're talking about by not letting your package near your mailing machine.
For those that don't, just to clarify, figure may as well take the moment to opportunity education here. When you put on sending a package, when you send a package to the USPS, if you use a meter tape you or stamps, you are paying the most possible you could for that package.

So... By printing a shipping label, you automatically qualify that package for discounts. And again, those discounts are not 20 cents off. It's over a dollar off on every single one up to, I mean, mean goodness, it's 89% off depending on how much that package weighs and where it's going. So huge savings just by not printing that meter tape any longer and instead printing a full trackable label.

Chris Giles
Yeah, so Dave, you mentioned earlier about the the visibility data, the tracking and things like that. And the reality is that the USPS incent the printing of those labels because they route off that barcode. They embed the delivery point in the barcode.

So they're giving you a yeah a discount in order to do that piece. They want that because they want to automate the delivery. They want to scan every piece and get it through to the destination. Well, as a recipient, you now get more scans because the barcode that's been scanned for them to route is now the one the client sees to track the piece.

There's a lot of benefits from doing those labels. It's not just about a better price, it's also more efficiently going through their system and there's more scans on every piece. Your customers doesn’t have to think, where is my stuff? They know where it is because the scans are available.

That only happens when the barcode is useful to the carrier. If the barcode is not useful to the carrier, they're not going to scan it. But an embedded barcode to IMpb goes through the system faster. It just does.

Deb Menter
What you're saying about how it's not just good for the carrier, but we're all so attuned now to seeing exactly where our package is at every moment of the day. As soon as you order it, well, did it ship yet?

And so I think that addition of having that visibility from the person who's either sent the package or having it delivered to them is has really changed the game. Well, what would you say are some of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to thinking about budgeting or these rate changes? What are some of the mistakes people are people are making? Chris, why don't we start with you?

Chris Giles
I think not understanding the world you live in is a big part of it. You know when you think back to in the last year, where was my volume? Where was the most of my costs?

You typically remember a moment that was painful, right? A moment where you couldn't get mail out. You couldn't do what you needed to do. It may not have been the largest volume. Your largest volume period may not have been a painful period. So again, I'll always go back to the data. Data's king.

Getting underneath that is an important piece of it. So I think making sure you understand what you do, when you do, when you do those compares over period and try and calculate the implication, the rate change, understand the services.

And when your peak periods are, gives you the best view of things. The other thing I think I mentioned as well, where people make mistakes is they don't always know or track the alternatives. By that, I mean that just because you use a service and it was a like a high discount, you don't necessarily know what other choices there were.

And so these days I'm getting more and more customers ask me the very simple question. I've got my charges. I see those. I charge them back correctly. But did my user make a good choice?

And that's a question we're really getting under now is ah to be able to share with our customers what you actually did and whether something else you could have done. And that's a reality that more and more people want to get their heads around is, did I make a good choice? Did my user out in the middle of nowhere make a good choice?

And it becomes particularly difficult to do that when you've got lots of remote workers. But again, software data has the answers. And so that's a question that we're beginning to answer now is we can start to wrap people out, I guess. We can tell us when they chose the wrong range.

Deb Menter
David, what about you? What are what do you think the biggest mistake people are making?

David Bilodeau
So, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I feel like I kind of have to. I feel having all, all of your volume with one carrier, you know I mean? We even do the, you know, the Easter ad every single year. Why do we do it? Because people are still doing it. “Don't put all your eggs in one basket.”

And I, I think the reason, and even like from, from my point of view and our point of view, as a company is it's changed, right? It used to be, Oh, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Cause you know, it's going to cost you, you need to save money.

And the thing is, that's only one piece of why you should be using multiple carriers. You know, yes, cost is 100%. One of the pieces, right? Cause you have no idea, you know, if ground's going to be the best way to send his own for, you know, I mean, heck in three months, you don't know that.

One surcharge is all it takes to take that you know to the next level and suddenly, oh wait a minute, priority mail makes more sense here. But there's other things. you know i mean Two years ago, last year, don't remember now, it feels like forever.

We were talking about the threat of a major carrier strike. That wasn't an idea that was made up. I mean we were within a week, I think, of that actually happening.

Right now, we're watching our neighbors up north and their post going on strike, I mean, for the second time, I think, this year. Yeah. I mean, that talk about affecting, it doesn't just affect them, right? We have lots of things going cross-border, especially when you start looking at, like, northern New York and you know, Washington. So, like these things matter.

So... And then, of course, there are the rate changes. What happens if, you know, a carrier adds surcharges for even just one package type? Or if you're you are shipping everything to major cities and and then that suddenly now every package you have is getting hit with a $3.50 I mean, that surcharge could be 40 to 50% of the total cost.

Chris Giles
And we’ve seen even higher, right? If you don't break down the difference between the base cost and the fees and the service elements that are added to it, I have some customers who, again, they come back to question the data and they'll say…

My service cost was $5, but the fee was you came to $21. How can it be that three-quarters of my cost is fees? I'm like, that's how the carriers operate. These are all the fees on the piece. And so, again, to your point, you've got to get underneath it.

You've got to see what's actually, what the elements of the charges are so you can, again, make better decisions.

David Bilodeau
That's right. So it comes down to having technology that allows you to pivot, right?

I mean, it's very easy for us to say multicarrier shipping technology. Well, what is that? Right. Yes. It's technology that gives you all these rates and there's rate shopping. And, you know, we always talk with the same darn thing. Oh, there's this view and you see all the rates. Great, great, great.

But at the end of the day, what multi-carrier shipping software is, it's technology that allows you to pivot when you need to do what's best for your business.

Chris Giles
Predictably as well. Right. You'll actually move and anticipate costs rather than wait and see.

David BIlodeau
That's it.

Chris Giles
Those bills that come in every every month, every week, they're not good surprises, right? You need something that's predictable.

And that's, if you get control of it, they can be predictable.

Deb Menter
Yeah, and I think, Chris, you were talking about looking at your own peak seasons because I think it's interesting. Yes, you know if you're in e-commerce, your peak season's probably, you know one of your major ones is around the holidays, of course. But you know in one of my previous ah podcast episodes, we spoke to someone who sells momAgendas and her peak season is around Mother's Day or the school year.

Other things, I'm sure, around the school year, people who cater to college students, You're going to have, you know, start of the semester and in spring and fall. And so understanding where your peaks are, if they don't match what the carriers think the peak is, you know, how do you how do you accommodate for that?

And, you know, so data, data, data. That's where we're at.

Chris Giles
Get control of the data. You control the conversation. You're in the driving seat, right?

David Bilodeau
So that's the thing though, right? It's not just the data, right? There's lots of ways you can get the data. You know, I know when I would talk with clients about negotiating with their their carriers, their carriers were bringing lots of data. It was all in a big, thick binder at the time.

Maybe I'm aging myself there. And it was lots of data. The problem was... there was nothing that the client could do or that business could do with that data.
It's the data, but then that data being, you know, with analytics being turned into the right insights, right? Making chart, translating that data into something useful, right? Data for data's sake is just kind of silly.

It's more confusing than a rate change.

Chris Giles
It's very true. Very true.

Deb Menter
Okay, last question for each of you. What do you think is the number one thing that they should be doing as they move forward when they're thinking about their shipping costs and their budgeting?

So, David, let's start with you.

David Bilodeau
This is going to be self-fulfilling, it's going to sound, but technology is here for a reason.

Right? We use technology for all sorts of things. You know, in marketing, we have our very own, you know we call it our MarTech stack, right? Because there are tools that have been developed to help us do every little piece in marketing.

The bottom line is this technology is out here now to help with these decisions and end with shipping. And I think it's time that everyone just takes advantage of that and really just just truly looks at and says, shipping is a huge car cost to my business. By the way, up to 13% on average of like a company's total revenue.

So you know it is a big cost. It's a complex cost. It's becoming i just this this idea that you have to be prepared and this technology is now available. It is in the cloud now. I mean I could but I remember when you know we were installing these things on servers and it was expensive, it was a huge IT lift, you know but it seems that the more time goes on, the barriers to entry just continue to get broken down.

So it's low barrier to entry because it's cloud, it's very secure. So IT is very friendly about that. And oh, by the way, like you know, the connections are all directly to the carriers.

Now, right? I mean, even that used to be different. It used to be, oh, I've got to upload this rate chart once a month and all the fuel surcharges. I need to take a look at that website. i mean, it's all happening in real time now. So every time a package is rated, it's using the real time fuel costs, the real time rate negotiated rates that you have with your carriers.

So, yeah, I think that is something. It's the number one thing. It's like, I am running out of excuses to help you not do this. It's a technology world.
And this is very specifically designed to help. So it almost seems like why not?

Chris Giles
The thing I'd add is, I think, nobody's going to argue with you that getting the data, make better decisions is a good thing to do. It's always a trade-off between the amount of effort to gather the information and to your point about technology. Technology is reducing the amount of effort for sure.

But there's a piece of me as well, and this is that selfish piece of me that says, if I'm doing a good job with these decisions, I want to be able to tell people too. So when you make a choice around different carriers, different services, regional carriers, one of the things you should have one eye on is, and can I tell my boss every month how much I've saved the company?

And I think there's a layer in this. And for me, it's not just enough to get the data to make better decisions. I want to make sure people know I've done it too. And that's what the data allows you to do. This idea of you generated this much savings, and by the way, next month I'm going after this.

That visibility does a lot for all of us, for our own job security, the defense of the decisions we make to make investments in products. And the fact that it's so transparent now It's very, very doable. It's not like you have to do a ton of work to prove it. All that is a guess, right? The data is there.

So the flip side of all of this is when you make a decision to move down this path, get control of your shipping, you also get the opportunity be the hero and show people why you're a hero and save money. I think that's a big deal. I think that's important for all of us.

Deb Menter
I love that. And I think that is a great place to stop. So thank you both for your time, for your expertise. This has been such an interesting conversation. So we really appreciate it. And I know our listeners do too.

So if you liked what you heard today, please like and subscribe to this podcast. And we'll see you on the next episode of UnBoxed.