[00:00:00] Lori Boyer: I think there’s certain industries, clothing, some of those that are struggling more and others that are not. And so as of right now, I think that’s super interesting. While everyone’s worried, nobody’s actually stopped spending yet.

[00:00:16] Voice Over: Welcome to Supply Chain now, the number one voice of supply chain. Join us as we share critical news, key insights and real supply chain leadership from across the globe. One conversation at a time.

[00:00:29] Scott W. Luton: Hey, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be. Scott Luton and the one and only Tevon Taylor here with you on Supply Chain now. Hey, Tevon, how you doing?

[00:00:38] Tevon Taylor: I am

[00:00:39] Tevon Taylor: As good as the pinata at a toddler party. How are you doing?

[00:00:42] Scott W. Luton: Fantastic. It’s warm. It is warm, and I’m glad I can say that with a Les. I’ll tell you some hours a day. It ain’t funny. But folks, that’s okay because we got lot of good stuff here today as we welcome in one of our faves folks, Hey, you better be ready for 2025 peak season this year because if you ain’t, it’s going to break you. It’s like Ivan Drago from Rocky Four. “I must break you” — one of the best movie characters of all time for that matter. But there’s always good news if you go looking for it, just like right here in this discussion where we’re going to share what leading brands and real innovative supply chain leaders are doing right now to prepare for and to get ahead of the storm. And you know what? Tevon, these are steps everyone out there can take too. We’re going to answer these questions. How can you better manage inventory? How can you better navigate the trade disruption, especially from a shipping and fulfillment perspective? How can you truly improve your forecasting? How can you strengthen those systems and optimize and activate your data? We’ll get questions for you on all those and a whole bunch more. Tevon, should be a great show, huh?

[00:01:48] Tevon Taylor: I’m excited. Let’s go.

[00:01:49] Scott W. Luton: Okay, Tevon, now that we’ve got our bases loaded, let me introduce backed by popular demand. Lori Boyer, Head of Content Marketing with EasyPost. Hey. Hey Lori, how are you doing?

[00:02:03] Lori Boyer: I’m doing good. I am excited for today’s chat. Scott, you mentioned it’s hot, but the takes we’re having today are going to be even hotter.

[00:02:12] Scott W. Luton: I’ll be waiting for someone to use that. It was coming. Well, Lori, Tevon, we always enjoy our conversations with the one only. Lori Boyer, huh?

[00:02:22] Tevon Taylor: She’s got a great energy. I am excited just to be on this, right?

[00:02:26] Scott W. Luton: We need to tune in it. We need to plug Lori up to the power grid here because the ACs are wiping it all out. Alright first, kidding aside, Lori, on behalf of Tevon and everyone here at Supply Chain Now, congrats on season six of Unboxing Logistics and love your work on that podcast. That’s a passion project. Lemme say it like that. Is that right Lori?

[00:02:48] Lori Boyer: Love it. It is. And honestly, I just love learning from the people in the industry. We drove here from Texas. I was trying to find an audiobook and I was like, let’s just listen to all seasons of Unboxing Logistics. Kids shot that down.

[00:03:09] Scott W. Luton: Lori and Tevon, really quick. I want to get a fun warmup question in there. So folks, it’s Please Take My Children to Work Day today. So basically from what I learned 20 years ago, it was founded as a means of giving stay-at-home parents a break. Their neighbors would take their kids to work. So how about that? So I want to ask you, Lori, I’m going to start with you. What’s one trait that you hope your children learn from your professional approach?

[00:03:37] Lori Boyer: I think it’s very what we were just talking about, learning from those around you. I don’t want my kids to ever think that they know it all. Throughout our careers there are always places we can learn and it can be from somebody who’s six months into their career or somebody who’s 60 years into their career. That’s a real thing. But yeah, we can always learn from each other.

[00:04:04] Scott W. Luton: I love that and so important. I mean it has always been important since the beginning of time, I know, but with the pace of business these days and the velocity — it grows every day. It’s so important to call time out and really focus on learning new things. Tevon, how about you? What’s one trait that you hope your kids learn from your professional approach?

[00:04:25] Tevon Taylor: I would think mine would be resilience. The ability to stay grounded, be flexible, adapt, moving. You’re going to get hit in the face multiple times. Curve balls galore. You got to keep your hand up, keep going. Learn from the failure and just push through.

[00:04:41] Scott W. Luton: That is so true. Resilience has become such a cliche and a buzzword these days. But all for the right reason. Also, one other thing, I want to make sure you all see the link there to Unboxing Logistics. Check that out. I promise you you’ll enjoy those episodes. Lori, you keep every episode fresh like you’re doing it for the first time. I love that. So I want to dive in, share a little bit about yourself and about our friends at EasyPost.

[00:05:08] Lori Boyer: Okay? Yeah, you bet. Thanks Scott. I’m Lori Boyer. I’m the head of our content marketing team here at EasyPost. Basically, I spend all my days just figuring out how to make shipping less boring and more strategic and successful. So I am a classic nerd. I love to dig into the data. And so I am so excited for today’s episode because that is exactly what we’re doing, talking about data that a lot of people don’t know of what’s coming up and what’s going on. And so I also host, as you mentioned, Unboxing Logistics. That’s where I get that chance to learn from just how brands are dealing with the real challenges we face. If you don’t know EasyPost, we’re just sort of a backbone of powering smarter shipping in the industry, whether somebody’s a small business SMB, just trying to kind of get going and get the orders out the door. Or we have customers who are massive retailers handling millions of shipments. So we just help you compare rates, print labels, track packages. We have a carrier network of over a hundred different carriers that you can access all just through a single API. So if shipping is your lifeline, we’re just there to make sure it’s flowing.

[00:06:28] Scott W. Luton: Outstanding. I love it. Look, all the awards behind Lori, I think she personally earned all those. Every single one.

[00:06:36] Lori Boyer: I keep saying I’m going to go to an award store and make a fake award. It’s like Lori Boyer, employee of the century.

[00:06:43] Scott W. Luton: Do it. Do it. That’d be great.

[00:06:44] Lori Boyer: No one gave it to me so I can just go make one. These are real though.

[00:06:49] Scott W. Luton: Tevon, but all kidding aside, there’s something that came up last go round. We’ll probably touch on it towards the end of today’s episode, but there’s a way that shippers can use EasyPost for free. There’s more details that will come but up certain volumes and Tevon, as we like to say here in Georgia, that dog will hunt. Huh?

[00:07:11] Tevon Taylor: Amen. I love it.

[00:07:12] Lori Boyer: I never heard that before. I

[00:07:13] Scott W. Luton: Love it.

[00:07:15] Lori Boyer: That dog will hunt?

[00:07:15] Scott W. Luton: That just like that. Government will be proud. Okay, so Lori, now that we understand a little bit more about you and EasyPost for context, one of our big themes here today is something you and the team have been warning us all. Peak 2025 is not just going to be busy, but it’s going to be absolutely brutal for some out there. So what’s making it so different from past peak seasons?

[00:07:40] Lori Boyer: I mean, I think if we just look at our environment, we kind of know that we’ve got some weird things going on. We’ve experienced crazy with COVID and everything, but I think that the key element, so I’ve really been spending a lot of time kind of digging into what experts are saying, what the shippers are concerned about, what sellers are concerned about. And what I’m seeing more than anything is uncertainty. And in this industry we don’t like uncertainty. It’s not fun. We’ve got tariffs. Of course tariffs are an issue and we can dive into some of these, but tariffs are an issue that deal with not just our costs going up, but also inventory management.

[00:08:25] Lori Boyer: We’re still seeing inflation. We’ve got carrier issues. That’s kind of where I really live most of the time. So we’ve seen different rate issues and some predictions when it comes to carriers, but the number one, so we’ve sent out a few different surveys and what’s interesting, the number one concern most people have is actually a concern that consumer confidence might be low and that they’re not going to see the kind of volume they’re expecting. So yeah, forecasting’s hard, volume might not be there. We’re seeing issues with some outdated systems going on, so that’s where we’re having problems. It’s about that uncertainty. It’s about the need to be really flexible and to be able to pivot quickly and when the margin for error is a little bit smaller than we’re used to.

[00:09:12] Scott W. Luton: Yeah. Lori, that’s a great opening salvo. Tevon, what’d you hear? Or what would you like to add to the uniqueness of the peak season 2025?

[00:09:21] Tevon Taylor: You to sum it up, brands are getting squeezed from both sides, rising supplier costs because of inflation, geopolitical instability, and then consumer price sensitivity. Right now there’s that fear factor that she’s mentioning that consumer confidence is not where it used to be. And then to add insult to injury, you’re seeing companies push for smaller, more frequent shipments to manage cashflow or reduce the overcommitment they might have. So it’s a little that precarious times we’re living in.

[00:09:51] Scott W. Luton: Yeah, I would just want to double down on something both of y’all said. I know we hear all the time, but it’s almost like there’s a great commercial, I think it’s an insurance commercial where it’s a guy with a fishing pole and he’s got a dollar or maybe a $20 bill on the hook on the pole and he keeps teasing people with it. And it’s almost like the powers that be are doing that. When it comes to certainty. It’s like we gain a few days where we’re getting few breakthroughs and then it gets jerked back and it’s uncertainty on 10,000 different levels. Lori, you’re nodding your head. Do you kind of see that too?

[00:10:27] Lori Boyer: Yeah, absolutely. And uncertainty is more uncomfortable for us almost than a certain difficulty. We can’t predict what to do and so we’re uncertain what the playbook is and that’s why it’s so, so difficult right now. If we knew everything was going to be A, B and C difficult, we would adjust, but we don’t know. And so we want to be ready in case big things happen that are great. So yeah, it’s difficult and I’m so glad Tevon brought up resiliency, so that’s exactly the kind of phase we’re living in.

[00:11:02] Scott W. Luton: So true. Tevon and Lori, we’ve got five big themes, buckets, topics — hey, you name it. Lori and Tevon, two of these five themes. I want to start with the first one. You’ve already mentioned it a little bit Lori, but we’re talking about these external pressures are getting higher and higher, especially tariffs, inflation, costs — you name it. Lori, what are the biggest external pressures that brands are facing right now as they prepare for peak?

[00:11:31] Lori Boyer: Okay, so definitely I would say top of the list are costs, but again, not just higher costs but unpredictable costs. So we’re starting with carriers — every peak we see the standard general rate increases that come and we’re seeing that as always. But what we are really seeing this year and what we’re hearing is that we’re going to see more layered surcharges. So it’s all those small surcharges that really can add up — your fuel, your residential, maybe if you’ve got extended delivery areas or oversized handling. A lot of times those get added mid-season without much warning. Fuel surcharges alone, for example, are up 15% over last year even though diesel prices haven’t spiked. So for us, that’s just showing carriers are kind of baking their margin back into the system sort of quietly, trying to offset some of their own issues.

[00:12:49] Lori Boyer: In terms of external pressure — so we’ve got carrier surcharges, we’ve got the ocean freight with all of the tariff stuff. Moving inventory has been a little bit crazy. So we’ve seen spot rates in the ocean approaching $8,000 per container already. Some lanes we’ve seen are up 13% versus last year at this time. And then we’ll see big dry spells where nobody’s shipping something over and we’ve got empty ships. And so brands are trying to figure out how to bring in inventory to kind of avoid disruptions. And of course then there’s just the straight costs — straight from what are we going to do when it comes to tariff costs that impact inflation, but also inventory management. So yeah, it’s not just like one cost increase that’s being hit, it’s sort of a full-blown squeeze where you’ve got carriers bumping rates, ocean surcharges.

[00:13:47] Lori Boyer: Again, it’s going to be about flexibility, leaning on tools to be able to compare rates dynamically, switch carriers, sort of stay ahead of the chaos there. And I do have some examples as well. You can tell me if you want, of how our big companies out there are managing. So that’s one thing I like to look at is to see, okay, everybody’s getting hit with this, whether you’re Walmart and Amazon or whether you are just a small little mom and pop shop. So I like to look at that. Are you interested in hearing about those?

[00:14:01] Scott W. Luton: Well, really quick, Lori, yes, I love examples. It helps crystallize the learnings. All these conversations give. But really quick, I reconnected recently — talking of surcharges and additional fees — with a couple of dear friends that have their own religious bookshop and they were already telling me, Hey, our suppliers are adding surcharges based on what we’re seeing trade policy wise and they’re trying to plan the rest of the year. And so to your point earlier, Lori, not only are big businesses trying to figure this stuff out, but you got mom and pops that have critical needs, special customers, seasons, the ups and downs, and they’re trying to become better and better supply chain pros too. Before Lori shares a few examples, Tevon, give us a quick comment there. You’re seeing the same?

[00:14:51] Tevon Taylor: I am. And look, the most horrific thing that ever happened in the industry are surcharges and accessorials because it’s frustrating. You almost have to have a PhD to understand what your true landed costs are because there’s so many surcharges and it’s so confusing and they go up and they don’t necessarily correlate with the actual cost. So it’s a penalty if you will. Yeah, we’re seeing that as well.

[00:15:13] Scott W. Luton: That’s right. They’re quick to be added, slow to be reduced. Lori, you’ve teased us with some examples, so please share a few.

[00:15:23] Lori Boyer: Yeah, so that’s one thing I like to pay attention to is how are the most savvy retailers and shippers and whatnot dealing with some of these issues. So we’re seeing different approaches, which makes sense. Different people are trying out different things. Again, it’s unpredictable for everyone.

[00:15:39] Lori Boyer: So first thing — we’re seeing some of the big retailers: Target, Home Depot, Costco — they’re really working on renegotiating their supplier contracts. So what we’re seeing from them is they’re saying, Hey, these tariffs or costs, they’re hitting us both. Let’s share the burden. So pushing for better rates, reworking payment terms, even optimizing the way the suppliers are packaging their goods to reduce the amount of shipments they need. Again, this isn’t glamorous and shiny, it’s just hard work and it is working for them. So everyone out there can look at their supplier contracts. What can you do there?

[00:16:18] Lori Boyer: Walmart and a bunch of other large companies — but Walmart is a really great example — they’ve been diversifying their sourcing. So shifting away from maybe China and towards places like Vietnam and India. Again, not just to avoid tariffs, but to create that more agile ecosystem for you long-term. We need to be able to not rely on a single thing. I think that’s something that we’ve really been taught, whether it’s your carrier, whether it’s your supplier, whether your manufacturing facilities — we need to make sure that we are expanding what we’re doing so that we can respond well.

[00:17:00] Lori Boyer: And then big, big, big for everybody is leaning hard into automation and AI. I’m especially seeing this in some fashion brands, CPG, even P&G. They’re doing a lot with forecast demanding, simulating different impacts with tariffs. There’s some really cool simulation tools out there. EasyPost has a great simulation tool. There are others as well where you can get out and kind of look at different simulations, what would happen, routing shipments better, looking at different carriers — really working to kind of play ahead and find where you can save every penny. Because every penny matters, I guess. And every different penny. But every penny matters in today’s world. And so making sure you’re not losing some.

[00:17:50] Scott W. Luton: So true. Lori, that was a great rundown. That is a practical checklist of things that leading companies can do, that are doing, that anyone can lean into. And Tevon, I would just add one more that Lori kind of touched on and I’d love to get yours. Folks, if you’re not meeting with your suppliers and having real conversations, seeing what they’re seeing, taking some of your initiatives and some of your goals to them, you’re missing out. You’re missing out.

[00:18:13] Scott W. Luton: I’ve seen in my career some really big, powerful eureka moments — that one side was assuming one thing, the other side was assuming another thing — and when it comes to find out both sides are doing things they don’t need to do. And of course that’s just waste. But Tevon, what’d you hear there from Lori on that powerful checklist or what would you add to it?

[00:18:35] Tevon Taylor: That connection between retailers, suppliers — that needs to happen. But what I really enjoy — I actually have a retailer in Tennessee with the supplier meeting. The retailer stood up in front of the crowd and said, Here’s the deal. Tariffs are horrible. We’re going to absorb it, but we’re going to do it together. If you think you’re going to pass that on to us and not try to find efficiencies, you probably won’t be in the supplier meeting next year.

[00:19:00] Tevon Taylor: Like they’re saying, find ways to be more efficient. We’re going to share in the pain, but don’t just try to pass on a tariff directly to us.

[00:19:04] Scott W. Luton: That kind of goes back to Lori’s point. I would rather be certain of what the problem is — in that case — rather than not know and not have the chance to get it corrected so we can get back to growing the business. Love that call out, Tevon.

[00:19:24] Scott W. Luton: Lori, we can probably stay in this theme the whole show, but we got some more. There’s a lot to talk about here.

[00:19:25] Scott W. Luton: That’s right. And up next I want to double down, dig a little deeper on something you’ve mentioned earlier, and that’s about consumer confidence and where that is. It’s kind of gone to the dogs, Tevon. So Lori, tell us more.

[00:19:39] Lori Boyer: Okay, I’ve been really excited to talk about this because it’s super, super interesting. We’ve continued to see really low consumer confidence. 70% of Americans feel like there’s a downturn coming and our consumer confidence levels are some of the lowest they’ve been since COVID. So I just had the most interesting conversation with a Forrester analyst. It actually came out today. I think we have that link there — we do — on the Unboxing Logistics podcast with Sucharita Kodali. And she is kind of their senior analyst over retail and she was really interesting.

[00:20:22] Lori Boyer: So while 70% of people say they’re expecting a downturn and people are still spending. So it’s like there’s a dichotomy between what people think is going to happen or what they say they’re worried about and what actually is happening, what they’re doing. So spending has not decreased that we have seen. We have not seen that having a full stop. They’re out there — though they are looking for deals. They’re going to do a little bit more research and the types of things they may buy or where they spend their money may shift. But as of right now, the money is still being spent. It’s because people are worried it’s going to happen, but it hasn’t happened yet.

[00:21:34] Lori Boyer: So intentions or feelings are not matching actions. I think for me that would mean look at what you are promoting in terms of sales. Those more critical essential items are always going to be purchased, and people are willing to the higher end. So she mentioned I think there’s certain industries, clothing, some of those that are struggling more and others that are not. And so as of right now, I think that’s super interesting. While everyone’s worried, nobody’s actually stopped spending yet.

[00:21:59] Scott W. Luton: Such a great callout, because all of that’s impacting demand forecasts — where we’re getting the data from, the assumptions we’re making, the educated guesses that are baked into forecasts everywhere. But Tevin, science is still around and data science thankfully is a burgeoning field and that’s filling in some of the gaps when we’re trying to predict what consumers are going to do, when we’re trying to predict what supply chain disruptions lie ahead. We’ve got to lean into the data and the automation and the technology imperative. But your thoughts there, Tevin, on what we heard from Lori around consumer confidence?

[00:22:37] Tevon Taylor: I’m thankful for the data, because she’s right. The spending has not changed, but the surveys and the data show there’s pessimism and the likelihood of recession. But the numbers with the freight, the movements — don’t show that. So I don’t want to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. That would be terrible. I would just say that you’re going to see the supply chain is going to react to a little bit of pessimism, but hopefully you’ll see that adjust — especially with, there’s some green shoots in some industries where you’re seeing growth as well.

[00:23:01] Scott W. Luton: That’s right. Practical optimism is what I like to call that. So Lori, much like in the last theme, you were starting to share a couple of things that companies should do as they’re trying to manage the risk of buying too much or too little inventory when we’re still trying to really knowledgeably predict what shopper behavior is going to be like this year. So what other suggestions would you have for companies out there?

[00:23:24] Lori Boyer: I think it’s always critical — visibility is huge. If you don’t know what’s going on — in today’s day and age, you wouldn’t think that there are people who still don’t really know what’s going on in their warehouse or with their inventory — but it is very common. So if you are feeling a little guilty right now thinking “I don’t have the greatest visibility,” you really need visibility into what is going on. You can’t just rely on our historical patterns or maybe set-it-and-forget-it kind of forecast right now.

[00:23:38] Lori Boyer: Got to stay responsive. You’ve got to be able to pull real-time demand signals. And we’re going to talk about peak timing a little bit in a minute, but that is something that’s going to be really critical — is keeping a very close eye on real-time demand signals. Looking at your promo windows, figuring out when you’re doing that, watching conversion patterns as they unfold. So if you do a little promo, seeing how people respond and then being able to make changes, pivots accordingly.

[00:28:51] Scott W. Luton: Right, that communication is absolutely critical. Alright, so Lori, as we continue our trend here of laying out the facts and the data — I love that, I love your focus on data, facts not feelings as Corinne says — and then also offering up some actionable ways that we can work through these challenges of peak season. So what are some ways, other ways, that brands can really improve their forecasting and stay flexible as we see these demand patterns shifting?

[00:29:19] Lori Boyer: Okay, I just — huge shout out to Tevon there because he is right on about communication. I think that fairly often we get ourselves into these issues because of a lack of communication. So if your marketing team is doing some sort of big promotion, your operations need to be aware of it. Sometimes it’s completely out of your control and you don’t anticipate — I’ve talked to people who say that a TikToker promoted them without them even knowing or something, and then they were like, holy cow, what’s happening?

[00:29:30] Lori Boyer: But in terms of your actual company — please make sure you’re communicating. After that, it’s going to have to be again, Tevon’s on fire today — but it’s got to be data. You’ve got to be looking for trends, you’ve got to have visibility. Walmart did this last year and were able to reduce some of their issues of stockouts by 30% just because they used data and AI to kind of forecast what might happen in response to different promotions.

[00:30:09] Lori Boyer: But I think also, on the flip side, there are some really cool tools out there to monitor TikTok trends going on and then predicting whether you can position. There was this large beauty company last year that I spoke with recently and they spotted a trend and then took advantage of that by positioning some of their inventory accordingly and had a huge boost in Q4.

[00:30:42] Lori Boyer: So generally though, data shows that if you’re using some machine learning — maybe to detect promo or weather-based shifts, any sort of demand shifts — you are three times more likely to hit your sales target. So you need to just be aware it’s going to be data. And I want to say I think sometimes as we get out of that large world, the mid-tier retailers kind of feel like, can I even do this? But there are absolutely tools available for everyone.

[00:31:12] Lori Boyer: Of course, here at EasyPost we have different things with carriers — so visibility into carrier performance, delivery times, rate fluctuations, AI-powered label selection, all of that kind of stuff. But there are also tools for inventory and OMS platforms that use AI. You’ve got demand planning tools that directly connect to your e-commerce platform and help you forecast. There are tools available to everyone no matter what. So you don’t have to be Walmart to get Walmart-level agility. The tools are there that’ve been built for teams like yours. Don’t think that you’re overloads there.

[00:31:51] Scott W. Luton: Lori, I love that theme that you’re preaching there about the beauty of democratization here in 2025. Really, it’s been around for years now — where small and mid-sized businesses can do what the big businesses are doing — because that’s how technology has become more and more democratized.

[00:32:09] Lori Boyer: Customers kind of expect it now too.

[00:32:10] Scott W. Luton: That’s right, absolutely. And Tevon, if you don’t have the right tools — go out and you better find the right tools. But what’d you hear there, Tevon?

[00:32:19] Tevon Taylor: I’ll say this — I think the big companies struggle with it more than the smaller or mid-size, because when you’re big, it’s harder to move. You’re a giant ship trying to pivot. Look, you’ve got to be able to scenario plan, you’ve got to have agile warehousing to pivot quickly with all the trends and everything happening. So you use the data, you do scenario planning. I’m not going to talk about digital twins and all that fun stuff — that’s for another call. But that warehouse has to be able to bend and shake with you as well. And that’s harder for big 3PLs or companies. I would say for both retailers, suppliers — the smaller you are, then you should be able to adapt. Now the investment is the big deal — but another call.

[00:33:00] Scott W. Luton: Another call. And you know what, there are some terrific and powerful inexpensive resources out there. I bet Lori’s got an idea or two — but more on that in just a second.

[00:33:00] Scott W. Luton: So we worked through our third theme. We got two more. Hey, it’s a busy time. So with this fourth one, we’re talking how carriers are shifting fast. So the question here, Lori, as we get into this fourth theme — what’s changing in the carrier landscape this year that shippers better be aware of?

[00:33:26] Lori Boyer: Okay, carriers are my bread and butter. So they’re the lifeblood of what we do at EasyPost. So I get a lot of insight and intel into what’s happening on in the carrier world. Peak 2025 — I mean they’re going to be critical. So as we’re heading into this season, we talked about timing is unpredictable, costs are crazy, shopper expectations are still high — including me. I feel so guilty all the time Scott and Tevon because I know how hard it is and yet as a mom I’m like “Where’s my stuff?” Similar expectations are high.

[00:34:02] Lori Boyer: So flexibility. Here’s what we’re seeing right now — big surge in the use of regional carriers. So this has started over the last year or so, but is really growing and taking off. So big regional carrier use. We’re also seeing regional carriers expanding where they’re covering their service zones and sometimes they’re even doing a lot better than what the big guys are doing. We’re seeing it — Amazon Shipping. Amazon Shipping is an incredible regional carrier that I think a lot of people don’t know about.

[00:34:31] Lori Boyer: So one of the things that’s been really interesting with Amazon Shipping — so for everyone who doesn’t know, Amazon Shipping is a carrier now and they actually, you don’t have to sell on Amazon, you get to take advantage of the cool Amazon way. We have this really neat AI tool that helps — we’ve talked about this in the past — but it helps you compare costs and figure out just what your best route is. Amazon Shipping is coming up a lot as one of the most affordable and best ways. So Amazon Shipping.

[00:35:04] Lori Boyer: We’re also seeing national carriers are constantly shuffling. We talked about rates and surcharges and zone tweaking. I think Tevon said you need a PhD, but I think honestly you don’t need a PhD. We have the tools now because we can have basically a PhD AI or technology that can help us. So capacity isn’t even guaranteed. So I think that it’s just critical that you’re taking advantage of what’s out there and being aware of the tools and the carriers, which one’s going to work for what you need in particular.

[00:35:38] Scott W. Luton: Yep. I’m going to circle back around to Tevon in just a second, but I got one more question for you. Why is it — you mentioned carrier diversification — why do you view that as being so critical for organizations to diversify their carrier mix heading into this very unique peak?

[00:35:53] Lori Boyer: Carrier diversification is just sort of the name of the game today. It used to be that we could kind of stick with a single carrier, but we’re in kind of a logistics chess match at this point. So carrier diversification — it’s a big risk management thing. You can avoid last-minute rate spikes. So maybe if we do see some of those charges come in, you can swap and switch over. You can really route more efficiently.

[00:36:24] Lori Boyer: We’re seeing there’s different delivery zones. Carriers have different strengths. Some are really great rural, some are amazing for long haul, some are great for small businesses. But there are a lot of ways that surprisingly different carriers — sometimes you think, “Oh, I’m just going USPS today because it’s a low cost.” Sometimes there are alternatives that are even better. And not to say — I love our big carriers as well. Absolutely work with them all the time and they’re fantastic at what they do. But if something goes wrong, whether it’s a delay, a shutdown, overloaded hub, you need to have access to be able to pivot. It’s again that flexibility — being able to deal with the unpredictable.

[00:37:12] Lori Boyer: So for instance, what EasyPost does — and there’s other companies that do this as well. I’m not just saying this is an EasyPost thing — but we have 100+ carriers that are all connected to sort of just a single integration. So if you sign up, if you use EasyPost, then you can have access to any of those carriers and shift. In the past you had to kind of go carrier to carrier and try to manage all of that. And that’s really, really hard. And too manual.

[00:37:38] Lori Boyer: So instead, you can just sort of do your rate shopping and you can have an automatic switchover if your carrier hits capacity. You can watch the live performance data so you can know what’s going on and kind of keep that visibility and make sure your packages are going when they need to go so that you don’t end up with a cranky mom like me who’s mad because her package didn’t come — “Where’s my stuff?”

[00:37:47] Scott W. Luton: That’s right. And Lori, picking up on that logistics chess match theme — that’s great. It’s like 7D chess, Tevon. And you know what? I wish I knew how to play chess. I got to figure out all those different pieces and the way they move. But Tevon, comment on the golden advice we got from Lori — what are the chess pieces? You got the queen, you got the king, you got the rook…

[00:38:08] Lori Boyer: But the rook — that’s the one people say is a castle. See I just had to throw that one out. I’m super cool. I knew it was a rook.

[00:38:15] Scott W. Luton: Alright, so checkmate. Tevon, tell us what you heard there from Lori.

[00:38:20] Tevon Taylor: Yeah, I’m more of checkers, not chess — my brain capacity. But what I’m hearing — diversification. I love it. Because in the old days you had to stick with one carrier because you’re integrated to their platform, one pickup — they made it where you were kind of locked in. You don’t need to do that anymore.

[00:38:38] Tevon Taylor: And honestly, I’m a customer of EasyPost. So I could tell you — when I have a facility shipping out multiple customers, I can flip and switch pretty easy and use different providers. It goes back to the word I used earlier — it helps me be resilient on not just cost, but service level and regional reach. So it gives me those options. You shouldn’t lock yourself into one because eventually if something bad happens, you’re locked in. You don’t have that ability to switch very easily.

[00:39:07] Scott W. Luton: Excellent commentary, Tevon. So timely. It’s important to be able to change our mind and move to other options from an operational standpoint. So I love the point you just made there.

[00:39:17] Scott W. Luton: Okay, we’ve got to move on from logistics chess to legacy systems that can’t flex fast enough — our fifth big theme here today. So Lori, the question there to get this one going is: where do legacy systems most often break down during peak season?

[00:39:33] Lori Boyer: Oh Scott. Okay, I’m going to get — this one’s a little personal. Story time alert. So we lived in kind of an older house in Utah and we moved to Texas a couple of years ago. We had a brand new house now, so don’t worry. But we had this old dishwasher, it was original — I think it was made around dial-up time or something. And my husband kept being like, “Hey Lori, we should probably get a new dishwasher.” And I was the type who’s like, “It’s fine, just keep an ear out and if it makes this sound you go back and hit the button a little bit harder.” And I just didn’t want to buy a new one and it was a pain.

[00:40:22] Lori Boyer: Scott and Tevon, do you want to know what day it broke down?

[00:40:23] Scott W. Luton: The day before Thanksgiving?

[00:40:25] Lori Boyer: Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Of course nobody could come and get me a new dishwasher. That is when your legacy systems are going to break down — when it’s like overloaded time. It can break down in so many ways. But I ran some data recently this last year. The number one reason that people — looking at data, why do people move to EasyPost? What’s happening? Number one reason was their legacy systems. They had challenges.

[00:40:56] Lori Boyer: The truth is a lot of systems we have right now — and Tevon kind of referred to this earlier — were not built for the kind of flexibility or even, Tevon, I just love you today — but again, the ships, right? The large companies can’t move quickly. So some of our legacy systems are a little like trying to move a cruise ship quickly and we need to pivot really fast. And a lot of things just weren’t built for that. So when peak happens, there are so many different ways — that just like my dishwasher, I’m not the best example — don’t wait until you’re stuck in crisis mode at the worst possible moment. And that’s really when systems break down.

[00:41:47] Lori Boyer: So we’ve got a lot of legacy systems out there. Just have your backup plan and make sure you’re not handwashing casserole dishes for 12 hours straight.

[00:41:51] Scott W. Luton: The squeeze is on. We’ve referenced that numerous times. The pressure that certain parts of the year, certain days, timeframes, months — you name it — put pressure on not just our people and our processes and our technology, but those legacy systems that are maybe more prone to breaking. Tevon, your quick comments there?

[00:42:05] Tevon Taylor: I’ve seen it happen. So her analogy is really good. For the warehouse, it means you’re going to have stockouts, missing SLAs, very unhappy customers. You’ve got to do it manually, which takes labor. Legacy systems are not the way to go. And if you have a legacy system, you need to find a way to make them modular and more up-to-date for sure.

[00:42:25] Scott W. Luton: Yep. Great. Well said.

[00:42:26] Scott W. Luton: Alright, so really quick Lori, we’re going to pivot back to the advice — actual advice. What should companies be doing to strengthen their systems and data to handle all this peak volatility?

[00:42:37] Lori Boyer: Yeah, again, I think it goes back — you’ve got to make sure first you’ve got visibility. We’ve mentioned — that’s kind of a theme throughout. We’ve got to be able to know what’s going on where. So look at your system. I always recommend: start with tools that can plug into your existing setup. You don’t want to just rip everything out, but you do need modern speed, modern flexibility, the ability to pivot — things that can let you move quickly.

[00:43:07] Lori Boyer: So my advice is always that you should start with what you’ve got and see how you can make improvements and where you need to make shifts. And we don’t want anybody to fully rip everything out, but look for maybe where some of your biggest challenges are. I think that even getting into the warehouse or talking with shippers — ask people where are you seeing slowdowns, where are our issues? And then seeing how you can maybe upgrade tools in specific areas at a time.

[00:43:38] Lori Boyer: Whether that means then you can add carriers quick — that it’s not weeks to add a carrier but hours — or that you can automate maybe decisions and the data that we talked about. Data not — what was your phrase?

[00:43:42] Scott W. Luton: Facts not feelings.

[00:43:43] Lori Boyer: Facts not feelings, yes. Something that makes sure you do have that data and visibility, that you can reroute your inventory, switch up shipping rules. Again, it’s going to be about being able to pivot and move quickly. When those micro-surges happen — that’s the last time you want to be stuck. It’s when you have a great sale, especially during times like this peak where every sale is so, so critical. If you do get a micro-surge, run some simulations beforehand. Make sure you know what will happen and how you can respond.

[00:44:13] Scott W. Luton: Well, very practical, been-there-done-that advice, Lori. I appreciate that. And it echoes the main theme from Lori and when you and I sat down with Agustin Lopez-Diaz, who leads supply chain for all of North America for Schneider Electric — one of his quotes, I was just reviewing it this morning, was basically “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.” Call timeout, figure out where the gaps are. Don’t just rip and replace — targeted technology application. That’s kind of one of the themes Lori’s talking about there. Your quick comments there, Tevon?

[00:44:44] Tevon Taylor: It’s like buying an old house. You don’t need to tear it down and start over. You have a great foundation. You have the bones. Use what you have and kind of layer in modern tools that help to extend the life in the current system — and then eventually kind of replaces a lot of the functionality.

[00:45:01] Lori Boyer: I love that, Tevon, because it’s true. You also don’t do every room in your house at once or you’re going to be so miserable. Start in this room — whether it’s kitchen or whatever — where’s your worst problem? Start there.

[00:45:11] Scott W. Luton: You make that sound, Lori, like you’ve got a couple of painful stories you could share if we had another hour — but next episode.

[00:45:20] Scott W. Luton: Alright, let’s see here. We’re going to have a fast and furious finish. I’ve got two questions I want to pose to Lori and then we’re going to get Tevon’s patented key takeaway. And we got some specific resources that we want to make sure folks are aware of.

[00:45:36] Scott W. Luton: So let’s start with this — Lori, you’ve really shared some very actionable, practical perspectives and expertise here today. But if you had to boil it down to one mindset shift or action step you’d want every brand out there to know — that they should probably put at the top of their priority list, especially when it comes to peak 2025 — what would that one key thing be?

[00:45:54] Lori Boyer: Okay, this is a Lori Boyer classic. Do one thing after this meeting, after you watch this — go do one thing. Right now, everybody listening, I want you to write something down. Because we tend to not actually do anything, or we think we’re going to do 875 things, and then we do nothing.

[00:46:09] Lori Boyer: So maybe you’re going to add a backup carrier. Maybe you’re going to turn on real-time rate shopping. Maybe you’re going to see where you’re having some visibility gaps and try to figure out how to get more information. Maybe you feel like, I need to monitor my delivery performance a little bit more. Or go out and run a single peak season simulation — what was your highest day last year? Run it through your current system. What would happen? How fast can you print labels? Would your WMS flex if a carrier went down? Just get a gut check. But do something.

[00:46:38] Lori Boyer: Don’t let this chance just go by and you say, “Wow, I learned a lot,” and then you did nothing. So I always recommend: get out there, do one. But only do one. After you finish one, then you can do another. But if you try to do too much, nothing will happen.

[00:47:02] Scott W. Luton: Excellent point. Excellent point. And a follow-up — the good news, because it’s really easy (no pun intended) to get started working with Lori and the EasyPost team. And Lori, I bet you hear that all the time — easy button this, easy that. But it’s true. What’s your suggestion when it comes to getting started with EasyPost?

[00:47:20] Lori Boyer: Oh, there’s so many ways. Obviously you can go to easypost.com, you can check out — we’ve got all kinds of resources on the upcoming peak season, a lot more data and information. We’ve got eBooks and I put together a solutions guide that’s specific to the different challenges — what different EasyPost tools might help you the most for different challenges as well. That’s our solutions guide.

[00:47:42] Lori Boyer: We have tools that walk you through how to add new carriers, how to rate shop with AI, automate. So go to easypost.com. Also, if you just want to connect — I love to hear what’s going on with people. Happy to connect with you on LinkedIn. And yeah, there are so many ways.

[00:48:03] Lori Boyer: You mentioned before — if you are a small shipper, you actually can start with EasyPost for free. You just log in. You can get a free account if you’re shipping fewer than 3,000 packages a month and start using it. And it really will scale with you. So we have very large corporations who work with us as well, but it really works for everybody. So I guess one thing you could do is to go to easypost.com. If you don’t have anything else to do.

[00:48:30] Scott W. Luton: And do it. We dropped the link right there in the chat. Check that out. You’ll be glad you did. And you know what? Even if you don’t do business with EasyPost — although there’s lots of reasons why — you’ll love connecting with Lori, Tevon, and the whole team. I promise you.

[00:48:49] Scott W. Luton: Hey Tevon, you wouldn’t know it from all the sales solicitation emails I get — I only ship like three things a year — but I’m going to sign up with EasyPost. Today. Today.

[00:48:54] Tevon Taylor: Good being here. Thanks guys.

[00:48:55] Scott W. Luton: Alright, so folks, take one thing you’ve heard here from Lori and Tevon. Just one thing. Don’t make Lori mad — just one thing. You’ve got to put it into practice.

[00:49:04] Scott W. Luton: But do connect with Lori and Tevon after today. And whatever you do, on behalf of the entire team here at Supply Chain Now — Scott Luton, challenging you: do good, give forward, be the change that’s needed.

[00:49:19] Scott W. Luton: And we’ll see you next time, right back here on Supply Chain Now. Thanks everybody.

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