In This Episode
This week we hear from Mike Rose of Quad Express, a third-party logistics franchise that provides full supply chain solutions. Learn how to ship from overseas the right way and save costs to increase your bottom line.
TRANSCRIPT
Tommy:
What's up you data-hungry, Amazon sellers. This is your host, Tommy Berenger of the Sell Rank Win Podcast for MerchantWords. And in this podcast, we give you the answers to your most burning questions, actionable insights that you can take away and implement into your business today. So, let's go ahead and dive right into today's episode. What do you say? Let's go.
Tommy:
In this podcast, I speak to the owner of the shipping company that I ship my products with for my Amazon store. He's going to go ahead and give you guys some interesting ways to save some money on your shipment and also possibly a product you guys should not be selling on Amazon or at least shipping from overseas. So, let's go ahead and dive right in. Let's go.
Tommy:
Hey, everybody. Thanks for tuning in to the Sell Rank Win Podcast. We have a value-packed podcast today. We have a very special guest on with us. He has been working in the shipping industry since 1999. So, he knows a thing or two about getting your products from anywhere in the world to your final destination.
Tommy:
He owns his own third-party logistics franchise that provides full supply chain solutions from beginning to end. So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce my good friend, Mike Rose. Mike, how are you today brother?
Mike Rose:
I'm doing great, brother. How are you?
Tommy:
I'm good. I'm good. Ready to do this podcast with you, man. It's been a long time coming here.
Mike Rose:
Yes sir. Thank you for having me on buddy.
Tommy:
Absolutely. So Mike, why don't you just go ahead and dive in and tell us a bit about yourself and your journey in the shipping world from 1999, all the way up to 2021 here.
Mike Rose:
I myself grew up in this industry. My parents came over from Italy. Italian immigrants. One of my father's first jobs was with a company by the name of Western Gillette, which my grandfather later worked at. And my uncle Western Gillette years later was bought by Roadway Express, which then became YRC. I had another uncle in the industry in sales management, as well as my brother-in-law. I have a couple of cousins in the industry as well now but, I grew up in the industry. When I was growing up, we heard all about Freight and Shipping and the LTL world at the time. My dad always thought it would be a great... And my family always thought it'd be a great industry for me to get into. It's always been a consistent trade industry. So, when I graduated college in 1998, I started in the industry at XPO and Inside Sales.
Mike Rose:
My path took me to Roadway being the third generation and started my sales career there from Roadway. It became YRC and I was at YRC toward the end of my career. At my time at YRC, I met somebody at Ryder Logistics and was one of the finalists in selling warehouse at the time. So, you're talking about the early two thousands. The guy really turned me on to LTL being a small piece of the pie. As good as it was really global supply chain is the big industry. It was growing into global supply chain, especially with the growth of China at the time. So, I took my career path to Lynden International. Was focused on Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, but did have an international field and market. I learned my... And cut my teeth over there with international ocean and air, as well as learning the offshore market and still doing domestic.
Mike Rose:
I got a call from a buddy of mine from YRC that was starting a brokerage company. So, I've always been one and learned that I want to continue to diversify. So, this was an opportunity for me to learn the truckload and brokerage division, which I did. Unfortunately, after about a year, they didn't manage their money well as a startup company and God bless I ended up at DHL Global Forwarding, slash DHL Express and spent about the next 10 years there. Where I did... The footprint that DHL has is like no other. As much as I was all domestic, I learned the international field, the ocean customs, every field I could from there. The last couple of years, I ended up going to the express division. I wanted to learn the small parcel. I want it to be able to be able to sit in front of customers and be able to sell them everything, and be able to talk knowledgeably about everything.
Mike Rose:
After my experience, I ended up actually looking around a little bit. Learning the 3PL world. In the last year and a half, we were able to open the QuadExpress franchise that I'm with right now. QuadExpress was-
Tommy:
Awesome.
Mike Rose:
... Yeah. Was interesting to me because they're owned by Quebecor one of the biggest printers in the world. So, some third parties are non-asset based. They actually had a pretty good footprint, not only domestically, whether it be air or ocean for the Lower 48 and Hawaii, Alaska they also have a nice footprint internationally. Where we continue to do ocean imports, ocean exports, air imports. We're doing a lot more in the drayage field now today. I'm just blessed to be where I am at today. I appreciate to be in front of you and your audience today.
Tommy:
Yeah. Mike, I really appreciate you coming on and taking your time with us. Yeah, you definitely know your stuff, man. I don't know if you knew my great grandparents did... They came over from Sicily. So-
Mike Rose:
We talked about that?
Tommy:
That's right. That's right. So, one thing I wanted to ask you is, what are the biggest changes that you have seen from 1999 and here in 2021? Maybe some things related to the COVID-19. What differences are you seeing right now? What are the new things that are happening at the moment?
Mike Rose:
Like I was discussing a little bit, when I did start in the industry, obviously we can go back even before I started in the industry. 1980 deregulation started in the domestic industry and a lot more was domestic-based, right? So, the LTL industry was controlling a big share of the market. It was the international business, like the DHLs of the world. The forwarders of the world. Well, it didn't come on until the late eighties, early nineties. As we expanded into a global market, the world changed, and we are changing along with the world. The blessings of talking to you about Amazon, Amazon customers is Amazon. People can get Amazon from everywhere in the world. That's changed through the years now, even as being on my side, I've learned and taught myself about the global market.
Mike Rose:
There's some people that want to just sit and domestic, or just the international field. They haven't and aren't comfortable with learning the beginning to end supply chain solution. Recently, here in the last year obviously, we've seen some major changes with tariffs in China, and then with the pandemic, we've seen a huge increase and change in the market, as far as even container... The prices of the ocean containers coming from China. Amazon and the online market has changed. So, in the last couple of years, we've seen more people using third-party supply chains or 3PLs to do their fulfillment and distribution. It rather than brick and mortar. A lot more pick and pack. So, in those, you're starting to see... When I say pick and pack, that means on one of these brick and mortars is actually doing 7-800 shipments a day. They are going into homes with UPS, FedEx, or even the postal system.
Mike Rose:
The last year now, with the pandemic, we're seeing a lot more home orders rather than business to business. The big box retailers are changing and the customers and the clientele that we have on today's this listening to today's podcast is what's changing that. Because, a lot of people are rather going to order online and they would go to the brick and mortar.
Tommy:
That's right.
Mike Rose:
So, that's changed the whole industry and people have had to adapt to that. What we do when we talk and we'll get into the explanation of Final Mile, but we're even doing a lot more Final Mile delivery to homes delivery, delivery in-homes. White glove deliveries. Now this is more of a demand. Gym equipment was a big one. When the pandemic hit. People were ordering gym equipment like crazy. So-
Tommy:
I got my squat rack in the garage.
Mike Rose:
...And more people and so... When I started in the industry, there's carriers that were around, that are gone. It's going to continue to evolve, and hopefully... What I try to do is find myself and partnered with myself, with carriers and partners that will continue to provide solutions as the market changes. Today, one of the big things is drayage. There's some huge port congestion and not enough carriers in California. Equipment in California have plunged into the drayage in providing solutions for people that didn't have solutions before. So, hopefully that answers your question and gives your listeners, a little insight of what's going on.
Tommy:
Absolutely. Yeah. Things are changing all the way around, right? Everywhere, from shipping to doing new things in your house, right?
Mike Rose:
100%.
Tommy:
You're learning from home, you're schooling from home, for those of you who have kids out there and all that fun stuff. So, Mike, our listeners, as you know, most of them, a good amount of them are Amazon sellers. Some are large brands, some are smaller sellers. Maybe just getting started. I wanted to break this down as easy as possible on how to get your product. If someone wanted to get their products from overseas into their Amazon FBA warehouse or into their own warehouse. If you want to break it down... Well I'll go over the first step actually is, you want to create your shipping plan inside of your seller central account.
Tommy:
That could be a whole nother podcast, but going in there, you want to create the shipping plan. And why you'll need to create the shipping plan is something from your manufacturer, which is called the packing list. And inside of this packing list is going to show you basically what everything, what does it contain the description of the ship. And so how many cartons do you have? How many are packed, how many items are in each carton, the dimensions, the weight, and so forth. So, after you get that, create your shipping plan, and then also simultaneously you can forward your shipping plan over to someone like Mike over at their company, QuadExpress, and they can give you a quote on the shipment. Then from there, they take it the rest of the way. So, Mike let me know if there's some things in there that need to be corrected or after that, what happens after I create my shipping plan inside of seller central? What do you guys do?
Mike Rose:
I think with experiences. You and I have worked together in the past. I myself, when working with new Amazon customers, existing Amazon customers, I try to become a partner. So, I try to take my expertise, my years of expertise. Just like if you go to a doctor or a lawyer I'm not at that scale and try to be able to teach and work, and take the burden off the Amazon shippers or just shippers or customers in general. I try to bring my... Be the product expert.
Mike Rose:
So, when looking at Amazon, there's a variety of different ways and I'm sure you're aware of it and your listeners are aware of it, but we could start with the imports. You have a manufacturer in China that you're going to order from, they're going to fulfill that order. And at that point you could reach out to someone like myself, and I'd walk through it to see what size of shipment is. The dimensions, analyze... We talked about this before the packaging, because it's volatile in the industry and they base it off size, no matter what the weight is. The more compact, the more dense the shipment is the better the pricing could be. So, something that could be light and big might be better off on air than ocean or ocean than air and-
Tommy:
Mike, let me stop you there real quick. You bring up a great point. So, if I'm an Amazon seller, I don't know anything about shipping yet, or even if I do know things about shipping, but maybe I don't know places that I can save money yet. Could I come to you with my product? And you guys could say, maybe work with the manufacturer in order to make that product packaging smaller in order to make my shipping costs less. Because as I know, as an Amazon seller, the shipping costs eat into a lot of the bottom line. So of course we want to save as much money as possible on shipping costs. Maybe an Amazon seller is thinking about selling a product. Could they come to you and say, "Hey, what do you think about selling this Mike? Do you think the shipping costs are going to be high on this or?" Could someone come to and work with you at that point?
Mike Rose:
A hundred percent. So, we could look at the product, we can look at dimensions and we can look at why they're packaging it that way. In some cases, if it's damageable, they might be packing it. So, it would not get damaged. In many cases, we can go back and ask and look at the packaging and work with you to do that. It doesn't mean the manufacturer will change, and they might have reasoning to do that. But if they're willing to, it could drastically change the price of shipments because, if something is small and you have empty space and packaging around it, you're not paying for the product. You're actually paying for the packaging. That's how the shipping industry goes. You pay for the actual size of the shipment. Just recently a gentleman you referred to us actually, had some shipments.
Mike Rose:
He was looking at different products, trying to figure out what he wanted to bring in, what he could sell on Amazon. He was looking at bubble wrap. Once he broke everything down, he realized that it just wasn't cost-effective to bring it over from China, no matter what the cost was. It would have cost him way more to ship it, whether it be ocean... And we wouldn't have done it air, it was too bulky to ship it ocean. It would have eaten in any kind of margin. He's looking at all kinds of avenues and everything to go into the Amazon world and bring it forward.
Mike Rose:
This just wasn't something that... But we've spent weeks on it. We spent weeks talking to manufacturing and looking at costs. I mean, these are things as your listeners get into the product, I don't think it's just looking at selling on Amazon. You have to look at what the cost of is it bringing in to make sure your overall margins are going to be worth it. That's where a person like myself and the experts on the logistics side that are willing to be partners like myself will come in and hopefully take that and help make your jobs a lot easier.
Tommy:
Absolutely. And was that person I referred to you, was that Justin?
Mike Rose:
It was Justin, and I'm going to see him a lot. A lot of success, and I could see them having a lot of success and he really was diving in and he's continue to dive in to see what he can be successful on, on Amazon. The right thing was, he hit it right before... He didn't make a decision on bringing that product to Amazon. He looked at every aspect of cost before he decided, and then it just wasn't worth it. Bubble wrap is not worth it's bringing in from China people. Just a towel.
Tommy:
There you go. Don't, don't sell bubble wrap guys. Don't do it. Mike, this kind of brings me to something now is, when I come to you, when I do my ship shipments with you, I want it to be as painless as possible of course, and I want all fees included. I always say, Mike, I need door-to-door shipping. Can you go over with our listeners what door-to-door shipping includes and what is that about? If you can just explain that.
Mike Rose:
So, this is a great point. As you get into this, I don't want anybody's heads to spin and think that you have to learn this. This is what the experts like myself are here for. This is what I'm here for. So, if you come to me, this is what I'm here for. So, when you start to plan with the manufacturer, at that point, you can decide and negotiate, at what point you want to take on the actual logistic charges. The actual charges that will come to you for the transportation. Door to door, to me it's full supply chain. Excuse me. They pick up at origin, whether it be China, whether it even be the United States. And then it goes directly to the final consumer. The final landing place. That's considered door to door. There's other services that you can negotiate with and that are provided port-to-door.
Mike Rose:
Port-to-door would mean if you're ordering from China, the manufacturer would take care of logistics charges and probably included into your overall cost of the product, but they would take care of it to port. Then it'll be your responsibility to use someone like myself to handle from the airport or the ocean port to your door. They have CY-CY, that's port to port. So, you just be in charge of just the port-to-port charges. In most cases for Amazon customers, they want the final model going in Amazon. So, it is port-to-door or door-to-port. The key as we do this. I'd worked with people and we teach is, while you're working on those, on the logistic charges, it's a whole different other world when it comes to customs and liability.
Mike Rose:
So, when I talk about port-to-door, door-to-door, it's good to figure that out because your manufacturer says port-to-door. If it gets damaged, or there's some issues from the door to the port. The container goes to the port, it falls in the ocean. You're not liable for that product, but if it is door to door and you kind of damage, any kind of damage to the container you are liable. Customs is a whole different other world. While you're looking at duties and taxes, you also take liability on the product in the custom charges. So, the FOB charges, those are all so describing the liability of what you're taking. FOB means Freight on Board. You're taking full liability of that. There's other ex works. There's other terms that are done by customs that help cover and figure your liability from the product.
Mike Rose:
That's what we're here to do. We talk about duties and taxes as we talk about Amazon. We've talked about this before, Tommy. Amazon has never a record of import... An importer of record. So you've always have to have... Be the importer of record. So if you're in the United States, your company would be the importer of record. Amazon will never take liability for that product. If you're shipping export into places like China and Germany, the UK. The UK, you could ship there, you have to have an importer of record, but you don't have to have an entity there. Germany asks you to have an office and you have to show an office there.
Tommy:
Yeah. I learned the hard way, starting out before I had you doing my shipments. I sent it all the way into Amazon. They sent it away or waited. They didn't send it away. They just stopped and said, "Someone needs to be an importer record." So, that's another thing I wanted to bring up. You bring up a good point there. Someone who needs some shipping service. They can come to you and you can take care of all of that. Right? You can help them figure that out, figure out the customs in the duty and all that stuff. I just wanted to point that out as well.
Mike Rose:
Yes. So, when someone would come to me with a shipment, whether it's ongoing or a first one or whatever it is. The first thing that we would do is analyze what mode to move it on. The second is that we'd actually have them. If they want us to do customs. Then we'd actually have them fill out a letter of authority to actually operate in your behalf. So, then we'd be able to operate customs. We'd be able to clear customs. This is part of the customs part of it. We'd help you get bonded. If it's a one-time shipment, you'd get a bond. If it's an ongoing shipment you're on waybond. So, we take care of everything and help you take care of everything. That's what we do. The analysis of if you want to go into Amazon, you go on Amazon FOB.
Mike Rose:
If you were looking at a warehouse and wanted to look at a warehouse and where the product was going into, we can analyze where the product is going into and find a public warehouse that can actually pick and pack and move your product. We can do the drayage. There's really... It's up to you and your listeners and the customers, what they want to do. But from my experience in what we try to do here, we try to bring what's called a one-stop shop, door-to-door supply chain. So, if it's just the ocean to Amazon, we can do it. If it's air to Amazon, you get it. If you're asking us to trans load it, take it off and take it off a container and then put it on a truckload and move it in. We could do that.
Mike Rose:
The opportunity as it presents itself, I like to look at it, analyze it, and then come back with different solutions for our customer. So, I like to be that partner, try to find those solutions. I've helped other customers warehousing and find warehousing that do just Amazon. I've done a great job for them. like I said, what I try to do is be a partner. I try to discuss and find solutions. At the end of the day, it's up to you guys. And if you trust me, I try to do my best to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible. And try to continue to do that going forward and be that reliable partner. Whether you ship with me or not, you can come to me and ask me questions and I can help you find those solutions. I've had that happen. I'm not here just for the business. I'm here to educate people on that. Get them more knowledgeable about the industry as well.
Tommy:
That's right. You're such a good person to have on my speed dial to reach out at any given time regarding anything like that. Another question that I wanted to ask is different times of the year shipments, what is the cheapest time of year to ship? When should these Amazon sellers get their products out of the manufacturing into their warehouse?
Mike Rose:
I mean, obviously there's peak seasons. We're just going into a peak season, which is the Christmas season, right? The heavy purchasing season.
Tommy:
Yep.
Mike Rose:
So, those are the... Usually when supply and demand will dictate the peaks and the increases. So, it could be a year or two years up to this year that carriers hadn't applied an increase or a peak season surcharge as they go off supply and demand. But this year, because of the pandemic and everything, we've seen ocean containers from China, come in and go from $1,500 for a 40 foot to $3,500, which is an astronomical amount. Customers have had to adjust Chinese new year, right before the Chinese new year people are shipping like crazy. Getting containers in, like crazy using air ship. And so you see a peak.
Mike Rose:
So, as the season come up, you'll see peaks. But at the same time with the pandemic and things that would come in, it could change at any time. They can charge a peak surcharge at any time, but usually you want to base it around after March it starts to slow down. That's why the bigger vendors that ship, two, three, 4,000 containers from China a year, they start to negotiate and get fixed ocean rates. It works for them, but it doesn't mean it's always perfect because they'll get one flat rate but it's right in the middle from peak season and off peak. So, sometimes it's better just to go with the seasons. Same with air. As they get consolidated, and they have issues as we get closer to the Christmas season flights get full.
Mike Rose:
The DHL Expresses and FedEx get more demand and they try to lock in rates, but they'll increase those rates as capacity gets tighter. We've seen that at California this year. There's less drivers, less containers. The rail is full. The season one produce picks up and their shipping products. You're going to see an increase in prices. The truckloads that used to be 5,500 to New York, right now are costing $9,500 and customers are having to pay them. There's no other solution. Yeah. If It's all on supply and demand.
Tommy:
Jeez. Yeah. One thing I wanted to bring up is, were talking about congestion and especially with the peak time. So, one recommendation I want to make and you can attest to this as well Mike is, say, for example, you were just launching a product in this peak season and you don't want to wait, 20 to 30 to 40 days for all of your units to get on sea. You can go ahead and take like, say you, you made 500 of these widgets, and then you want to get 50, you could get maybe like 25, 50 over by air. Air Express, which will take about seven to 10 days. A lot shorter time. Get that into the Amazon warehouse, so you can start getting up and selling and then your Ocean Freight will come in. So, that's a recommendation and a tip I wanted to give to the listeners out there. Which I think I have done with you before as well.
Mike Rose:
Yeah. On top of that note, we've seen that before Tommy. Just because you think that a 200-pound shipment may be less by ocean, sometimes it's not. Air could be just as competitive. There is additional surcharges onto ocean. They call it bunker charges. In this charge that in some cases, air might be a little bit more by a $100, $200, but you're looking at three to five days, seven days compared to 15 to 20 days. So, density as we get into it. And we talk about it is the big driving factor. Remember you can get a box of rocks and a box of feathers, that's the same size. They're going to try... The goal is to try to charge you the same amount of money. Just because something's lighter, doesn't mean it's going to be less expensive or less cost.
Mike Rose:
The industry has been trying to do that for a long time. So, they go off density items when it goes by air, they go off density. When it goes by ground. Let the expert do the quotes, let the expert try to find solutions. Then at the end of the day, figure out your cost. If it works, go with that mode. Like you said, if it needs to be split up, because you need to get something into Amazon quicker, in many cases people do that and it works for them.
Tommy:
Yeah. Just going off of that, let the experts handle the shipping logistics, because it's not another piece of the puzzle. You want to wrap your head around. You're over here. You're the Amazon seller. You're doing R&D. You're doing product research. You're trying to figure out what products to sell. Now, in order to get them shipped over, let someone else figure that out. Let someone like QuadExpress, Mike's company to go ahead and figure that out for you. Mike, thank you so much. I want to thank you for coming on the show. We're going to wrap this up. At the end of every show, we like to have our guests give our listeners a little piece of advice that they can take away and implement in their business today. So, what can you give our listeners out there right now? What do you got for us?
Mike Rose:
So, as you get into this, like I said, I think the important part is to find a good partner in the logistics world and trust them. Make sure when you're working with them to give them the right information. Make sure that they're able to work. If it's for an overseas shipment, they're able to connect and work with the agent overseas and communicate, so you don't have to. And then also make sure when you're getting the product dimensions, the sizes, the weight you're giving it to them correctly. At the end of the day, we'll be able to provide quotes. We'll be able to provide solutions. But if any of that is wrong, it could come back at different... At a higher cost. It could come back at a lower cost, but it can come back at a higher cost at costs that you didn't expect.
Mike Rose:
So, try to... Information and data is going to be able to give your logistics partner the best way to find you solutions and then provide the costs that you're going to be paying. The last thing you want to do is say, "Well, it was actually a lot bigger. It was odd him." Now, instead of a thousand dollars, you're paying $5,000 and sticker shock. These guys are just passing on costs, right? So, in many cases, it's moving on a plane, it's moving on a truck, they're passing on the cost and adding maybe a bit of a margin onto it. So, even if you ask, "Well, can you eat it?" There maybe a 10%, 15% margin. The rest is all costs. So, remember, as you're working with your partner, trust them, find someone like myself and I'm not patting, but the care is, that is passionate about what they do. Wants to make this easier for you and believes in what they're doing. And then communicate as much as you can. If you find somebody that's willing to communicate with you, communicate with them back and call them as much as you can.
Mike Rose:
If they're annoyed, that's not the person you want to work with. Find somebody that wants to be able to work with you and help you grow.
Tommy:
That's right.
Mike Rose:
I hope-
Tommy:
Education is key.
Mike Rose:
...Yeah, and I hope to work with some of these listeners and have the opportunity to work with some of these listeners. QuadExpress is owned by Quebecor. Like I said, we have a big footprint. If people want to come to me, we can look at some discounts. We can look... They're working on some backend solutions. Even if I could... I said before Tommy, and I've done it before. We had customers that you've referred me to. If you have just questions, feel free to call me or anything at any time. You're never bugging me.
Tommy:
Absolutely. That brings me to my next question Mike. Where can our listeners find you if they wanted to do some shipments with you, or just had any questions. Where can they reach you?
Mike Rose:
So, I can be reached by email at M-I-R-O-S-E. Rose is my last name. [email protected]. That's [email protected]. My phone number is (310) 920-4308. That's (310) 920-43008. All new customers will go through me all on boredom, help hold their hand help. I do have personnel that works with us and partners. So, eventually if we may work with them as well, but I like to make sure everybody gets what they need and is able to be onboarded correctly. They can call me, like I said, at any time for any questions, any issues.
Tommy:
Awesome.
Mike Rose:
All right. So thank you, Tommy. I appreciate the opportunity today.
Tommy:
Absolutely. You're a bold, man. You've given out your phone number. Nobody prank call that number. Maybe sometimes just so that he can... Oh my brother. Thank you so much for coming on in giving us tons and tons of value. Also, Mike is going to give our listeners a discount. So, when you reach out to him, make sure you mentioned either MerchantWords or the name of the podcast, the Sell Rank Win Podcast. So, when you reach out to them, if you guys want to do some shipments, mention us and he will hook you guys up. But again, my brother, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I know you are a super busy guy. So I just wanted to thank you for coming on and hopefully we get to do this again, but again, thanks so much.
Mike Rose:
Thank you Tommy. I appreciate you brother and thank you for the opportunity to talk to your listeners and to spend some time with you.
Tommy:
Absolutely. Talk to you soon buddy.
Mike Rose:
Take care bye. Bye-bye.
Tommy:
All right, bye.
Tommy:
All right. Thank you guys so much for listening. And if you got any value out of this podcast at all, please let us know at the place that you listened to it at, whether it be iTunes, Stitcher, whatever it is, give us some love. Give us an awesome review and let us know maybe some things you want us to talk about on the next podcast. Till next time guys stay awesome. And be awesome.
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