- Speaker #0
People have been conditioned that fast, fast, fast, fast, fast is the only option. And there will always be part of the population that says I need it immediately. And there will be part of the population that says I need that immediately. But there will be this group in the middle that says I'm getting a lot of stuff and I don't know when I'm getting it. So if you can get it to me on these couple of days and it helps you and it helps the earth, I'm in. Your watch.
- Speaker #1
Marketing Mystics with Norm Farrar and Kevin Kane. Mr. Farrar, good to see you again. Another week, another episode of the Marketing Misfits podcast. How are you doing, man?
- Speaker #2
Life just wouldn't be the same without seeing you once a week.
- Speaker #1
Without seeing me once a week? Am I that attractive?
- Speaker #2
I don't know about that, but just, you know, sitting here and talking to you once a week.
- Speaker #1
Oh, I thought the whole point was to have cigars together. You know, like every time we're together, it's like that's when I get all my, I catch up on all my cigar smoking.
- Speaker #2
You know, when I come back from your place, people could probably tell right now that I just came back from your place. Because we just sit out there night after night after night after night smoking one, two, sometimes three cigars.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, now it's like, yeah, so I have a, I'm in a high rise in downtown Austin, right in the heart of the city. right on the bend of the river that goes through Austin. And I've got a balcony that overlooks the whole skyline of Austin. And it's a view, it's a postcard view. It's a view that most people don't see like from the ground. And some people say that it looks almost like Hong Kong. And like, that's Austin. But just because the angles and everything. And so we sit out there. Sometimes when Norm's in town, we're working on a project, he'll stay at my place and we'll go out there at 11, 1130. And by the time we look up, it's two in the morning or something. But this last time, there's a Google building, and this building is in the shape of a sail. So it's like one of these landmark kind of buildings that looks like a ship's sail. And it's all lit up. And Norm was one night, he was like, oh, it's 1230. It's like, oh, the lights are, they turned the lights out. And so we actually figured it out by going out there like six nights in a row that midnight is when the lights turn out on the Google building. And I remember one night there, it was like, I don't know what was going on. It was like 1145 at night. There must have been, what did we count, 15 planes lined up?
- Speaker #2
I don't know what was happening.
- Speaker #1
Flying over the city, going in for the, they changed the landing paths or something. It was like 15 of them, just one after another after another. It was crazy. But, yeah, those are always good times.
- Speaker #2
Oh, yeah, and the stories that come out. You know, I've known you for how many years now?
- Speaker #1
There's always a new story. One of us, there's something like, now we have to preface it sometimes. Have I told you this before? And you know, yeah, I heard that one before. We'll start down at telling some story. And then I was like, yeah, yeah.
- Speaker #2
Let me tell you a different way.
- Speaker #1
And sometimes we just, I just shut up and see if the story comes out the same way. You see some facts change or something. No, I'm just kidding. But no, but there's always something new that comes out. Just like there's always something new here on the, on the Marketing Misfits podcast.
- Speaker #2
You got it. And I think we should probably just get right into it. And
- Speaker #0
uh introduce mike so mike robinson why don't you come on come on down you're the next contestant on the market yeah there we go hey guys how are you good how are you mike i'm uh i'm great and i loved listening to your banter before i came on you
- Speaker #1
sound like great guys and i'd love to share a cigar with you at some point we'll have to do that we'll have to do that you know i was at uh i think i told a story on another podcast uh but I went up to – Norm and I are working on a big project together outside of the podcast and stuff. And so I went up to Canada. He's up north of Toronto, and I'm in Austin. And I went up to spend the weekend with him to just do a working weekend. And he had always told me, like, Kevin, when you come up to visit, I've got these cigars I inherited from this guy that had some heart trouble, a friend of mine. And he had to give up his whole collection. And he's got these pre-Castro cigars. from before 1959 i think they're from like 54 55 56 somewhere in there like he's like when you come up come up to visit i'm gonna i'm gonna uh whip one of those out for you i'm like yeah whatever whatever so i go up to visit and second and one of the first nine you had to tease me you had to you know uh but the second night he's like hey you ready for one of those i'm like ready for what for for this he puts it down there's no label or anything on it it's like perfectly wrapped And it's like a cigar that would probably cost at least $1,000 now, if not more. It was from, what, 55 or 56?
- Speaker #2
I'm pretty Castro. I'm not sure exactly what year.
- Speaker #1
Probably the best cigar that I've ever had. This thing is older than me by a decade, and it's still so tightly wrapped, so well kept. It's just amazing. The flavor's all the way down. I'm not a huge cigar guy. Norm is like a master connoisseur, but I'm just the tag-along. I'm the second guy and second fiddle when it comes to cigars to him, but it was amazing.
- Speaker #0
I didn't know cigars had vintages. That's pretty impressive.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, there are. And when we go to events, Norm and I, we do go to a lot of the e-commerce events and different events. And our tradition is at night, we'll find a place somewhere at the hotel to go out and have a cigar. And we invite people to come out and we'll say, hey, anyone wants to come? And just, you know, for a couple of hours, we just hang out and have a good time and talk business, talk life, talk whatever. And sometimes you'll get someone out there that's never. smoked a cigar and they're like all right i'm with when in rome i'll try it so we have we have two two cases of cigars we have the case for the for the people that are not cigar smokers the biometric one the biometric one for the people that are because what inevitably happens someone has never smoked a cigar they'll smoke you'll give them a decent cigar like oh you should try this one's one of my favorites or whatever you give it to them it might be a 15 20 25 cigar And, you know, they smoke about four puffs and then waste the rest. So we have this secondary case that's like, try these first and see if you can handle this or not. And then we'll migrate you and graduate you up.
- Speaker #0
Well, if we ever do meet for a cigar, I'll be watching to see which direction.
- Speaker #1
There you go.
- Speaker #2
You know, talk about marketing. We went to the big smoke last year. And I forget who it was. I don't know if it was Padron or one of the... the top guys in the business. And he was talking about his grandfather and how his grandfather could not understand how they could take something that was worth a dollar or 25 cents at the time and sell it for what they're selling it for today. Like some of these cigars, like some of these Davidoff cigars that we were smoking were And the, And I forget who it was. I think it was Padron that was saying, you know, my dad could never figure out how we could take those cigars, put a label on it and market up so much. And these cigar companies, like these really good cigar companies, we talk about this in marketing all the time. What you can do with a coffee cup. Why is one selling for two bucks and another one selling for $35? It's the same mug with a different label, and you can do that. And that's very similar in the wine world as well as the cigar. Now, there are some different cigars that might use different tobaccos or might be more rare. Same thing with the wines. But at the average wine or the average cigar, they're not really all that expensive to produce, but they can bring in a hell of a lot of money.
- Speaker #1
Well, part of marketing though, Norm, I think, and that's part of what Mike is doing, we'll talk about, is when you, to sell something, you actually, whether it's a perceived value and you can sell a 25 cent cigar for $150 or it's a service or whatever, it's, a lot of times it's about making people feel a certain way or feel proud or feel that they're, either it makes them feel like they belong to something. You know, why do people, why would some women buy a Louis Vuitton handbag versus a Walmart specialist? Because... It's a status symbol. It's like, I've made it. It's a confidence thing. Why do some people only buy their sodas and recycled plastic bottles and they refuse to buy it or glass or whatever, and they refuse to, or they refuse to buy six packs of Coke because they come with a little plastic thing that holds the six pack. And if you throw that in the trash, that, that strangles fish, you know? So a lot of times marketing is not just about the, the. product and how cool the product is, it's actually about creating a feeling or creating a sense of responsibility in people. I think that's part of what Mike is doing, if I'm not mistaken, with some of what you're doing, right, Mike, with what your company's doing.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I mean, I think we're trying to get there. I mean, I spent 25 years in retail, and so I was well versed in, you know, how do you get people to turn wants into needs, right? And a lot of it is around, you know, how you make them feel about it, right? And this and this push that we have right now around, and I don't know if it's my term or somebody's term that I stole, conscious consumerism, right? How do we get smarter about consumption, right? What we're still going to consume. But how do we feel better about it? Right. Right. In terms of the choices that we make, whether it be from a product perspective or service perspective or in the space that we're in, which is in the delivery space. Right. How do we how do we do it so people don't feel, you know, they feel a little less guilty and maybe feel a little bit more virtuous and in terms of the choices that they make. So I go as deep as you want on this. But, you know, I get what you're saying about the cigars. Right. And I entered this conversation thinking that. freshness of cigars was the most important thing. Now I'm understanding vintage of cigars is the most important thing. And I'm going to have to, you know, start yelling at my buddies who always give me the freshest cigars because they don't think I'll smoke the good ones.
- Speaker #2
The ones that are still moist.
- Speaker #0
That's right.
- Speaker #1
Freshly rolled.
- Speaker #0
Just rolled yesterday.
- Speaker #1
So when you say you're in the logistics delivery business, what does that mean?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, so we decided to focus on kind of a portion of the final mile. And if you don't mind, I'll tell you a little bit of the origin around it, right? So I live in the Bay Area. I was over in a suburb of the Bay Area taking a walk with a very good friend of mine who was the founder of the company. We're just walking around his suburban neighborhood. And we'd see delivery trucks driving around and driving around and all brands of them, the FedEx, UPS, USPS, OnTrack. etc. He goes, does that happen in your neighborhood? Because I live in the city. And I said, happens all the time. I'm on a fairly, you know, less trafficked street in San Francisco. But there's delivery trucks happening all the time. He goes, do you think that's sustainable? And do you think that's well done? I said, well, I think everybody's trying to do everything fast. And but but I'm not sure it's organized or synchronized. He says, I want to build a business around, right? I want to find a way of taking some of the chaos out of the process. and find a way to synchronize so effectively, you know, that ultimately our goal is to take trucks off the road. Because what we're trying to do is have every time a truck stops at your house, that they deliver, you know, two or three things where they might have only delivered one before. And potentially means instead of the truck stopping out here three days a week, they're stopping one. And every time that we're able to do that and create that synchronization and create that ability of the driver to be able to drop off multiple packages. There is really true operational dollars to be saved and carbon as well. About 800 grams of carbon isn't created as well. And so it's kind of tapping into a company's desire to be better from a sustainability standpoint. Definitely save money associated with it. And ultimately, on the consumer side, feel better about the choices that they're making because that they're still buying everything that they want. Right. It's just being delivered in a much more organized fashion. But it all started with that walk around my buddy's neighborhood.
- Speaker #1
And now a word from one of our sponsors, one of Norm and I's favorite tools, Stack Influence.
- Speaker #2
Are you looking to quickly boost new Amazon product launches or scale up existing listings to reach first page positioning? The influencer platform Stack Influence can help. Stack Influence pushes high volume external traffic sales to. Amazon listings using micro-influencers, and guess what? You only have to pay with your products. They've helped up-and-coming brands like Magic Spoon compete with Cheerios for top category positioning, while also helping Fortune 500 brands like Unilever launch their new products. Right now is the best time to get started with Stack Influence to crush it during this holiday season.
- Speaker #1
That's right, Dorm. Sign up today at stackinfluence.com. Or click the link in the video below and mention Misfits, that's right, Misfits, M-I-S-F-I-T-S, to get 10% off your first campaign. Head over to StackInfluence.com right now. I mean, that happens with me with Amazon. I mean, I order something on Amazon and they'll tell me, do you want this tomorrow delivered between 5 and 8 a.m.? I'm like, I'm not even going to be awake. You might not even be able to get the door to my complex or something to drop it off. And another one will say 7 to 11. Another one will say you want to deliver on Wednesday with your other stuff. Amazon gives you that option. And a lot of times I'm like, just deliver it with the other stuff. I don't need it like first thing in the morning. But I'll see trucks. I'll get sometimes three or four deliveries from Amazon a day. Like one in the morning, something else comes on another route. This may be because they're coming from different distribution centers. But it almost seems like a waste. It's like you should be making one stop and dropping everything and not... all these stops.
- Speaker #0
It could be. And I still think of Amazon as the smartest company in the world, right? And, you know, they've probably figured it out, but they've definitely tried to enlist you in that process, right? Did you want everything delivered at the same time?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, they offer that as an option. And sometimes I take that.
- Speaker #0
Right, right. And so what we're doing is we're a little further in the process with the rest of the retail industry. It's after the consumer has already made the decision to buy. And it's up to the retailer and the carrier now to figure out when it's going to get there, but they've got a window to work in. And all we're suggesting is you can work with the full window to be able to connect with everything else that's currently in flight to that customer's house. I mean, I get, you know, I probably get the UPS guy dropping off here or the FedEx guy dropping off here, you know, three to four times a week, right? If I just was more thoughtful about it or if they were more thoughtful about it as a company, they could probably do it. drop it down to one or two, save a great deal operationally, save some carbon as well. And I probably wouldn't even notice the difference. In fact, I'd probably be happier because I don't have to worry about packages being dropped off every single day.
- Speaker #1
Well, it's on the opposite. It used to be Monday through Friday were delivery days. If you want delivery on Saturday from UPS, you paid $10 extra for Saturday delivery. There was no Sunday delivery. There was no holiday delivery, except for the post office, I think did something for around Christmas. At a much higher price and now it's it's taken the Asian model seven days a week delivery And I remember FedEx ground used to not deliver on Mondays because they delivered on Saturdays and so they just they took Mondays off And so but it's now it's this now now now people want it now now now so from a marketing point of view How do you are there enough people out there that are conscious? conscious consumers that you can actually Get them to say, I don't need it that fast. It's okay if it comes. Or is it 10% of the things they don't need that fast, but 90% they do?
- Speaker #0
I think it's changing, right? I think it's changing. And I think that Amazon is actually helping in that change. I mean, just as they help condition everybody that they needed it free and fast, right? And just as they're helping to condition people that they can get it coordinated and at the same time. And maybe a little bit slower. But on... a committed day that they can choose. The rest of the retailers can learn from that, right? And there's actually consumers are shifting in those. I mean, you know, a couple stats that we kick out and when we talk about is that, you know, that, you know, almost three quarters of all consumers that receive five or more packages in a week consider sustainable practices important. So, and so they've already said, think about the problem differently. And that number jumps to like 87% that they're saying they're willing to wait longer if the sustainable, if the shipping practices are sustainable, meaning delivered together, less packaging, potentially using EVs, things of that nature. So this synchronization of it is something that people are buying into. Frankly, back to the premise of the podcast, I know that retailers are going to market that at some point, right? That they're going to market, you know, that they market product, they market.
- Speaker #1
alternative uh energy and fuel they're they're going to market this notion of we're being smarter in terms of how we're getting your product to you well i don't know does that packaging now it says uh this box was made with 72 percent less uh cardboard or something like that actually says it right across the box so they're trying to convey that message exactly what you're just saying of that uh that that consciousness yeah
- Speaker #0
yeah i i mean i think there's this real push in terms of that I don't just think sustainability, but I live sustainably. There was a Bain study that just came out that really, really triggered a couple of thoughts for me in terms of, that people are listening to the signals that are out there. I think we're in this mode right now that is storm season in the Atlantic and in the Gulf of Mexico. We're watching the second large storm just build and head towards Florida. And every meteorologist says there's something different, right? There's something going on here. And, you know, nobody likes to use the term, but the oceans are hotter than they've ever been. And there is an impact of whether it's all man driven or whether it's natural as well. There's something that we can all do if we choose to make different choices and live in a much more sustainable manner. And I think that's what people are going to gravitate to, especially if they recognize where I can. And I said it earlier.
- Speaker #2
assuage some of their guilt and and actually feel a little bit more virtuous about it as well so i'm going to uh i'm thinking about it with messaging right now all of these retailers especially amazon have built their reputation about speed one day delivery two day delivery walmart's just you know we can deliver it in an hour uh the the messaging is going to have to definitely change to get people to understand this consolidation and oh yeah i'll wait an extra day or two yeah um how do you think that's going to roll out or how how can you uh generate
- Speaker #0
that message yeah i think there's always going to be a percentage that says i need it now right i think that instant gratification whether it's gifting or medical or something of that nature where it's just it's neat or or it's the it's the product itself, right? I get food services sent to me, right? I'm not going to wait three days to have a bunch of meat show up at my house, right? That doesn't make sense, right? I did that once and it wasn't a good experience.
- Speaker #2
Wait for it,
- Speaker #1
a whole weekend, right? Right.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I did. And trying to get rid of that was an interesting experience, especially in a city like San Francisco. It was a bit of a biohazard. I think that, and I keep coming back to Amazon because I do believe that they are the smartest, but they're also the quickest to recognize trends like this. The little green leaf that they throw in front of you and kick up, and you've mentioned it a couple of times, right? You have that choice. And more and more, you're going to say, I don't need it. I don't need it now. I can actually do it. In fact, I get upset sometimes when I order something on Saturday night and it shows up Sunday morning. right i don't i don't i didn't need that printer cartridge right i didn't need the ink for my hp printer right um but yet it was probably on somebody's route and they were able to do it and it actually made sense for them physically to do that instead of it thinking through that mike doesn't need it so i can wait until his amazon day which
- Speaker #1
is tuesday of next week but even on all rise like i do where there's 182 units in this high rise If they're going there already, they should might as well, one stop, they deliver 37 boxes versus one stop. You know, it's the same amount of time, maybe a few minutes extra, but proportionally not much to deliver those 37 versus going to individual houses in a subdivision, one after another. So they're actually, it's more beneficial for them. Maybe not for me. I get mad because this cartridge just came. Like, I was just stocking up. I don't need it till next week. Now I got to go down and freaking get it because I'm going to get these texts and bugging me all day long. It's in the mail drop or whatever. So there's a catch 22 there.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's going to be a little bit of the, you know, how do I tell you what benefits me operationally from the carrier to the customer to say, here's how I can benefit you as a consumer in terms of your choices. Right. I mean, I think that's going to be this this shift. And I think Amazon's the first one there. We're trying to be. what Amazon is doing for Amazon, we're trying to do it for the rest of the retailers as well. And so that we've started with this small use case and expanding and bringing retailers on, it's going to take them a while because of the conditioning, you mentioned Walmart, they have been hyper conditioned in this whole thing, right? In order of delivering things, so they've even gone to a prime like program in order to do that. But that will end up not being next day delivery over time, right? Unless it's from their stores network and they're using that as the forward deployed warehouses. And they really want to pitch that speed component. But I think ultimately it's going to come down to where people are going to start charging for speed. And they're going to, you know, you do this already with overnight or two day in most cases, right? Somebody might say, but if you need it, you know, in that three day window, I'm going to have to charge you a little bit for it. And it's going to be that disincentive to someone to say, I don't need it that fast. I mean, I worked in the, I mentioned that, that I, that, that. I worked in consulting for a while and I worked in the dairy industry for a while. And I remember this gentleman telling me about the wall of milk, right? And it was like, the cows never stop producing. We got to figure out what to do with the milk every day that comes in, right? Some goes to cottage cheese, some goes to ice cream, some goes to cheese. I think that we are dealing with a wall of boxes, right, that are coming in. And you get conditioned that just, I don't know when, what is coming when. right i just know this stuff is constantly showing up and if i was able to say tuesdays and thursdays are the only days that i want things delivered it would make my life a hell of a lot less uh much easier and less anxiety right they live in a urban setting right and porch piracy is real right and and when they forget to close the gate to my front door and i get the notification on my security system that a package has been delivered and i'm on the other side of town I'm worried that that package is going to be gone by the time I get back. Right. But if it was Tuesday and Thursday, I could plan for it. Right. So I think it's going to be that consumer convenience and that and that attachment that consumers are going to put to it around the sustainability piece that they are adding to. Because it really is the one piece in the entire puzzle. that that most companies haven't spent a lot of time talking about or marketing they market the product they market how they got the product manufactured they did they mark that they they talk about the materials they talk about the impact from from uh taking plastics out of the ocean etc etc but when you get to fulfillment it's like give it to me as quick as possible and i think that's that's going to shift well go ahead no thanks kev uh i was just thinking about your model
- Speaker #2
And I don't quite understand it. Are you consolidating different retailers so you can pick up, drop off many packages to one? How does this model work?
- Speaker #0
Yeah. So we have an exclusive relationship with one of the two largest package carriers in the U.S., right? You could flip a coin and be wrong half the time and right half the time. I can't talk about it. It's under NDA. But we have visibility to everything that they're. delivering to every address in the United States for the next eight days. So I now know everything that's in motion. The retailers that we integrate with, now I get an understanding of everything they're about to put into motion. And I can look at, Norm, your address and see that you've got a package coming from Target already that'll be there next Wednesday. Well, now that there's, you know, that the retailer that we're working with, say it's Walmart. that you have something that's about to be shipped and it could show up anywhere between Monday and Thursday based on the customer promise that they give you. We know that something's already coming to you on Tuesday. We tell the retailer when to ship it to match with the time in transit that that package carrier has. So they end up at the final sort hub in the back of the truck and in the delivery truck driver's hands to drop off both packages at your house. That's one scenario. That's multiple retailers bringing them together. because i know everything in flight so the other way you have to do a different shipping option to make that match up will it go two-day air or no it would it would never cost the retailer more or the carrier more it's just when to ship to take advantage of you know efficacy of about 98 around these time in transits from where they're shipping from in the warehouse that they have to your address it's it's a very very high predictability but the key is As long as they ship on that date that we tell them to, the retailer benefits from it, right? That they get a credit. They get some type of financial benefit from the carrier because the carrier is saying, I'm getting a large operational savings by not having that truck stop twice at Norm's house. It has to stop once. The other scenario is in split shipments, right? All retailers deal with this. They've got inventory scattered and broken all over the place, and they try and offer it to their customer. What we're doing is… Instead of saying start the journey of all of those, like I use the five white t-shirt example from my former employer at Macy's. When I left there, I bought five white t-shirts. It showed up over four days and, excuse me, in four packages over three days. And it made no sense. It's a basic item that every location should have had, but they needed to source it from different places around the country. But they treated each of them. as individual fulfillment opportunities. And so they got them into the network as quickly as possible. And so I just kept getting boxes, right? And it was like, I got the first one, it had two T-shirts, and I'm like, so where are the other three? Call customer service. They're like, no, Mr. Robinson, the others are on the way. The next one comes, and then the next one comes. It creates a customer service problem. What we would do is tell them when to ship all of those boxes at various points, based on the time in transit from where it's coming from to my location. So they would all marry up through the network into the delivery truck and into the delivery truck's driver's hands to be dropped off at my place. Not consolidating boxes, not physically consolidating shipments, but starting everything virtually and telling it when to take advantage of the time that's available to them. Does that make sense, Norm?
- Speaker #2
Yeah, it makes perfect sense.
- Speaker #1
It's a SaaS product.
- Speaker #0
It is a SaaS product. I mean, we're basically ingesting information, taking a look at it, using math and algorithms and our version of AI to be able to figure out when things should start their journey to figure out when it should marry up with something else to be delivered together.
- Speaker #1
I think that would be major for these carriers because from an operational point of view, was it UPS that the trucks are only allowed to make left turns or right turns? It's something like that. they something like 90 of their terms have turned turns have to be left turns because they've done the math they figured out if they always take it left or maybe it's right it's one of the directions if they do that then they can actually deliver seven more packages a day or something like that it's either the same or the different than nascar i can't remember but but it is one directional turn that they can take these in these concentric circles in terms of being able to deliver and yeah i mean i'm
- Speaker #0
i know my ups driver by name right because he stops here so often and all And I'll say hi to him again, throw him a bottle of water every once in a while, just say thank you for all the work that he's doing. But that was the unlock for us, guys, is that we went to the carrier that I cannot name and said, you have this opportunity to create this gain share model. That if you were to incent the retailer to make this change around breaking their commitment and addiction to speed and say, maybe hold it for a day at the max, too. and ship it on a different day, but give them a financial incentive to do that, they may bite at that. And if you allow us to be the group in the middle that arbitrates all this based on the information that the carrier gives us and the information that the retailer gives us, we get a piece of that. And then you keep the lion's share. But the other value creator here is that 800 grams of carbon that isn't created every time that that truck doesn't need to. you know stop driver get out get back and start and move forward that's 800 grams every single time and when you start multiplying this over the 3.8 billion packages that this carrier does on an annual basis and potentially affecting it by one percent it's massive it's it's millions and millions of tons of co2 out and it's hundreds of millions of dollars in savings did they get it they totally got it they bought into it hook line and sinker and and frankly What they said is, we've been trying to do this ourselves. We haven't figured out how to do it. We got the asset that allows us to forecast everything that's in motion for the next eight days, but we've never figured out on how do we convince the retailer to give us the opportunity to change when they pick back and ship. And the fact that you're able to do that logically, I mean, most carriers, and in fact, that there was an announcement that FedEx just made is that they're doing this physically in their house, right? Is that they're...
- Speaker #1
holding a package waiting for another one to come in until they've got both of them then they put them on the truck and deliver them that's a that's a logistical nightmare i've seen that sometimes with i think fedex is like it'll say watch the tracking and it's sitting somewhere it's sitting uh but there's an extra delay and i'm looking at going this is no i know these things that the way the system works that they're holding this on purpose because and sometimes it's i have something i can look or if it's ups i can look in the ups what's that uh uh you should log in yeah yeah ups choice or whatever it's called that we should log in yeah and you can you can see where where everything's at um but even like amazon is now saying you can have a pro what's your prime delivery day it's like one day of the week you can choose that as an option they give you like a one dollar music credit or something or credit for something if you if you'll do that what is the savings for for one of these carriers because the the big money in in logistics is last mile It's not in getting it from Miami to San Francisco. It's in that last mile is where the major costs are. So by combining two UPS or FedEx or USPS packages together and then making one delivery instead of two, what is the savings? Is it like a 50% savings? Is it 100% savings? Is it $3?
- Speaker #0
What is it? I can't give you the exact number. for the obvious reasons that I mentioned before, but it's multiple dollars, right? It's a sizable enough pool that there's enough to be able to share with the retail and there's enough to be able to share with us. And then they continue to take the lion's share. It's enough to incent them to say, I've got to figure out a way of doing this. It's enough that the partner that we had launched 32 different experimental programs trying to figure out how to get after this. and we're one of the few that that has shown real real impact with it right because they get it right because it's now now it's about um i don't need you know especially when you're talking about most of those savings are at the final mile if i can find a way of compressing routes, if I can find a way of potentially minimizing days that I deliver, right? If I can find a way of taking trucks off the road, there is massive savings to be done. And I can tell you, every time that truck doesn't stop, it's multiple dollars.
- Speaker #2
Now, a quick word from our sponsor, LaVonta. Hey, Kevin, tell us a little bit about it.
- Speaker #1
That's right, Amazon sellers. Do you want to skyrocket your sales and boost your organic rankings? Meet Levanta, Norm and I's secret weapon for driving high-quality external traffic straight to our Amazon storefronts using affiliate marketing. That's right, it's achieved through direct partnerships with leading media outlets like CNN, Wirecutter, and BuzzFeed, just to name a few, as well as top affiliates, influencers, bloggers, and media buyers, all in Levanta's marketplace, which is home to over 5,000 different creators that you get to choose from.
- Speaker #2
So are you ready to elevate your business? Visit get.levanta.io slash misfits. That's get.levanta, L-E-V-A-N-T-A dot I-O slash misfits and book a call and you'll get up to 20% off Levanta's gold plan today. That's get.levanta.io slash misfits.
- Speaker #1
So that's from an operational point of view, the pitch to this big company you have the exclusive with there. But from the consumer, how did they flip that from a marketing point of view? Like you said, it's 800 grams of carbon or whatever. But what's the pitch to the retailers, to Macy's or whoever's holding this or whatever? I don't know where the hold is happening, if it's happening at Macy's or if FedEx is holding an extra day in stream. But wherever it's being held, what's the pitch to actually? flip this into a positive for the consumer.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, it's a win. And right now, where we chose to start our journey was post checkout, right? It was after the decision had been made by the consumer. They now know that it's going to come to me within the next, most customer promise windows end up in the three to seven days and kind of this murkiness right out there. And all we're talking about with the retailer is don't physically touch that order until the day that you need to ship it. And then at that point, pick, pack, and ship it at that point. So it's a virtual hole. It's not the physical side. It's the virtual hole.
- Speaker #1
So it just doesn't go into their shipping, their fulfillment queue. It just, your system like delays it from going into the queue for a day or two days or whatever it may be. And then it kicks in. So the warehouse guys know no different.
- Speaker #0
We schedule it for a day in the future for them. So all they're doing is just taking the orders that they need to do. And in some cases, it's orders that we schedule from previous days or the orders that they've gotten that day. They don't have to worry about it. Right. It's just that they are that they have a work that they have to generate. Your question about messaging back to the consumer. That's the piece that's missing right now in terms of what we do because of where we're at. And I think where we are at in the adoption side. But every single retailer that we talk to says, I want to get this up into checkout because I want to enlist the consumer. I want to get the consumer doing this. And this is exactly the Amazon conditioning piece as well. I want to do what Amazon does. Right. I want to be able to. commit to a day and I want to enlist the customer and I want to be able to tell them I'm doing something good for the planet as well. So every single one of them says, once I get this adopted post checkout, my next thing is I want to start moving up upstream. So they're getting there. They also know that because of this 800 grams of CO2, that that is a shared metric that both the carrier and the retailer can talk about. This becomes something that once it's at scale, that they can start promoting to their consumers as well. that they were already doing it now we're going to enlist you up front and how they choose to do that whether it's you know part of their esg report part whether it's a counter on their site whether it's what amazon does which is effectively enlisting the consumer with the green leaf there's plenty of ways that people are going to do it and back to what we talked about with the conscious consumerism i think consumers are going to start demanding it
- Speaker #1
Was this one of the U.S. Post Office? Just recently, they quit guaranteeing. It used to be like priority mail was two or even next day was like two days or three days. And now they've backed off of, it's more of a, it's more of like it was 20 years ago before the internet. And when you said you're checking morning and delivery takes two to three weeks, you know, it'll show up sometime. But they went to this definite delivery. And now the post office has backed off of that. And I think some of that is maybe, I don't know if they're using a system like yours or maybe that's who you're talking about. I don't know, but they're backing off of, they ship more, they have more package delivery than FedEx in the US. I know that. So I don't know about UPS, but Amazon's, I think the biggest actually right now, as far as logistical carry above FedEx and UPS, if I'm not mistaken. But- Is that one of the reasons you're seeing some of the shift in some of what they're doing?
- Speaker #0
We're not working with the Postal Service. I would say that's probably just operational overload on their part. Right. And just, you know, the ability of a not yet private, not yet fully privatized, you know, government entity at this point trying to operate as if they were, you know, a public company. Like, I think they recognize that they can't, even though they. they do significant amount of volume and, and, and both of the major carriers, FedEx and UPS offload volume to them with programs, right.
- Speaker #1
To do smart mail. And you have all this stuff that's used the combines of carriers and start.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And that there's a whole host of programs that basically said, and the carriers are saying, if I can profitably keep that in my network, I'll deliver it because it gets there faster and it gets there in a more predictable manner. And it's something that is traceable. Because once it goes into the postal service, and this is my experience with things like SurePost, once it goes out of UPS into the postal service, I lose all the visibility to it until hopefully it shows up on my front doorstep. And so I think people are going to continue to think about this final mile piece as being something that needs a level of optimization. We're trying to do it through orchestration, and we're trying to add to it financial savings and the carbon savings as well.
- Speaker #1
Are you doing just with U.S.-based companies, or are you doing like right now, Shein and Timu and TikTok Shop are a lot of what's coming into the delivery system from overseas through ePacket. And they do some kind of like Shein will combine from if you order seven different dresses from six different factories, a lot of times they'll combine it in China and ship it in one bulk. But sometimes it's multiple package. Are you working with any of these outside the U.S., or is it only U.S.-based retailers right now?
- Speaker #0
Only U.S. right now. Right. Right. I mean, the point was we we really wanted if we our goal was if we can make it happen in the US, we can make it happen anywhere. Right. This is the toughest market. It's the largest market. It's the toughest consumer base in order to get adoption. And it's the toughest set of companies that are probably behind on the sustainability component as well. If we can break the back, they're going to Europe or going to Australia or going to China. China is a different issue. Right. But going to other countries or other regions is a natural fallout. But we've got to break the back in the U.S. first.
- Speaker #1
So on the marketing side, there's a lot of people that there's a percentage of the population that's really big. You know, the San Francisco crowd, you know, the very someone call them the tree huggers or whatever. They're very much in sustainability and everything is about sustainability. And that's. I don't do anything. But that's a small portion of the population. The vast majority of people don't give a rat's ass right now still in the U.S. They're still not recycling their plastics. They're not sorting their trash unless they're forced to by law. And a lot of times actually the sustainability cost is actually higher. It costs more to recycle boxes than it does to actually make a new box because it's a money-losing thing for a lot of these big recycling companies. So how do you shift that from a misfits marketing point of view to actually make this like, hey, you're doing good for the planet. And like you said, we don't know is all these storms and all this. Is it climate change or is this just the cycle that the earth goes through? If you look at the history, we go through these cycles. Yeah. The humans that are doing it, there's people that will argue that there is no such thing as climate change. Yeah. It is. There is. Climate, the climate is changing, but this is a natural thing for Earth. If you look through the millions of years of histories, we go through these things. Are humans really contributing to that or are they not? And so there's arguments there. So from a marketing and messaging point of view, what what do you guys what do you guys have on the plate to try to to push this out there to get more people to buy in?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I think that's why where we started in the post checkout space, which wasn't necessarily asking the consumer to make the decision. but allowing the retailer to say, I'm willing to use my customer promise window a little more strategically to save money, right? Right. And to potentially offset, you know, surcharges or rate increases coming from the carrier. It's really the first value creator on this. Right. And that's who we're really pitching to is the retailers. All the rest of this stuff is the is the, you know, I'll use a retail term. It's the gift with purchase. right right it's the stuff that comes along with it and yeah you're absolutely right right right the tree hunters who are my neighbors you know are very very and myself in some cases are very are very different than you know my family that lives in the midwest right right you know right who are who are you know who are just like you know this is all bunk this doesn't make any sense to me and i'm going to consume because that's what i've always done um But I think this notion of, you know, and I mentioned earlier, you know, I think we're all conditioned that things just show up on our doorsteps and we're not necessarily 100 percent sure. And especially things that end up in the Midwest. I don't think I don't know. I don't know if there's a higher percentage of individuals that expect things to get to them faster than the speed of light versus urban settings. Right. Which is where to your point, Amazon comes to your building. seven or eight times a day. If it was Wednesday over 30, if it was Wednesday instead of Tuesday, is that a big deal, right? And I got my package on Wednesday, but it's still inside the customer promise window that Macy's or Walmart or someone else made to me and said I would get it by Thursday and I got it by Thursday. I don't know if people are going to care about that. If they're then told that there was value created around it, maybe they'll care and maybe they won't. I think this is a build, right? But I keep coming back to what I said before. Amazon is the smartest, but they also get there the fastest. And the fact that they're conditioning the consumer just the way they condition the consumer to go free and fast and just the way they condition the consumer to believe that, you know, Prime was free shipping, right? You know, they'll condition the consumer to believe that clicking on that green leaf is actually good because I'll get everything showing up at the same time. I think that's when we break through on this. I don't have that.
- Speaker #2
commitment yet at the retailer level but but but i'll get there and that's a message that we keep pushing with them religiously i i think once you start seeing it and if they started promoting that uh you know on tv or you know through social media that's another way of getting that message out there uh and you probably find i don't know how many but uh like kevin was saying we'll go back to the tree hugger so they they would instantly buy into that and then it the more importantly it's that next group you know who uh who want to just help the planet as well so getting that message out a lot of people have no clue by waiting an
- Speaker #0
extra day how much that's going to help yeah yeah well it was well it's also that and i think that those people probably will be attracted to convenience right if you can tell me when it's going to deliver i'm all in
- Speaker #1
If I was a retailer from a marketing misfit point of view, I would gamify this. So if you hit that green leaf and you're saving 800, I would make it like a free flower thing. You saved 800 grams of carbon, you know, depending on the size and the package and it probably varies. And that goes into some sort of pool that's good for discounts on future orders or it's good to get free prizes from some like random assortment of stuff. Or. you can network that across all the retailers that participate in this program. You could have, you know, Bloomingdale's and Macy's and Apple and whoever. And then you go into some central database that's like an assortment of products. And you use your carbon offsets to actually get a free iPhone or whatever it may be. And you're participating. I would motivate, I would market something like that and build that in that I think could actually get more people playing. and then participating and active in it and paying attention. Sure.
- Speaker #0
You might not be a tree hugger, Kevin, but you are somehow seeing my product roadmap that is over here, right?
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
In terms of, you know, all the things that we've thought about, how do you help the retailer, you know, embed this into their loyalty program, right? What do you do to actually drive, you know, to your point? How do you gamify? The question then becomes, do you do it above the retailer? Right, right, right, right. And it's multi-retailer. I'm not sure that we're there yet, but we're still thinking through that. But it's clearly something that every retailer could start thinking about. You know, I mean, the number of retailers that give me points for just telling them my birthday, right, is and I know it's because they're going to market to me on my birthday. Right. But but but if you if they click on it, they're able to get points. Now it becomes, all right, how do I market to them differently? Right. What other things can I potentially do? This might be an echo conscious individual. Can I start moving product in that direction? Are there other services that I might be able to, you know, offer them as well? There's so much that because I think what you're starting to do is get into the zeitgeist of the consumer, right? Right. In terms of do they care, right? Are they someone in the Midwest that is different than their neighbors and actually cares? Or are they a tree hugger on the West Coast that should care and they're actually showing that they do? I think there's plenty that can be done once you understand intent. Right. And getting to that point where people have given you just a little bit more information about the things that matter to them.
- Speaker #2
By the way, Kevin and I just want to thank you for giving us your birthday on multiple websites.
- Speaker #1
We're going to be sending you all kinds of offers. Yeah.
- Speaker #0
I'm of the mode that if I get something valuable out of giving out my personal information, take it. Right. So you just can't have my product roadmap over here.
- Speaker #1
Thanks. There's two places that kind of lead the way on this. That's the state of California that's in the U.S. that kind of sets the tone for the whole nation as far as regulation. And then Europe. Europe has rules like in Germany, for example, on packaging. Like it has to be some percentage recyclable. And, you know, there's all these rules around sustainability of what it can be. And California kind of leads that way too. Do you think it's going to take legislation to actually? force this to be more widely adopted or you think you can do it through marketing and innovation and implementation i think what we offer is different because it doesn't cost the retailer anything right right it's it's it's effectively just say use the time that you've already made it well there's a storage cost you got i mean it's a small cost it's got to sit on the warehouse shelf for a day more or two i've already sold it i've already committed it right right it's already um
- Speaker #0
I think that's the, yeah, I guess you could definitely get down to very, very fine details. But in terms of, I'm not asking you to change your packaging, right? I'm not asking you to go through R&D. I'm not asking you to change your, you know, energy consumption approach. I'm asking you to use time more strategically. And if you use time more strategically, I can create, I can unlock outsized value for you, right? And I think that's... That's where the retailers' eyes start to open up when they realize this could be pennies of EPS, right? This could be, you know, something that is a needle mover, especially in a time where people, where all they've done is just been compressed to, say, ship faster and get things there faster and do it at a cheaper rate, you know, which is a race to the point, right? And so all the push goes back to the carrier to find a way to deliver faster and do it cheaper, and they're being hit with... Teamster contracts and things of that nature and gas prices and things of that nature. This is literally just saying, organize the problem differently, unlock the value, and it doesn't cost you a dime. It doesn't cost you very much. I will allow you your point.
- Speaker #1
Hey, Kevin King and Norm Farrar here. If you've been enjoying this episode of Marketing Misfits, thanks for listening this far. Continue listening. We've got some more valuable stuff coming up. Be sure to hit that subscribe button if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast player, or if you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify, make sure you subscribe to our channel because you don't want to miss a single episode of The Marketing Misfits. Have you subscribed yet, Norm?
- Speaker #2
Well, this is an old guy alert. Should I subscribe to my own podcast?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, but what if you forget to show up one time and it's just me on here? You're not going to know what I say.
- Speaker #2
I'll buy you a beard and you can sit in my chair too. You can go back and forth with one another. yes but that being said don't forget to subscribe share it oh and if you really like this content somewhere up there there's a banner click on it and you'll go to another episode of the marketing misfits make
- Speaker #1
sure you don't miss a single episode because you don't want to be like norm oh That just happened with Walmart. Walmart fulfillment is going after Amazon fulfillment. I mean, Amazon does their own fulfillment for their orders and for their three-party sellers, but they also will fulfill for off a Shopify site or off a TikTok. And they charge for that. But Walmart just introduced that and just came out when this podcast episode airs in a couple of weeks. So it's a couple of weeks old, but it just came out that Walmart is putting now pressure on Amazon because they're doing it much more efficiently and much more cheaper than Amazon's doing it for outside vendors. And Amazon's like, it hurt their stock. The news came out and it affected their stock. So looking for these kind of angles and these kind of win-win. It's a money-saving solution for the carrier and the retailer, but it's also a win for the consumer and for the environment and for the world.
- Speaker #0
That's the intent, right? And I think companies that have size and heft like Walmart can do that. And they... they came out a couple years ago and said we're going to go after amazon right and i thought it was a bold statement right and they're doing it right right and and and creating a um a loyalty program you know that that can um defend against prime, which is the most important, impressive loyalty program in the history of man, other than religion, right? I mean, it's incredible, right? So...
- Speaker #1
An airline frequent flyer award. Yeah,
- Speaker #0
yeah, yeah.
- Speaker #1
That's another one.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, you know, you're probably right on that one. So yeah, look, I don't think that we've... We're still scraping the underbelly on this one, right? We're still early days. You know, that... The adoption curve that you're talking about is definitely the thing that we're getting through. People have been conditioned that fast, fast, fast, fast, fast is the only option. I think what we're going to see is synchronized will win at some point for at least some portion of it. And there will always be part of the population that says I need it immediately. And there'll be part of the population that says I need that immediately. But there will be this group in the middle that says, I'm getting a lot of stuff and I don't know when I'm getting it. If you can get it to me on these couple of days. and it helps you and it helps the earth, I'm in.
- Speaker #1
So what's the name of the company and how do people actually find out more about it?
- Speaker #0
So the company is The 8th Notch, E-I-G-H-T-H. T8N is our acronym. You can find us at our website, t8notch.com. You can find me there as well. You can find us on LinkedIn. There's a whole host of things. I'm sure you'll put them in the show notes. We are directly interested in hearing from retailers that want to think about the last mile problem differently. And if you want to save money and do something important from a carbon savings perspective as well, where your company would start talking.
- Speaker #1
What level do I need to be at? Is this only for the big retailers? Or if I'm... What kind of volume do I need to be at shipping out of my warehouse or my 3PL to actually, this makes sense to engage with you guys?
- Speaker #0
It's a great question. I would suggest that we are definitely better suited for large retailers just because of scale. I think you also need to be in business with the carrier that I cannot mention, but it doesn't mean that we couldn't help get you there as well if that became part of the contract or part of the conversation. But I think it's also about the different models. I mean, we're looking at subscription models right now, right? And this one lends itself to it perfectly, right? The consumer doesn't quite know when it's coming, but it's coming sometime the third week, right? And if we can schedule it sometime in that third week when something else is coming. So I think if you're in the subscription business and you're a smaller business, contact us. If you're a large retailer, contact us. If you bifurcate your volume across the two largest carriers, contact us. And we will help navigate the situation.
- Speaker #2
All right. Well, this was interesting. Just talking about everything we've been talking about today, I really never thought about it. I'm so glad that you came on the podcast today and just bringing out and informing everybody about the importance of what you're doing. You are a misfit.
- Speaker #0
Norm, if you knew the number of times I've been called a misfit, you'd be shocked. And if there was any time that I would have thought that I would start a sustainable fulfillment startup in my late 50s, I would have called you crazy. So, yeah, I will wear the title proudly.
- Speaker #2
All right, Mike. So thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I'm going to remove you right now. Kevin and I are just going to. be talking for a bit.
- Speaker #0
Thank you. Appreciate it.
- Speaker #1
Appreciate it, man. Thanks, Mike.
- Speaker #0
All right. Take care. All right.
- Speaker #1
That's good stuff. What do you think about that? That's interesting. It's a different way of thinking. You know, marketing is not always about tactics and hacks. And it's also about the psychology and thinking, I mean, that's marketing. I mean, what we just talked about, we got into the weeds there, which is cool. But that's marketing for the retailers and to the consumers. And if you can do that, I think that's a good thing. topic to just show how marketing covers a wide variety of things it's not just what everybody it's not just sales that everybody thinks it is or not just fancy ads and and some sort of uh hooks and and and creative videos or whatever but there's a lot more to it it goes a lot deeper when it comes to psychology and and giving the customers and the companies what's best for both and what's best for the for the society yeah
- Speaker #0
and timing yeah i think it's perfect timing right now You know, now it's just creating that want, you know, beyond, as you said, the tree hugger. But and I don't think that's going to be hard either. I think that, you know, people generally want to do good for the planet. So this is yeah, it was great. I learned a lot. I hope everybody else did. Mr. King, I will see you on the next podcast.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, we'll be back again next Tuesday with another. edition of the Marketing Misfits. Make sure you hit that subscribe button. Actually, the best thing you could do, you know, is share this podcast. If you like this, hit that share link on your podcast player or if you're watching this on YouTube and share this with somebody. Say, hey, you got to check this out. Send them a little note. Say, check this out. It'll automatically send a link. If you ever want to find out.
- Speaker #0
Digital notes. We don't want to put it on paper.
- Speaker #1
That's right. Don't add to the carbon footprint. Yeah, if you want to know more, you can always go to marketingmisfits.com. Man, I can never get this right. Is it .co or .com, Norm?
- Speaker #0
It's .co, Kev, not .com. Marketingmisfits.co.
- Speaker #1
One of these times I'll remember that. I don't know. You got to hit me over the head with a shoe or something.
- Speaker #0
I'll do it. I'll do it next time I see you.
- Speaker #1
All right, everybody. We'll see you again next week. Peace out.
- Speaker #0
All right. See you.
- Speaker #2
Thank
