Ecommerce Without Borders
More than a few parcel shippers servicing ecommerce merchants have struggled from sudden surges in consumer demand – at the peak festive period or in occasional sales and when new products are launched.
But Jensen says Landmark has been in business long enough, and has sufficient experience in the team to know where to position resources to cope with the festive surge.
“Being a bonded carrier we are moving some of our own equipment as well as purchasing it from vendors or resources,” he says. “Whether we’re flying it or buying dedicated cargo space, we’ve had enough growth, and we know our customers’ volume.”
Planning for the peak tends to assume volumes will overshoot expectations, but Jensen says it is relationships with vendors that are important in ensuring volumes go through, along with a flexible approach that the carrier neutral model allows.
This flexibility is also important from a contingency point of view – ecommerce merchants might understand that delivery companies occasionally experience problems or delays, but consumers do not look that far into the details of how their product should arrive.
“Being carrier neutral, if there’s a carrier that as a problem, we’re agile enough to deal with it,” he says. “When there’s been service disruptions with postal authorities or integrators, we can switch, and we can get away from that problem.”
No one is entirely immune to the phenomenal growth of holiday-season home delivery, but Jensen says Landmark Global has been able to keep up with demand.
“Our customers definitely push volumes during the fourth quarter. The contingency plans that we have – and being carrier neutral affords us the ability to move – means we get the packages delivered within the time standards that our customers have purchased from us.”
When it comes to ecommerce these days, it’s not merely enough for customers to receive their products within the agreed timeframe – many want to track the progress of their shipment along the way. With cross-border ecommerce, where layers of doubt and uncertainty of the average online shopper, full visibility systems can be really important to boost consumer confidence in the process.
Jensen says there are some customers that don’t need tracking, but the “vast majority” want a full visibility system.
“Everything is track-and-traceable within our system,” he says. “Our shippers want to have full visibility, because their customers – the ecommerce customer – isn’t calling Landmark, they’re calling the ecommerce company’s customer service line to find out where the package is. So our client has to be able to use our Mercury system to see full details of where that order is, regardless of which country it is in, or which agent or vendor is delivering it.”
Integrated service
“We haven’t tapped into nearly as many markets as we can”
With the ability to provide order processing and fulfillment, along with customs clearance, Jensen says the company can take care of the full distribution chain for its ecommerce clients.
As many are finding in the cross-border ecommerce segment, offering an all-in landed cost for consumers to pay as they are buying the product is important to repeat custom. Jensen describes the Mercury software system as the “backbone” of the company’s service to ecommerce customers, providing the integration with customers and carriers.
“Our software Mercury facilitates a number of things: the hosted checkout, where a customer’s database can interact with the software, and facilitate that landed cost, as well produce the label that is specifically needed for shipping to wherever the product is going.”
He says the demand from US ecommerce customers for a simple integrated purchase process is also being seen from European consumers, Australian shoppers and in Asia as well.
“Customers need that turn-key, hosted checkout application, so the consumer anywhere can have a shopping cart and know what their landed cost is going to be, so it can simply be delivered,” he says.
Shipping into Canada, Landmark Global is a bonded carrier with its own custom brokerage house, Landmark trade Services. Going into new foreign markets, Jensen says the company has been working through partnerships with local vendors.
“We’re very cautious about walking before we start running,” he says, noting the importance of local knowledge when venturing into a new country.
One lesson drawn from operating across the Canadian border has been developing an electronic approach to customs data that can potentially be applied to other countries, eliminating paperwork and simplifying the shipping process along the way.
With a smart IT system underlining all transactions, and a firm priority on customer service, Jensen says the sky is the limit for Landmark Global in applying its cross-border expertise to the global consumer desire for American brand names.
“We have a deep-rooted belief that the international markets that we haven’t tapped into are really going to expand our business,” he says. “We haven’t tapped into nearly as many markets as we can.”
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