Why Zonos Acquired Evolve Trade Services: What's Next | Decoding Cross-Border Ecommerce | Ep #76

Big news on this episode of the Decoding Cross-Border Ecommerce podcast: Zonos has acquired Evolve Trade Services. Clint Reid, Founder and CEO of Zonos, and Aaron Bezzant, Zonos' Head of Global Trade Strategy, sit down with Jason Bye, co-founder of Evolve Trade Services (alongside William Coleman), to talk about why this acquisition matters and what it unlocks for postal operators, consolidators, marketplaces, and brands shipping into the U.S.

Jason walks through Evolve's origin story, from enabling high-volume Type 86 ecommerce to pivoting their book of business to Type 11 when de minimis went away, and the industry-wide scramble for data, classification, and compliance that followed. The team digs into what's coming next for postal clearance, why a Type 11-style requirement is on the horizon, and why having a broker in-house lets Zonos finally control the entry from the point of sale.

The conversation also covers broker mistakes that erode trust, the "telephone game" of data between checkout and CBP, and how combining Zonos' upstream transaction data with Evolve's brokerage expertise pushes us closer to our mission: creating trust in global trade.

🎧 Tune in for a behind-the-scenes look at the acquisition, what it means for our customers, and where cross-border clearance is headed in 2026.

Chapters:

[00:00:00] The big announcement: Zonos acquires Evolve Trade Services 
[00:00:32] Welcoming Jason to Zonos and St. George 
[00:01:24] The origin story: how Bill and Jason got into high-volume ecommerce
[00:01:45] Type 86, Section 321, and the rise of origin pick-pack-ship 
[00:02:42] Launching Evolve Trade Services to bring brokerage in-house 
[00:03:01] Type 86 vs. Type 11: what actually changed 
[00:03:36] The industry scramble for data, HTS accuracy, and manufacturer info 
[00:04:38] Why Zonos acquired a broker: postal volume and the qualified party process [00:05:10] Bringing Evolve in-house ahead of the next clearance shift 
[00:06:28] Aaron's dad joke of the day 
[00:07:08] Landed cost in a Type 11 world 
[00:08:28] Why combining Zonos data with Evolve brokerage is so powerful 
[00:09:39] Broker mistakes and the data "telephone game" 
[00:10:48] Cutting out the middleman and controlling the entry 
[00:11:14] Helping postal operators through the upcoming transition 
[00:11:59] The indirect pain of working through third-party brokers in chaos 
[00:13:50] Doing customs clearance at the point of sale [00:14:26] Trust in global trade — and what erodes it 
[00:15:51] Have we ever seen change like this before? 
[00:17:28] Why Evolve has won and retained big shippers 
[00:19:16] The Evolve team's ecommerce DNA 
[00:19:49] Welcoming the Evolve team into the Zonos family 
[00:20:42] What excites Jason most about joining Zonos

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Hey, welcome to another episode of the Decoding Cross Border E-Commerce Podcast. And uh today's a big day, Aaron. Big day. We uh we've acquired Evolved Trade Services. And our guest today, Jason Bai, is the found one, the co-founder, um, yourself and Bill Coleman. So hey, well welcome to St. George, welcome to the team, Jason. We're we're really excited about this and excited to talk to you a little bit about uh your journey and what you've built.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Yeah, thank you. I'm really excited to be here and to uh join the Zonos family.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

So I think today, want to learn, want to learn about Evolve, a little bit of the history, want to talk about why we acquired an e-commerce broker, what this unlocks for Zonos and I think our customers. Um I think it impacts, you know, postal operators a lot, um uh as well as you know, consolidators that are uh you have a big client base of you know shipping consolidators that use you for broke use us for brokerage. So uh tell us a little bit about the origin story here, Jason. Like uh you also have Evolve Supply Chain Solutions, but yeah, tell tell us how you got into brokerage and uh just especially, you know, he went through his own journey of de minimis. So I want to hear about that too. We had we had our own version last year and excited to hear yours.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yeah, excellent. So, you know, Bill and I um we met probably 15 or so years ago in a high volume e-commerce space, and it was on the retail uh shipping side, and and what we saw emerge in this space was people trying to save money fast fashion, trying to get to the end consumer quicker. Um, and so in that space, we saw the emergence of the origin pick pack and ship directly to consumer in the US without touching a US fulfillment center. And in order to do that at the time, it was type 86, Section 321. Um, and so when we started Evolved Supply Chain Solutions, that was the focus. It was enabling e-commerce from origin into the US, leveraging type 86. Um, so that was the focus of Evolved Supply Chain Solutions at the time. Um, we we built up Evolved Supply Chain Solutions to handle air freight. The at the time we were using third-party brokers, the air freight recovery, and then the handoff to final mile providers. And part of that strategy was um uh identifying the need of carving some of those out and bringing them in-house. Um and we started Evolve Trade Services completely separate entity uh to handle the brokerage. And so um, as we developed in that space, the focus was always still on e-commerce. So we didn't really want to do formal entries. Um it was at the time type 86, and then as of last year, when the minimum went away, pivoted very quickly to type 11.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Uh but for the audience's sake, what's the difference between, and most will know, but 86, type 11.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Yeah, how much like how big of a transformation is that to be able to do high volume 86 to be able to pivot and do high volume type 11? Because it seems like in the industry that's pretty disruptive.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah, I would say it was very disruptive. Um, a lot of the 86 customers, you know, it was de minimis. Basically, you needed an HTS code. Um under$800, you weren't paying dues and tariffs. So there wasn't a lot of need to focus on even accuracy of your classifications. Um, there was no manufacture info required. And so the transition to type 11 was really hard for these high-volume shippers that never had that data. Um, and so there was kind of a scramble in the industry to figure out how to do this and keep the volume moving. And, you know, I think that was the most disruptive part is getting the right data. And so we worked with some select large clients of ours or consolidators as well as some smaller brands to help them understand the new regulations and requirements, get the data from them so that they could be compliant with the new regulations. And obviously, with type 11, the compliance scrutiny goes up. You're now paying duties and tariffs in a very changing environment. Um, and so that was the key point to make sure that, hey, we've got the right data. We can do the you know, proper classification and they can um understand what those duty and tariff liabilities are. So I think that was the biggest challenge in the industry to get all the right information.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

It it feels to me like if we kind of go through the why behind why this all came together, um, a big catalyst to this was the postal stuff that that we're supporting. We're supporting the majority of postal volume coming to the U.S. today, and we are uh supporting a lot of as a qualified party, which is not a brokerage, but it was a temporary process where we were able to facilitate helping to collect the tariffs and get that to uh U.S. customs. Now the writing's on the wall, we know what's come, you know, generally what's coming. It'll be very similar to a type 11 entry, will require brokerage. And that's where we decided, hey, let's team up together, let's bring Evolved Trade Services in-house to be able to facilitate that transition. It feels to me like that transition is going to be very similar to what you already went through with going from a type 86 to the type 11. Um, I don't know if you want to talk to a little bit about kind of your thoughts on that and kind of the advantage of the experience you already had and what that how that can help us in this this new transition that's coming in the coming months.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Yeah, I would say it feels very similar, you know, having some of these conversations uh this week on how that's gonna look and even the unknowns. Um I would say this feels a little bit more unknown than transitioning to type 11, that was already defined process. Um, but it is very similar to that same level of, okay, you know, what data do we need? I think, I think the benefit, at least, you know, from our position of doing these type 11s is that I don't think it's going to be more stringent than type 11, right? I think there's an expectation that it will be somewhere between type 11 and what was type 86. Um, and so I think that's a benefit from a from a industry perspective on how we can how we can pivot to make this all work, right? Excellent.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

And you said um in your business, you're doing a lot of you you deal a lot with uh airlines and and things like that, right? Because I don't know if you know this or not, but I I love airplanes. In fact, I'm working on a documentary right now on how to fly a plane. And currently I'm filming the pilot. There's my token dad joke for the for the episode. That's good. I'm really I'm really not that. Did your kids laugh at that one? Or uh I don't that was a dad joke for the day on my on my dad joke calendar.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

So you give it to them tonight.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Yeah, I I left before they all woke up, so I'll deliver that tonight at dinner.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah, early morning podcast. They missed out.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

So, you know, before type 11, you know, I know obviously landed costs is a big part of what you all do today. How how did you see that change from what you're doing before to with this type 11 process?

SPEAKER_02 7:23

Do you want to take that? Yeah, I I would say, you mean just kind of our our our business in general, the uh you know, if I look at the US import side of things, we have a unique set of tools that's uh and technology that's designed to help with compliance and pre-collection of duty and tax, uh, really enabling DDP globally. But US imports wasn't on many people's radar for you know needing our technology because kind of to what you're talking about, the type 86. It's pretty darn simple. There's no duties and taxes to calculate. Compliance was pretty loose. Um so for us, it was a massive catalyst to where all of a sudden US imports became a major target uh for people looking for solutions. Um, and we were we were well positioned to be able to help fulfill those needs. And that's where the postal is one uh aspect of that, but it there's a lot more beyond that to where US imports became a from a small part of our business to being a very, very relevant part of our business. I don't know if you have anything to add to that, Clint.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

No, I I no I was just thinking, I was I was thinking about how excited I am actually about the the uh the joining of the two teams. I want to I want to I want to as you were talking, you just got me thinking about okay, what we do as a company and then what Evolve's been doing. And this is why I am extremely excited is we have we have all this rich data that we've always received at the time of transaction, like you're saying we're enabling DDP, which is why you got me thinking, you know, about this. Um we have we have pictures of the items, we have really rich descriptions, we have exact validation of the the the receipt on the order, and then we have a mess after that happens because after the order occurs, we're trying to map these things into the right fields, right, on a shipping platform, and it gets, you know, it's like the telephone game, right? And by the time it gets to you as a broker, what kind of data does it usually look like when it gets to you? Does it look like the data I just described, Jason?

SPEAKER_00 9:29

No, yeah. I mean, that's that's the biggest challenge for us. And and that's I think why we're excited about having your technology as far upstream as it is to really capture that.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

This is why we're pumped because we even see brokers make mistakes, right? Or or they actually did it right, but they just had the wrong info, right? It's like you you deal with what you have. We're going to be able to ensure that um, first office can be super highly compliant, right? People aren't gonna be able to, um, in most of the cases, right, especially when our technology's been enabled, um deceive on you know amounts or accidentally make mistakes. Sometimes people get overcharged because they put the wrong things on the zero on there or have seen uh extra zeros. We've seen extra quantities on accident, uh things like that that just blow up the uh I won't say which massive um provider is is is doing this, but there's a a very large um shipping company that we're familiar with that for the longest time was um uh having an issue with the was it the quantity or anyways, it doesn't matter. They were something was wrong at the time of the system, and it was increasing the duties and taxes um to individuals in other countries. And um this was like a back-end issue, right? And so I'm just really excited about the fact that we're going to be able to help our e-commerce companies that work with us. We now have the ability to control the entry if we can do the clearance, if we can, right? We're already paying the money typically. We're collecting the money from them, then we have to give it to a broker that gives it to CVP. So you cut some of that movement out and effort and time. Um, and then applying this, this, uh, this experience that we have to the postal operator space because it is going to be rough for them. It was already, it was, it was rough to go to even the qualified party process. And then you talked about the data collection process. Some are ready or or will be more ready than others, but we have things like our prepay app, right, which is deployed in many countries around the world right now in Japan. Um, they they recently went live with our prepay apps. We're getting data from individuals on the C2C shipments. So we're gonna be able to take all this technology and and now apply that information to the clearance to support just a more compliant and hopefully more trustworthy you know, clearance. So CBP has more confidence in what's going on. So, anyways, I'm I'm just excited.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Yeah, in fact, I want to add a little bit to you know this transition to the de minimis going away, that was probably the biggest thing for us. And since we haven't been involved in in brokerage, we didn't necessarily experience directly the same problems that that that you went through and you had to solve for, but indirectly we felt the pain of trying to coordinate with third-party brokers across the spectrum of of carriers that's uh that we're compatible and and partner with. And everybody clearly was trying to scramble to to deal with these new data elements. I mean, and then it's not just going to type 11, it was the the chaos of all the new tariffs and you know, smelt and aluminum and steel content, and you know, the there's a lot of volatility in the market where everyone's trying to figure out how to how to deal with these things. And so we saw everyone trying to uh to adapt to these things um and without having you didn't have mature stable processes, everyone's scrambling to to keep up. And we saw a lot of different types of behaviors happening from one provider to the next. And that's been difficult for us to you know calculate and guarantee a landed cost up front, but then depending on the provider, we're seeing different behaviors because they're not always doing it correctly. No, no, or or or part of it could be the right data was trying to be sent, but they were trying to build new systems to be able to actually accept it, and some of that wasn't working exactly right. I always had this impression that brokers did everything right, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

And uh there's been a couple that we've seen from some big names, right? We get a get a bill back and we're like, this is wrong. You're stacking something that shouldn't be stacked. You're doing like what is happening here? Then you're disputing it, right? Because it and it's a complete mess, and we have zero control over the process.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Yeah, and I think that's the beauty of you know this conversation is hey, wherever possible, if we can control that experience from all the way upstream to in a checkout or at you know at the point of sale at a counter or just interfacing with the shippers as much as possible and really understanding the transaction and what needs to happen. And we're the ones actually doing the clearance, it takes out all the variables of having middlemen in the in the middle and different different integrations, and it allows us to effectively start doing the customs clearance right at that point of sale, which I think is extremely powerful.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Our mission is to create trust in global trade. That's Zomos' mission, right? So the company knows this, we say it all the time. And what erodes trust more than anything is information that doesn't match and that can't be explained. And so even though we can try to unwind why something happened and why a broker did a certain thing, but there's so many things from even the broker doing it wrong to the systems being integrated wrong that cause distrust. And this I think now moves us more, you know, closer and closer to what our final mission is, which is we want we want CVP to trust the process. We want consolidators, postal operators to trust the process and how it's being done. And we want our merchants and retailers and marketplaces that work with us to trust the process. And we've always been great with the I think on the e-commerce side because we do such a detailed calculation. We break down every single tariff, we break it down by item, we break it down, I mean, the smell, whatever, like we're doing the whole thing, right? We're giving everybody a very detailed break in on the calculation. And then what comes back from the broker is not detailed, and it's like this jumbled mess, and you're trying to unwind, like, what did you do? Right? How did this and it might even be right, but it's trying to figure out like how they got to what they got to. So I think this is moving us closer to that mission. For sure.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Jason, as far as um your uh your background, you've been in this e-commerce space for for a number of years. Have you ever seen anything like what's going on here in the US in the last year?

SPEAKER_00 16:04

No, I I would say, you know, from my perspective, it seems unprecedented in terms of just the not only the amount of change, but the pace of change. And for an industry that's been, I would say, very stable for so many years, probably decades, right, in terms of what the interaction between brokers and CBP are and the changing regulations, which is you know slow and steady, has gone to chaotic. And I think it's really spun the industry around in terms of who can keep up, um, who can figure out how to get the right information, how to calculate these changing tariffs that have become very complex as well. Um, and then even on the shipper side, you know, even established shippers have challenged, have been challenged to try to figure that out. And then when you go down below, you know, kind of your your commercial shippers to individuals, right, that are going to a retail counter, bringing up bringing a package at, you know, maybe it's something they want to ship to a relative, uh, they're not going to have any idea, you know, how to comply with that. So I think that's where, you know, the this solution also solves that gap of knowledge for the regular person who's trying to ship a package or even smaller companies that are trying to ship their goods. So it I think it's a great blend of your enabling them to get it right from the start, which just makes everything flow better all the way through uh the the filings.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

And then even, you know, even when you were missing in what you have, right? You've missed some of that data that's at time of transaction. Why do you think you're so successful in um winning business, some big, some big companies, some bigger, bigger shippers into the US? What was it about Evolve that they were so excited about um and why you've retained you know your customers? Because I mean, we we saw it as we you know met and we talked about the customer base, and we've heard a lot of great things about Evolve, both from customers and from um agencies, right? I think there's there's have a good reputation. Like, why why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_00 17:58

You know, I think what's really helped the way that we approach every customer situation is having been on the shipper side. So having been on the e-commerce side of this business, we approach it from that standpoint of every opportunity, we're looking at it through the shipper's eyes of, you know, how can we make them successful? Um, and then also from a compliance standpoint, we want to be compliant, right? I mean, in in the brokerage space, there's there's not a margin for error. Um, right. You need to be compliant, you need to, you know, and so all of that regulatory compliance needs, kind of bringing that to the customer, educating them on what's needed, and then really just helping them be successful in a very active management type approach of, you know, we're not just, hey, here's what you need to do, give us the data, we're gonna file it. It's a very hands-on approach that we take. And I think that's what's helped us be very successful in this space. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:54

I think that's one thing that that stood out to me is understanding your customer. I don't think that's the case for a lot of brokers out there. Um, you know, if you if you've just been on the brokerage side of things only, it's hard to understand your customers, especially in this new world, in this new environment, which I think does tell the tale as far as why you're able to adapt and and um have the success that you've had. And I I've noticed that even it's not just you, not just Bill, like even your team and and the brokers you have on your team have a diverse background uh in e-commerce and have experience things outside of just brokerage and really understand the e-commerce space as a whole, which is which I think is probably really powerful to your team and probably helps help to write the story of uh evolve up to this point.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Absolutely. Yeah, and I think that's been a focus on how we look at even when we make we even when we make new hires, is what is their background? How is that gonna carry forward that that mentality that we already have?

SPEAKER_01 19:49

We've definitely been impressed with the team. Yesterday we had a had a company meeting actually here here in the hangar, right? So it was just flooded, right? We had so many people in here. Um you you know, you and the team got to talk to uh and and field questions from the Zonos, uh, from the Zonos team. And I will say uh the company is extremely excited about this. Um I'm excited, Aaron's excited. This we're excited for our customers, we're excited what this means for the future of not just kind of cross-border DDP, but the future of clearance and how we start bringing those worlds together of uh transaction and clearance. But uh any other questions that you have, Aaron? Because this was this was uh super insightful. We're really excited to work with uh to have you guys on board and this is gonna be really good.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

One last question, Jason. As you look forward, like what's the what's the one thing that excites you the most?

SPEAKER_00 20:49

So in in this moment, I think having been out here for the last few days and seeing your team and and the people that you all have hired and the culture you've built to this company, as well as the technology that's powering it. I think that's really exciting for us, you know, to see how you'll take what we've started and add a bunch of great resources on, you know, the people side and technology side and position that uh really well with all these changes that are coming up. So I think that's what's really exciting is that you know, we couldn't have done that alone, right? You guys have a reach and and um uh the data flow that we never would have been able to really tie into um without this. So for us, I think that's really exciting to see where this goes from here with this with this acquisition.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Us too. All right. Thanks, Jason, Aaron. It's great being back for a podcast. Can't wait for the next one. Thanks, Clint. All right, Jason. Appreciate it. See ya