Inside the DC: How lululemon Moves Millions with Los Mejia

What does it actually take to run one of lululemon's largest U.S. distribution centers? 

 In this episode of Inside Freight, we hear from Los Mejia, Director of Distribution Operations at lululemon's Columbus, Ohio Distribution Center, to talk carrier strategy, peak season realities, and why culture might be the most underrated competitive advantage in logistics.

 We cover how Columbus handles retail, e-commerce, and wholesale freight (and why each mode requires a different approach), what lululemon looks for in a carrier partner, the story behind 144,000 units picked in a single day, last-mile complexity in dense markets like New York City, and how Los has built a people-first operation serving a workforce from 32 different countries.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

What are you most excited about with Lululemon as far as growth in general?

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Yeah, no, we take a lot of people.

SPEAKER_03 0:11

So my guest today is Los Mejia. He's the director of distribution operations at Lululemon's Distribution Center in Columbus, Ohio. With nearly 25 years of experience in supply chain and operations, Los has built his career around some of the most demanding logistics environments in the country. Starting his career as a logistics area manager at Walmart's automated distribution center, moving through progressive leadership at Target, Martin Brouwer, and Coles before spending eight years as director of distribution at the container store. A great store. He joined Lululemon in late 2022 and has since been running their Columbus Distribution Center while navigating one of the most complex supply chain periods in recent memory, from e-commerce surges to tariff upheaval to international expansion and more. Lost, welcome to Inside Freight.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Awesome. Well thanks, Kelsey. I appreciate the time and excited to chat with you today. Definitely a great it's a first for me. I've never done a podcast or uh whatever we call this. But uh but excited, excited to chat. I love I love this space and uh it's something I'm passionate about, love talking about it. So excited to get into it.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

Love that. That's a great segue. So you've been in this industry for almost 25 years across food distribution, restaurant supply chains, retail, athleisure. What's sort of that through line? What's what's keeping you? You said you love the industry, what's keeping you in it?

SPEAKER_00 1:32

If I had to guess, majority of the people that end up in this field uh end up in it by mistake or by need. It's not necessarily like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna go into distribution. I know exactly what I want to uh study coming out of college. Like it's one of those that there's ample opportunities uh coming out of school, and that's what happened to me. I uh I needed a job. Um, I I actually studied marketing um and and I really wanted to be in advertising. Unfortunately, those are much harder to come by. And so I applied at uh Walmart Distribution Center, like we talked about at the beginning. It was a food food distribution center. I'd never been inside a distribution center in my life until that moment. And so I was like, you know what? Good short-term opportunity for me to kind of at least be able to pay my bills, and then I'll find what I really want to do.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

Yeah. And uh you really wanted to do distribution.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

And then, you know, within probably the first year of being in it, I realized that misconception that people have that distribution center is just a place where you store a bunch of boxes and you move them from point A to point B, which was what how I thought about it prior to getting started. It it really is, it couldn't be farther from the truth, right? Like a distribution center, while it houses all this, these products and and all these boxes that do move from point A to point B, uh to me, what I realized early on is that the greatest part of being a leader in a distribution center is the fact that you can impact people's lives every day. Every single day, through my attitude, through my interactions, through the way that I speak with people, uh, I have a choice to on on how I'm impacting them. And I realized that early on, and I saw that that was something I really gravitated to. And as I progressed in my roles, it wasn't just about making a person's day better anymore. It wasn't just like, you know, stopping and thanking them for a job well done, or saying, how is your family doing and getting to know them? As I progress, I realized that the power of leadership is that now you can truly influence their life in the way of, you know what, you're a picker or a packer. Uh, and that's what you think that all you're gonna do in the distribution space, and all of a sudden someone takes an interest and says, Hey, I I see more potential in you than that. Let's let's challenge you with this, let's give you opportunities to learn something new. And then they go from that mindset to something so much bigger. So, my 25 years in this industry, I have I have been a witness and a part of that story of seeing people really grow past what they they thought that they could accomplish. And so to me, that's the essence of this business, is what I why I love it, it's why I stay. It's not easy, it's definitely uh, especially we were talking uh peak uh before the start uh about peak seasons, right? It's it's uh nonstop, it's always something that you know, fires are you putting out. But at the end of the day, if you focus on on the fact that you're impacting people's lives in a positive way, I think that kind of brings me back to center anyway.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

Yeah, absolutely. And I think the chaos is kind of what a lot of people tend to end up loving about this industry a little bit. The unpredictability and the you know, it's not uh boring, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

That is an understatement of the year. Like it's uh exactly to what you say that there not one day is the same. Like, even though our our game plans and the way that we should approach the day-to-day, the playbook is there for you to say, you know, here's how many orders or how many shipments we need to do, and here's how many people it will take to get that done. And then if we do that, then we're gonna get it done in X amount of time, and it's gonna cost us X amount of money, right? The playbook is there. The part that keeps it interesting is that while that that may be the baseline, every day is different. Today, you know, as an example, we had some equipment go down, and so even though our playbook said we're gonna do this much, now we have to account for the fact that we can't get into the aisles that we need to to bring the product down to fulfill the orders. So, how do we pivot? Right? I didn't expect that walking into this morning, but now we're we're coming up with a whole new game plan, and we'll be fine, and people will get their stuff. But at the end of the day, that's what keeps it super interesting as well. So great point.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

Yeah, absolutely. Well, kind of you know, touching on how you came in this morning, and you you kind of never know what a a day is gonna look like. Walk me through more of a typical day, if you will, in the outbound freight game from Columbus. What are you guys moving? Where is it going typically? Sort of the nuts and bolts of it all.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

So our distribution center is set up basically to handle all modes within the Lulu sphere. We handle e-com, we handle retail, we also handle wholesale. And so within this space, we're moving quite a bit of volume. We have the largest retail chunk of the US. And so of our two distribution centers in the US, we we take the majority of the volume for the stores, particularly because the East Coast is where a big concentration of our stores are. And so retail has been uh what Columbus has been known for, like as far as supporting our stores. But as uh you know, there has been a lot of changes to tariffs over the last uh year, and so we're starting to see also a spike in our volume of e-comm fulfillment that we do out of this this distribution center. I see us continuing to push quite a bit from that, and then our wholesale side continues to grow as well. We have a good chunk of you know palletized uh shipments, you know, just uh single cartons or less than truckloads. So we do all modes as far as how we get our product to the story through pool carriers, right? For some some of our deliveries. So there's quite a bit in that uh day in, day out on how we manage uh through all these different volumes.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

No, that makes a ton of sense. That's super interesting. I didn't realize like there was so much. I mean, I knew Lululemon was like more or less nationwide, but I didn't realize it was so East Coast focused. So is it East Coast originated?

SPEAKER_00 7:09

No, so uh our company uh started out of Vancouver, Canada.

SPEAKER_03 7:13

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

And so it started in Canada and it's kind of grown in the US. The US market is our largest market in in the world that we operate in. I think just the concentration of people we try to be in cities and places where we know there's going to be you know the right level of income and the the right balance of people for our product. And and so, you know, the East Coast definitely has a ton of that. But we are definitely growing in the central and west regions as well.

SPEAKER_03 7:37

Love that. So I would love to understand, sort of like in a company as large as Lululemon, how you're kind of working with or potentially maybe you guys work totally separately from other distribution centers or transportation teams within the company. Kind of how are you guys working together? Are you pulling from similar carrier bases? Are you fully making your own decisions? How does that all you know play out in such a large company?

SPEAKER_00 7:59

The key for us is having dedicated teams both on the inbound side and on the outbound side. So we have an inbound and outbound logistics team that helps uh manage the relationships so that we can focus on the day-to-day within these four walls. So they they establish the carrier contracts, the the different rates that we're going to pay based on volumes, and those teams are dedicated to figuring out, you know, like how much we're going to move, where it should be moving from. They're great partners. So we are in daily communication. We we keep in touch with both sides just to really understand, okay, what's what's in inbound for us so that we can plan our day, our week. Outbound carrier perspective, it's like, you know, do we need additional trailers? Do we need more pickups because the volume has spiked past what we expected? Are the pool carriers going to be able to deliver on time if there's any kind of delay? So all those conversations uh we have as a group, but those two teams manage everything from those two ends for the entire company.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

Nice. Love that. So I I assume, correct me if I'm wrong, that you're you specifically are slightly more involved on the outbound side of things.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Let me try to clarify that, right? So as a distribution director, everything that comes in and goes out of this building, I have the responsibility of figuring out how to move it through this site, right? I would say it's on both sides. I don't think that outbound or inbound takes priority.

SPEAKER_03 9:22

Are there any, um, you know, obviously you primarily serving, you know, the East Coast, it sounds like. Are there any regions within the East Coast that give you guys the most headaches just from uh freight-related challenges, getting inbound and outbound shipments? I mean, outside of like weather-related incidents, you know, because sometimes it likes to dump snow in New York or whatever, but you know, any any areas that tend to be surprisingly more complex, I guess, from a shipment standpoint.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

I think, you know, your your large metropolitan areas, you know, if you think New York City, we have a ton of stores up there. We have to uh kind of chop those deliveries up in ensuring that if we're going into Manhattan as an example. Yeah. You know, like you can't send the whole 53 foot trailer into there.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Like it might be a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

It might be a little tight.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Uh so um, you know, we have to break those up uh once they're arrive at the at the freight forward or just how they're going to split that into box trucks or you know, smaller delivery vans. I think those from the complexity of what's the need in that particular area based on the different requirements for the city. I think New York is a great example of that. But overall, I think that our outbound logistics team does a fantastic job of figuring out what's the right carrier, how do we get into that area with the minimum disruption to the store and to our operation here? Because ultimately what we're trying to accomplish is move it through here within an X amount of time, get it to the store so that they have it available for their rollouts on a weekly basis and the staffing that they have to receive all this product, and they do a great job of that.

SPEAKER_03 10:57

I love that. No, that's the your New York example is super fascinating to me because I'm on the marketing side of the business, so I'm not in the day-to-day, you know, shipping challenges and things like that. So are you often working, or sometimes I guess working with like a 3PL to do the full truckload to a freight forwarder and then it's splitting into box trucks to go, you know, downtown New York versus starting with separate box trucks? I know that might be a stupid question, but as somebody who's not no uh fascinating to me.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

No, we we try to make sure that everything that we're sending out from a pool carrier perspective, which is just a big consolidator, right? Like we load everything into a into a trailer, 53-foot trailer. Yep, it goes to this carrier, and then they take it into their deconsolidation area, DC space, and then they say, okay, this particular region, which let's just call it the southeast, right? Like so Georgia, Florida, we're going to then start to split it off based on volume from there and delivery agreements to the store. So once we hand that off, then they're kind of managing that particular piece and and making sure that they they meet their SLAs.

SPEAKER_03 12:01

When you're when you're looking at those transportation partners that you're working with, whether just in general or with some of those, you know, more like metropolitan cities where there's more complexities, things like that, are there specific things that you're looking for in a partner, like non-negotiables or red flags in a partner that you're like, hey, you know, we can or can't work with you because of these reasons.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

I think a big piece, right, is it starts with how are they going to show up for our stores and and how they are they going to be able to service the requirements of where whatever region they get. The easy thing to do would be for us to just say, we can ship everything, FedEx. If we really wanted to, we could just say to all of our stores, we could just load it on a FedEx truck and then they're going to get 70 to 80 boxes, sometimes at random times rather than all at once. And and uh from my lens, that's a really easy solution, right? But at the end of the day, it's like what's the what's the right thing to do for our customer, which is the stores, and how do we manage that that relationship the best? So when we're looking at at carriers, it's like are they going to be good partners? Are they going to be able to have that communication piece with us and with the stores so that if there's delays, if there's a breakdown, if there's anything that goes amiss, like are they raising the flag right away so we can adjust, right? Yeah. So meeting our set service level agreements are is huge. You know, we we put a lot of emphasis and a lot of money into trying to make sure that if we say we're going to have this amount of time to get it processed at the DC and then to the store that that we're meeting those expectations, right? Like, and so the carrier has to be able to meet those criteria. And ultimately, like, are they going to be a good partner in protecting our our brand and our product, right? Like we are trusting them that we can hand on millions of dollars, you know, uh a week uh of product and that it's going to arrive at destination without any issues. And uh, you know, there's plenty of examples uh out there of carriers that you know that take a load and all of a sudden it disappears, or there's you know, significant amount of shrink. And so weighing those criteria definitely are probably top three, I would say.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

Yeah. No, that that makes a ton of sense. Is there anything that you've ever seen with a particular transportation partner that really stood out to you as like impressive or memorable or sort of above and beyond? Obviously, you don't have to like mention specific people or companies, but just you know, an example of something that was like really just impressed you.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

I I'll go back to my time in Texas when I was at the container store because this was uh pretty out of the norm for Texas. So I don't know if you remember around 2020, 2021, there were some crazy, crazy winter storms in Texas, right? Like shut down the city for in Dallas, shut it, shut it down for like a week. Like I we didn't have electricity for a week.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

It was it was bad. It was bad, right? So I was uh I was working for the container store at the time, and it was basically um completely backed us up from all the delivery schedules that we had, and all the stores were having to be rearranged and figured out how we were going to manage through so many days of not being able to process volume out. And and so we worked with a particular carrier um that had the the bulk of our deliveries across the US. Yeah, they just showed up. They were in the same boat we were, where we were short people. A lot of folks didn't have power, ways to get out of the house. And yet, you know, when we said here's here's the plan, here's how many deliveries we're going to do by day and how we're going to break these up. You know, we needed to have the trailers in place. We needed to make sure that they were getting picked up and and on the road as soon as possible. They just basically just descended on our DC and said, All right, here we are. Tell us what you need and how how we're gonna get it done. And it's a pretty cool example of partnership, right? Of of people that they knew the the situation we were in. We were losing sales every time that we couldn't make those deliveries. We were putting a lot of money out there that we just weren't able to kind of make the return until it made it to the stores. And so they they showed up even through all the different struggles that that everybody was living through. Uh and uh we were able to get caught up and get the the stores filled fairly quickly. So it was it was a pretty, pretty great example of of two teams coming together to achieve one goal.

SPEAKER_03 16:22

Yeah, it's cool the way to see like how people show up in like crises like that, like you know, when they just you know prove their reliability and consistency. And yeah, that's awesome. I love that. I saw on one of your LinkedIn posts, you guys have a really cool records wall at the East Coast Distribution Center. I'm curious about the 144,000 units picked. Is that all time in a year? What's the what's that record? And then kind of what has it taken for you guys to break? Is that something you're breaking often? Like, kind of what is that? Give me a little background on that one.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Yeah, no, we take a lot of pride in that. You know, our our folks do amazing work day in, day out, right? And we want to recognize them, we want to make sure that amplify their efforts to any anyone that's visiting our DC or even through, like you said, you know, LinkedIn uh to showcase right the great work that happens here. Uh 144,000 uh picked was in one day. Uh, so that's during our peak season. Yeah, it's a lot. Um, and you know, like it only keeps going up. So like I'm pretty confident we're gonna break it this year. But every year we're challenged, right, to continue to grow our volume and and our output just because the the business keeps growing, and there's only so many distribution centers that you can put up and and uh do the work with. So it's just one day for picking. Some of those records on there are for the whole week, uh depending on the department. But the majority of the time when we're looking uh at those celebrations is what were we able to accomplish for the one day output, right? Um, and usually all of these get broken around peak season just because the volume is is so significantly higher. I mean, we go we go above and beyond the the numbers that we see day to day off peak. Uh and so once the volume is there, it's just like all hands on deck trying to push it out and trying to get it knocked out. But our our people take a ton of pride in in finding ways to break those records.

SPEAKER_03 18:21

I love that. Yeah, you've talked a lot about culture, specifically in your distribution center, and it seems like you've really found your niche. You know, you mentioned like nobody wakes up in the morning when they're five and you know says, I want to work in a distribution center. You know. Um it seems like you've really found your niche in like leadership and culture. And it's sort of like I don't want to say it doesn't matter, but it doesn't matter where it is that you're working. It sounds like you've really found your niche in in how you support people. And I'm curious to hear just like more about the culture at the distribution center. I saw someone else's post on LinkedIn talking about getting a little tour and that there's an on-site gym and that there's 30 plus languages spoken there, which is crazy. Yeah, I'd just love to hear more about like the space itself. You don't expect that. Like you said, you know, when you don't work in a distribution center like myself, I'm thinking like it's just a bunch of boxes in a warehouse going from point A to point B, and that's about it. Um when I see that there's like this on-site gym and these ESL classes and all these cool, this big prize wheel and these cool culture benefits.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

You went down the LinkedIn rabbit hole. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

Like, oh sorry, sorry. I mean it's called good research.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

I love it. No, no, it's great, it's great. Um, you know, the I think the kind of like I was telling you earlier, I think distribution sometimes also gets a bad rap just because people don't understand the environment, they don't necessarily get to see it. It's not like you can just walk up to the distribution center and hey, let me take a look around, just just see what it's like.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

You can do that to one of our stores and you can go into a Lululemon today and say, oh wow, this is a great, you know, like we're gonna look at all this product, look at the the the people that that are helping us and the great customer service. But you can't do that inside a distribution center. So for us, it's really important that we create an environment where people want to show up every day and and do their best. And I love that about this company is that when they talk about their best, it's not just the number of you know 144,000 units picked in in one day. What it means is how do we care for the whole person? So that yes, you are gonna work and you're gonna help us meet these numbers, but you're also going to have an opportunity to to during your workday, if you want to take your lunch and work out, you have a site right here, which you know I I uh I'm so proud of this gym in the sense that it's like A, you don't have to pay for it, but B, like the equipment that we have, the the resources that we have available for our employees for them to stay healthy and take care of their bodies day in and day out is huge. We we offer, like you talked about, ESL classes because our population here in Little Bitty, Columbus is super diverse. Like it's crazy. When I first moved from Dallas to Columbus three and a half years ago, I was like, oh man, like what am I gonna I don't know what to expect in Columbus.

SPEAKER_03 21:04

This is gonna be Ohio and I live in Mississippi.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

You know what? That's exactly right. But I will give Ohio a shout out three and a half years later. Columbus is great, there's tons to do. Uh, I wouldn't have expected it, and the diversity that exists here is what really blew me away. So, to give you an example, in my of my 500 roughly employees that work here pre-peak, we have 32 countries represented. Wow, 13 different languages spoken, and it's just such a diverse group, right? Like it's amazing to just see the interactions. But we realized uh very early on when I first got here that we weren't providing them with the best tools for success because we had 40 ish percent of our population was English was their second language, and for for a big chunk of that 40%, this was their first job in the US, and so we had to find A way to say, okay, how do we make sure that they're going to be as successful as they can? Because they want to work, they they want to do their best, but language is a barrier, right? And and and it's so difficult to try to make your way when you don't speak it. So the company was super supportive when we when we uh approached and said, Hey, we could I think we can build a cool program here where we can provide on-site ESL cra classes for free to our employees where they do it after their work shift, but at the end of the day, it's here, they don't have to go and search for the professor and all of that. It's been a huge success. We we've had uh I think we're now in our third year, and we've moved about 80 to 90 people through those ESL classes, and and we still have folks that are continuing on every year, you know, and so for me that's what makes the difference. It's the type of environment that you create because every everyone is moving boxes that that's doing distribution is moving boxes point A to point B, right? They're like they're clocking in, they're moving a box from point A to point B, and then they're clocking out for the day.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

We all can do that. That's the you know, greens fees right there, right? But at the like for me, what's important is can we create an experience? Can we create a moment where people say, I work here because not just because they pay well, not just because it's Lululemon. I work there because I go and and I'm around people that I like. Um I'm around people that are are challenging me in the positive way, are helping me to grow and become more than I am today. And so that's that's our challenge every single day to our leaders here. It's like, how do we how do we make sure that never goes away, that that feeling never goes away. And we're not perfect. I'm not telling you all of a sudden you're walking here and it's like you know, butterflies and rainbows across the board, right? It's it's a work in progress every day. But we love the challenge because when we get it right, we do things like a chili cook-off, right? Like where we started that three years ago here, something that are like people because you know I'm from Texas, so like we gotta do a chili cook-off. Let's let's like, what the heck is a chili cook-off? And so we we started that uh here, and people uh create like a whole booth with a theme, dress up, so it's not just a chili, now it's about how you present your chili and your dessert.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

Oh my gosh, I was gonna say we do a chili cook-off, but it is not that.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

It's a whole adventure, so it and and it's great, and people really rally around it and and and they love it, and and that's what it is, right? Keep it fun because the environment itself, as far as like just our four walls, is kind of boring, you know, like it's the same thing every day. You just see a bunch of boxes. But how do you make it fun and engaging for people? And and those are some of the ways that that we've been able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

Yeah, it sounds like you're really trying to create like a sense of belonging for people, like there's just something there for that, and that that's really cool. And that's awesome that you've gotten to be. I didn't realize you were a part of so many of these culture initiatives, or sort of a part of helping spearhead them, it sounds like so. That's awesome. That's really, really cool.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

I have to give credit to the container store. It's uh like I spent eight years there. Yeah, probably one of the best cultures I've ever worked around. And that's awesome. Like they've gone through some up ups and downs over the last couple of years, but at the heart of it, like made like what they really nailed is the employee experience and and the way that they made every person in that team just feel like they belonged, right? Like you said, and and so that's that's that's my goal. Like it's something I'm I'm very passionate about and ensuring that that we're constantly in that work to create that that great place to work.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

Absolutely. I love the container stores containers, but I did not know much about their culture. So I'll love to hear that. It looks like you also recently supported the launch of Lululemon's Mexico e-commerce site, which is really awesome. What does cross-border e-commerce kind of look like from the distribution center side of things? Are you involved in that at all? Or were you simply supporting that e-commerce you know, launch? Uh yeah, just tell me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Yeah, it's been a it's been a transition. So Mexico used to be a franchise business, uh, and and Lululemon bought them out uh a couple years ago. So this is the integration of Mexico into our North America model, uh and making sure that you know they have all the resources and the tools to operate just like we do in Canada, just like we do in the US. So e-com was a small part of the overall integration, but it was a key one because prior to we had to send every Mexico order from the US or Canada. And you know, prior to all the changes in tariffs, uh that was you know, it wasn't, I wouldn't say it's easy because it it would still require several different steps. It wasn't just putting the label on and shipping it like that.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

Yeah, you're dealing with custom orders across border operations, all that, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Yes. So the big win from us establishing that is that now Mexico is its own standalone e-com operation that is able to fulfill the orders for the country, and it's not something that here in Columbus or in LA in our other uh US site that we have to we we don't get those orders anymore. So that that that helps us selfishly, but uh also you know it's good in country they get the product so much faster, right? Like it was it would take sometimes 10, 10 days, two weeks before someone will see something come out of the US to them. Now it's is so much faster. So yeah, it's been it's been a great experience. I think anyone that has the opportunity to be able to support an international rollout is it's is such a learning opportunity because you have to adapt to their culture, even though you know, like I'm originally from Nicaragua, right? So I'm like, I speak Spanish, I should be just plug and play. Like it's not like once you get there, they're like, Well, you don't know this, and you this is how we do this here, and this is the still a different culture, yeah. Totally different culture, right? But the tacos are on point. Like if you ever go, if you ever go to Mexico City, you have to you have to make sure you uh you go through a taco tour of Mexico City, it's totally worth it. But yeah, it's it's been a cool experience. It's been it's been awesome. Like, you know, it's it's it's going to continue to grow, and it's gonna be, I think, a very impactful market for us as we we grow our our footprint.

SPEAKER_03 28:09

Yeah, that's super exciting. Are you guys obviously you're doing a lot of retail replenishment from Columbus? Are you doing much direct to consumer from Columbus? Like, what's the percent breakdown there?

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Currently, we're probably about 15 to 20 percent of the overall volume for North America. That will continue to grow over the next year. So I I definitely do see us taking on uh a lot more as we move forward, which is which is great. You know, it keeps our both engaged and with a lot to do. Yeah, so absolutely but it's it's still right now the main focus is retail. Uh it's it's our bread and butter. I don't think that will change. I know that won't change, but it's just layering on additional e-com volume down the road, which would be cool.

SPEAKER_03 28:53

Absolutely. Does that look from a freight and and transportation standpoint from your role and from your team's roles, does that look particularly different, those direct or consumer orders and the retail orders, or is it more or less the same process, just different paper?

SPEAKER_00 29:08

No, it's a big difference, right? Like so for a retail order, and this is you know, like why we appreciate retail here so much. If you're like let's say a store, what state are you in?

SPEAKER_03 29:18

Michigan.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Okay, so Michigan, right? Like we service Michigan from here. So let's say the store in Ann Arbor uh orders 70 boxes. We're going to uh as as we're billing those orders, we're picking multiple items, different items. It could be this shirt, your shirt, this hat, all into one box. That box gets full, we tape it up, here comes the next box, right? Yeah, and and there is no no thought other than I have I'm just gonna make up a number, 500 units that I'm going to send to the an Arcor store, and that's going to be spread over 50 boxes, and I'm gonna fill them as full as possible. So it's it's super fast for us to pick through that compared to an online order where you ordered the shirt you're wearing, it's one item. I gotta go get that one item in the right color and the right size, the right color, right size, and then get it to uh a packing station to where they are going to inspect, make sure everything's good. Then just that one item now has is gonna get packed into a bag or a box, and then that's what's going to make it out to the carrier, right? So for those, you know, generally for our e-com volume, we're using carriers like FedEx or VHO, uh, which are you know single unit or you know, like just small parcel uh type of uh deliveries, and for retail, the majority of our volume goes through these pool carriers so that they can manage these massive amounts of cartons that we're sending out. We have different relationships with different carriers for that reason, and uh we're constantly evaluating okay, what makes the most sense? You know, like uh we used to have a carrier for Michigan that we switched out because we felt like we could get better services and better rates with someone else, right? And so that evaluation uh with our outbound logistics time is is happening all the time.

SPEAKER_03 31:04

Yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense. As as Lulu continues to expand into more international markets, or as your team continues to expand the e-commerce side, how do you kind of see the the freight and the carrier strategy evolving to keep up with the growth?

SPEAKER_00 31:19

It's important not to put all your eggs in one basket. I think 2020 was the epitome of that statement. Like it's I was at the container store in 2020 and it it was we used um was UPS actually. So we were with UPS and they completely fell apart, right? Like when everyone started to switch to online ordering because they were quarantined, yeah, like they it broke, it it broke their whole process. They did it couldn't keep up, right? Like I remember they were telling us, hey, we will only give you five trader loads per day. That's all. Like, and if you exceed that, sorry, figure out where you put it and then we'll pick up that the next day.

SPEAKER_03 31:56

You're like, that's not gonna work.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

That's like that's crazy. I was like, no, the people are are dying for their product. For us, is the evaluation of what lanes make the most sense. Like, where are we getting the best service? Is there a carrier that services an area better than others? So, as an example, I'm sure you've heard of VHO, you know, they service metro areas and they do these deliveries where you know, like once they do their sort and they they spread it out into these small delivery vans or you know, sometimes cars, whatever. They just have a ways in certain areas to have better speed of service. And so, you know, we consider those things, but also we're evaluating, all right, relatively a newcomer. Does that mean that are there going to be quality issues? Are there going to be service issues to the customer where they're you know not paying attention on how they're you know presenting that product to the customer? You know, I've seen some deliveries like from some that are just fling the product and to your porch and then good luck, right? Yeah, you're like, oh good, that really aligns what Louis playing standards of quality. Exactly. So it's it's it's about evaluating, make sure that they are following through on their side as well. On it's not just about price, it's not just about speed, it's also about just like the overall experience from from beginning to end. And so we're constantly evaluating that and and and making sure that we're covered from a volume perspective. So as volume continues to rise, that we don't just say, okay, FedEx, you're gonna have you know 80% of our volume. That's just not a good strategy. Like as big as their network is, there are going to be constraints, particularly around peak season, and we just don't want to get caught in that in that hole.

SPEAKER_03 33:32

Absolutely. What are you most excited about with Lululemon as far as growth in general? Anything you know big coming down the pipeline that you're excited about. I'm sure you can't, you know, share any big secrets or product launches, but but I mean more so just like anything exciting for your team coming down the pipeline.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Yeah, I think you know, just how we continue to grow our both our US North America footprint, but you know, international for us over the last three to four years has just been amazing, right? So there's still tons of growth opportunity for the company. Like we've been really focused on Asia, uh Europe, but as you talked about Mexico earlier, I like I hope that that means that we're gonna expand into Central and South America at some point, right? Like I'm I don't I don't know that for a fact. I'm just biased because I'm from Nicaragua, so I want the first little lemon in Nicaragua. I'm ready to open it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 34:25

Well, it's putting it into existence right now.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

That's there you go. Remember this moment, yeah. So I'm just uh I'm I'm just excited about the the brand itself is just so strong. So much room to continue to expose folks to to our brand and what we have. You know, and it's a simple example. I I started here November would be four years, right? But when they when they reached out to me and they said, hey, we we'd like to interview you for a job with Lululemon, I was like, who? Like is this like a like a fruit brand? It's like what is it? I've never heard of it, right? Uh and I went home and I told my oldest daughter, she was probably like six, sixteen, seventeen years old.

SPEAKER_03 35:08

So she knew what Lululemon was.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

So I said, Hey, I got this. Uh they're calling me about this job with this company called Lululemon, and her eyes were just were like, Did you just say Lululemon? I don't care. You need to take that job. I was like, all right, let me look into it. All right, fine.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Uh once once I got her endorsement, and then you know, like I owned no Lululemon at all when I first started. And if you look at my closet four years later, it's the only thing I own now. Like, could you take a middle-aged guy like me that had never heard of it four years ago, and then I don't just wear it because I like the because I work for the brand. Yeah, I wear it because like it absolutely is an amazing product. Like, yeah, whether it's working out, where there's stuff for you know the office, there's a fit for any of the needs that you have. And so I think that that's what's most exciting for me. Like that there's a gigantic market for us still to conquer for people to learn more about our product. And yes, it is a premium product, it's you know, like it's not going to be on the lower end of the pricing scale, but it's worth it. And the the more people realize that and see that, like the quality is just so so good. And so I I feel like that's the unlock for us to just continue to drive that uh to the next level, and it's just gonna open up a lot for us.

SPEAKER_03 36:22

Uh like you said, they're they're they're not necessarily on the lower end of price, but they're definitely investment pieces. I only have a couple of Lululemon items, but they're like the ones that I keep going to in my drawer because I love it.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Do you know which ones they are? Let me see. Let me let me let me throw a question your way.

SPEAKER_03 36:37

Uh I think it's called the align tank, maybe. I have the align tank, and then I have a pair of leggings. I don't remember what they're called.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

Okay. All right. No, it's okay. It's okay.

SPEAKER_03 36:48

You got together.

unknown 36:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

We won't hold that against you. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

I should have worked it all for today. Well, make it good.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

It's okay. It's all good.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

I saw my my last little bit of LinkedIn stalking. My my bad, but I saw you were a commencement speaker at your alma mater. Um I I would love to kind of close it off with sort of some some advice, some career advice from you. You've obviously built, you know, your career was impressive when I saw your LinkedIn, but even more so as I'm talking to you about the culture of your team and of the just the culture you built at the distribution center. So um I'd love to know your career advice for someone just sort of in this industry, but also just if you have any career advice in general. We hire right out of college um pretty often here at Fifth Wheel, and we're we're always getting asked, you know, like what do I do with my job search and how do I figure out what I want to do and all these different things. So I'd love to know if you have any pieces of advice for the next generation of grads coming into the world.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, no, that was that was really cool. Like uh, you know, I got to do it on the 25th anniversary of my graduation, and so it's pretty surreal to stand in the same spot where my family watched me graduate and be able to kind of see all these uh kids' families and and how excited they were for this moment. Uh so that so that was awesome. Like I think it's one of those uh bucket list moments for me for sure. But it did it did make me reflect a lot on like how did I get there? Like how like how was I able to get to that point in my in my life? Um I think first and foremost is people need to just know that there is no perfect path. Like people think career progression goes like this, right? Like I spent a year here and then two years here, and then three years here, and then five, and by the end, I'm like the president of the company. Like my my career's gone like this, you know? Like knowing that the path is not straight, and and that that you have to be willing to take chances. Sometimes it may not be in that moment for you to like get that next promotion or or or that next level. That doesn't mean that you're not doing what you're supposed to, you're not being effective at your role. Sometimes it's just timing, right? And if if people would just kind of take a moment to to breathe and say, okay, let things play out, that naturally starts to happen. When I first started my career, I was super antsy. I was like, all right, what's next? All right, where do I go now? I like how do I get to that next role? Like in this title and that type. And I I realize now that as cool as it sounds to be director of distribution, like for me, like I don't even think about that anymore. I just see my role now, rather than defined by the title, I'm defined by the impact that I'm having and and how I'm mentoring and growing the next generation of leaders. And that's what excites me, right? Like, and so um, I think for for folks just to realize is like there's no perfect path. Like I told you at the beginning, I shouldn't even be in this industry. Like I shouldn't even be doing what I'm doing, but here I am. The second piece would be whatever you do, do it with passion, pursue it wholeheartedly. Because while the role may not be the most glamorous or the best thing in the world in that moment, it can open doors and it can it can propel you to whatever's next, right? The folks that just kind of sit back and hope something changes and say, okay, maybe something will happen, like that's where you get stuck, and that's where you end up in that mindset of like, yeah, this this place sucks, or this doesn't work for me. Regardless of the role, if you really dedicate yourself to it and you pursue it with passion, like results naturally start to happen, right? Like I'm sure you've seen it in your career as well. It's just uh it's just about really kind of locking in.

SPEAKER_03 40:22

Yeah, absolutely. No, I I agree wholeheartedly. I love all of that. Well, thank you so much for all of your time and your insights, and it's been so fun just getting to know more about your role and about Lululemon.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

This was really cool. I got like I told you, I I've never done this before. I hope I didn't, you know, like lower your ratings after this goes.

SPEAKER_03 40:40

But you know, no, you were fantastic. I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

I I love it. Thank you for the for the opportunity to just have a chat and uh uh just uh to share a little bit of my experience. Really, really, really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 40:55

Absolutely. Our pleasure. Thanks for listening to Inside Freight by Fifth Wheel Freight, where we break down the logistics topics that matter to brokers, shippers, and carriers. FWF is a third-party logistics provider headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, specializing in truckloads, LTL, drainage, rail, overdirectional, and expedited freight for F US Instagram. To learn more, visit fwf.com or follow up on Instagram.