Behind the Scenes of uShip. Sustainable Solutions for Big Item Shipping

Innovations in Bulky Item Shipping with Jami Caruso of uShip

In this episode, Chris interviews Jami Caruso, the VP of Customer Operations and Home Delivery at uShip, an online shipping marketplace. 

Jami discusses uShip's significant role in the used furniture market, detailing how the platform effectively facilitates the shipment of large and bulky items, including household goods, furniture, and automobiles. She highlights the company's first-to-final mile delivery model, which reduces damages and is more environmentally sustainable. Jami also emphasizes the importance of uShip's protection plan, which provides assurance to customers for their shipped items. 

The conversation explores various technologies uShip employs, such as GPS tracking, ID verification, and route optimization tools, all aimed at making the shipping experience smoother and more efficient. Additionally, Jami touches on unique shipping cases, including shipping large statues and antique goods, and explains why carriers and the public alike should consider using uShip for their shipping needs.

Reach out to uShip
support@uship.com
https://www.uship.com/
512-265-6161

00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction
01:09 Exploring the Used Furniture Market
06:15 Challenges in Shipping Large Items
08:15 uShip's Unique Shipping Solutions
09:05 International and Vehicle Shipping
11:25 Technological Innovations at uShip
13:43 Benefits for Carriers Using uShip
18:07 Why the Public Should Choose uShip
22:31 Interesting Items Shipped via uShip
25:45 Conclusion and Final Thoughts



Your Hosts:
John Farquhar
National Risk Services Specialist, Transportation, Gallager GGB
https://www.ajg.com/ca/
M: 437-341-0932
John_Farquhar@ajg.com

Chris Harris
CEO, Safety Dawg Inc.
905 973 7056
Chris@SafetyDawg.com
https://safetydawg.com/

Keeping it Safety Dawg Simple!
#trucksafety #truckinsurance #truckpodcast

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Transcript

0:40

Jami, welcome to the podcast. Can you take a second and introduce yourself to our viewers and our listeners please? Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Chris. My name's Jami Caruso and I'm the VP of Customer Operations and Home Delivery at uShip. Uh, uShip is an online shipping marketplace, the first and largest of its kind, and I've been with them for about 16 years now. That's awesome. And. uShip. One of the things that struck me when I was doing some research is how much of the used furniture market is uses uShip to get the the items delivered. Can you delve into that for me a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, we can't talk about buying large and bulky items without talking about the economy, right? And macroeconomic factors certainly impact our business and any business that's selling large and bulky goods. When consumer sentiment is down, people are holding off on buying that stuff. However. All that said, even now, household goods, which is largely made up of furniture, is ship's strongest category. Just this year alone, nearly 21,000 household good shipments have been delivered through uShip. Holy crap. See, and I had no idea, um, that so many people are shipping used, used items. I. I'm probably normal. I go on Facebook Marketplace and things like that to few things, but I tend to do that more local. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You're saying 21,000 people did shipped for household goods through uShip, and the vast majority of that is furniture, and the vast majority of that furniture is secondhand. Whether somebody is. Moving, or they are buying something online, maybe at a mark on a marketplace like eBay or chairs or first dibs, right? And, uh, you should actually put out a secondhand furniture. So very specific to this secondhand furniture report late last year, and that report surveyed about 2000 Americans. Nearly half of those people said they have purchased secondhand furniture, and nearly 80% of those folks said they would do it again. Yeah. Well, I mean, one with our economy that you referred to, um, our environment, you know, just makes a lot of sense to reuse furniture that somebody else can't make use of anymore. Yeah. It's, it's about saving money. But the other thing is. Nostalgia is big bucks right now, especially for younger generations. So this is just gonna keep going, right? Like all you hear is Y 2K, this, Y 2K that and younger generations are, they do care more about the environment. They want to have unique pieces in their home and they wanna save money. Yeah. And I don't know about you, but on YouTube I've watched several of the furniture Refinishers where they, they take a, an older piece and make it. Kind of modern in a lot of ways 'cause they do refinish it and stuff and Yeah. Uh, you know, and I'm a bit of, I don't wanna say I'm an environmentalist'cause there's many people that are much more dedicated to the cause than I am. But, uh, you know, I do see a lot of reasons, uh, to be more gentle on our earth. Um, oh, I'm right there with you. Yeah, absolutely. If I can do something to help save the planet or at least slow down it's death, then I'm right there doing it. Yeah. Now you also mentioned, or I, I think I heard last mile delivery. Are you, is you ship into that as well? Yeah, so uShip is quite unique in that almost everything that gets shipped through our marketplace is actually first to final, which may be a somewhat foreign concept to some of your listeners because it's, it's pretty rare. And so for the listeners that have never heard that, it means. Whatever truck your item gets put on from your home or from the store or wherever you're buying it from, that's the same truck that's gonna deliver it. And that helps with avoiding damages. Obviously it's more sustainable. Those trucks are usually smaller, which means they're burning less fuel. So yeah, it's not really last mile though. There are, there is last mile happening as well. The vast majority is first to final, so no transferring. Yes, that, that would be huge in reducing damages. Uh mm-hmm. But I used to be in my younger days, if you remember the store, Sears. I used to be a Sears home delivery driver. And uh, wow. I used to see damages from time to time. But you know, which begs me to ask this question about being a Sears home delivery driver, I used to. Shape, but I also struggled to transport some of the bigger bulkier items. Um, you know, like furniture, I dunno. I used to hate sofa beds. Oh, heavy. Yeah. But anyway. What are some of the struggles with those items? Yeah, so people struggle, obviously physically, like you just said, some of that stuff is just big or um, you know, some people don't want to DIY because they're not sure if they can lift it themselves, but a lot of the struggle we find actually has to do with fear. Fear of the unknown, right? So people haven't necessarily shipped a large item, or if they have, they bought it from somewhere like. A Sears or a department store, and it's kind of out of sight, out of mind, they're not really involved with it. So people are concerned about reliable transport. They're concerned about what if this thing gets damaged? They don't know if there are suitable vehicles. And then they're also concerned about personal safety. So in that same report, one in five respondents said they were worried about their personal safety when having a large and bulky item delivered. Whether that's, again, them having to help lift it out of the truck into the truck, or just who is this stranger coming to or into my home. People are just kind of fearful. I think people also worry about when something's just generally complex and they don't fully understand what's happening, so they're worried about that, and people also struggle with the expense. It's expensive to ship big items. It's expensive. There's, you mentioned product damage, but again, if it's being delivered to somebody's home, there's also house damage or driveway damage, damage to the product. Um. Oh God. Stairways used to get chipped, you know, like, oh, yeah. Oh yeah. And, and a lot of these vehicles that people associate, right. With big items being, they're, they're thinking about on, you know, I'm in, I'm in Texas and I 35, so huge, huge. Parkways and people see these giant 18 wheeler trucks and they think, is that gonna fit down my driveway? No, but those aren't the types of trucks that are shipping items through uShip. You're talking about much smaller box trucks, sprinter vans. So they're much more easily, man, maneuverable. Uh, and, uh, they're easier on the environment as well and Yes. Yes, and a lot of those smaller trucks, um, people may not think of this, are what's called a cab over. Uh, they don't have a long nose on the front. Being a safety person that I am, I know that they are much better in the residential areas because that gives the operator a much greater field of vision so that they can see kids and dogs and, and things that unfortunately do happen in normal residential areas. Right. You know, it it, I think this is neat. I gotta ask you, does, do you operate in Canada? Because part of our audience is Canadian. Yeah, we do actually our, our bread and butter is definitely intra US shipments. However, we do have a presence in Canada. Uh, there is cross border as well. You know, uShip is not a broker, so we're not able to set up all that paperwork, do the customs and all of that. Um, so you would have to find a broker to do that for you. But yeah, there are absolutely carriers, drivers on our site that do the cross border shipments as well. And which is really cool because we do have an awful lot of stuff going cross border. Um, changing subjects a little bit from furniture. I see that you also do cars and I know of people here in Canada who have bought classic cars in the US and brought them across the border. Um, so but you do move automobiles as well, correct? Yeah, absolutely. And the classic cars vintage classic are a big part of why people use ship, right? Like there are collectors out there and they just have no idea how to get their new baby to them. Um, so yeah, we actually have car haulers that specialize in, uh, antique and special care type vehicles. That's, I mean, I love antique cars or, or classic cars. Sorry, not, not so much antique, but, uh, the, the older classic gas guzzling beast. Yeah. Muscle cars. Yeah. They're a lot of fun. Even though I drive an electric car, Al, but, uh, the old environment, Hey, sustainability, well. Some say it's good for the environment. Others say it's terrible. Um, I bought it for, it's less expensive to operate, so yeah, no guess. Yeah. And being here, um, close to Niagara Falls on close to Niagara Falls. My electricity of course, is very green 'cause it's created by water that falls over a cliff. That's not much. It's pretty clean water, pretty clean energy. That's about the cleanest you could get, right? Yeah. Well, it's not nuclear and some of the other stuff, certainly not coal. Um, but hey, what technologies, uh, is you shipped using now? Yeah, so just being an online shipping marketplace in its very nature means that we are sustainable. So the whole premise of ship, and there are two stories, I'll save one of them for a little bit later. Uh, but the whole premise of ship was built upon filling empty truck space and that. First to final mile, um, service. So again, we're talking about smaller vehicles, better gas mileage, fewer stops, which creates less traffic, which again, is just this beautiful cycle of using less gas and less energy. Um, so the, the online shipping marketplace is the technology itself, right? But then embedded within the marketplace, we have tools like GPS tracking. We have ID verification. We have a. Home built protection plan. So it's not insurance, but rather assurance to protect your stuff. And we're actually testing a home and office protection plan right now as well. So we talked a little bit about chair, uh, stairs getting chipped earlier, so it would cover something like that. There are also different types of communication platforms out there, and we. We did talk a little bit about people's fears, right? A stranger showing up at their house, and there are technologies out there, uh, one of which we're looking to integrate with that would allow the driver to take a snapshot of their driver's license. That gets verified magically behind the scenes. And then what happens before they arrive at your home is they have to take a photo and it gets matched so you know that the person that is showing up at your door is who they say they are. So it really helps assuage some of those fears. Um, and less but not least, another technology I'll mention is just route optimization tools. So there's a whole lot of tools out there. Again, we're kind of experimenting with our own right now. It's in, I think, alpha testing, but. Anything that you can do to optimize the routes of drivers is another way to help save the environment. Save time, save money. Yeah. Big time about saving money. Now, if you were, um, speaking to a carrier mm-hmm. Why would a carrier want to register and be part of ship? Yeah. Well, I think the, the biggest reason would be freedom, right? You can be your own boss, you can have your own truck. You don't have to report to anyone. We're not telling you when and how to work. You find your own loads, just, yeah, freedom and being your own boss. You can drive when you want. It can be part time. It can be a full-time job. We have. Folks that are more hobbyists, those that, you know, they want to travel the country, they wanna road trip around and they can use ship to fund their trips with their husband, wife, whoever. Um, and then there are people that have grown their businesses. They started with one truck and now they have 10. We love those stories. Um, so that's kind of the more. I don't know, flighty, uh, freedom type reason. But another reason to use uShip is our online payment system, so at least in the us, which is about 98% of our shipments. The customer pays upfront and the funds are held through a third party bank and they, it is treated like cash, but as soon as that shipment is delivered, that carrier's basically guaranteed their payment. And we will help facilitate that. And you're not gonna get that through other means. Or if you're, you know, working through a big company, you're talking about maybe net 30 if you're lucky to get paid. Right. And that 30 would be nice. I'm self-employed. Exactly. I own. Own my own business. Exactly. Um, and I can't but mention, you know, one of my teams is the support team and we really have a fantastic support team. So if something does go wrong, we have really great people here to help. And I think you mentioned it, but just to clarify, I can have my own customers, uh, and then I could use uShip to fill the empty spaces on my, on my truck. Is that. Oh, you look at it. That's exactly right. Yeah. We have, uh, a whole contingent of drivers that that is what they use uShip for because they have their regular customers, but you know, no one wants to deadhead across an entire region or across the entire United States or Canada. Right? So a lot of drivers are using uShip to fill that empty space to avoid deadheading. Um, but then there's others that ship is their main source of income. Well, I can see that it would be relatively easy. I was just thinking if I had an extra four feet of space at the back of my truck that was empty, I'm thinking, Hmm, uShip could put a one or two articles in there, and that could definitely be the difference between profit. And loss on that level. Exactly. Exactly. And then even if you're an individual, so our founder, Matt Chazen, so one of, one of my favorite stories to tell of you know, how USP came to be is Matt was moving across the country. Actually to Austin where I am sitting right now to attend an MBA program at the University of Texas. And he and his now wife were moving from the west coast and they didn't have much stuff. They were younger, they had a one bedroom apartment and the only truck that they could rent to move was over 20 feet long. And so he said he was just. Standing there staring at this almost empty truck, this vast open space and saying, there's got to be a better way. The thing about all the guests, they guzzled driving. It was Washington State all the way to Texas in this giant truck that was almost entirely empty. Uh, that, and I don't know him obviously, but he may have found driving if he didn't have any previous experience, he may have found driving that large vehicle. Intimidating, challenging, absolutely. Yeah. A little stressful, maybe. Unsafe safety guy. Well, you know, I used to be a truck driver and so I can kind of relate to all that kind of thing. But geez. Anyway, uh, so we talked a little bit about carriers. Why should the public look at uShip? Um, and specifically you touched on it, but I want you to expand on the, um, you didn't call it insurance. Kind of, I'll say some sort of a, a guarantee that my product is gonna get there. So if I'm the public, why would I want to use uShip? Yeah. So what uShip it, what it does at its basis, right, is that we're helping connect customers with a network of truck drivers who specialize in moving large and bulky items, right? I think everybody knows about FedEx. U-P-S-U-S-P-S. Well, yes, there's FedEx Freight and UPS Freight, but they're not typically catering to your eye, right? They're looking for big business. uShip is literally built for the one-to-one interaction, um, and we allow you, the customer to compare quotes that you're receiving. Read real carrier reviews left by other real customers that have actually matched with those carriers on our website. Every single review on uShip is left by a customer or a carrier that has matched. And they, maybe they've canceled, right? But you get real feedback from a cancellation. That's one of the worst things that can happen when you need to move something or they completed a shipment. There are no other, uh, ways to leave a review on ship.com. So it's all real. Um, I, I will get into the ship protection plan as well, because that I think is one of our. Unique and best offerings. Um, so yes, I said it, it's not traditional insurance. Um, we did partner with a third party cargo insurance plan for about 12 years. And a couple years ago, we decided to bring that protection in-house and just so we can have more control and make sure that our customers are getting the best experience possible. But it works basically like an all risk cargo insurance plan. So you know it's priced based on the item value. There's of course a processing fee, which in insurance because a deductible and you're dealing with uShip employees if something does go wrong. If you have a $10,000 couch that you just bought an heirloom or not, not an heirloom, uh, a vintage couch, right? And it's very special.$10,000. If you go with a traditional carrier, you are very likely if you're getting anything, if it gets damaged, 10 to 60 cents on the pound. Couches don't weigh that much. Chris, think about what you're getting back. With our protection plan. Oh, go ahead. No, I was just gonna say, and for the listeners, um, their insurance is a, a unique term that in this case you have to be an insurance company to call your product insurance and therefore Correct. It's like insurance, what you're describing. It's just because it's uShip, you can't call it insurance. Yeah, there's, there's some subtle differences which I, I won't bore the, the listeners with on the backend, because for them it works in the exact same way. You're still, instead of filing a claim, you're submitting a case. Right. Uh, but the beauty of it is our average processing time is 30 or 40 days. Whereas you submit through a carrier, you might not get paid out at all, and if you do, it might be six months with us. Full item value. Now again, of course there's a processing fee. We, we have to, you know, hedge our bets and make some money off of this to protect our customers and to keep running. But we're not paying you 10 cents or 60 cents on the pound couch. Might not even weigh a hundred pounds. You're talking about a hundred what?$60 for your $10,000 couch, uh, with us if it is totaled. It was worth $10 and you bought protection for, or $10,000 and you bought protection for $10,000, you're probably getting back $10,000 less your processing fee, which is pretty minimal. Yeah, no, it, it sounds a lot better. Uh, can you give us some examples of what, uh, the public has shipped with you shipped? Oh yeah, this is one of my favorite questions. Um, so I'll, I'll give you some really fun ones. Uh, for some reason, statues are a very, uh, yeah, so Simpsons statues, we had giant, I mean like 15 to 30 feet tall Simpson statues. There was a, um, a. Yeah, the Simpsons Bar. The Simpsons, yeah. Like Bart and Homer, um, both Bart and Homer were shipped through Shipp. There was a, I think 12 foot tall bronze Willie Mays statue that was shipped through ship. And it had to be, you know, crated in this very special way because you, it very heavy thing and had to be strapped down. Uh, then there was, there was this, uh, charity. Company and the name escapes me, but they would essentially auction off set pieces from really popular shows. So, uh, survivor Mad Men. Actual set pieces. So people you know with big houses, big backyards, that there was a collector that he bought almost every single survivor set piece he could find. And he would ship it through you ship. Um, there was this crazy antique birthing chair. That was, uh, last year or the year before. And, um, art, I'm a big art girl, so a, a Bronze Lichtenstein sculpture, a $90,000 Lichtenstein. Uh, you know, he does like that pop art that stippling. Looks like a, like a comic book almost, but you know, very famous. And then, you know, countless, countless heirlooms. And this is where I'll lean into my other favorite how ship came to be story. This is again, Matt Chason, our founder. So it was these two things that are the reason why we are sitting here talking about ship today. His grandmother was moving, I think, downsizing or moving into, um, a retirement home. And she had this beautiful armo that was a family heirloom and it didn't have much monetary value, but it had a lot of sentimental value and they didn't, they couldn't figure out how to move this thing. It was big, it was heavy, it was bulky it, and they had to give it up, which is just so sad that this, you know, family heirloom that was in the family for over a hundred years, just. Had to be left and you know, had ship existed, they would've been able to ship it and keep it within the family. And, uh, that's a sad story because one of the beauties if you do move in, um, 'cause years ago I moved my mother into, uh, what we call an old age home. Mm-hmm. She was able to bring some of the special things with her to be, to make that home a little more homey, uh, for her. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad ship's around now because Me too. We won't have to do that kind of stuff. So just in wrapping up, Jami, what else would you like to talk about or let our viewers know about Ship? Uh, you know, it's not just, you know, we talked about furniture and a little bit about just other types of household goods, and we touched on cars, but really, uShip is here for all of your large and bulky shipping needs. Anything from a tractor. A horse or say you are trying to adopt a dog or a cat and you don't know how to get that animal out of the shelter, you can use ship to do that. We do have a charitable shipping arm, so if you don't have the funds to rescue that animal. Contact us. We wanna help. So yeah, it's definitely, it's not just cars and furniture, it's, it's all the weird big stuff that if you can't ship it through USPS or um, is it Royal Mill in Canada or Royal Post? Canada Post, yep. Canada Post. Yep. So if you can't ship it through the normal means, you could probably ship it through U Ship and we're here to help. And I on the website, which of course the website will be linked down below. Um, through the website, I noticed even things like golf carts are shipped. Oh, yeah. Yep. Yep. And I'm, I'm thinking about getting the golf cart myself, and I'm sure it will be shipped through your ship if it's not local. Well, you're not in an old age home, are you? I'm not. I am not. But I've got a, you know, I've, I've got a little e-bike, so I might just wanna add a little, another little vehicle to my collection to cruise around town. Alright, Jami, thank you so much for coming onto the show, your contact info and of course the uShip, uh, website are links in the show notes down below. So I encourage all of our viewers and listeners to reach out to Jami, whether you are a carrier, uh, that would be interested in filling your trucks or operating full-time with you ship, or whether you are somebody who buys, uh, things and needs some shipped around and. A lesser extent. I think moving also comes into play with ship, correct? It does, yeah. And something else that we didn't touch on is we do have. A program and tools built specially for businesses that need to frequently ship household goods, called in-home delivery. And you know, one of my teams helps out there as well, and you can automate everything from your checkout to the booking to payment. So, um, we'd love to talk to you about that. If you're a small business or even a big business, moving stuff frequently. So almost any bulky item you ship should be considered. If it's legal. If it's legal, if it's legal. Good. Thanks Jami. Thanks so much for having me, Chris.