On the return side, you've gotta make it convenient for the customer. If the return process is not convenient, you're probably gonna lose the sales moving forward because you just gotta make it easy.
-John Haber
Episode Summary
If you want to talk freight, interview John Haber. So we did (again)! Reporting live from the 18th annual Reverse Logistics Association conference and expo, Scott sat down with Haber to get his POV on current trends impacting logistics, projected growth for returns, rising customer expectations and more. Tune in for his expert take and get his big, bold prediction for 2022.
Episode Transcript
Intro/Outro (00:03):
Welcome to supply chain. Now the voice of global supply chain supply chain now focuses on the best in the business for our worldwide audience, the people, the technologies, the best practices, and today’s critical issues. The challenges and entities Stay tuned to hear from those making global business happen right here on supply chain. Now,
Scott Luton (00:33):
Hey everybody, Scott Luton here with you on supply chain. Now welcome back to today’s show. As you can hear, and probably even see we’re creating content live from the 18th annual rev, reverse logistics association, conference and expo and circus and amusement park. I got one of our dear friends, this show with me here in Vegas, cause it’s a center of all things, reverse logistics and returns management center of all of that, uh, in the universe at least this week. So John Haber, one of our favorites, a repeat gas friend of the show. He is president for parcel at transportation insight, John, how you doing?
John Haber (01:08):
Doing great Scott pleasure to be here.
Scott Luton (01:10):
Great to have you back with us. This is probably your out now your 17th appearance with us mover and shaker out there. Of course, a lot of folks know spin management experts and all the good work you did there and now bigger and better with transportation insight, right?
John Haber (01:25):
Yeah. Yep. Now with transportation insight, we, uh, sold spend management to, uh, transportation insight on the last day of 2020. So last
Scott Luton (01:34):
Day of 2020
John Haber (01:35):
Last day of the year. Got it in right before the clock struck 12. Love
Scott Luton (01:41):
That love that. Well, congratulations. That’s a big as a fellow entrepreneur. That is a, uh, a big thing to celebrate, but you know what, what I admire about you is you didn’t pack it up, go home, take the kids, kayaking. It’s just the next chapter, which is what we’re gonna talk about with transportation inside, right?
John Haber (01:58):
Yeah, absolutely. Did was not able to pack it in. I packed it in for a couple days, but uh, they’re, they’re, they’re working me pretty hard these days. Scott, there’s a lot going on in supply chain, a lot of
Scott Luton (02:09):
Opportunity,
John Haber (02:10):
Right? Lots of opportunities, especially with reversal logistics.
Scott Luton (02:13):
Right? So great to have you here. And also, you know, we enjoyed, we had a heck of a dinner where we had dinner a few,
John Haber (02:18):
Uh, we went to optimist
Scott Luton (02:19):
The optimist in Atlanta,
John Haber (02:21):
If
Scott Luton (02:21):
Youre in Atlanta and you’re looking for a new, at a delicious place, there’s lots of them, but it was my first time at the optimist and man, that was some good eating. Wasn’t
John Haber (02:30):
It? Fantastic Ford fry. Great, great restaurateur.
Scott Luton (02:34):
All right. So
John Haber (02:35):
You’re making me hungry.
Scott Luton (02:36):
Well, you know, if folks can hear it is lunchtime here at the, uh, RLA conference. NPO folks are eating, uh, no lobster, uh, filet. You name it, Darren, maybe getting the plate here, but uh, let’s get to the topic of the day. Let’s do it almost. So we’re gonna talk reverse and returns management minute. Let’s get know you a little better. Everyone doesn’t have a chance to know John Haber, John, the hammer Haber like I do. Uh, let’s talk about where you grew up first shed. A little light on that. Yeah.
John Haber (03:04):
Grew up in chapel hill. Okay. North Carolina,
Scott Luton (03:06):
Home of the tar Hills, tar hill
John Haber (03:08):
Born tar hill bread be tar hill to the day I’m dead. I know you’re a big Clemson fan. So, and we’re playing you guys tonight, is it? Yes. Oh and basketball. It’s
Scott Luton (03:18):
Been a rough, rough go as of late with Clemson basketball, but so you growing up, um, in chapel hill, what was, what was barbecue for you growing up
John Haber (03:28):
In North Carolina? Barbecue. Chopped chopped vinegar based. Yes. Mustard. Not, not, not, not, not catch up based like in Memphis, the real barbecues that, uh, like to North Carolina,
Scott Luton (03:40):
Cole law, hush puppies,
John Haber (03:42):
Cole law, hush puppies. Absolutely
Scott Luton (03:44):
Whole real. The real
John Haber (03:44):
Deal. Yeah. You’re making me hungry again. Hey,
Scott Luton (03:47):
Well, you know, we love talking about food here, the supply chain now, and we love talk about a great basketball teams. Cause uh, UNCs got another one. Good, good one this year. Speaking of let’s put North Carolina side, every knows you’re a big tar hill alum and fan.
John Haber (04:03):
Yes, absolutely.
Scott Luton (04:04):
But who beyond them? Who’s your best favorite sports team of all time.
John Haber (04:09):
That would have to be the New York Yankees. Really?
Scott Luton (04:11):
Yeah man.
John Haber (04:12):
I’m absolutely.
Scott Luton (04:13):
You’re breaking my heart with that one. John breaking
John Haber (04:15):
My heart. First, first baseball game was the 1977 world series when Reggie Jackson hit through home runs against the Dodgers.
Scott Luton (04:21):
Mr.
John Haber (04:21):
October, Mr. October. So big Braves fan, but the Yankees, uh, Yankees got your heart that they’ve got my heart.
Scott Luton (04:29):
Well, they got, you know, they got everybody’s heart, their big fan base, their iconic franchise. Of course, they’re very well funded. Braves have been, I’ve been jealous of that of late, but Hey, Hey, Braves made it happened last year.
John Haber (04:41):
Didn’t it? The Braves and the bulldogs man.
Scott Luton (04:43):
That’s right. Tom Georgia really happy. Yeah. And we just get the, the Falcons going and we’ll have the, trife
John Haber (04:49):
Get the Falcons going and the Hawks and you never know what happens. Be crazy, crazy world. If that happens,
Scott Luton (04:55):
All the stars will align well, the Hawks tons of talent. And we’ve seen a couple stretches is here. We’ll see if they can get it together and get into the playoffs. But uh, let’s talk about movies. Shift, shift gears. One of your favorite movies or books,
John Haber (05:10):
Uh, let’s go with books. Favorite book, never eat alone,
Scott Luton (05:14):
Never eat alone.
John Haber (05:15):
It’s all about networking and networking and building relationships just like you and I having dinner. That’s right. Uh, that’s what it’s all about. So I, I loved love these trade shows. I love meeting people and love networking with folks. So that’s a fantastic book. And uh, if you haven’t read it, you should, you should never
Scott Luton (05:35):
Eat alone,
John Haber (05:36):
Never eat
Scott Luton (05:37):
Alone. Heard of it. And the other, you know, other thing you’re speaking to there is relationship and ships matter. And I think that’s one of the lessons learned that, uh, the pandemic age has certainly taught us as Greg white. Dear common friend of ours has liked to say, you can’t make new relationships, new friends in the middle of a pandemic. Right.
John Haber (05:55):
Really challenging. It’s challenging. Definitely.
Scott Luton (05:57):
So let’s talk about then in that, in that vein, let’s talk about other key Eureka moments that 2021 brought to you. They have been delivered by the truckload. It seems as of late, what’s the big Eureka moment from last year.
John Haber (06:10):
Uh, just really the, the bottlenecks and the supply chain have been a major, major problem and they don’t seem to be getting fixed. Nope. I mean, there there’s some improvement, but you look at the ports over on long beach in LA with a number of ships that are just sitting outside the ports. Right. You know, retailers can’t get inventory, it’s impacting it impacted their holiday sales and there’s, it’s gonna take a while to fix. Yeah. Uh, especially in the world of parcel, there’s just not enough. Capacity. Ups has been firing a lot of their enterprise customers because they’re focused on margin. They’re going after the SMB business. And so for a lot of our large customers, it’s very challenging cost has been escal just outta control. And so been really focused on helping try and mitigate some of these cost increases.
Scott Luton (07:04):
It’s been the wild wild west in the world freight, right.
John Haber (07:08):
It absolutely has been, uh, our brokerage, uh, business unit, uh, had a, a phenomenal year. Just, it’s just, there’s just not enough labor. Also. Uh, labor is a major issue when you talk about Eureka moments, right? There’s just people dropping outta the workforce and it’s really hard to staff up the warehouses.
Scott Luton (07:28):
The great resignation is drive. Absolutely. And then that may be driving a lot of the, maybe the, the heavily experience, but then other industries are vying for some of the same talent that fuels fulfillment that fuels eCommerce and fuel supply chain. So it really, it is a, a fight for talent these days.
John Haber (07:45):
It is a fight for talent. And you just look at the labor costs. You look at, uh, the earnings announcements and the, just the lack of labor is, uh, it’s very problematic.
Scott Luton (07:56):
So lots of your, it sounds like to me, lots of Eure mode from
John Haber (08:00):
Lots of lots of Eureka moments in 2021, but we, we had a fantastic year at transportation insight. So outstanding.
Scott Luton (08:06):
Why am I not surprised? So speaking of transportation insight, tell us what the company does.
John Haber (08:12):
Uh, we’re one of the largest three PLS in the, uh, in the us top 10, we do about $5 billion in gross revenue. We’ve got about, uh, 2,500 employees, uh, three business units. We’ve got a brokerage business unit yep. Managed transportation, which is more focused on LTL and truckload and then the parcel business unit. And I’m the president of the parcel business unit.
Scott Luton (08:36):
So for let’s, let’s say for our listeners, that may be not real familiar with the transportation industry. So in your role as president of parcel, what do you do?
John Haber (08:47):
Uh, we are really, uh, an extension of our clients. We’re there to add bandwidth. We’re helping them provide them visibility, uh, on their shipment information. We’re, uh, helping them optimize contracts. We’re doing a lot of consulting work. We’re helping them optimize their distribution, helping them optimize their networks, uh, helping with site location. So we’re really in extension our clients adding bandwidth to their logistics teams and their sourcing teams to drive efficiencies across the supply chain. It’s critical because what we try to do is give our clients a competitive advantage and the supply chain, because the supply chain is just so critical these days, especially for large shippers,
Scott Luton (09:31):
Right? It’s not, uh, it’s no longer relegated just to blocking and tackling supply chain is a, a massive competitive advantage. And some of the things that you just described there, it sounds like they’re really leveraging your strategic experience to look at footprints and, and, and some of the strategies that drive competitive advantage.
John Haber (09:47):
Yeah. I mean, Amazon has changed the paradigm. Customers expect their goods today, right. They, some of ’em expect it to be delivered in an that’s. Right. And unfortunately, I
Scott Luton (09:58):
Had a Yankees poster I’m waiting from Amazon. I had delivered to freight. I was bringing it just for you ma signed by Mr. October, Hey
John Haber (10:05):
Man, it’s
Scott Luton (10:06):
Late.
John Haber (10:06):
Goodness gracious.
Scott Luton (10:08):
So, but, but
Scott Luton (10:09):
To illustrate your boy, folks do want, want what they want when they want it at the price saying, and we, we, we’ve kind of gotten spoiled a little bit. Right?
John Haber (10:17):
Yeah. And, uh, and I tell you, we’re here at the reverse logistics conference. When you look at retailers, some of our retail clients, 50% of what is purchased online is returned. Customers expect free returns, right? There’s no such thing. It’s free shipping Scott. Nope. It’s very, very Def to compete with Amazon because, you know, they’ve, they’ve got a lot of, they’ve got a lot of, lot of funding. They’ve got a cloud business that can subsidize their transportation business.
Scott Luton (10:47):
So, you know, who’s driving the large majority of those returns. She happens to be sitting just over your left shoulder. Yes. I don’t think she can hear us. Uh
John Haber (10:55):
I’ve I’ve got one of those as well. Scott, I just got off the phone with mine back in Atlanta. She, she is very active when it comes to e-commerce deliveries,
Scott Luton (11:05):
But you know, as Tony Schroder, like to say, if retailers are gonna allow and make it easy for folks to return stuff, all of us, all consumers, don’t be surprised when customers return stuff. That’s the air we live
John Haber (11:17):
In. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Scott Luton (11:20):
Uh, so it sounds like, especially as it relates to, uh, reverse logistics that you are helping customers on that side of their strategy, not just Ford.
John Haber (11:29):
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, talking to a lot of vendors here on their, uh, return strategies, a lot of great technology, a lot of inventory, man management, you know, with the returns, just, uh, dealing with the inventory and reselling it is a huge, that’s a huge obstacle, right? And so there’s a lot of great providers that we’ve been talking to here that we wanna help partner with our clients,
Scott Luton (11:52):
Obstacle and opportunity,
John Haber (11:53):
Absolutely obstacle and opportunity.
Scott Luton (11:56):
So let’s keep going on that path. I wanna ask you about hags in a minute. Y’all your team in the last couple years had some really cool social media, not commercials, but little snippets. We’ll talk about it in a minute. And if you’re, if you’re an office fan the office, NBC sitcom, we’ll have to, to share some links, but let’s keep going down this returns and reverse logistics path. So much opportunity. So many obstacles as you’re laying out. What, when you think of returns and you think of reverse logistics, what’s a couple of things, couple topics that come to mind that you’re really you and the transportation insight team are really laser focused on right now.
John Haber (12:30):
Yeah. I mean, it’s all about convenience. Uh, on the return side, you’ve gotta make it convenient for the customer. If the return process is not convenient, you’re probably gonna lose the sales moving forward because, uh, you just gotta make it easy folks.
Scott Luton (12:46):
Aren’t gonna go to 22 click
John Haber (12:48):
Brow. They’re not, they’re not, they want convenience. They want, you know, to have it pick the, you know, have the returns picked up and they want it to be free. Yeah. And so it’s a challenge.
Scott Luton (12:59):
Someone’s gonna pay for it
John Haber (13:00):
Though. Right. Somebody’s gotta pay for it.
Scott Luton (13:03):
So what else, what, what wide world? This is, this is as Tony, she wrote, looks like we’re interviewing him too. Tony likes to call reverse side the dark side of supply chain. Yep. It’s never gotten as
John Haber (13:14):
Much. It just doesn’t get the attention. Right. Yeah.
Scott Luton (13:16):
Now that, that we believe here at supply chain now is we really, and, and other plenty of other, uh, publications, it’s getting a lot more attention because I think consumers which are smart and savvy as ever before, just like they’re realizing Ford supply chain, how they can enjoy all these things, uh, very conveniently over to them. They’re starting to kind of piece together how the reverse side works. Yeah. And how you can, you know, put a, put a, uh, the wrong product back in its package, leave it on your doorstep. It’s picked up, it’s, uh, added back to your account. So convenient,
John Haber (13:49):
So convenient. So
Scott Luton (13:50):
A lot more visibility, a lot more importance. What else are you tracking on this side? Well,
John Haber (13:54):
I mean, if you look at eCommerce with the pandemic, the eCommerce sales, uh, what, uh, the economists projected, uh, volumes to be in 2025, we’re already realizing those now
Scott Luton (14:09):
Returns, volume
John Haber (14:10):
Returns, returns, volume, and just e-commerce outbound and turns. So
Scott Luton (14:16):
Massive opportunity.
John Haber (14:17):
Massive opportunity. If you look at like ups and FedEx and the post office peak season has actually extended. It doesn’t end at the end of December, it goes into mid-January because there’s so many returns that are bogging down the parcel networks from the returns. And so peak season really lasts until mid-January these days.
Scott Luton (14:40):
Unbelievable, intriguing times we live in. Right.
John Haber (14:43):
Very, very intriguing. Now the weather has been crazy as well, which has not helped the, the parcel networks
Scott Luton (14:50):
Either. We haven’t caught a break. It’s been one thing after another. All right. So let’s make sure folks well, before we do that, it’s hay logistics.
John Haber (14:58):
Heys yes.
Scott Luton (14:59):
Uh, Twitter account, uh, your, uh, of course you’re in all. I mean, all the major publications come when they wanna talk freight, they come interview John Haber, but your team had a really cool stretch there. Back before you joined the transportation insight team where y’all were having little plays on the office, the sitcom we did, what idea was that
John Haber (15:19):
That would be, uh, Kim MC Wilkin and Jenny Willis came up with the idea. And really, we were just trying to have some fun, uh, right in the middle of COVID and people just were stressed, stressed. And so we, we tried to provide de you know, some good information, but also add a little humor to the mix as well. I loved. And, uh, so we put about, uh, 11, 12 episodes of heys, uh, combining information with some humor and, uh, tips of the day. So it’s, you haven’t seen, Habers check it out.
Scott Luton (15:54):
We will have to, uh, if Amanda can hear me, we gotta make sure we add the Habers links to the show notes of this episode. Uh, and especially if you like a big fan of the office, like, like we are, but you know, the greater point there, uh, John is one of my Eureka moments is being able to maintain in a sense of humor during these really challenging last couple years where, you know, the hits kept coming, you know, whether it’s COVID or supply chain or just business, you know, your teams are going through some, some challenging times maintaining that sense of humor. So you can, it’s
John Haber (16:26):
Critical. Yeah, it is. You gotta, you’ve gotta maintain a sense of humor because there’s just so much craziness going on in world today, especially in the supply chain. So being able to laugh and, uh, blow off a little steams, really critical. Yep. Especially during these stressful times, Scott agreed.
Scott Luton (16:42):
Hey logistics. Hey logistics. All right. So how can folks connect with you and the transportation insight team? Yeah.
John Haber (16:48):
You can connect with us@transportationinsight.com. You can reach me J Haber T insight.com. You can reach me on LinkedIn. You can reach me on Twitter at ha logistics at
Scott Luton (17:02):
Yankees game.
John Haber (17:03):
You can catch me at a Yankee game tar
Scott Luton (17:05):
Hill with a beat Clemson tigers, that tar
John Haber (17:07):
Heels game. Those at the UY duke game last Saturday did not turn out very well for the tars. Unfortunate. I
Scott Luton (17:14):
Skipped over a question just, and we can make these mid course corrections, right. That’s what we do in supply chain. All right. I did not ask you so now that we know folks know how to connect with John, the hammer Haber big bold prediction for 2022. I skipped right over that. And I know you, you want to bring it and challenge folks at what we see more of in 2022. So what do you, what can you look deep into your crystal ball and share with us?
John Haber (17:41):
It will be very interesting to see, uh, how the supply chain bottlenecks are hopefully fixed in 2022. Uh, we’re seeing, uh, some easing, we’re seeing a little bit of capacity open up, but the labor, uh, issues are still a major problem. So we’d love to see, uh, less boats parked outside the ports. We’d love to see cargo moving faster. We’d love to see some of the costs come down, especially on the truckload side, on the Dray side and, and really just cleaning up. You know, we, we need to see some build out of infrastructure just on the, in the us highways. You know, our infrastructure has not been prepared. And, uh, and it’s, it’s impacting
Scott Luton (18:30):
When the president was up there in Pennsylvania and, and like, same day that bridge collapsed.
John Haber (18:35):
Holy cow. It’s crazy. We just have not, we’re not, we were not prepared. We have not invested enough. And the us infrastructure combined us and it’s hurt enough. Yeah,
Scott Luton (18:44):
Yeah. Good stuff there. So, you know, we come a long way and it’s it, it’s an extraordinary time to be in supply chain the last few years, but a lot more heavy lifting to do infrastructure and otherwise, uh, to get back to doing what we do best, which is serving the consumer, serving the customer, what they want when they want it at the right price.
John Haber (19:04):
Yeah. I mean, we really need to be evaluating where your inventory is. If you’re reliant on I goods, uh, and you can’t get ’em into the us, that’s not a good plan. You need to have, uh, risk management strategies. You need to have contingency plans. You need to have a backup plan, or you’re gonna be in trouble in trouble. And that’s what we’ve seen with a lot of companies. They’re, they’ve been in trouble because they did not have proper risk management strategies
Scott Luton (19:29):
Of the CRE in the kayak with no, with no paddle. Right?
John Haber (19:34):
Yeah. When, when you look at it, I mean, everyone is, you do a cost analysis. Yeah. The labor is cheaper in Asia, but what happens when you can’t get your goods into the us, right? What’s the cost of that? How does that impact your sales and your brand? People have not really been looked at that as seriously as they should. Mm,
Scott Luton (19:53):
Well, it sounds like give John Haber a call and the team
John Haber (19:57):
We can help you.
Scott Luton (19:58):
We can help. All right. Folks, we’ve been chatting with John Haber again, president for parcel at transportation insight. John, thanks so much for joining us, but don’t take off just yet. We’re gonna sign off folks. We’re continue our coverage here of the 18th annual reverse logistics association conference expo. Stay tuned for a lot more episodes and maybe some audio difficulties who knows, but Hey, Scott Luton signing off for the team here. Challenge you to do good, give forward, be change needed. And on that note, see next time, right back here at supply chain now. Thanks everybody.
Intro/Outro (20:32):
Thanks for being a part of our supply chain. Now, community check out all of our programming@supplychainnow.com and make sure you subscribe to supply chain. Now anywhere you listen to podcasts and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. See you next time on supply chain. Now.
Would you rather watch the show in action?
Featured Guests
John Haber With over 25 years of supply chain experience, John Haber has helped some of the world’s leading brands drive greater efficiencies through their supply chain operations while reducing transportation, distribution and fulfillment costs. John began his career in Atlanta at UPS where he held executive-level positions in corporate finance and corporate strategy, and he was instrumental in developing profitability and costing models. He also managed the carrier’s National Accounts Profitability Group where he audited the pricing and profitability of UPS’ top customers. After his successful UPS career, John founded Spend Management Experts, now part of Transportation Insight. He uses his finance background combined with decades of experience working with high-volume shippers to offer unique insights on strategic supply chain planning including distribution model optimization, transportation cost analysis, and carrier contract optimization and compliance. John is frequently quoted in national business and trade publications and contributes a bi-monthly column in PARCEL magazine. John holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Connect with John on LinkedIn.
Hosts
Additional Links & Resources
Check Out Our Sponsors
