Take the Mystery Out of Shipping
As part of our mission to be your partner in the business of design, we want to help you understand how shipping as an interior designer really works. This webinar, in partnership with Freight Club, goes through everything you need to know to become an expert in front of your clients. Don't forget, when you order through Daniel House Club we coordinate all your shipping and let you track everything in one place.
Transcript
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Peter Spalding: Yeah, so again welcome everybody who's joining our taking the mystery out of shipping webinar, we are really grateful to have our freight partner. Freight club joining us this morning, Samantha Taylor is our account director and I just see that Travis Huff has signed on. He's the VP of Sales for Freight Club and they have put together a beautiful deck that they're gonna talk about us through this morning. Caleb is going to share the deck and I'm hoping we have five or maybe even 10 minutes left for questions at the end. Since I know this is a topic that everybody has tons of questions about shipping is really, I think one of the most difficult parts of our job. And so I hope that we can really
Peter Spalding: Figuring out exactly what you're meant to do through this through this talk today. So I will stop talking since our time is pretty limited and turn over to Travis and Samantha.
Travis Huff: Great, thank you so much, Peter. First of all, it's great to be on, on the call with you guys. We'll, we'll spend whatever time we need to at the end to answer any questions. So I know time is limited so we'll we'll get right into it maybe just by way of introduction. I'll let Salmon introduce herself. I'll introduce myself and then we will be off and running so Sam.
Samantha Taylor: Awesome. Thanks. Travis and thank you Peter. Good morning, everyone on the West Coast and everyone. Good afternoon. Good afternoon to everyone on the East Coast, as well as Travis'. My name is Samantha Taylor, and I'm a sales account director over at Freight Club. We've been working together with the Daniel House team. Oh, gosh. I think, since 2021, and we've really built a special relationship and partnership with Daniel House and I'm sure as, you know, on their website, it truly is a curated one-stop shop for sourcing product, buying product, and most importantly making sure that that product is getting delivered safe and sound to your own customers. So we have worked very hard together in putting that process together and that's what we're going to talk a little bit about today with you all in greater details. So with that Travis, I'll pass it over to you.
Travis Huff: Great. You can go to the next slide and I'll kind of do my intro into this but so my name's Travis Huff, VP of sales at Freight Club. My background is actually, I spent the last eight years building, the B2B sales teams at Wayfair. And so one of the, the largest teams I had a Wayfair, were the trade teams where we specifically worked with interior designers. And so have a lot of knowledge was trained up by the interior designer space that we worked with. And so, you know, with that said, I think one of the things that we understand about your world is that we really recognize the importance of reputation in in your space. And so the things that we're building to support interior designers in in that space are very important to
00:30:00
Travis Huff: Us and we want to make sure that anything that we do from a freight and logistics standpoint meets, your needs meets the needs of your clients. So, one of the things that I ran into all the time, it wayfair was, if something went wrong on a delivery or shipment, regardless of how that got there, whether it was a third party shipper, the original shipper, we sent it with client, didn't care who the shipping company was, all that they cared was that we were the ones that provided it and provided the experience for them. So um I'm very key into that we're building a lot of things for your space specifically. So we're really excited to be on the call with you and we'll we'll be glad to answer any questions at the end. So why don't we just hop into it Sam and take it away?
Samantha Taylor: Awesome. Thank you, Travis. So the first area that we're going to cover today is understanding the different shipping options that you've got available to you in the Daniel House, platform itself. So what we will do is we're going to go through each service level and as as I'm sure you've all seen on the website. There's three different options that you've got to choose from on any given shipment. And so we've got three service options here from curbside all the way up to White Glove. So just to give you a little bit of a brief overview on what each service level means and what is covered in each, we have a brief description here. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start off with curbside service. Now, Curbside Service is one of the most basic services that you can offer to an end customer. Now what essentially is is the driver delivering the product and leaving it on. The side of the curb, they will have a lift gate on the back of the truck, which means they will get the product from the back of the truck for you and put it on the side of the street. Nothing further is involved in that service.
Samantha Taylor: Also, it is a very basic service level. They're not going to bring it into a first dry area or anything like that. It truly is taking it off the back of the truck and putting it on the side of the road for you. And then the next level on top of that is room of choice. Now, what room of choice is going to give you is it's going to give you the exact same service level as curbside. But what the driver is also going to do is they're going to hold the product inside to the room of your choice of your of your selection or for the end, customers and selection. And then from there, what they're all. So going to do is they're going to unpackage it and take the debris and removal away with them for you. So there's no assembly in it. They're purely taking the product inside taking the rubbish away. And that is the end of that delivery service level for room of choice. And then, lastly, we've got white glove. Now, what we are finding are specially in the furniture and design space I think as of last year as an organization, we moved over
Samantha Taylor: Hundred and seventy six thousand shipments all across the states last year. And 80% of those shipments that we delivered were either room of choice or white glove. And so all of the customers that we work with are either in the furnishings or design space and we are finding that 80% of the time they are either choosing these two top service levels. So it's incredibly important. You understand what they mean and what's going to give your own customer the best experience and realistically, especially when buying and shipping high-end product, we always highly recommend white glove,
Samantha Taylor: And the reason why we do is white glove is going to obviously encompass curbside room of choice in everything that's entitled in both of those. But it's also going to give you an extra element and what that element is is light assembly. So, in the event, you're purchasing a stunning product from Daniel House and it, you know it needs a bit of assembly in the home. For example, White glove is going to be a really good option for your own consumer because our drivers are specialists in white glove. They hand load and unload, everything by hand. There's no machines involved and what they're going to do for you is they're going to bring it into whatever room you like, unpack it on side as well, and they're also going to assemble it. But something really important to note here, when when assembly is included, is that it's only including light assembly. So it's only going to cover 30 minutes of assembly time. So it's really great for products that are essentially, you know, for the most part fully assembled where you might need to screw in some legs or put a tabletop together. It's not
Samantha Taylor: Art design for your IKEA flat pack furniture by any means. It's really designed for high-end products where very minimal assembly is required and as you can see here, we've got that. It's best suited for furniture. It's also really well designed at items that are, you know, have glass in them or marbles as well. Anything that has glass or marble, we can't emphasize enough help important. It is to book by white glove to ensure that your products arrived safely without damage. So with that being said, I'll get you to move a slide over, please Caleb.
00:35:00
Samantha Taylor: And then the second part of it is receiving a shipment. So we've obviously just covered all the three different service levels that Daniel House offer. But what happens when that shipment gets to the end, consumers home, or your facility in particular? Now, some of you may or may not have heard of what a proof of delivery is or a pod. Now, what a pod is it's essentially a document that the driver will get you to sign on site of receiving of the product either yourself or your own customer. And what's so important about this document is it's essentially a proof of making sure that it was arrived in one piece that there was no damage. That there is no issues and if this does not get signed, it can cause massive issues for the end customer experience and yourselves as a designer as well. So what I'm going to do over the next slide is I'm going to show you what a pod looks like. What an acceptable one looks like and what a non-acceptable one looks like. So you can see here, we've got an example.
Samantha Taylor: The carrier called Estes and this is what we would call an approved pod. And then on the right side, this is not an approved pod. And the reason why on this side it is approved is because every single time and a receiver receives a shipment, it is highly important that they either sign up making sure that everything's arrived in good order and more importantly, if it hasn't and you can see damage whether it is external on the box or your or internally it's imperative that you also note down what you're seeing in the event, there's a damage because that's going to have to be reconciled after the fact and if you're not notating this information down and you go back to Daniel House and say, Yep, we signed for it in good order but it's actually damaged
Samantha Taylor: There's no sense of liability here and what that's going to mean is that in the event that there is the damage, it's going to be very hard to get any sort of resolution for you. That's going to be favorable if you have signed for that pod and good order when it was not, in fact in good order. So we do have examples here side by side where you can see on this one, the end receiver has noted that they received two boxes with holes possible damage. And so they've signed for that. And that's a really great thing, because they're letting them know that yet we've received the item, but there's potential for damage here. And then on what
Robert Fodor: And just real quick, I just want to stress this point so much because and I know you just did remarkably well, but I see this daily with things, and if we don't have a pod that does not have something indicated on it, it is. Extremely hard. And I know Samantha just said this, but I just want to stress this point. It's extremely hard for us to go back to freight club, and especially, go back to the vendor to say that an item is damaged, so or has possible damage. I think it's very important. This one is a great example because it says Well you know what, we don't know if the item is damaged but there's two holes in the box so there might be damage. Who knows? And that just covers you in the event that when it is uncovered and there is an issue that we have more force to go back and say, Hey this is probably the reason why so thank you.
Samantha Taylor: No, thank you.
Travis Huff: Yeah, not just I'll just add Maybe I can do that.
Samantha Taylor: That was a great help.
Travis Huff: Thank thank you for that. Robert. One of the things that that we take very seriously and in the way that we look at our role in this space is that we apply a lot of downward pressure on the carriers who are applying a lot of upward pressure on on you. And so anything that you can do to help us in supporting that makes our job extremely easy, or easy year to deal with. I wouldn't say the carriers are necessarily just easy to work with. So, very, very good point mate. So, it definitely does help us do a better job on your behalf.
Robert Fodor: Yeah, and I don't want this to sound like a love fest between Freight Club and Daniel House Club, but it is one of the reasons why we worked with freight club and we know that you do apply that pressure and that is something that you know is extremely important and to know that you guys have our backs and our clients backs is extremely important. So thank you.
Samantha Taylor: Awesome. Thank you Robert. And we'll go to the next slide. And realistically. This is the last slide of the presentation actually and what we've compiled here is generally some frequently asked questions that we get from a lot of our clients. So this is directly after the pod. So what should you do if there is damage? Why should you review for damage immediately upon delivery? And when can the end customer or receiver refuse? So, just to give you a bit of a recap on each, what should you do? If there is damage, if you sign that pod and you can see that there's only superficial damage like that, previous example, you still take the freight, you don't send it away, you accept it. You note down on that pod, what the issue is but you keep it on hand.
00:40:00
Samantha Taylor: So, once you open up the box, especially if you haven't booked a white glove service, once you look inside and note that is the product, okay? Or is isn't it? That's when you then take your next steps forward. So in the event that you open up the box and you do find, there's a situation where the product is damaged, These are going to be the best practices and steps for you to follow. So if there is damage, it's important to make sure that you noted on the proof of delivery, take pictures of the damaged packaging prior to opening. So,
Samantha Taylor: What this means is exactly like what we said before, if you're seeing some out of superficial damage, make sure you take photos and then same thing. As soon as you open up the box. If you note that there's damage on the top, take photos every step of the way as you unpackage that package in your home and then once open take additional pictures of the damage product. We cannot stress this enough more photos. The better in the case that there is the damage because this is the first thing that the carriers are going to ask for. So in addition to having that POD signed having legible, clear photos of where the damage is, is incredibly important and will improve your success rate tenfold by providing this information to us so that we can fight on your behalf to get either money back return. Whatever, the case is based on the on the want that you have at the time,
Samantha Taylor: Now, why should we review for damage immediately upon delivery? The reason why you need to do this. A lot of the time is because if we don't notate damage in the first 24 to 48 hours, it is very hard to prove after the fact where that damage actually occurred. So again for best practices whether it's yourselves receiving product or it's going to your end, customers directly. Always try to get into the habit of educating your customers as soon as that package is delivered. Make sure they view it. No tanning damage inside or outside of the carton so that we can obviously get on top of it right away for you. Because if it's after 24 48 hours, too much time has passed in the carriers don't have to do anything about it for you. So that's why it's imperative that. As soon as that product is received, it is inspected right away. Okay.
Robert Fodor: I just want to add something here Samantha, because a lot of our designers have items shipped to a job site. And, and…
Samantha Taylor: Right.
Robert Fodor: they may not have access to it. This is also where it's extremely in critical to potentially, think about utilizing a receiver because receivers will actually inspect pieces upon delivery and if you know that you're doing a single install date and you have, you know, 15, 20 pieces. It's really imperative that you work with the receiver unless you're planning to be on the job site and inspecting it within as Samantha, you know, stated within 48 hours to note that there's any damage or not. So yeah.
Samantha Taylor: Perfect. And then lastly, when can you refuse a shipment? So for cargo claims, it's best to accept the freight on site. Unless it's been just unless it has been destroyed without the ability to repair. So, essentially what that means is,
Samantha Taylor: Especially if it's going to a job site. If something's been delivered and it's clear as day that that card and has been smashed. Beyond all repair. That would be the only time you would refuse. The, the freight, for that particular reason, because there's no chance. It's going to get repaired or anything like that. But in majority of cases, even if there is damage, whether it be superficial on the outer garden or you notice, you know after the fact that it's been damaged once you unpack, it always receive the freight and note down on the pod that there's damage sided and the reason why we say to accept a damage shipment and and that may seem a little bit weird to actually want to accept a damage shipment. That the reason why we recommend you do that is because until this has been reconciled. If you send it back and refuse the shipment, there can be issues down the line for you, which can be very costly. You can start paying additional freight fees because you've obviously you've told the driver to take it away and they're going to charge for that process as well. So it's very important that
Samantha Taylor: You tell your end customers, you're receiving agents, whoever it's going to be that. They should always accept the goods at the contact of their place of purchase and go back to Daniel House to obviously discuss the resolution for that particular shipment. So it's always going to be a case-by-case basis that best practice is to accept the freight unless it's been destroyed beyond repair. So that's our advice on that and then with the last piece on that each place of purchase. So wherever you're buying from, they have their own criteria for refusal. The above advice does not override those instructions. So you know, if you are buying from Daniel House they may have something on their website that they have when damages occur. So always refer to them as well as to what services they're going to be offering for you in the event. There is a, you know, a damage a loss, whatever the case is going to be
00:45:00
Caleb Iorg: And I can just jump in to say that we do work with great club and follow those same best practices. So, what you'll see from Daniel House, is this the same guideline that in general? Unless it's completely destroyed, it is best to accept it. And what I've seen, by the way, if I haven't met any of you yet, I'm Caleb. My manage, our operations team and oversee have our claims and damage process. And what I see most often is carriers really struggle to manage and handle products that have been refused. And so it is often very, very difficult to get them to
Caleb Iorg: Provide additional photos or do anything that we might need to fully process. The claim they lose items. Like I don't want to just bad enough carriers, They have a lot that they're doing and they do a lot very well, but handling reverse logistics, which is like taking items. Back is one area that can cause a lot of delays. And so we have found that claims where it is accepted and then we're processing it from there. Our resolved a lot faster than when it's refused so it really does lead to a faster resolution when you have a little more control and we can work with you to get it resolved and we'll still if it needs to be picked up and taken away will arrange for that, you know, pick up to happen. So we don't leave you out in the cold, but that is something that we recommend to save time and solve that claim faster.
Samantha Taylor: Awesome. Thank you very much for that. Caleb. And I think we are at the end of our presentation and I do believe I've gone a little bit over time, so I do apologize. We can leave the last 10 for any Q&A that anyone might have
Robert Fodor: Yeah, please remember to unmute if you have questions, but this is the time to ask questions about shipping, we have our experts here. So feel free. I'll also be checking the messaging on Google Meet as well so if you want to type your question, feel free.
Mary Pat Mansfield: I have a question. I'm Mary Pat Mansfield, I'm a relative new member of Dan with Daniel House and have just placed my first order but I find a lot of my projects are actually in places where people have second homes and so if and when oftentimes there aren't receivers in these places so they're shipping directly to job site. But if I were to find something that was damaged in obviously didn't refuse it. It sometimes it's challenging because nobody's even at the house. So Is, Does it ever happen? Where, you know, I could give instructions for going into the home or a code to the garage where they could just pick something up. And now that's kind of unusual.
Samantha Taylor: Yeah, to be honest, that's that's a very unique question. I must say, I'm generally what happens, especially because we do specialize in shipping to the end consumer's home. Our drivers will always contact the end customer because someone has to be there to receive the product because if they're not there to receive the product, what we were talking about before, Mary Pat in reference to liability, and making sure that that shipment is signed for in good condition. If nobody, is there to receive it and and on the flip side to pick up a damaged item, there's no there's no liability anywhere.
Mary Pat Mansfield: Frame right.
Samantha Taylor: So we do highly recommend as a best practice, whether it's outbound or inbound freight for a return, someone always has to be there to sign for it and make sure it's obviously either getting delivered or taken away in in a safe and obviously, you know, not that mentioned environment if need be
Mary Pat Mansfield: Yeah. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. I just wondered if there were any workarounds because sometimes I end up faced with stuff like that.
Samantha Taylor: Yeah, yeah, unfortunately not. And, and if a driver was to leave something, for example, say you've got a customer, you're designing their beach, home, or whatever the case might be. And, you know, they've just bought from you a really expensive product, think of it from this, from this lens. If they've just spent thousands of dollars on one item and a drive and you've booked at curbside, for example, in the drive is just left it on the side of the road. And your end, customer didn't sign for it and it starts raining something as simple as a weather. but,
Mary Pat Mansfield: Yeah. Yeah. No. I I get it. I get it. Usually I'm pretty, I'm accountable that way, but But I'd ask.
Samantha Taylor: Yeah. No worries.
Mary Pat Mansfield: So yeah.
Samantha Taylor: Yep, great question though. Thank you.
Robert Fodor: Thanks Mary Pat. Well, we have a question. From somebody who typed in, How do you determine pricing for the white glove service? I'm finding that using a receiver directly is usually much cheaper. I think I can answer that question. Caleb, you can feel free to chime in as well, but we determine pricing. It's a flat fee actually that we offer for both room of choice and white. Glove room of choice is a $99 upgrade and white glove is a hundred ninety nine dollar upgrade from our flat shipping fee, which is 15% of the cart value. So if you can find a receiver that's cheaper than that, then I would say go with them because the service that they offer is immeasurable if nobody's going to be there to accept delivery of an item or if you just simply don't have the time to do it.
00:50:00
Caleb Iorg: And I would just add one clarification to that pricing.
Samantha Taylor: Yeah.
Caleb Iorg: That fee is per vendor in your cart. So as you guys understand with working with Daniel House, Club, one of the benefits of working with us is that you can check out in one simple checkout and have 20 items from 10 different vendors and you just place one easy, you know, order online and that saves you. A lot of time from a shipping scan point. Those vendors are eat, are all shipping directly and so that service fee is on. We look at the number of vendors represented in your order, and that fee is applied on a per vendor basis. And so if you're buying items from one vendor that fee is gonna be a lot, less. Your total shipping is going to be a lot less than if you do have a lot of vendors and that just reflects the cost of each of those shipments shipping like love and the number of shipments that will happen with your order. And so, that's where you might find. It's better to use a receiver, if you're buying from lots of different vendors at one time, but if you're buying from one, vendor you may find that
Caleb Iorg: Prices is better in that standpoint to just do it directly.
Samantha Taylor: And what I will add to that.
Robert Fodor: Yeah.
Samantha Taylor: If I may just for Rebekah's question, is that as well. When, when we're talking about white glove white, glove can mean different things to different carriers and they can all have different descriptions of what their white glove covers. So that's something really important to note as well is that you may think you might be getting a white glove service but it may be limited or they might only do a certain thing. So it's really important to understand that when you are evaluating white, glove carriers to understand what each are including because there are some that will not include assembly or that will be an additional charge after the fact, for example, which can be incredibly costly. Because when you're doing white glove light assembly, the what happens, a lot of the time is the carriers will charge you in 15 minute increments at a very, very high rate. So, for example, with Daniel House, if you're booking white glove on their site, you know, that there's 30 minutes included in that, 199 flat fee, which as
Samantha Taylor: Bit steady. If you can get it cheaper elsewhere, then you know, hats off to because we know for a fact that out there in the market white glove, carriers charge a lot more than that for their white glove deliveries. And so this is sometimes, we can get caught out in some instances, where a carrier might tell you. Oh yeah, we can deliver this for you, white glove for $300, but then it doesn't include assembly. And so, if that assembly goes over that 1530, you know, 40 minutes, whatever the case may be, you're going to be hit with the secondary charge, which could equate 200 of dollars after the fact that you didn't account for a budget for. So that's just something else that I wanted to point out as well.
Robert Fodor: Yeah, and leveraging off of that, as well, for those who weren't here for the training portion of this webinar, I just want to mention that white glove delivery does include assembly. However, it does not include installation. And I always use the example of shelving wall shelving. They will, the wall shelving together for you. However, they are not going to install it on a wall. That is the, you know, the reason why you have installers to do things. So that's a big distinction between assemblage and then installing We have another question from somebody who typed into the chat? Do I use curbside? If I want to ship to a receiver, Does the receiver have an opportunity to to inspect the shipment?
Caleb Iorg: Yeah, great question. So that curb standard curbside service is also the commercial service. And so when you see on Daniel House when you're checking out, it'll say commercial slash residential curbside. And so if it is going to a commercial receiver, that is the service to choose they'll deliver it, and the receiver will be able to inspect that as it arrives, it'll be delivered to the receiver's dock. They will actually deliver it in, you know, to their their receiving doc. So that, that service covers kind of either or the commercial or residential curbside.
Robert Fodor: Great.
Samantha Taylor: And almost at time are there any last minute questions?
Robert Fodor: One question from From Somebody on Chat, I'm in Canada, any issues there. No, we love our Canadian clients. We have quite a few Canadian clients. Actually, there are no issues there. The only thing that I have seen come up recently, and this
00:55:00
Robert Fodor: Unfortunately has not much to do with Daniel House or with Freight Club is that sometimes you will receive requests to pay the brokerage and duties and customs fees directly. We can't tell you enough. How many times we have told our vendors to not do this. And please let us know. We work with a customs brokerage firm called Border Buddy. Freight Club is extremely familiar with them. And all of those fees are to be paid by Daniel House, not by you, it is included in the fees that you pay when you place your order. So, if you ever have a situation where someone is,
Robert Fodor: You know, asking you to pay a customs or broker retreat, please reach out to our concierge team and we will reach out to them directly to make sure that there's no delay and also that you do not pay for those fees directly. If for whatever reason, these items are going to an end client, your client doesn't know that they end up paying the fees, just send an email to our concierge team and we'll happily refund those dollars to you.
Peter Spalding: Um, okay. I am. Did anyone see a question that I've missed? Or.
Robert Fodor: I don't know the There was only one other question…
Peter Spalding: Okay.
Robert Fodor: which got here a little bit. Is this being recorded and shared? Yes, this session is being recorded. We actually are starting to record all of our training sessions and all of our webinars moving forward. And we will send out a notification where they will be archived as well.
Peter Spalding: Um and I just wanted to finalize by saying, There's been a lot of mention of receivership as being critical, We have been batting around the idea for our next training session and it may very well be discussion about actually using receiver as somebody who has done a lot of design projects myself some with without receivers and some with receivers, I can say that the cost associated with a receiver is always worth it. Not only in terms of receiving things, really smoothly and dealing with any issues that arise but also keeping things out of immediate visibility of the client, when they go wrong. And that way you're not sort of running around with your hair on fire. So we do really encourage the use of receivers
Peter Spalding: Thank you guys all for joining us this morning. If you have a question that you think of after the meeting, please email the concierge, we would be happy to get that question answered for you. We always want to partner with you in whatever way we can to make sure that you are experiencing the best possible service. We love that you're shopping with us and we're here for you. So, thanks very much.
Robert Fodor: And thanks to Freight Club, Samantha and Travis, we really appreciate it and it was a great presentation. I hope people learned a lot and we will see you next month. At the end of May, the last Thursday of the month at noon Eastern 9. AM Pacific.
Samantha Taylor: Or something everyone.
Travis Huff: Thanks guys.
Samantha Taylor: Have a great day. Take.
Robert Fodor: Thank you. Take care everybody.
Caleb Iorg: Thanks, everybody. Take care.
Meeting ended after 01:19:02 👋
