Nick DiNatale Podcast Transcript
Nick DiNatale joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of The Digital Executive podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Nick DiNatale. Founder of ShipPlug.com, a data driven insights and proprietary software company that saves businesses time and money when it comes to their parcel shipping efforts, Nick DiNatale cut his teeth as a FedEx sales representative turned sales manager, where he managed high profile accounts totaling hundreds of millions of dollars over a 12-year span.
While working there, he identified a pain point among customers that didn’t understand the claims process or their pricing contracts, resulting in financial losses. Enter ShipPlug, which has covered 1,000,000 in refunds for late shipments and generated a total of 12,000,000 in savings for its customers in just two years.
Having seen firsthand companies go out of business due to a lack of understanding regarding their shipping costs. Nick is passionate about bringing level of transparency and clarity to the space, providing customer spare and appropriate price saving solutions in the process.
Well, good afternoon, Nick. Welcome to the show!
Nick DiNitale: Thanks, Brian. Happy to be here.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. I appreciate you making the time, you know, doing a podcast every morning, just about, it seems is always a fun thing to start off a day. So again, appreciate you making the time. And Nick, let’s jump right into your questions here. We want to get your story out there.
Could you share the story behind the inception of ship plug and what were the key challenges in the shipping industry that inspired you to start this company?
Nick DiNitale: Yeah, so when I worked at FedEx for 12 years, I got a chance to work with the smallest customers to the largest, and they all had very, very similar complaints or challenges.
So, anywhere from understanding the claims process, it seems like UPS, FedEx, they just deny every claim. Understanding how to file and recognize that shipments are late that have guarantees on it. Customers. Most times wouldn’t know that the carriers have a guarantee and if they did, they wouldn’t file it because it was hard.
And then most apparent was that people just didn’t understand their shipping cost. Our customers struggle to understand it because there’s countless surcharges every year. The price goes up, and it’s typically much more. Then the general rate increase that the carriers. Announce this year, it was 5.9.
most customers are seeing double digit increases. And there’s many surcharges, different service types, and most customers are not just shipping 1 product. So that’s why it’s truly hard for them to understand their costs. And then truthfully, knowing if they’ve gotten a fair price, we’ve seen countless examples of customers with both carriers that are in the hundreds of thousands that have a much better rate than customers in the millions.
So, you typically would think that the more you ship, the better price you get. It’s not always the case.
Brian Thomas: Wow, I didn’t know that. And I’m glad that you’re sharing that. And this information is really important for all businesses out there. And as you know, you just saw UPS had a massive layoff. Obviously, costs are going up everywhere, but appreciate the share.
That’s going to be so helpful for many folks that use shipping services. So, Nick, let’s go on to the next question here. You’ve mentioned. The complexities of freight claims and shipping costs, how does ship plug help demystify these aspects, particularly for smaller shippers who might find this process daunting?
Nick DiNitale: Well, Brian, it works for all size shippers, but we’ve automated the process. So, for we identify based on customers, standard UPS, FedEx, DHL invoices. What shipments are late once we identify that our software then goes in files for a refund on behalf of our customer, the shipper, and they get paid back by UPS or FedEx.
Then we charge, if we’re able to recoup any money, we also give feedback on why the shipment was late. So a lot of our health care customers, customers that really care about the product, want to know why it was late for the only company in the industry that gives you a reason why every single package was late.
Then, as far as the claims process, we then integrate with a lot of our customers ordering system, or we can pull the invoice to see what it was actually charged at. Then, on behalf of our shipper, we file for a claim. A claim might be a damage package, a lost package. And then if UPS or FedEx denies the claim, we’ll actually step in and engage.
To make sure that we fight for that claim, if it’s definitely due to our customer. And then again, we only charge. If we’re able to get a claim paid by the carrier directly to our customer, the shipper.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. You know, it’s really taking the customer. Experience to the next level. We had struggled me personally.
I’ve struggled with shipping lost packages, never get a refund. It’s, it’s crazy that you know, this stuff happens, but we’ve got people like you going to make the world a better place. So, I appreciate that, Nick and Nick, you bet. How does ship plug streamline the shipping process for businesses?
And what are the key features of your software that differentiate? It from other solutions in the market.
Nick DiNitale: Well, I think the biggest differentiator is, is, yes, there’s many of our competitors file for refunds file for claims. But our software doesn’t 1, 1 better on the pricing side of it. We can recognize the best price we’ve seen for a similar customer.
We’re not going to compare a 50, 000 dollar. A year shipper to a 500M dollar shipper. They’re just not in the same range. But what we are able to do is take our customers shipping data. We file for the claims we file for the refunds related shipments, but then we can also benchmark off of similar customers to point out the best price.
We’ve seen. Now, why that’s important is because it changes so many times during coven, both carriers, UPS FedEx and announce what they call peak or now demand surcharges. So, they’re able to change the price, which never happened in 10 years ago. They’re able to change the price almost on the fly. Now, they do announce it in a generic email that most people never look at.
So, our software compared to our competitors, we remember when things change. And then if we see another customer that has a better price, or we pick up a potential customer that has a better price, we’re able to use this to help our customers negotiate. Sometimes saving the millions of dollars in just a few months.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. I appreciate that. And I didn’t even know that that they could change it on a whim, but that’s so cool.
Nick DiNitale: It’s the demand surcharges.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. Great. Great to know that. So, Nick, last question of the day. What emphasis does Ship Plug place on user experience and technology in enhancing the efficiency of shipping operations, especially in the context of the current e commerce trends?
Nick DiNitale: Yeah, I think we, that is our business, right? A lot of our competitors advertise that they have X FedEx UPS pricing analyst salespeople. We have all that, but our software being dynamic that it changes. So, fast in eCommerce, if you sell on a marketplace, you can only sell on price pictures and ratings. So, keeping your cost.
With software that automatically can set you to be the lowest cost, keeping your actual cost of goods sold as low as possible really helps you sell on the marketplace without a doubt. Then, for the brands being able to offer free shipping, being able to offer international shipping at a reasonable price.
And then again, being able to enhance that customer experience with being able to offer refunds. If your shipment is late, being able to offer. Claims if that shows up damaged that all adds to the user experience of the brand. That’s more so than selling on price pictures and rating you’re selling on customer experience.
So, if you sell on the marketplace. We definitely help with price pictures and rating. We help with the price and then the strategic knowledge that we have of keeping you current in the pricing. Realm compared to your competitors that allows you to be competitive in the e commerce space. And that’s what our technology does.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. You know, I really do love this. And if you remember this, probably years ago, that was a point, ship, click kind of that mantra, that catchphrase, right? That’d be something that maybe you can work on and, and maybe take this, your, your company to the next level and have something that’s branded like that. I think that’d be awesome.
Nick DiNitale: That’s what we’re trying to do, Brian.
Brian Thomas: Awesome. Well, Nick, it was such a pleasure having you on today, and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Nick DiNitale: Thanks, Brian.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Nick DiNatale Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
