How a Shipping Option Became a High-Growth Business

It’s no secret that the state of Florida’s economy has long benefited from sun-loving Canadians looking to part with their tourist dollars.

However, for one Florida-based firm now awash in Canadian dollars, there’s been hardly a tourist in sight.

That’s because the middle-market firm known as MyUS.com is a package forwarding company that supplies a U.S. address to Canadians and other foreign nationals who shop using American retailers online.

Once items are purchased, MyUS.com of Sarasota, Florida, receives the shipped items, consolidates them into a single shipment, which it then delivers to the door of the international shopper via a carrier such as DHL or Federal Express. The Florida company will also inspect the packages to make certain that all listed items are included and even take photos of the items on behalf of the recipient.

“So if we are shipped two left shoes, we can catch it here and ship it back to the company,” explains John Wright, MyUS.com’s vice president of sales, who estimates that 75 percent of online commerce inside the United States does not provide an international shipping option. For Canadians shopping online, this can be particularly frustrating in light of the recent strength of the Canadian dollar relative to the American dollar.

“Certain countries are enjoying a huge advantage when it comes to currency, and this is really playing to our advantage with customers from Canada, Japan, or Australia,” explains Wright, who estimates that MyUS.com customers have grown from 30,000 to 250,000 since his arrival at the firm only 2½ years ago. In 2011, MyUS.com self-reported its financials as $48 million in annual revenue, up from $26 million in 2008, a 3-year growth spurt of 85 percent. While the firm hasn’t disclosed its 2012 revenues, it has reported that its workforce now numbers close to 140, up from 105 in 2011, a year-to-year jump of 33 percent.

Perhaps it was that rapid growth trajectory that led to a capital infusion last September from Palm Beach Capital, a private equity firm, and Logisticap Partners, an investment firm specializing in the logistics industry transactions. MyUS.com is now evaluating a number of acquisitions with its investment partners, according to Wright.

Meanwhile, the package forwarding business appears to be benefiting from a lack of online shopping options and inventories in other parts of the world.

“Availability of products is a big issue if you look at Amazon.com — the availability of product is seven- or tenfold what it is at Amazon JP. The demand just outpaces the supply in certain markets, so shoppers go out of the market,” explains Wright, who says that Americans tend to assume that the rest of world is as eager to buy online as they are.

“Buying online is just not something most Australians would do, and now we see that beginning to change. E-commerce is becoming one of the fastest-growing pieces of the Australian economy,” observes Wright, who says that the firm has also wisely leveraged its relationships with a number of financial services companies (VISA, American Express, and Discover) that have marketed MyUS.com’s services to the international portions of their customer lists.

“For instance we partner with American Express International, where we help them generate cross-border transactions, so we’re good for their business,” says Wright.

Meanwhile, loyal MyUS.com customers have discovered the economics behind consolidating shipments.

“If you buy a pair of pajamas on Nordstrom.com, the costs of shipping internationally alone would be as much as the pajamas,” says Wright. By helping foreign shoppers combine their purchased items into single international shipments, MyUS.com has trimmed shipping costs for foreign shoppers by an average of 80 percent, Wright estimates.

Despite the consolidation savings, MyUS.com’s output has continued to soar.

“We are now processing in the order of 20,000 packages a day. It’s just staggering,” Wright adds.