Rethinking Logistics in a World of Uncertainty with Rajeeb Mohapatra

And when you’re starting a startup, first thing is um a lot of
people say that build it and they’re going to come.I’m a I’m a from a
different kind of genre saying that. Don’t build it untilyou know they’re
going to come. Welcome to the Know Your Ship podcastpresented by E-Hub. I’m
your host Frank Golce.Well, thanks for being here. Absolutely. Rajib Moapra.
If I say that incorrectly,please correct me. Moapatra. Moapatra. And you
know, I noticed in the spelling there’s that extra a in there.And so I didn’t
know if it was if you say it or not. So Moapatra.Okay. Very good. Perfect.
Well, I don’t know if it’s perfect, but with redefined logistics, you know,
uh,and and this is a company that you started. Did you start this on your
own? This is my own. Yeah. That’s exciting. So I’ve been instartups in in my
past life been entrepreneurial my entire life always atthe same time I worked
with bigger corporations. Yeah. And um always wanted to have somethingof my
own that I that I I run it I build it. I run it. Mhm. And that’s my nature
being a problemsolver being a builder. So this is this is this is the thing
that it’s bootstrapped ground up.And so how do you feel now? How how long are
you have you been into Redefined andand since this was your dream, how are
how are you feeling now? Are you feeling like yeah, I made the right
decision?Um 19 months into it, right? So this is August. So we started um
beginning of uh2024. Mhm. Um first question is how do I feel? I feelgreat. I
feel fantastic to be brutally. I’m I’m not making it up. Uh uh having said
that yes there are days when youwhen you go to bed thinking that what the
hell what’s what’s going on like how I meanhalf the thing that is going on is
beyond my control. Then I this is one thing I do to myself is focus on
thingsthat you can control and go to bed. That’s stoic philosophy right
there. Focus on what you can control.Just do that. Go to bed. Go to bed and
then when you get up tomorrow morning I’m sure you’ll have some answers. So
Imean again I call me this deep believer in something that there’s something
thathelps guide your thinking but you have to have the faith but my faith is
um ifyou keep worrying about things that is happening and half of them are
always going to be out of your control. Um whoknew that every country is
going to be slapped with the tariff? Mhm. Well we we we had an ideamaybe some
yeah some indication last year. Right. Right. and then exactly how it’s going
tohappen, what it means. Um because it is stillright. So the market is
realizing that right now that they’re starting to observe and some people are
panicking, some people are uncertain. So but ingeneral there’s a lot of
uncertainty, right? Um can I control it? No. But can I controlwhat it means
for the business and how do we leverage um everything that we know about
thesituation to help our clients 100%. Would it be fair to say thatlike you
said you can’t control everything? Maybe you can’t control anything but but
what you what redefinedoes for your client is provide some opportunity to
control as much of theprocess as they can. So to simplify some of that
complexity. Correct. Correct.And that that was the thesis from day one.
Right. So um as we even before this whole tarifftri tariff confusion and all
those things uncertainty happened the idea for redefined was about if you are
a D2Cbrand Mhm. Um 95% of time you’re going to be buyingproducts from
different parts of the world. Importation is a must. Importation laws,
provisionscan come and go, but importation is must right. So you’re bringing
things if you’re a fast fashion or the fashion orapparel or home goods, small
electronic packages, lot of those products, wedon’t produce it here. Yeah. So
and like everyone else you must be buying from China or maybe you havedone
say smart thing going to Vietnam. Maybe you have explored India or Cambodia
or Bangladesh or Turkey orPortugal like there’s multiple places where
products do come. Um but thereality is majority of people did go with China.
Uh-huh. Well, it I mean interms of cost and scale scale. Yeah. It wasI mean
it’s all there. Yeah. All there, right? I mean that happened probably 30
years back. We that didn’thappen in the last No, no, that’s exactly right. So
um anyway, so I think that that was the premise and thengoes back to how I
came with this idea of redefined logistics. As I mentioned earlier, we saw
roughly around 450million shipments just from China during co and we started
to say okay we are doinglet’s say5 to $6 for on every transaction as as pity
goes buthow big is the food chain? Yeah. Where does it start like and then
can can has anyone so we did we did a lot ofresearch and put a lot of effort
understanding the entirety of food chain and to understand what’s the value
of that food chain to see what would ittake to go after this food chain. Mhm.
I mean there’s definitely a lot ofinterest um within the company to do that
but bootstrapping another business during COVID next to impossibleespecially
when your own parcel sitation is overflowing with volume that you first you
need to pay attention to that.Mhm. Um but anyway that kind of stayed with me
and great learning experience rightso uh part of the research part of
understanding who are the players and what are the components and how do
youwhat does it take to stitch it together. Um so I left uh Q3 towards end of
tailend of Q3 of um 22 to kind of start thisum you plan something but you
land somewhere else. Oh, I ran into anotheropportunity. I ran into a company
called Queens and I’m sure you have heard about them.Yes. And this is a great
story. Um, yeah. Loved the kind of conversation with umwith the CEO um then
he was looking for a head of supply chain and logistics to come in and build
this truly build thisthing called direct manufacturer to consumer model. And
then if we really can figure out a way to bring inventoryfrom the
manufacturer and manage it offshore where the manufacturers are and then
manage entirety of logisticsoperations from there just ship directly to end
consumers in the US and by the way they just they are just in US.Mhm. Um um
there is obviously a lot of scale there and um the challengestypical
challenges around managing inventory, managing um fulfillment andthen
triaging how cost effectively you do delivery or distribution in the country.
There’s lot of math there butthen has to be done in a very organized and
orchestrated way. Mhm. Um kind of what I was thinking. I saidokay good good
opportunity to apply to test your to test your thesis. Absolutely. Yeah.
Absolutely. So theyhad I mean they had some operations very peace meal there
was one 3PL veryblackbox doing something for them zero transparency into
SLA’s cost umoperations and uh what was being promised to the end consumers
versuswhat was happening was completely east and west completely different.
So uh obviously first thing is for me to comein throw that out of the window.
Mhm. Took my time because I had I couldn’t Icouldn’t jeopardize the business
but figure out if I have to do it in a clean slate model how would I do
it?Mhm. And had the right kind of pull in some of the right people together.
UmI mean the the stats I remember when I walked in umP95 95% of the volume
were getting distributed to end consumers in 18 days.By the time I left P95
was 8 days. P95 average was um around 7 6.5 to 7days and um and then we
brought it down to close to 5 and a half days over theperiod of time right um
and then cost point of view there are 550 basis pointsof cost savings. So I
mean with some of thoseum kind of results etc my heart was I didn’t leave
Pitney Post to come workfor another no no offense no offense um I mean that
conversation honestly wasnot an easy conversation with uh with the CEO saying
that listen I I need to go do what I want to do. Well, he he orshe probably
saw the un unbelievable growth. I mean,I think that’s part of the story is
unbelievable growth during your time with Quint. Absolutely. And so, I mean,
he doesn’t want to losethat guy. So, I mean, it it is kind of a interesting
conversation. I mean, thereis always this ask and need for how do we go down
further? How do you go down further? Right? So, I mean, if I’mrunning the
business, I would do the same thing as well, right? So, there is no stopping.
If I can every bit of basispoint I can squeeze out of my margin or cost I I’m
I’m going to do it. So andabsolutely we have started kind of going in that
direction. Obviously a lot more need to need needed to be done on
thetechnology because my focus was let’s get the service components lined up
andwith whatever technology we can build along the way but um I probably
could have should have um if I had the timewould have done a lot more but
anyway I mean overall what I really appreciatedis um got the opportunity to
prove my thesis got the opportunity to see whatworks what does not work and
how do we kind of tweaked tweak it along the way and create that end to- end
experience.I’m I mean for me that was um I put my 18 hours a day build it and
the companyabsolutely benefits from it. As long as they keep it, don’t break
it, they’re going to be good. Mhm.They they continue on that path.
Absolutely. So you put in the foundationin place and they’re the conquences
continuing continuing on that. Are they are they okay so are they static or
oror are they continually improving and yeah and growing from thepoint you
left it? Um when I left the valuation wassomewhere between 400 to 500
million. Mhm. Valuation is $4.5 billion today.and the category of products
they have added and the sourcing locations they have expanded umprobably 10x
year over year since then. Yeah. Um I mean I don’t I mean private
companydon’t know the exact revenue um pretty confident way more than a
billiondollar business. Wow. From a revenue point of view um and they
continue investors love them. I meanthey just raised another 200 million
dollars. Um almost 650 millionthey have raised so far. Uh very successful
company, very successful due to story. Andum I carried personally like every
time people when I’m talking to brands in part of redefined and they ask um
howdo I know this works? I said buy from queens.com.Buy from Queens. If you
if you are in New York, more than likely you will get the pointthat you click
your check out button point to the po and the point that you receive your order
probably 4 to 5 days.Wow, that’s amazing. So uh so and then that entirety
like every retailer says that our fulfillment is around you know48 to
whatever 60 hours then another 3 days to deliver but here quins is doingit
squeezing it all down into four to 5 days from click to porch. Yeah. So
yeah,so that’s kind of what I brought in um to to redefinebut few things I
was extremely extremely kind of uh my conviction was I know whatworks but
there are few things that can be done differently and better. Mhm. Uh one was
at that point this evolutionof lot of um agentic AI was still new right 18
months back um I mean there isa lot more about gen AI everyone was talking
about that my take was lot of the decision modeling lot of thesimulations lot
of kind of what ifing designing of network designing of inventory
forecastingum designing um of how inventory is going to be placed in where in
how muchin what succession Europe all those complexities in global global
supply chain um we got to solve it throughtechnology can’t be peoplecentric
that was my number one rule and as I kind ofstarted the company f I mean
first thing I wanted to make sure is we have theright technology staff I
understood how to do it I mean uh I got help with uhanother ex-colague she
came over as a CPO um over the took me a little bit ofconvincing took me 6
months to get her on board but then she did I had a greatum co-founder also
who is solid on operations that I didn’t have toyou know run the sales and
the strategy but also worry about the operations someone so that kind of
synergy workedout great for us and then and then the thing was let’s start
building things let’s go through around of validation so first 6 months all
we did was uh speak with uhdifferent brands and then showcase or idea
solution or whatever solution was ready and then showcase the end to-endmodel
focus more on what’s in it for them. Yeah. Right. So, and the idea was we
should beable to bring you at least 25% cost savings on your cost to solve on
yourhow you cost to how you serve your customers. That’s number one. Mhm. And
there has to be at least 2x to3x cash flow benefit if you transition into
into this kind ofmodel. So that and then we did a ton of ton of umactual
prototyping showcasing give us the PL give us give us your catalog let us
pull it togetherlet us show you how it works etc. Um I would saynine out of
10 conversations on on an average was love to do this. Let’s go.Let’s go.
Let’s figure it out. Let’s figure it out. And so which is towards the second
quarter then we kind oframped up saying that okay let’s build the
technologies. Let’s start talking to brands. Um and there comes Johnand here
comes John. So here comes John. Right. uh uh help day and um when you speak
with him we’lltell you our our interesting prospecting story uh from last
parcel forum. I youshould ask him that question. I I I will I I’ll ask him.
So we’re talking of John John Eisenhank who’s uh I mean maybe under
undercoverhe’s kind of an industry legend. Absolutely. An enterprise sales
industry legend.John Eisenhank. Absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah. So I mean it
worked out great. the all of byend of 2024 fantastic pipeline three of the
clients ready to sign after peak obviouslyunfortunately January February lot
started happening that created a lot ofbigger questions beyond redefined
right bigger questions like what’s our path like where do we go what it
meansfor us the main question everyone asks is what we don’t know what it
means for us right so um Andagain going back to your all your question how do
you feel about founding a startup right I continue to feel greatbut there are
days where you see okay what’s next right like I’m sure everypart every
founder thinks that way Mhm. UmI I happen to have great mentors, friends and
um I I tend to put myquestions out to get people’s feedback and then uh so
that I’m not doing I’m not spinning inmy own head all the time like so that’s
that’s kind of how I keep myself grounded to be honest. I’m very gratefulfor
that. Um and as we kind of looked into think that idea was we have toobserve
everything that is going on patiently and part of the observation is also
understanding recalibratingwhere the brands are still suffering and and which
of those problems areperpetual irrespective of what’s happening right now.
And of course the wholeyou know tariff and trade scenario probably create the
added more complexity to tothe challenges but um let’s let’s kind of hone in
into thoseareas and see if we can help and then by the way we don’t we shouldn’t
start from scratch. We have a plenty we have plentyof assets. How do we
repackage? How do we kind of reposition it but still help right? Yeah, sure.
You may we may not beable to do fulfillment, let’s say, in Hong Kong anymore
because Hong Kong is super super expensive.Mhm. Um, from a from a t point of
view, but uh you still need to bring those products in. And by the way, you
can’tdo duty-free shipment from Hong Kong anymore. That thing is gone. Mhm.
by May that was announced is gone. Andthen the rest of the world gone by in
10 in 15 days, right? So fine, that’shappening. But as I said importation
laws and provisions are going are going to come and go but importation is
amust. So figure out how we are going to so we very quickly pivoted. Uh what hasevolved
as the best success story is the technology wehave created that helps before
even you do anything figuring out what is in itfor me. What do I need to
think about? How do I think about my sourcing anymore? How do I think about
myinventory planning anymore? Yeah. And um how do we how do I redesign my
network or someone has to redesign thenetwork for me, right? Lot of that we
have some fantastic AI agents that andthat’s proprietary 100% proprietary to
us. Um that’s eye opening. Yeah.Right. So that to me that takes the burden
away answering the question aboutI need to know what’s in it for me, where do
I go and then how do I start? Mhm. That’s that’s that’s the first thingwhen I
started talking to people again March, April because I had to waitunderstand
what’s happening between Janu January to March. That was the thing like I
don’t knowwhere to start. Can you help? Right. So we came back and so we
introduced a new agent calledtariff triage. Mhm. Um if you have been buying
from China, youare very comfortable buying from China because you have known
the manufacturers. They created things to your design. Mhm. Jewel brand
verylikely white labelled for you. Um but now what used to cost me 10 bucks
as anexample as a cost of the product now it’s going to cost me at one point
it was it was going to cost me $26.50 ifyou remember 165%. came down, right?
Then if you add up stack up all the different tariffs, it’s probably goingto
cost me by May or June, it became, okay, it’s probably going to cost me $15.50.$5
straight up out of my gross margin. That’s a lot. What are my choices?So, we
created this model called dire triage. You can have a conversation with the
agent or you can say that here is mycatalog. take my catalog and then
recalibrate or here is here are my top five uhfastest selling or highest
selling SKS or or I want to bring in anothercategory men’s um fleece jacket
or something like that right so start with theconversation and then it starts
guides you to say that um is it knitted is itis it um cotton polyester mixed
right so all those things and then it tells you okay I think you’re tariff
code is goingto be this. By the way, um do you want me to just show you
options around the different parts of the world? Then itcomes up with a
comparison, right? Mhm. That happens within minutes. Yeah.And it used to take
days more than it’s not about the days or or or weeks. It’s about if you’re
abrand that’s not your forte. You are bringing a consultant to do that for
you. Absolutely. and days and well there’sprobably the the time aspect of it
but then also the accuracy accuracy yof it of making those that’s the most
important of making those decisions. So, okay. So, I have a lot of questions
following upthis segment. Yep. One is uh Okay. So, the is it is thegenesis of
redefined from your days at Pittney, is that where you startedcoming up with
this concept? I would say so. I’d say I mean up until Pittney lion share of
my focus wasdomestic e-commerce. Uhhuh. And retail. Um and I started getting
into prior to coming to Pitney, I was atuh Office Depot. I I run their B2B
e-commerce um for US and Canada. Uh butagain in the context of domestic,
right? So not so much shipping from US to some other country etc. And I came
intoPitney to run the crossber business or crossber products and strategy
etc. Umyeah I mean I would I would definitely say the genesis of
understanding the crossber world global global trade etcand the explosion
right in the pandemic and added up yeah a whole those things okay so that’s
interesting you also mentionedthat you should be able to find I think you
said 20 to 25% cost savings and okaywhere where are you finding those savings
like in which areas of thebusiness are you finding opportunities for savings
Yeah, I mean thebefore I mean there is a there is a prefeebruary story and
there is a postFebruary I say but then the numbers don’t change by the way I
mean before last all of last year whenthis whole provision was available
called dimminimus if you’re if you’re shipping if you’re if you’re shipping
aorder that is less than $8 $800 I think you’re in on your on your LinkedIn
profile it says dimminimus restin peace I think he or something like that
that I like people are writing a lot about it. I said what I mean I’m Idon’t
think I’m going to add anything new. All I had to sing is that rest in peace.
Rest in peace. Yeah. Rest in peace.Yeah. Um yeah. Funny. Thank you. Yo, you
noticed.Um so yeah I mean that itself was helping on the full cost basis that
wasdefinitely contributing the whole thing and that that’s gone right so
there’sswitch today uh where do you find those savings so here is where I see
right umI kind of broadly put them into three different categories one is
this wholeaspect of um supplier diversification squeeze right um or explosion
howhowever you call it um you have been working with um someonein China now
that’s 55% may come down to 30% may go up who knows I mean like butthen what
are your alternatives and if you do it on your own by the way I mean transitions
are not easy through thetransitions you’re going to lose at least 10 to 15%
during the transition period but more importantly getting intoa point where
quality of the products are exactly same it’s not going to be day oneright so
and that’s that’s that and by the way if I just average out thetariffs
roughly you’re going to pay 25% moreright and that kind of falls into the
financial aspect of it 25% more and ifyou keep doing the traditional way of
you’re going to launch certain categories in February and then do
yourplanning in January and then load up the containers or first do the
testing andthen by April you know what you want load your containers um load
up and then that whole thing you’re bringinginventory for the next 6 to 9
months typically they build 30 to 30 to 40% umsafety every time that’s a
traditional just in case inventory planningwhat happens if you don’t sell
there is a there is a slippery slope of markdownsMhm. What happens if you
don’t bring don’t have enough inventory and it the category turns out to be a
blockbuster.You have so many unhappy customers. Right. Right. If you start
adding it up percentage by percentage just for a umjust the inventory
component itself they uh for a 50 the uh generalbenchmark I would give is $50
million um AR D2C brandinventory is roughly around 10 to 15% of the revenue.
Mhm. and all these challenges of cashflow and then cost of capital to manage
that much of inventory that we’re still sitting in a warehouse that you’re
notselling. If you add up those things roughly around $2 to $3 million,right?
So, um that’s one component. Then the markdowns then then the then
thecustomers that you lose and the margin flow flow through of that if you
add itthey they get into at least at least 15 to 18%. cost savings right on
the thereis there are other things so we talked about impact of tariff how do
you deal with it how do you deal deal with yourinventory your fulfillment all
those things if I’m a D2C I mean I would loveto hear someone say that you’re
wrong but the observation of all the benchmarkings we have done a
D2Cmid-market D2C dealing with 8 to 12 or 13 different suppliers suppliers
are notjust sourcing suppliers also the carriers Mhm. Right. Some of them
probably have one ortwo if they got um by UPS or FedEx or whoever. Right. I
meanthat there’s great opportunity there. Um they’re not triaging. Um just
because they had that carrier inthe past. Are there other alternatives? Mhm.
There are other cost benefits ofbreaking down saying that okay I don’t have
to keep inventory in one warehouse. I could potentially distribute intothree.
And guess what? That’s going to cut down my zones, delivery zones. Withthe
delivery zones cut down, even if the same same carrier I continue to use,
mycost per parcel is going to be my last mile cost per parcel is going to be
low. Right? That’s one thing. By the way, have you looked into howyour
carrier has been stacking up all the search charges over the period of time,
right? Let let us help you, right?Because that we have built the models
around it to say carrier A versus carrier B versus carrier C or even within
same carrier.Do you want to use the standard standard service? That’s right.
Absolutely. If 30% of your volume is within zone twoto three, don’t use
expedited. Your standard service could will meet the same SLA.That’s that’s
absolutely right. Right. So lot of that the operational complexity D2C’sum
that’s not they’re great at that. They’re great at creating products. They’re
great at marketing and selling.Mhm. This is where often the supply chain and
logistics is a back office operations.Mhm. I’ve seen it being a afterthought
and whenever they they are in margin crunch,that’s the first place to cut
down. Yeah. Right. Or they have outsourced it to a um third party or or a
drop dropshipper. Guess what? Drop shippers agenda and strategy is notyour
strategy. Yeah. or they’re not aligned with on the incentives point of view,
right? Um andthen last but not least is okay because we are having so
problems the way to solve the problems you have alwaysthrown bodies into it.
Here are all the dashboards all the data from five 15 and then go figure it
outmake sure that we are not breaking but the what is the cost of having five
full-time bodies. I’m not saying thatlet them go. But then thing is tomorrow
if you’re introducing another two categories or you’re getting into
newsegments, are you going to hire five more people? Yeah. Right. Right. So
if you look into those cost savings,it all adds up to 20 to 25%. Yeah. Well,
and for for for a DTOC likeum sometimes we walk into a situation. So, so we
talk about carrier orchestration and trying to find all ofthose efficiencies
that you’re you’re talking about at e-hub um and and a lot of times when you
walkinto a brand a dc and and you know they’re building greatproduct and they
have a really nice customer base and they’re probably making good margin and
all that stuffand it’s almost like on the shipping side if it’s working
thendon’t touch it. We don’t we don’t want to mess with it. We don’t want to
mess with it. We just want to leave it like it is. And and so,you know, some
some of the carriers can get away with making 40% of their revenue on all of
the accessorialcharges. Absolutely. Rather than just moving the package
around. Absolutely. I mean, I mean, you often see hear um if it ifit is and
if it’s not broken to fix it, right? Butlet’s let’s talk about the definition
of broken or not. What’s broken? I guess if what if I come back sayingthat by
the way quarter over quarter you have been losing 15 16%uh potential
opportunities on cost savings and um do you call that brokenor do do you call
that eh? Yeah. So yeah it’s just kind of eh right. So um right I mean that it
thisis where I mean uh yesterday spent a lot of time with the entire
leadership team.Um I have to say um I mean walking in I was asked Jean
suggested come over spendit spend some time with us right I had I had no idea
what I’m going to expect. I mean of course I did my understanding Ihave known
e e-hub sure my first reaction is um definitely there is a ifI take two
circles there’s definitely overlap but thing is together there could be a
fantasticstory absolutely right that’s that’s more than that I I truly
appreciate what the team has donein this shipping triage mhm how the advanced
thinking around it andthen how that before you make decisions on shipping
actually how do to help the brands on the fulfillment side like thatthat
connection we have done a lot of redefin has done a lot of work on that but
then um I could see the synergisticuh but the thing that is mind-blowing is
the analytics absolutely so thatadvanced analytics part and goes back to my
thesis of to help someone first youhave to make them aware of what is and
what is not and youranalytics is spot on spot on I and having those
conversation around um have you ever considerednot using this carrier for
this particular segment of the country versus another carrier who could do
better andall those are data conversations all those are intelligence and
inside conversation and that’s again a lot ofthat I carry as as a ethos of
red logisticsand uh we I mean it was less of a demo yesterday from both sides
it was more ofa it turned into what much more of a conversationand and and
helping uh customers, you know, first of all, like like redefinedcustomer
focus first, helping customers make databased decisions.Absolutely. Th those
those two things seem absolutely seem very powerful. You know,one of the
things that we we talked about a little bit is so the infrastructure likeuh
the infrastructure of China in the ability to produceuh goods at low costis
that where are there capabilities like that anywhere else in the world?So an
city’s at a gross label? Nowhere.U I to be careful. I don’t think I’m biased
about it. I’ll tell you. I’ve been I’veseen the factories. Mhm. The amount of
automation and precision of how thingsare done is it takes years and years
and years to produce. Mhm.Or replicate elsewhere. Right. Mhm. There are um
Vietnam has factories havesimilar amount of automation but very specific
categories. But if you want to go to a it’s like go to a mall where youcan
get everything that’s China. Mhm. Right. But if you want to buy but if you
want really nice running shoeyou got to whatever the running shoe store
shoes. You know what I mean? And India started picking up some of theshoes
overflow also. So I guess the question about that is if there you know if the
infrastructure is kind of in thisone place but but with the with what is
happening in the market currently do yousee that that spread of manufacturing
occurring across the across the globe?Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean I uh I’m
sure you have heard about China plus onestrategy that started three four
years back right? So lot of Chinese manufacturing also movedto Vietnam,
Cambodia. Um India has India prides on building itsown manufacturing but lot
of knowhow also came from China. Mhm. Right. Um and then each country also
isfiguring out what is our specialization. Sure. Right. So and then rather
than being great at everything, let’s begreat at certain categories and
that’s what they’re trying to do. Um, are they completely 100% going to
disintermediateChina? I don’t see that happening in the I if I’m a betting
man I would say inthe 7 to 10 years mainly because of the infrastructure
capital investment thathas been made. So, so there is opportunity though.
Absolutely there’s opportunity. Absolutely. But it’s going to take awhile. It
is going to take a while and and the change is not going away. Does thatmake
sense? You’re spot on. I mean the way I look at what just happened in the
last 6 monthsis wakeup call, right? I mean that’s the best way for me to
think about it’s in wakeup callbecause if you were thinking okay this was
like COVID happened and over this is not over.Yeah. This is if anything this
should tell doesn’t matter whether anothercountry can produce the same uh
products at the same scale at the same precisionI am better still better off
having some safety valves elsewhere. Sure. So I needto have if I’m creating
resiliency um like one of one of the tagline I wasusing for our conversation
yesterday um supply chain if you wanted to be resilient in your supply chain
the timewas yesterday but the ne the the next best time is todayright right
um so I mean if you really now we have to think about it what just
happenedcaught many people by surprise and and and you are kind of chasing
yourtail figuring out where do I go from here like what what what’s are what
are my optionsand if you don’t take actions you’ll find yourself when another
big rally upchanges happen in the next year or so right so don’t be there get
prepared sureI think historically the concept of tariffs and duties and taxes
you talked about this in a previous podcast that Ilisten to I think that’s
fascinating the thing that we should probably understand is thatduties and
taxes and ter like th those have been around for a long time, hundreds of
years, hundreds of years.I mean, you could say that duties and taxes were,
you know, the the siminalevent in the causation of the of the Revolutionary
War in America, like youknow, the stamp back and the tea tax and everything
else. So, so and and and I think you you madethis point. Other countries
around the world have been dealing with this for along time. If you’re ship,
if you’re in the United States and you’re shipping something somewhere else,
that’s just afact of life. You have to deal with Yeah. Absolutely.
Absolutely. And so now it’s reversing.Yeah. It’s reversing a little bit. It’s
reversing. Definitely. I think the concept of um as you said duties
havealways been there and the the fundamental economic principle of it is you
want to protect your own productionmanufacturing or things that you are your
great