15 part 1: e-Commerce Shipping to Mexico: Opportunities & Challenges
Featuring Asendia USA guests Leslie Foxhoven, Executive Director for Latin America & the Caribbean, and Michael DiVincenzo, Product Manager, and our co-hosts discuss the opportunities available and challenges for brands and shippers eager to expand their reach into Mexico, the importance of partnering with reliable logistics providers, understanding the evolving e-commerce landscape in Mexico and adopting best practices in shipping, with multiple checkpoints and signature confirmation to enhance delivery security and key tariff considerations for 2025.
Leslie Foxhoven | LinkedIn
Leslie is responsible for designing and establishing Asendia’s best in class e-commerce network solutions to Latin America. She has over 35 years of entrepreneurial experience in the e-commerce industry while living and working in Latin America, establishing companies and networks, including linehaul, final mile delivery, return centers, customs clearance, regional sales, and bottom line results.
Michael DiVincenzo | LinkedIn
Michael is responsible for the development, performance, and expansion of Asendia’s e-commerce solutions into Latin America. He has 9 years of experience in the e-commerce industry with prior experience working as a Pricing Analyst and Commercial Services Analyst for Asendia USA.
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Transcript
This is Outside the Box with Asendia USA, a podcast educating US Based brands, marketplaces and e tailors on international shipping topics and how they can expand their global e commerce footprint.
Nick Agnetti:Welcome back everybody to Outside the Box with Asendia USA podcast. I am one of the co hosts, Nick Agnetti with my other co host Jason Rowland and we are here today to talk about Mexico.
We've got special guests, we've got Leslie Foxhoven and Mike DiVincenzo. Do you guys want to introduce yourselves? Real sure.
Leslie Foxhoven:I'm Leslie Foxhoven and the executive director at Essendia for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Nick Agnetti:Beautiful, thank you, Mike.
Michael DiVincenzo:And Mike DiVincenzo. I'm a product manager at Asendia.
I work with Asendia's commercial team and my job pertains to expanding and improving our solutions to Latin America.
Nick Agnetti:Perfect. Okay, very good. So, so today's podcast we're going to be talking about, you know, you know, kind of why Mexico.
You know, it's, it's going to roll into a little bit of information about Latin America, probably talk a little bit or at least there's going to be some mentions about South America.
But for the viewers and listeners out there, you know, it's really about just another area of the world to, to capitalize on or to look into if you're, if you're not there to look into, into why you should be there and, or if you're currently going there, maybe come up with some, you know, talk about some news in terms of potential regulatory changes, but also look at maybe some potential ways to do things better or different than what you're doing today.
So, and again, our, our focus is to really help, you know, shippers, and especially cross border shippers really navigate and make that process a little bit simpler and easier for those to really just help continue to expand and grow that business outside from United States, going outside the United States, going outbound.
So again, we did our introductions with our guests today and then I guess one of the questions, and I don't know Mike or Leslie who's going to take it, but you know, why should a brand or even a shipper, you know, and let's say a fulfillment space, you know, shipping or fulfilling on behalf of brands look to Mexico as an area of growth for their company?
Michael DiVincenzo:I am going to take that one, Nick.
Nick Agnetti:You got it.
Michael DiVincenzo:Yeah.
thing, but I could say since: % since: ,:And then lastly, I would say the biggest growth of E Commerce for cross border E Commerce into Mexico has come from fashion, electronics and cosmetics with that. Which definitely aligns with the profile that a lot of the customers that Asendia has.
Nick Agnetti:Okay, so, Mike, first of all, you definitely stole my thunder on the statistics. I'm a big stats guy and, and you really, you really just, you're taking the wins out.
Michael DiVincenzo:No.
Nick Agnetti:So I apologize. No, you're good, you're good. It's all, that's all perfectly, you know, it's great information.
You had shared some information before the call as well as, you know, there's information all over for, you know, so for viewers and again, and listeners, you can find it, I think if you were to just dive into it.
And again, speaking to viewers and listeners, you know, often people think of, you know, shipping directly to a consumer in Mexico, you know, pretty challenging.
Like, you know, I think most people that, you know, if I'm in front of a customer, most people, their sentiment is, you know, overall, probably not a great experience usually. Usually. Right. And so we're looking to change that.
commerce market categories in:Number one by far was electronics, which I thought was interesting. And you're going to cover loss prevention and some other stuff in a little bit. But I thought, you know, there's got to be significant risk in that.
Right. And again, you're going to cover that too. Number two, fashion. I expected that. Number three, food and like household goods and stuff.
And so I thought, you know, that's going to be interesting to dive into a little bit. Probably not so much in this episod. Great category to look into. And then, you know, I have a couple of clients myself.
That are in more of this category. So toys, hobby and diy.
And as of course a DIY guy that messes up many projects and makes many runs to the store, I think that's also a very interesting concept as well. And then beauty, health and personal care.
and then the other one. So in:That's huge. I mean that's over a quarter of the overall the pie, if you will.
billion estimated in:It could very well be worth the investment, time and resources to expand and dive further into Mexico.
Voiceover:Are you an E commerce business with questions about the new tariffs for Canada and Mexico introduced on March 4, Asendia USA offers solutions to ensure your shipping remains seamless. Get in touch with one of our e commerce experts today at ecommerce.USA@asendia.com.
Nick Agnetti:Jason, I think you were going to talk a little bit about, you know, some issues as such.
Jason Rowland:Yeah. So obviously there is a market there. Right.
So that's, that's just kind of the data you're showing kind of underlies what the value of a Mexican market is.
And I think Leslie, for, for us and for what you guys are putting together, obviously when people are getting into a new market, it comes with new concerns and new challenges and that kind of thing. So what, what are some of the, like the biggest challenges that think are out there when it comes to the Mexican market? What are we facing?
Leslie Foxhoven:Yeah, well, there's a, there's a handful but when you partner with the right teams, you can, you can easily avoid those and have an really incredible experience.
I mean there's, there's a load of them and I wouldn't, I wouldn't undervalue the importance of, you know, making sure you're partnering with the right people from A to Z that you have, that these, these partners have honesty and integrity and they're really partners you can trust. And that's anywhere from your final mile partners to in between. Also to the, probably the biggest challenge for a lot of People is customs itself.
So you want to make certain that you have done your due diligence, that you know the rules and regulations and that you're partnered with a broker and a company that is in good standing with the Mexican government and with customs and with Hacienda, the tax authorities and that they are, you know, don't have any suspensions on their licenses or anything like that and that they're willing to give you the data in accordance with the law that will help you do your proper, you know, input.
And certainly at Asendia, you know, we've got a lot of collaterals and things and certainly some, you know, people on our team that, that would really help educate the shippers to get around that. So yeah, if it's, if it's done, if it's done properly, then that part should be, you know, easy to avoid.
Some of the other issues could be there's been some new regulations. I think we might get into that later.
,:And then we really don't have, you know, issues with the, with Chinese products, but certainly Chinese products went through a major, you know, audit over this course of this fourth quarter and they were really going after the Chinese companies and the brokers that were undervaluing their goods. And so what they've done is they've now put full tariffs on those. They no longer have a de minimis.
But fortunately, because of our agreement with Mexico and Canada, if your commodities, if your shipments originate not as a certificate of origin, but if they actually ship from the US then we avoid all of those duty and taxes and we get to benefit from, from, for the, for the de minimis. So that's, that's a good one. And, and those are just some of, some of the high levels, some of the high level issues.
Nick Agnetti:Yeah.
Jason Rowland:So it sounds like as, as new companies come online, the service that you guys have created here does a lot of that stuff for them. Right. So a lot of the groundworks already completed for them.
Those relationships with individual companies and regulators and in country are kind of taking care for them. So it sounds like, sounds like you guys are really helping people be set up for success there.
As far as from the regulatory side, which is, I always kind of put a spin on it with, with that kind of stuff because that's my world. But I always had like Mexico, the big four Letter word in Mexico was loss prevention. Right.
And it was always the thing that people always had the biggest problem with. They were scared of getting involved in that market. They were scared of the regulators. They were scared of kind of the realities.
And loss prevention can get pretty, you know, it really just hits your bottom line. So it makes a lot of businesses weary of getting involved in a market like Mexico.
So when it comes to loss prevention, are there things that you guys have done or the way that you have your. Your product set up that kind of mitigate some of those risks or. So how do you guys handle loss prevention?
Michael DiVincenzo:Yeah. So loss present, loss prevention. I apologize.
It was definitely one of the key points that we had in mind when setting up the solution and some of the steps that we took to try and keeping that number of lost parcels very, very low. We utilize the largest and most trusted final mile providers within Mexico.
Once that parcel gets in country, they get four to five different checkpoints before arriving to the recipient's home. That way, when the recipient and ascendee is tracking the parcel, we could see where it is at all times.
All parcels are delivered with a signature confirmation. So no parcels are merely just left on a recipient's doorstep.
Someone has to be home, signed for the parcel, and we get that pod for each parcel with the signature.
If the recipient isn't home, the final mile provider will reach out to the recipient and contact them, schedule a good time that works on their day to day schedule to get that parcel delivered. And then let's say in the end, the parcel is deemed undeliverable or needs to be returned.
We'll have all those parcels consolidated within Mexico and then returned to the United States itself.
Jason Rowland:Great.
Nick Agnetti:Yeah, that. Jason, let me just. So.
So I think the, the multiple checkpoints, the signature confirmation, I mean, just from coming from the sales perspective prior to this service. Right. It's kind of.
I mean, I hate to be so nonchalant about it, but it's like, you know, some people just talk to you about, you know, oh, I shipped these goods into Mexico and they just went missing. And it was like, well, what is. What. How can I. How can I recoup my loss? And stuff like that. And there wasn't really a good next step. Right.
It was just kind of like, okay, things just went missing. And.
And so if you're, you know, again, if you're a viewer or if you're a listener watching, and let's say you're, you know, and again, we're our network, which we'll get into Probably a little closer towards the end of our talk today and just did, you know. Well, it's all throughout really, but it's really focused on that, that DDP that you know, duties prepaid delivery experience as a, a full solution.
Right. But you know, there's obviously still going to be DDU and ddp.
But ultimately we look at it, I think most people, and Leslie, you can probably, and Mike, and you could probably say that most people have probably had at some point in their tenure a poor experience shipping to Mexico. And so that's where I think these, these multiple checkpoints, the signature confirmation. That's awesome stuff. That's really good stuff.
So no, Jason, I appreciate you bringing that up and Mike, thank you for that info. Yeah.
Jason Rowland:So Leslie, you touched on new regulatory changes a little bit there. Can you expand on that a little bit and tell everybody about some of the new regulations that we're facing?
Leslie Foxhoven:Yeah, it's exciting stuff. It's a good time to take a nap. So.
Nick Agnetti:Okay.
Leslie Foxhoven:Don't say no.
Nick Agnetti:She's kidding. She's kidding.
Leslie Foxhoven:I'm just kidding. No.
We had some pretty, pretty significant changes come through that you know, the governments have been negotiating over the course of this past year even longer. A lot of it's modeled on some of the things they do in Brazil.
But one of the, some of the things that became mandatory in January were that we needed for the first time a tax ID for the consignee.
So anyone who is receiving a shipment business to consumer needs to supply their tax ID or it's called an RFC or if you're 18 or under, there's what they call a curb. So that's your id so the government knows what you're importing. Their way to control that.
We also need to, in the information we're providing to customs need to make sure we have a very detailed description of the goods which they typically weren't so picky about in the past. We need a phone number and an email address for them to contact that there were de minimises waived for other countries.
Fortunately, as I mentioned before, we didn't have that. So we still get to enjoy that $50 de minim.
And one of the changes is we can import things, not to get too convoluted, but we can import things on a simple courier type method using a T1 up to $1,000. We used to be able to do that to up to 2,500 depending on the issue. But so there are a whole lot of details in those regulations.
Jason Rowland:That's great.
When it comes to customers giving that data in, though, when it comes to phone number, you know, email address, tax id, what happens to the stuff if it has to sit for a little while while they're getting that to us, does it have to be in the original data? Do they have a little bit of time if they're scrambling for it? How does that work?
Leslie Foxhoven:Yeah, fortunately, you know, when we have good communication with our customers, that's not that we haven't experienced too much of that. We're certain, you know, that we explain to them what's, you know, what information they're getting up front.
Most of our, you know, customers are shipping to other, other countries around the world that have, you know, some similar requirements. So they were prepared for it.
So we had, we have a few instances and we certainly do what we can to work with our, our customer to get the information to help them where we need to. So it's, it's been, it's, it's been smooth that I might, I, I could say that, yeah.
Jason Rowland:Yeah.
It sounds like if somebody gets, you know, up with that product and doesn't have experience right with it or is the first time they're experiencing it, like we're prepared to help them out with it. Which, which is, which is great.
So as those regulatory changes, you know, continue to, to come in and, you know, I think one of the things we're going to talk about here in a little bit is the tariffs, right as they. That big scary word that everyone's dealing with today. And Nick, I know you're excited about it.
Yeah, I think the, this just such a dynamic market in terms of regulation and that kind of thing that, you know, it's really important for companies to know what the rules are and, and then know how those rules are going to affect their operations. So I think, I think we're all in for it with these tariffs for a lot of these conversations.
Nick Agnetti:Thanks everybody for joining us for part one from episode 15 from outside the box of the San Diego USA podcast. Stay tuned for part two where we talk about all things Mexico.
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To learn more about today's topic or for a free consultation, email us@ecommerce USAendia.com Come back for more insightful discussions on ecommerce shipping to Canada, Mexico and worldwide.
