Mark: Hi, it's Mark from TLR. I'm here with Mark Huggan, owner of Phantom Couriers in Vancouver, Vancouver's best courier service, one of the fastest growing companies in the nation. And of course, the main reason why you want to have your life be a little bit easier because they solve a ton of really hard problems. We're going to talk about that today. The core reasons why you would use a courier. Hey Mark, how you doing?

Mark H: Doing good. Thanks. How are you? 

Mark: Good. So I know you guys do a lot of different stuff. Like the hard things, like address changes, customs. Why would somebody want to use a courier? What's the kind of core reasons that you see?

Mark H: Well, first outsourcing it to, if one person from a company is calling a courier to say, go down to Seattle. If there's a problem, there's three people here that can work on it instead of just that one. And we have a better direct line and a better understanding of the problem. Like a lot of times people see, you know, exception, and it's in bright red font on tracking.

And they're like, Oh oh, where do you even start? So since everybody here is well versed in where to start and how to get it done efficiently, they just take the bull by the horns and usually get it done a lot faster. It's an easier way to do it because we understand what the problem really is. And then we can cut to the chase and get her done fast. So it's usually a simple thing, but it doesn't seem simple if you've never done it before. 

Mark: So basically, shipping stuff from one place to another seems like an easy process, but there's a million ways to do it. There's a million ways for it to go wrong. And then there's a million ways to try and solve it basically. And you guys, that's all you do all day. 

Mark H: Yeah, just a major problem solving company. That's what we do is solve problems for people. I mean, they call us because they want to get something done. They couldn't do themselves. So that's a problem. Can't get it done. How do you do it? They outsource it to us.

And then a lot of things are just regular things we've done a million times. So we have a procedure for it. And other things are, you get the phone call, do you do this? And when that happens, we know there's not enough information. So we have to gather more information, you know, check all the boxes and then move forward.

A lot of times there's just a framework of information to get the job done. And then we got to dig deeper and get it all so it will happen. Because there's all sorts of things. There's a million things. It's incredible. You can't even begin to think of them. 

Mark: Yeah. So let's take an example. Like I have a company I've got 50 employees. They're all distributed all over the place now because everybody's working from home and I need to get something, a specific package to them and they're right across the country, or even in separate countries, how would you help with doing that? What's the kind of steps of all the pieces that would make my life a little bit easier so that I know that those packages are being delivered and that they're arriving to the right person at the right time. 

Mark H: Yeah, well, first we consolidate them all in what we call a bulk, say that would be a bulk order. And then we make sure all the information is there as much information as possible.

Say there were some missing critical information, like no phone number. So the first batch would be sent and prepped and ready to go. Well, we're starting to follow up and like, well, we can't deliver without a phone number during COVID. Especially to a residential tower. So we have to start putting all those pieces in and then as things get delivered, we find out, Oh, this is a January, 2021 list.

And Sam moved in with Sally or Sally moved in with Sam or Sam moved in with Mike and, you know, phone numbers changed. So we're like, Oh, we have to constantly update the global address book for the customers and get it there. And then once we find out the right number, we're going to contact them with it's like, Hey, this was missed. You've moved. Here's the new information we've got, confirm it. What's a good time to meet. Because it's important that if, if it was a, like a staff incentive thing or a project or working on it, they need to be on the same page on the same time. So usually we've got a day to figure that stuff out before, you know, you're sitting there with no package in front of you on a big zoom meeting and you're behind schedule.

So we don't like that for our employees or our sorry, their employees. It's a lot of work. It happens constantly.

Mark: So that's consolidating invoicing, that simplifying the accounting, rather than them having to ship 50 or me having to ship 50 packages and track every one of them, you guys are proactively tracking all of them.

You're handling all the address changes and corrections and follow ups that need to happen. You're dealing with all the customs and duty charges, all that import exports stuff. 

Mark H: Yep, totally. We take care of duty, export duty from here before we ship. So say you were sending down like a pair of running shoes, for instance. So we know the value, when it goes to cross the border, we put the value in, you know, what it is exactly and get it right. Otherwise it goes to customs, it'll stop. And then they start contacting us and then they only contact us with exception. So we need to know what we're doing first and documents don't need it, but any commodity items do, even if it's a gift.

So there's like related parties. If there's a related party and it's on a return, say it was a piece of equipment going from you to another person in your company. If it was related the duties and taxes get waived. There's gifts, there's permanent export, unrelated parties. There's all sorts of little reasons to pay attention to that. 

Mark: Anything else? Like, I know you have a million stories about, of the kind of things that you've done. Is there something recently where you've done all this and had to like, give us another example of, of doing this. 

Mark H: Well, we just did a big bulk shipment and everything across Canada and then there's Prince Edward Island, right. So the expected thing is like, well, it's just Canada, but Prince Edward Island, like the Sunshine Coast here, it doesn't get regular shipping. So you gotta be on top of that. So when the customer calls in the orders, you got to take an overview of them all and let them know, Oh, you've got some Prince Edward Island and say, Newfoundland. They're totally different places to get to. So the ferries go over like Monday, Wednesday, Friday. There's no, like they don't fly a lot of stuff into it. Cause it would fly into like somewhere on the mainland and then be put onto a like a transport truck and then it gets into that cycle. So you've got to let them know in advance because there might be some proactive step the person can take in the forefront to make sure they've got enough going on.

Like maybe, I don't know what they're going to have to do something with digital technology, but if they had to have any hard asset parts, they have to know that in advance. So once they're educated on that, the next rollout they've got, it goes more seamlessly. So it's like anything you do, you know, you take apart your kitchen sink, you put it back together it's difficult. The next time you do it a little bit easier, you get faster. 

And so from our side and our customer side, we work together, meet in the middle and then the next big bulk thing that goes out, they're prepared a little earlier for those outlying areas, which they weren't aware of before. You know, we never know what we don't know until we find out about it. So like to work like that, because if you don't, you're just ending up with the same hot potato two weeks from now and the same problems, and that's kind of ridiculous. 

Mark: And you guys, you deal with everything from in-town, bicycle courier fleet, essentially, which could be picking up checks at the bank or making a deposit at the bank, all kinds of things like that, to a package delivery across Vancouver itself but also then major international shipping. So it's a massive amount of territory that you cover as far as delivering stuff to other places. 

Mark H: Yeah. And it all started out so simple. It's the same thing. The same thing as the very first package, when that person jumped in front of me, I said, can you do this?

People need to get things done. They don't know how to get it done. They need it done yesterday. And so it's just the process of understanding the problem and getting it, like step one through 10, make sure it gets done. 

You know, even like a simple check certification gets complicated because you know, the customer calls us like what's taking so long, we're at the bank. Well, how long are you going to be? It's like, you know, call the bank, you know, we gotta figure that stuff out. So once we let customers know, like what's going on and what stage of the delivery it's in, it's easier to explain than just like the clock is ticking and the process is happening, right?

It's like, if you're in better touch with them, everybody can calm down because they understand the mechanics of it. So it's a good parts, just all communicate. That's what people do all day. Me and you communicate, people communicate through courier. That's just our basic human thing. We're just a tool for communicating between one party to another.

And so if it gets lost in the translation, if the courier, doesn't do it properly. Then the end result is not understood properly. So we've got to just stay tight and make sure we know what we're doing when we're communicating for customers, because we're just an extension of their office to whoever they're needing to communicate with because everything's built communication.

Mark: So how long has the company been operating? 

Mark H: Since 1996. 

Mark: So 24 years. I got that right. 25 years. Yeah, basically. Yeah. Twenty five years of constant improvement, making your processes and systems better and better and better because you've had to deal with, as you expand and expand all these different issues and you want it smooth, you want it solvable, basically. 

Mark H: Yeah, well there's going to be an issue today that we've never heard of believing it'll pop up. Like that's sort of like the other day, but it's completely different. So every day is the same yet very different, which makes it exciting. It's not ever what you think. 

Mark: Look, if you want to get your packages delivered, you got a problem that you need to solve. That has something to do with getting something from one place to another. The guys to call in Vancouver are Phantom Couriers. You can reach them at (604) 899-5447 or anywhere in BC. Alberta, Ontario, +1 844-899-5447. They'll get you looked after and they'll get that package delivered or your freight or whatever it is you need. That's right. Give them a call, they'll solve it for you. Up the bridges. They've delivered bridges. 

Mark H: That's right. A hundred percent. 

Mark: Thanks Mark.

Mark H: Right on dude

Mark: Hi, it's Mark from TLR. I'm here with Mark Huggan of Phantom Couriers in Vancouver. One of the fastest growing companies in Vancouver, in BC, in Canada, expanding all over the place. Shipping and delivering packages, courier services right across the entire lower mainland and across BC. Expanding into Alberta and Toronto. Mark, how are you doing today? 

Mark H: We're doing good. Happy Monday. 

Mark: Yeah. So you guys have a retail centre that you recently opened up on Howe Street have I got that, right?  329 Howe Street. So what's the retail centre for? 

Mark H: It's set up just to be focused on overnight shipping for like US Express, Canada overnight, next day, Toronto and the rest the world. And then we're also focused on ground shipping to Canada and the United States. So any large packages that need to be there in five business days, we can facilitate that for them. It's a great place to just get all the international shipping focused and just have a person with an attention to detail on top of it all. For proactive tracking, address changes, any problems that come up because problems come up regularly and it takes the burden off the regular same day dispatch team.

Mark: So why would I come to the retail centre to look after that rather than getting you guys to pick it up or just using Canada Post or UPS or any of the competitors, that there might be in the world? 

Mark H: Yeah. Well, we will pick it up from you. That's not a problem. We have always done that. So any businesses doing regular shipping overnight we'll just come pick it up and consolidate and bring it into the centre for fulfillment.

A lot of people walk in off the street. In Google My Business it shows us up on the map. So a lot of people just come walk in with like, random stuff and we can just help them there. It's calm. They're not on the telephone. They can actually see what's going on and get a good understanding when it will be there.

And there's a nice attendant upstairs named James who works with people personally. So it's a good thing. So it has two points. So you can walk in. It's all COVID friendly. And then we can have it picked up by courier and brought to the shop. No problem. And the competitive aspect is that we have competitive pricing. We can work on pricing and we're trying to get a bigger market share just by making it easier for our customers. 

They only have to go to Phantom Couriers online portal to just put in the address. They don't have to print out waybills and wait, they just like, it's going to Joe Smith and Toronto. Here's the address? Boom. Done. We'll get it. We'll package it, manifest it, proactively track it and keep it on one invoice for the customer. So it makes it a lot easier. And then when problems arise such as address corrections, because we all know databases are only as good as, like on my list is like clean up your database, always. You know, Joe might might've moved last week. It's just like an oversight. And then we're able to like, Whoa, we've got some information. Let's change that now. Well, it's in the flow. Otherwise, sometimes it takes up to 48 hours to get an address correction. And we're more on point because that's what we do all day is tracking and tracing.

Mark: So you guys actually package stuff. Like if I bring in my widget, I'm an Etsy seller or Shopify, and I have some product that I need to ship to the United States because somebody purchased it. You actually have packaging and all the appropriate stuff there to get the package delivered. Peanuts and all rest of it.

Mark H: Yeah. So it is a shipping centre. So we've got lots of boxes there. We've got this great box that just can go from big to small. It's like, you just cut it out and it works perfectly. Then they've got all the craft paper upstairs for wrapping the packing stuff for insulating it, and then they pack it up, dim it out. We have a nice electronic scale. Everything's super accurate. And it goes.

 Like for instance, this Christmas, these people came in and they brought in all these tote boxes of like charcuterie boards, jams, chocolates, cards, and they were all loose and they just gave us a manifest and we just got the boxes ready. Did what we needed to do, loaded them up, cut them down, packed them tight, labeled them, shipped them. Boom done. We've had lots of other things like gift bags come in and you can't ship a gift bag. It will be totally destroyed. So we just do the exact same thing. Just line them up, pack them up, tighten them down because a gift bag, the dimensional weight of the gift bag, it's an odd shape. So when we consolidate it down and get it into a better dim size, the pricing goes down. 

Mark: So when you're talking about dimensional weight or dim size, maybe let's just quickly give us the short version of how that actually works. 

Mark H: So we all know like a cell phone weighs a couple of ounces, but if you put it in a shoe box, say you just thought, Oh, I'll just wrap it up and put it in the shoe box. Well, the dimensional weight increases because it's broken down by the square foot. So all international shippers, when you put something on an airplane, you're buying square footage. 

Mark: Or cubic footage. 

Mark H: Yeah. Cubic footage. Yeah. So there's a formula like length times, width, times height divided by, everybody's got a different number, and that gives them the cubic, like the actual weight of a pound and maybe the cubic weight or the square rate might be five pounds. So you want to make sure your packaging gets as small as you can. And you save a ton of money. 

So a lot of people get us to pick up a box with like, Oh, this is a big box and it doesn't weigh anything. So it was called the customer like, Hey, this box is going to cost you this. Maybe we should make it cost that. So it's good savings, because you know, we're shipping experts. Something, we look at all the time. There's not a lot of boxes in offices and when you're at home, you know, you're just going to grab the closest box. It might be a box of wine and you're putting something light weight in it, might as well get it in the right packaging.

A lot of times they can go into like, everybody's seen those like plastic bags, because they have a QR code on them. And so to envelopes, when they go through the sorting facility, they're registered at a certain rate. So it's up to like a pound in an envelope and it's up to like five pounds and sometimes 10 pounds in those bags. So if we can get something that's lighter in one of those bags, we're going to do it and save your money. And it's more efficient too. 

Mark: I went through a bit of a horror story with address changing with some products that I ordered, and I know that happens all the time. So how do you guys actually take care of address changes, corrections, making sure the product ends up where it's supposed to go? 

Mark H: Yeah. Well, we have a pretty big account, so we don't have to go to the call centre. Any of the people in the call centres are just busy, like crazy. So usually the chat is where customers would go usually. And they're like, Oh, I have an address correction, like hours typing in, but we can just go into our account and get that address corrected. There's never a same day address corrections anyways, because we all know that those root trucks are, they're not like, Oh, I'm just going back. But we can get the information to the centre when the truck returns, when it gets offloaded, because of the QR code, it's separated. Boom. And new address label goes on it. And then a lot of times we can contact people. They might have just moved and the package just maybe signed for by the person moved to the house because they're like, Oh, I'll sign for that. And so we can make arrangements to go pick it up. 

We've even had our own staff go into Toronto, a big company in Vancouver, big tech company sent out a bunch of stuff and their CSV file shifted by one cell. So Mark Bossert was getting Mark Huggans package, Mark Huggan was getting like Joe Smith's package. And it was just one of those things. Right. And it was an important delivery. So we had Matt and Toronto just like, okay, look at the list. And he basically went out there and played the memory game by driving around and starting at the first person to tell him he'll be back at the end of the day with the last person on the packages package. But you know, that's hard work that needs to be done. So we did it we did it same day. It was difficult. Otherwise you'd have to wait two or three days because everything would have to be, if it was signed for it, we'd have to make arrangements to go pick it up, get it figured out and then redo it. But Matt was able to be proactive. It was a pretty good success. So that's the kind of thing we can do.

Address corrections all day. 

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. And you guys are, you're dealing with it all the time. A lot of times we'll order things and you get the little notice saying, track your package. Which seems really weird to me because now I'm on the hook for tracking whether they screwed up. Is that how that works? You guys do that for people though? 

Mark H: A hundred percent. Yeah. So if somebody is not home and they get that little track the package thing, we get it first, before you even get back home. So we would track the person who was supposed to receive the package down and make arrangements for them for like a specific time to get it. And the time is pretty big. So we have to, you know, you have to be considerate of everybody's sides. When we tried to narrow the focus down and get it to them on their schedule as best we can, but that happens all the time. 

But luckily we get the notice first. Before you even arrived home and yeah, you're right. If you have to track it yourself, you're just like, well, where is it now? And then you're making phone calls. And then they say to you, are you the shipper? No, I'm the receiver. Well, you can't call us. But since we're the shipper and we consolidate hundreds of customers a day as their shipper, we can reach out to all those different ones and get the job done super fast. Nothing more confusing than address corrections when it seems so straightforward. But yeah. It's just one of those things needs to be done. 

Mark: Absolutely. Another thing you mentioned, kind of whipped through there was the ground shipping versus overnight, and there's quite a difference in terms of what it costs to ship packages. 

Mark H: Yeah, it's huge. It's like a 40% discount. Well, I wouldn't say discount price difference. And on ground, you know, it starts off at a heavier weight. So right off the hop, you're getting a better thing. If you were to do an express shipment of say a  a 10 pound box street rate to Los Angeles express is $92. And then we could get that box like that's a 10 pound box is 92 bucks. So if you want it to go ground on that, you're probably looking at around $55. So it's a huge difference. So if you don't have to ship it overnight, you might as well ship it in five business days and get the better price.

Because a lot of people don't know what they're doing and they ship it out express and they're like, Holy 92 bucks. So we manage that. We always ask questions like, are you sure you need that there tomorrow?

Mark: So if you need shipping simplified to the United States, across Canada, overnight, ground shipping, anywhere in the world, actually, the guys to call are Phantom Couriers. You can reach them at (604) 899-5447. Go to phantomcouriers.com. You can book online right there. They'll come and pick it up. They'll make sure it gets where it's supposed to go. No matter what craziness might be going on in the world or you, if you're outside of Vancouver, +1 844-899-5447. They'll look after you. Thanks Mark.

Mark H: You're right on, man. Thank you.

Mark: Hi, it's Mark from TLR. I'm here with Mark Huggan of Phantom Couriers in Vancouver. Vancouver's best courier experience. And we're going to talk about overnight to the United States, shipping stuff to the States. How does that work, Mark? 

Mark H: Well, it's quite simple. We'll come get it from you and deliver it to the United States. But it breaks it down into different things. Like we have overnight shipping for documents which is quite straightforward. We bring it into the office, manifest it, track it, trace it for you. Usually gets overnight delivery to any city. It's easy peasy. 

For any commodities say you were sending this headset down to the States. We would have to fill out the customs paperwork for you. It may have like a one day delay as they check it out at the US Border Services. And then it would be put through one of the hubs. The closest one is in Ontario, California. And so it goes there, it gets inspected by US Customs. Then we pick it back up after it's been cleared and off she goes to the last mile. So we get things delivered all the time. 

We're very busy doing that for everybody. We've shipped everything. You know, documents galore, but there's a lot of personal items and gifts. Gifts are different because if it's a related party, the duties and taxes are slightly different. Sometimes there's nothing to pay. But people who shipped down like the headset, for instance, they don't want to be taking away money from the US company that could sell it on Main Street in California. So they would just charge the applicable taxes that the California government would have received if they had bought them in the state. So people up here do that. 

I think we've all seen it when we order a package say from the US and people are like, Oh, the taxes were more than the courier. Well, that's just because, you know, governments government and taxes are how we pay for our streets and everything else, all of our infrastructure. So we get it going down. 

We've also got ground shipping to the US, which is five business days. So it's a pretty affordable way to do it. And a lot of times it's a different tax structure for ground shipping. If you do ground shipping, I don't know why the taxes are different, but they're less. But the time is five business days. So say you sent it today, the time wouldn't start until Tuesday, so it would be delivered five business days. So it might be delivered next Monday. So people are thinking, Oh, but today it was five days. Five business days after the pickup, because it does have to go through the customs sort. And so it's pretty good. 

And we fly stuff down and you know, there's a same-day to Seattle too. So we just put it on a little plane, boom down in Seattle. Partners can pick it up down there so we can get same day to Seattle, which is pretty good. Document's super easy. If it was a commodity, it would stay in Seattle and be inspected at the airport. Just like your luggage would be inspected if you brought back something that was like, you know, highly taxed. So it's a busy little place for us. We love doing it and we're good at it. 

Mark: So documents, do they need customs brokerage? Do they go through any of that? 

Mark H: Nope. If it's a document it's straightforward, just a business, usually correspondence and it just flies. So it would ship today. Be there tomorrow. And usually the same thing applies to Canada. Most businesses get their stuff before noon, and then the couriers are doing the pickups in the afternoon. And if it's a residence, it can be delivered up to like seven o'clock at night. So to businesses, usually by noon, one o'clock, but to get their trucks cleared out and then afterwards it goes to residences. It's pretty fast. It's pretty efficient. It's not bad with COVID because you know, you can't cross the line and go down to the us postal service and pop something in the mail like you used to. 

And in the news this weekend, I saw one of those 24/7 places in Blaine, one customer that she was mentioning, had 200 packages and unable to cross the border because they couldn't go and pick them up and sign for them themselves. So it's becoming more difficult to do little things. You know, all the e-com entrepreneurs are having a bit more stress on that. So we're here to help definitely push things through the border. Costs is a little bit higher, but I mean, not getting paid is one thing, being paid a little less is another thing. So you might as well get paid and use the courier. 

Mark: So how does your business, we never really talked about this, how does your business compare to something like US Postal Service in terms of cost, or like FedEx or UPS or Purolator? 

Mark H: Yeah, we've got a little bit of wiggle room. We can, you know, because we're a volume shipper, so our rates are a little bit, I'd say they're much better, but that's where we make our margins on it.

And the US Postal Service, of course like Canada Post is funded by tax dollars. So you really can't compete. So if the US Postal Service was charging like ridiculously cheap amounts, you could never do that yourself because you're not funded by the government taxpayer dollar. So that makes it difficult to compete.

It's actually against the law to have prices as low as the postal service they're protected for good reasons. But you know, when it comes to like FedEx, UPS, Purolator, those are all different. And every time I look at their rates, I was just looking at some rates the other day, and one was $38 to San Francisco and the other one was $47 to San Francisco. And the other one was I can't remember exactly what it was, but inside those margins we're able to have wiggle room because we can choose and pick our carriers who we're going down with. So we always take a look for the best bang for the buck. For both sides, for the customer and for us. We're here to make a profit and we're here to make our customers successful.

So we're always looking for the best one. And it's, it's strangely different for everywhere. So, I guess it just depends on how big their fleet is in that area. If it's a smaller fleet with higher costs, the price is higher, you know, but it's always good to research it. And we do that constantly for customers trying to get the best rates.

Mark: So when somebody is shipping something, is it based on size? Is it based on weight? Is it based on both of those things? How does it work the actual costs to ship something to the States? 

Mark H: Yeah, well I mean, everybody's seen, like, for instance, the Purolator envelope, FedEx envelope, UPS envelopes, those things all have a QR code. So when they're zipping down the belt, they're just, boom, they're just documents. So there's a set price for documents all the time. When it comes to anything larger, it's going to go on dimensional weight. So length by width, by height, divided by whatever number they've got this time. It gives you the cubic weight, because when you're filling up a container, it's cubic weight, it might be like, this box weighs one pound, but it's 36 inches, you know, it takes up the cubic weight. So that is something to think about. 

If you can put it in a smaller box, do that because your costs will go down tremendously. And a lot of people just grab a box off the shelf and put something in it's like it's in a box. Meanwhile they're paying for air. That air is expensive. You know, you've seen those Amazon boxes showing up with like a razor blade inside and all the bubble packing and three boxes. Well, that's killing Amazon because they still have to pay dimensional weight when they were contracting to freight. And even if they have their own planes, they still have that cost.

So it's always good to put something in the smallest package as possible. Get it done up nice and tight because dimensional weight and cubic weight is a big deal. That's how carriers make their money. You know, I'd much rather fly a 747 full of air to San Francisco. It would go faster, cheaper gas, than one full of lead, because it would take more fuel. So that's where the dimensional weight comes in. We should do a video on dimensional weight. I've got a super funny idea.

Mark: So there you go. If you want to ship overnight. Or fast or on time to the United States for the most efficient way possible use Phantom Couriers. You can reach them at (604) 899-5447. Or if you're outside the lower mainland +1 844-899-5447. They'll get it there. They'll get it on time, anywhere in the world.

Mark H: Yeah. Anywhere in the world. You betcha. Thanks.

Mark:  Hi, it's Mark from Top Local. I'm here with my good friend, Mark Huggan of Phantom Couriers in Vancouver. Vancouver's best courier service. One of BC's fastest growing companies expanding right across the country. Today we're going to talk about staff incentives. What the heck does that? What are we talking about staff incentives for Mark? 

Mark H: Well, you know, just like you and I have a scheduled meeting, it's part of my week. That brings a little bit of like joy. You're like, Oh, I get to talk to a team member. I get a lot of feedback from everybody, especially like couriers when they're dropping packages off and with all the offices decentralizing, for instance, let's just use gaming artists because there's a lot in Vancouver, it's a huge industry. And they all used to come to work and they'd be working in a gigantic studio and it'd be the hustle and bustle and a great energy.

And everybody be like, we're working on the projects and have time to chit chat and be collaborative and get that exciting creative ball going. Well, you know, they're all safely at home for COVID and COVID is taking a long time and it's wearing people down. 

And we found some of our customers will go to the door and people be like, what is it? Like what have you got for me? And it can be anything, you know, it might be just like, Oh, here's a thing you need. But a lot of people are worried for their careers. And a lot of our customers, they must be noticing it because they have staff meetings and such. So they've been sending out like team incentives, things to bring them back together, things to rebuild the decentralized culture.

And people are basically, you could see them like, Oh, like they have a sigh of relief. You know when it's something good. So there's been all sorts of things. Like pre-packaged nice boxes full of like snacks and chips and coffee cups and just like little things that when they open them up, it's not work. You know, it's not a threat. It's just something that they're like, Oh, somebody cares about me. 

So these things are really good. And a lot of people are creating new, like swag material, like maybe a hoodie from the gaming company. That's like, you know, it's got their logo on it of course it's all branded up, but it's something that brings the team together and it may be on a project they're working on. We've seen a lot. 

One was a hoodie that was used as the packaging and inside was a pancake mix and syrup. So, you know, people are all having a, like the whole team on, you know, October 22nd, don't open until October 22nd. They all opened it up and they're like, okay, everybody. 20 minutes, come back with pancake breakfast. So everybody got shut down for a break. They all came back with their pancake breakfast and had a giant team, like team building, zoom meeting, where they just laughed about the pancakes because still people knew pancake shape so that people put fruit in it. And everybody had a great discussion. So it got like that human aspect back into businesses and the couriers all dropped it off.

And when they had that, don't open till October 22nd thing, there was mixed reviews. Like, I don't know what this is, but you know, there was a very bright, colorful, happy hoodie. So there wasn't a lot of threat involved with it, but it brought up that I think, what is it? It's Christmas. So, you know what it's like for a kid who can't open this present at Christmas, it brings excitement and wonderment, and I think that really good companies that we work for an hour doing that. 

And it's a huge opportunity to make your staff good or happy. And it's a good opportunity for us to keep continue working and be part of that mechanism. So if there's any companies out there looking to do staff incentives, we're down with it.

We've got an excellent system to get them delivered and follow up because a lot of people aren't. They might be home, but they're not home because of zoom. They've got headphones on, they don't see the doorbell. 

And then if there's any companies out there looking for a great opportunity right now, I would consider getting a snack box company built up with nice branding. Get on it. Because I think that's a market that's going to keep going on for a long time, because, you know, once they've been decentralized to bring them back, it's more of that effort.

They put all this effort into getting the ball, rolling the hard stuff. And I think that people are going to be working from home as it's in the news. And we're going to have to make sure everybody's happy. I have staff working at home today. First thing I do is I always touch base with them. And I think that that goes so far, but eventually you're going to have to take it in like, and your lunches arrived today, special surprise. And they'll be very happy. I think it's a good thing. 

You know, it's just a human thing and couriers play a big part of it. And I'm pretty impressed by our clients. That it's a lot. Like one company had almost 300 packages. Can you come pick up this load? Sure. What is it? 300, 300. Whoa know, like that's a big effort by some company to put extra expenses out there because they know the value of their employees. And I think that's awesome. 

Mark: So we were talking just as we got started about how you're in the downtown core of Vancouver, your main office. Yeah. That it's pretty dead there. There's a lot of business that's distributed their employees back home. So this is going to continue for a long time because COVID is not over.

Mark H: Nope. It's eerily quiet in the business district. Like, you know, you see traffic and foot traffic, but those people are outside the towers and there always have been, but the towers are empty. Restaurants are empty. Parking is very available. You can feel it like, it just looks like a sunny Sunday when you're downtown instead of a busy Wednesday, you know, it's like maybe a few people milling about.

More stores are closing to like ING Direct just closed on Howe Street. There's two Starbucks that just closed some Howe Street because the foot traffic is gone. So everybody loves a latte, right. And those people just aren't coming anymore. So they have to get that stuff delivered. You know, it's just like all those places we used to commune together, like hang out. Even if you were just briefly walking into a Starbucks, that's a break from work. 

And if you're at home all day, maybe your break is doing dishes, but it doesn't give you that good feeling. Yeah. The core is dead. So couriers are being used more than ever to get things out and about because the interoffice delivery is, is not as robust as it used to be.

Like our percentages now is like over 66% to residences. So, you know, instead of B2B now, we're really doing it's B2B, but it's actually B2B to C because you're doing the business to the, well, I always call them consumers, but residences has generally have  that metrics, but now we're going to people's houses and they live everywhere.

So people live as a pretty, it's crazy when you're going up to Mission for people that used to come downtown. So I see the benefit for them working from home, but imagine commuting from Mission. I mean, people will not want to do that anymore. If it's good for people to work at home and be supported by their companies with courier delivery and stuff like that, I think it's better for them because that's a huge commute. 

Mark: Absolutely. And it's the way of the future basically. So if you want to build your team using staff incentives, a company that's expert on getting your vast, hopefully distributed network of people all over, hey it could be even all over the world, getting that stuff delivered and tracked and on time, Phantom Couriers are the people to call. You can reach them at (604) 899-5447. Or if you're outside of Vancouver, +1 844-899-5447. They'll get it looked after. Thanks Mark. 

Mark H: Excellent. Thank you very much.

Mark:  Hi, I'm Mark Bossert from Top Local. I'm here with my good friend, Mark Huggan of Phantom Couriers in Vancouver, BC. Vancouvers favourite couriers, and one of the fastest growing companies in BC and across the country. We're going to talk about flooring and tile delivery during a pandemic, but also there's some challenges with this. What's going on, Mark?

Mark H: Well, yeah, you know, flooring obviously gets trucked around every single day. And then laminate flooring, hardwood flooring, all sort of substrate flooring. It's so easy delivery, but nobody wants to tackle tile delivery. All the big trucking companies, they don't want to do it because, well, the tiles are broken, they get broken and nobody has set up, you know, a process to establish that, yeah tiles get broken in shipping, in the container. What's going on?  

So acceptable loss has to be realized and established. And so I'm hoping to start cornering that market because if we find out, okay, you can pick up a pallet of tile and there's a bunch of crumbled stuff underneath of it. If the operator sees it, that's a little  indicator that there's some damaged tiles. So if there's an  inspection by the driver on pickup, it may take a little bit of extra time but in the long run, it's going to save time because you're not going to have a job that's cut short by a couple of tiles are broken on a pallet. And nobody wants to get down and do that hard work. They just want to zip in, throw a forklift at it, pick it up, throw it on a truck and take it out there and then just get yelled at later.

So I find a lot of people are shying away from the tile business and I was like, well, it's an excellent opportunity to go in there and do it right. Set up a system and procedure and start just cornering the market. And I'd like to do that. I'd like to be like to be that guy. I've already talked to my operators and they understand exactly why people hate tile delivery. But they were surprised that I said, well, if we just established some protocols at the beginning, we could probably be very successful. And being that they drive trucks and they have bills to pay, they're down with doing extra work. So that's something we're looking at now. A lot of times with the builds, you need to take, say flooring out of a manufacturer or a wholesaler or distributor, and it's not ready to be like, they want it out with the door supply chain demands that it needs to move. So no stock can come in. And if the construction crews are laid up by a couple of days, well storage charges and all that starts to add up and it puts a huge cost on the trucking side. 

So in east Van, we've got a cross dock where we can easily store stuff for 48 hours before it fills up and has to move. So it gives an extra two days, and it's not a huge cost and we can start helping people, so when they say there's a three hour window of opportunity to get it to the site. So the guys can unload it and bring it into the house by the end of the day, to start working on it tomorrow, we can facilitate that stuff and working with the builders. Because their timelines are tight and one thing goes wrong  like an air compressor blows, boom. They're not there now for two hours, two hours is eight, eight hours a day. Bing boom bam and you know, if it all comes down to the truck waiting on the curb, takes off and has to come back the next day for a full pop delivery charge.

So the flooring thing is a good niche market. I'd like to explore it. It's great for trucks because it's heavy. It fills up trucks nicely. They would keep us busy. And there's a lot of it, you know with restoration going on through the winter, there's lots of flooding. Laminate has to be done. Those guys, the restoration guys, they're drawing out the house one day. They're ready to lay the next. They need that on-time delivery. We're down to do that. 

So restoration companies, construction companies, new or old, it doesn't matter if you're doing renovations or new builds, Phantom's down to do the work. And with the tile, anybody's had a problem with the tile delivery, let's talk. Because if we can set up an established parameters for like acceptable loss and there'll be no surprise, and then everything should start smoothing out along the way. And then one job will lead to the next, the next, the next, and then that builder's successful and so where are we. 

Mark: So if you're a builder or renovator in Vancouver or even a tile place that wants a reliable delivery service, that's accountable, that will make sure who made the damage has to fix it, not just blame the last guys who touched it because maybe it was broken before that. Give Phantom Couriers a call. You can reach them at (604) 899-5447. Or if you're anywhere else in Canada one eight, four, four eight nine nine five four four seven. I was going to say North America, but you're not there yet.

Mark H:  Just Canada today, today. Yeah. 

Mark: Thanks Mark. 

Mark H: Right on man. Thank you.

Mark: Hi, it's Mark from Top Local. I'm here with my good friend, Mark Huggan of Phantom Couriers in Vancouver. One of BC's 100 fastest growing companies expanding like crazy through this. And of course we're locking down again. What's happening at Phantom right now Mark?

Mark H: Curb side pickup. Everybody's ordering it. The streets I noticed today, the streets were just vacant. You know, I was like, I'm glad to see people are staying home, paying attention to flattening the curve because December is coming in. We need to stay home so that retail can get a boost. But right now, retail is depending on customers calling into the store, ordering online.

And then of course, Phantom is rolling out there and picking up the packages. So if you're waiting for a store to use their internal shipping, you might get it two, three days. But a lot of people are like, I don't want to wait, but just call us up today and we'll go get it. 

Like myself, I mean, I was out with my trainer yesterday in the rain and I liked his jacket. He sent me the link. I went to Fjallraven. They pick it, send a courier. I got it. I don't have to wait around. No problem with picking it up. It was nice and fast and simple. The stores are all prepared now because they have their systems and procedures in place. So lots of calls coming in for, just pick up this here, go there and drop it off.

And it's good. You know, a lot of people are very satisfied with getting the things same day. And if not same day, same couple of hours. So the on demand world is ticking along and with COVID you might as well take advantage of it because everybody's prepped and ready to go. And why would I want to walk into their store?

Wearing a mask, steaming up my glasses, standing in line, all that stuff. I'd rather just send a courier, just text the store and they bring it right to the door. Super fast. And the cost is nothing. You know, just got my jacket in a box right there on the table, three hours later. 

Mark: Bam. 

Mark H: Bam, yeah like really. It just makes my life so much more convenient because I'm going to go outside and run in the rain tonight and I'm not going to get wet and I could have spent two days being wet instead of enjoying my rainy Vancouver, in my nice jacket. 

Mark: Yeah. So something else that you guys have been expanding quite a bit as this bulk shipping? So what, what kind of bulk where you shipping a lot of bulk? What's that? What the heck is that? 

Mark H: Yeah. So for instance, a gaming company downtown, they had, I mean, I keep saying the same number, it just seems to be like around the 400 mark, because that's how many artists are working on and say video game. So I guess the video game has come to this conclusion. They want to celebrate and send everything to the staff to thank them. And it's really good for the emotional wellbeing of the staff because they just not sitting at home.

They all get something they can talk about. So these companies are really smart. They're Marvel branded tote bags, and inside them, were just like knickknacks and things about the production. And then, you know what they did, they sent out pancake mix and syrup to all their staff. So everybody make a pancake breakfast, sit down, go on zoom hangout, get to talk to your friends you haven't seen for three months and life goes on. And then the staff is incentivized. They're happy. And the company is able to, you know, keep that connection going. So I see it. It's a very valuable part of anybody's scaling business. You work hard on boarding your employees. You want to keep them happy, but when they're decentralized and at home, it was great getting them the equipment.

And now we're learning that it's lonely at the top, and everybody's at the top along these verticals of creativity and they're not going to be as creative. Like when they're on the headset talking to one person is one thing, but when they can talk to 70 of their colleagues, then boom, productivity goes up. They're happy again. And we're doing it like crazy. And the gaming industry is this one that's that knows what to do. I mean, they've always got big staff, you know, you heard the rumours that they have great benefits. They have great parties. They have great community and culture and they're maintaining it through courier, you know, it's not easy. They can't make 400 phone calls, but they can send out a package and then get everybody in one place at one time, open up your package. It's like Christmas, like stocking stuffers right. You know, it's always the fun part of Christmas and it's dark and dreary out there and it's making a huge difference.

We're getting tons of phone calls with like, thank you is, and this is working out fine. And you know, the gaming industry is one, the animation industry is another one. And then with all the events, all the charities are definitely on board with it. It's a pretty big deal. I like doing it because the office is full, things for us to do, keeps everybody busy.

And everybody who we deliver to is happy to see us. It just trickles down. It's like a Goodwill trickle down and I love to see it. It's makes the couriers happy. Their staff is happy. The shipper is happy. The vendors are happy. It's really good for the economy. And these gaming companies are leading by example. I'm very impressed. 

Mark: If you're a gaming company or you're thinking about doing some bulk shipping, bring some happiness into the world, call them Phantom Couriers. If you need some curb side pickup, some stuff that you want right now, right away, or as soon as possible, or in a couple of days, whatever you need. They'll look after you. They'll get it there. It'll be there on time. Phantom Couriers (604) 899-5447. If you're outside the lower mainland +1 844-899-5447. Any package anywhere  

Mark H: Phantom Couriers gets it there. You got it. 

Mark: Bam. Thanks Mark.

Mark H: Right on

Mark: Hi, it's Mark from Top Local. I'm here with Mark Huggan, Phantom Couriers in Vancouver. One of BC's 100 fastest growing companies, probably in the top 10, frankly they're growing so fast through this pandemic time. Everybody needs delivery. And today we're going to talk about local freight. They've got a truck, they're delivering dock to dock. What's going on, Mark. How are you doing? 

Mark H: Doing good. Yeah, dock to dock, we got a beautiful five ton, with power tailgate makes it a lot easier. And dock to dock work is what we like to do. So any printing companies out there that have pallets going on, we have an excellent rate for pallets. We're doing 55 bucks a pallet in the lower mainland, pretty unstoppable rate, it competes.

Just Phantom Couriers is pretty nimble. The East side is great with lots of printers. They need paper, everything needs to go back and forth, and those are really easy, great jobs for us to do. Prioritize and execute. Love to help out the printing.

It's really good for all the people that are moving their offices for the next lockdown and COVID. A lot of desks need to be moved and we can bundle them up and schedule them to get them out, like a lot of people during the week, make it so that the operations manager of a facility is not overwhelmed. They can stage it and run it. We can help them out. We can send extra guys to do it. 

Yeah. The truck is really good. The trucking is really good. Like freight is a big part of Phantoms business. And now we've got a choke hold on it and we want more because it's super fun. I like doing it and it keeps us super busy. It's always interesting. So that's something we really want to get more work for and the customers are super happy because our operators are top notch.

Mark: So would you be willing to name some of the customers you've been working with recently?

Mark H: So we just moved some desks today from HootSweet. So Hootsuite's one of the top tech companies in Canada really. They've got a huge facility. They've got a secondary one down the street. So all their decentralized workers need to go out. Animation houses like Scanline VFX, it's big, to get all their desks out. And we move, like last mile ecom for EffyDesk, a standup desk company. So sometimes we're pulling 15, 20 desks a day. They're all three parters. They need to be done. And then we do a lot of work for Mitchell Press, so things need to go back and forth to the binderies.

And that's the kind of companies we'd like to work for. Mitchell Press, Metropolitan. Fine Printers are two excellent printing companies we work for. But also, logistics companies like downtown Livingston International. They always need to get a pallet of paper. I know the world thinks it's paperless. But there's a ton of paper, so people need their paper and they also need everything taken out. 

So pallets need to be returned. Boxes need to be cut down. Things like that. Phantom is there to do it for them. That's a pretty good spectrum. You've got logistics and tech and paper. So there you are 

Mark: Having just moved, I know we signed page after page of paper, even though it was supposed to be all done electronically. Still a paper world.

Mark H: Yeah, I mean sure, it's heavy too. Nobody likes to move around, you know, a box of paper is 60 pounds sometimes. So 45 to 60 pounds, you've got to move those things. That's not easy. 

Mark: So Phantom Couriers, not just envelopes, not just bike messengers, but they got all that. International shipping. They have a downtown office on Howe Street. 329 Howe Street to look after your after hours shipping or pickups, if you don't want it delivered to your location, you can pick it up there. But also freight in town, in Vancouver, unbeatable price on pallet deliveries, dock to dock. Phantom Couriers, any package anywhere. 

Mark H: Phantom Couriers gets it there. 

Mark: Thanks Mark. 

Mark H: Right on man.

Mark: Hi, it's Mark from Top Local. I'm here with Mark Huggan, Phantom Couriers in Vancouver. One of the fastest growing companies in the province of BC and one of the fastest growing courier companies in the country. If I'd stop tripping over my tongue, I could tell you how good they are, but we're going to talk about their executive concierge service. The way that you can get complicated stuff done easily. Tell me some more about this what's example of this Mark? 

Mark H: Oh, yeah, just the other day, I was at a luncheon at the Terminal City Club and a guy, Rob DesBrisay from NAI Commercial mentioned how easy we'd made it for him. It was just another day in the office for us. I guess they'd called around. They had 63 boxes of like bankers boxes of files from a high level guy on a lot of board of directors, like CanForge, Jim Patterson, Kal Tire. So he had amassed an amazing amount of records. And this is just one of his residences in Vancouver. He needed to vacate it for whatever reason. 

And they'd called movers and they'd called, you know, document storage places. And they called these people. They all wanted to come by and take a look and they wanted to come by and get the keys. And it just took all this time. And Rob said to his assistant call Phantom, you know, he knows me and it was one email. Can you do this? We're like, yes. When? And we're like, let us get in touch with the building manager. We locked off the elevator. We, acquired the keys. We went over there with a swamper and a big truck, boom done. In, out over to the other place. 

And so, you know, Rob was super happy. His client was like scratching his head, like, well, I thought this was going to take all day or a couple of days. Done. And so, you know, he pointed, you know, to a lot of people that they just think couriers, like some guy dropping off an envelope.

And he used the example of we're more like an excellent concierge service. So we can do what a concierge does. You expect a concierge to be high level, to be connected, to be able to help you out, to solve problems. You go to the concierge with like, I don't know where this is. Do you? And yes, the answer's yes.

So that's what we do. We provide excellent solutions. We're well connected. And we're the go-to guys to solve problems. We have a huge network of just experience and people. And we've helped a lot of people and they're always willing to help us. So this kind of thing is an excellent play for the company.

And it worked out for Rob. His customer's super happy. Rob is super happy. I was happy to get the testimonial. And it was just a good example that the people at Phantom Couriers are excellent at problem solving. 

Mark:  Any package anywhere, Phantom Couriers will get it there. 

Mark H: Basically, that's the proof in the pudding right there.

Mark: Cool. Call them at (604) 899-5447. To book your delivery or if you're outside the lower main,+1 844-899-5447. Servicing all of BC, all of Alberta, all of Toronto and rapidly expanding right across the country. Phantom Couriers. Thanks Mark. 

Mark H: Thank you.

Mark: Hi, it's Mark from Top Local. I'm here with Mark Huggan, Phantom Couriers in Vancouver. One of the 100 fastest growing companies in the province of BC, expanding right across the country of Canada. New locations in the Nanaimo - they're all over the place, but they also have a downtown business centre at 329 Howe Street that is open for service right now.  So if you want after-hour pickups or deliveries or secure deliveries, you're not at home, you want to get it there. Check out that 329 Howe street, downtown Vancouver, right in the central business district. And we're talking with the owner, Mr. Mark Huggan. How you doing Mark? 

Mark H: Doing great today. How are you? 

Mark: Good. So. You guys have something new cooked up again? What's going on? 

Mark H: You mean the shipping centre? 

Mark: Your truck? 

Mark H: Oh, that! Oh, thank you for telling me, but about truck! That's right. We've got a new, beautiful three ton Hino, which is perfect for dock to dock pallets. It's a competitive business, so we're $55 bucks a pallet in the lower mainland. Competitive pricing, excellent service, plus  it's under the Phantom standard operating procedures, so: it won't be late, they'll be loaded properly, and unloaded at the same time. We're glad to have that freight fleet. 

Freight is very busy. A lot of people think we're just bike messengers, but we do  local freight. We move everything from complicated standup desks to pallets of paper, couches, all sorts of jazz. Whatever needs to be done from any manufacturer, we're able to pick it up and deliver it. 

It's a beautiful truck. It's got a nice 24 foot box and it's black, so I like that. Nice and shiny. The guy who drives it, Burke, is an excellent operator. He's a fast, efficient, smart, courteous dude who gets the work done properly and on time. 

Mark:  That's fantastic news, I think for people. That's going to mean on-time deliveries of their major loads of stuff. What's going on with the downtown retail location? Why did you guys open that? 

Mark H: Well, we opened it up because we saw  lineups up the street at the DHL store at eight at night. And I was like, "look, if somebody is looking to ship at eight at night and they're walking down to DHL, we might as well get a piece of that pie." 

So we opened it up on Howe street, just a block away, and we're looking to get a business to us, you know, it's just a natural way to expand. Plus it's got an excellent franchise model. Once the systems and procedures are in place, we know  what fits in this space. We can start putting them up, New Westminster would be a great place to be centred in the Lower Mainland. Put one into Langley, would be a lot easier. 

Our drivers could then go to these hubs and pick up and drop off... make things faster. We could have way faster service. Say there's drivers coming in from Langley, but they only need one driver to bring 10 packages into Vancouver. He would go to the Langley Depot, pick up, bring it to Vancouver, put the Depot, bikers would take it. Done. It's basically automating the delivery system. I see it as being an excellent stepping stone for expansion. It's a good flagship thing to have, it's a good place for people to go and ask questions. The staff is knowledgeable. They can see what we're all about.

We have our international shipping out of it. So shipping to London, Ontario, or London, England, just as easy as going to Walnut Grove or Victoria. They're excellent little hubs that we're going to be building up. Once we get the entire concept down after about a year, we're going to iron out all the wrinkles, then we're going to scale that thing across the province, put them everywhere. It'll be fun. 

Mark: What are the operating hours of that location? 

Mark H: Right now, we planned on opening eight to eight, but as we're getting our systems and things going, it's just going from eight till five right now. We have our last pickups between three and five. We haven't got our advertising in place, our Google pages or business, all that stuff. So right now it's just a soft opening, working out the kinks we're just going through now, which is why you have a soft opening. Once we get that rocking, it's going to be eight to eight and that'd be excellent.

Mark: What about on the weekends? 

Mark H: It'll be from 10 till 2. There's not a lot going on after two o'clock. I hope everybody's just taking it easy on the weekends, but there's somebody there to answer questions, make appointments. If there's a time after two to make an appointment, it'd be easy to meet up with them. The amount of business volume and weekends traditionally 10-2 keeps us busy. After two, go home and enjoy the day.

Mark: Who would typically use this in the downtown core in Vancouver? 

Mark H:Well, it's funny. We just had somebody walk in from a law firm, came walking in from 409 Granville. They could have phoned, the company would have came, picked it up, but they didn't do that. They just saw it and they walked in and they had us ship out 14 bottles of wine just to their partners, they were just doing a little gift thing. A 3D photographer walked in, she needed camera equipment shipped out. The HVAC guy used us because while he was in the office, standing on his ladder, he had to get an emission gun and he looks down to Dion and it's like, "Hey, can you guys do this?" "Yeah, we can do that." So he didn't have to get off his ladder, jumped in his truck and do something, he had us do it for him. So the full gamut. 

If somebody doesn't have a courier account, they don't know what's going on, come down, we'll hook you up. Anybody with an account and watch the drop by, they just do.

I don't know why our customers are walking in, but they're coming by to say hi. So anybody that needs anything done, same day in the lower mainland or overnight around the world, it's a perfect place to come. They get their packages shipped. We can pack them up too, because we have the shipping supplies.

So if you're don't know what it takes to get something shipped, come on down, we'll fix it up for you or pick it up and bring it to the shipping centre. It's a good place just to, you know, make sure packages are packaged properly. A lot of damage happens in transit. People think, you know, somebody's holding it, but it's dropped down to like a 45 mile an hour conveyor belt.

If you ever dropped anything out of a car, you know that it bounces. So the rule of thumb is that it needs to be able to take a three-foot drop on any side so we can properly inspect things, make sure they're good and ship them out. It's super important to us that when they drop it off and don't know what's going on, that we pick it up and know what's going on. So that's a thing we need to do. We're always doing it, so it's a great space for doing that. 

Mark: I guess if you're not going to be home for that delivery, and you're concerned about security- people are purloining your stuff off of your front porch 

Mark H: Package pirates. 

Mark: This is the way to solve that issue if you work in downtown.

Mark H: Yeah, you come pick it up. A lot of Amazon drop-offs there. I was surprised at how many come into the office. I keep walking in and there's a stack of boxes. They don't want the boxes to their office for whatever reason. Maybe it's personal, there is a rule, or they just don't want to miss the delivery, and they know we're open. So there's tons of drop-offs. 

Wine stores are asking us to hold wine there overnight and ship it out as the customers request it, so that the stores can get it out of the store and bring a new stock. It's almost like a mini cross dock for packages for the wine industry. I never saw that coming. 

It's it's a beautiful little place to do work, go to work. 

Mark: If you're looking for unique services, you got stuff that needs to get done, and you're not sure how it's going to happen. The guys to call [are] Phantom Couriers. They're going to look after you. They're going to get that package there on time. You can reach them at (604) 899-5447. Or outside of the lower mainland, +1 844-899-5447. Right across the country of Canada. They'll look after you Phantom Couriers, any package anywhere... 

Mark H: Phantom Couriers gets it there. 

Mark: Thanks Mark

Mark H: Right on dude.

Mark: Hi it's Mark from Top Local. I'm here with Mark Huggan of Phantom Couriers in Vancouver. Vancouver's best couriers, fastest growing. One of the fastest growing companies in the province, in Western Canada, in all of Canada, as far as couriers go. And we're talking about deliveries in the Nanaimo. How are you doing Mark?

Mark H: Doing excellent. Thanks. 

Mark: So how's Nanaimo? That's a new operation. What's going on over there in Nanaimo? 

Mark H: Yeah. You know, we've had like a facility in Nanaimo for about six months now. We've been dealing with the Nanaimo for 24 years, but it was time to get on over there. And of course, one of our first contacts was with the Nanaimo Chamber of Commerce.

So we joined up, you know, be a good citizen and it paid off with an interesting delivery the other day. Our second one in the last few months. 

Mark: So what was the delivery?

Mark H: I don't know if it's because COVID is happening. Yeah. It's well, people are moving like headquarters and things. And so we've had to move to giant model ships. You know, this one was 6 feet by 2 feet by 3 feet, and there was no elevator. It's super fragile. You know, the kind that sit in the lobby of a shipping company or anything that has to do with maritime. They take years to create. They're very expensive. They are just not to be messed with.

And so, you know, we're, sure we can do this. No problem send over a truck with a tailgate and a guy. And it's like, Oh, but wait, there's no elevator. So it was like, Oh, we'll send over four guys, you know, some blankets and stuff. So we had to do an assessment and go in there and do it. Of course the job was easier done than said. It seemed like it was going to be a lot more daunting. But when we got there, they figured it out pretty quick and packed it up and got it off. And it was seamless. 

And everybody was happy, but it's like one of those kinds of nail biting moments when nobody would want to touch the job with a 10 foot pole. The Chamber obviously has other contacts there. We're the new one, but we had the ability to do it and we were happy too. And it just makes it a good story. 

I mean, I got my start in the shipping industry, so I think those ships are cool. So, you know, I don't want anything to go wrong with them. So I was kind of like overseeing it from afar asking, did it happen? Is it cool? Everything went perfect. Dion, our operations guy handled it perfectly.

So deliveries like that are really difficult to wrap your head around. But with some experience behind us, we were able to execute perfectly. It wasn't super expensive, but the rewards were super high, so everybody was happy. And that's the bottom line. 

Mark: So you guys can specialize in that kind of way outside the box kind of delivery that the other companies seem to only want to be within their narrow, little niche that they know they're going to make lots of money on. You're able to provide the service that delivers anything anywhere basically. 

Mark H: Yeah, that's what keeps it exciting, man. Like those are the exciting things. I mean, during that day we did about 360 other deliveries, but this is the one that stands out as unique. And it's good for everybody, you know, it's refreshing and it's creative and it keeps the company fresh. We love doing it. And the customer's pretty satisfied. 

Mark: Cool. 

Mark H: Yeah. 

Mark: So if you need deliveries in Nanaimo, the guys to call, Phantom Couriers, you can reach them on their 800 number +1 844-899-5447. Or if you're in the lower mainland (604) 899-5447. That's that 800 number is good read across the country, by the way. So if you need something anywhere, anytime, any place, these are the guys to call. Phantom Couriers. Thanks Mark. 

Mark H: You betcha. Thank you.