Phantom Couriers Expansion – Victoria to Toronto

Mark B: Hi, it's Mark from Top Local here with Mark Huggan of Phantom Couriers in Vancouver, Vancouver's fastest growing courier service and one of the 100 fastest growing companies in BC. How are you doing today, Mark? 

Mark H: Obviously, we're very fast, so yeah, we're doing awesome. How are you? 

Mark B: Good. Great. So let's talk about expansion. You guys are rapidly growing, expanding into all kinds of areas across BC, Alberta and maybe even the big smoke. What's going on? 

Mark H: Wanted to do it for a long time and just started doing it. And then once we started doing it, it worked. And I was like, okay, this is good. So, you know, there's a lot of good contributing factors.

First, it's easier than it has ever been. Indeed is a very excellent platform for hiring. So when you're there, you can just hire your people. With the help of companies like yours, we are getting landing pages and getting business addresses in other cities. When we get a business location set up, we go to Google Business and establish our presence. You know what they say. If you build it, they will come. Once you start telling people you're there and people know you, they're like, "Wait a minute, Phantom's over there. I'll call them."

It might be a company that's based in Vancouver doing business in Nanaimo. Once you get over there, you're going to meet one of their partner companies. They're going to say, "Did Phantom drop off the package? What did you think?" "It was great. We should switch to Phantom." Or we will say, "Hi, we're Phantom."

And it's just that organic growth. So, you know, it was weird not to go to Victoria first but we went from Vancouver straight to Nanaimo. It works. We have a location there with a friend of ours in a print shop. So it works just like Phantom used to have a print shop here when the printer needed to shack up, because printers and couriers work hand in hand. Symbiotic relationship. 

First, we zoom down south to Victoria where we're doing grocery store deliveries for Whole Foods. In Nanaimo, we started off with a simple grocery store as well, and it just led to the B2B. And now that we've got it, it's really nice because we've got Gibsons and we can get there with a sea plane or helijet. Give it to our guys and gals. Presto, is done. 

Then going east towards Calgary was an easy too because with a disruption in the supply chain, we had an opportunity to get into Kamloops and Kelowna. Our operations manager is from Alberta and he made a few phone calls, lined up a few ducks and t's good to go. 

And you mentioned the big smoke, being Toronto. One of our biggest e-comm customers is obviously operating there, but they're operating with next day on Canada Post and Purolator. And we were on the phone and I said, "Victor, we're going to Toronto." And he's like, "That's our largest e-comm market. We don't have any same day there. Can you get your software running?" I said it's the same software and it was like the light bulb went off. We signed some contracts and now Phantom Couriers will be in Toronto. 

We've got a guy there working now solving problems for another e-comm company where they shipped a bunch of stuff over there. All of it got lost. I found it. Well, not me personally, but our company found it and then we got Matt, our courier in Toronto, to pick it up, sort it out and go. And now Matt has been doing some woodworking transfers between shops and some freight. It's perfect. 

It was just one of those kinds of things. Did you want to talk about it? Sure. You know, do it or shut up. So we just did it. It was pretty cool. It was pretty much a "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" moment. It just happened. 

Mark B: So Phantom Courier is expanding right across the entire country. Well, at least from Toronto west to Vancouver to Victoria. 

Mark H: There's a lot missing in the middle. But you know, we'll fill that up. If it happens, I mean, come on. I was a bike messenger. Oh hey. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold the phone. Yesterday was our 24th year in business, man! 

Mark B: Nice. 

Mark H: Yeah, I know. Like, I forgot about that. So 24 years in business. Okay. It should have happened a lot sooner. It didn't. But here we are. We are having fun. There you go. Twenty four years later.

Mark B: If you want to go with a winner, if you want to go with the fastest growing company, if you want to go with a company that delivers on time, anywhere, any place, the guys to call are Phantom Couriers in Vancouver. You can reach them at (604) 899-5447 or nationally +1 844-899-5447. Thanks, Mark. 

Mark H: Right on. Thank you.