Loop

The hardest part of extracting value from AI in logistics has always been the data. We’ve all heard the adage, “garbage in garbage out.” New Gartner® research, "Achieving Logistics AI Success: Build the Digital Foundation First," to us, makes the case plainly. Without a clean, unified data foundation, AI in logistics underperforms or fails outright. Read one way, we feel the research provides a to-do list. Audit your systems. Standardize your data. Climb to the next maturity level. Then, you've earned the right to apply AI. We read it another way. For a CSCO already under pressure to show results, that's a multi-year detour. We believe that the data foundation everyone treats as the prerequisite is actually the first thing great AI can deliver. Cleaning, normalizing, and unifying messy, fragmented, logistics data, is itself an AI problem. Solve that, and the foundation becomes a byproduct of the work. Read the full Gartner® research and let us know what you think in the comments. #logisticsAI #GartnerResearch

Three of the biggest names in parcel now share the same last mile. This week DHL eCommerce signed an exclusive, multi-year agreement worth more than $10 billion to route 100% of its U.S. domestic last-mile volume through USPS. That puts it alongside Amazon and UPS Ground Saver, all relying on the same Postal Service network at the last mile. For B2C shippers, the headline is continuity. DHL eCommerce is locked in for years, with room to take on heavier packages and new service tiers. If you've been weighing your economy parcel options, it's worth a fresh look. The story underneath is consolidation. When several of your "alternative" carriers run on the same final mile, diversification might need to be in air quotes. If USPS shifts rates or service, several of your carriers shift in almost the same way. It's more imperative than ever to see your parcel spend clearly. You can't tell whether your carrier mix is resilient or just diverse-looking without access to the clean data underneath it. Loop's Paul Yaussy was asked to comment on what this signals for the market. Check it out below. How are you thinking about USPS concentration in your own parcel mix?

For years, the AI conversation in transportation was about visibility. But simply seeing where freight is, is no longer enough. Earlier this month, Loop's Jonathan Shaver moderated a panel at NUTC - Northwestern University Transportation Center that landed on what comes next: orchestration. Not just seeing problems, but recommending actions, automating decisions, and coordinating work across the network. Joined by leaders from C.H. Robinson, project44, XPO, and Wi-Tronix, the panel kept coming back to a one point: AI in transportation is no longer theoretical. It's already improving safety, speed, and decision-making. The shift from seeing problems to resolving them is where the next few years of operational value will come from. Full recap from NUTC: https://bit.ly/4fyha5t

Attention all parcel shippers: Effective June 1, UPS will implement a 1% fuel surcharge increase to the following shipments: 1. UPS International Ground Export Import  2. UPS International Air-Export and International Air-Import Fuel Surcharge This increase follows a 2–2.5% fuel surcharge increase on International Air Export and International Air Import shipments that took effect May 11. As fuel-related costs continue to fluctuate, our team will continue to closely monitor surcharge changes and update you here. Shippers should regularly evaluate carrier strategies, service mix, and network optimization opportunities to help minimize unexpected transportation spend. Source: https://bit.ly/4vg70ec #ParcelShipping #FuelSurcharge #UPS

$1 billion. That is what UniUni just valued at going public. A carrier most shippers have never put on a rate card. This morning Passport, a cross border logistics platform, was acquired by Global-e for $350 million. Three weeks ago Amazon opened its entire logistics network to every shipper in America. The week after that USPS repriced its DIM weight structure effective July 12th. This is not a slow moving industry anymore. Here is what we are seeing on the ground at Loop. Clients who have added UniUni to their carrier mix for lighter weight residential volume are saving 18% or more versus what they were paying before. Strategic diversification equals lower costs. Most of them had never heard of UniUni two years ago. That is the point. The default is UPS and FedEx. But the carrier landscape has more viable options today than at any point in the last decade. Carriers are scaling, going public, getting acquired, and pricing aggressively to win volume. The carrier landscape changed. Most contracts have not.

USPS is following FedEx and UPS — and it's going to cost shippers more. Starting July 12, two big changes hit: 📦 Fractional inches get rounded UP to the next whole inch 📐 The dimensional weight divisor drops from 166 to 139 Translation: bulky, lightweight packages just got more expensive to ship via USPS — across Ground Advantage, Priority Mail, and more. If you haven't audited your packaging strategy lately, now's the time.

The best supply chains are invisible to the end customer. But that invisibility is the result of constant, coordinated operational excellence. When the data breaks down, the customer feels it, even if they never know why. Supply chain teams track metrics like on-time delivery rates, carrier scorecards, exception resolution times because they matter operationally. But they matter because every one of them eventually becomes a customer experience problem when it fails. A delayed delivery starts as a tracking signal lost between systems. A pricing mistake starts as a freight invoice dispute that took three weeks to resolve. A stockout starts as inbound freight that wasn't flagged early enough for replenishment to react. Your customers don't grade your supply chain. They grade their experience. This is the reason we built Loop the way we did. Keeping promises to your customers requires a foundation that connects every operational lever to its downstream impact. That means a data layer that unifies fragmented logistics information from invoices, contracts, BOLs, POs, and customs documents into a single source of truth. AI agents that resolve vendor disputes autonomously, reducing exception resolution time from weeks to hours. Intelligence that gives supply chain leaders live data, not 30-day-old extracts, to make decisions before problems compound. Take exception management. When a billing dispute with a carrier sits unresolved for three weeks, that's not just a finance problem. It's a strained carrier relationship that shows up in the next capacity crunch. It's a delivery that gets deprioritized. It's a customer who waits an extra day for their order without knowing why. Loop's Exception Agent identifies the discrepancy, initiates the dispute, and resolves it in hours leading to a 92% reduction in manual approval work. The operational outcome is faster resolution. The customer outcome is a carrier relationship that holds up when it matters. Get more from your supply chain software. Learn more about Loop's Exception agent. Link in comments. #LogsitcsAI #AgenticWorkforce #SupplyChainAI

📦 Unpopular opinion: Carrier diversification isn't a strategy. For many shippers, it's just expensive complexity. (Editor’s note: if you spend over $20M in parcel transportation, this post might not be for you.) I know, I know. Every consultant, every LinkedIn post, every logistics conference panel says the same thing: "Diversify your carrier mix or you're leaving money on the table." But let's pressure-test that. 📦 Diversification requires scale you may not have. If you're splitting volume across 3 carriers, what are you giving each one? Enough to matter? Carriers price based on volume commitments. Thin your volume across multiple partners and you're asking for best-in-class rates while offering second-tier leverage. That's not a negotiation strategy… that's wishful thinking. 📦 Diversification requires infrastructure you may not have. To do it right, you need the ability to rate shop every single shipment in real time. You need visibility into spend by carrier to track against commitment thresholds. You need the operational bandwidth to manage multiple contracts, multiple invoices, multiple escalation paths. That's real cost. Is it less than the "risk" you're hedging against? 📦 Diversification assumes service risk that may not exist. When was the last major, sustained service failure by a national parcel carrier? COVID? Yes…and every carrier struggled. Diversification didn't save anyone. If a macro event disrupts the entire network, having two contracts doesn't give you two functioning networks. 📦 The math often doesn't work. If consolidating volume earns you deeper discounts than you'd get by splitting, and your operational cost to manage one carrier relationship is lower, and your service performance is meeting the bar, what exactly are you diversifying away from? For the right shipper, at the right volume, with the right infrastructure, yes, diversification makes sense. But "everyone is doing it" has never been a supply chain strategy. Some of you are running lean, disciplined, well-negotiated single or dual-carrier programs - and that's not a red flag. That's a business decision that deserves more respect than it gets. Stop letting the diversification orthodoxy make you feel like you're doing it wrong. If your parcel spend is $8M and you’re using one carrier, perhaps augmented with another for lightweight shipments for example, don’t feel pressured to diversify just to say you did. Sometimes, focused is just smarter.

Excited to have you on the team Alex!

FYI Parcel Shippers: USPS has filed notice with the PRC recommending competitive price changes effective July 12, 2026 (pending regulatory approval). Two updates in particular stand out for parcel shippers: Ground Advantage Commercial - Elimination of Ounce-Based Rate Tiers All Ground Advantage Commercial parcels under 1 lb. will move to the rate currently applied to the 12-15.999 oz tier, resulting in an average published rate increase of 11.8%. According to USPS, shippers with negotiated commercial rates are not impacted. Dimensional Weight Divisor Change The DIM divisor will decrease from 169 to 133 across Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, Ground Advantage, and Parcel Select. A lower divisor means more shipments will be billed on dimensional weight rather than actual weight, increasing costs for lightweight, bulky packages. Additional changes are outlined on the USPS website. Shippers should review their USPS volume profile and packaging configurations to understand exposure ahead of July 12. Source: https://bit.ly/4d9yiwA #ParcelShipping #ParcelIndustryNews #USPSrates