Easyship Summit 2020: Coming Together to Learn & Celebrate

This December the Easyship team found a way to re-invent our annual summit and we did it with the same sense of camaraderie that has always made it such a special event.

The annual summit is a trademark of Easyship and a core part of our ethos as a diverse, global tech company. For the last few years, we’ve gathered as a team in Hong Kong for a week of learning and adventure, but this year as the pandemic has impacted so many aspects of our lives, it has allowed us to re-imagine how we work and collaborate as a team.

With teams across 4 time zones and 5 offices, Easyship has always thrived on a “cloud-based” work culture, but like many other companies, we asked ourselves how do we maintain our special workplace culture in our new reality?

What was so clear from this summit is that we are a resilient team, and our passion for each other drives us to create solutions that empower our customers. We know that when they grow, we grow. That commitment to helping them grow is reflected in everything we do.

We also learned the importance of building strong internal processes and cultivating an agile work culture. It has been amazing to see how we’ve adapted, and achieved so much this year through our teamwork. I know I speak for everyone when I say I couldn’t be more proud of the amazing team we have built at Easyship!

But do you know what was my favorite part of this year’s summit?

It was definitely how our diverse teams from around the office embraced this new virtual summit and were determined to learn and have fun. Over two days, through Zoom we got together to look back at our achievements for the year and share our big plans for 2021. We have so many amazing things in store for our customers. We can’t wait!

As you can see by the photos, we found time to get outside of the office to relax and celebrate with our colleagues.

Our offices in the US were treated to an amazing cooking class where they learned how to make ravioli and gnocchi from a chef all the way in Florence (Thank you AirBnB!) Now, there’s some debate about whether or not the results were edible. We hear that a few members of our marketing team, in particular, had some problems with disintegrating gnocchi.

Our team in London got really competitive with their dart games, and thankfully everyone stayed safe, despite a few straw darts landing far outside the dart board. We’re going to work on that for next year. Our team in Singapore went on a go-kart adventure that made everyone else jealous. We need a company wide go-kart grand prix! Perhaps next year.

The best part was that we were able to come together as a team and didn’t let challenges keep us from enjoying each other and bonding. That’s how we continue to grow and deliver for our customers. And wow, we produced some amazing things in 2020!

What We Accomplished in 2020

Logistics is the hottest industry right now but it remains incredibly complex to navigate, even for the most savvy merchants. Our ability to break down these complexities, and provide answers when so much is unclear in the world before us is what builds trust in Easyship as the industry leading shipping platform.

There have been so many highlights this year but I’m particularly proud of how we’ve expanded our services into the EU market and opened our office in the UK to help customers navigate the Brexit process.

As our platform grows, we continue to forge partnerships with the leading companies in the industry, like Shopify Plus, Squarespace and Magento. We know the modern merchant requires a shipping platform that provides them with turnkey solutions and enables omnichannel sales.

Our tech team has done an amazing job this year updating our platform and introducing new features to help our customers.

Here are a few of the highlights:

• Implemented Shipping Documents Preview and Print to simplify document generation.
• Launched a Pickups console to help easily manage and adjust pickups
• Incorporated “Saved Views” and “Tagging” features for speedier shipment management.
• Introduced Flat Export Rates so customers can lower their international shipping costs.
• Created our COVID-19 resource hub to provide the latest impacts on shipping and logistics.

Those are just a few of the updates from the year. Our marketing team has done a wonderful job keeping our customers and prospects informed about what’s happening in the industry and with our product developments. They launched our new ‘Product Release Notes’ where you can follow all of our updates, and continue to publish timely, and relevant articles on our blog and resource hub.

Looking Forward to 2021

As we look to the future, we know there will be challenges ahead, and we’re ready for them. But we also have big ambitions because we know there is still so much opportunity to help sellers reach their goals.

We are excited to continue growing and adding new couriers in markets like Canada and Western Europe. There are new markets on the horizon like Malaysia and New Zealand where we know there are couriers perfect for our platform.

We have made great advancements over the last few years in turning Easyship into the leading shipping platform for businesses, and we’re going to continue investing in building our own solutions for the enablement of commerce.

Finding affordable solutions for bulk importing of goods is critically important for growing eCommerce companies. We’re excited to offer those services and can’t wait to expand into the United States and European Union in 2021.

We’ve heard from our customers that they love our Flat Export rate service and we see tremendous opportunity to grow and expand that product, offering our customers streamlined, affordable solutions.

Over the last few years, we’ve learned a lot about eCommerce returns, and know this can be a big pain point for merchants. We are committed to offering affordable and accessible global returns.

We are busy working on new solutions and are excited to share them with you in 2021!

Our Mission to Help Businesses Grow

We are looking forward to what 2021 has in store and we know together we’ll continue to create an amazing product that helps entrepreneurs and creators dream big and connect with communities across the globe. We believe anyone can do it, and we’ll always be here to help make it a reality.

Today thousands of eCommerce and crowdfunding customers rely on the Easyship platform to streamline their shipping and logistics, save money, and expand their businesses globally.

The foundation of our company is built around our mission statement: We believe that any business, regardless of size, should be able to sell globally.

This is the reason we started Easyship and it remains why we’re so passionate about this industry. Thanks for a great year!