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Rob Garrison explains, “We don’t pursue the Fortune 500 market because we don’t ? nd them attractive. We were able to build an ex- tremely affordable, easy to adopt, and easy to use system, in part be- cause of modern technology and the cost of same. Our design teams broke down the complexity into simplicity. The founder of GT Nexus is one of my board members and I have also been a customer of theirs.”

Hand in hand with that mission is the ease of adoption for even the smallest of business customers. A Mercado user can be up and running on the cloud-based program in less than 30 minutes, typically facili- tated by Zoom training. A company can be set up in as little as eight weeks, most of which involves IT integration to ERP and forwarders.

Any service provides both ‘soft’ and measurable savings to be realized by the customer. For smaller ? rms with limited ? nancial resources, the speed of that return on investment is as important as the ease of transition to a new technology tool.

“At the front of the process we provide our customers a short supply chain pro? le questionnaire which feeds into our cost sav- ings calculator and is presented to the customer in our proposals for validation. A customer will receive a minimum 3X ROI when using

Mercado however it can be considerably higher depending on the client,” says Garrison.

Mercado’s First Mile: Making your Last Mile Count

Recently, Mercado closed a $2.5 million funding round led by

IronSpring Ventures, joined by new investor Supply Chain Ven- tures. According to Garrison, IronSpring and Supply Chain Ven- tures share a thesis that in order for supply chains to become more ef? cient, they must improve their operations, using technology. “This has proven itself dramatically with what we have witnessed in the ? nal mile over the last ? ve years. For the International sup- ply chain, there are a host of new technology companies trying to do the same for the middle mile (port to DC). We believe the most dramatic change of all will come from ef? ciencies in the ? rst mile.

Both of our partners share that vision and have the expertise and connections to help us realize that potential.”

Mercado’s 30 employees are spread out between its Dallas, TX headquarters, an engineering group in Austin, and others located glob- ally to support clients and their suppliers. Garrison declined to share a client list, but he said that since its 2018 inception, the ? rm had won work from a $12B retailer, a DTC retailer, and dozens of wholesalers.

Early in his career, while working for a large importer, Mercado’s

CEO was confronted by a buyer who blamed ‘logistics’ for delays in a critical seasonal promotion. This watershed moment cemented his be- lief that a better outcome would be achieved through greater emphasis on the buying processes. In other words, what happens in a shipment’s ‘? rst mile’ effectively de? nes what happens during the last mile.

Similar to the marine coatings business, supply chain success in- volves 99% preparation and just 1% logistics. To that end, Mercado

Labs is already navigating a course line to success, starting from the all-important ? rst mile, culminating in a pro? table ? nish.

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