Our story began in 2004, two years after coming to the United States from Kenya.
Those days, shipping to Kenya from the USA by air was only done by FedEx & DHL at an arm and a leg cost - they were very expensive.
These were the early days of web-2000 and most businesses were still very archaic with no web presence.
Mom Story.
Back in 2004, my mom was diagnosed with a rare disease called Lou Gehrig's disease, a type of nerve disease that paralyzes the body from toes and fingers progressing upwards.
As her condition progressively got worse, she couldn't walk or use her hands. They progressively got paralyzed from fingertips coming up to the shoulders.
A consultant neurologist ordered some medications that were only available in the US or Canada (at the time).
I still remember shipping those medications from the US and a few assistive devices at a cost of $720.
A few weeks later, the disease progressed and affected her breathing nerves. She went to be with the Lord 4 weeks after 🙏.My her soul continue resting in peace.
The difficulty of sending small parcels to Kenya from the USA was real. The costs these mainstream carriers charged were too high and if you didn't know someone in Nairobi where they could deliver, these services were not for you.
Fast forward, to 2012, my wife wanted to start a cosmetics business specializing in USA-only products. I already had started an e-commerce website with the idea of selling American brands in Kenya
This is not a unique idea and thousands have tried doing this in Kenya.
At the time, I was using a small Kenyan company based out of Dallas to ship from the US to Kenya.
The problem was how long it took to ship goods to Kenya from the USA.
Mr. Kamau, the owner of that company didn't have enough volumes to meet airline minimums and he'd hold my weekly shipments for up to 3 weeks in order to meet the minimum threshold.
Imagine sending packages every week but he was holding them to accumulate. Meaning, 5-6 weeks later, my first shipment would still be on the way.
Despite these delays...
The business was great. She started with a bang! We had enough stock to make sales in millions the first few months until we could not keep up with demand and slow sea freight speed.
Despite being a profitable business, we had to close it but the idea never died.
My wife was doing cosmetics only and I had a website called "BuyUSAImports dot com". I had this dream that I would become the next Kenyan Amazon but no...
Customers were seeing the website but instead of buying what I was trying to sell, they'd go to the Contact Us page and send me links for other items they would want to ship.
It was frustrating and I used to trash those emails as spam but if you read my post about how to start a business in Kenya, you'd notice that customers were demanding something but I was not listening.
10 years memorial was approaching. I decided to buy a NikeID (Nike by you) shoe with my Mom initials printed on it.
The shoe I got was slightly larger than my size and I posted it on my Facebook page asking anyone to refund the purchase amount and I'd ship it to them for free.
Just like the e-commerce website where people were sending me links to help them ship stuff from the US to Kenya, my Facebook post got more than 100 replies from friends and their friends asking if I could ship different things to them in Kenya.
Instead of telling customers what you want to sell to them, ask them what they would want to buy and you fulfill that need. It is called the customer discovery model.
Steve Blank
I opened a Facebook Page and flew to Kenya to register a company. I then opened an office at Corner House, third floor, hired one person, bought him a phone line, and then left.
Believing that Africa in general had been left out in global logistics when I had to pay $720 to ship medications for my mom and listening to what customers were demanding gave birth to Kentex Cargo as we know it today.
My story is not unique. Since Kentex Cargo started in 2013, we have been delivering weekly to 1000s of happy customers in Kenya.
We started operating from a kitchen table and later took over the dining area.
In a few months time, we were operating from the garage and this is when we got our first two employees in the US working out of our garage.
The business steadily grew and I got a bigger self-storage facility for holding the overflow shipments. We operated like this until 2018.
In 2019 we moved to a location in Plano, Texas, and added the third employee. The business was on an exponential trajectory but then, Covid-19 hit.
When covid hit, everyone was buying everything and holding it for a rainy day. 90% of global airlines stopped flying and cargo lift capacity declined.
We were panicking that the business would end with no one importing and only a few airlines were flying.
To our surprise, our shipments quadrupled in less than a month and we no longer could fit in the warehouse we had in Plano, Texas.
In Feb 2020 we had to move yet again to our current 10,000 square feet warehouse in Carrollton, Texas, just outskirts of Dallas.
In April 2023, we added a Delaware tax-free warehouse where our customers shopping online will not have to pay sales tax when ordering online.
Shipping goods across international borders has always been a challenge. With the complexities of logistics, businesses, and individuals often find themselves at a crossroads:
Air or sea? Kentex Cargo, with warehouses in Dallas, Texas, and Delaware, aims to simplify this choice for you.
Whether you're shipping from the heart of Texas or taking advantage of our Delaware warehouse's proximity to JFK Airport, we have the expertise to guide you.
Let's explore the advantages, disadvantages, and cost calculations of both methods.
Pros:
Cons:
Air freight costs are based on either actual weight or volumetric weight – whichever is greater.
Formula for Volumetric Weight: VolumetricWeight(kg)=(L(in)xW(in)xH(in))/306
Why Volumetric Weight Matters: Shipping carriers realized that charging solely based on weight wasn't cost-effective.
Light, bulky packages took up space but didn't contribute much to revenue. Hence, the volumetric weight concept ensures carriers are compensated for the space a package occupies.
Detailed Examples:
Example 1:
Example 2:
Pros:
Cons:
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