Six markets in, here's what I'd tell my first-day self at Ninja Van

I spent half of my career in Ninja Van, a good 7 years out of 13. Leaving the company was bittersweet to say the least. On the one hand, leaving a team that I’ve built in 2021 and grew from 2 (including myself) to over 100 people strong across office and ground staff is not easy. On the other, I felt like my own growth has plateaued over the years and I found myself in a steady state. It didn’t feel right staying as the head of special projects if there wasn’t any new projects to run.

I think that cross-border operations in e-commerce is over-complicated by a lot of people, governments included. People think it’s all about the parcels, but at the end of the day, before it hits the distribution hub, it is still one consolidated shipment. I saw all of this, but after years being in e-commerce logistics, one thing remained constant in this vertical of logistics. It isn’t the solution, or innovation of the product. It always boils down to cost. This vertical is one of those verticals that will always eventually turn into a price war and when I tell you the competition can get nasty, it’s an understatement.

Needless to say, it’s always a challenging landscape to be in and these are some of the things that I learnt during my time at Ninja Van.

Don't treat e-commerce logistics like e-commerce logistics

This happens all the time, annoyingly. People look at e-commerce logistics and say, it's specialised, it's tailored, it's different. Go cry a river. It's still freight. Those who gets it, makes the most money. Why? Because, freight is freight.

I've developed and set up a domestic air freight team under Special Projects during my time in Ninja Van, and it was something. We cut down SLA from 72 hours down to under 24 hours. Why? Because the previous ops flow was long, windy and redundant. Most of all, it wasn't freight. It was "E-Commerce".

Boil it all down, what is it? If I'm moving parcels from one hub to another, say with road freight. Isn't that just a truck moving parcels from one end to another? Sure, you might say, "Oh but parcels...". Yes, Einstein, parcels. But parcels were scanned in a 'sorting hub' and then put into boxes or sacks. Then those boxes or sacks goes on a truck. From a supply chain perspective, isn't that just bloody road freight? The truck doesn't care what parcels are in the boxes or sacks, just that they pick up, I don't know...50 pieces and they're the right pieces and they drop off what they pick up.

Over-complicating this creates redundancy and eventually more margins for error.

Why was I able to cut down the SLA from 72 to under 24?

1. I removed redundancy – I had to handover to the local middle-mile team who handed over to the freight agent who handed over to the airline. What? Who does this? Each had their own 'cut-off' which then made the process even longer.
2. I worked directly with the airline – I had no idea why people were so afraid of this. Even the one with freight experience who worked with QR in the past wanted to work with an agent (no offence). It's stupid, the justification was rates. I worked directly, sucked up bad rates for 1 month before I got them to be reasonable, and eventually, I worked with all 3 airlines and was cost-optimised.
3. I trained my people to think freight, not parcels – okay, by now please tell me I don't have to explain this?

I'm proud of this, okay? We ran this from 2022 to date, and the team has won multiple awards from the airline for being one of their biggest domestic freight contributors and accounts.

I even got a 'special' award for growing over 200% by one of the airlines during peak season.

The price war will always prevail

I’d be misleading if I tell you that the price war will end or that it won’t start if you have xyz capabilities. It’s bullshit. Price wars happen everywhere, especially in logistics, regardless of verticals. I think the thing we need to focus on is not the price war itself, but how you got yourself in it to begin with.

One phrase I hated the most when I was running special projects was always, "Aaron! Our cost is too high, someone quoted Company T 10% lower than us". Truth be told, my business partners only hear 10% of the lower rate requests that I get from the team. You might think that I wouldn't be doing my job if that was the case, and you might be right if you're my ex-colleague reading this now. However, really it's about preserving the business for as long as I can help it without succumbing to the race to the bottom.

Here's a secret, we got there anyways...

Engaging in a price war, no matter how controlled will always result in long term pain. Look, I'm not against optimising cost to win businesses. In e-commerce logistics, there's no loyalty to vendors. It's cut throat, dog eat dog. Entertaining a price war is just you starting to nail your coffin shut every time you lower your price.

Build a bloody good defensible product, and you won't have to fight like dogs

I'm starting to think this piece will get a lot of love and hate at the same time. Guess what? In a world of 2026 where we contemplate if we're going to get cancelled, I've grown tired of filtering what I say. It landed me in places I never want to be, so if you're not happy, cry in the corner.

Defensible product. What do I mean by this? Look, price wars happens. Even when we build a good product, it will creep in, it will rear its ugly ass. Do I look like I care? no. Why? Because it works.

Okay, customs clearance is quite a commoditised service. It's something that doesn't change a lot. In markets more unique like The Philippines for example, there's an element of connection and politics involved. That being said, the ones with the deeper pockets, always wins. If your goal is to make money, don't think about a price war. Everybody loses.

Indonesia goes through this cycle often. They lower clearance cost, only to realise now nobody is making anything. Boom. Market crash, and guess what? The house always wins, price goes back up.

Stop fighting the war and start planning for advantage. Remember the domestic air freight team I mentioned? That was a 'thought' from our commercial team, or the client, I don't know. Either way, the ask trickled down to us and we had to do it. I saw the process, it didn't make sense, and I said, "why don't we own it?". 

Own it we did. We were not only the first to run it this way for the market, we were also knee deep with the airlines that nobody could compete with our prices, not even the local freight forwarders. That's how protected we were. Now, that's not to say that they DIDN'T try to start the price war or tried to get better rates from other airlines, but it did mean we stayed on top for a considerable amount of time.

Peace doesn't exist if chaos never happens, so it's inevitable, but building this capability and investing in this infrastructure, allowed us to be defensible for much longer than if we hadn't done it or had done it later. Because we came in early, we reaped what we sown.

What would I have done differently?

Honestly, I needed to be 'more tamed' and 'more cooperative' coming back to Ninja Van a second time round. I ruffled feathers the last time and made some mistakes, so I came in softer, more cooperative. I think I've managed to get to where I am today by navigating work and life the way I've always had. I told myself, I need to grow up. While maybe my temper and my filter could've been worked on, the way I navigated work shouldn't have changed.

I admit I've made decisions that I wasn't proud of. Backing down when a project I truly believed would've been a fully matured and highly profitable business standalone on its own today got axed, brings shame to me to this day, even though that happened in 2023/2024. 

I'm young, but I know when my gut feeling tells me something, it's usually always right.

I guess somewhere along the way, I've lost faith in my own gut and decided it was best to concede. The most brutal lessons I've learnt in 2025 was how much believing in yourself is of utmost importance, regardless what people think and/or the consequences.

What's next?

As I search for the next company I believe in, I'm spending the time to refocus my efforts into helping businesses grow and optimise operations. Optivis Consulting is something I've been doing on the side to help businesses optimise operations, implement digitalisation changes, but also grow and expand across borders.

Most recently, we helped a consumer brand expand globally setting up distribution hubs in multiple regions including North America, Middle-East, Asia-Pacific. As well as helped them revamp their entire supply chain, optimising every step from raw materials to production and distribution.

I've also been focusing on my health a lot more and I'm happy to report I'm a lot better and healthier than I have ever been in 15 years.