How Emirates and Mayple are shaking up the global retail shipping game

Among the many headaches retailers face, shipping sits near the top of the list. While big corporations often have the resources to absorb high international costs and delays, smaller DTC and independent brands are left footing the bill and feeling it in their margins.

Logistics platform Mayple Global thinks it has a fix. Its new service, Mayple Direct, is launching in partnership with Emirates Courier Express, the end-to-end global integrator solution from Emirates. And yes, we do mean that Emirates—the one better known for luxury air travel.

Through the agreement, Mayple will tap into its centralized logistics hub in Dubai, while Emirates will leverage its global passenger fleet to deliver packages to eight underserved international markets. The idea: make global shipping for US e-commerce brands as seamless as sending a package across the country.

“If you want to start a brand and sell something within the US, you could do a simple Google search, and you’ll have many 3PLs,” Ammar Moiz, founder and CEO of Mayple Global, told Retail Brew. “They’ll say, ‘Yeah, we can pick up and pack and ship within the US and integrate into Shopify’…It’s kind of plug and play.”

He added that globally, retailers often have to go through middlemen that act as international distributors for them, which while for a “multinational conglomerate” is less of a concern, for a brand with fewer resources, it’s more complex.

“What we do is essentially a global hub-and-spoke model, so we replicate the same model, similar to a US brand that doesn’t have a warehouse in each state,” Moiz explained.

By being centered in Dubai, Mayple is also able to take advantage of the city’s “extensive free zone network” which allows goods to move in and out more easily.

“If you’re shipping something to Manchester, it would typically go to London, get sorted [by] some hub, and then get driven to Manchester and delivered to the final address,” Moiz said. “[Instead], you can get it on a direct flight to Manchester and then get it delivered. It is essentially cheaper, faster, better for the environment, because you’re using more direct routing, and it allows for essentially a US brand to be able to ship to a customer in the UK for under $10 and have the package delivered in two days.”

Mayple Direct is also beneficial for US-based companies dealing with changing trade regulations and tariffs as it enables them to bypass the process of having a product shipped to the US from a potential manufacturing hub in Asia and then back to a different country again.

“What we create is essentially this global hub for them where they can import inventory in and then ship it out for their international customer base, and save on the tariffs,” he added.

According to the company, brands on its platform already ship to more than 80 countries, with average delivery times of 3.5 days from checkout to doorstep and a 99%+ deliverability rate. The model also opens up smaller markets that retailers might otherwise ignore.

“We’re not expecting a US brand to set up a logistics operation just for the Kenyan market,” Moiz said. “But if you aggregate these smaller countries together, we’ve seen it make a meaningful demand base. It can generate 25%–30% of your international demand.”