How SpeedJet Built a 15,000-Shipment-a-Day Operation in 18 Months with Candata

The brokerage

SpeedJet is an e-commerce customs brokerage based in British Columbia that went from four people and ten shipments a week to a 20-person operation processing 15,000 e-commerce shipments a day, in eighteen months. The company specializes in China-to-Canada air freight for e-commerce goods, with an additional 20 to 30 traditional air, truck, and ocean shipments daily. They operate seven days a week, including holidays. Their managing partner, Jonathan Sze, brings 22 years of customs expertise, including time at some of Canada’s largest brokerages, and runs the day-to-day as the sole subject-matter expert, from CBSA compliance to carrier negotiations to warehouse logistics.

“I treat my supplier as my business partner. It’s a two-way traffic. I will not just take, take. I will also give too. This is how I do business for the past 20-something years.”
Jonathan Sze, Managing Partner, SpeedJet

The situation

SpeedJet launched into one of the fastest-growing and most demanding segments of Canadian customs: high-volume e-commerce. The shipment counts alone tell the story. SpeedJet went from nothing to 15,000 files a day. They set out from day one to build an operation that could absorb that growth while staying compliant with CBSA requirements that weren’t designed for this kind of volume.

Jonathan had used in-house brokerage software at larger firms earlier in his career. He knew what “good enough” looked like. He also knew it wouldn’t hold at the scale SpeedJet was heading toward. The company needed a platform that could handle massive daily file volumes, automate transmission to customs, and keep pace with a business that was doubling and redoubling faster than anyone expected.

On top of that, SpeedJet competes directly with DHL, FedEx, and UPS in the e-commerce clearance space. To win against global integrators with a 20-person team, they needed technology that could close the gap, not a system they’d outgrow in six months.

“I have to find a way to compete with DHL, FedEx, and UPS. And do I feel Candata gives me that way to compete? 100%. 100%.”

The decision

SpeedJet’s co-founder, who had extensive experience in the e-commerce brokerage space, selected Candata from the start. Jonathan, who had previously worked with in-house systems at Shanker and Cole and had used ITMR as a third-party platform, confirmed the choice once he started working on the system.

“Candata’s platform is much better. From my experience with Shanker and Cole, their programs are not as smooth.”

Since then, other vendors have come knocking. Jonathan isn’t interested. “The platform is aligned with my business goal, including its capabilities and use of AI. I’m not switching.” He’s turned down competitors who’ve offered better pricing because, as he puts it, he already knows he can rely on the Candata team when something goes wrong. And at 15,000 shipments a day, responsiveness matters more than a minor discount.

What changed

The most immediate operational shift was automation. SpeedJet uses Candata’s Excel upload to feed 15,000 daily shipments into the platform, a tool that, as Paul Kleinknecht notes, was originally designed for much smaller volumes. The fact that it held at this scale is a testament to the underlying architecture.

Candata’s platform already supported automatic file transmission on a schedule, but Jonathan didn’t know it was there. He was spending hours manually clicking through batches of 50,000 CADs daily, sometimes working through the night to get them all submitted on time. When Candata’s team realized what Jonathan was doing, they walked him through the setup. Now, final accounting files are transmitted to CBSA by 3:00 p.m. Eastern within two days of clearing customs, with no manual intervention.

“That’s a perfect solution, which I greatly appreciate. Before, I used to transmit this manually.”

When issues arise, they get handled fast. Jonathan recounts a time when his team suddenly couldn’t access backup documents they’d uploaded. He emailed Candata support, and the issue was resolved within thirty minutes.

“That’s the kind of service I want. I know Candata is not the cheapest. I get that. But I want the service.”

SpeedJet’s next step is implementing Candata’s API integration to fully automate data flow from their Chinese partners, replacing the Excel upload entirely. Once that’s in place, Jonathan sees how Candata’s new AI Inbox will further automate any manual shipments coming into the inbox.

In their words

“Without Candata, my business will not grow. I can tell you that. Without Candata, I cannot go from 10 shipments a week to 15,000 shipments a day. I will swear by them. If someone even offered me a better deal, I would not switch because I know I can rely on the Candata team.”
Jonathan Sze, Managing Partner, SpeedJet

About Candata

Through 30 years of word-of-mouth growth, Candata handles 42% of CBSA IID releases. It is a cloud-native platform that covers Canada and US customs and North American freight. With embedded AI automation, zero-downtime architecture, and live integrations with accounting systems like QuickBooks, Candata helps brokerages process more entries with fewer errors, without replacing the compliance expertise of their raters. Zero marketing. All word of mouth.