The Australian Seller

This week I’m joined my good friend Davide Nicolucci from www.wearegrowthhack.com – an Amazon PPC agency. Today Davide and I gaze into the Crystal Ball to try and predict where Amazon’s headed in 2020. We both make some bold predictions! Davide also shares a ranking strategy he’s using to revive old products on Amazon with strong results. Here is Davide’s Youtube Strategy for re-ranking products on Amazon in 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeZOAZRs9kU&feature=youtu.be Now there is also a lot of uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus outbreak in China – our thoughts are with all those affected there. Unfortunately for us Amazon sellers who source out of China, there’s likely to be some serious issues after CNY as the Government are continuing to impose travel restrictions in China both internally and externally. Yiwu market has been closed and there are rumours the Canton Fair in April may even be cancelled. Certainly, many attendees are strongly reconsidering their attendance. Now more than ever, it’s increasingly urgent to diversify your sourcing which is why I strongly recommend heading to India for the Delhi Fair in April. As you know Meghla runs the India Sourcing Trip tour www.indiasourcingtrip.com – I urge you to book for April and she has a $500 discount until January 31st 2020. Tim Jordan (currently running the Helium 10 Project X case study with Bradley Sutton) will be there as a coach, as will Gary Huang, myself, Marg Jolly and many others. Subscribe to Facebook… India Sourcing Trip April 13 – 20, 2020 / Delhi so Register before Jan 31 and save $500 Join a unique Sourcing and Learning guided tour to the Indian Handicrafts & Gifts Fair in Delhi…Increase profitability by sourcing innovative products other Amazon sellers don’t have access to.Beat import duties (China Tariffs) as India is not in a trade war with the US.Find new suppliers for existing products you source from China.Learn all about sourcing from India – the pitfalls to avoid, supplier verification and vetting, negotiating, logistics, quality control, payment terms, and much more.Know which products can be sourced from India, and where the production hubs are.Understand how sourcing from India is different from sourcing from China.Meet and network with suppliers and sourcing service providers.Learn the latest branding and marketing strategies from Amazon and eCommerce coaches from the US and Australia traveling with the group.Visit an actual factory to see first-hand how products are made.Experience India’s rich culture – watch an entertaining dance show, visit the iconic Taj Mahal, wear traditional clothes like the saree and turban.Share experiences with other like-minded sellers in the group, learn from each other and make lifelong friendships. By the way, if you’d like to save 50% off your first month, or 10% off for lifetime access to Helium 10, visit www.theaustralianseller.com/helium10 – it is an affiliate link but it’s the only way I can offer a discount. Of course it also comes with FREE access to Kevin King’s Freedom Ticket Course which is normally $997 – best course around I think! The post TAS 084 : Amazon predictions for 2020. Crystal Ball gazing with Davide Nicolucci appeared first on The Australian Seller.

Jaryd Krause joins us today from https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/ – Jaryd’s been building and flipping online businesses for 4-5years and is an expert on due diligence and understanding what makes a good value business to buy. He eventually realised it is a lot easier to buy and flip existing online businesses than it is to try and build one from scratch. Today we chat about the best types of businesses to buy – (the answer is ‘it depends’). We also discuss how he funds his purchases and how he grows the businesses he buys. Time is running out to save $500 on your India Sourcing Trip Tour – offer ends 31st January 2020 so head over to www.indiasourcingtrip.com to chat to Meghla and learn more about it. Jeff Bezos was in India recently and said “He also said the online retail giant expects to export $10bn worth of India-made goods by 2025, and that Amazon has already committed to $5.5bn of investment in the country.” If Jeff’s there talking up India’s potential, you should be there too. Please join the Australian Seller Family on Facebook TAS.com/facebook – it is a closed group and we’re over 1,000 people! That’s a big family! I have personally approved each and every one of you to join and I’ve knocked back a few hundred along the way!If you need help with your Amazon business, get in touch me by heading over the Australian Seller/chris – I’m starting to explore one on one coaching, get in touch for more details. I do apologise for the audio this episode. It’s school holiday’s and the kids have been ‘playing’ on my computer which meant my normal mic wasn’t working Transcript All right, and welcome. back to another episode of the show. So let’s welcome Jared Kraus from buying online businesses is that a.com or a.com.au? Jaryd Krause 3:08 a dot.com. And thanks so much for having me on. Chris Thomas 3:11 Fantastic. Super excited to have you on. It’s a topic that I’m really passionate about buying and selling online businesses. So, of course, can you introduce yourself? What’s your background? What got you started on this journey of buying and selling online businesses? Jaryd Krause 3:24 Yeah, sure. So my background, I was a plumber for many years, and I was just not liking it. Basically, I found myself running away from work, I’d quit and then go traveling. And I realized on one of my trips, I wasn’t running away from a job was running away from my life, which is quite date but true at the same time, so I decided I needed to go wrong. And the goal was to travel and I didn’t know how to do that and make money so I thought I had to do something online. So I literally did the old thing of typed into Google how to travel the world to make money online. And that is what got me started in the online space, and it wasn’t directly through buying sites, but building them myself and failing over and over to a point where I realized 90% of startups fail. And then I started buying. So Chris Thomas 4:18 what kind of businesses were you trying to build? Jaryd Krause 4:21 So I built a travel blog, which was quite hard. Everybody with a phone and internet connection was a travel blogger. Basically, in the end, everybody became a competition. So I segue it away from that and I’ll be able to drop shipping site and made a little bit money from both these but it just wasn’t sustaining the expenses that I had to travel. So I needed to buy something that was or do something that I could make more money and buying a site was the best option. Chris Thomas 4:51 So how did you find out about buying stock because most people you know, they say something like Amazon or a drop shipping or memberships or or subscription something. And then just sort of go for that and try and build something on their own, on their own an email that you received. to buying an online business stumbled across. You’re right. I love Jaryd Krause 5:10 Oh, no. So I basically came to a conclusion, or I saw a quote or read something that 90% of startups fail. And I was like, well hang on a second. Why don’t I skip that part and see if I can buy a business, if 90% of startups fail. So I went on to Google and type in see if I could buy you know, I know you people were buying these like brick and mortar businesses. But I wanted to be online so I could travel at this stage. And so I thought, I want to buy a website. So I went in to Google and started talking that up and up came flip out. And then that segue to me remote remembering that I’d spoken to or heard somebody speak about buying little websites from flip up, and then it just started to grow from there. Whereas started. Yeah, teaching myself how to buy these things. Chris Thomas 6:04 So you’ve been able to build a portfolio of sites now, as I understand it, so how many sites you’re actually on? Jaryd Krause 6:11 currently at the moment I have three websites. Chris Thomas 6:14 What are your favorite types of online businesses to buy? Do you do affiliates or do you be stuck with drop shipping or is it a promise? Jaryd Krause 6:20 Yeah, so I did great question. I did start with drop shipping because I that’s what I knew. I knew how to build a blog and a new drop shipping stores so I started drop shipping and bought one more the first site I have a ball I don’t have that anymore. It was a like a subscription. And I stuck I went to that one because it was just felt like less risk were you buying into a customer base who were paying on a returning you know, basis, right recurring revenue, so I bought that don’t have that anymore. And then I was like are I’ll drop shipping. I’ll get instructions. So I bought a drop shipping site, then I bought another drop shipping site. And so I had to drop shipping sites at the moment currently. And I’m looking to sell a couple of businesses and buy some some biggest sites in 2020 and beyond and just focusing on some some different things in 2020, which we may get to later but yeah, that’s what I’ve got at the moment. Then I’ve got my my business where it’s a it’s basically a membership as well, where I teach people to buy sites. Chris Thomas 7:35 Cool. Yes, we’ll talk about that a little bit later. So but if you’re starting out again, what would you recommend is the best online business model to buy now, like if you’re a new seller, or a new buyer? Jaryd Krause 7:50 So I really this is, I wouldn’t say that one size fits all in this space. I get a lot of clients come and say Magi what’s the best business model for me to buy? You know, it’s a first sight, I want to just buy the right one. And I don’t particularly feel that there is a right one for everyone. So I asked them a ton of questions is like what resonates with you most? Like do you understand the drop shipping model? Do you understand the subscription model, FBA affiliate? Do you understand content type sites? What? You know, what do you understand? And what do you feel that you would be more confident in or could build better skills in to grow, run and scale one of the sites? And we just go from there? And no, that doesn’t help the listeners listening to this. So what I’ll talk about is some skill sets that you may need that each business would that help. Yeah, Chris Thomas 8:49 that definitely helps. Because I think it sounds like that’s a fairly common mistake for first time buyers is maybe that they buy a business that they don’t really understand the model. Jaryd Krause 8:58 Yeah, and the work that goes She’s all with it too, you know. So a lot of people like content sites and membership, many membership or SAS sites, right SAS is software as a service and it can be subscription model. The reason people like these is because 10 Typically they’re less risk, raising a content site can be less risk is because it’s not so heavily reliant on spending a lot of money to make sales or to make income because it comes from traffic sources from social media, or different search engines. And the skills needed for that is to either be a good content writer and understand how to write good copy and get people to take action on affiliate links, or understand good ad placement and understand SEO which is search engine optimization. Now, this is for a site that’s kind of sub 100 k if you’re going to be the owner, and operator that you need to have those skills in your bag or you need to want to at least learn those skills to run that business. And any business that I’m talking about is kind of sub hundred sub 200 k for the skills that you may need because anything above that you can hire people in. So that that said for a membership or a SAS site is you want to maybe at least understand a bit about software to be able to understand if you hire people in or consultants to you know, fix bugs and stuff like that. And you also want to understand why people stay in a membership or stay in a community and how to reduce retention and get sales as well. So you understand a little bit of marketing as well drop shipping you want to be it’s heavily reliant on digital marketing. So, the margins you make apart portion of those margins will profit margin to make from drop shipping products will go into digital mass. Getting Started be paid ads on different types of platforms. So you’d want to be confident in digital marketing. And personally, I am very confident digital marketing have done very well with digital marketing myself, though, I do know that the platforms change and algorithms change a lot. So you either need to have somebody great on your team, hire somebody in or be willing to at least learn the tides and the changes with each which each platform that you may be using for that. So that’s the same with e commerce. You know, ecommerce is drop shipping is a part of e commerce. So you need those skills as well for us and so an affiliate site is a content site will keep that under that umbrella but for an FBA site for people that may be listing in FBA side is a Fulfillment by Amazon that’s also in under the e commerce umbrella box What you do with FBA as you buy products, and you send them to an Amazon warehouse, and they sell them for you on Amazon. Now, the skills that you may be, may need to be good at is products, understanding products and understanding why people buy those products. And also, you know, product development and helping, you know, work with people who are product developers, either in China or different parts of the world to make sure the product can be better and better. And then another really good skill to understand would be writing copy, and descriptions for these businesses. I know that you had somebody on your podcast and most recently that I have listened to pretty sure that we’re talking about different content and different ways you can sell things from FBA, which is an important skill that you need to understand or start learning and be good at or Hi, somebody and so I hope I kind of covered a lot there. Chris Thomas 13:04 No, that’s perfect. Because I think it’s Yes, it’s definitely not a one size fits all. There’s no doubt about that. So what do you how do you recommend people grow their business? How do you grow your business? Obviously, you buy business for a certain amount of money. And then, you know, the idea would be to try and grow it. I guess you could keep it level bit. What’s your strategy around growing businesses? So does that depend as well on the top of business? Jaryd Krause 13:28 Yeah, it certainly depends on what type of business but I’ll will give up a blanket structure or strategy for a lot of people and I think this is really important for everybody that is looking to buy a website businesses. First of all, when you buy it, is spend your time at least the first couple of months, even, you know, year understanding the business and why people buy it, buy from that business or work with that business and why people visit the website. Now, that’s really that’s an important part of strategy because sometimes people blast thoughts and I just, they don’t know anything about it. And they can end up making changes and destroy the golden goose with the golden goose is part of the business. So once you understand the business, or if you’re highly skilled, and you do understand the business, before you buy, buy, or as you take over, then the next step would be to prune. And instead of just adding more and doing bigger and doing better, I like to prune aside and take away what’s not working to let the other things you know, to be able to let the other things flourish and you spend more time and focus on those things that are working and eliminate those things that are not working. If you think of like the analogy or an example of a tree that’s a baby tree that’s trying to grow if it’s got weeds coming overlapping over the top of the Going to those things and allowing that to grow. And it’s actually holding back that tray. And that can happen with our business as well. So online to the next part of the strategy is to just prune the business on what’s not working. So you can open up more spaces and more focus to the things that are working. And then once you understand this next step would be once you understand what is working, then double down on it and get really good at it and put more time, energy effort and maybe resources into as well. And those things are the typical things that people talk about when they get to scale and grow a business which will be Hey, I’m gonna do some digital marketing and it could be content marketing, the and depends on I’ll cover three different ways that you could grow business. The first one would be I’ll stick to the membership subscription SAS business model, the first thing that I’d be doing is under Why people actually staying in that membership, and work on retention and asking them what they actually want and give that to them so they can stay a member. So sometimes it’s better to just retain the customers and the clients you’re already have, rather than getting more because it can cost less money, and it can cost less time and resources. So it’s been time doing that. Next, for the other ways you can grow a business is definitely with SEO. So search search engine optimization, particularly content sites, you could look at working on the SEO of the website and first protocol, our first port would be to prune, do some SEO, pruning, and then adding content and links. And then secondly would be a different type of marketing, which would be digital marketing or content marketing. And that’s where I would be looking to scale most of my businesses is once I’ve pruned and other Let’s do everything then really look at the content marketing or digital marketing. Chris Thomas 17:05 So that sounds like that’s part of your due diligence and when you’re looking at a business you’re looking for the I guess the gaps the it 20 the opportunities and then getting in there and once you’ve understood it all to to update it and have a cry. Jaryd Krause 17:19 Yeah, sure. Like the due diligence is such a powerful, a powerful process that some people really underwrite. The reason I love due diligence so much and I just read or write to my clients over and over again, just get so good at due diligence because the second and third order consequences from doing that makes you such a better online entrepreneur by doing looking at so many website businesses. You get to see what’s working, what’s not working, how different businesses the growing and you take away those skills or those strategies, ideas and put them in your toolbox and you can use a lighter, the business you may buy. So a big part of the due diligence is yes Looking at businesses and seeing what’s working, what’s not working, how you can grow them, and things that you could do differently before, if you were to take over the business, and that’s a skill, that’s a skill, like all skills alone when we’re born, we know nothing. And everything is love. So you can learn that skill as well. Chris Thomas 18:22 Awesome. Do you buy distressed businesses that are, you know, declining and then turn around or do you buy businesses have a clear growth record? Jaryd Krause 18:34 That’s a such a good question. And there are people that do buy distressed businesses. That’s a different, that’s a different ballgame. It’s a different strategy. If you’re really good at a particular type of growth strategy or scaling or understand that niche really, really well, then you definitely have an opportunity to turn around for myself. Hello. I don’t like to go for distressed businesses. And the reason being, is because I like to kind of understand the natural laws. If something’s already falling or declining and going down, it can be a lot harder to change that, right, change that natural law and change the direction of it. So for example, if somebody, you know, throws a book off a balcony, that, you know, an off the third, third level of a balcony, and you’re going to try and change the direction of it, you’re gonna have to be at the bottom, hold it, grab it, you’re going to have to be very focused to be able to grab it at a certain point, and then throw it back up. But imagine if you had a big business, right, and I know it sounds crazy, but imagine if you had like a piece of furniture that somebody’s throwing at, it makes it so much harder to turn that around, and sometimes maybe even more impossible. So I don’t look at the size of the business and got all maybe this one’s a little bit smaller. I could turn around, I’ll just stick away from it. Okay. Chris Thomas 20:00 Yeah, it’s a great answer. Yeah. Is it a buyers market or a seller’s market at the moment? Jaryd Krause 20:08 I love it. It’s a good question, in my opinion. I believe it’s definitely a seller’s market like it’s a good time to sell your business right now, like in the start of 2020 it’s a great time to sell an online business the multiples are high, they’ve never been higher, in fact, for a for an online business, and yeah, it’s a great time to sell a business. Yeah. Chris Thomas 20:36 Well, let’s talk about multiples and how they work because I think people get confused about when they’re buying a business. They often think that they get kind of buying the company and and, you know, the volume entry or the you know, what I mean, what’s, you know, I know that with FBA businesses, for example, Amazon businesses that you’re basically buying on a multiple of what’s called SDA or seller discretionary Right. And that’s sort of all of the and it’s based on a monthly SD. So that’s after Yeah, what cost you the inventory and Amazon phase and you know, all that stuff, but it doesn’t include the FDA price doesn’t include things like you know, your accountants and your own time and especially the gross profit that you earn at the end of each month. So you know, how the multiples and valuations work for different types of online businesses? Jaryd Krause 21:28 Yeah, I love that you sort of just just explain that for everybody because it saved me a lot of work there. I’m sure you’re spot on as well, like it’s, it’s it’s so true is that there’s ad backs and stuff like that. So that’s what I do call it sellers, discretionary earnings. You know, if you’ve bought a car that’s not included as an expense, and all that sort of stuff as well accounting fees and whatever else you’ve got going on. So, in terms of the different types of online business, This is it really the multiple changes depending on the level of risks that may be involved with each business model. So for a drop shipping business, the multiples at the moment average around the 24 to 30 ish months multiple. And that can be also for e commerce business that maybe even a little bit higher depending on if that is somebody’s own product, and they actually own it. Same with an FBA business around that sort of price maybe a little bit more. For an FBI business then particularly drop shipping because drop shipping, if you’re more reliant on doing the digital marketing yourself as with Amazon, they you can put money into marketing, they’ll help you get it put up high the search engine so that’s basically the multiple for the drop shipping and ecommerce type sites. For a guess the next would be sort of a content site, affiliate AdSense type sites, you’re looking at, you know, sometimes as high as anywhere from like a 32 to a 40. to multiple even. Yeah, it’s quite, it’s quite high. And then you and the reason being is because you’re not so heavily reliant on a making sales and be you’ve got a usually you’ll have a lot of traffic coming in from search engines, and maybe even social media, the more Chris Thomas 23:39 so yes, isn’t it? I mean, if Google changes its algorithm or something you can use. I’ve heard heaps of stories where content sites or affiliate sites have been wiped out overnight by Google update, you know, so, Jaryd Krause 23:52 yes, interesting. Especially in 2019. There was a big update. Where was that a lot of health sites and niches and different types of advice, I guess, or content or answers that Google was ranking that they no longer believe is the best thing to put in front of people. So yes, that it is a risk, certainly. And you can be wiped out, which means if there is, say, for example, a content site, and that most of the traffic’s it percent to 9% of traffic is coming from Google, then maybe it will have a, it will it certainly will have a smaller multiple, lower multiple than a content site that has, say 40% or 50% coming from Google. And then 10% coming from being and then 10% coming from Pinterest and the rest coming from different other social platforms as well. Just because that platform There’s no platform sensitivity there. So that’s how multiples can can change for sure. And then to for the last business model to select the SAS subscription membership type business model, the multiples that tech typically high we’ve seen last year, those were poor like up into the 50s 50 month multiple for some sites. And that’s purely because if they’ve got a really solid base of members that are paying on a recurring revenue, and they’ve got a good sales model, and you know, they can see year on year growth happening in diversified traffic and stuff like that, then that can really boost up the multiple. For myself, personally, I like to go by what Warren Buffett says, who’s, you know, one of the best investors in the world. He says it’s better to buy a wonderful business at a fair price than a fair business at a wonderful price. Well of Warren Buffett he made so he’s so good. Good health reading one of these books just yesterday. It’s it’s pretty, it’s hard text and it’s not super entertaining, but just there’s so much gold in there as well. Chris Thomas 26:11 There’s differences between buying a smaller site sort of 20 to say 200 k versus getting out there ran over half a million up to, you know, above. What are the differences in your experience? Jaryd Krause 26:24 Sure, it’s just I mean, with the businesses sub 200 700 K, they’re selling a lot quicker. And the reason being is because there may be micro private equity companies out there are people with that money where they can just go I like call this is a good add on business and they spend less time doing the due diligence. And it may be not as important to do really good due diligence because they’re going to use that business to grow another business they may have anyway, so they get Make that return back. So typically, with a smaller business, there’s less time spent on due diligence and you can move a lot quicker as you could imagine, those businesses are smaller and there’s less moving parts with a bigger business like 300 K, up to the 5 million range, there’s more moving parts. And, you know, if you, if you buy a bad deal, there’s more risk. So you just want to take your time, maybe you want to, you know, when you’re getting up to the million dollar range, you want to get, you know, financials verified by an accountant, you want to make sure you can do a proper SEO order may get done by a professional. So there’s different like, whereas you can get free tools or tools that you can pay for, for buying something sub 200 and do it yourself, because, you know, there’s less there’s less risk involved. Chris Thomas 27:56 It depends if Mr. Berman Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, I get that but like other SDKs are there so discretionary earnings multiples on a sub 200 k site higher or lower than a match be online website that you might buy? Jaryd Krause 28:14 It’s a great question normally lower in in from what I’ve seen, it’s like, I know I said before, and that was a bit of an era, you know, the smallest thoughts are less risky, actually, I believe in my opinion that that they are more risky. It’s like, if you have a, you know, a teeny that’s cruising through, you know, the waterways as opposed to a boat or a ship, it’s a lot easier for a teenager to tip over than a ship, right? It’s there’s, you know, less risk for a bigger ship. So that’s why I believe that the multiples can go higher, typically for those businesses 300 or 200 k plus Yeah. Chris Thomas 29:00 With a company out of the Philippines, it’s an investment fund that buys Amazon FBA businesses. And they, they sort of got that roll up model where they buy smaller businesses sub 500 K. And then during the process of combining all the products within those FBA businesses into a much bigger business that they can hope to flip for a lot high multiple. So it’s quite interesting how the different sorts of buying selling multiples are working at the moment. Yeah. So what about I guess negotiating a deal? I you know, you got to get something on the table. You’re thinking pretty seriously. They’re buying it when you actually start negotiations with the cell. Jaryd Krause 29:39 How I start and I tell my clients is there’s a cold that happened that’s really important. It’s called the sellers coal. And that’s what we call it anyway is when you have a cold, the seller any ask about the business towards the end of the call, I like to just suss out where they’re at, and what they’re, you know, it’s really important for you to understand What they actually want out of the business out of the South, sorry. And so just ask that, like, it doesn’t have to be coming with some crazy negotiation or crazy deal that super complex, that’s going to be very beneficial to just use the buy ads, probably, in my opinion, not the best way to go. Because there’s two parties in the, in the deal here. And the more that you really look out the seller, the more that they can look after you when you buy the business as in terms of training and helping you get this thing, right. So I really decided to focus on and put relationships first, before a hardcore negotiation or deal. So I really find that important and that’s why we have a question. It’s like asking them like what seemed important for you to get out of the sell out of the deal. And just ask them hey, like, are you looking for? You want all your money? You know, would you prefer? You know, you want to structure your question a very good way by asking, you know, would you prefer a lesser amount for the business that I paid, you know, all cash and I just, you know, you got it wired straight to you, or would you like to earn a little bit more, and we do some sort of burnout or seller note Chris Thomas 31:31 or Jaryd Krause 31:34 seller financing structure? Chris Thomas 31:36 Sure, maybe explain. Could you explain what that is for the listeners? Jaryd Krause 31:40 Yeah, sure. So, say for example, there’s a site will just stick with simple numbers 100 grand shot, and then you have, you want to do an earn out so you offer a percentage of a down payment, and that down payment could be anywhere from 70% to 90%. We’ll stick with it. sticking the girl there, jump in. So you say I’ll give you 80,000 down payment for the business. And then over the next two to six months, I’ll pay the rest out per month, over over the next three to two or six months. So say for example, you just do two months of a stick with four months, right? You still owe another $20,000. So you say, how about we do, you know, you give me three training sessions, one hour training sessions, and over the next four months, I pay you $5,000 each month at the end of the month to to buy the business. Chris Thomas 32:41 Okay, so that’s sort of Best of the idea there, I guess is to retain the owner within your world to make sure that first of all, sort of reduce your risk and review but also make sure that you’re properly across the business and that their experiences retired for a little while longer after the deal. Yeah, Jaryd Krause 32:57 yeah, I mean, it just means that still Got some skin in the game. And you can through that time as well and helps you really build the relationship with the seller. And I’ve done this with my deals where I can still contact all the people that have bought my businesses from. Because I really focus on the people first, like the people, people have far more important than money, like far more important, I think this is something that’s key for people to understand is like, if, if you build that relationship with them in that time period, then you know, great opportunities can come from that light down the track and it may not be six or 12 months or maybe longer. But you know, say for example, in two years time you guys are trying to do this like have you tried this before? What work you know, simple questions. If you build a really good relationship, it really helps. So that earn out helps you build the relationship. Yes, it helps them keep some skin in the game as well. But it also Yes, as you said, it does reduce your risk because means you can buy a deal without, you know, you may only have 85 K and you got Wow, like I will this business will give me X amount and I’ll make X amount if I’ve got a second job or something, maybe not to be able to pay the rest out. And it can work that Chris Thomas 34:18 way as well. Yeah, really good point, actually. So you can actually buy business for a lot less than you actually have. And use use the income from the businesses at once you’ve taken it over to then do the internet and pay for the rest of it as a really clever sort of structure always having want. Jaryd Krause 34:34 Yeah, sorry. Okay, last question. Or Next question. I had a client who actually bought 50% of the business and, or 50% of a business and he came and said, Look, I’ll run business, all on all own 50% you own 50%? Can you just advise when it was just a great deal, like I mean, he bought 50% of the business. He’s doing the work. It was his first The only one who learn this learn the whole thing and, and then, you know, he had somebody that was skilled knew the business and could just advise and say yes, this is a good opportunity. This is what we could do. So what we couldn’t do, you know, it’s just a great way to go about it like this so many like you can get really creative with how you structure deals. And that’s what I like to do with with my clients anyway. Chris Thomas 35:21 Awesome. You know, you mentioned before how important relationships are. I got a great bit of advice once you know they all sort of sales adage that people buy from people that they like, and someone I think might have a nice chap and when I was talking to him one day, he said that when he’s doing a deal, by the way, is Chapman is a fairly large online. Jaryd Krause 35:43 He’s a micro promiscuity. Chris Thomas 35:45 Yeah, yeah, I’m actually good nights with ice. Yeah, he’s good guy. But he was saying to talk me off air, that people also sell the people that they like so as part of the way that he negotiates is that he really tries to build that relationship. So that Can not only cut the best deal that he can, but also, you know, no one wants to do a deal with someone that’s been very adversarial and you know, want to doing lowball offers crazy stuff. So yeah, keep that in mind when you’re thinking about buying a business. And Jaryd Krause 36:16 I love that because it’s just it means it can be fun and relaxed as well. And like, the more you look out to somebody else, the more they’re going to look after you, right, like what you what you put in, is what you’re going to get out. Yeah. Chris Thomas 36:32 Funding your deals, how you do it you are you bringing in equity or private investors, or do you recommend to your students and your clients to bring in outside investment or is it a bank or do you use you bootstrap your deals? How do you how do you structure these deals? And how do you get the capital? Howdy, Reza capital be on the bottom? Jaryd Krause 36:50 Yeah, so a lot of people come in with some cash I’ve got and then people that don’t have all the cash that they they want Avada is I can go and get funding means different lenders in America. For those who are listening for America, a lot of it’s quite popular to get an SBA loan. Also have a finance broker that helps some of my clients in Australia. And then also there’s the opportunity bringing in you know, a family members want to pop of the business, they can do that as well. I’ve seen some clients that have gotten some cash from other people in their close group relationship where they’ve done that deal as well. Yeah, it’s a good way to go, you know. Personally, I have bought my businesses cash at the moment where a lot we’re getting a lot of investors coming to us saying, hey, Jared, can you buy us the sites, run them, operate them and grow them, and we’re going down that direction as well. Because there’s just such a high demand. There’s a lot of people saying, hey, I want to get in this space has great returns, but I don’t know what I’m doing and it is a risk. If you don’t Know what you’re doing. So we’re going down that track, we’re opening up some, some avenues for investors to come in and we do the work and just take a small, small snippet and the rest goes to them. Chris Thomas 38:13 That’s really cool. That’s a great model and sort of saying that the online business space buying and selling online business, there’s a lot more there’s a lot more savvy operators that are moving into this space. You know, I mentioned after rock over in the Philippines and you know, yourself and there’s a lot of people now that are starting to put these sort of deals together with other people’s money or they’re creating their own fund like Ace I think he’s gonna go public saying is near if he hasn’t already. Jaryd Krause 38:38 Yeah, he’s got to these going public with as of the end of last year. Yeah, Chris Thomas 38:43 crazy. Yeah. So just what maybe let’s just focus on the outside we’re talking about buying sites, what about selling them? What lets you know, when do you flip a site or what stage do you decide right of growing this business or it’s not working or what you know, when when do you pull up you know, business and try that you don’t get it. So Jaryd Krause 39:02 I think it really I’ll give an answer for everybody and then I’ll give an answer for what I think’s best. A lot of people get to a stage where they’re just like, actually, I don’t want to own this business anymore and they sell it, or they get to a point is like, actually, I can’t maintain it. And it’s like, you know, maybe an algorithm changes happened or the digital marketing space change, they can’t get the results. So the cell at the end as well. Preferably, if you know what you’re doing and you’ve got help, or you’re smart operator, then the best time to sell a business is like when you grow it to a percentage or you grow to a range where you’re confident. You’ve you’ve done the best you can and you don’t feel that you have the skills, knowledge or power to take it to the next level. That’s what I feel is a really good time to sell the business. If you set a goal, and you achieve that goal, not to get too greedy and too greedy and pull more out of the business and just keep going, it can be good to just go, I’ve done my Dasha, I’ve, I’ve got the results I wanted out of the business, I’ve grown at this certain level and leave something on something on the table for the next person. Yeah. Which is helps you sell the business as well. It really does. Like when this still you’ve taken say, You’re really good at SEO, you’ve taken to a certain level through the SEO, doing great SEO work and build it up with good content, then you can sell it on to somebody who has an opportunity in the skills to take it to the next level with doing something else to the business. So that really helps to sell the business if you leave some on the table. Absolutely. Chris Thomas 40:49 Yeah, I remember being asked once, what would be the three things that you would do if you weren’t selling the business to grow it and that kind of put me on the spot but it also gave comfort to the To the new owner that there was room for growth and there was you know, opportunity and a bit of a plan there. So you know, learning some of the title is super important. there any other sort of little tidbits or gems of advice that you could give to somebody who’s either thinking about buying a business or even selling one? Jaryd Krause 41:18 Yeah, sure. The best advice for selling a business is get it prepared for sale lack there’s I don’t have the I don’t help people get businesses ready for sale but there are other people out there that do help them it’s not my it’s not my focus. It’s not my actual goal to helping people make a big exit. But I do know that if you’re going to sell your business you best off getting it prepared or preparing it to sell and that means i a, the cutting expenses or just ripping out the waves and showing people where it can grow like do some pruning. Leave some on the table and some great opportunities. Other people, but also make the business attractive, that’s the main thing is make the business attractive to somebody who’s going to buy it. So for example, if you’ve got a site and it’s taking you 40 hours a week to run, and you want to sell it because of that, then not everybody’s going to come into the space and go cool, I want a bit of a side hustle. I can’t they just can’t inspire a business that takes 40 hours a week to run. So look at getting some team involved. And, you know, optimize it or use some artificial intelligence or different tools to use to optimize the site and take some work off your plate and just really, there’s so many different strategies I could go on and on for days about that and make that make that site attractive. In terms of advice for selling. This is my forte, this is everything that I do with people and the biggest advice is just get really, really, really good at you diligence and understand you diligence. And also understand what your goals are both financial goals and your lifestyle goals and make sure you only buy business that is within those goals and make an investment that’s unemotional like the biggest thing that first time buyers do and I’ve spoken to so many people that have bought websites and myself included my first deal was an emotional one. My second deal was an emotional one because I bought in emotionally which is not the best thing for us to do. So having somebody that you can bounce ideas off be solid, be grounded somebody you can bounce due diligence off I think is really really important when you can apply a thought Chris Thomas 43:43 that’s awesome. And I pointed out these are probably just struggling name was is having really good si peas or standard operating procedures to is a good place to be when you’re trying to sell a business. Yeah, it offers a lot of capital to buy that there are actually procedures in place so that if you go under Boss or wherever you be is or your assistance, you know, struggle and get sick, then you’ve got an operating procedure that someone else can pick up and hopefully easily follow and and pick up the slack. Jaryd Krause 44:11 Yeah, great point. Chris Thomas 44:14 I’ll just suck. No, I’m actually sort of trying to do that for my own businesses at the moment. Very slack. But that’s what happens. So, Jaryd Krause 44:21 it’s so good to do so because you can have a business run without you when you do have good so you can, you can start to back yourself out of the corner and eliminate your need to do things because you know, you don’t need your staff to just come and ask you questions. 24 seven, you said this happens do this. Yeah. Chris Thomas 44:45 Well, that’s the other thing you said, you know, often, I mean, I’m guilty of this, but just saying to myself, you know, it’s going to be just much easier and much faster if I do this myself, you know. But actually, it’s a lot easier in the end It says a lot more time when you go right Actually, this is something that I do more than once a week or once a day or once even a month sometimes. You know, I I just need to shoot a video or just jump on loom or or you know, can take something quickly shoot a video and how I’m doing it and you know, and then you know, might use a tool like otter.ai Yeah, I think it is we use that. Yeah, it’s awesome is now it’s a mixed age and it’s very, very accurate. It’s amazing I don’t know how it works but anyway seems to just do it like magic and then you can kind of credit transcription of your your audio that you’ve recorded said it there. And then just pop it up into like I use Google Sites just like a free way to build a kind of like a almost like an intranet but but it’s a free website that you can prioritize and invite people to, you know, to browse. So I’m going to cat this just jumped on the window Unknown Speaker 45:53 as Chris Thomas 45:55 school kids everywhere. Jaryd Krause 45:58 I use Google as well for my Peace. And I didn’t even know but one of the team sent me a message the other day saying, Oh, yeah, we’re using order now for this and now. Cool. Yeah, that’s because the sap that URLs are set up and yeah, you’re on the you’re on the mock. That’s great. I’m glad that you brought that point up. Chris Thomas 46:15 You know, where is actually that? Okay, Matt from a conference last year, late last year with a guy called Delphi mine who has a really interesting program called 52 ways. And it’s worth checking in. And actually, I was really impressed with that day. Yeah, so anyway, Hey, have you had we get in contact with you to tell me more about your business and your services? What have you got the Jaryd Krause 46:38 show? So how most people will come and find me is through my podcast, buying online businesses podcast and I just like I just tell people to check it out and see if this is actually for them. Because it’s, it’s sometimes it’s not for everyone, and just see if it’s maybe a direction that they want to go down first and foremost, and then if it’s something that we’re interested in, they can grab a free resource and you know, do a little bit of work themselves or if they want my help, then they can jump in and become a part of the community. How that actually works to answer your question is that people jump in to the community. And they get my program where I teach them to buy a website, business, do all the due diligence, and also teach them how to grow it and scale it once they’ve bought up. A big fact that a lot of people love and this is why most people join the community is because I personally do due diligence reviews for people that do jump in the community. And there’s a certain protocol, I need to go to the send them to me and once they get sent, then I go through and do a due diligence review. And it’s just good to have somebody who’s doing that, you know, hundreds, maybe thousands of sites now that understands the judeans processing and really pick the holes of it. And I think the most important thing is to really understand the risk involved and see if you’ll comfortable with the level of risk. risk involved and understand what the possible downsides are. And that’s what I’ve gotten really good at over the years. And so that’s a big benefit to a lot of people, then the community itself is great, because a lot of people jump in and they create friendships. And when you’re in a network of people doing five, six and seven figures in business, you know, your network is your network. So a lot of people find a lot of value just by being in our group, and the discussions and the trainings, and there’s a lot of bells and whistles and stuff, but we won’t go into that now. Yeah, that’s, that’s what I do. And All right, well, Chris Thomas 48:36 and we, so what’s your website in and we’ll put a link into the show notes. This is Episode 83. So if you head over to the Australian seller, calm forward slash 083. Hopefully, there’ll be a big audit transcript of Jaryd Krause 48:52 what doesn’t always get it right. But it’s quite easy. There was your website and how do we how do we get actually get in touch with you so it’s a buying Online businesses.com so buying online businesses plural.com. And then you can just contact me from my contact page. Or if you find me on, you can type into Google or any social media, Jared Kraus. So Jay AR wide DK are a USC. And I should pop up and you can contact me that way. Chris Thomas 49:26 Fantastic. Jared, thank you so much for spending a good 45 minutes or so with us today. I’ve listened as you as at least got something out of that conversation. And yeah, I think buying and selling websites is a really, really interesting space. So I’m grateful for your experience today and look forward to catching up with you again soon. Jaryd Krause 49:46 Thanks so much, greatly appreciate it, Chris. Likewise. Unknown Speaker 49:51 links and Show Notes for this episode can be found over at the Australian seller calm forward slash podcast. Don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher or your favorite podcast platform. Sign up to my email over at the Australian celada calm and I’ll send you a note each time I publish a new podcast episode. Thanks so much again for listening Transcribed by https://otter.ai The post TAS 083 : Buying an online business is easier than building one – with Jaryd Krause appeared first on The Australian Seller.

This week I’m joined by the CEO and co-founder of Floship, a Hong Kong-based eCommerce and crowdfunding 3PL who I use for my eCommerce fulfillment. I thought it’d be useful to chat with Steve, especially if you’re an eCommerce seller, you source from China and you have global customers. When I first started using Floship in 2015 – they basically offered an ability for you to import from China into Hong Kong, integrate your shopping cart (I use Shopify but they integrate directly with many others) and they’d handle everything from a logistics perspective. But now, they also work back the other way as China’s eCommerce market has exploded. What this means is you can ship your Australian, Indian, American, UK goods to Floship and they can act as your 3PL into China. So if you have established marketing channels into China, this might be a cost-effective option to test your products in the Chinese market without serious shipping costs and China customs worries. India Sourcing Trip India Sourcing Trip April 13 – 20, 2020 / Delhi so Register before Jan 31 and save $500 Join a unique Sourcing and Learning guided tour to the Indian Handicrafts & Gifts Fair in Delhi…Increase profitability by sourcing innovative products other Amazon sellers don’t have access to.Beat import duties (China Tariffs) as India is not in a trade war with the US.Find new suppliers for existing products you source from China.Learn all about sourcing from India – the pitfalls to avoid, supplier verification and vetting, negotiating, logistics, quality control, payment terms, and much more.Know which products can be sourced from India, and where the production hubs are.Understand how sourcing from India is different from sourcing from China.Meet and network with suppliers and sourcing service providers.Learn the latest branding and marketing strategies from Amazon and eCommerce coaches from the US and Australia traveling with the group.Visit an actual factory to see first-hand how products are made.Experience India’s rich culture – watch an entertaining dance show, visit the iconic Taj Mahal, wear traditional clothes like the saree and turban.Share experiences with other like-minded sellers in the group, learn from each other and make lifelong friendships. By the way, if you’d like to save 50% off your first month, or 10% off for lifetime access to Helium 10, visit www.theaustralianseller.com/helium10 – it is an affiliate link but it’s the only way I can offer a discount. Of course it also comes with FREE access to Kevin King’s Freedom Ticket Course which is normally $997 – best course around I think! Transcript Chris Thomas 0:01 Hello everybody and welcome to the Australian seller podcast. My name is Chris Thomas and I’ll be your host and this is the show where we talk about all things Amazon and e commerce, whether it be private label wholesale drop shipping, and how you can generate a recurring income either on the side or as a full time gig. g’day everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Australian seller podcast and thank you so much for tuning in and hanging out with me for about half an hour or so. So this week, I’m actually joined by the CEO and co founder of Floship which is a Hong Kong based ecommerce and crowdfunding three PL that I use for e commerce fulfillment through my for my website orders and I’ve also used it as well for merchant fulfilled shipping for some of my Amazon Australia listings as well with great effect. So I thought it’d be really useful to have a chat with Steve, especially if you’re an ecommerce seller. And if you source from China or even if you don’t source from China, but if you do have global customers, so when I first started using flagship in 2015, they basically offered an ability for you to, I guess import from China into Hong Kong. And with your integrated shopping cart, I mean, I use Shopify but they integrate directly with lots of other shopping carts. But basically, they’d handle everything from a logistics perspective once an order had been placed through the website. But now they work back the other way as well. So, so that you can take advantage of China’s ecommerce market, which is obviously exploding. So what this means is that effectively you can ship your Australian or your Indian, your American UK where basically your products from wherever you have them manufactured in the world, directly to flagship and they can act as your three pls into China directly from Hong Kong very, very quickly. So if you haven’t established marketing channel in China, or you’ve got one about to start, it might be in a cost effective option to sort of test your products out in the Chinese market without having to ship a lot of them riskily directly into Mainland China. So anyway, look at so I’ve had a really interesting conversation. I hope you do too. Now don’t forget to subscribe to Facebook. We are cycling. There were 25 members short of 1000. So please subscribe this week. It’d be great over Christmas to, in fact, before the new year if we can get 25. But before December 31 2019, that’d be brilliant. And we’ll make it to 1000. I’ll see if we can offer some kind of prize or something. Also, of course, don’t forget that the indie sourcing trip is our next year, April 2020. That’s between the 13th and the 20th of April. So please register before January 31. And save yourself $500 just head over to India sourcing trip com that’s India sourcing trip calm and megillah will look after you and she’ll answer any questions that you have about that extraordinary trip where I will be there as well as many other sellers and coaches and we’re all there to help you. Now, of course, if you’d like to save 50% off your first month or 2% off the lifetime access to helium 10 please visit the Australian seller calm forward slash helium 10. Anyway, let’s get on with this week’s show. And my conversation with Steve Suh Today, I’m absolutely thrilled to welcome the co founder and CEO of Floship, Steve Suh, who comes to us all the way from Hong Kong, and I’d love to welcome you to the show today. Steve, thanks so much for coming on. Steve Suh 3:25 Thank you so much for having me. Chris Thomas 3:26 Now, can you give us a bit of an intro to my standard question a bit of your background and what got you into the fulfillment business? How did you end up co founding and becoming the CEO of logistics and e commerce threepio fulfillment business in Hong Kong? Steve Suh 3:39 Yeah, sure. So, you know, obviously, I can’t really tell the long answer. But, you know, for, you know, getting involved in the fulfillment aspect of things. You know, actually, I’m originally from the States. Exactly, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and decided to venture out into China because, you know, really because of growth of the economy. And, you know, I just really wanted to kind of get the best of both worlds with US and China. So the time that I spent in China, I actually end up working for a company called four px, they happen to be arguably the largest e commerce fulfillment provider for cross border logistics and shipping. So, you know, you have a lot of eBay and sort of like Amazon sellers using for services. So during my time there, I was accountable for, like overseas, you know, business developments and really helping for PX to take their business, you know, to the world. And, you know, while I was there, while it was all a great experience for me really learning about cross border, you know, logistics and and understanding the pains of of shipping, you know, worldwide, I really felt that there was a gap in terms of the market that they were serving, mainly, were, you know, serving Chinese, so But I felt that for international sellers, you know, was they even had like a, an overseas sales team. That’s really where I saw the challenge where they they really couldn’t sell to the Western online seller. And the reason why is is really goes back to the quality of the of the service. You know, and, and being able to provide a software that can really work with with the UI UX experience, that that matches the western sort of, you know, ways of working. So, so that led me to say, Hey, you know, there’s there’s a huge, you know, sort of market like opportunity or demand here, where, you know, the western online retailer is, you know, I would say 50% plus in the world are actually manufactured in China. So, if you’re manufacturing in China, you know, why can’t you actually ship directly from the source so There’s really no company that was able to offer this. And that’s where I said, Hey, you know, I think this is a great business idea. Let’s do Floship. And really the focus around Floship was was based upon two main pillars. Number one, that’s that’s customer service, you know, sure that we have an English speaking sort of team that’s relatable to the Western seller and provides a Western level of customer service. Number two is its technology. You know, I felt that, you know, for PX and and many of these other sort of Chinese procurement providers, the very similar when it comes down to things. And I would even say the UI UX experience is very Chinese. And so we want to provide technology where you have like, once again, that’s very easy to understand, and helps automate a lot of the work. You know, that the western all the retailers are normally accustomed to. Chris Thomas 6:53 Yeah, you know, I was living in Hong Kong between 2013 and 2015, and actually met QY, who I think at the time was An Account Manager for you and she got me on board with with Floship and at the time I was actually looking to basically get the three pillars of a lifestyle business I wanted to have location independence and I wanted to have scalability that was that was my sort of plan at the time and Floship definitely helped me do that because Previous to that sort of to your point, I had been shipping my products from China all the way to Australia, where I live obviously and then shipping out from Australia to the rest of the world from from my e commerce fulfillment. And so when I stumbled across flagship I think through Michael michelini and introduced me that was that was that was the moment when I just went Oh, hang on this is this could actually basically breach that last little that gap and enable me to return to Australia and not have to deal with the military anymore and have had you know, pallets of things in my garage and whatnot. So yeah, it’s it’s a great service and at the time as well, I was looking at he was like saying from China, but again, to your point it was very tired. Focused I think the bench engine as a competitor of yours, I guess in a way but um, but when when I saw flagship in the in the dashboard and the way that you guys were set up and yeah, it was it was perfect. So yeah, it’s been a brilliant relationship ever since. All right, well let’s let’s change gears a little bit let’s talk about e commerce in general. So there’s been a, obviously a massive growth in Econ, we can see that with Amazon, eBay and a lot of other marketplaces together with a lot of e commerce. So what’s happening in China at the moment, from an e commerce perspective? How hard is it for Western companies to introduce their products into China? from you know, and so, a communist? Steve Suh 8:40 Yeah, you know, so, Floship we’ve been focused on assisting Western sellers get into the China market, and I would say that it’s definitely hasn’t been. He’s his experience and I I’ll tell you why. As much as I really want to know Encourage you know what some sellers didn’t do them to the market. You know, when selling into China, first of all you need to have, you know, your products approved for selling. And you know, that process can take a while. And if you really want to, you know, so basically send your products into the China market, store your inventory in China. And so within, there’s some processes that you have to deal with. First of all, you have to serve a Chinese entity, you know, that which which can take some time. And that, you know, you need to make an investment. And, you know, usually rule of thumb as the top two more of these wouldn’t be like the China tech TPS basically assist, you know, overseas sellers with, you know, setting up, they’re setting themselves up on the marketplace, and helping them do the marketing. They may even help you with setting up your business entity. And yeah, I mean, just helped you. So your point into the Chinese, you know, marketplaces or even website building, etc. But what they tell you is that if you want to be successful in China, usually the upfront investment tends to be anywhere from around 100,000 to around 200,000 US dollars. Right. So Wow, no, yeah, you know, small investments. And, you know, I can’t say that, you know, just because you don’t have 100,000 US dollars doesn’t mean that you’re not going to be successful in China. But the when you’re marketing to the Chinese people, of course, it’s going to be very different when, you know, marketing to a US customer or an Australian customer. You know, Instagram or Facebook, you know, these are some, you know, some some popular channels that you can sell, or mark on Market to online. But in China, you don’t have Instagram, you don’t have Facebook, because they’re both blocks, right. So, now you had to think about, you know which which channel was Can I really used to market to the Chinese customer and the Chinese customer is evolving every single day. Now it’s really becoming, you know, it comes down to trust, right, because you have a lot of the counterfeit counterfeit goods, you know, maybe selling on Taobao. And you know, the customer may may not trust the seller, you know, and then it may also come down to, Steve Suh 11:22 you know, really, how can I trust whoever’s marketing to me? How can I trust this person even. So now, to have you know, your friends, even being being become ambassadors of certain products, and as a result, because they may be your friend, you know, you may be more inclined to purchase. So, even like the thought of like a key opinion leader, which used to be really popular, you know, in China, you know, that’s becoming, you know, less and less of, you know, a career like marketing. It’s like strategy. You know, for Chinese companies are just, you know, just regular people being ambassadors for brands and and being. And so that’s where the WeChat sort of, you know, platform is becoming a lot more popular and now even see huge you know, we chat stores becoming more alive. So before you had, you know, the like the end and the JT coms of the world really having by 80 to 85% market share, and the Chinese e commerce market. Now you have a lot more the sellers migrating to to WeChat, where you can have sort of your own sort of like online store, like a Shopify or Magento. com, or WooCommerce. And, you know, basically, you know, setting up your own store and using WeChat sort of as a platform, you know, to market market your products. So, yeah, I mean, I hope I provided some, yeah, some advice there in terms of tackling China. But you know, that this The second thing that you may have to worry about becomes logistics, right? So, um, you know, that’s where that’s where we, you know, come in, if any sort of no overseas brand wants to enter to the China market pretty much immediately, we can help you do that without exactly, you know, having to set up the Chinese entity, and they kind of ends up being a loophole where, you know, you can sell directly, you know, to the Chinese market because they’re selling more cross border. So, so obviously, when you have your goods into Hong Kong, that’s where be the fastest path to getting your product into China, when you’re just outside of the country. Hong Kong, you know, is a bit border since then, you know, I know. So, you know, you can see your shipping days ago, anywhere from about two days to around, you know, seven days. And, and you don’t even need, you know, product approvals, you know, to sell into China as well. So, so yeah, Chris Thomas 14:03 yeah, so you’ve got speed and you’ve also got the ability to be able to import into Hong Kong and not have to worry about setting up a business in China itself as well. So you can, yeah, it’s a bit of a win win, isn’t it. And then the other thing I was going to say as well, I mean, just on that trust side of things we have here in Melbourne and throughout Australia, a lot of what we call Daigu sellers or Daegu, I think they’re called and what they do is they buy like Australia milk powder and they buy you know, the vitamins from blackmores and whoever you know that the domestic, you know, food and popular brands that are in China, Australia, and China that are trusted, what they do is actually take videos of themselves buying these products from our supermarkets and from our chemist chains or whatever. And and then bringing them into their little stores, you know, in the CBD of Melbourne which is very expensive to have a shopfront there and and then What they do is they Yeah, they take a video of the whole thing and they take a video packaging and up into the box and then sending from Australia all the way into China. And then a lot of that is all sort of evidence that it of the provenance of the of the items that they’re not counterfeit is is sent through WeChat to, you know, various customers that are expecting those goods. So it’s interesting, though, that it might be possible now for us to be able to send maybe smaller test orders rather than investing 100,000 US dollars or whatever, where much it costs. You know, by setting everything up in China, we might be able to send these these test orders into into safely ship in Hong Kong, and then start a marketing without sort of spending huge amount of money. Is that would that is that a method that could work? Steve Suh 15:43 Absolutely. Chris, I think you just hit the nail on the head here. That’s basically the advice that I give for any new seller that wants to get into the China market. Use Hong Kong basically as the launch pad. You know, to test if your product is actually Something that the Chinese know consumer actually wants or needs right and you have to invest in you know setting up a Chinese entity spending money on that you know, you don’t have to set up you know maybe a marketplace that or set up on a marketplace which actually entails upfront costs as well. You can even use your own you know, Shopify site or your own shopping cart system and do a little bit of marketing you know, within China and and see if your conversion rate is high enough and it’s something that you really want to invest in and take take forward. So yes, that’s Chris Thomas 16:35 Yeah, yeah, well that’s right and then you can basically you know, things are really starting to pan out and you’re shipping quite a few units back into China then you can potentially invest that hundred thousand dollars because you can obviously see, you know, the the future potential of the brand and the products. So because it’s interesting with you guys, the way that you originally structured as I understand things, when you know, back in sort of 2013 1415 was that it was more goods were coming across China, you know, it’s true into Hong Kong, the Chinese manufacturer is quite liked it because they got their export sort of commissions or whatever that sort of rephrase from the China government. Yeah, when they went across border into Hong Kong, and then that enabled us ecommerce sellers into, you know, as I was explaining earlier, rather than shipping to Arab countries and try to break out from there, you’d be able to ship directly out of out of Hong Kong, which was, you know, fantastic. So, but now, it looks like it’s heading back the other way. So, as I understand things, Western brands and product owners can send products to Hong Kong through through to you and then actually got back into China. So that’s a really interesting model. Steve Suh 17:40 Yeah, I mean, you know, Hong Kong could could service service like dual purposes, right. I mean, you know, you can have, you know, your goods being shipped all over the world, you know, through through Hong Kong. And let’s say that you really want to, you know, test the China market as well. You can do that, you know, with your inventory basically in the same location, right. So, essentially, it’s Your inventory, and you don’t have to worry about these various movements of sending large amounts of working capital, you know, in various distribution centers all over the world. Just have it in Hong Kong and be very lean. And one of the clients that I was just talking to recently was just experiencing explosive growth and they’re like, Oh my goodness, like I used to see freight my goods, you know, into into the United States and not having to worry about inventory. Now I have to do air freight. And that costs so much more. And let me also have my international volume that I had to serve and, you know, it doesn’t make sense for me to you know, basically have all of my inventory in the US and then shipping all the way back internationally. Maybe I can send you know, my my demand, you know, for the US and I can have a set of inventory. You know, in Hong Kong, which is closer my manufacturer, even run smaller mo queue sizes. And you know if a need arise where maybe my demand is just so you know, soaring through the roof You know, I can have, you know, my inventory sent a lot faster basically same day, or next day after the manufacturing run is done, and and start selling, you know, within Yeah, let’s say three days at their math and manufacturing run is done. Chris Thomas 19:14 So that’s how I do it. That’s how I do it. So yeah, so soon as the manufacturing around is done, I’ve got imagery that’s going Yeah, sometimes by see some most of the time by air into the us into Amazon in Europe. And then the balance is sent to Floship for e commerce. And yeah, like to your point rather than sending it you know, if writing to Australia for you know, website fulfillment, I can get it. Literally the cash flow is just sorted out straight away, like I’m selling immediately. So it’s a really, it’s a really good system. One of the things I was gonna say as well as it I’ve also used flesh up a little bit for my Amazon customers here in Australia, really just testing out products in the marketplace here as a manager as a merchant fulfilled and then you know, taking those orders from me Australian and having a fulfilled from flagship in Hong Kong. And yeah, it’s been really successful as well. So yeah, so it’s a good system. I don’t want to turn into a massive chat about a good flagship is but you guys are in fact better than pretty good here awesome. Now who else is using flagship service because you also offer a crowdfunding service to so why don’t we just raise funding and do you have any tips for crowdfunders in terms of like actually running a campaign or you know crowdfunding campaign either on Indiegogo, or obviously the big one is Kickstarter is probably the first and then in terms of logistics, obviously you’ve got a lot of pledges and rewards the people need to ship out. How do you handle that sort of volume? Steve Suh 20:42 Yeah, sure. Sure. So yeah, not only do we handle like e commerce in overwhelming for, you know, online, like global online sellers that are, you know, custom to selling on their own website or you know, Shopify Magento WooCommerce or some of these shopping carts. We do help out with our You know, the crowdfunding community, where, you know, people are trying to come out with very novel products. And usually the challenge about crowdfunding fulfillment is that many and many of the crowdfunding sellers tend to be on the newer side, maybe they’ve never really done business before. Or let alone maybe they were just selling in their own like domestic market. So when you’re selling on Kickstarter, when you’re selling on Indiegogo, you’re basically opening up your, your market to the world. You The world is basically, you know, looking at, you know, Kickstarter, Indiegogo on a daily basis. No, and, you know, maybe let’s say you have like a 10,000 backer campaign, you know, 50 50% of that may be or 40 to 50%, maybe us and then maybe you have, you know, a 10 to 15% in Australia, and then you have, you know, 20 to 30% in Australia and then 10% versus the world, right. And, you know, when you’re thinking about shipping to all these different countries You know, let alone You’re going to shift, you know, let’s say within Australia, shipping internationally 200 plus countries is just a nightmare like where do you even start? So, that’s where you know Floship comes in and you know, when you have about you know, 10,000 orders that you have to ship you know, within within a few days, you know, Floship will basically take your goods from the manufacturer and most likely, you know, would be in China and then we will, you know, bring it into our warehouse and yeah, I mean, we basically we have been doing this for the past five to six years now. And you know, we have a basic science in terms of, you know, how we pick and pack orders in you know, in the various combinations for each country, making sure that the duties and taxes are all we consult you in advance in terms of, you know, how you should how you should manage that aspects. We make sure even the packaging is arranged, because sometimes you may have, you know, multiple combos, you know, some some customers may order, you know, five or six have have a certain product and as a result the packaging has to change is all things that you know, will will take care of you take care of for you, as long as we understand, you know what the product is, you know, that we’re distributing. So yeah, we even have something called a Floship certified logistics program. And so before we start your Kickstarter, Indiegogo campaign, we can do some free kinds of consultation for you, you will let it you let us know, you know, what is the product that you’re trying to distribute? What are the markets that you’re trying to sell them sell to? So for instance, if you have a battery products, you know, what, let you know what shipping methods are available to you to ship to the various markets and maybe even some safety documents they should be aware of that you should you know, prepare in advance. So, you you pass this, this consultation that we have for you will provide you a seal or service certification seal that you can print on to your Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign, which certifies legitimacy to your backers saying that hey, you know, followship has approved this product for distribution, so don’t worry about it, you know about receiving this product successfully into your hands. So we want to get it to been been very successful for our campaigners. You know, we’ve seen Sorry, I forgot the statistic, but usually people that have this, the seal will will actually, you know, experience more more sales of their Kickstarter Indiegogo campaigns. And, you know, it’s been proven so yeah, whenever you talk to someone on our on our Floship team, they’ll be able to provide a little more color in terms of really the legitimacy behind this seal. Chris Thomas 24:49 What a bit sort of, let’s say that I was in a coma salad then or a crowdfunder, who had a fairly large product like what what does the economics look like is it sometimes benefit people actually shipped to their own country and fulfill that way or their reasonable shipping costs for, you know, oversized items, for example. Steve Suh 25:09 Yeah, so that’s it? That’s a very good question when you said oversized because international shipping can get quite expensive once your product which is a certain size. So usually what we say is that the post the world, which is the most economical way to ship worldwide, two kilograms or less for your products, is, you know, consider like, like a good sort of e commerce weights. But once you hit over two kilograms, that’s when your shipping costs start start soaring. And you think about even your retail costs. So let’s say that you’re selling your product for like 30 US dollars, but your the weight of your product is over two kilograms, well, you know, your shipping costs, you know, to ship internationally, you know, maybe $30. So where is your mark? So think a little bit ahead. When when you choose Using your product and your e commerce business. But you know, here’s your question. When when I’m thinking about how to set up my, let’s say, my distribution centers and my supply chain strategy, I would first figure out where where’s my largest market? Where’s my target audience? Now is my target audience, you know, like 90% is based in Australia. I’d probably put my goods in Australia. Right. And, and then you know, the 10%, you know, International. Yeah, maybe you can ship you know, from Australia as well, right? It’s not big enough yet for you to maybe even consider someone like Floship to handle your international goods. But once you get to around like 30% of your volume, becoming more international. That’s where Yeah, I mean, you you’d want to consider someone like us because Australia may be quite limited in terms of international shipping options. You may have like Australia Post And you know, then you have the Express corners of the world, but you need that economical solution as well right that sort of you know postal solution and you know, flow ship we have we have many different sort of economical solution they can choose from for free even each market. So, you know, we have like Swiss Post, you know, for Europe, we have post Netherlands for Europe as well, we have Singapore post more for Asia, and you know, we even have like what we call that direct injection solutions now. So, this is becoming a very, very innovative way to ship to make major e commerce markets in the world. And so, basically what direct injection means is that, typically in post a world you have many handoffs, you can hand off and if so, if is using single proposed goods from Hong Kong into Singapore, consolidates there and then you know if the show is intended to ship to the UK, then it goes from Singapore to like a regional hub. In Europe, and then it gets into the UK, you know, distribution center and ship last mile with like Royal Mail, let’s say. Right, but that’s a lot of handoffs. And that’s why shipping times can be quite long for postal mail. But with direct injection what happens is you know, Floship will book you know, commercial airline, some space space on a commercial airline will ship direct from Hong Kong into the UK or maybe into Australia and do a special clearances, we will inject into a safer Australia Australia Post network and and then from there, it’s basically local delivery times. So shipping time for that ends up shortened by ally being seven to 14 days, but direct injection can be anywhere from about three days to around eight days. The customer so yeah, I mean, that’s that’s where, you know, international shipping can get quite creative and I don’t I think there’s really any other place in the world. That’s better to do international shipping than from Hong Kong, Hong Kong or or from China. And as really the rise of the Chinese seller, the Hong Kong seller, shipping internationally, you know, back, you know, in the 2005 2016, the eBay and Amazon days, you know, where, you know, you were basically the eBay seller would have a tough time trying to compete against Chinese sellers, because, first their their costs for the products are so low, and the shipping costs are low as well. Right. Chris Thomas 29:34 Now, it sort of started to level up a little bit as well for for Yeah, the more domestic sort of sellers on those marketplaces. Steve Suh 29:41 Exactly. Obviously, Chris Thomas 29:42 a bit of an elephant. The room here is just around the protests that have been happening in Hong Kong, you happy to talk about your experiences that had any disruption at all to your business? Steve Suh 29:53 Sure. Yeah. I’d love to talk about that. I’m sure there are a lot of people, you know, have their concerns once you hear about Hong Kong. Hong Kong probably the biggest news you are aware about are the protests. Well, you know, fortunately for Floship, you know, we haven’t really seen you know, too much destruction on our side. At the very least, our centers are more away from where the protests are centrally or where they’re really happening. If anything, the protesters are not even you know, they’re not going to attack the warehouses. You know, they’re there. They’re going to attack more of the government sort of offices or Chinese own company stores etc. Oh, yeah, we we’ve had very minor disruptions Chris I’m sure you’re aware as well as as a client yourself. Steve Suh 30:44 You know, we’ve we’ve been like, Chris Thomas 30:46 not just one I think there was a there was a small delay because the because of the airport, there was some issue around the airport and I think we just lost lost a day. I think that was about it. Nothing dramatic. Yeah, at all. There you go. Steve Suh 30:59 Yeah. I was Chris Thomas 31:02 understanding the other situation that was going on. Obviously, I’ve got friends that have come from Hong Kong and stayed with us just to get a rest to take a break from the protests. had a couple of friends now that have come over Hong Kong as and also Western Europe, just just taking a little rest. So yeah, it’s, it’s it’s obviously pretty dramatic. And what we see on the TV is pretty dramatic, but it does seem as though in spite of the fact that Hong Kong is, is moving into recession, if it’s not already. There is still a real sense of business as usual, people are still trying to get on and businesses are still trying to, you know, sort of survive and, and maintain some kind of resemblance of, of normality. So yes, it was I was surprised, actually, and I think you guys did a great job in maintaining their services that you were able to maintain during Yeah, Steve Suh 31:51 I mean, Chris Thomas 31:52 it’s totally during the height of the protests him. Steve Suh 31:55 Thank you so much. I mean, for us, you know, we’ve definitely done our side of like contingency contingency planning as well as You know, if there’s an issue even given get into the office, and we made sure that the that the staff is trained to even work from home if that’s the case as well. But warehouse workers, you know, that hasn’t really been, you know, a challenge for us to to secure. And you know, the great news I think on a Hong Kong post that side, though is if you’re following if you’ve been following it is that the there there’s been a there’s been an election for like the local sort of district offices and be about about 80 90% was pro China in those offices. But now it’s been totally reversed to two bro Hong Kong, let’s say. I think that’s because that’s where there’s been more peace of mind for the protesters. And, you know, they’re going to see how things pan out, especially with, you know, the these Pro Hong Kong officials in place, and, yeah, we’ll see. I think there’s going to be a Good time period here, you know, for us to see what happens. But yeah, even even if if something does happen again, I think we’re going to be well prepared and as you’ve seen minor disruption, you know, on our side. Chris Thomas 33:12 Fantastic. Couple last questions to wrap up here. Sure. China is flagship looking to potentially expand into China say Shenzhen or somewhere on the other side of the border. Steve Suh 33:26 Great question. Yeah. So we are, we are just about to go live in since then. So yeah, I mean, really, the purpose of us setting up missions and and, you know, it’s really listened to our to our customers, is, it comes down to the cost base, right. When you compare warehousing and labor costs in China versus Hong Kong, you know, it’s significantly less than in Hong Kong. So, so, yeah, I mean, we’ve listened and, you know, we’re setting up the China warehouse. Go Live maybe tomorrow or sometime early next week? And yeah, I mean, our plan is to make sure that it mimics our operation in Hong Kong. You know, we I think we built a very reliable, reliable operation that has many different shipping options they can choose from. And that’s, that’s the same kind of model that we want to be able to offer an offer in China. I don’t think there’s really any sort of like Western fulfillment provider in China, that’s able to provide the technology and the customer service that’s required. So yeah, this is really exciting for us. Chris Thomas 34:38 Yeah. That’s super exciting. And the bit i love about you guys, as well as the full integration into like, I use Shopify so any customer that comes in, you know, just basically just go straight through to you guys and then you just pick pack and ship and not only have to think about it, it’s got to pay the invoice. It’s a really good, it’s a really good system. All right. I think that’s actually my last question. Other than just offer maybe you could provide a shipping calculator or something as well. shocker, I could probably dig it out. But this is Episode 82 I think or possibly 83 I forgotten. But what we’ll do is I’ll put up a whole bunch of links into flesh it by the way, people flagship is spelled FL Oh, sh IP, not FL o w, not FL o w, without the w.com. So be sure to go and check them out. It’s a great service on this. I don’t have any affiliation to Floship. I’ve been using them for quite a few years now maybe five, five years, I think and been super grateful. I’m probably pretty small fry in the grand scheme of things for Floship, but grateful that you’ve managed to let me hang on to your service. So thanks, hate, Steve, for coming on. How do we get in touch with you? And you know, what’s the best way to do that? Steve Suh 35:49 Sure. So yeah, if you’re interested in Floship services, I highly recommend that you go to Floship com FL Oh, sh IP. com. We do have a forum You can fill out at the bottom and we’ll make sure that on once you fill out the form that a salesperson will be in touch with you immediately. However, I don’t you know, shy away from customers that want to, you know, speak to me directly. You can find me on LinkedIn. Steve saw STV last name su H. And yeah, I’ll connect with you and you can you know, direct messaged me there. And yeah, happy to have a conversation with with anything really helping you scale your business for e commerce. Chris Thomas 36:30 Thank you, Steve. I was just one last thing I want to just say before we sign off but I was just really impressed the other day as well when I just sent a message bizarrely through your Facebook page as well. And right away someone got back to me and attended to be you. So yeah, you have definitely got your finger on the pulse of your business and your customers and your inquiries as well as your team. So yeah, thanks again for that. Let me just a minute. Steve Suh 36:55 Let me get that one Chris. Usually I don’t reply directly on the Facebook messages. However, I do see Facebook messages come through, right. But once I started named Chris, I had to reply directly, right? I mean, if you’re, if you’re if you’re if you’re a customer of Floship, especially, you know, long standing loyal, you know, customer Floship, I really do care. And I hope that shows through that effort. So, yep. Chris Thomas 37:28 Great, great, straight to the top. So that’s awesome and wonderful to have a conversation and jump on the phone and then say, Hey, Steve, do you wanna come on the show? And he was you were just like, Yes, absolutely. I’d love to come on and spend a bit of time just chatting about Floship and also just barely commerce in general. And hopefully, people got a lot out of out of our conversation today. So yeah, thanks again for heaps for coming on the show. Steve Suh 37:50 No worries at all. I really enjoyed the time and hopefully people will come away learning something and yeah, hopefully I helped you out, you know, through this talk. Chris Thomas 37:58 Awesome stuff. Thanks again, you. links and Show Notes for this episode can be found over at the Australian seller.com forward slash podcast. Don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher or your favorite podcast platform. Sign up to my email over at the Australian seller calm and I’ll send you a note each time I publish a new podcast episode. Thanks so much again for listening Transcribed by https://otter.ai The post TAS 082 : eCommerce & Amazon Fulfilment from Hong Kong – Steve Suh from Floship appeared first on The Australian Seller.

Had a great chat this week with Stephen Duncombe – who’s the founder of the Amazon FBA Seller and ecommerce Meetup Group here in Melbourne! Stephen and his wife Jasmine have been selling on Amazon since 2015 after a stint on eBay Australia trying to sell some Cards Against Humanity which he’d sourced from a supplier on Alibaba. He tells the story better than me so listen out for that! He’s got his eyes set on having 100 products live on Amazon by 2022 so we talk about how he’s hoping to achieve that goal before considering an exit. Subscribe to Facebook… almost at 1,000 members! Stephen’s Website: www.startupshift.com and Facebook The India Sourcing Trip is coming up fast – April 13 – 20, 2020 / New Delhi so Register before Jan 31 and save $500 Join a unique Sourcing and Learning guided tour to the Indian Handicrafts & Gifts Fair in Delhi…Increase profitability by sourcing innovative products other Amazon sellers don’t have access to.Beat import duties (China Tariffs) as India is not in a trade war with the US.Find new suppliers for existing products you source from China.Learn all about sourcing from India – the pitfalls to avoid, supplier verification and vetting, negotiating, logistics, quality control, payment terms, and much more.Know which products can be sourced from India, and where the production hubs are.Understand how sourcing from India is different from sourcing from China.Meet and network with suppliers and sourcing service providers.Learn the latest branding and marketing strategies from Amazon and eCommerce coaches from the US and Australia traveling with the group.Visit an actual factory to see first-hand how products are made.Experience India’s rich culture – watch an entertaining dance show, visit the iconic Taj Mahal, wear traditional clothes like the saree and turban.Share experiences with other like-minded sellers in the group, learn from each other and make lifelong friendships. By the way, if you’d like to save 50% off your first month, or 10% off for lifetime access to Helium 10, visit www.theaustralianseller.com/helium10 – it is an affiliate link but it’s the only way I can offer a discount. Of course it also comes with FREE access to Kevin King’s Freedom Ticket Course which is normally $997 – best course around I think! The post TAS 081 : eBay Australia Struggles to Amazon USA Success & growing to 100 products by 2022 – Stephen Duncombe appeared first on The Australian Seller.

This week’s episode is with a new friend Tudor Tanase who speaks to us all the way from Transylvania, Romania. He’s a high 6 figure seller after just 2 years mainly selling in the USA, but just recently launched his products and brands into Europe with a focus on the UK and Germany. He shares lots of tips and tricks which have got him to where he is today. He combines tools like Helium 10 & Amazon’s own Brand Analytics to figure out the best keywords to rank on when he launches. By the way, if you’d like to save 50% off your first month, or 10% off for lifetime access to Helium 10, visit www.theaustralianseller.com/helium10 – it is an affiliate link but it’s the only way I can offer a discount. Of course it also comes with FREE access to Kevin King’s Freedom Ticket Course which is normally $997 – best course around I think! Anyway, Tudor and I also discuss Amazon’s new IP Accelerator Program so you can obtain Brand Registry within a few weeks instead of 9 months, the transparency program, Amazon’s Project Zero program which help sellers combat hijackers and counterfeiters. I started off today by asking him how he got started selling on Amazon… Resources mentioned in today’s episode: https://www.wordtree.io/smartecom/ https://keepa.com/ https://sellerboard.com/ https://www.1688.com/ Transcript: Chris Thomas 0:00 Welcome back to another episode of the Australian seller podcast and today I’m thrilled to welcome tutor to Nassi from Romania, Transylvania Romania, who’s a seven figure, well, actually a high six figure, Amazon seller. And we brought him on to… brought him on today because he is very, very experienced in all things Amazon, obviously having reached incredible sales numbers. And I was just really kind of have a chat with you, tutor and learn more about your story. So, enough for me. Yes. Tudor Tanase 0:31 Thanks a lot. Yes. Hi. Hey, thanks a lot for bringing me in. And for being a part of your podcast. I am really thrilled to be here and to offer as much value as I can Chris Thomas 0:42 go. Yes. Awesome. Awesome. So tell me your story. Like how did you get started selling on Amazon? What got you into e commerce and all that fun? Tudor Tanase 0:50 Yes. So around two years ago, when I started, I started with two friends of mine. We launched a product that was not successful, they gave up and I keep continuing. They actually had businesses in Romania and they said that they don’t want to give up their businesses in Romania for the Amazon thing because they thought thought that’s way too competitive and such and they give up and they keep continuing and I’m still doing in till today Chris Thomas 1:21 so is that actually Amazon Europe? Or is that Amazon USA? Tudor Tanase 1:25 It’s I’ve started with USA and for like the last four months we entered into the Euro more more strongly in United Kingdom and Germany. Chris Thomas 1:37 Maybe we can dive into that as well. Um, it really can be you know, you’ve sort of gone Oh, no, it’s only a very short period of time but interesting to see how nothing’s going there. So so what what categories Do you sell your products in near all over the place so we have you Tudor Tanase 1:53 know, right now we have two brands in beauty, and by the start of next year in January, we are Going to launch a new brand in office and a new brand new branding arts and crafts crafts. Chris Thomas 2:06 All right, so that’s all that we’re gonna get to like six brands. Tudor Tanase 2:10 Only four I have to right now into on the way but next year I’m looking to launch another two to four brands and each one of them to have around four to six products depending how much I can go with that niche. Chris Thomas 2:25 That sounds really interesting. So far, so maybe I’m assuming that you started with the beauty brands first. Is that right? Tudor Tanase 2:33 Yes. Chris Thomas 2:35 So let’s let’s maybe just hone in on that. So the beauty brand, how many products do we have in the big brands at the moment, right, right now in total, I have eight product, six of them on one brand and two of them on another brand. Like going like Tudor Tanase 2:52 they’re going well. going well. Beauty niche it’s a very interesting niche because it’s One of the most competitive as the supplements one, it’s extremely competitive. But the good part is that most of the buyers in the beauty niche are women. And you can actually sell the products on a higher price. And over time the prices won’t drop that much because women care of more about what they put on their skin then saving $5 Okay, so if you’re like, yes, if you’re launching like a toilet brush, they’re going to check the lowest price because it’s a low dollar brush, right? But if you’re lounging like something, a cream or a serum or anything like it, they are going to be able to pay more because it’s more important for their Chris Thomas 3:40 skin. Yeah, that makes sense. But I’m assuming that these beauty products are actually sourced from America. Tudor Tanase 3:46 Is that right? I have beauty products from Yes, I have one product from America and all of them all others are from China. I have like skincare tools as well. Not already late. moisturizer, it stuff like that. But you can get the approvals from China, all you have to do is like to search a very well established factory who got all the FDA approvals. What I actually did a when I first source my first product that’s like consumable from China, I asked quality check company in there to go into their factory and actually make an audit, take the photos, check the documents and all that stuff in order to be sure that I’m dealing with the right people and not get my account shut down and people getting all kinds of things on their face because of me. Yeah, that’s Chris Thomas 4:41 a bit of a risk. And obviously you can get caught at the American customs as well the United States Customs on the way and if you don’t have the right certification from the manufacturers. So what what was your sort of approach I guess, to deciding that they were the right products to start selling or to So like I said, Well, Tudor Tanase 5:03 at first I went like, very dumb, you know, I was I didn’t make so much product or product research and my first product actually failed. And after that I got to beat wised up. And I started using some tools like viral viral loungin helium 10. I also improved my product research over time, I learned to check how like using keepa how many reviews per month are they getting? How many if that niche is attacked by Black Hat people, because in there’s black head, you if you’re going to get to the top eventually you’re going to get attacked, right. So like demand of the niche, what keywords to rank for because you can lounge, competitive product, but you can rank for smaller keywords and still get those sales because the keyword as It’s high volume will be way harder to rank and maintain your rank there as why this cash flow, you know, it’s going to require way more cash flow to maintain that cue that ranking on a keyword that’s hundred thousand searches a month. Right? Chris Thomas 6:15 That’s true. Yeah. So in terms of obviously you’ve done all the research now though, these days you’re a little bit more I guess savvy about the fact that you know, there’s black hat and you’re not going after the bigger keywords so do you just do kind of launch or try and get visibility on lots of longer tail less volume, keywords and etc. And just stay away from those? Yes. Tudor Tanase 6:37 Okay. What he No no, I’m not staying away from being bigger keywords but I’m what I’m trying to do until I reach a number of relevant reviews. You know, because if everybody in the first page has like 1500 400 700 reviews, it’s not going to convert that well for you. Even if you’re going to have a lower price in the beauty niche. If You’re having like 20 reviews because people in there need like social proof right? So until I get like 50 or 100 reviews I’m going for the lower keywords and trying a healthy review to sales threshold and I also trying to have a little bit of cash flow from there you know, because Chris Thomas 7:21 yeah, so in terms of like actually your first order was set it all in like did you spend a lot of money on your first order? Or did you not just order Yesterday my King cosmolex. So Tudor Tanase 7:31 right, not even right now I’m launching with a huge orders because it doesn’t matter how experienced you are, you can still fail. So I had friends who launch products, so I don’t want to give the name of the product but he wasn’t like 5000 products. And he went in for like something like $25,000 and he had a person who did who did the due diligence, but when the product came in It was actually flagged for some reason, and he flagged it, but for some reason he cannot rank anymore. I don’t know why I think the product was flagged and he’s not making any sense. He says in the holiday season, like five units a day. Yeah, so that’s a huge risk, you know, all the time I go with 1000 units depends on the niche. If Scott if it’s a medium to high competition, I go with thousand with 2000 something around there. And if it’s medium and low competition, even low I go with. Interesting, interesting. So what about the keyword research? You mentioned? helium 10. Is there anything specific that you’re doing helium? 10? Like Chris Thomas 8:39 producting. Tudor Tanase 8:41 Like, and Chris Thomas 8:42 Yeah, go ahead. No, no, I was just gonna say, dude, you start with keywords first and then find a product or do you find a product and then figure out what the keywords are in that product? Tudor Tanase 8:49 Yeah, so I can give you a small tips that’s going to like ease your life here. So Chris Thomas 8:55 awesome. Tudor Tanase 8:56 Yeah. When you see a product, let’s say your keywords Research and you find the product right you take that a scene and you put it in helium 10 Cerebro right in there you search for top five to 10 keywords that are most relevant in high volume for that product. After that you take those keywords you put them in brand analytics in Brand Registry in under the reports in Amazon if you need to have the Brand Registry 2.0 you put those in there you and you actually find the search fine frequency rank that’s inside Amazon. And after that you can make a decision. What I also do I go to each brand I asked for I go to their storefront and I see all the products that they have in there. So after that I can see what products are going where what are not and I can analyze the entire store and I can make a decision. So one of the best products that I found is by storefront you know and that’s product research and other small tip, you can go in Brand Registry. Just go select the monthly report the monthly searches and just go by niche, you know, or download the entire report like a million keywords and go, let’s say if you’re not having a lot of my go from 10,000, search frequency rank, lower, you know, and you can see all the products that are going to be there you’re going to be you’re going to check all of them and decide which one are you going to go. Chris Thomas 10:32 So how do you then assess like the competition? Sort of what you’re up against on page one for some of those keywords? Do you worried about some of the competitors that might be there, their review scores, how many reviews they’ve got anything like that or? Tudor Tanase 10:43 Yes. So I check, let’s say I see a keyword right on the brand analytics. It doesn’t mean if I see that keyword, that’s the main keyword of that product. So I go on that keyword they the top three company dose and random to Cerebro. And Cerebro is going to give me like not the exact amount. But if a keyword has like 25,000 in another have like 2000, it’s obviously then the 25,000 is the biggest right? You know, try this and, and for the exact searches, to be honest, you don’t need the exact searches for what the thing you need is to create yourself a system, which you know how many units you need to give away, or, and sell for that keyword per day in order to ranking maintain your rankings, right? So that’s the only thing you need, you need the lesser volume, right? Because you need to make like a system. Because if you don’t have that, you won’t, you won’t know how many units you need to give away party to know, month rank. So that’s the main thing. Cool. Chris Thomas 11:51 Let’s get on to the ranking then. So you’ve done the keyword research, you’ve source a product, you’ve optimized the listing, and then we get into the ranking side of things. So there are you doing Using Cerebro score in terms of you know, the CPR score, like I need to give away 15 units a day or rebate now, Dania today, whatnot. So Tudor Tanase 12:13 so my strategy there, I just go to the search frequency rank. And after that, depending on how many you how many how or how high the search frequency rank is over there, right? So he feeds around 1002 thousand search frequency rank, I go with around 15 to 20 units a day to rank there. And I go from there, I can actually send you after this podcast, PDF of mine that I have that I’m following when I’m doing that, and you can attach to your group on your chart, you know, because it’s like a system that I’ve created for my launches. Okay, that’s really cool. That’d be very nice for you to do that. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. And yes, and you can check Yeah. You don’t need like exact searches you don’t need. I mean, from my experience, you don’t need exact searches you need to have like a target and to know approximately how many units you have to give away per day. Right? Chris Thomas 13:14 That sounds good. Yeah, that makes sense. And Tudor Tanase 13:16 for the competition, I will add a few things, a few glitzy golden nuggets that people can use. So when you’re sourcing your product, make sure you’re checking the website 1688 dot com. It’s the Alibaba of Chinese, you know, and you can check the prices from there. What I did with one of my products, I searched someone from Upwork who can speak like English and Chinese that website is only Chinese and 95% of the sellers in there. Don’t know how to speak English, right? So I speaking with someone in the Upwork he went to the website, I gave them the listing. He contacted the seller, and the We did a session from there, and we were working with him since now. From there, that’s brilliant. Chris Thomas 14:05 So yeah, because yeah, I’ve heard. And I’ve actually used 1688 with my brother, where we were able to save 10 sound like much, but we’re actually able to save about $1 a unit, but on the price of the unit, there was quite a significant amount of money. Exactly there. What we what we did, though, was actually say to the manufacturer that we were working with, we found pretty much exactly the same product on 1688. And it’s $1 cheaper. And that was actually a it was actually more was even cheaper than that. But we negotiated up to about $1 cheaper than what they originally quoted, because of the fact that we could point them at a at a listing on 1688, which was Yeah, so to be the money, certainly long term, it’s going to save a lot of money. Yeah, it’s a it’s a good strategy 1688 Tudor Tanase 14:52 and if you can find a sourcing agent that you trust and you like to work with and he is going to help you a lot with that. Because an important thing but about Chinese factory is that 90% of the factories don’t have the export documents in place. So the people the listings you see on Alibaba, most of them are trading companies or factories who got that got that document and they are having higher prices because of that. So if you find like a sourcing agent, yeah, if you can find like a sourcing agent who can get along with that, and you can give them him a bit of commission my is taking like 5% of the entire order. What he always finds the best prices. That’s true. Chris Thomas 15:41 Yeah, sourcing is well worth it, I think, particularly in China. Yeah. And if you’re doing a lot of sourcing, then they can be extremely cost effective. Some of the biggest sellers that I know, here in Australia all use sourcing agents to help them Tudor Tanase 15:56 and it’s it’s time it’s a time saver, you know, It’s a time saver, but it’s hard to find like someone to trust in there in China, you know, I always double check, Chris Thomas 16:08 I always double check. So he gave him a price. I go to 1688 in Alibaba, I check all the prices and everything. And after that, I make the decision. You mentioned sort of affair and you hinted at it during a conversation just now about hijackers and black hats. Yeah, attacked and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. Talk to me a bit more about your experiences. Tudor Tanase 16:28 Yes. So last year around May. I’ve learned one of my product. I didn’t have like Brand Registry or anything. I was waiting for the trademark. So here’s another golden nugget. You can go to Amazon, Amazon I on Google type Amazon IP accelerator. And Amazon actually partner up with few lower lawyer firms, and they can get you the Brand Registry 2.0 in like two weeks. Chris Thomas 16:57 Yeah, crazy. Tudor Tanase 16:58 Yeah, yeah. That’s pretty Because you enroll after that in Project Zero and you want heavy you want going to have any more hijackers, right? That’s perfect. Yes. So another thing that with hijackers in that last year, I was buying like reviews from Facebook groups, which I do not recommend anyone do. And my brand was doing around 60,000 a month, something like that. And what after, yeah, and after that, all my reviews will got wiped out and wiped out and all my ACS got blocked from receiving reviews. So just imagine you wake up tomorrow, zero reviews on all your listings. And you cannot receive any reviews next month. I was doing like 15,000 a month, even last year. Chris Thomas 17:47 Yeah. So the only thing that was really keeping you going was just the fact that you’d sort of achieved some rankings and because your rank so high, yeah, still Yeah. That was lucky. Yeah, you’re very lucky actually not to have your hall of cat close down. You Tudor Tanase 18:00 Yeah, but a lot of sellers had this problem they deleted around 15 million reviews right? I know people I know people who were selling for for like a friend of mine who was selling for for 400,000 a month and he got all his reviews shut down the next month he was doing like 30,000 he had to fire like half of his team because of that right. And after then I relaunched the product I relaunched two of my products and by the start of November finally thing happened. One of the sellers in my niche I don’t know which one actually hired some people in Vietnam, I think. Yeah, to hijack my product so I didn’t have like Brand Registry. So what they did, they bought like fake units as mine listed under my product, got the prize, get the buy box, and customers were we seeing the bad product and because of that a lot of young counterfeits and because of that, I received a lot of one star reviews and I need to reset the listing, right. And by the end of December, all my products got destroyed. And I had to start all over again in January this year. Got the Brand Registry, the Project Zero and all that stuff. And now I’m safe. Let’s see. So another thing that people can follow when you’re checking a niche, spare like five minutes to check the black hat in that niche and here’s a small tip you can do, you cannot see if the competitors are giving one stars because you cannot recognize those right? So but that this is a thing that a lot of black sellers are doing right but you do see if there’s a black activity in that niche. All you have to do is go to main tree three to five competitors. Check them out. dope reviews, you know, click on the reviews, check their top reviews if they have like a lot of one stars showing in there with a lot of upvotes. Just so you know, the competitor upvoted a one star review in order to get higher in rank for them to have lower conversion, right? Because, yeah, when they go to your product on Amazon, they check the price, they check the photos, sometimes they check the EBC the bullets, I don’t think they check that much. But they go to the reviews right and click the reviews and 90% of them are just going to check the top reviews. And in eight reviews on the mobile, you have like eight reviews on your first page eight or six, something like that. If they see three reviews of one star, your competition is going to go down. So there is another thing that other sellers competitors are doing. Just check that and you can see if there’s any black hat activity there. Chris Thomas 20:55 Yeah, no, I totally agree with that i was attacked with that strategy. This year, were Yeah, there was several one star reviews that suddenly surfaced from two years ago that had all been uploaded by 50 or 60 times that were pushed up. And that’s a massive loophole that Amazon, it has a policy about uploading, you know, reviews, whether they’re your engineering, uploading of your own positive reviews. And indeed, you’re also engineering negative reviews on competitive products. You know, Amazon’s pretty explicit saying, you know, let’s do it, but it is rife, and it’s very, very hard to stamp out and they won’t, they just totally ignore. I just, it just amazes me that Amazon doesn’t have some kind of upvote review velocity, you know, sort of algorithm in there. Like if, if a whole bunch of people suddenly upload within four hours, you know, it’s so obvious that Amazon doesn’t do anything about it. Yeah. Tudor Tanase 21:52 And even like that, and even like that, I think they had something because I’ve seen reviews that aren’t aren’t Or voting like 50 times and we’re in fourth or fifth page they have something like that. But the thing is it’s extremely hard for Amazon as allegorically make wise you need an artificial intelligence in here right to do that it’s it cannot be a person they don’t have the manpower to do. So you have to have like an artificial intelligence. So let’s say you take the average a month right that review was receiving like two up votes a month or man if all I’m going to sudden in the next month is going to receive like 20 Something’s fishy there. Right. So yeah, I need to do yes, you they need to do something about that. But if you’re taking into account that Amazon has a few hundred million reviews on their website, to have an algorithm make machine number all that is going to be extremely difficult and right now I don’t think it’s achievable that Chris Thomas 22:56 right. They they Amazon will find the time resource something like this when I need to. So a good example of that was the pesticides issue this year. So, you know, like so many sellers, including some of my clients, and myself and my brother, or got hit with the pesticides suspected Tudor Tanase 23:17 to product. I Chris Thomas 23:19 know you had to say somewhere in your listing was antimicrobial or antibacterial or non toxic, and your list you have is pretty much guaranteed to be shut down right now. And yes, it was an absolute mess. And they ran that algorithm across millions of products without telling anybody. And then of course, everybody gets a product shut down until a support meltdown because I can’t cope with the amount of sellers just saying what the heck, I’m selling like a book about you know, yeah, something or other and my books been suspended. It’s not a pesticide. So yeah, it’s crazy stuff, honestly. Tudor Tanase 23:54 Yeah. I mean, I have friends and myself but I’ve got my listing back in like six days, something Yeah Yes file and you modify your modified entire listing with the flat file and after that just open case and say hey, I just modify this and he’s going to be up in like a few days. Chris Thomas 24:10 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I actually just got a client sorted out a couple of weeks ago took me less than 24 hours to get product back so that was good. With that exact same flat file straight. I hate working with flat file, so Oh, God, they just give me a shiver. Tudor Tanase 24:24 I have some more product like who’s doing that for me? I’m not taking care of the flat files, man. It’s complicated for me. I prefer someone like 100 bucks do that for me. And no, I think Chris Thomas 24:38 it’s not much fun. Just in case one of the one of the things that you mentioned earlier was Project Zero for those that aren’t aware project is zero. Do you want to explain what projects here it is and why it’s good for us sellers when we’re brand Yes, of Tudor Tanase 24:52 course. Yes, of course, but to to go to Project Zero. First they need to understand transparent See? So, in USA transparency is any USA from the whole USA program, right? So in transparency when you enroll any of your products, of course they were made for the beauty products in order just to have that counterfeit thing will lead the way Ryan where people can scan the transparency code and see that’s the product. That’s how tantek right? So they did that with transparency, but it was taking way too long for that we wrote so first you have to like two weeks to roll after that you have like three to four weeks to stick the product ship them so it’s around, let’s say two months into your first transparency codes gets in there. Another bad thing was after each product had to be scanned manually as a transparency, right. So the main problem is if your products arrive today in the warehouse only, like three or four days were scanned all of them if you have like 5000 units right together so I was on actually started an inside on the hijackers project that’s called Project Zero. And you get that when you get the register 2.0 you have to search on Amazon Amazon Project Zero enrollment and you can avoid there you add your email and all that stuff in in like a week you’re, you’re enrolled. So actually you’re getting like a second dashboard behind Brand Registry and Project Zero actually has two parts, right? Something is like automatic, you know, you have like your own Amazon store at Amazon www.amazon.com slash brand, right? So if your store it’s constantly being analyzed by their algorithm, and if they see any other seller, any other listing for those products, he’s going to come out right? Yes. So but if you if you list your products multiple times, they is going to stick. And another thing that you’re going to have in the Project Zero is a dashboard where you can keep people out of automatically. So let’s say you have like helium 10, hijacker service, they’re going to email you, hey, you have a hijacker here, you’re going to go into the dashboard and simply keep them up. Right. So Chris Thomas 27:22 yeah, it sounds like brand brand gating, you know, for the bigger brands, but it’s starting to roll out now for a smaller, you know, brands that are trying to exactly the same. Yeah, it’s really good. Yes, yes. Yeah. It’s a great it’s a great program. Absolutely. Tudor Tanase 27:35 Yeah, actually, it’s a lot better than the transparency to be honest. It’s faster is cheaper, no stinking labels no extra our best and went forward. Yeah. Chris Thomas 27:48 Yeah, transparencies, it’s a good program. But yeah, to agree with you. It’s a very, very complicated me realize by Baka, yes, Tudor Tanase 27:56 it’s Christmas. If if you’re like anastasiya Vaulters Or something like very expensive beauty products, you know, like an SSL, Beverly Hills or Avon or anything like it, you want to put that on in order to show your customers you’re not having that issue. Right We could counterfeits, but if you’re like a small seller, you can go with projects you are no problem. Chris Thomas 28:22 What other sort of tools do you use and recommend you mentioned viral launch helium 10. And also keep it there any others that you could recommend to us? Tudor Tanase 28:31 So right now, I’m not using viral launch, I don’t know. But for me, personally, they don’t show like an active products like they don’t update the database that much. In my experience, I don’t know if someone likes it to give it I use helium 10. I’m actually kind of friend let’s say with many and we talk a little bit about Amazon and all that stuff in my facebook group. I’m also promoting them. So, helium 10. I also use seller board seller board was a tool that was designed by some of my Romanian friends and they did a great job. It’s a p&l p&l tool very cheap around $30 a month without autoresponder rank ranking trackers and all that stuff. Yes, yes. Yeah, I use keep up in the novocaine gotta Yeah, keep it it’s a must. If you’re doing research, it’s a must. And another thing that I find it very, very valuable. It’s word treat. I don’t think you heard about them. But they are one of No, they are the best not one of the best, the best listing creator. You don’t need any copywriter, any product research and indexing things after you do your thing. So I’m going to give you like after this link for him. And yeah, they are amazing and he’s very chip is that 510 dollars per listing, and your listing is going to have like is going to be the best. So very short, you’re putting your AC and three to 10 competitive races and they are going together or the keywords and they’re going to see the importance of the of the keywords and you simply it’s going to give you like a number from one to 100 to see how your listing is, is indexing and performing. Right. comparing to other listings. It’s very nice easy to use. Thanks, right what’s a code word tree? Yeah, work tree. Let me get that for you. on set. Yeah, Chris Thomas 30:39 I’ve not heard of wizardry that sounds really cool. Tudor Tanase 30:42 Yeah. And yeah, yeah. Interesting. You can check it out. And it’s super cheap. And the guys are amazing. They’re from USA. Yeah. Chris Thomas 30:53 All right. Thank you very much for those now you’ve also got a Facebook group as well, don’t you? So why don’t we give that a little plug? Yeah, so pretty cool. Tudor Tanase 31:03 Yeah, thank you very much. So my facebook group is smart, he calm everything in there is free. I don’t have a course or anything like it. I share constantly like small tips and tricks that I found them useful. I also have like a blog post where I sometimes have like blog post with tips and tricks and stuff sellers can use, you know? Yeah, I’m doing that with I have the group for like six months, six to eight months, something like that. And yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. Chris Thomas 31:38 And I’ll put all those links in the show notes for today’s show. work to actually episode, Episode Number 80. So if you head over to the Australia and the door on foot, yes. You did an amazing job. That’s about 80 hours of me and guests just rabbiting away. What do we got? So were you So show notes for Episode 80. So if you go over to the Australian seller.com forward slash 080, you’ll get all the show notes and all these links to word tree and seller board and keeper and smart e calm Facebook group, the blog posts, and anything else that we can cook up together of a tutor. So awesome. Well listen. Yes, sorry, any further tips and trip tricks that you might want to share with the listeners before we sign off today. Tudor Tanase 32:26 And my tips and tricks will be launch products today. And as as soon as you can, because as a good friend of mine was telling two years from now we are going to say hey, was so easy to laugh products in 2020 Chris Thomas 32:44 I agree with that. It was just like we said two years ago was so easy to get reviews on Amazon and then Amazon Yep, took that away as well. So yeah, things just definitely getting a lotta and it’s Tudor Tanase 32:57 Yep. It’s like it’s it’s tightening. Chris Thomas 33:00 Well I’d agree with that and I think look a lot of the reasons why things are getting a lot harder is because people keep cutting corners and doing a lot of black hat stuff and they make it you know, Amazon has to crack down because customer privacy and all sorts of other issues keep cropping up and yeah so they just have to end the week you know like we just get caught up in the crossfire us poor you know, third party sellers trying to make it Tudor Tanase 33:24 yesterday but yes, so, Chris Thomas 33:26 anyway, thank you so much for spending. Tudor Tanase 33:29 Thank you so much for inviting me I hope I bring some value and I can help people to be a better seller you know, Chris Thomas 33:38 heaps of value and great experiences to thank you so much tutor and how can people get in touch with you on Facebook just through the Facebook group? Tudor Tanase 33:45 Yeah, doctrine us or add me as a friend. I’m very personal and I I speak with all of the people that contacted me. Chris Thomas 33:55 That’s great or alright man, thanks so much again for coming on the show. Tudor Tanase 33:58 Look forward to catching up with the links as well. Thanks a lot Transcribed by https://otter.ai The post TAS 080 : Amazon’s IP Accelerator Program, Brand Registry and Analytics tips from Tudor Tanase, 6 figure Amazon Seller appeared first on The Australian Seller.

Gary Huang describes himself as Born in USA, Made in the China. He’s living in Shanghai these days and in addition to running his own very successful Amazon business, is the founder of 80/20 sourcing and the 7-figure seller summit. He’s a busy man. He’s an expert on sourcing and was one of the senior coaches at the India Sourcing Trip so we struck up a friendship together while we were there. Today I thought it’d be great to get his take on sourcing from India and the differences between China and India. For the Free Sourcing from India Cheat sheet we spoke about: https://www.8020sourcing.com/auseller/ Raw Machine Translated Transcript: Chris: [00:00:00] welcome back to another episode of the Australian seller podcast. today I am thrilled to have grant Gary Huang, who I met recently at the Indian sourcing trip in new Delhi at the trade show there. [00:00:10] The, . India home and handicrafts show, I think it was called Gary, is that right? [00:00:15] Gary Huang: [00:00:15] Yeah, I think you’re right. The Dehli Fair. [00:00:18] Chris: [00:00:18] Yeah. Yeah. Much easier. Um, and we had a great trip. I mean, it was a week of not only sourcing from the trade show, but a lot of education as well. [00:00:27] We learned a lot about the sorts of products that you can source from India. We had an extraordinary day where we went down to the Taj Mahal and many other things that we did too – a day trip around India. Really? wish! Uh, around new Delhi and um, yeah, it’s just amazing. So what I wanted to do today was really just pick your brains, because I think this was your first trip to Uh, to India, and you’ve done a lot of sourcing – in fact that you own a sourcing agency out of, uh, at a Shenzhen, right? [00:00:52] Or no, you’re actually in Shanghai, isn’t [00:00:54] Gary Huang: [00:00:54] that right? I used to, um, I used to offer sourcing services previously, and I’m based in Shanghai. That’s right. Yeah. [00:01:02] Chris: [00:01:02] Cool. Anyway, I’m so sorry. I’m kind of just talking and sort of holding an interview all by myself, so why don’t we just, uh, get, get, get on with this show and let’s, let’s have an introduction from you. [00:01:13] Tell us about you and your story. [00:01:16] Gary Huang: [00:01:16] Excellent. Thank you so much, Chris. First of all, for having me, I’m very honored to be on the Australian seller podcast and I know there’s a lot of enthusiastic and eager entrepreneurs down to under, so I’m happy to.share anything of value that can help out. [00:01:31] And I’m super honored to be with your two, uh, with you today. Um, so quick intro, I’m so, I’m, my name is Gary and I was born and raised in the U S. Uh Hmm. You can’t tell by my accent. I’m, I like to say that I was made in the U S a and exported to China. So, uh, born and raised in Los Angeles, grew up there, went to university there, and I came to China in 2008. [00:01:56] Uh, long story short. Uh, I kind of stumbled into a job doing sourcing from China based in Shanghai, uh, did that for many years. Um, so basically I’ve helped clients, uh, manage multimillion dollar stores in campaigns. Um, so I visited like over a hundred Chinese factories. So I’ve really seen like the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of the whole, you know, trying sourcing. [00:02:18] Um, so. Um, it was about 2016 when I created a website called 80, 20 sourcing. So I really wanted to bring some light into what some people call it, like a black box, because there’s a lot of unknown unknowns in sourcing world. A lot of, you know, tricks people play. So I’m, so I run a site called 80, 20 sourcing. [00:02:36] And also, um, I, um, host an online virtual summit called the seven figure seller summit where I interview various million dollar e-commerce sellers and entrepreneurs. Um, and then, um, you know, learn how they do it. So, um, the listeners can do it too. And yes, going back to your question, this was my first time going to India. [00:02:57] It was a very amazing experience, not just on the business side, but also on the cultural side. I’m just learning about the vast differences and some similarities, uh, you know, sourcing from China. So I’m, uh, happy to share more at five, if that’s a good, good enough intro for you. [00:03:12] Chris: [00:03:12] That sounds fantastic. [00:03:13] That’s exactly what I want to focus on today. So, um, obviously there are some pretty big differences. So why don’t we just sort of talk first off about the main differences that you see between, um, sourcing obviously from China and versus sourcing from India. What were the main sort of takeaways there for you. [00:03:30] Gary Huang: [00:03:30] Yeah. I think the number one thing that a lot of sellers are worried about right now, sourcing from China is the trade tariffs, you know, with the whole U S China trade war. So that could add another, you know, 25% or 30% on top of your already, you know, your, your costs. Right? So. Number one biggest difference is if you source from India, you can really circumvent these tariffs, so you won’t be privy to the same 25%. [00:03:54] Um, I think that that is the biggest thing, um, in terms of the cost savings. But number two, the biggest difference is, um. Just in terms of this selection of the products, because you know, obviously China has had a headstart, you know, in, in terms of the whole manufacturing world, the whole export world, I’d say they’re probably the 15 years ahead of where India is at. [00:04:15] So you really cannot find the same broad selection of products that you can find in China. I mean, there are some, some strong, um, you know, industries that we can find. In India, I think, you know, we can talk more about that if you’d like, but just in terms of the selection, don’t expect you can replace, um, you know, China with the India just overnight. [00:04:35] Um, I think those are some of the key differences. Um, one of the biggest surprises for me personally, I don’t know about you, Chris, is the fact that in India they’re willing to do. Minimum order quantities or MOQ as low as like 25 pieces or 50 pieces. If I talk, you know, went up to a Chinese supplier and I say, I want to order 50 pieces, there’ll be like, get out of here. [00:04:55] You know, by, you know, they’re, I mean, interested in talking to you, unless you’re talking at least like 500 to a thousand. Yeah. So I think that’s another, um, you know, big difference that I was surprised about. They can work in your favor. Um, if you are e-comm seller because you can, you know, afford to place a smaller bets, you know, smaller initial trial orders to kind of test out these products. [00:05:15] Um, just, yeah, just some high level thoughts that come to mind. [00:05:18] Chris: [00:05:18] Yeah, I agree. And one of the things that they entertained as well often was like an MOA. So. That was sort of saying, well, if you spend $5,000 with us, everything that’s on show here at our booth is, um, is up for grabs. You can order, you know, one of those and 10 of those. [00:05:32] And you know, so the MOA or the minimum order amount was a, another really interesting approach that they took. Uh, but the MIQ is, I was just ridiculous. And you could have quite a big range of products that you can be hitting Amazon hard with, uh, for not very much money and, uh, and have a wide variety of, so you don’t sort of load up on one big Sku. [00:05:53] Um, you can, you can sort of find some little test shots with some of the products that you find it [00:05:58] Gary Huang: [00:05:58] there, the new daily trade show. [00:05:59] Chris: [00:05:59] So. Yeah, it was. It was super cool. Um, yeah, I think you’re [00:06:04] Gary Huang: [00:06:04] right about the [00:06:05] Chris: [00:06:05] kind of the product selection you can’t really go to the India, trade show and expect to, or the new Delhi new Delhi trade show and expect to pick up like Silicon spatulas for example, is sort of, yeah, there’s, there’s not a lot of that sort of Silicon spatula plastic molding side of things happening there at all. [00:06:22] Um, and very little electronics as well. It was much more kind of handicraft wood, leather. Uh, what else? They have a lot of textiles. Glass heaps of Christmas decorations and things like that as well, which were really good. A lot of metal. And yeah, quite a lot of furniture too, which was quite interesting. [00:06:39] So, yeah. [00:06:40] Gary Huang: [00:06:40] That would also eco friendly products as well. Chris with like eco-friendly, biodegradable products. Um, I think some of them were made from recycled, um, like water bottles. You know, I think they were very innovative in terms of doing that. And he, India’s really big on, um, you know. [00:06:57] The whole equal friendly scene. And I think the local law in Delhi is that they don’t even allow any plastic bags anywhere. So if you go to a supermarket where you go to like a convenience store, they don’t even give you like a plastic bag. You can’t even pay for one. You know, there is like no option. [00:07:13] So it just goes to show there and they really have like a very equal, friendly attitude. Um, when it comes to the environment there. [00:07:21] Chris: [00:07:21] I do. It’s funny, I was talking to one of the locals there who was saying that. Five years ago in India, or maybe even 10 years ago in India, or particularly new deli, there were like plastic bags just being thrown around in the wind. [00:07:33] And now today you just don’t see any plastic rubbish really much at all. So, uh, yeah, it’s been extraordinary the way that they’ve turned things around there. And, um, yeah, they’re trying to do their bit. There was a lot of, just on the product side, just talking about eco friendly products, there was a lot of, uh, things like Palm leaf plates, um, for example, a lot of, um, kind of bamboo, you know, forks and spoons and things like that that. [00:07:56] People might use it, a party, you know, sort of, um, compostable and degradable biodegradable products. The gassy was one as well, which is a cornstarch, um, material. It’s kind of like a paper, sort of semi cardboard made from waste, cornstarch, or on a, I can’t remember exact material that was made from, but again, totally compostable, biodegradable. [00:08:17] Uh, yeah. So there was a lot of those sorts of products as well, which is really exciting. [00:08:21] Gary Huang: [00:08:21] Yeah, definitely. [00:08:23] Chris: [00:08:23] What’d you think of the quality is some of the products that were on show. [00:08:26] Gary Huang: [00:08:26] I think the quality at the show, I was surprised the quality was quite high. It was higher than I expected. I mean, this was my first time going to India, and I had always heard about like, you know, the, the cheap labor for us, I assumed the quality would be cheaper or lower than China, but I mean, maybe it was this trade fair, you know, they just specialize in high quality products. [00:08:49] But I was very surprised. I mean, in terms of like some of the lighting fixtures, you know, I. You know, I would see the same thing in like a, you know, like a lamps are us, or like, you know, one of the top notch, you know, lighting supply stores that you see in the U S um, so I was pleasantly surprised. [00:09:06] Um, what do you think, Chris? I’m curious. [00:09:08] Chris: [00:09:08] Oh, stunned. Actually, just by the quality of, of the production, the timber, the finishes, the, uh, the joinery that, you know, the, the ceramics, the glass. Uh, even the leather products, you don’t like the bags. the other things like aprons and oven mitts, made from leather, that was just, yeah. [00:09:28] And the stitching and the quality of those products was, was fabulous. And just on the leather, I mean, we were lucky enough to also enjoy a factory visit as well to a leather leather factory, didn’t we? So, yeah.  what was your impressions of that? So compared with the leather factories of, say, China. [00:09:43] Gary Huang: [00:09:43] Yeah. Um, so this factory I’d say was about one hour outside of downtown Delhi. And, um, this was, it actually was a couple of factories adjacent to each other, if I remember correctly. So it’s the main one specialized in like leather manufacturing, like leather bags on leather wallets, on purses. [00:10:04] And then, um. I noticed that one of the key things there is just like, everything was like very manual labor intensive. So they, the workers had, you know, in the workshop it was very, um, you know, close quarters, but it was still very organized. It wasn’t dirty at all. You know, it was nearly like, um, you know, like dirt list. [00:10:25] I don’t know if they like. No, clean it up because they knew we were coming, but at least, you know, when I was there, I was pretty impressed by that. Um, in terms of the equipment, I saw like more reliance on like very traditional sewing machines as they were sewing the leather. Um, you know, these are like the machines from like our parents’ generation, Chris. [00:10:42] So I mean, they’ve been around for maybe like a hundred years, you know. Um, and then, um, in terms of, um. You know, they were like hand finishing and a lot of like, you know, the leather, they were like hammering it. They were cutting it and sewing it. Um, if you compare that to China, um, typically you, you do have manual labor, but you have more machinery, more automation. [00:11:06] Um, so for example, the following week I went to Shenzhen, I visited a factory there and granted they weren’t doing leather. They were doing like backpacks and bags. Um, I, I saw. Another sewing machine, but this sewing machine was semiautomated. It had like a nice L LCD monitor with like a passion OD. [00:11:28] So basically like the stitching was already digitally saved and inputted into the sewing machine. So all the worker had to do was just like place the fabric there and then the machine does all the sewing itself. So I have removed some of that labor, uh, the manual labor out of it. Kind of like the human error and also in terms of like the time savings. [00:11:47] So I think that’s one of the key differences between India and China, because India is still very relying on the labor force because they still can do it because the labor force is a lot cheaper in India than in China. Whereas China on a whole, you know, they’ve. Progressed over the last 15 years. [00:12:04] Now they’re trying to rely more on automation, um, equipment to take advantage of that. Um, yeah. If that makes sense. And just one other thing. One of the thing that jumped out to me on when we were at the factory, Chris was, um, you know, the leather was domestic, right? It was from India, but some of like the trim and like the zippers and stuff, I noticed like I saw it in the hallway, there was a box there, like a paper carton, and then it had Y K, K, you know, like the white kids zippers and, and I saw the address. [00:12:34] It’s a Chang HAI, China. So apparently they’re importing like a lot of You know, maybe like the more high quality zippers or like these types of, um, you know, buttons, et cetera, you know, from overseas. So I think that that’s a difference as well. If you do want to get like some of, like, the nicer, like, um, what do you call it? [00:12:52] Like yeah, you may want, the factory may have to be import from China, which is fine, but you have to consider the additional lead time and the cost. I think the lead time that, that’s another key difference. Um, you know. Kind of, I’m on a side tangent, just talking to the suppliers that we met at the fair, um, delete times will be significantly longer from India than China. [00:13:13] You know, I was getting quoted like 10 weeks, you know, factory production time. Whereas normally in China we expect about, you know, four weeks, a month, six weeks tops, and when they’re busy, so definitely there will be a longer be time. Um, those were some of my impressions from the factory. [00:13:30] Chris: [00:13:30] Totally. And I think as well, from that factory visit that. It just to your point on the automation, one thing that you probably need to anticipate or expect is that there will be slight inconsistencies because of the handmade nature of a lot of the products that you would be ordering from, from India. [00:13:45] Because pretty much everything is slightly, I mean, they do a really good job at creating like consistent, for example, patterns. A lot of, , like on a lot of this ceramics for example,  , like on a plate.  , they actually do it all by hand. It’s not sort of like a, a stamped kind of print, , so they haven’t [00:14:02] Gary Huang: [00:14:02] noticed [00:14:03] Chris: [00:14:03] all that they use and they, but, but you get that it’s actually a really nice feature, but it does create some potential, , consistency issues, which may be a customer,  not [00:14:11] Gary Huang: [00:14:11] used to. [00:14:11] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s like a double edged sword, Chris. You know, like on one hand, you know, maybe there are imperfections. If you want like a machine, lot of like 10,000 of these, like, I don’t know, like stainless steel, like water bottles. Then maybe if there’s imperfection it’s not, it’s not a good thing. [00:14:30] But if you’re doing like. Handmade, you know, like handicraft or like gift items. It kind of adds to that like rustic charm, uh, you know, depending on, on your niche and your product. So I think, you know, it could be good, but it could be, it could be bad, you know, it’s like how you can market it. [00:14:48] That’s right. [00:14:48] Chris: [00:14:48] Yeah, totally. Great. did you happen to see any other Amazon sellers at the show? [00:14:55] Gary Huang: [00:14:55] Um, I did actually, um, yeah, because it’s funny because I run 80, 20 sourcing and I have like a free email newsletter. And then some people actually came up to me like, Hey, you’re guarantee, right? [00:15:09] Like, I, I follow you, you’re useless. And then they, they, they, um, they explained to me that are Amazon sellers one, um. One guy is an American guy. He’s actually working in India and yeah, he, he was selling on Amazon. I think he’s, he’s no longer, but, uh, another one of our friends that we met, um, Aaron in India, he’s selling on Amazon as well. [00:15:31] He’s also an, an American based in,  based in India. Do you remember hearing cues [00:15:36] Chris: [00:15:36] from him on the show a couple of weeks ago? Yeah. You had [00:15:39] Gary Huang: [00:15:39] Aaron on the show that I remember. Yeah, an Amazon seller, and then I also met an Indian seller as well. He’s doing very well. Um, rune Varun from, no, yeah, he’s one of the coaches. [00:15:49] He’s, yeah, he’s, he’s. Blowing it up. I’m done, India, so I definitely, it can be done. Yeah. I’ve [00:15:57] Chris: [00:15:57] actually put a little video that he filmed of his operation as chaotic as it looked, [00:16:02] Gary Huang: [00:16:02] but there were [00:16:03] Chris: [00:16:03] surely thousands of bags of parcels going out to Amazon customers. Hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of units a day, and he had a little kind of fulfillment house of his own, [00:16:14] Gary Huang: [00:16:14] which is totally Caterpillar. [00:16:15] Chris: [00:16:15] Like anything in India, it seems to work. Right. So, [00:16:18] Gary Huang: [00:16:18] yeah. Yeah. Just [00:16:19] Chris: [00:16:19] extraordinary. Yeah. He’s really blowing it up. Low, low margin, but massive volumes flying through there. [00:16:25] Gary Huang: [00:16:25] Huge. Right. Absolutely. [00:16:28]Chris: [00:16:28] the other question I had for you as well, and just your thoughts on using an agent out of India versus maybe going directed someone at the booth that you might be thinking of sourcing from it as, let’s say, a trade show. [00:16:38] would you be leaning towards more going direct. Through a manufacturer or distributor, or would you perhaps lean towards more, , . Looking at getting an agent to assist with, with your India sourcing. . [00:16:49] Gary Huang: [00:16:49] So, I mean, from my perspective, to be totally transparent, this is my first time going to India and first time sourcing from India. [00:16:57] And my answer will be yes and yes. So I would both get a quote from a sourcing agent and I would get a quote from the people that I met at, uh, at the show. This way at least I can compare. And then not only like the bottom line price, but also like the communication process in terms of, you know, maybe the sourcing agent can find like a broader selection of products I can’t find on my own. [00:17:23] Um, so for me, at least at this stage, I’m kind of having like a beginner’s mindset. I’m just leaving my options open. Um, you know. In China, I always say to cast a wide net, you know, if you can, you know, get RF cues, you know, send out RFQ, request for quotations to as many suppliers as possible. [00:17:40] And then once you have this initial pool of the information, you know, the specifications, the pricing, the lead time, payment terms, then you can kind of, you know, get a lay of the land and then decide, you know, short list from there. Based on what you’re getting. So I’m applying a similar approach. [00:17:55] By no means am I an expert, but, um, that, that’s just what I’m doing right now. I’m curious. What about you, Chris? Same question. What would you do? [00:18:05] Chris: [00:18:05] I’m definitely leaning more towards. Probably going with an agent just because of the, some of the information that we were, educated about, particularly around,  packaging material, you know, like products to be sent from India. [00:18:18] So it’s really important to understand, say the climate, you know, just little things like that, [00:18:23] Gary Huang: [00:18:23] that [00:18:23] Chris: [00:18:23] if a, if you make an order for, I dunno, some. Some textile products in there. They’re packed.  somewhere where the humidity is really high. You might end up with products arriving in the United States, for example, that are slightly moldy, for example. [00:18:35] Yeah. That sort of maybe just having somebody on the ground there that, that kind of knows the logistic layer of the land, which was kind of coming out to my next question, but also the gotta negotiate a little bit better for you. I wasn’t. But you know, one of the things that we say a lot in China is it sort of the China price for Chinese. [00:18:53] And of course then there’s a Western price didn’t seem to be as much as that. I don’t think happening in India. I think that the pricing seemed reasonably, , stable. Um, but I do think that a, a sourcing agent can provide a lot of comfort. So they might be paying a, a slightly higher, you know, kind of percentage, uh, to, to have a sourcing agent assist you. [00:19:14] But maybe for your first couple as a new seller and a new sourcing, you know, dude from, from India might be [00:19:20] Gary Huang: [00:19:20] worthwhile. Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, especially if you’re dipping your toe in the water for the first time, you know, it’s like a whole new culture, a whole new environment, like what you said with the humidity and you know, like you might have to like include in anti humidifier in the past, in the, uh, in the container just to make sure, you know, like all of these potential pitfalls. [00:19:42] If you can find someone trustworthy, like a sourcing agent, I think that that could add a lot of value. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. [00:19:49] Chris: [00:19:49] That was the thing I think that I noticed the most from my conversations with Hanoz. And , Gunjan even Aaron, you know, who, who does sourcing as well or works for a sourcing company over there and sales and Amazon himself. [00:20:01] So. Yeah. It was a, it was a really learning the intricacies of, of sourcing products.  where are those products in may aid has different areas of, like some of the paper products are handmade. Paper was done up in Jophour or I think,, because it’s quite close to, like the desert there. [00:20:16] So it’s quite dry, which means they can dry the paper and whereas there were other. Yeah, I met a lot of the textiles based more on the Seth or the silk. I think his source from the North side. It’s kind of, you know, really interesting the way the geography works and the way that things, [00:20:30] Gary Huang: [00:20:30] yeah, yeah, that’s a great point, Chris. [00:20:32] And then, you know, people actually say that India really isn’t one country. There was like, you know, different regions that have different cultures and you know, like this region maybe strongly led or the other maybe strong in wood for example. And then I was really surprised, um, like the different parts of India. [00:20:48] The Indians speak different languages. So, you know, I was trying to learn some words of Hindi, you know, from a, from ADI and some of the other guys on the trip. And then I tried to practice it with some of the other Indians that I met. They’re like, Oh, I don’t speak Hindi. And you know, he looked Indian, but you know, apparently, you know, he was from the South of India and they were Tamil. [00:21:07] And then they used to be like a totally different language. And then I said, so how do you communicate? He says, Oh, when I come to Delhi, I only speak English. So I was really shocked that, you know, India, I mean, it’s not just one country there you have to have like the separate mentality. You know, there’s like different regional clusters. [00:21:23] I think in this sense it’s a little bit like China because in China, even though everyone you know speaks Mandarin, that’s the standard, you know, official language. You know, if you, in Shanghai there’s a local Shanghainese diet. Like if you’re in quango there was a Cantonese style, like, and they sound very different. [00:21:40] So they have like different cuisines, different habits, and you know, different strengths as well. You know, like in terms of manufacturing for electronics, definitely you would go down to but if you want like some other products yet, you would have to, you know, go somewhere else. So I think that’s another similarity with the different regional differences in India. [00:21:57] In China. What did you think about the [00:21:59] Chris: [00:21:59] communication skills? obviously you’re on the ground in China. English is a unifying language of India. , thanks to the British, I guess, but,  I’ve had a lot easier to communicate with, with potential suppliers in India, than I did,  on occasion in, in, in China. [00:22:14] What were your thoughts [00:22:14] Gary Huang: [00:22:14] here. Yeah, I thought that the communications, you know, when I’m in India, I, I could just rely on English and that was fine. Um, you know, at the fair and following up over WhatsApp, um, it was pretty, uh, pretty smooth. Um, I, I did. Um, get some advice from some of the sourcing agencies that, um, you know, for anything from or important and you want to go to email and like, don’t keep it too loose on WhatsApp if, you know, whether it’s like specifications, you know, we’re talking about samples, right? [00:22:46] Like with one of the suppliers that I’m talking with in leather. And then, um. You know, we were like going back and forth over WhatsApp. I just wanted to make sure that you send me an email with like a full spec sheet. So you know, nothing is off. Um, in terms of like the actual communications, like the words, I mean, that’s totally comprehensible, but if you kind of read behind the lines, like, I think one of the examples that we noticed on the trip was like the concept of being on time. [00:23:12] Um, if you say like, Let’s meet at two o’clock right? I mean, two o’clock couldn’t mean like two 30 it could mean three o’clock when, you know, even though we’re speaking in English, I came to India, like the, the, the punctuality and like the tightness of time could be something different. I think there’s some cultural nuances behind it, but I mean, there, there was like a, one of the key words that we learned was a pocket. [00:23:35] So have haka. So that means like, for sure. So you would have to say. Two o’clock PACA and then, you know, they would kind of like, Hmm. Like, you know, they would’ve, you know, of think twice to see if they can really do it at two or maybe it’s actually like three o’clock. So even though, you know, we’re speaking the same English, there’s like, you gotta read behind the lines things a little bit in terms of like the whole background behind it. [00:23:57] W, what do you think? Yeah, what were your, what are your thoughts about [00:24:02] Chris: [00:24:02] that? Yeah, absolutely. I look at, you know, Pakka was explained to us that it is a sort of a, it’s, it’s a way of trying to get a really solid answer on a question that you might be asking and, um, often, yeah, there’s sort of sense of time. [00:24:16] Is that, that it’s often explained by, well, you know, I could have been there at one o’clock when you asked me to, but I was. Kind of spending quality time with somebody that’s really important to me. Or, you know, I was in a meeting with someone else and I didn’t want to cut it short because I really respected our time that we were sharing together. [00:24:31] So they were actually quite often quite good reasons for this, sort of the looseness of the, of the, the meeting, meeting, punctuality and experience there. So that kind of made sense to me. And yeah, I think you’ve just got, yeah. Kind of rolled with the punches a bit. You know, the country does in a lot of ways, flow like water, as I describe it quite accurately. [00:24:47] There’s, it’s kinda like an hourglass of traffic, for example. This is a lot of people might be trying to get through an intersection and then it all sort of fans back out again. Um, yes. It’s, yeah, it’s a really, really dynamic and fascinating place to visit. Absolutely. So that was my sense of it yet. [00:25:02] Um, we have to wrap up shortly. I’m sorry, but I was just sorta thinking, um. Just a random logistics, I think was one area that we haven’t really covered. What were your thoughts there about, I’m getting imagery out of India. Okay. [00:25:17] Gary Huang: [00:25:17] Right. So in terms of logistics, um, my understanding is the whole logistics network in India isn’t as developed as China, so it could take longer to move goods from your factory to your port. [00:25:32] And also because. Of India, like, you know, geographically, you know, it’s surrounded by the water, like the ocean on two sides, right? So depending on where you’re shipping to, um, you could save some time or you can waste a lot of time as well, like in terms of logistics. So, for example, um. I believe if you know, you know, I’m not very good at geography, but if you are shipping, you know, India is like this. [00:26:02] If you are shipping from, I’m the closest port to Delhi, I think it was, um, Nima, Shiva, that was the name of the port, if I remember correctly. So if you go from Neeva Shiva, um, when you shipped to the U S the shortest route is actually to New York. It’s not too Los Angeles long beach, you know, at the same as. [00:26:19] Thai nausea would go, Zoe, you will from Geneva to New York, I believe it would take about, um. 28 days, if I remember correctly. But if you go to, um, Los Angeles, it would take like two weeks longer. I mean, like, I, I’m not sure if the dates are a hundred percent correct, but you would have to like strategically ship to the closest port. [00:26:41] So if you’re used to shipping from China, you know, typically you’re going from Shanghai to LA, you know, that could take about three weeks, right? But if you’re sourcing from India, you have to consider, you know, both, like the inland transportation, they say that it can take longer. Um. And also, you know, going promotion, you may want to ship to the East coast. [00:26:59] I think, um, you know, and one of the, the other coaches in our group, um, you know, margin, Kevin, um, they share this experience as well. Um, the other thing that, that was unique to India is, um, monsoon season. And I was talking to some of the, the sourcing agents there. They said, especially in the Fall, you have to be careful of monsoon season because it can disrupt the whole road network, the transportation network and cause a lot more delays. [00:27:25] I mean, because I believe some of the factories, they are actually like partially open. I mean like they may have a roof, but maybe like there’s like walls or no walls. Um, so you really have to be aware of this and factory in about two weeks, buffer time on top of your, um, the time and also in October that there’s like 17 days of holidays, your rally, and then there’s some other ones also you, you know, so I guess it’s kind of like Chinese new year almost. [00:27:52] Um, I leave a decent this time of year, so it’s like a whole new, um, you know, calendar and, you know, logistics that, that you’re, you’re going to deal with. I mean, it was just not to say I’m not trying to. To discourage people, but just be aware anytime you’re going, you’re shifting your production from one country to another. [00:28:09] Um, just be aware of these, these challenges. [00:28:12] Chris: [00:28:12] Fantastic. Gary, I totally agree with that. I mean, I think they’ve got more holidays. In India than pretty much any other country though. So you’ve [00:28:20] Gary Huang: [00:28:20] got to really watch Japanese. New year is pretty long. That’s true. You know how many people, how long they are going to take off and yeah, you’re right. [00:28:28] Yeah. [00:28:28] Chris: [00:28:28] Well that’s a very secular society. So there’s, you know, we’ve got, um, Islamic, we’ve got Hindu, we’ve got seek, we’ve got Christianity. So they tend to observe. Holidays for just about everybody [00:28:38] Gary Huang: [00:28:38] and everybody gets [00:28:40] Chris: [00:28:40] to celebrate with everybody else, which is really fun, fun to say. Yeah, it kind of makes sense. [00:28:44] It’s quite a unifying thing. Um, anyway. Um, have you got any final thoughts on the trip itself? Uh, mega trip. It was extraordinary. The, uh, you know, the, the trade show as well, and, and just sourcing from India. Is that something that you’re really excited about and we’ll be certainly considering or in data that you actually acting on it now? [00:29:05] Gary Huang: [00:29:05] Definitely. Um, so first off the trip was really excellent. Um, the India sourcing trip that megla Bhardwaj put together. Um, you know, I’ve known megla for many years and she has a lot of experience sourcing from China and also from India. So I think if anyone’s going to put it together, I think she is the right person to do this. [00:29:27] Right. And as you know, as we saw from the trip, um, it was, it was kind of like a crash course in. India sourcing, doing business and culture wrapped into one, at least for me. Um, I was going in with like a blank slate. So, I mean, I learned so much in terms of sourcing. Um, you know. The basics of doing business. [00:29:47] Also, I made some really good friendships, you know, yourself included Chris, and thank you. Some of the other great people on the trip. I really enjoyed it. Um, I think that it is an investment. Um, you know, it’s, it may not be for everyone, but if you do want to, you know. Maybe shortcut the process. [00:30:03] I think it could be, um, a great way to do it. And you, you can also, you know, get some cultural, um, you know, experiences as well. So I think, you know, I do recommend it if you, if anyone that’s interested. Um, I think sourcing from India is very important right now given the trade war. If you look at the big players, like, um, the Nike’s, the, you know, the Adidas is the Walmarts. [00:30:27] You know, they’re already, they’ve been going out of China since 2014. Um, so naturally, you know, it makes sense to diversify. Um, for me personally, I am getting some samples made. I’m sending out some are of cues from some of the suppliers that I’ve met, and also I’m contacting some of the sourcing agencies in India. [00:30:45] Um, I was surprised to find some products that I have not seen in China before. So I think it can be a good way to differentiate yourself, um, versus just like me. Two products you find in all the Baba. Um, you know, most of the Indian suppliers that I’ve met different on Alibaba, so just, you know, getting your, you know, getting your feet wet, going to India. [00:31:05] I think that that could be one way you can differentiate your products. Um, but it is a lot to learn. I mean, like, even for someone like me, I mean, I don’t call myself an expert, but I’ve been doing this many years and I just tried to go in with like a beginner’s mindset. Um, you know, so I learned a lie and I, I think that is one of the next step. [00:31:23] Does that work? Hang on, I’m not going into 20, 20 and gone. And, um, I actually, I prepared something from, for your, um, your podcast and listeners, Chris, uh, I didn’t tell you about this. Ah, yeah. So I prepared, uh, India sourcing cheat sheet. So it talks about some of the best practices that we mentioned, and also some of the, the key industries that you can find in India. [00:31:48] Um, and if your viewers are interested on me, is it okay if I share the URL? That’d [00:31:55] Chris: [00:31:55] be awesome. Yeah. [00:31:56] Gary Huang: [00:31:56] Excellent. So, um, you can get it at www. Di. 80 20 sourcing.com/a U seller. So that’s as in Australia. So then, yeah. So yeah, that’s true. You know, maybe if you want to link it up in the show notes, absolutely own that. [00:32:13] People know. And also they can also sign up for my free email newsletter if they’re interested, um, to get more updates about sourcing best practices. So, um, yeah, I just really appreciate your time, Chris. Thank you so much for, for having me on. I really enjoyed it. I hope it’s valuable for you and your listeners. [00:32:30] Oh, [00:32:30] Chris: [00:32:30] I’m sure it will be Gary. And it was an absolute joy to, I think, actually catch up with you again. I think we did stumble across it each other in 2016 maybe at the global source of summit, but it was wonderful to, to really, uh, connect seriously connect, uh, in India only a few short weeks ago. [00:32:45] And yeah, I can’t wait to, uh, to hang out with you again and hopefully we can do it all again maybe in April next year. [00:32:51] Gary Huang: [00:32:51] So, yeah, I’m [00:32:52] Chris: [00:32:52] definitely going so. So, yeah, I’ll be there. Um, hopefully you will be too, and thanks. Haste. [00:32:58] Gary Huang: [00:32:58] I will be going, I just, I just confirmed it with megla so I will be there as well. [00:33:03] Brilliant. Yes. We’ll have round, right, my friend. Yeah. [00:33:08] Chris: [00:33:08] It’s awesome. Excellent. Just dropped out there, the, the video. But, uh, thanks. Thanks Matt. And that taught you talk to you real soon. Thanks again. [00:33:16] Gary Huang: [00:33:16] Perfect. Thanks so much. Talk [00:33:17] soon. The post TAS 079 : Gary Huang – China Vs. India sourcing appeared first on The Australian Seller.

Former bookkeeper and Australian mum Cindy Joins us today to chat through her experience creating a super-successful eCommerce business with an invention she created in 2010. As a young mum, she had a need for a product no-one was selling. So she rolled up her sleeves, jumped on a flight to Hong Kong and in 4 days at a tradeshow found her future supplier. She went all-in on her idea – her first shipment to Australia a 20” container. Shark Tank producers were keen to get her onto the show, and she was all set to give it go, but through a chance conversation with a friend, she discovered FBA. From there it was ‘bye, bye Shark Tank’ and ‘Hello Amazon’!) It’s an awesome story and I know you’ll love hearing about her journey from idea to commercialisation. A lot of people have ideas, very few execute. Cindy’s one of the special few. OK a few quick Announcements A big ‘thanks’ to an all-star cast that came along and supported last week’s meetup on how to expand your FBA business internationally! Thanks to Phil, Luke, Ash Emma and Ben (That’s team Retail Global to you), of course, Remy and Nathan at Payoneer, Rosalyn Gladwin (Gladwin Legal) and Simon Clarkson over at Channel Advisor. I’m planning a meet up in Melbourne in the next few weeks on ‘The advantages of Sourcing from India’, trying to squeeze it in before the International Sourcing Expo in Melbourne between the 12th and the 14th November 2019 The India sourcing trip was such a success that Meghla is already planning her next tour for April 2020. She’s offering an early bird discount which takes $500 off – it’s an amazing deal where everything is taken care of for you and you’ll find super high quality and unique products to sell on Amazon in niches which are not saturated. Head over the www.theaustralianseller.com/india to learn more about that The post TAS 078 : Shark Tank? No thanks! I’ll take my chances with Amazon FBA. – Cindy’s story of invention to eCommerce appeared first on The Australian Seller.

Welcome back to the Pod – episode number 077 Aaron Hughes from BHI Sourcing joins me this week to chat through the types of products you can source from India. Aaron’s a young American, who’s been living in India since 2014. I met him last week in India with 30 Amazon sellers as part of the India Sourcing Trip – put together by a 2 x previous guest on the show Meghla Bhardwaj who’s been putting together the Global Sources Summit in Hong Kong for many years. Meghla held a 1-day conference on sourcing and logistics from India and Aaron was one of the guest speakers, so I had to get him on. Aaron spoke about the products you can source from India – which regions they’re from and product specialisations including the differences between sourcing from China vs. India. Can I just say though, there are not enough superlatives to describe the week we all had together from 5-Star Accommodation, Meals, factory visits, Day Trip around New Delhi and a once-in-a-lifetime visit to the Taj Mahal. Meghla absolutely nailed this trip to the wall. Meghla is already planning her next tour for April 2020. Watch out listeners! I am going to push this hard! She’s offering an early bird discount which takes $500 off – it’s an amazing deal where everything is taken care of for you and you’ll find super high quality and unique products to sell on Amazon in niches which are not saturated. The best aspects of sourcing from India are: The quality of the products – everything is outstanding qualityThe products you find in India are unique and in many cases, certified (Fair Trade, sustainable timber and organic cotton as examples)You can’t find these suppliers or their unique products on Alibaba which makes it nearly impossible for a competitor to copy you – that’s a super-defensible position to be in! Learn more here! at www.indiasourcingtrip.com Quick announcements this week…Regina Peterbergsky’s having another Chatbot workshop next Thursday 31 October 2019 so head to www.theaustralianseller.com/bots and use EBCT This Tuesday the 27th October 2019, I’ll be co-hosting an Amazon meet up at the HoneyBar in Melbourne with Retail Global and Payoneer. It’s a more advanced session on How and When to Increase your Worldwide presence on Amazon… ie. Launching your products into other Amazon Marketplaces and how to grow your store. The post TAS 077 : Living, sourcing and selling on Amazon from India – Aaron Hughes Explains appeared first on The Australian Seller.

Anthony Cofrancesco joins you this week from Virtuous Graphics Today, Anthony shares his experience optimising listings and by extension, creating successful launches on Amazon. Anthony and the team have hundreds of Pickfu tests under their belt, so they know what works best when it comes to main image optimisation and improving click-through rates onto your listing. Some of the results may surprise you! Yes, Pickfu gets a mention! Speaking of Pickfu – I have a promocode they sent me AUSELLER which will save you 50% off your first pickfu test. There are a few video demo’s on the Australian seller Facebook Page so head over and join. The post TAS 076 : Listing Optimisation, Image Testing, 3D Renders and more with Anthony Cofrancesco, Virtuous Graphics appeared first on The Australian Seller.

Emma Schermer joins you this week from Marketing by Emma https://www.facebook.com/marketingbyemma/.  https://marketingbyemma.com/ Emma has an extensive background in copywriting and explains the methodologies she uses to boost conversion rates on Amazon listings with exceptional copywriting. You only get one chance to make a first impression, so craft your copy and for goodness sake, edit it to minimise off-putting typo’s! She’s passionate about writing for humans first, but at the same time weaving in all-important keywords and phrases to increase rankings on Amazon. There are really only 2 ways customers can find your listing on Amazon: Via a deal page, like a lightning dealVia a search So it’s very important to include important keywords in your copy. Mow before we move onto the interview with Emma… India trip is coming up in 10 days, but Meghla is already planning her next tour for April 2020. She’s offering an early bird discount which takes $1,000 off – it’s an amazing deal where everything is taken care of for you and you’ll find products to sell on Amazon in niches which are not saturated. Speaking on having your own list as an Amazon Seller, Regina Peterbergsky’s having another Chatbot workshop on Thursday 31 October 2019 so head to www.theaustralianseller.com/bots and use EBCT On Tuesday the 27th October, I’ll be co-hosting an Amazon meet up at the HoneyBar in Melbourne with Retail Global and Payoneer. Stay tuned for details there… The post TAS 075 : Turn Browsers into Buyers – Amazon Copywriting expert Emma Schermer appeared first on The Australian Seller.