Podcasts

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

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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.

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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 12^th and the 14^th 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

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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:

1. The quality of the products – everything is outstanding quality
2. The products you find in India are unique and in many cases, certified (Fair Trade, sustainable timber and organic cotton as examples)
3. 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 27^th 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.

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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:

1. Via a deal page, like a lightning deal
2. Via 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 27^th 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…

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