How To Expand Your Amazon Private Label Business Worldwide - Andy Hooper - Part 2

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[00:00:01] spk_2: Welcome to the seller roundtable [00:00:03] spk_0: e commerce coaching and business strategies with [00:00:06] spk_2: and er, not and amy Wiis mm [00:00:12] spk_0: with all that being said, there's a lot of markets I get emails every day about, you know, hey expanded Japan. You can no fees for a year. We'll give you account manager like all this kind of stuff and you know, we have not taken up any people or or any of these managers yet because once again, I feel like there's, there's still so much opportunity just in the markets that are out there. However, You know, these new markets that pop up once again, you know, it's like, you know, selling on Amazon when I started in 2012 back then if I knew what I knew now, I would have Scale 10 times faster and probably been a billion dollar company, right? But it's just there weren't people like Andy and I who were like teaching you guys how to do this stuff kind of giving you a template. It was kind of shoot from the hip back then. So uh any market stand out for you. And in terms of you know see you know I'm selling on amazon I just hit the million dollar mark. You know I'm looking to expand into other markets in the U. K. Is that Germany is that Japan you know Australia? Where what what markets do you think are some of the best opportunities now to expand into. [00:01:15] spk_1: So I'm slightly biased in all honesty. So I think the the europe the european market and we'll come back to individual which countries work best staff of in a moment europe japan Australia. Um You know India you a I mean possibly um I think that everyone should be looking to have a presence on there and everyone should be looking to expand some of those over the coming years. But actually the market is there like Australia. Yeah, there's 30 million people in Australia and the size of the countries join almost. So you know the, the inroads there is really, really tough, they're slowly working on that you know, do I think that Australia is going to be epic soon. Yeah totally because I think everyone is fed up with the bane most parts of the world and I think that Australia is fed up of Ebay, it's a massive Ebay sellers that come out of Australia phenomenal and you know those people are like switching to amazon a lot of those switch to us amazon you was, they did Ebay in Australia then did amazon in the US that was like them their route and I think lots of people are doing those sort of things. So I think Australia is definitely going to be there no date yet, but should you put stuff there and stop doing stuff, the problem is you don't go all in, it's difficult. Um so for me it's europe japan, Australia India eu a you know, I mean India, I mean like there's a billion people out there, I mean that's going to be huge. There's no doubt that that's not going to be a market that people should be in. Um I just see that it's really quite difficult at the moment. There's lots of issues. You know, we're, we want to get there to do what we've done in europe in India because all I see in India is red tape and everyone you talk to is like um we want to we want to overcome some, So coming back to europe, what do we see? Well, europe, there's the two biggest marketplaces in europe is the U K. And Germany. So our strategy typically is when your first launching launched on the u K and Germany that accounts for two thirds of all cells in europe. Okay. What it means is is that when you're selling, you know, you can put the stock in the u K and Germany, which gets over the UK Brexit thing and we put those in those two countries and then you get the products out there, You're counting the 2/3 of the market, You can then move to the others as you go from there. But that that's typically the best strategy we see at the moment. [00:04:01] spk_0: Yeah, absolutely. I would have to agree. I think that, you know, the u k and not only that, but the, you know, with the U K. You know, everybody forgets about the, you know, and same thing with Australia, one of the huge benefits of those marketplaces, just like India too because India's lingual is you know your listings for the most part translate instantly into those things. So really getting launched in those platforms with your existing listings. A lot of people don't know this but amazon actually has a service where they'll actually import your listings um to those other marketplaces pretty easily now. Uh in the past. It was pretty terrible. At one point we had our account managers say oh yeah we'll take care of it for you and it was garbage when it came out and it did not look good so it was kind of a mess but they've gotten much better at it. They can transfer those listings over. Um They will you know set pricing at a reasonable rate compared to your U. S. Rates things like that. So it is a lot easier. So um definitely uh U. K. Germany fantastic. And then like I said Australia just because you know you've got the the uh no no need to translate their for the most part. Um And what I would love to talk about is so you know when you're sending products to the U. S. A majority of people are you know of course coming from china um you know there's kind of 22 options right? You can either come by ship or come by air now in in europe you have a few more options. You know there's rail and things like that that you can actually get a hold of. So can you talk to me a little bit about shipping and logistics in terms of maybe a little bit of difference compared to the U. S. Uh you know do you see it as being harder easier and kind of the differences in costs? [00:05:40] spk_1: Yeah. Okay. I think that I mean your shipping from china right now the two things that we see is we mainly use Aaron. See exactly the same. No one uses route or very few people use route. You can use the soap even express some of the exact name. It comes across the whole of china Russia Mongolia and all the way into europe hardly anyone uses it. It's not particularly effective. It can be used but it is very very um and he's not facing very very few people use that. So most people are shipping Aaron C from china obviously the same as the U. S. Small cartons. Yeah you can send from china but everything else needs to come american trainer and we're seeing the same problems. You're seeing containers. We've got one client we're working with at the moment, Spaceship around 700 containers here. Um They can't get containers out of china like we're supporting them with that. Um They use somebody else's. They just started using us because we can find containers a little bit quicker and easier. Yeah it's containers from china. Everyone's got the same problems. We containers from china their extortion really expensive and no one's got any containers and the ships are fall and people keep on parking their ships in between the Suez Canal. So all of those things have an impact on um On shipping but in essence it's the same route. It's shipping out of China. It's 30 days from China into the UK or Europe. Um It comes in it's by far the most economical way of doing it even though the prices have gone up by 5 to 6 times in the last 18 months. Um It's still my father best way. [00:07:34] spk_0: Yeah, absolutely. So the other thing that I would love to to talk to you about, because I think this is something that's kind of untapped. So, you know, once all the issues with china started in terms of the tariffs and and and all this kind of trade war, you know, people started to go to alternate sources, right? We got Vietnam Philippines, you know, people are starting to look elsewhere India, but what a lot of people don't realize is that, you know, there was a small increase in manufacturing in the in the U. S. You know, that was over the last like, you know, 3-5 years, you know, there's a lot more focus on that, partially because of the Chinese situation. But what a lot of people don't realize is that Germany is a major, still a major manufacturing hub. So, you know, could you talk about maybe do you have any clients who are sourcing in either the UK or Germany and then just selling to that local market? So in other words sourcing from a german company and then selling in the german market, [00:08:28] spk_1: we have in all honesty, we have very few sellers, they're doing that. We've only got a handful that are making that work. And the main reason for that is they just can't get here too. I wanna have a look in most cases, but, but Germany does manufacture Poland manufacturers quite a lot. There are some Eastern european states that do a lot of manufacturing. I just don't think they geared up the processes and systems like in all honesty joining us like Vietnam and Philippines, you know, everyone's looking to switch away from china for a million different reasons, but they've just got it so dialed in in china, it's almost it's not impossible to leave that because that's where they're going to fall foul. But it's really, really difficult to find another manufacturer that as effective at the same price at the same scale that you need. And everyone is not quite in tune with that in europe, definitely. But I think there's a whole load of european um eastern european cities and countries, there would be epic. And I think that some of that comes down to exactly that you've had for the last 10 years. Is that sourcing agent? Where is the sourcing agent in europe? And how does that sort of thing? Agent find those factories? And they're just on the sourcing agent at the same scale of what there is in china. I mean you could walk into Shenzhen and walk around alright, appreciate your walking shoes. It's a pretty big area, you know, the first time we went there you go to Shenzhen, okay, we'll go from one factory to another factory on the map, it looks like it's 20 minutes away, It's like a four hour capture. You soon regret that pretty um you know, so there's lots of things you learn, but you know exactly the same in europe, I think that that sourcing period will happen over time by one, they're never going to be able to compete as effectively. But there are companies that can do, depends on what priority do you source the raw materials and it gets pulled together here, there's an element of all the raw materials together and then make it happen in europe. Actually could be a way to go. That could be a half house measure, which would mean if you did that, that because of Brexit, you could move things backwards and forwards, relatively free between the two countries UK and europe because it was made in in europe, his whole road rules around that. But you get [00:11:09] spk_0: Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, that's a great point. I think honestly the biggest problem is there's been nothing even close to, you know, alibaba or things like that, where there's kind of a central marketplace where, you know, not only is their manufacturers that can, you know, you know, create custom, you know, stuff from scratch, but, you know, the private labeling and white labeling, you know, like that's in amazon, that's how most people start out, right, is is to find a product, maybe change it a little bit, uh, you know, put their brand on it and sell it. So I think until some of these other countries kind of get that figured out, I completely agree. Uh, and, and just like you said, sourcing agents and things like that. But I think it's going to have to happen. Um, you know, especially if if some of these, uh, you know, theories about the the COVID-19 being manufactured in the lab, you know, if that comes, people don't realize if that comes out that, you know, that is what happens. And it was there was a cover up, mm hmm. The supply chain will probably end up breaking down because all these other countries, unless, you know, unless china says, hey, you know, we're sorry, we're going to make amends by doing X, y and Z, which I honestly don't see happening. Then you're talking about a whole new game folks. So, uh, you know, hold on to your, your cheers for that one. But I think if that were to happen, what that's gonna do is crowbar other countries to get back into manufacturing it. And as hard as it will be in the short term, I think that might need to be what happens for the sanctity and safety of the world. Because if you have manufacturing, You know, I don't know what the number is, but it's probably gonna be 90% or more of manufacturing done in one country. That's an immense amount of power to wield over the over the world. So trying not to get too political here. Just throwing that idea out for people to think about that. It could be a bumpy ride. [00:13:01] spk_1: We'll tell you what I'm gonna do is I'm going to create a sourcing agency in europe. When I say agency one means I'm going to start creating a list of all the manufacturers that I know of and start putting that together. Because actually you thinking about what you just said there and thinking about some of our thoughts and discussions, we've had, you we've already talked about that. We've got clients that want places that they can make up stuff. Well, actually, that would be the next step. So actually we just need to find that and make that happen because you're quite right, you know, as we move into the next step of what happens over the next five years, you know, if that happens, no one will want to buy anything from china, like it would just be vito, I'm not buying anything from china ever adopt, yep, Every product on amazon is made in china. Don't You're talking about shutting the marketplace down when you talk about history repeating itself, which it does. We know that amazon won't be The biggest company in the world in 10 years time, in most likelihood, so something's got to happen to switch that and change that. That could be the catalyst. I'm not saying it is, by the way, you didn't hear this here first, but you're right, that could happen in that case. This could happen and people need to be aware of that. [00:14:24] spk_0: Yeah, absolutely. I, I've said this for years. I was like, you know, amazon people think amazon's, you know, behemoth, I say, oh no, amazon is the Myspace of E commerce. I mean, yes, there the largest, yes, they're dominant, but so was my space, right? And then facebook came, came along and ate their lunch. So, you know, people really need to, to, to look at, you know, some of the other company, I mean, honestly, I still, to this day, don't understand, you know, Shopify could literally, uh, you know, I'm sure they haven't developed, if not, then everybody there needs to be fired, but they, they've got some kind of marketplace in place, You know, where they could literally, You know, have a massive selection of products at one site. Um, and, and could, you know, rollout trusted merchants, fast shipping, logistics, all those kinds of things. And all of a sudden now amazon's running for the hills because Shopify as, you know, only charging a monthly fee rather than a percentage of the sale or, you know, I mean, there's a lot of opportunity and a lot of things that could happen uh, like you said in the next 5 to 10 years, I think the e commerce space is going to change immensely. I think the manufacturing is going to change immensely. Just geopolitically, I think that it's inevitable. So, [00:15:34] spk_1: uh, with that, sorry, is that what happens is is, yeah, look, the ship fight all right. They just look like spam now when you get a decent one, it doesn't get that. But what a lot of people are doing selling UK is they look, they find a product on facebook is advertised on facebook. They go to the thing they look at and they go, I'm not sure this looks shit, I'll go and buy that on amazon. Right. That's sort of the process. Now if if Shopify came out with something like that and we worked with a lot of Shopify sellers because we were we from our fulfillment side, we do direct a lot of direct to consumers. So, you know, obviously they need us to do that. And you know what we're finding is is that actually sellers that are switching you, I mean, anyone who sells on amazon knows you want to try and build a list off of amazon. there's no secret to that and it's how you do that. But if Shopify, creating its own marketplace and putting that in again with trusted partners would be epic. Um, Shopify if you're listening to this, I would love to be your fulfillment partner in in europe just saying, uh, [00:16:45] spk_0: and I'm also open for consulting because I've already thought all of these things through Shopify. [00:16:50] spk_1: So yeah, I [00:16:55] spk_0: refuse, I refuse to move to Canada. However, I love Canada, I love Canadians, but I will not live in Canada. I'll visit all the time. But [00:17:04] spk_1: yeah, [00:17:06] spk_0: so any, uh, one of the other things we love to do kind of at the end here as we wrap up is, you know, if you're like a lot of entrepreneurs, business owners, things like that, uh, you know, you're probably into always learning and watching and listening and, you know, any books or podcasts or people or anything like that that you've seen or heard or watched recently that have made a really big impact, either on your personal growth or on your business. [00:17:31] spk_1: Yeah, this is this past epic. I mean, the whole education piece for me is critical. If you, if you don't stop growing, there's an individual, then that's when you're gonna, you're gonna stop. I've sort of got that in my head that if I'm not learning, then everything will still, because I'm not learning that sort of it. So I think that in the journey of our business has gone through, um, you know, we've, we've sort of been, you touch wood, we've done, we've done great over the last few years. And the reason for that is we've got a lot of education into marketing sounds, you know, systems, processes, scaling, all that sort of stuff. You know, whether it be um listening to know click funnels or Gary V or a million one others that happens to be out there, all of those sort of people are now switching to more leadership. So as our business has grown, it's now a case of our business doesn't need all of those things because we've got Epic people leading all of those departments. What I actually mean to do now is to learn to lead an epic team of people better. All right. I could do that before because I've already done it and we'd already boom. But how do we make that? Epic? So I've got a bit obsessed with john C Maxwell, uh, and all the million and one books he's done. So I've been, uh, you know, I don't read, but I listen to audio books. I go to the gym at six every morning, and for an hour and a half every morning I plug plug it in and I'm listening to a different books. So I'm slowly working my way through those books and it is a case of my philosophy was always about go away and learn my philosophy now is go away and learn, but make sure it's relevant for the journey that you're currently on or where you want to get to. Because what happens is you, you go through these stages and if I was still learning about marketing, I should still keep, I should still stay relevant with marketing. And I, what I do is I listen to podcasts on marketing, sounds, education, e commerce, it's almost keep me dialed in. But then I read books and listen to books to educate myself to get myself to the next level. Um, so hopefully that was useful for someone, it certainly worked for me um and making sure you're aware of that journey you're on. [00:19:55] spk_0: Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that I've recently noticed is, you know, I'm one of those people who I'm the same way I don't read, I don't have patience for that and I like to multitask, right? So I'll usually driving less inaudible, like when I'm going to pick up my kids or do whatever. Um but one of the things that I have noticed is you can overdo it, right? I mean because once you, you kind of have to, you know, I say go and listen to a ton of business books, but once you really kind of resonate with somebody or some process or some way of doing that thing, whether it be like marketing or business or personal growth, I think you have to kind of gravitate and kind of turn your focus to those people once you find out who they are and try to stay on that because you know if you try the newest latest, you know if you're doing the four hour workweek and then just the one thing and then you know it's all these different kind of theories and ways of doing things and they all you know work differently for different people, but I think that you can overdo it in terms of uh you know trying to learn too much Uh to pull away from actually doing right, so you have to learn but then you actually have to get to work and start doing. So that's one of the things that I've been kind of paring back my my learning in terms of you know, I've already done you know, e commerce for over, I mean I've done Internet businesses since I was 19 years old. So I've been doing this for a long time. So I'm certainly be more trusting in my knowledge and what I've done thus far and a little less in trying to learn new things. Right? I mean like you said, you always have to stay up but make sure you're you're having a good balance there. [00:21:23] spk_1: I think that's so true. The what I like to do is is I've read a lot of those books and you sort of just talked about that all those different books and I don't think I've ever taken all of one philosophy. I've sort of taken bits from all of them, you know, where it's the morning routine, the four hour work that all of them actually I take the bits that really work for me because just because they work for one person in one state, in the States, doing one particular thing, that's not gonna work me, you've got to take the best that you work and the bit you like look the whole guy before I am in the morning thing that works for some people. It just wouldn't work for me. Like I get up at five to go to the gym. Yes, that's still pretty early. But that's working for me because I get seven half hour sleep every night. You don't need any more than 7/2 hour. You sleep when you die after that, you know? But you know, I think it's important exactly to say you've got to focusing on certain areas as you feel comfortable with. But you also need time to think about. I did that when I'm in the tube. But actually when I drive now, what I've been doing is I've not been listening to anything. What unless I go on a long journey, what I'm doing is I'm just thinking and taking the thoughts of everything I've taken in and thinking, okay, what does that mean to me? And how do I imply that to my business and my situation? That's what you're saying, You know, you're five businesses which include the kids. How do you? It's not just about the business, is about the balance of life and everything else. And we all get side and I think gentlemen, worse at this and I can be shot down, but I think gentlemen are slightly worse because they get so I pulled into the work because is naturally instinctive to what we do. Um and you know, I've definitely got a better balance to do the ballot every day, but fortunately kids almost grown up, so I'm very right soon. Yeah, [00:23:26] spk_0: I'm looking forward to that day. I definitely noticed uh once, once the third one came along with my hair and my beard got much much greater and my bags under my eyes have grown immensely, but uh, like I tell everyone they're the hardest and best thing in the world. So Andy it's been, it's been a great pleasure to have you on great combo, I really appreciate you being here. Um let people know where they can, where they can find you. [00:23:51] spk_1: Yeah, well thanks very much for having us, much appreciate, it's been great, great coming on. So I came down here from global ecommerce experts. Uh if you google global e commerce experts uh will come up um if you hook me up on linkedin Andy Hooper, then go to e commerce guy for europe, basically, I'm pretty much connected with most people in e commerce in one way or another. Obviously you can find us on facebook instagram youtube and everything else that goes with it. Um, but just reach out if you need some help, reach out to say hi to me is probably the best stop and then I'll just go, okay, you need to speak to this in my team and I apologize the right person in the right place. And typically because it's coming from me, the team act a lot quicker for some reason, I don't know why that is. Um, so then, and then they got like this, okay, it's gotta be done straight away because I'm like, I'm very customer centric, it's gotta be done now. Like the customer's gonna be done now, do it now, do it now, do it now. Um, and I think that rubs off the team second last week. So yeah, hook me up on linkedin is probably the best place, [00:24:59] spk_0: awesome. And we thank you again everybody. If you didn't catch us live, make sure you go to sell a round table dot com, You can subscribe to the podcast there. We push it out to Youtube, we've been doing it live so that you guys can watch it on any platform you want. We really, really appreciate, appreciate everybody who joins us live. If you want to do that, we do it every Tuesday one PM pacific time, sell a round table dot com forward slash live. Please remember the rate review, subscribe all that good stuff. Thank you guys so much for being here. Remember we stopped the broadcast, we stop the recording and then we do like five minutes at the end of the zoom meeting. So if you want to ask people like Andy questions, then you don't get to you don't get that bonus content unless you join us live in the in the meeting. So hopefully we'll see you guys there. Thank you so much and we'll see you next time on the seller roundtable. Thanks for tuning in, join us every Tuesday at one PM pacific standard time for live Q and A. [00:25:54] spk_2: And bonus content after the [00:25:56] spk_0: recording at cellar round table dot com, sponsored by [00:25:59] spk_2: the ultimate software [00:26:00] spk_0: tool for amazon sales and growth seller [00:26:03] spk_2: S C o dot com [00:26:04] spk_1: and amazing [00:26:05] spk_2: at home dot com.