Business of eCommerce

Joonas GebhardFounder of the Kawaii Group Show Notes: Started in 2014Moved 2008Early in the influencer spaceStrengthNo taxesNo profit taxesSuper cheap shippingClose to ChinaSubscription boxHigher LTV Sponsors: Drip – Get a free demo of Drip using this coupon code!Spark Shipping – Dropshipping Automation Software Bio: Joonas started his first business when he was 15 years old and his first e-commerce store around 2004. Now Joonas runs 2 online stores and 2 subscription boxes from Hong Kong. He sells cute Japanese stuff to kawaii fans worldwide. Links: https://www.blippo.comhttps://www.kawaiibox.comhttps://www.japancandybox.comhttps://www.instagram.com/joonasgebhard/http://m.me/joonas.gebhard Transcript : Charles (00:00): In this episode of the Business of eCommerce. I talk with Jonas. Gebhart about running an eCommerce business in Hong Kong. This is the business of eCommerce episode 136. Charles (00:17): Welcome to the business e-commerce to show the helps eCommerce retailers start launch and grow their eCommerce business. I'm your host, Chelsea [inaudible] and I'm here today with Jonas hired. Jonas is a founder of the quiet group, the company that he launched in 2004 in Finland. He since moved to Hong Kong and has been running it their sentence, I assume in the show today to chat about what are some of the benefits and difficulties running an eCommerce business in Hong Kong. So, Hey Jonas, how are you doing today? Fine. Thanks. How are you? Good. Great to have you on the show. It's a, where are you? So you're still currently the founder of the quiet group rice. All right. And you're not currently in Hong Kong about right. Joonas (00:59): Corona, evacuees, and currently in Finland flew here in late, late January. Charles (01:06): Okay. So are, but your home still is Japan, but you're just kind of Finland. Joonas (01:13): Yeah, we live in Hong Kong, but we have a apartment here in a house. Charles (01:17): Okay. Gotcha. And you're originally from Finland, Finland. Okay. So I'm curious, can I talk about the background of how you got started? And so first actually the quiet group I was looking through your products, but what exactly, how do you describe what you guys sell? Joonas (01:36): We sell everything cute and Japanese cute, like a hello kitty. And character's like, hello, kitty and everything. Pink. Fluffy. Charles (01:47): Okay. And what markets do you sell into? Joonas (01:50): Mostly North America and Europe. Charles (01:52): Okay. So you and you sell them and where is it? I mean, just a few questions here. Cause this is a very different, most folks are either in North America or Canada and they're selling to their local market, but you are in, did you start the business when you were in Finland or in Japan? Joonas (02:13): Yeah, we started about 15 years ago in Finland. So we had a few physical stores and then we sold, sorry, Hong Kong. I should have said Hong Kong. Sorry. Yeah. So we sold from Finland, Finland. We imported the stuff to Europe and it's just impossible to sell from Finland to any other countries. It's too expensive. Everything from shipping and labor and storage and all the fees. So then we moved the business to Hong Kong about 10 years ago. So now we are able to sell everywhere in the world and beyond the same, same basic like cost structure as all our Chinese competitors and other Asian companies. Charles (02:56): So you're you moved the business to Hong Kong, but I wanna make sure I understand. So you move the business to Hong Kong, but the products now are being distributed from both Finland and Hong Kong and North America. Where do they actually, where, where is it? The distribution come from? Joonas (03:11): We S we ship everything from Hong Kong. We have a warehouse in Hong Kong and everything is shipped Charles (03:16): So direct, like basically Hong Kong to North America and Hong Kon...

Jake CookCEO of Tadpull Show Notes: RFMRecencyFrequencyMonetaryMaster KeyAlign dataSocial Media Slot MachineGoogle AnalyticsSpeed to buyIf people buy in the first day, run heavy retargetingScalingDoes not have good RolesBad cash flow cyclesNot knowing marginsQuarterly GoalsHave a process that's repeatable Sponsors: Drip – Get a free demo of Drip using this coupon code!Spark Shipping – Dropshipping Automation Bio: Jake is a forever curious entrepreneur that works across digital marketing, analytics, and AI. Jake started out as a lost physics major that stumbled into online marketing and eventually design thinking and data science. Helping clients and students use empathy to unlock growth at the intersection of art and science are where he loves to spend his days. Links: https://ondigitalmarketing.comhttps://www.tadpull.com/https://benchmark.tadpull.com Transcript : Charles (00:00): In this episode of the business. E-Commerce I talk with Jay cook about using data science to profitably scale cross channel e-commerce marketing campaigns. This is a business of eCommerce episode one 35. Charles (00:21): Welcome to the business. E-Commerce the show that helps eCommerce retailers start launch and grow their eCommerce business. I'm the host Chelsea [inaudible] and I'm here today with Jake cook. Jake is a founder of tadpole company. He started in 2013 where they use data to help e-commerce brands, profitably scale, their marketing campaigns, as joke in the show today. Talk about how you can use data science to scale your marketing campaigns. So, Hey Jake, how are you doing today? I'm wonderful. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, I am awesome to dig into this topic a little bit. We're talking before the show about, but a few proposed topics and the Xi learning and data science. I feel like this is a new we're in 2020. There's a lot of new things going on, but this is kind of the new hotness right on using with we've now pulled all this data. Charles (01:08): Right. And I feel like everyone's kind of getting a sense of yeah, you can like get all this stuff and now it's like, what do we do with this? So, yes. Yeah. So what do you guys, so first you, so your product, right? Usually don't go into the product the beginning, but it's just kind of interesting right on you guys basically hook into a lot of different pieces of data and start predicting what customers basically gonna want before they know they want it. It's that kind of a, yeah, it's it's we work a lot with mid market companies. And so, you know, there's lots of data and we always say, it's kind of like the kitchen drawer or, you know, the junk drawer you have in your house where you open it up and there's like birthday candles and bandaids and all sorts of junk. Charles (01:51): And that's kinda how their data is structured. And so a lot of what we do is kind of suck into a, we call it a data pond. I mean, there's like Lily pads of data, if you will. So you have Google analytics, data or Shopify data inventory date, and we're sucking all into one place. And when you can kind of get all organized and neatly put together, you start to find some interesting insights. So for example, you might find that customers out of email by, at 30% higher than people that come through Facebook or products that you know, don't have great margins, but they turn like really quick turn out that their total cash cows. And so, you know, well, how do you find the customers that buy those products that turn quickly? Well, now we're trying to map the inventory to the customer data. Charles (02:32): So a lot of that has kind of just drawn those correlations and help them customers see what's possible off these assets. They already kind of already own. Yeah. I feel like a lot of this, even I was looking at something that I did with, ah, just like ad attribution and there's still, it's really tough, right? Because there's the same,

Carolyn LoweCo-Founder of ROI Swift Show Notes: CPCSponsored ProductSponsored BrandsProduct Display AdvertisingSponsored Brand VideoMake sure you have text overRetargetingNot as effectiveGood for less than $100 AOV$400 AOVRetargeted on Amazon properties69% of Amazon Searches are non-brand70% of Amazon Users don't make it past page 1Start with auto campaignASIN Product TargetingFind all products with a higher price and lower starsUsed to have a 35k Min ad spendUse Certified Agency PartnersAgencies have access to betasSnapChat - Low CPC in 2020TicTac - Testing now Sponsors: Drip – Get a free demo of Drip using this coupon code!Spark Shipping – Dropshipping Automation Bio: Carolyn is the co-founded ROI Swift an agency that she started in 2015 which helps consumerbrands with Amazon, Paid Ads for Facebook/Instagram, andPaid Search. Links: https://roiswift.com Transcript : Charles (00:00): In this episode of the Business of eCommerce. I talk with Carolyn Lowe about selling on Amazon in 2020. This is a business we commerce episode one 34. Charles (00:18): Welcome to the Business eCommerce, the show that helps eCommerce retailers start launch and grow their eCommerce business. I'm your host, Charles pesky. Now I'm going to tell you what's Carolyn Lowe. Carolyn is a cofounder of ROI Swift and agency that she sided into 2015 to help consumer brands with Amazon paid Facebook and Instagram ads and paid search as Carolina show today to talk about as a retailer, what you should know, selling an Amazon in 2020. So Hey Carolyn, how are you doing today? Great. How are you Charles? Great to have you on the show and yeah, I'm doing well. I here in the COVID world, I saw, I normally have to watch on video. I normally shave every morning and my dollar shave club razor broken half this morning. So waiting for a new one. So if you're watching on YouTube and you wondering why I have a bed, that's why, so we'll see how fast dollar shave club ships. That's all I'm doing. So how about yourself? Carolyn (01:11): I'm doing well. It's just hot, hot and humid in Austin, Texas. It's pretty much summer here, so I'm happy to be inside. Charles (01:18): Nice. We're just talking like the razor because I can't run out and just buy a razor, this COVID world. We were talking before the show about Amazon and just some of the changes that have been affected recently. Shipping times, logistics I've have a few guests on and just going to talk about recently, it feels like 2012. Like the entire world is like shifted and the way I'm seeing it is this could be not a temporary thing. This could be the new norm. I think there's a lot of retailers now we work with have that. Let's talk with someone the other day and they're like, yeah, we're doing black Friday numbers. I'm like, Oh, that's great. They're like, yeah. Every day though, like every single day is like basically black Friday. And I think for certain folks, this is a new norm. And we've been talking about, you kinda mentioned Amazon has some big weaknesses that have been shown right in the past three, four months at this point. So could you kind of talk about those? Carolyn (02:17): Yeah, I think there's a few things. So Amazon's competitive advantage was always that they could get it there faster and cheaper than, than retail. Right? So you would get, when I had young kids, I had a subscribe and save subscription for diapers and I wouldn't have to run out to target and go get diapers every month diapers would appear and I wouldn't have to go pack up my kid and go get them. And now, as you've seen, you know, target Walmart, they have curbside, they have online shopping, they have much faster delivery and they're finally taking advantage of their competitive advantage, which is they have all that inventory within five miles of you. So Amazon is opening a lot more fulfillment centers. They've gone to one day, one day for a bunch of customers.

Brian MillerFounder of Easy China Warehouse Show Notes: Start on Alibaba Making 1 type of productTrading Companies make many types of productsSizeBiggest may not be bestA lower price may not be badOrdering SamplesPay for samplesMLQ - Min Order QuantityAlways negotiableGo for a 1/4 of the amount"We want to try a sample batch with you first"You won't make money on the first batchFreight forwardingAsk for referralsQuestions"As a % of your business, how much eCommerce do you do?""How many of your shipments go directly to Amazon?" Sponsors: Drip – Get a free demo of Drip using this coupon code!Spark Shipping – eCommerce Automation Bio: Brian Miller has been living in China for the past 10 years. He previously worked for one of the largest Chinese government owned manufacturers managing their North American Export operations. He now runs a 3rd party logistics warehouse in Shenzhen China called EasyChinaWarehouse.com. The company provides 3rd party logistics and shipping for Amazon FBA sellers and any ecommerce company creating products in China. Previous to Easy China Warehouse he founded and an E-commerce company which sells Bluetooth speakers. Links: https://www.easychinawarehouse.com/ Transcript : Charles (00:00): In this episode of The Business. eCommerce I talk with Brian Miller about importing products from China. This is a business eCommerce Episode 133. Charles (00:19): Welcome to the Business of eCommerce. The show that helps eCommerce retailers start, launch and grow the eCommerce business. I mean, host Charles Palleschi I'm where with Brian Miller. Brian is the founder of Easy China warehouse. He specializes in importing goods from China, and this is the second time I've asked on the show to chat about the entire process. Start to finish about how you can import goods from China. Brian's an expert in this. So I think that shows me very interesting. He answers a lot of great questions here. So onto the show, Brian, how are you doing today? Brian (00:49): Great. Thanks for having me on the show again. Charles (00:50): Well, yeah. Awesome to have you back on the show. I don't typically we do do repeats very quickly like this, but repeat guests you're on episode one, 27, we're talking very COVID specific. So I figured we actually started talking after the show and just kind of just on the general you know, working with getting products over from China. And I was like, you have a background in this. You're, you're a lot more of an expert than I think most people, right? Like all the people talk about this on kind of this theoretical level, but you feel, first of all, we kinda mentioned this. People want to look back in one 27, kind of mentioned your background, but just real quick. So you've been living in China for how long? Brian (01:30): Yeah, I've been living in China for the last 10 years. And I used to work at a Chinese state owned manufacturer. So I used to work for a Chinese company that manufactured industrial products. And then from there I started an eCommerce business where I sell Bluetooth speakers and also a logistics company that helps eCommerce companies shipped from China. So that's kinda my story. So I've done everything from manufacturing to e-commerce and also to shipping and logistics. Charles (01:59): So you have a little bit of experience sounds like. Yeah. Okay. So that's why, so when we start talking after about just getting, I think a lot of people get in the weeds when they want to source from China, they start looking at Alibaba or wherever else and just the whole process. There's so many little steps. It's one of those things that people just say, getting products from China and, you know, it's like this, it sounds easy. Like there's one little statement, but there's so many little things wrapped up in that. And they're very different, right. From talking to a factory finding the right products,

Sponsors: Drip – Get a free demo of Drip using this coupon code!Spark Shipping – Dropshipping Automation Software Transcript: Charles (00:00): In this episode of the Business of eCommerce I talk about mixed vendor drop shipping. This is a business of eCommerce episode, 142. Charles (00:17): Welcome to the business of eCommerce. The show that helps eCommerce retailers start launch and grow a eCommerce business. I'm your host, Charles Palleschi. And I'm going to tell you about mixed vendor drop shipping. What we'll cover in this episode is how to use Mixpanel drop shipping, to beat out your competition in both product, selection and price at the same time. So let's get into us. Today's episode is sponsored by drip, drip. It's a world's first e-commerce CRM and a tool that I personally use for email marketing and automation. Now, if you are running an eCommerce store, you need to have drip a try. And here's why drip offers one-click integrations for both Shopify and Magento. There's robust segmentation, personalization, and revenue dashboards. To give you an overview of how your automation emails are performing. One of my favorite features of drip is the visual workflow builder. Charles (01:05): It gives you a super easy way to build out your automation world visually and see the entire process. It lets you get started quickly, but also build very complex automation roles. It's powerful, but also to learn, unlike a lot of email tools that offer the same type of automation to get a demo of drip today, you can go head over to drip.com/boe that's drift.com/b O E. Now onto the show. Often when I'm talking to retailers, they kind of go one of two ways when it comes to drop shipping, they're either working with very large established distributors that have a large breadth of products, or they're working with smaller mom and pop type manufacturers, even just very, very small run tech manufacturers. And that's kind of their decision on how to source products, right? And often it's, you know, one of the other AOV mixed vendor drop shipping is where you take the best of both worlds and combine them. Charles (02:06): So you have hair and I've seen some retailers do is very successfully. They work with large distributors. They're able to get a large breadth of products, right? So some of these largest submariners can have thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of products. So it allows them to scale up very horizontally and everything in their niche. They can go very wide, have a lot of auxiliary type products, right? So ways to kind of mock up their products cross sells upsells, that sort of thing. So it looks very well at the larger distributors. But when you start combining that with smaller manufacturers, this is kind of the Trek. You could find very rare products that maybe distributors don't yet carry don't yet know about not everyone has on their sites. And also sometimes you're able to then negotiate better on price with larger distributor. There's good chance unless you're doing any sort of real large volume, you really can't go in and negotiate that with them. Charles (03:05): But if you go some real small manufacturers, you might be able to get a lot better price. And even if you have a distributor kind of in the mix, you can cut out the middlemen on some of these products and go right to the manufacturer, talk to them. So you can get your breadth of products from the distributor, but then go deep on a very small subset of those products. So on those you can get better prices and also products that just maybe a half made to distributor when you're a retailer and you blend both of these on your site, what that gives you is these unique products you can kind of hook in uses with, right? You can put them in your ads, not everyone has seen them. So if you're targeting Facebook ads, for example, social ads, someone's going to see a product in your niche that has never been,