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80/20 Sourcing – Page 7 – Are you frustrated sourcing from China? Do you find communicating with Chinese suppliers daunting? As Amazon FBA and PL sellers, online sellers, and small business importers you know that time is at a premium. By applying the 80/20 rule, I will teach you how to effectively and efficiently source from China. Learn best practices from the pros, avoid common mistakes, and find out what NOT to do so you can build a 7-figure business
Are you frustrated sourcing from China? Do you find communicating with Chinese suppliers daunting? As Amazon FBA and PL sellers, online sellers, and small business importers you know that time is at a premium. By applying the 80/20 rule, I will teach you how to effectively and efficiently source from China. Learn best practices from the pros, avoid common mistakes, and find out what NOT to do so you can build a 7-figure business
As you know building relationships or “Guanxi” with Chinese suppliers is critical to building business success when sourcing products from China.
Recently one of my Readers asked a great question about building relationships or “Guanxi” with Chinese suppliers. He writes:
“I wonder, where is the line drawn in the Asian culture? When does relationship building reach the point of “thats none of your business”. As I focus on developing conversation pieces, i want to be sure not to impede on a cultural aspects. Family, religion, politics, etc??”
-Brandon
I made a short video breaking whether family, religion, and politics are acceptable to talk about according to Chinese cultural norms. And what’s the most surprising non-business related question that Gary keeps getting asked by Chinese suppliers.
PS: I’m considering creating a YouTube channel. Do you want to see me create more YouTube videos? If so, comment below and let me know what you’d like to see covered. Thanks
It’s the start of June and I can’t believe almost half of 2019 has already gone by!
So today I’d like share with you three things that will help you with your Amazon business as we enter summer 2019.
First things first – REVIEWS
Recently I was interviewed by my good friend Chris Rawlings on his podcast Seller Jams. In our hour long podcast I shared my top 10 strategies to quickly get more reviews on Amazon without getting your account suspended.
We also dive into a REAL CASE STUDY on one of my Amazon PL products which is selling SIX FIGURES annually but is experiencing a slowdown.
In the case study I then turn the tables and interview Chris how he would turnaround slumping sales on this Amazon PL product. Though we are not revealing the actual product, we are revealing real strategies that work right now in 2019 that you can takeaway and implement in your own PL business.
I always say that as Private Label Sellers and small business owners, we can learn alot by observing what the big players are doing.
Well recently Walmart and Costco have publicly announced that they are raising prices due to the trade tariffs.
Costco’s CFO was quoted as saying “At the end of the day, prices will go up on things.”
While a 10% increase could be absorbed by some businesses, a 25% increase is virtually impossible to absorb without raising prices on your end consumers.
So in reality, it looks like the US Consumers are going to be left with the bill and they are starting to pay the price already.
What will you do with your Amazon business pricing?
Thirdly – Some good news if you’re selling in international marketplaces
Amazon announced last week that they are offering a flat rate price of $39.99/month if you sell in their different international marketplaces. This means if you’re selling in the US, EU, or Japan for you can save up to $89 per month!
Amazon is offering discounts for sellers who link their Amazon.com, EU, Japan, and – save up to $90/mo
PS: If you listened to my podcast – comment below and let me know what’s the #1 takeaway you got from it? These things motivate me to keep writing more for you guys. Thanks!
Did you know that one of the best tricks of the trade when contacting Chinese suppliers is to use an app called WeChat?
I’ve created a quick guide to using WeChat to communicate with Chinese suppliers even if you’ve never been to China and cannot speak Chinese.
What is WeChat?
WeChat is an app developed by Tencent and it is the #1 app in China. It has over 1 BILLION active user accounts. That number is 3 times the US population. So to say that it is widely used is an understatement.
WeChat is like a combination of Facebook, Messenger, Whatsapp, Apple Pay, and Uber wrapped in one.
You can use it to contact your friends in China and perhaps more importantly your Chinese suppliers! Here’s a glimpse what I use WeChat for when contacting suppliers:
Chat with suppliers to get quick answers to my simple questions
Monitor order production progress at the factory
Make free phone calls to my suppliers in China
Make free VIDEO calls to show them problems or modifications I have with my product
Share pictures or videos
Send money to pay for samples
Build Guanxi with my suppliers by building relationships with them away from “work”
Who uses WeChat?
If we look at the 1 billion active weChat accounts as of 2019, virtually EVERYONE I know and meet in China has a WeChat account. This includes adults, students, kids, and seniors.
Yup even grandma and grandpa are on WeChat eagerly looking to video call their favorite grandchild.
Many other apps are linked within WeChat so you can hail a taxi, pay your phone bill, and even get lunch delivered to you… all within the WeChat ecosystem.
So given the above, this means your Chinese supplier definitely is on WeChat and most likely is using it 24/7.
Why should you use WeChat?
My favorite thing about WeChat is its speed.
Communications are done much FASTER on WeChat than over the phone or email. This is because in China everyone has their smartphone within arms reach. So you will get much quicker replies because your suppliers phone will buzz and it’s socially acceptable in China to check their phone during a meal and even in the middle of a conversation. This is one of the main cultural differences between China and the West that you can get to work in your favor.
Secondly, I love how easy and convenient it is to use WeChat. Unlike most Chinese websites and apps, WeChat has a simple and clean interface. It’s super easy to use once you get it setup.
Besides chatting, you can also send pictures and videos to your suppliers. Often times if a problem arises with a product, I quickly snap pictures with my phone and sent it to my supplier. Within seconds they can see it and reply you.
Obviously this doesn’t mean that they will solve the problem right away but at least the information is communicated and in their hands.
And it’s a lot easier to follow up over WeChat than over email because many Chinese people live and breathe WeChat. WeChat is always on mind since their social circle of family, friends, and acquaintances are all there.
Even during holidays such as Chinese New Year, when suppliers are away from their desks, they will still be checking WeChat without fail so you can still reach them if needed.
Another benefit to WeChat is that the tone is more CASUAL than email or telephone. For non-native English speakers where English is a second language, writing a letter or email in English can be stressful and intimidating.
They may overthink things, worrying about saying the wrong thing. Or go through analysis paralysis and go radio silent!
Or they may be dealing with a family issue and not check their emails for some time.
But on the other hand using WeChat to write a couple of lines of texts makes it a lot easier for them to speak more FREELY than over email.
Moreover, the tone is a lot more casual and often times I check my suppliers Moments (similar to Facebook News Feed) to learn more about their hobbies, their kids, and their passions so I can build guanxi and a better relationship with them away from work.
For example I would wish them a happy chinese new year, a great weekend, a happy birthday, congratulate them on becoming a parent, etc. This adds to the relationship and Guan Xi.
How can you use it to contact suppliers?
One on One chat – to chat directly with your suppliers for questions and answers, sharing pictures, PDFs, etc.
Group chat – chat with multiple people at once. For example you can invite your team members, a 3rd party inspector, or a freight forwarder to join in to quickly problem solve together.
Share files – Makes it easy to share PDFs, videos, pictures, and more
Free calls – You can place free international calls over WeChat. For example while traveling I’ve gotten great call quality calling my Chinese suppliers over WeChat from the US, Japan, and other countries.
Video Calls – Several of my readers have used WeChat to take a virtual video tour of the factory over a WeChat video call. I also like to use this to show my supplier when I’m making modifications to products, to packaging designs, and anything else where a picture says a thousand words.
Send Red Packets (Hong Bao) – Side note in Chinese tradition a “Hong Bao” or red packet is essentially a small cash gift given to friends and family.
For example when I got married in Shanghai a few years ago, rather than having a wedding registry typical in the US which is unheard of in China, our friends and family all gifted us “Hong Bao” filled with CASH.
Be aware however than nowadays, giving Hong Bao among business acquaintances is not encouraged with policies against graft and corruption in China.
Where do I get WeChat?
You can download it for free from your app store. There’s a version that works for Apple, Android, and all other platforms I’m aware of.
To get started you will need to input your real name and telephone number.
Also there’s a desktop app as well but I believe you will still need to use your phone to get started.
WeChat Best Practices
Download WeChat and signup for a weChat ID. Then you can ask your supplier for their WeChat ID and request to add them as a friend. Often times your supplier will proactively take the conversation from Alibaba or Email to weChat so you can be ready and save time.
Use it to ask quick questions and to quickly problem solve
The Translate function can be used to translate messages from Chinese to English (and vice versa) within the app
Use it to follow their moments so you can learn more about your suppliers out of the office and build a friendship and relationship “Guanxi”
What are the downsides of WeChat?
WeChat makes it very hard to save your message history. So if you have any important contracts, orders, or any other important communications you want to keep a record of, I recommend you get it in writing or at least over email so you have record of it beyond WeChat.
If you lose your phone or WeChat ID it’s very hard to recover your account and retrieve your message history
Privacy – Assume it doesn’t exist 🙂
In summary, WeChat is a great way to quickly communicate with Chinese suppliers and contacts. It’s free, easy to use, and can break down a lot of communications barriers that are common when doing international business.
However it’s not a magic bullet and you still need to be vigilant with your communications and follow up as you’re working with your suppliers.
Now it’s your turn. If you’re using WeChat, I’m curious what’s your #1 tip to use WeChat to communicate with Chinese suppliers?
Talk soon,
Gary
PS: I’m testing out a new 80/20 Sourcing WeChat group. If you’d like to join pls scan this QR code with your WeChat app.
As the saying goes: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
For those of you who are sourcing products from China then I’d like to share with you an important strategy that will help you diversify your products away from your competitors.
The US-China trade war is in full force as the tariffs keep rising.
Last week the tariffs were raised from 10% to 25% on the $200 billion in products imported from china to the US.
And Trump is threatening to slap tariffs on the remaining $300 billion on Chinese manufactured products that have not been affected so far.
China is not taking this lying down. It is retaliating as the state media says that China will not back done. And it will add tariffs on $60 billion worth of US imports…
Rather than speculate on the outcome (nobody knows for sure) let’s see what we can do about the trade tariffs to minimize the impact if you’re importing products from China.
Clearly it doesn’t take a genius to conclude that you should at least consider consider sourcing away from China to avoid the tariffs.
Countries such as Vietnam, India, Mexico and others are gaining attention as alternatives to sourcing from China. They offer lower labor costs, and an escape from the tariffs.
However finding suppliers from those other places may open up a whole new can of worms including lower product quality, lower worker productivity, dubious logistics, and more dishonesty.
Also If you missed it, I highly recommend you check out my webinar with Greg Mercer (Jungle Scout founder) on how to reduce the impact on your ecommerce business by considering sourcing away from China. We discuss ways to source that most people are not aware of (and no not on Alibaba).
On Friday May 10, 2019, President Trump just announced that the US will raise the rate of China tariffs from an additional 10% to 25% on the products covered in the $200 billion list.
For some of you, you may be thinking “how can my business absorb this additional cost sourcing from China?”
For others, this may the writing on the wall to source away from China.
In any case, now is a great time to look for ways to source away from China and my good friend Greg Mercer, founder of Jungle Scout invited me to give a webinar about how you can do exactly that.
Checkout this free 22 minute masterclass where you will learn:
Ways to reduce the impact of the tariffs on your Amazon business
How to decide which products to source away from China first
Best practices of sourcing from Vietnam, India, and Mexico
One of the biggest things I’ve struggled with was Analysis Paralysis.
Nowadays with Google you can find nearly endless information at the touch of a screen.
It’s much easier than the days where you had to go to the library to search for books and even encyclopedias to find answers to their pressing questions.
But with so much information available, isn’t this a good thing?
Not necessarily. With so much information it’s easy to suffer from analysis paralysis.
Rather than taking a decision in the past I decided to put it off. And to do some more research instead of making a decision to move forward.
For example with choosing a product for your private label business.
I know many beginners who sit on the fence about the product they’re thinking about selling. They hesitate to PULL THE TRIGGER. They continue to do more research just to be sure so they don’t lose their hard earned money.
I’ve had this problem myself… Even with one of the products I’ve chosen which steadily generates hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue for several years now.
But before placing the order, I had analysis paralysis for a full SIX MONTHS before I decided to place the order.
Why? For one it was a large sea shipment compared to the small and light air shipments I shipped in the past. This made things more complicated with ocean freight logistics, having to deal with a customs broker, and the additional time it took to ship from the factory to the warehouse.
Looking back, if I had pulled the trigger six months sooner, that probably would have been worth tens of thousands of dollars in sales!
The takeaway is that the longer I procrastinated, the more opportunities passed me by.
And the more competitors that jumped into this market.
So how did I overcome analysis paralysis? After my years of experience, researching other successful business people, and speaking with numerous 7 figure sellers – I’d like to share with you four tactics so you can take action more quickly and overcome your fears.
Tactic 1: “Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today” Ben Franklin
This rule applies equally well in business as in your personal life.
The more I can get done today the more I can compound on that progress tomorrow.
As Darren Hardy wrote in his excellent book “The Compound Effect”, it’s like compound interest.
The money you invest gets compounded with interest to grow even more quickly.
You are literally stacking your success on top of your past successes to grow even faster.
Switching gears I love to travel so whenever I visit a new city I can choose to either relax in the AirBnB or choose to go out and explore.
So I choose to explore and often times what I learn from Day 1 can open up new opportunities in Day 2 and beyond.
Stepping into that cafe and chatting up the local barista can lead to a hidden gem in a restaurant that I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise from Yelp or online recommendations.
Tactic 2: The 70% rule – Jeff Bezos
The richest man in modern history Jeff Bezos made it a point in his letter to shareholders that at Amazon, employees should take a decision when they have 70% of information they wish they had.
“most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow. Plus, either way, you need to be good at quickly recognizing and correcting bad decisions. If you’re good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think, whereas being slow is going to be expensive for sure.” – Jeff Bezos
Why only 70% and not 90%? Or even 100%? Wouldn’t that make it a safer bet?
The answer is speed. Bezos says that 70% of information available is enough to take a decision and one needs to be able to pivot or course correct after making a decision.
In my view often times even if it’s not the right decision, what you LEARN from this decision is more valuable than if you didn’t take a decision at all.
I strongly agree with Bezos’ thinking especially when applied to e-commerce – I feel that the business is an investment in yourself. You will build upon your successful products one by one.
Nobody hits a home run at every bat.
Sometimes you will hit a single or double. And you can move forward so eventually you will score.
Other times you will strike out and that’s OK. You need to analyze and learn from the experience and get up to bat again to take another swing.
This way you will increase your chances of success next time.
Tactic 3: Eat that Frog! – Brian Tracy
Tackle the #1 hardest thing on your to do list FIRST each day.
It makes the rest of the day a lot easier. Psychologically with the first big win under your belt, you will feel the rest of the day is downhill from there.
For example if I have a presentation to give I will schedule it for early in the morning. This way once I tackle it I get a rush of adrenaline once I finish it and the rest of the day’s tasks feel a lot easier.
Finally…
Tactic 4: Break that seal
What’s the next step you can take right now to move your business forward?
If you are choosing a private label product – it helps to create a spreadsheet first and add 2-3 items to your product list to get the ball rolling.
Once you have a couple of product ideas on the page I find the rest of the ideas come more quickly than staring at a blank page.
Momentum creates greater momentum.
Remember – you can overcome analysis paralysis with these four tactics
Tactic 1: “Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today”
Tactic 2: The 70% rule
Tactic 3: Eat that Frog!
Tactic 4: Break that Seal
Now it’s your turn. If you haven’t started your Private Label business yet – what’s the next step you can take to break that seal to move it forward?
Sure you can do it yourself but why not give yourself every advantage?
Join my video course 80/20 Sourcing Essentials to get a step by step guide from selecting a profitable product away from the crowds, learning how to source it from a trustworthy supplier without relying on your “gut feel”, and launching your product on Amazon successfully.
-Gary
PS: 80/20 Sourcing Essentials is backed by a full 30-day 100% satisfaction guarantee. If you find just one trustworthy supplier for your product, over the lifetime of your business that could mean thousands of dollars in profit or even a 6 or 7-figure business! It’s no risk to you. Break the seal, Join now and start today!
This week, we’ve covered the 7 deadly sins of private label sellers and 1 key tactic to come up with product ideas.
As you know, it’s great learning from your own experience but everyone is obviously limited by their time, their location, their opportunities, their social circles, their network, etc…
So one of the best ways to expand your knowledge especially when it comes to business is by reading books from established authors.
Call me a book nerd but in Shanghai, I co-founded a Business Book Club over 8 years ago with my good friends Oliver and Dave.
Over this time, we’ve read dozens of business-related books covering sales, marketing, strategy, finance, negotiations, entrepreneurship, and even non-verbal communications by reading people’s body language! And we just celebrated our 8th anniversary of our book club earlier this year.
Oliver, Gary, and Dave, The co-founders of The Shanghai Business Book Club
So today, I wanted to share with you a short list of books that have immensely helped me in growing my business and maximizing my personal productivity as an entrepreneur.
Most of you have heard of the 80/20 Rule and Perry Marshall goes deeper into this. Two of my biggest takeaways are:
TAKEAWAY #1: You can 80/20 the 80/20
In other words, within the 20% you can dive deeper to the “sub 20%” within these. For example, they will be your most profitable products, your best customers, and the tiny things you do to get the greatest return on your time.
For example, why does Starbucks sell a $200 espresso machine? Because the 80/20 of their best 20% of customers are willing to spend hundreds of dollars at their favorite coffee shop. If Starbucks didn’t offer it, they would be leaving money on the table, and these customers would probably spend the same $200 at Williams Sonoma or Amazon instead.
QUESTION: How you can apply this premium offering strategy to your ecommerce business?
TAKEAWAY #2: Don’t undervalue your time
There’s a fantastic exercise in the book that helps you see how much the value of your work is REALLY WORTH.
The author Marshall says to divide everything you do into 4 columns labeled $10/hr work, $100/hr work, $500/hr work and $1,000/hr work. You might not think anything you do is worth that much but for some tasks the ROI is huge.
For example negotiating down the cost of a product over its product life cycle could save your tens of thousands of dollars (OR MORE if your product is a hit) for just a few hours of your time.
This exercise makes it a lot easier to objectively decide on what to do and what to outsource.
For example when I travel, previously I would never spend money on laundry at the hotel because it’s so overpriced. $10 to wash and dry a shirt – no way!
But now, I think about the opportunity cost. If I were to go to the laundromat or hand wash the shirt myself in the hotel sink and hand dry it, it would take at least an hour of my time.
That same hour could be spent optimizing my Amazon listings, responding to customer questions, and even finding the next home run product that could lead to a 7-figure business.
If you put it in this perspective, the time doing this would be much more valuable spending the same time washing my shirt (to save $10).
Takeaway – what’s one thing you’re doing today that you shouldn’t be doing so you can generate more ROI from your time?
Remember the tomato timer you had in your kitchen?
Well who knew that this is one of the best productivity hacks for people like me that are inundated with texts/WeChat messages, emails, phone calls, family distractions, etc all day long.
The gist of it is to batch your work in 25 min blocks of time to maximize focus and results and to minimize distractions. During these 25 min of hyperfocused work, you don’t let anything distract you – not emails, not texts, etc. You then get to take short 5 min breaks to recharge so you don’t burn out.
I find it really helps me get in the zone and get a tough task finished more quickly.
This is one of my favorite practical business advice books about sourcing from China from an American businessman who’s walked the walk and worked for years in China in the 90’s and 2000’s.
Midler gives an excellent first hand account from a sourcing perspective dealing with Chinese suppliers and factories. He lifts up the curtain to show us the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of doing business with China.
This is a must read for anyone that is sourcing from China. These memoirs are a real world look at how Chinese factories operated in the recent past since the book was published in 2009.
Note however that the landscape has changed from when the book was written until now with drastically increased costs sourcing from China, more factory compliance to environmental regulations, and the implications of the trade war with business moving away from China.
But the book is still valuable for anyone sourcing from China.
In summary, these books will help you with your ecommerce business by creating the right strategies for your business on a high level, be more productive in your day to day work on the ground level, and get a great overview of how working with Chinese suppliers work without having to make the same mistakes others made.
Now it’s your turn – what’s one book you’ve read and has helped you that you’d recommend to other e-commerce entrepreneurs?
After years of running an ecommerce business myself and speaking with and masterminding with 6 and 7 figure private label sellers, I’ve learned a lot about what things to do right. And also what common mistakes sellers make that could sink their business.
I’ve observed that these mistakes or deadly sins seem to come up over and over again.
So today, I’d like to share with you the 7 Deadly Sins I’ve noticed many private label sellers commit… myself included.
These are bad habits and missteps that will significantly DECREASE your chances of success. Any one of them could potentially sink your business before you even begin.
Let’s start with the sin #1…
Choosing a “Me too” product
When choosing a product, I simply enter some search parameters into a research tool and out spits the perfect and profitable product to source and sell, right?
NOT SO FAST.
While this may have worked in 2016, fast forward to today, with thousands of new competitors jumping into the crowded private label market on Amazon every day, if you simply choose a “me too” product like everyone else, then this is a recipe for DISASTER.
Why? Me too products are simply copy cat products that have little to no differentiation. So if you sell the same LED makeup light as everyone else without making any improvements, then you are going to have to compete in a price war.
It’s a blood bath. A Red Ocean. A race to the bottom and you definitely don’t want to be the winner in a price war because that’s not a profitable formula for success.
Speaking of search tools, let’s move on to sin #2
Sin #2: Relying TOO MUCH on tools and not on yourself
Don’t get me wrong – product research tools can be extremely valuable to validate product demand, do market research on a niche, find out the difficulty level of competition in this niche, estimate product pricing, and more.
HOWEVER I believe that many people are using it the wrong way.
They are reversing it and are relying on it to generate product ideas.
Why is this the wrong way? Because if you start at the same place as everyone else using the most popular tool on the market, you end up at the same place as everyone else. And what could look like a lucrative product TODAY can be a flooded market 3 months from now by the time everyone else found this perfect product has sourced, shipped, and starting selling it on Amazon.
So when it comes to product ideas or any general business ideas, many people try to take a shortcut but this is very dangerous because you could be walking down the wrong path to disaster.
Meanwhile in the product sourcing phase, let’s look at sin #3
Sin #3: Going too Cheap
This is a classic rookie mistake I see a lot of new private label sellers make. When sourcing a product and evaluating suppliers, they overly focus on price or even ONLY consider price.
The time-tested principle of “you get what you pay for” is certainly true in this case.
Choosing the “cheapest” supplier hawking their LED makeup light could mean that this product has the worst quality. It could mean that the lighting is crap and will break easily. Or it could mean that the build and/or finish will make it look like junk.
In all, going too cheap will drastically increase your risk of getting a poor quality product, that customers will leave a negative review for, and that will definitely hurt your chances of success selling a private label product.
While we’re still on the subject of sourcing, let’s look at sin #4…
Sin #4: Falling in love too fast with your product
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – finding a trustworthy supplier is a lot like dating. You probably aren’t going to fall in love and marry the person you first meet or connect with online.
It makes sense to meet a couple of people first, get to know them better, take them out to dinner or go to the movies, before you jump ahead to tying the knot.
So why do so many people immediately fall in love with the first product they find?
Seth Godin says that you have to come up with a lot of bad ideas before you can come up with a good idea.
I find that a common mistake that newbies make is they search for one or two products and they stop and choose one and that’s it.
The problem is human nature. We are all lazy and don’t want to do the work.
Let’s get real for a moment. The first product idea probably won’t and shouldn’t be the one you finally decide on. You need to look at a good sample size of products before you can find one that meets the criteria you need in a profitable product. So don’t fall in love too fast!
Now when placing a trial order, I’ve committed the next cardinal sin…
Sin #5: Spending too much in a trial order
When I found a supposedly profitable product in sleeping bags several years ago, I was very excited about this product. I did all the research, made improvements, and customized the product to my liking.
But I was overconfident. Instead of placing a small trial order, I went all in and spent nearly $20k on the trial order.
After I launched, it was a tough battle. It was difficult to compete on price with the high product cost. And the improvements I made were difficult for customers to tell when skimming through product searches.
In the end, I had to cut my losses and liquidate this product. The lesson learned here is not to spend too much in a trial order so that you can place a larger order later if the product sells well and you can cut your losses without too big of a financial impact if it doesn’t sell.
Let’s move on to Sin #6: Falling in love too fast with your supplier
Let’s be honest for a minute here. Finding a trustworthy supplier can be a lot of work. Constantly monitoring emails and messages can make you feel like you’re stuck in Alibaba Hell.
So many newbies want this to be over with quick. So they think that once they’ve contacted one or two suppliers they’ve already found MR RIGHT. And they’re ready to place the order.
There could be some problems with the suppliers’ quality but they seem pretty helpful and nice and they think they can work things out.
The truth is it was love at first sight and they’re blind to these problems. And these problems can seriously derail your business right if you don’t address them correctly.
Finally looking at all of these factors, the private label business can be overwhelming at times. This brings us to the last sin…
Sin # 7: Analysis Paralysis aka Not taking action
We’ve all been guilty of this. You’re ready to pull the trigger on the order but you keep second guessing yourself.
Maybe the other supplier is better. Or I need to double check the details one more time.
Being detail-oriented is one thing. But over-analyzing to the point of losing time and opportunity is another.
Jeff Bezos makes it a point of taking a decision when he has 70% of information available. He doesn’t wait until he’s 100% certain. Not even 90%.
Bezos says that you can learn more by course correcting after taking a decision.
Otherwise, the opportunity cost is too great. Every day you sit out means another day of potential sales going by. And another day that a new competitor might jump into this niche and that you will have to overcome.
I’m not saying that you should be hasty but once you’re ready to take a decision, then you need to take action.
So those are the 7 deadly sins that will sink any private label business.
Now, I’m curious – which of these sins have you committed? And how did you overcome them?
As we’re entering spring, as the saying goes you reap what you sow. If you want to crush it in Q4 you need to plant seeds NOW for your ecommerce and private label businesses
One of the best way to do this is sourcing your products successfully and learning new strategies to stay ahead of the competition.
So I wanted to share two pieces of news with you this week.
First off there’s a potential game changer in how to quickly source suppliers from China and other countries.
Jungle Scout just released a new feature called “Supplier Database”.
There’s a couple ways you can use it.
The first way is you can use it to search for products you’re sourcing and it will list potential suppliers. I found that the supplier matches were not that great however. I tested it with my products and did not find my suppliers as a match
BUT the cool thing about Supplier Database is the second way – That is you can search for your competitors’ company’s names to find the exact suppliers that they are using.
In other words you can SPY ON your competitors to find out their suppliers!
And the third way is you can search by supplier/factory name to find out who they are manufacturing for. Wanna know if you’re the biggest client for your supplier – now you can find out.
Previously this info was available but only behind an expensive paywall through sites like Panjiva and import genius.
Now it’s available as a part of Jungle Scout’s web (Chrome) extension. You can signup for Jungle Scout if you haven’t already here.
In my view it’s a no brainer as another tool in your toolkit to source suppliers. Does it replace all of the other manual work searching for suppliers on Alibaba and trade shows?
Not really as it’s not a magic bullet to find the perfect supplier for every product.
But it can help short cut the process… 80/20 Rule!
The second piece of news is the upcoming Global Sources Summit for Amazon and ecommerce sellers in Hong Kong.
This one of my favorite ecommerce conferences and I’ve spoken there and attended as well. This year it will place April 27-30 and you can surround yourself with successful ecommerce sellers including 7 Figure Sellers featured in #7FSS including Chris Rawlings, Sophie Howard, Dave Bryant, Mike Jackness, Sean Smith, and more!
As a loyal reader, I’d like to offer $100 off your ticket
Just use code 3GH100 when checking out – to save US$100!
PS: Going to the Canton Fair? The Global Sources Summit takes place in between phases 2 and 3 so if you’re flying out to China/Hong Kong it makes a lot of sense to attend both to maximize your trip – learn, network, and source!
