eCommerce Master Plan

eCommerce MasterPlan | 560: Scaling an Amazon-First Brand: Joey’z Journey to $10M with Charles Chakkalo

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Charles Chakkalo is the Founding partner of Joey’z, an Amazon-first homewares brand. Since 2010, he’s been building a lean, everything-in-house Amazon operation focused on practical, everyday consumer goods. They also now sell across Walmart and eBay and even have a Shopify store too. In total, annual sales are now over $10million with growth at 20% year on year. 

 

In this episode, Charles shares the real behind-the-scenes of scaling on Amazon—covering the wins, the struggles, and the lessons every eCommerce owner can use to grow smarter and faster. 

 

Hit PLAY to hear: 

 

  • How Joey’s grew into a $10M Amazon-first brand with 20% YoY growth  
  • Why Amazon makes life easy—but also traps sellers in dependency 
  • The pros and cons of keeping warehousing and logistics in-house  
  • Why retail arbitrage is fading and how private label builds stability 
  • The hidden role of logistics mastery in beating competitors 
  • What Charles sees as the next big growth move for Joey’s  

    •  

    Key timestamps to dive straight in: 

    [05:22] “AI Boom Reflects Shifting Focus” 

    [08:46] “Addicted to Amazon’s Ease” 

    [12:20] Outsource Advertising and Software 

    [13:53] DTC Brand Growth Challenges 

    [17:19] Pivot to Private Label Products 

    [21:35] “Outsource Ops, In-House Amazon Fulfillment” 

    [24:32] Listen to Charles’ Top Tips! 

     

    Full episode notes here: https://ecmp.info/560  

    —

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    WEBVTT

    00:00.660 –> 00:05.064

    [SPEAKER_00]: Amazon makes life really easy and it’s really hard to get out of it.

    00:05.325 –> 00:05.665

    [SPEAKER_00]: Think of it.

    00:05.725 –> 00:10.570

    [SPEAKER_00]: I never have to deal with content generation or demand generation the way that D to C brands do.

    00:10.770 –> 00:17.416

    [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, just two, three weeks ago, I was looking at a meta-eds portal and I was like, wait, I have to create a ad creative.

    00:17.656 –> 00:19.198

    [SPEAKER_00]: I have to come up with this from the bottom up.

    00:19.438 –> 00:23.062

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s not just I put in a bed for PPC and the platform takes it from there.

    00:23.702 –> 00:24.203

    [SPEAKER_00]: The answer is no.

    00:26.692 –> 00:29.075

    [SPEAKER_01]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.

    00:29.696 –> 00:33.701

    [SPEAKER_01]: Air to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.

    00:34.222 –> 00:42.013

    [SPEAKER_01]: Cutting through the hinder to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.

    00:45.350 –> 00:47.573

    [SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome, it’s great to have you here.

    00:47.653 –> 00:51.458

    [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.

    00:51.498 –> 00:56.164

    [SPEAKER_02]: And in this episode, our guest is going to be inspiring you about the world of Amazon.

    00:56.184 –> 00:59.068

    [SPEAKER_02]: We’ve got someone on the show who’s Amazon first.

    00:59.168 –> 01:00.590

    [SPEAKER_02]: I know, it’s kind of like where

    01:01.110 –> 01:03.731

    [SPEAKER_02]: jumping over the fence to see if the grass is greener over there.

    01:03.811 –> 01:16.417

    [SPEAKER_02]: We’ll be getting into the challenges of being Amazon first, how things have changed, what they’re currently planning on doing to increase their sales, and also, whole load of stuff around logistics and team and efficiency.

    01:16.797 –> 01:17.678

    [SPEAKER_02]: Really cool, Gast.

    01:18.158 –> 01:19.378

    [SPEAKER_02]: Thoroughly enjoyed chatting with him.

    01:19.438 –> 01:27.122

    [SPEAKER_02]: I know you’re going to like this one, so make sure you listen to the end because his top tips are really good too, and you’ll also get my own take on this episode.

    01:33.069 –> 01:34.969

    [SPEAKER_02]: And now to introduce our special guest.

    01:35.450 –> 01:40.331

    [SPEAKER_02]: Charles Chakalo is the founding partner of Joey’s and Amazon first home was brand.

    01:40.671 –> 01:48.193

    [SPEAKER_02]: Since twenty ten he’s been building a lean everything in house, Amazon operation focused on practical everyday consumer goods.

    01:48.573 –> 01:53.874

    [SPEAKER_02]: They now also sell across Walmart and eBay and even have a Shopify store in the mix as well.

    01:54.374 –> 02:00.336

    [SPEAKER_02]: In total annual sales are now over ten million dollars with growth at twenty percent year on year.

    02:00.376 –> 02:01.016

    [SPEAKER_02]: Hello Charles.

    02:01.476 –> 02:01.616

    [SPEAKER_00]: Hello.

    02:02.415 –> 02:06.178

    [SPEAKER_02]: very cool to have you here and congrats on building such a good business.

    02:06.578 –> 02:06.938

    [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

    02:06.958 –> 02:07.178

    [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

    02:07.238 –> 02:07.899

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s a pleasure to be here.

    02:07.999 –> 02:11.481

    [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, it’s somebody asked me once what my momentum moment was.

    02:11.821 –> 02:16.525

    [SPEAKER_00]: And I told them for the first time I saw an additional comma in a bank account.

    02:17.205 –> 02:21.308

    [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, that eighth digit was really remarkable to see.

    02:21.912 –> 02:26.175

    [SPEAKER_02]: So many people talk about seven digits, but eight digits is a whole other ball game, isn’t it?

    02:26.235 –> 02:31.739

    [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I was so disappointed every previous year that I didn’t get the eighth, but hey listen, I still didn’t get the eighth.

    02:31.779 –> 02:32.819

    [SPEAKER_00]: I’m just on track for it.

    02:32.839 –> 02:34.180

    [SPEAKER_00]: So God willing, God willing.

    02:35.361 –> 02:36.502

    [SPEAKER_02]: We wish you all the best.

    02:37.102 –> 02:41.125

    [SPEAKER_02]: So how did you end up in the world of Amazon and Ecommerce?

    02:41.745 –> 02:44.847

    [SPEAKER_00]: So it actually goes back to my upbringing and high school.

    02:45.963 –> 02:48.845

    [SPEAKER_00]: I, well, let me stop before that in elementary school.

    02:49.445 –> 02:52.406

    [SPEAKER_00]: I ask my dad for money.

    02:52.446 –> 02:56.809

    [SPEAKER_00]: There’s this thing called money that’s like freedom and I’m like, how do I get more of it?

    02:56.829 –> 03:01.731

    [SPEAKER_00]: You know, he points over to my grandpa and then he goes, go and ask him how you get money.

    03:02.111 –> 03:03.872

    [SPEAKER_00]: My grandpa tells me, you work.

    03:04.232 –> 03:06.814

    [SPEAKER_00]: You show up here Sunday mornings and I was ten years old at the time.

    03:08.013 –> 03:11.936

    [SPEAKER_00]: And he said, every Sunday morning, I tend to my plants in my greenhouse.

    03:12.796 –> 03:13.537

    [SPEAKER_00]: And I’ll see you there.

    03:13.797 –> 03:14.858

    [SPEAKER_00]: You’re getting ten dollars a day.

    03:15.498 –> 03:18.060

    [SPEAKER_00]: So from my first job at ten years old, I got ten dollars a day.

    03:19.181 –> 03:25.185

    [SPEAKER_00]: I saw my own hundred dollar bill for the first time after ten weeks of working there.

    03:26.306 –> 03:31.549

    [SPEAKER_00]: And that was the sort of entrepreneurial immigrant household mindset that I grew up in.

    03:32.410 –> 03:35.152

    [SPEAKER_00]: And from that point on, I said, I need

    03:36.229 –> 03:40.395

    [SPEAKER_00]: So Grandpa’s greenhouse, I did that for about two, three years.

    03:41.076 –> 03:44.321

    [SPEAKER_00]: Got into high school and right before then.

    03:44.341 –> 03:49.509

    [SPEAKER_00]: So it’s so to write before high school, while in high school, discovered Amazon.

    03:50.647 –> 03:55.050

    [SPEAKER_00]: source stuff on sale and then I said to myself, well, there’s a well, there’s a margin here.

    03:55.590 –> 03:56.610

    [SPEAKER_00]: So I did that.

    03:56.751 –> 04:05.435

    [SPEAKER_00]: I used my ten free prints in the library to print out shipping labels, shipped them out through my school that had daily UPS pickups conveniently.

    04:06.016 –> 04:06.996

    [SPEAKER_00]: The security guard knew me.

    04:07.036 –> 04:07.897

    [SPEAKER_00]: The teachers knew me.

    04:08.037 –> 04:12.259

    [SPEAKER_00]: Some teachers tried to say it was against the rules, but there was no rule against selling in school online.

    04:12.319 –> 04:13.140

    [SPEAKER_00]: It was too new for that.

    04:13.800 –> 04:14.120

    [SPEAKER_00]: And then

    04:15.710 –> 04:16.691

    [SPEAKER_00]: I was about to go to law school.

    04:16.811 –> 04:21.475

    [SPEAKER_00]: I was in litigation, and then my brother, Tammy, on the shoulder one day, who also did the same thing on Amazon.

    04:22.156 –> 04:23.738

    [SPEAKER_00]: So do you want to try doing this for real?

    04:24.398 –> 04:25.279

    [SPEAKER_00]: And we just never look back.

    04:25.339 –> 04:31.365

    [SPEAKER_00]: I said to myself, if I want to go to law school later on, I swear law school doesn’t need me.

    04:31.405 –> 04:32.126

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’ll still be there.

    04:32.826 –> 04:36.910

    [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, that’s, and then I never went to law school.

    04:37.310 –> 04:39.773

    [SPEAKER_00]: And here I am, and we just built this from the bottom up.

    04:40.567 –> 04:50.978

    [SPEAKER_02]: Very cool, and enough’s changed in e-commerce over the last fifteen years, but the amount that Amazon has changed in the last fifteen years is a whole other ballgame, isn’t it?

    04:51.399 –> 04:52.860

    [SPEAKER_02]: How do you roll with the punches?

    04:53.801 –> 04:55.043

    [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly that, exactly that.

    04:55.163 –> 04:56.344

    [SPEAKER_00]: I do, I just roll with it.

    04:56.845 –> 04:58.386

    [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I was on a different podcast where

    04:58.927 –> 05:00.748

    [SPEAKER_00]: They asked me when I first started selling Amazon.

    05:00.948 –> 05:02.450

    [SPEAKER_00]: I’m, I’m twenty nine years old.

    05:02.510 –> 05:03.750

    [SPEAKER_00]: I started selling fifteen years ago.

    05:04.311 –> 05:05.372

    [SPEAKER_00]: So I was fourteen.

    05:05.532 –> 05:08.214

    [SPEAKER_00]: They go, was it when there was the sell on Amazon button?

    05:08.254 –> 05:09.595

    [SPEAKER_00]: I’m like, oh my God.

    05:09.675 –> 05:10.956

    [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I forgot about that.

    05:11.496 –> 05:14.818

    [SPEAKER_00]: So the, what he was referring to is under every Amazon listing.

    05:14.838 –> 05:19.982

    [SPEAKER_00]: There was actually a sell on Amazon button where you can say, I want to sell this product that I’m looking at.

    05:20.342 –> 05:21.884

    [SPEAKER_00]: And that’s how he used to list product.

    05:22.464 –> 05:27.568

    [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, the, the, it seems like, mountains and mountains of memory data.

    05:28.268 –> 05:29.929

    [SPEAKER_00]: was just unraveled when he said that.

    05:29.989 –> 05:32.010

    [SPEAKER_00]: So that was something else.

    05:32.090 –> 05:39.115

    [SPEAKER_00]: But in terms of keeping up with the times, I am neurotic about keeping up with the times.

    05:39.515 –> 05:45.098

    [SPEAKER_00]: When it comes to business or otherwise, things that are going on in our world, current events, business, anything.

    05:45.118 –> 05:45.879

    [SPEAKER_00]: I just keep up.

    05:45.979 –> 05:47.160

    [SPEAKER_00]: I just have to keep up with it.

    05:47.200 –> 05:48.821

    [SPEAKER_00]: And I also like for seeing trends.

    05:49.361 –> 05:53.924

    [SPEAKER_00]: Like this whole AI boom that happened with the release of CHI GPT a couple of years ago to the general public.

    05:54.739 –> 06:02.244

    [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, people are now, all it is is the extension of a pattern that we saw since, twenty ten, shortening of attention spent.

    06:02.824 –> 06:14.231

    [SPEAKER_00]: We no longer have the attention spent now to sit and through Google results, reputable search results, come up with creative copy and funnels and processes.

    06:15.252 –> 06:17.474

    [SPEAKER_00]: That’s all the AI revolution is.

    06:17.675 –> 06:21.638

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s the acceleration of a pattern of short and detention spends.

    06:21.678 –> 06:24.721

    [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I use AI in each and every day.

    06:24.741 –> 06:31.488

    [SPEAKER_00]: I don’t think it’s good or bad, but it’s definitely a trend that I see and I just keep up with.

    06:33.010 –> 06:38.855

    [SPEAKER_00]: Not a mistake that Amazon is trying to be more sensitive to brands.

    06:39.576 –> 06:46.242

    [SPEAKER_00]: because of the high pressure being put on it by the FTC, Democratic, even Republican administrations.

    06:46.282 –> 06:47.603

    [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it’s all of it.

    06:47.643 –> 06:50.706

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s just, I just keep up with it because number one, I like it.

    06:50.746 –> 06:53.628

    [SPEAKER_00]: Number two, that’s, you know, information is power.

    06:54.069 –> 06:54.669

    [SPEAKER_02]: You just have to do.

    06:54.689 –> 06:55.290

    [SPEAKER_02]: Don’t use.

    06:55.310 –> 06:57.572

    [SPEAKER_02]: So let’s explain a bit more about the business itself.

    06:57.612 –> 07:01.996

    [SPEAKER_02]: So you’re based in the state, you purely selling to the states, but you sell it overseas as well.

    07:02.422 –> 07:05.465

    [SPEAKER_00]: So I sell overseas to the agents that are willing to deal with that.

    07:05.705 –> 07:10.569

    [SPEAKER_00]: There’s something on Amazon called the North American Remote fulfillment program.

    07:11.290 –> 07:15.994

    [SPEAKER_00]: It takes my US inventory, lists it on Canada, Mexico, and Brazil.

    07:16.555 –> 07:16.975

    [SPEAKER_00]: Hands off.

    07:17.275 –> 07:23.741

    [SPEAKER_00]: I don’t have to worry about any of the back end fulfillment, customs, tariffs, nothing like that.

    07:24.642 –> 07:25.122

    [SPEAKER_00]: That I do.

    07:25.743 –> 07:29.684

    [SPEAKER_00]: I did experiment with selling cross-border directly on the Canadian marketplace.

    07:30.425 –> 07:32.886

    [SPEAKER_00]: The bureaucracy ended up being way too much.

    07:33.486 –> 07:37.388

    [SPEAKER_00]: And there was no predictability as far as calculating my profit margins.

    07:37.928 –> 07:39.809

    [SPEAKER_00]: So I backed out of that.

    07:40.389 –> 07:47.953

    [SPEAKER_00]: And then if somebody in a different country wants to purchase my product, I have no issue selling to them, but it comes with

    07:51.135 –> 08:00.581

    [SPEAKER_00]: Setting up an international marketplace or an international market separate from the US one seems to be way too cumbersome and frankly, I don’t see enough opportunity in it.

    08:00.682 –> 08:05.745

    [SPEAKER_00]: I could be convincing myself with something that doesn’t exist, but that’s where I fell out.

    08:06.344 –> 08:09.026

    [SPEAKER_02]: kind of duplicates all the workload, doesn’t it when you do that?

    08:09.426 –> 08:17.311

    [SPEAKER_00]: Duplicating complicates, especially when I have to deal with VATs and… Yeah, it’s all about that.

    08:17.751 –> 08:22.955

    [SPEAKER_02]: It’s interesting how Amazon has made that bit of it easy.

    08:23.375 –> 08:31.360

    [SPEAKER_02]: You can do the North America thing, the US, and they worry about where the stock is, all the admin, all the fees, the tariffs, that everything just gets dealt with by them.

    08:31.700 –> 08:38.692

    [SPEAKER_02]: They run a very similar thing in the Europe that a lot of European sellers use to send stock across the whole of Europe.

    08:38.732 –> 08:44.962

    [SPEAKER_02]: And it’s just kind of one of those ways in which I think Amazon kind of makes things super easy for you.

    08:45.002 –> 08:46.044

    [SPEAKER_02]: So you just stay there.

    08:46.557 –> 08:49.858

    [SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, they do, and you know, it’s funny.

    08:49.878 –> 08:55.439

    [SPEAKER_00]: I was at a conference once, and I said, I was at a conference once where there was mostly D to C friends.

    08:56.279 –> 08:58.799

    [SPEAKER_00]: And I said that I’m a recovering addict.

    08:58.979 –> 09:02.140

    [SPEAKER_00]: The reason why I said that is because Amazon makes that easy for you.

    09:02.980 –> 09:07.301

    [SPEAKER_00]: They went into this whole, you know, speel of, yeah, they struggled with addiction too.

    09:07.361 –> 09:08.281

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s family member, whatever it is.

    09:08.321 –> 09:09.401

    [SPEAKER_00]: I go, no, no, no, no, no.

    09:10.021 –> 09:12.521

    [SPEAKER_00]: Amazon makes life really easy.

    09:12.561 –> 09:14.842

    [SPEAKER_00]: And it’s really hard to get out of it.

    09:15.751 –> 09:19.826

    [SPEAKER_00]: That’s, you know, the door is really easy when it comes to it because think of it.

    09:19.886 –> 09:20.770

    [SPEAKER_00]: I never have to deal with it.

    09:21.786 –> 09:26.410

    [SPEAKER_00]: content generation or demand generation the way the way that D to C brands do.

    09:26.630 –> 09:33.435

    [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, just two, three weeks ago, I was looking at a meta-eds portal and I was like, wait, I have to create a creative.

    09:34.015 –> 09:35.557

    [SPEAKER_00]: I have to come up with this from the bottom up.

    09:36.077 –> 09:39.700

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s not just I put in a bid for PPC and the platform takes it from there.

    09:40.320 –> 09:40.921

    [SPEAKER_00]: The answer is no.

    09:41.401 –> 09:45.344

    [SPEAKER_00]: And Amazon never prepared me for that, never prepared me for email marketing.

    09:46.005 –> 09:47.746

    [SPEAKER_00]: Those are muscles that I can say.

    09:47.766 –> 09:50.128

    [SPEAKER_00]: I’ve been in the business for fifteen years, but I’ve never exercised.

    09:50.851 –> 09:55.754

    [SPEAKER_02]: If you say about going to a mainly D to C conference, I think if you go to a mainly market place, it’s conference.

    09:56.054 –> 10:03.338

    [SPEAKER_02]: You will find a lot of people who are on Amazon and who are going, yeah, yeah, next year we’re going to build our Shopify store.

    10:03.839 –> 10:08.761

    [SPEAKER_02]: Next year we’re going to move on to eBay or Walmart or something next year we’re going to do this.

    10:09.102 –> 10:13.484

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then you see them at the same conference, twelve months later, it’s like, you’re next year we’re going to do this.

    10:13.564 –> 10:14.505

    [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I never got around.

    10:15.005 –> 10:22.014

    [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because it is such a different business model, you know, it’s such a different skill set and such a different range of things.

    10:22.034 –> 10:27.080

    [SPEAKER_02]: So you must have found this as you diversified on to Walmart, eBay, and having your own store.

    10:27.941 –> 10:31.486

    [SPEAKER_02]: That also adds a lot of complexity the same as going international.

    10:31.506 –> 10:32.908

    [SPEAKER_02]: That’s a whole load of new things to learn.

    10:33.720 –> 10:39.763

    [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they, I mean, from platform to platform, it’s pretty similar because everybody’s just trying to copy Amazon.

    10:39.823 –> 10:50.547

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s just, they’re playing insanely skewed games have catch up and I’m specifically talking about Walmart, Walmart is dying to be the next Amazon, but it’s funny.

    10:50.587 –> 10:53.428

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s Amazon ten years ago, but

    10:54.789 –> 11:05.895

    [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, as far as trying to share that knowledge in conferences, you find very few people willing to actually implement the changes they say they will to get all families on or to start some D to see operation.

    11:07.836 –> 11:10.177

    [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, myself, I’m not immune to that.

    11:10.537 –> 11:16.720

    [SPEAKER_00]: I’m trying to get this D to see operation off the ground for a very long time, but it’s just not the structure of my business.

    11:16.760 –> 11:17.981

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s not how I built it so far.

    11:18.581 –> 11:25.705

    [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of it was built on the retail arbitrage model and I’m trying to not shift away from it but expand it.

    11:26.525 –> 11:29.026

    [SPEAKER_02]: We may get into that later first off though.

    11:29.166 –> 11:37.191

    [SPEAKER_02]: Your team, when you apply to be on the podcast and it was very clear from your application that you’re very proud of the fact you’re doing everything in-house.

    11:37.231 –> 11:39.192

    [SPEAKER_02]: So what does your team look like?

    11:39.532 –> 11:42.333

    [SPEAKER_02]: First of all, how many of you are there and what are you, what are you doing?

    11:42.433 –> 11:45.695

    [SPEAKER_02]: And then let’s get into why you’re doing everything in-house.

    11:46.172 –> 11:48.114

    [SPEAKER_00]: So it’s a family business.

    11:49.336 –> 11:50.517

    [SPEAKER_00]: I’m partners with my two brothers.

    11:50.597 –> 11:51.859

    [SPEAKER_00]: Makes me very interesting dinner talk.

    11:52.720 –> 11:55.503

    [SPEAKER_00]: And we have two locations across New York.

    11:56.084 –> 12:00.490

    [SPEAKER_00]: Both operators warehouse is one of them has an administrative office wing to it.

    12:01.103 –> 12:04.744

    [SPEAKER_00]: But when I say administrative office, it just means a place for me and my brothers to do admin stuff.

    12:05.384 –> 12:13.865

    [SPEAKER_00]: We have one VA in the Philippines that really functions as my executive assistant because I just take care of most of the admin.

    12:14.726 –> 12:18.106

    [SPEAKER_00]: The warehouse workers are about nine per location.

    12:18.886 –> 12:20.767

    [SPEAKER_00]: And we take care of that as well.

    12:20.827 –> 12:27.188

    [SPEAKER_00]: So we’re housing, labor, HR, logistics, freight, item labeling,

    12:27.788 –> 12:30.170

    [SPEAKER_00]: packaging, all us, all in house.

    12:30.350 –> 12:34.433

    [SPEAKER_00]: When it comes to ads, we outsource most of it.

    12:35.574 –> 12:42.038

    [SPEAKER_00]: When it comes to listing building, we outsource some of it, software, repricing software.

    12:42.159 –> 12:43.439

    [SPEAKER_00]: We outsource that entirely.

    12:44.240 –> 12:51.525

    [SPEAKER_00]: I like to think we outsource the stuff that could be either a automated, and we just pay for software solutions for it, or b.

    12:52.546 –> 12:53.867

    [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody sitting down and doing heads.

    12:53.907 –> 12:55.307

    [SPEAKER_00]: We actually tried doing that in-house.

    12:55.988 –> 13:06.853

    [SPEAKER_00]: We ended up spending one of us ended up spending twenty of our hours doing it as opposed to outsourcing it to an agency that automated it and got the same return on investment.

    13:07.314 –> 13:11.055

    [SPEAKER_00]: So we just said yet we’re not spending twenty hours of our week doing this.

    13:11.816 –> 13:13.177

    [SPEAKER_00]: That’s generally our operation.

    13:13.237 –> 13:16.438

    [SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, hey, you’re looking at the forklift operator of the warehouse right now.

    13:18.199 –> 13:40.292

    [SPEAKER_02]: And the way you talk through that, there’s a real kind of hard-nosed business numbers method behind making those decisions, which I think is something which comes more easily to a business that is Amazon first than a business that is own website first, because on Amazon it’s such a ones and zeros numbers game.

    13:40.713 –> 13:44.655

    [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the brand, the story, the values are so much less important.

    13:45.035 –> 13:46.916

    [SPEAKER_02]: Do you think that’s one of the reasons why

    13:48.057 –> 13:53.278

    [SPEAKER_02]: Amazon’s worked so well for you, or do you think Amazon shaped you into that method of decision making?

    13:53.819 –> 13:55.939

    [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, I think they shaped us into this for sure.

    13:56.559 –> 14:08.162

    [SPEAKER_00]: If you look at the sheer volume of pallets and cartons and pieces that we’re looking at, a D to C brand can, I mean, doesn’t start selling pallets of merchandise.

    14:08.483 –> 14:09.803

    [SPEAKER_00]: A D to C brand starts with

    14:10.956 –> 14:11.576

    [SPEAKER_00]: Holly bags.

    14:12.277 –> 14:23.085

    [SPEAKER_00]: Like I alluded to earlier, they have to deal with demand generation for them to get to a spot where they’re sending truckloads of merchandise and dealing with less than truckload, freight counts, palli-classes.

    14:23.525 –> 14:27.128

    [SPEAKER_00]: Those are very volume-heavy things.

    14:27.188 –> 14:34.073

    [SPEAKER_00]: And for a brand to get there is eons of time because I deal with selling other brands.

    14:35.110 –> 14:39.352

    [SPEAKER_00]: That’s what allows me to deal with that kind of logistical element of my business.

    14:39.732 –> 14:47.875

    [SPEAKER_00]: Now, focusing on the hard nose kind of analysis that I’ve been doing, it’s not a numbers thing as much as it is a philosophy thing.

    14:48.775 –> 14:52.596

    [SPEAKER_00]: There’s only a twenty four hours in each and every one of our days.

    14:52.716 –> 14:58.459

    [SPEAKER_00]: And the more time we spend on a certain product, the more expert it makes is the more learned it makes us in a certain field.

    14:59.319 –> 15:01.900

    [SPEAKER_00]: You can either go shallow into a bunch of things or deep into one.

    15:02.724 –> 15:05.926

    [SPEAKER_00]: When I know, I’m not going to go deep into, like I said, ads.

    15:07.166 –> 15:13.609

    [SPEAKER_00]: I can outsource that and when they’re giving me the same, sometimes better return on investment, I’m going to outsource it.

    15:13.649 –> 15:20.032

    [SPEAKER_00]: And no, I didn’t calculate it numbers in sense, but I did at least make that kind of philosophical determination.

    15:20.052 –> 15:21.313

    [SPEAKER_00]: And that’s where I’m at for that.

    15:22.138 –> 15:28.240

    [SPEAKER_02]: You mentioned about how, you know, you’ve built the business selling other people’s products, other brands product.

    15:29.180 –> 15:33.202

    [SPEAKER_02]: Is that still as viable on Amazon now, is it used to be?

    15:33.582 –> 15:34.482

    [SPEAKER_02]: Or is it changing?

    15:34.562 –> 15:36.943

    [SPEAKER_00]: No, it’s a dwindle.

    15:37.023 –> 15:38.844

    [SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn’t say doing that.

    15:39.564 –> 15:44.206

    [SPEAKER_00]: If you go back six, seven, eight years, you’ll find people saying that it’s hard to do.

    15:44.306 –> 15:44.866

    [SPEAKER_00]: Don’t do it.

    15:45.646 –> 15:47.107

    [SPEAKER_00]: You have to start your own brand.

    15:47.147 –> 15:48.627

    [SPEAKER_00]: You have to get a mold in China.

    15:48.667 –> 15:50.568

    [SPEAKER_00]: You have to import it here and so on and so on.

    15:51.468 –> 15:53.009

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s only been getting harder.

    15:53.049 –> 15:53.650

    [SPEAKER_00]: I’ll tell you that.

    15:54.250 –> 16:05.418

    [SPEAKER_00]: Because we, because we’ve been doing it so long, we are sort of really built for a lot of resistance and swaying in the wind.

    16:06.699 –> 16:08.981

    [SPEAKER_00]: But even the past six months, we got hurt bad.

    16:10.643 –> 16:12.464

    [SPEAKER_00]: And we’re still making it.

    16:12.564 –> 16:14.265

    [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it’s still great.

    16:14.325 –> 16:15.125

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s still a great model.

    16:15.165 –> 16:16.546

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s working for us keeping these lights on.

    16:17.306 –> 16:28.931

    [SPEAKER_00]: But it’s really getting harder because I mean, it’s just a side of the times it how much longer can even Nike just threw up the red, the white flag and said, all right, we have to be on Amazon.

    16:29.491 –> 16:35.253

    [SPEAKER_00]: All of these brands that are just not on Amazon are not taking direct control of their supply chain are waking up.

    16:35.613 –> 16:39.214

    [SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, over the past six years, it’s going to get more complicated if they’re taking direct control.

    16:39.914 –> 16:56.980

    [SPEAKER_00]: Where they realize that they need us is they’re not accustomed to operating something that has restock limits, something that has to have more efficient building of a certain palette to pack a truck in a certain way so that you’re cost per transportation of per unit

    16:57.680 –> 16:58.880

    [SPEAKER_00]: is the lowest ticket possibly be.

    16:59.200 –> 16:59.921

    [SPEAKER_00]: They’re not built for that.

    17:00.341 –> 17:04.342

    [SPEAKER_00]: Brands are big bureaucratic structures that are just focused on one thing and it’s brand awareness.

    17:04.822 –> 17:09.883

    [SPEAKER_00]: Let us do the selling logistics and legwork, but usually that’s the cycle I’m seeing.

    17:11.083 –> 17:12.383

    [SPEAKER_02]: How are you combating that?

    17:12.423 –> 17:15.544

    [SPEAKER_02]: If you don’t want me asking you how are you going to create your own brands?

    17:15.704 –> 17:19.545

    [SPEAKER_02]: Are you finding partners who get that they’re not set up to do this well?

    17:20.145 –> 17:28.270

    [SPEAKER_00]: So like I said, it’s not a, it’s a lot less, I should say, of a dollars in the sense kind of thing and more of a philosophical.

    17:28.330 –> 17:39.458

    [SPEAKER_00]: So back in twenty twenty, COVID ish time, we said, for the most amount of control and stability, we’d need a private label brand.

    17:39.918 –> 17:45.320

    [SPEAKER_00]: For sure, that’s a lot better of a predictor of our future than retail arbitrage.

    17:45.360 –> 17:52.162

    [SPEAKER_00]: Because retail arbitrage, you know, some customer can get a wrong item and Amazon terminate your multimillion dollar account without a blink of an eye.

    17:52.722 –> 17:55.183

    [SPEAKER_00]: There’s a common saying that they shoot first aim later.

    17:55.903 –> 18:00.985

    [SPEAKER_00]: But when it comes to private label, we said, all right, we’ll start investing in that.

    18:01.065 –> 18:01.965

    [SPEAKER_00]: And that was in twenty twenty.

    18:02.626 –> 18:05.847

    [SPEAKER_00]: Some years it made up majority of our sales in gross revenue.

    18:06.852 –> 18:18.334

    [SPEAKER_00]: And until now, I mean, we’ve never really told one coherent brand story or invested in a unique value proposition or interrupted a certain market or a certain niche.

    18:19.220 –> 18:20.600

    [SPEAKER_00]: up until now.

    18:21.321 –> 18:25.342

    [SPEAKER_00]: Before I got on this call, I spoke to a factory in China.

    18:25.542 –> 18:28.983

    [SPEAKER_00]: Again, a factory is what we’ve been dealing with for five years at this point.

    18:29.883 –> 18:34.204

    [SPEAKER_00]: Trying to do all this stuff that were quote unquote supposed to be doing.

    18:34.844 –> 18:40.245

    [SPEAKER_00]: The interrupting of a certain market, unique value proposition and so on and so on and so on.

    18:40.926 –> 18:43.606

    [SPEAKER_00]: So that’s where we find ourselves now.

    18:43.666 –> 18:45.707

    [SPEAKER_00]: So we had one foot in one foot out.

    18:46.587 –> 18:49.751

    [SPEAKER_00]: Now I’m going to try to do this the quote unquote right way.

    18:49.791 –> 19:01.845

    [SPEAKER_00]: The reason why I say quote unquote is just because every thinker or guru in the e-commerce pay say you’re supposed to do this and I mean frankly we’ve been fine without it so I’m going to try it see if there’s any merit to their argument and go from there.

    19:02.826 –> 19:05.969

    [SPEAKER_02]: I wish you luck and I’d love to find out if it does work or not.

    19:07.050 –> 19:07.351

    [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

    19:07.706 –> 19:10.048

    [SPEAKER_02]: but good to hear that the private label stuff’s coming on.

    19:10.108 –> 19:17.632

    [SPEAKER_02]: You’ve deleted a few times to the logistics challenges of dealing with Amazon rather than sending to individuals.

    19:18.473 –> 19:23.756

    [SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, Amazon are dictating what arrives at their warehouse rather than you getting to do it.

    19:23.776 –> 19:33.963

    [SPEAKER_02]: So how do you, I guess if you’ve got any kind of ways you’ve gone about making the most of that and avoiding some of the pitfalls, any advice to those listening who are struggling with it?

    19:34.563 –> 19:43.050

    [SPEAKER_00]: So there are two, so like I alluded to in the beginning as well, I see patterns and because of it, let’s say our shortening attempt has been also shortening of patience.

    19:43.170 –> 19:57.161

    [SPEAKER_00]: There’s Amazon Prime where everything, where if something takes three to five business days, at least here in the States, to arrive to a customer, that’s considered generations and it can impact customer satisfaction.

    19:58.040 –> 20:04.867

    [SPEAKER_00]: So when Amazon leverage is there, their network for prime delivery, you sort of have to succumb to that.

    20:05.688 –> 20:15.998

    [SPEAKER_00]: And with them now releasing by with prime, directly integrating with TikTok shop and Pinterest and your own Shopify sites or your own D to C sites, not even just Shopify.

    20:16.598 –> 20:20.482

    [SPEAKER_00]: You feel like you’re doing your business at this credit if you don’t give into the Amazon Prime system.

    20:20.662 –> 20:20.762

    [SPEAKER_00]: Now,

    20:21.563 –> 20:24.528

    [SPEAKER_00]: The two levers we have to pull is number one.

    20:24.969 –> 20:27.893

    [SPEAKER_00]: My brother and partner knows their logistics system better than them.

    20:28.555 –> 20:34.344

    [SPEAKER_00]: He knows exactly which time-to-book shipments which carriers to use to get the best rates

    20:35.270 –> 20:40.412

    [SPEAKER_00]: how to switch a certain warehouse or fulfillment center to receive our merchandise, he is completely dedicated to that.

    20:40.952 –> 20:43.933

    [SPEAKER_00]: So that’s one huge advantage I have in my partnership.

    20:44.573 –> 20:46.934

    [SPEAKER_00]: The second is we own our facilities.

    20:47.114 –> 20:52.576

    [SPEAKER_00]: So we’re not using a three PL that’s overcharging us for storage, prep, packing, labor,

    20:53.336 –> 20:55.558

    [SPEAKER_00]: We invested in the two real estate locations.

    20:55.598 –> 20:58.600

    [SPEAKER_00]: We have both as real estate investments and as operations.

    20:59.301 –> 21:06.627

    [SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, I’ve heard horror stories of people renting you holes to go to a three PL, but they’ve hired to just take their stuff out.

    21:06.687 –> 21:09.149

    [SPEAKER_00]: And because somebody wouldn’t answer their email.

    21:09.369 –> 21:10.230

    [SPEAKER_00]: So I mean,

    21:11.351 –> 21:12.752

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s a nightmare that I would never have.

    21:13.092 –> 21:19.737

    [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it comes along with hiring staff dealing with a whole bunch of other headaches that are probably other D to C brands don’t want to deal with.

    21:20.297 –> 21:22.299

    [SPEAKER_00]: But that control is something that I like.

    21:22.579 –> 21:26.421

    [SPEAKER_00]: So when it comes to shipping on their terms, it’s just another dance.

    21:26.902 –> 21:31.985

    [SPEAKER_00]: But my two levers of advantage are number one, my partner who’s completely invested of logistics that Amazon.

    21:32.526 –> 21:34.547

    [SPEAKER_00]: And the second is owning our operation.

    21:35.793 –> 21:54.878

    [SPEAKER_02]: It does strike me as, like, I’m generally speaking a fan of outsourcing ops and, you know, pickback for film and all that kind of stuff because when you’re running a own website business, it becomes a distraction, you know, if you’re doing that, which you can outsource and you can outsource it well when it’s single items.

    21:55.658 –> 22:11.283

    [SPEAKER_02]: But when your business is all about getting the product into Amazon, which is a very complicated end point, you know, correct timing, correct thing, you know, all that complexity they give you, why would you then add a point of weakness on the front end?

    22:11.303 –> 22:16.745

    [SPEAKER_02]: Because there aren’t many fulfillment houses, three PLs that specialize in getting stuff into Amazon.

    22:16.765 –> 22:18.346

    [SPEAKER_02]: And it is a whole different organ.

    22:18.366 –> 22:21.387

    [SPEAKER_02]: So I totally get why you keep that in house.

    22:21.407 –> 22:24.248

    [SPEAKER_02]: And obviously the real estate investment is a nice angle.

    22:25.165 –> 22:29.428

    [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it’s very capital intensive here.

    22:29.528 –> 22:37.232

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s all like capital could have gone into a whole bunch of other things, but it ended up going to the real estate that was just a business decision remade.

    22:38.292 –> 22:42.495

    [SPEAKER_02]: And do you see your future as content?

    22:42.575 –> 22:44.596

    [SPEAKER_02]: And I actually know that, let me not lead you.

    22:44.956 –> 22:50.799

    [SPEAKER_02]: Let me ask, what do you think in the next few years is going to be the key thing for you guys going forward?

    22:51.933 –> 22:58.977

    [SPEAKER_00]: I for sure think that this private label, what I’m quote unquote supposed to do is going to take the lead.

    22:59.797 –> 23:03.759

    [SPEAKER_00]: If done right, if done right, we definitely not the logistic part down.

    23:03.779 –> 23:04.360

    [SPEAKER_00]: I’ll tell you that.

    23:04.800 –> 23:19.668

    [SPEAKER_00]: But the whole telling a brand story and appealing to people’s emotions and calling up with meta-eds that convert and all of that, I think, is the way of the future because, like I said, it gives us the most control and stability.

    23:20.779 –> 23:32.709

    [SPEAKER_00]: But something I’ve been trying to do is getting our D to C side off the ground and I realize I think I was putting the carpet for the horse there because I did nail down the unique value proposition on the brands the very first.

    23:33.310 –> 23:36.092

    [SPEAKER_00]: I think that I have to to get that D to C side off the ground.

    23:36.902 –> 23:44.828

    [SPEAKER_02]: It is so often the case when you’re, I certainly find, if something’s just not coming together, it’s usually because I’ve missed the first step.

    23:45.388 –> 23:53.734

    [SPEAKER_02]: You know, like you get that kind of white page of nightmare and you get, I don’t know what, I don’t know how to, and you try it and you try to build it and you realize you missed a critical step.

    23:53.754 –> 23:59.038

    [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it could, it could well be, maybe once you’ve nailed that brand piece, then you’ll be, you’ll be away.

    23:59.218 –> 23:59.898

    [SPEAKER_00]: I’m open so.

    24:00.739 –> 24:03.901

    [SPEAKER_00]: And listen, I’m not looking, I’m not looking to shrink my Amazon pie.

    24:04.241 –> 24:05.242

    [SPEAKER_00]: My Amazon slice of the pie.

    24:05.282 –> 24:06.383

    [SPEAKER_00]: I’m looking to just grow that pie.

    24:08.212 –> 24:12.955

    [SPEAKER_01]: Ecommerce most Atlanta is supporting by some of the greatest companies in the Ecommerce sector.

    24:13.095 –> 24:14.496

    [SPEAKER_01]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.

    24:25.910 –> 24:32.393

    [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I love this section because because me and our listeners some really quick ideas for taking our business to the next level, Charles, are you ready for the top tips?

    24:32.894 –> 24:33.294

    [SPEAKER_00]: Let’s do it.

    24:33.694 –> 24:34.795

    [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, the book top tip.

    24:34.895 –> 24:41.198

    [SPEAKER_02]: If everyone listening to this podcast agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?

    24:42.307 –> 24:44.310

    [SPEAKER_00]: If we’re talking business book, I say, hands down.

    24:44.670 –> 24:46.533

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s the algebra of wealth by Scott Galloway.

    24:47.254 –> 24:48.356

    [SPEAKER_00]: Scott Galloway is an L.U.

    24:48.376 –> 24:51.139

    [SPEAKER_00]: Stern professor, very successful businessman.

    24:51.440 –> 24:54.264

    [SPEAKER_00]: Surreal entrepreneur has great content.

    24:54.284 –> 24:55.285

    [SPEAKER_00]: He puts out regularly.

    24:56.066 –> 24:56.487

    [SPEAKER_00]: And he

    24:57.408 –> 25:26.615

    [SPEAKER_00]: is just he’s so real when it comes to the data point he gives and it’s just nobody can be the index funds Warren Buffett has a famous bet that plenty of firms got priced out of in the first few years that take your money invested in an index fund don’t look at it and he goes into the science of it I mean sure something’s might have changed now with with crypto and and some private equity firms but nothing is proven better than than his advice I mean

    25:27.775 –> 25:29.836

    [SPEAKER_00]: He gives you advice on how to build your wealth.

    25:30.736 –> 25:41.699

    [SPEAKER_00]: Primarily if you’re young under under thirty or so, but also if you’re above that, he shows you how you can shift your experience.

    25:41.719 –> 25:47.260

    [SPEAKER_00]: So he goes from either learn, gain the experience, and then if you’re in on the older side, thirty plus,

    25:47.964 –> 25:51.766

    [SPEAKER_00]: He goes, you can use that experience in a certain way.

    25:52.286 –> 25:54.328

    [SPEAKER_00]: And when I say work hard, work hard.

    25:55.228 –> 25:58.050

    [SPEAKER_00]: And from there, he lays out the algebra of wealth.

    25:58.750 –> 25:59.150

    [SPEAKER_02]: Very cool.

    25:59.170 –> 26:01.592

    [SPEAKER_02]: Now you said, if I was going to do a business book.

    26:01.632 –> 26:04.133

    [SPEAKER_02]: So is there another book you’ve got thinking in your head?

    26:04.673 –> 26:07.934

    [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, for sure, my favorite book of all time is talk by Michael Sporkanish.

    26:08.554 –> 26:10.294

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s a political thriller, completely fiction.

    26:11.055 –> 26:15.256

    [SPEAKER_00]: And I usually like to beat my chest that I’m a hard worker.

    26:15.716 –> 26:24.738

    [SPEAKER_00]: But I remember taking off one day in the first three or four, maybe even five years of starting this business, because I started that book and I needed to finish it.

    26:25.178 –> 26:29.759

    [SPEAKER_00]: So I took one day off in the very start-up days to finish this book.

    26:30.059 –> 26:32.280

    [SPEAKER_00]: I remember I sat on my phone, poaching up, burned in the sun.

    26:32.420 –> 26:32.900

    [SPEAKER_00]: I remember that.

    26:33.766 –> 26:37.190

    [SPEAKER_02]: That is one hell of a hell of a fiction book recommendation.

    26:37.210 –> 26:41.595

    [SPEAKER_02]: So I will be buying that straight after this because that’s something I need to read.

    26:41.615 –> 26:47.842

    [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, traffic top tip, which marketing method do you either probably above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves?

    26:49.068 –> 26:52.510

    [SPEAKER_00]: funneling people to your website for customer support.

    26:52.831 –> 27:01.456

    [SPEAKER_00]: So when you have an issue with your product, people can go, file a return, people can go, if you’re selling on a marketplace, straight to the marketplace for them to intervene.

    27:02.137 –> 27:18.028

    [SPEAKER_00]: But if you funnel customers to your website where you control the narrative and you control whether they file for a return, whether you give them a return this refund or whether you can generate another sale, maybe within affiliate code, so it lessons the below on your margins.

    27:18.856 –> 27:28.302

    [SPEAKER_00]: You can turn probably very upset customer into a customer that got either free money or less into the blow on your margins.

    27:28.702 –> 27:30.624

    [SPEAKER_00]: So that’s a very underrated marketing flow.

    27:30.664 –> 27:35.767

    [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, that’s nothing like a top of funnel type hack, but I see that as a huge value rate.

    27:36.468 –> 27:41.135

    [SPEAKER_02]: So many people forget the bottom of the funnel and there is, there is so much cool stuff you can do.

    27:41.235 –> 27:42.016

    [SPEAKER_02]: So I love that one.

    27:42.056 –> 27:42.517

    [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.

    27:42.537 –> 27:52.452

    [SPEAKER_02]: Tooltop tip, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plug in a phone app or just a way of working, is there a cool little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day?

    27:53.123 –> 27:56.386

    [SPEAKER_00]: From day to day, we, so we collaborate using HubStep.

    27:56.586 –> 28:03.353

    [SPEAKER_00]: HubStep is something that allows us to collaborate on projects and make sure that we’re in sync up to date.

    28:04.194 –> 28:12.242

    [SPEAKER_00]: For any of those operators out there, it also, let’s say, for my VA and the Philippines, it takes snapshots of their screen to make sure that I’m not being defeated at a time.

    28:12.462 –> 28:14.464

    [SPEAKER_00]: So for those of you out there that I’d appreciate that.

    28:15.386 –> 28:26.217

    [SPEAKER_00]: And primarily, if you’re in the Amazon space, I would say you can’t live without either a helium-tender or a journal scout, or if you’re using repricing feed visor is the way to go.

    28:26.578 –> 28:27.939

    [SPEAKER_00]: Definitely all great tools.

    28:28.640 –> 28:28.960

    [SPEAKER_02]: Nice.

    28:29.000 –> 28:29.361

    [SPEAKER_02]: Love that.

    28:29.381 –> 28:30.302

    [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.

    28:30.402 –> 28:31.543

    [SPEAKER_02]: Carbon top tip.

    28:31.643 –> 28:35.227

    [SPEAKER_02]: What’s your favorite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?

    28:35.950 –> 28:37.971

    [SPEAKER_00]: The best way is packing efficiency.

    28:38.111 –> 28:42.995

    [SPEAKER_00]: When it comes to packing a carton, a poly bag, all the way up to a pallet and a truckload.

    28:43.615 –> 28:47.557

    [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we ship out full truckloads of merchandise and the amount of space we see.

    28:47.938 –> 28:49.399

    [SPEAKER_00]: So simple value it.

    28:50.199 –> 28:53.861

    [SPEAKER_00]: The amount of space on top of a standard stacked pallet is seventy two inches.

    28:54.902 –> 28:57.424

    [SPEAKER_00]: But a double stacked pallet can go up to ninety six inches.

    28:58.405 –> 29:01.126

    [SPEAKER_00]: a trailer height is a hundred and ten inches.

    29:01.967 –> 29:06.129

    [SPEAKER_00]: Why would I ever ship a single stacked pallet?

    29:06.929 –> 29:12.552

    [SPEAKER_00]: There’s a bunch of space being burned in diesel to get to their end destination.

    29:13.252 –> 29:16.534

    [SPEAKER_00]: Just fill up as much as you can and it’s a pretty simple fix.

    29:16.594 –> 29:18.334

    [SPEAKER_00]: Just you’re shipping double the merchandise.

    29:18.634 –> 29:22.136

    [SPEAKER_00]: You’re listening the cost of transportation per unit.

    29:22.776 –> 29:25.518

    [SPEAKER_00]: It helps your margins and helps the environment.

    29:25.538 –> 29:25.998

    [SPEAKER_00]: Why the hell not?

    29:27.155 –> 29:28.337

    [SPEAKER_02]: is the enemy, isn’t it?

    29:28.937 –> 29:29.978

    [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it is.

    29:30.279 –> 29:30.639

    [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it is.

    29:30.699 –> 29:36.284

    [SPEAKER_00]: And for somebody who, I mean, plastic bins were a big part of our business for a while.

    29:37.806 –> 29:38.467

    [SPEAKER_00]: So much air.

    29:39.187 –> 29:39.688

    [SPEAKER_00]: So much air.

    29:39.728 –> 29:40.549

    [SPEAKER_00]: I’m paying the ship air.

    29:40.629 –> 29:41.389

    [SPEAKER_00]: It’s crazy.

    29:41.810 –> 29:44.152

    [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, we did a fix on that.

    29:44.993 –> 29:45.453

    [SPEAKER_02]: Very cool.

    29:45.534 –> 29:50.979

    [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, Charles, before we say goodbye, could you please let listeners know where they can find you and your business on the web and social media?

    29:51.541 –> 29:54.702

    [SPEAKER_00]: So a few months ago, I said to myself, you know, I’m pissed off.

    29:55.142 –> 30:02.603

    [SPEAKER_00]: There are so many agency owners that run newsletters and only give back value to get you on a discovery call or retainer.

    30:03.303 –> 30:05.444

    [SPEAKER_00]: So I said to myself, you know, I’m not going to do that.

    30:05.904 –> 30:09.004

    [SPEAKER_00]: I’m going to put content out there as just a seller.

    30:09.124 –> 30:15.246

    [SPEAKER_00]: So I started just a seller newsletter where I write really what it’s like in my day-to-day life as a business operator.

    30:15.386 –> 30:16.106

    [SPEAKER_00]: I have no agency.

    30:16.806 –> 30:18.466

    [SPEAKER_00]: I don’t decide to upsell you on thing.

    30:18.727 –> 30:21.547

    [SPEAKER_00]: There are affiliate links, but that’s really it.

    30:21.647 –> 30:25.088

    [SPEAKER_00]: I just take a time out to say what it’s like as a business operator.

    30:25.128 –> 30:26.169

    [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, I’m Amazon first.

    30:26.249 –> 30:29.549

    [SPEAKER_00]: I’m also in the D to C space primarily Amazon though.

    30:30.050 –> 30:32.430

    [SPEAKER_00]: And I like to report on it all.

    30:32.650 –> 30:34.991

    [SPEAKER_00]: I go to over twenty or thirty conferences a year.

    30:35.631 –> 30:38.712

    [SPEAKER_00]: I do some speaking and presentations at some of them just as a result.

    30:39.592 –> 30:43.174

    [SPEAKER_00]: And the content I put out is just from that angle.

    30:43.474 –> 30:48.216

    [SPEAKER_00]: I am just a seller and this is what it’s like to do any sort of operation from D to C to Amazon.

    30:49.136 –> 30:50.737

    [SPEAKER_02]: No, it’s very cool everyone.

    30:50.757 –> 31:00.901

    [SPEAKER_02]: So if you want Charles to take on everything that’s going on in Amazon and the industry at the moment head to just a seller newsletter dot com where you can get yourself signed up for that.

    31:01.121 –> 31:04.343

    [SPEAKER_02]: And presumably if they want to get in contact with you, they can do that via that site as well.

    31:04.984 –> 31:05.625

    [SPEAKER_00]: Sure, right there.

    31:06.265 –> 31:06.986

    [SPEAKER_00]: I look at every reply.

    31:07.006 –> 31:09.969

    [SPEAKER_00]: It comes straight to me, not a generic inbox or anything.

    31:10.449 –> 31:11.570

    [SPEAKER_00]: I read everything that comes my way.

    31:11.970 –> 31:15.534

    [SPEAKER_00]: I don’t respond to everything I was on, because I’d be upsold on too many things.

    31:15.594 –> 31:18.837

    [SPEAKER_00]: But that is where you get that from.

    31:19.457 –> 31:22.260

    [SPEAKER_02]: Very cool, which I’ll thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

    31:22.320 –> 31:27.024

    [SPEAKER_02]: It’s been great and fascinating hearing your Amazon and other things journey.

    31:27.044 –> 31:28.145

    [SPEAKER_02]: So thanks so much for being here.

    31:28.726 –> 31:29.186

    [SPEAKER_00]: My pleasure.

    31:29.226 –> 31:29.767

    [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for having me.

    31:35.565 –> 31:56.522

    [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wasn’t it fascinating to jump to the other side of the fence and find out what’s going on for someone who’s so has been so Amazon focused for the last fifteen years, but now, now about to, I guess, enter our world and get worried about brand and all those things, loads of cool pieces of advice in there around the logistics and obviously around Amazon and other elements.

    31:56.563 –> 31:58.124

    [SPEAKER_02]: So thoroughly enjoyed my chat with Charles.

    31:58.624 –> 32:06.573

    [SPEAKER_02]: You can get your hands on our notes from this episode, including those top tips and links to the things we mentioned by heading over to the website, ecommercemasterplanned.com.

    32:07.034 –> 32:13.981

    [SPEAKER_02]: You can also go direct the right page on the website by using the shortcode, ECMP.info forward slash the number of this episode.

    32:14.902 –> 32:17.643

    [SPEAKER_02]: Once you get to the website, why not add yourself to our email list?

    32:17.683 –> 32:19.004

    [SPEAKER_02]: You know you want to.

    32:19.384 –> 32:19.664

    [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

    32:20.425 –> 32:30.450

    [SPEAKER_02]: If you liked this episode, then you really should go and check out our recent Marketplace series on our sister podcast, keep optimizing.

    32:30.950 –> 32:32.651

    [SPEAKER_02]: We finished releasing it last week.

    32:33.271 –> 32:35.512

    [SPEAKER_02]: And it really builds on this episode.

    32:35.572 –> 32:44.475

    [SPEAKER_02]: There’s five whole episodes about growing your marketplace sales, including how to improve your Amazon conversion rates, how to grow your marketplace sales.

    32:44.615 –> 32:49.716

    [SPEAKER_02]: Generally, how to decide what marketplace to be on loads of good stuff across those five episodes.

    32:49.756 –> 32:54.138

    [SPEAKER_02]: That’s available right now on keep optimizing, just search for you keep optimizing, you’ll find it.

    32:54.918 –> 33:00.660

    [SPEAKER_02]: And if you want more episodes about home ones, then head to ECMP.info for slash home.

    33:01.600 –> 33:06.302

    [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for tuning into this in every episode that you do of the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.

    33:06.362 –> 33:17.146

    [SPEAKER_02]: I bring you a new interview every week because I want to inspire and help Ecommerce business owners just like you to succeed and thrive with your businesses, including progressing along that path to net zero.

    33:17.646 –> 33:23.068

    [SPEAKER_02]: So if you know someone they show can help, please tell them to listen to the Ecommerce Master Plan podcast.

    33:23.468 –> 33:26.089

    [SPEAKER_02]: I hope you have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.

    33:29.367 –> 33:32.649

    [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the ecommerce Master Plan podcast.

    33:33.130 –> 33:37.913

    [SPEAKER_01]: Find out more at ecommercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.

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    eCommerce Master PlanBy Chloe Thomas