Episode 013
On today’s episode we break down getting your products from the factory in China to your (Amazon’s) warehouse in the U.S. We will go over common shipping terms and share our strategies and partners we use and trust.
Resources from this episode:
Free Freight rate calculator – https://www.freightos.com/freight-tools/freight-rate-calculator-free-tool/
Tarriff lookup with HS code: https://hts.usitc.gov/
www.Firing The Man.com
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Ken (00:00):
Crucial aspect, but once you have it down, then it’s kind of like a, it’s part of your system.
David (00:06):
Instead of negotiating on a per unit price, let’s negotiate on on shipping.
Ken (00:11):
The EXW is really common and that’s how you can really get lower pricing.
David (00:16):
Think that my brain always comes back to is the numbers and profitability.
Ken (00:20):
If you allow your supplier to bake in the shipping cost, you’re essentially giving them kind of a little bit of wiggle room to Jack the margin up. Right?
David (00:31):
In my recent experience, tariffs have been a real sneaky son of a bitch.
Intro (00:35):
Welcome everyone to the www.firingtheman.com Podcast, a show for anyone who wants to be their own boss. If you sit in a cubicle every day and know you were capable of more than join us, this show will help you build a business and grow your passive income streams in just a few short hours per day. And now your host serial entrepreneurs, David Schomer and Ken Wilson,
David (00:59):
welcome everyone to the firingtheman.com podcast. Today we are talking about sourcing products from overseas. Now, Ken, when I first met you, I quickly realized that you have a black belt in sourcing products from overseas. And I don’t know if you remember this day was the first time we got together at this time. I had very little experience with sourcing products from China and elsewhere. And you sat me down at your computer and you showed me how you do it. You showed me a couple of programs that you were using. You know, one thing that stands out in particular was you had had some product on the way and there was a diagram on this program you’re using that showed exactly where in the ocean the ship was in how many days it was going to take to get to port. And so like I mentioned, you have your black belt in, uh, in sourcing things from overseas. And I think when it comes to an appropriate person to talk about this topic, man, you’re the man. So, uh, talk to me like he talked to me that day as, as somebody that, that was new to this and really didn’t know what I was doing. You know how we find a product overseas? Now what? How do we get it here?
Ken (02:13):
So there’s a lot of stuff going on there and you need to find resources and hire experts to help you. So at the end of the day, you know, if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, how can I get something from China to the U S you know, it’s not that bad. We’re on the show today. We’re going to break down at a high level. What you do need to know what you do need to understand and the resources that will help you.
Ken (02:39):
I’d like to start with, you know, kind of whenever I discuss a topic, and when I’m thinking about something, I like to visualize stuff. So when we’re talking about products, getting a product from China to the U S on today’s show, let’s, let’s try to visualize a soccer ball. All right? My son play soccer. I play soccer. Everybody knows what a soccer is, right? It’s yay big. If you’re watching on YouTube, it’s this big, right? So soccer balls, right? And you can fit four for today’s demonstration or for today’s show, you know, you can fit eight soccer balls and one box or, or in, in China, they, they refer to them as cartons, right? So you get eight of them, one box so everybody can visualize a box with eight soccer balls. So that’s what we’re going to be talking about. That’s kind of what we’re going to reference today.
Ken (03:29):
There is a good reference that I, that I found when I was researching this. I’m gonna, I’m gonna read it to, it’s a good explanation, that I want to touch on before we even dive deeper in. And then so, uh, considering that freight is one of the most substantial supplemental costs for your products, you simply can’t afford to ignore it. Ignore it. If you want to guard your profit margins and as we all know, you know, you, we just did a show earlier on know your numbers and you know, what, what is your favorite saying margin, right? You know? Yeah. So shipping is crucial, right? So I just wanted to kind of touch on that, that this is a crucial aspect, but once you have it down, then it’s kind of like a, in part of your system. It just kinda goes in and goes out, right?
Ken (04:16):
The magic money machine and getting products from China to the U S there are three, let’s just say three main modes of transportation you have express, which is an airplane normally is three to five days. You know, that’s the, that’s the fastest way you can get something. It’s also the most expensive way to get something here so you can use, so what I normally use that for is very light. Our small products that are cheap, especially when I’m launching them. I want them here now so I can start selling them right? But it’s the most expensive. The next is air freight, which is a little a lot cheaper than air express, but more, it’s in the middle range. More expensive than sea. And air freight normally takes, you know, five to 10 days in that range. And then you have the sea shipping sea shipping accounts for 90% of all freight from China.
Ken (05:18):
Oh yeah. I’ll say that again. And I, and I pulled that statistic from Freightos. So sea shipping accounts for 90% of all freight coming from China to the U S and there are, uh, two modes or let’s say, uh, let’s, okay, so everybody knows what a shipping container is. Right. Okay. So if not, you’ve probably seen these big metal boxes on a put in a port.
David (05:43):
You know, I th what’s coming to my mind is a Captain Phillips with Tom Hanks. Have you seen the movie? I haven’t. It’s where he gets it’s great movie. And to our listeners, that’s a great movie. He gets captured by Somalian pirates, but has one of these giant cargo ships with all those giant boxes. Oh yeah, yeah. Okay. And uh, and the somali they go, I am the captain now. And uh, Oh, it’s a great movie. So anyway, I was just thinking about that.
Ken (06:10):
If you’re listening and you don’t know to shipping containers is, go watch the movie Captain Phillps, David said, um, if not, you’ve probably seen them. They’re colorful or you know a big metal box, right? That’s a shipping container. And they come in two standard lengths. They’re a 20 foot or 40 foot and all of them are eight foot wide and the majority are eight and a half foot tall. And some of them you can actually order that a little bit taller, nine and a half feet. So, so just kind of picture that 20 foot or 40 foot eight foot wide, eight and a half foot tall. And that’s, that’s a shipping container. And the two modes of sea shipping are LCL and an FCL and LCL is less than a container load. So if you are shipping I’ll reference the soccer balls. So if you, if you bought 80 soccer balls, you sourced 80 soccer balls.
Ken (07:03):
And we said there were what we said there were four and in each box. So what is that? 20 boxes. So you bought 20 boxes of soccer balls. You would, that would be an, and if you are shipping it by sea, that would be LCL less than a container load, right? Cause if you had a 40 foot container and you and you walked in 20 boxes and set them down, wouldn’t fill that container would it? It would just probably be a 10th of the way. And then they would sell the rest of that space in that container to someone else. FCL is full container load. Let’s say you bought, you know, 4,000 soccer balls. So you had a thousand boxes of four soccer balls in each, right? That would fill up container, maybe two containers. That would be a full container load. So those are terms that you’ll hear and you know, those are terms that you should understand.
Ken (07:51):
You should, you know, there are tools out there. We’ll put some tools in the show notes that you can go and calculate. You know, if you put in the size of one of your boxes and it will tell you how many of those boxes you can fit into a full container. So you can kind of calculate that. It’s pretty easy. But just so you can wrap your head around. Those are the physical dimensions and 90% of freight goes by sea. So 90% of what are talking about is about these containers. So it’s kind of a crucial point. Next, I want to move into some of the more, you know, I guess, I don’t want to say complex, they’re not really, but a lot of the stuff that tripped me up when I first started researching this and I and I, I was seeing all these acronyms and all this other crap and I’m like, what is this?
Ken (08:32):
Like, this is crazy. So I’m going to go into three acronyms for the shipping expressions that end. These are the three that I always deal with. I have seen other ones that I have used, but these are the main three. If you’re starting out, if you understand these, you’ll be just fine. So, and we want to keep it simple. I like to kiss theory, you know, I want to keep it simple stupid that like this is literally the top three that you’ll probably come into contact with when you’re starting out and what you should understand. So though, and they’re called uh, Inco terms, which stands for international commercial terms. So their standards in the world, everyone uses the same standards. First one that we want to talk about is EXW or a lot of people call it X works. And so let me back up for a second.
Ken (09:21):
So you know, if I go a place, I found that I find a supplier in China and I test out all these soccer balls, I signed a contract, find a good supplier, sign a contract. And on this one, whenever we’re negotiating the contract, the suppliers going to send over a proforma invoice, like a, a test invoice of, Hey, this is what we’re offering you. And then on that I’m invoiced, you’re going to see shipping terms said, they’re like the supplier’s going to say, okay, you purchase a thousand soccer balls at this price and here’s the terms for shipping. And it’s going to be either EXW, FOB or DDP, like those are the top three that we’re going to discuss today. Once you know those shipping terms, you know, okay, how much more it’s going to take you to get that to the U S okay.
Ken (10:08):
So let’s say for instance, the first one EXW or X works the, you buy a thousand soccer balls from the supplier and they say, okay, the shipping terms EXW. Okay, so we’ll just go over X works. And what, what that definition of X works is basically you have to go to the warehouse, your suppliers warehouse and get those goods and pick them up. They’ll make them, they’ll put them on pallets, they’ll get them all ready and they’ll be at the factory waiting.
David (10:40):
In your experience, how common is that?
Ken (10:42):
It’s very common. When I, whenever I’m, I’m using my own freight forwarder, like the, the EXW is, is really common in, that’s how you can really get lower pricing.
Ken (10:56):
Uh, the next one that I see a lot, and I have used this quite a bit as well as FOB and some people call it free on board. Some people call it freight on board. And this is where, you know, if your supplier is in, say, outside of the city, outside of the port, they will build your products, palletize them and they’ll load them on a truck or however and get them to the port. They’ll take them down to the port, drop them off, and then you’re responsible from, from there,
David (11:26):
Now this may be a stupid question, but port is the sea?
Ken (11:31):
uh, let me back up a little bit. So the port is where the container ships their ships that they load containers on and then they flood them across the ocean. The port is where those ships come into port, get loaded and leave.
Ken (11:43):
Okay. Come in, drop off containers that go to China, load up new containers and leave. So the port is where all that action happens. So FOB again, the supplier would manufacture, the factory would take it down to the port, drop it off. You would you’re responsible from there. And the last one, the last one’s the easiest one. Uh, I really liked using this one. Uh, I, if I, if I can get good terms for it, it’s called DDP and DDP stands for delivery with duties paid. So in another sense that you know, the supplier will deliver it wherever you want, wherever you tell them to. And with all duties paid. So when you’re first starting out, if you can get these terms, if you have a small product, you know, you can express ship it DDP, they’ll like that. That’s the easiest route to go. And, and you won’t need a freight forwarder or any of that stuff. Now, David, as we’re going through this, what kind of questions do you have?
David (12:44):
One thing that my brain always comes back to is the numbers and profitability and margin, right? I think I might get a margin tattoo. I just say it on every episode. But you know, one thing that I’m thinking about is, is there an opportunity for negotiation here? So, for instance, uh, there is a situation that is DDP, which you were talking about, that is the easiest for you as the buyer. In my mind, that’s presumably the most difficult for the supplier, right? Is that fair to say? They’re, they’re doing a lot of leg work for you and you’re paying for it, right? Right. I would think that there may be, and it may be just worth bringing up to your supplier, is instead of negotiating on a per unit price, let’s negotiate on, on shipping because at the end of the day, dollars dollar, right? And so, uh, you know, when you’re first getting started off, DDP may be an awesome option for you, however, and you’re going to get into this using freight forwarders and whatnot. As you get more experienced here, this may be, this may present an opportunity for you to pick up some margin and be more profitable. Would you agree?
Ken (13:56):
Yeah, absolutely. So when you’re first starting out, you can allow the supplier to ship your goods for you, or you can hire your own freight forwarder. So allowing the supplier to ship your goods business is competitive, right? And your suppliers going to try to make margin at any corner that they can. So if you allow your supplier to bake in the shipping costs, you’re, you’re essentially giving them kind of a little bit of wiggle room to Jack the margin up. Right. And, and in my, in my case, in my experience, I’ve seen that happen quite a bit. So if you can, if you have control of the shipping, you eliminate the, any of that, any of that funniness right.
David (14:42):
What I’m hearing, what I’m hearing and tell me if this is correct, understanding what you’re talking about right now during negotiation can help you enhance profitability.
Ken (14:53):
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Yeah. If you’re comfortable with, you know, those, those Inco terms that we went over in, in how you’re going to get your goods from China to the U S and, and, and you don’t have to rely on your supplier or, or even if you’re just really comfortable and you understand this, you’re going to save money.
David (15:10):
Okay. In this, and this is kind of the inverse of my last question, but if your supplier says to you, don’t worry about shipping, I, I got it all taken care of, it’s going to arrive. Is it fair to say that they’re charging you for that convenience somehow?
Ken (15:28):
Yeah, absolutely. They’re there. I mean, I can’t speak for all suppliers, but in my experience that they’re gonna, they’re gonna Mark that up a little bit now. Uh, you know, as you develop a relationship with your supplier, they, they probably won’t Mark it up as much, but there’ll be markup and you know, and, and you won’t have a competitive rate, right? If you, if you go out and search for a competitive rate, you’re going to be in a much better shape than, um, you know, having your supplier do that. But also, I have found that in some cases, you know, the, the shipping rates quoted to the Chinese supplier might be cheaper. Right. I have one supplier that has a, I guess it’s a really cheap shipping contract with DHL or whoever, and you know, but that’s pretty rare. So in my experience, the more I can control of the shipping better off I am.
Ken (16:21):
Let’s say we are, you know we ordered 8,000 soccer balls and we got EXW terms, right? So we got the best possible pricing. We negotiated a price, you know they wanted a dollar 50 a soccer ball. We negotiated it down to a $1.10 and there and they agreed, okay, that’s fine. We’ll give you the soccer balls for dollar 10 we’re going to do that at EXW. So they’re going to make them palletize them all up at the factory and then they’re going to wash their hands and then they’re going to be done, right? So what would you do? Like, okay, well I got a thousand soccer balls sitting in a factory. So there’s a, you hire an expert, right? That’s what I do and I want to do something I don’t understand that hire an expert in this specific field are called freight forwarders. Now, there are a lot of, there are probably dozens of complex transactions that a freight forwarder does that I don’t understand.
Ken (17:16):
I don’t want to understand. I have no interest in doing that. So I pay a freight forwarder, freight forwarder. They call the factory and they say, Hey, you know, I’m going to come over, uh, where are you located? I’m going to be there at this date and time. They coordinate trucking, they drive to the factory, they load up your products, they drive it down to the port, they schedule you space on a container ship. They get it loaded, they get it through customs. They, everything loaded on the boat. They ship it over to the U S goes to the port, clear customs, they move it to whatever, you know, last mile. Say you’re going, you’re landing in a port in LA and you need it to go to a warehouse in Indiana. The freight forwarder, they take it off the boat, clear customs, they put it on a truck, drive it to Indiana scheduled delivery. That, what a freight forwarder does.
David (18:10):
You know, when, when I think of all the hurdles of getting some, you know, uh, a shipment of products, you know, halfway around the world, you know, they, they’ve got to navigate all types. You know, planes, trains and automobiles, right on, on how to get it to you. They’ve got to navigate a language barrier, a or potentially multiple language barriers. Uh, but they’re there. Would you say it’s fair to say that, that the freight forwarder is kind of the quarterback? Yeah, absolutely. They’re running the show. Is there, so in your business hiring a freight forwarder, the juice has been worth the squeeze. Is that fair?
Ken (18:48):
Yeah, absolutely. You know, like we were talking earlier, the quote from, I think it was Dean Graziosi cut a check to get ahead. So in this, in this instance, you know, I could go out and research all of this. I could maybe go out getting, get a customs bond and I could hot, you know, I could call a trucking company and go have it. I could coordinate all this myself. Right. I’d probably spend 20 hours doing that and where a freight forwarder spends 20 minutes, cause they know how all of that. So you can cut a check to get ahead on this. So you hire a freight forwarder and they’d do it all for you.
David (19:22):
I think the other thing that’s worth mentioning is those freight forwarding companies already have relationships with trucking companies. And so, you know, take Freightos.com For example, they probably have hundreds if not thousands of long-term contracts with giant trucking operations. And so they can get preferred pricing, whereas you can the individual, you don’t have those long-term contracts. And so, you know, hiring a freight forwarder may give you some bargaining power, you know, through your freight forwarder, if that makes any sense.
Ken (19:54):
Yeah, no, that’s absolutely correct. And yeah, you’re pretty much, you know, purchasing experience and connections. Right now we’re taping this podcast in a, well, it’s actually Valentine’s day 2020 February, 14 2020 and you know, we have the, the wonderful Trump tariffs, you know, as everybody calls them. And that’s huge, right? So right now it’s impacting everybody’s business when you import goods from China, which most of my products are coming from China. So it’s something I really have to deal with and when I’m importing them, you know, got to pay the, you know, I think right now, today it’s a 25% Like, I, I believe I researched off marketpulse.com. The 75% of goods coming in from China are covered under tariffs right now. Uh, most of mine are at a 25% rate. And then I believe there’s another 5% for you know, whatever else.
Ken (20:49):
So 30%. And there’s a couple of tools that I’d like to share. So, so one of the acronyms, you hear it. So tariffs, how, how would you know if your product’s soccer ball right? And that’s our product of the day. If soccer ball, how would you know if a soccer ball is covered under the tariffs? If you have to pay the 25%? Well, there’s a thing called a HTS code or an HS code and is harmonized tariff schedule and it’s basically, uh, categories of products. So you have to go and cross reference your product and look at the HS code and then go to the government’s website and find out if it’s tagged on one of the tariffs. So, pretty complicated stuff, but we have some resources we’re going to put in the show notes. Uh, there’s a, we have an HS code lookup tool and then we have the government website where you can go and take your HS code, plug it in and see if it’s covered for tariffs or not. They’re all these tools and links are going to be in the show notes.
Ken (21:41):
The other thing I want to cover is documents. So anytime you uh, you as a, you as an importer, you know, you’re the importer, you need documents. And the two documents that I’ve always needed to book and schedule shipments as a packing list and a commercial invoice. So the packing list is going to cover exactly your physical space that you’re going to need, right? So the freight forwarder takes that. And let’s say for our instance we bought a thousand soccer balls, right? So you fit four, four in a box or what? I say eight in a box, I forgot already. So the freight forwarder sees that, okay, he bought a thousand soccer balls and he has, you know, 400 boxes of this size and the freight forwarder look can look at that packing list and go reserve space on a container based off of that packing list.
Ken (22:29):
And a commercial invoice is, is what they’re going to use for the tariffs. They’re going to say, okay, you bought X amount of dollars, X amount of product, here’s your products, X amount of dollars. And uh, you know, the freight forwarder is going to have to use that for the import. So those two documents are that, that’s what I have needed to, you know, to use to schedule ship shipments.
David (22:52):
I don’t know if this has happened to you, but in my recent experience, tariffs have been a real sneaky son of a bitch. They have showed up six weeks after I’ve received my product, uh, billed to my warehouse. And that’s been, that’s been a surprise to me that that’s where it’s an example of me not doing the front end work and figuring out how much the tariff was and then being surprised after the fact.
Ken (23:16):
I’m really glad you brought that up because I call it a sleeper. You know, it’s like a sleeper. When you’re having a great day, da da da, you get an email and it’s like a double digit whammy. Like, Hey, I have this tariff bill due and you’re exactly right. You know? Um, and I’m glad you brought it up. I, I like talking about our, our, what people would call mistakes are learning opportunities, right? So then, so then in your next shipment you probably were like, you know what, I need to build this into the cost. Right. And I’ve, I’ve had that happen lot and normally when you import the, the shipping company will have to pay that and they’ll bill you for it and then you have to pay them back. So, and if you order soccer balls, you know, February 14th it’s going to take them 30 days to make it another, you know, five weeks to get it across the ocean. When you import it and you know April 1st then the tariffs are due then so you could order something and then not pay tariff for six or eight weeks when, when it’s imported in.
David (24:17):
If you listen to the last firingtheman.com Podcast, we talked about understanding your costs. And I did think I had understood my costs. I’d heard about these Trump tariffs on the news, but I thought on it, doesn’t it? I’m just, I’m just a little guy that does not apply to me. Yeah, sure. Shit it does. So, Ken, at the beginning of the episode, I mentioned that when you and I first got together, you showed me on your computer this program that shows you exactly where your sea shipments are and gives you an estimate of when they’re going to arrive at port. Can you talk a little bit more about that? What is that program and how do you use it in your business?
Ken (24:55):
Yeah, sure. So all of this stuff we covered, you know, all of the Inco terms, all of the, you know, DDP and HS codes and all of that stuff. It’s good to know. Uh, but at the end of the day, I use Freightos.com And it is a, a marketplace for, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a competitive marketplace for freight forwarders to bid on shipments, right? So, and it provides a portal, like I, like we discussed earlier, the more I can control the shipping or more, you can control your own shipping, the better off you’re going to be. Right. If, and, and Freightos is marketplaces is where I choose to go and you know, and I’ll, it’s very easy. Uh, and the show notes, I’ll put a couple of links and they have a, they have a free shipment calculator tool you can put in, you know, our 800 soccer balls you put in the, the weight and the size and the size of the boxes of the, of your products.
Ken (25:51):
And it calculates your shipping and then, and then you can, and then it goes out and it puts it on the open marketplace and all the freight forwarders will bid on your shipment so you’ll get competitive rates. So it’s a, it’s a great a marketplace. I really like them. They’ve evolved quite a bit since I started using them, you know, two and a half years ago and they’ve gotten better. Uh, their, their customer support’s pretty strong. And like you mentioned, you know, they have a portal where you, you know, you book a shipment, all the communications done inside the portal. Freight forwarder will email you, they’ll leave comments in there, Hey, can you, you know, upload your documents, your packing list, your, you know, your commercial invoice, you pay through the portal and it has, uh, a nice little dashboard where you can see the boat kind of taken off at the, at the port.
Ken (26:34):
I don’t know if they have GPS or not or I don’t know how advanced it is, but it gives me a peace of mind to know, okay, the boats left a port had got out of the country. Right. And it shows you it on a map and it’ll tell you, okay, it’s arrived at, you know, LA port. And then it’s, it’s clearing costums. So it kind of gives you a breakdown of where your products are throughout the shipping and life cycle. Whereas if you turn that over to a supplier and they’re shipping your products, you don’t know you’re waiting, you know, you’re kind of left out in the dark.
David (27:04):
So I’d kind of like, so you’ve mentioned that you use Freightos for most of your overseas shipping. I’d like to do a little role play here and, and I will be a supplier trying to earn a couple extra bucks in and you’d just be Ken.
Ken (27:19):
Sure.
David (27:19):
You’d just be Ken that likes Freightos.com. Hey Ken, I’ve got your, uh, your order all finished up and uh, you know, I’m going to take care of shipping. We’re going to do, DDP don’t even worry about it. It’s going to show up at your front door. What would you counter it with?
Ken (27:34):
I would say, okay. You know, I need the, the um, commercial invoice and I would get the commercial invoice and the packing list and then I would go to Freightos.com Portal and I would plug in the contents of that shipment and I would send it out for a competitive quote. And now, and I, and you can on Freightos.com portal, you can quote express air, freight air and sea shipping. So you know, and you can buy entire containers and they also have a special portal for FBA shipping into Amazon’s warehouse.
Ken (28:09):
So I would take that, go in there and measure the price. If the price is similar, then maybe I, maybe the supplier, I let this a buyer ship that, right. If it’s easier or if the rate’s better, maybe that’s a way to save money. Right. And then at least I know if it’s competitive, right or not. And if, you know, they wanted to charge double, I said, no thanks, I’ll, I’ll do the shipping. And then, you know, I book it through Freightos.com and send my own freight forwarder and then I can track it. How long would it take you to check that price? 10 seconds. You plug in your information, how many cartons you have, what’s the weight and the size of cartons and w you know, and then you just, you send it off, it’ll tell it automatically. Tell you what’s the price for express air freight, air, you know, air freight and sea shipping. So 30 seconds.
David (28:53):
I’m glad that you’re sharing this awesome information with our listeners. There’s a part of me, when you said 10 seconds or 30 seconds that my heart just dropped. I’ve got a supplier who’s a re, he’s a real smooth sir. And he always says, Hey, I’ll take care of shipping. I’ll just throw it, you know, a little extra on the invoice. And, and I’m wondering how much he’s overcharging me. And at the very least on my next order, I’m gonna spend the 30 seconds and see if I’m getting ripped off.
Ken (29:21):
You know, one, one other resource. And it’s something, it’s kind of a, maybe a pro tip. And you had touched on it on a previous episode, but since we’re talking about shipping, I definitely want to go into this a little bit. And it’s, you know, if you order, we ordered eight, 800 soccer balls, right? And we’re selling them yet and we want to start selling them as quickly as possible. You know, we might want to, we might want to carve off, you know, a hundred of those 800 soccer balls. We might want to ship them Express DDP and then we might want to ship the other 700 by sea. So if you are controlling that, you know, you could do that a lot easier. Or maybe even, you know, since it’s a small amount, you, you could have the supplier ship them but, but you, but that is a way to be, you know, get to market faster.
Ken (30:11):
Everything is about getting to market faster and saving cost, right? So if you’re, let’s say, say a cost you a dollar a piece to ship soccer balls, you know, that would be $800 to ship all of them by air. And if it costs 10 cents a piece to ship the soccer balls by sea, you know, you could ship 800 for what? 80 bucks, right? So, uh, 880 bucks is a quite a bit of different, that’s a lot of margin, right? That’s huge. That’s huge. $720 in margin, right? So if you carved off a hundred and shipped them by air, that’s only a hundred dollars. And then you send the other 700 by sea, that’s 70 bucks. So you spend 170 bucks on shipping, and you’re to market quicker like you’re at to market in, in five days or seven days versus six weeks.
David (31:04):
Ken, at a recent mastermind, you had mentioned an Amazon hack that saves you some money on the tail end of, of a product’s journey from overseas, specifically when it gets to the United States. Can you share that?
Ken (31:16):
I can’t say that it works every time, but I can say that it works. I’ve tried it and I use it. Uh, so let’s say you’re, you know, you’re shipping, you bought 8,000 soccer balls, you loaded them on a boat and China and your supplier say, Hey, they’re, they’re ready to go. And you create your Amazon shipment, right? When you create your shipment, put your ship from address as your list to say your, let’s just say hypothetically you have a warehouse in Los Angeles, that’s where the products are. Just put that, that address as Los Angeles and Amazon will likely route your shipment to the West coast tour, to a warehouse close to Los Angeles. So, so then that’s going to save you on cost. So if you’re shipping a, you know, a container from China to Los Angeles and then, and then trucking it to a warehouse that’s, you know, 10, 20 miles, that’s super cheap.
Ken (32:10):
If you put your, you know, Chinese suppliers warehouse on there that you’re shipping it from and Amazon decides, Hey, we’re going to send those 8,000 soccer balls to Philadelphia, well then you’re likely going to have to, you know, port on the East coast or you’re going to have to port and then drive it across the country in a truck. So it’s just a way to be a lot more efficient and hopefully save you, save you some money, put it on Amazon.
David (32:38):
That’s awesome. That’s, that’s awesome. That’s an awesome hack. And I think that’s within the terms of service. You know, it’s uh, that’s, that’s where your products are at that point in time. They, in Los Angeles. Yeah,
David (32:51):
OK Ken so for all of our listeners that have listened to what you’ve had to say and their head is spinning, you know, they’ve heard all these acronyms, you know, DDP, is that diet dr pepper is that diamond Dallas page? You know what, what is that for those people that are saying, you know, screw this, I, I’m not going to source from China. That sounds way too complicated. I’m just going to source locally. What would you tell that person?
Ken (33:14):
I would say, you know, take a deep breath. Relax. It’s not, it’s not that hard. Uh, you know, I’m going to package everything up. What we talked about today. I’m going to button it up in a download. All the links, all the shortcuts, all the tools we talked about is going to be a download – www.Firingtheman.com/shipping
David (33:33):
Thank you everyone for tuning in to today’s firingtheman.com Podcast. If you liked this episode, head on over to firingtheman.com and check out our resource library for exclusive firing the man discounts on popular e-commerce subscription services that is www.firingtheman.com/resource. You can also find a comprehensive library of over 50 books that Ken and I have read in the last few years that have made a meaningful impact on our business or that head on over to www.firingtheman.com/library lastly, check us out on social media at Firing The Man on YouTube at Firing The Man for exclusive content. This is David Schomer and Ken Wilson. We’re out