S3 E11 How to find hidden profit in your ecommerce supply chain

Growing your e-commerce business internationally is exciting, but watching your profit margins get squeezed tighter behind the scenes can feel overwhelming. If you have ever looked at your landed costs and wondered why you are working twice as hard just to make the same net profit, you are not alone. Many e-commerce sellers reach this point when they start expanding; the opportunity is there, but the purchasing and supply chain rules behind the scenes feel unclear.  

The challenge is that shipping rates fluctuate, import tariffs shift, and default manufacturing hubs get more expensive, which means your real money is getting lost in purchasing before your products even reach the warehouse. 

In this episode, we sit down with Sebastian of Zignify  to look at the other side of the retail equation. We walk through how to step away from micro-optimizing your listings and start treating global product sourcing as your ultimate commercial growth lever.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hello everyone and welcome or welcome back to the newest episode of the online hassle podcast. My name is Hallet, and today we're going to be talking with a very special guest, a very dear friend of us, a partner of ours, Sebastian Hurt from Signify today with me. And we're going to be talking about one of the things that should be on top of your list when you're talking about business and e-commerce, and that is sourcing. Sebastian, thanks for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Thank you for having us once again. And uh well, biggest shout out over there to the Awask team.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Thank you so much. Thank you for always obviously jumping in and helping we need you and uh for all the information you provide to us. For anyone who is new and uh is just tuning in, can you tell us a little bit more about you and what the business you founded does?

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Uh sure. I mean, for myself, background is I have a few companies by now. I'm also an Amazon seller. I've got two own brands together with my better half. Um, but the major business for us is dignified global product sourcing. So having our own e-commerce businesses selling on Amazon, selling in big box retail or high street stores. Um, I think the most important thing for us, the biggest company, is that we help with sourcing. Finding manufacturers, reducing, reducing purchasing cost, helping sellers make more money out of the existing product, while staying, of course, compliant and getting the same or better quality. So that's the thing of find the best suppliers worldwide, reduce the cost, check that quality is, of course, uh what is needed. And this way, you know, this is where we go hand in hand with Avasque, help the sellers make more profit.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Of course. And it's an interesting thing for people listening is that we we had a brief discussion earlier, and we'll just talk how everything is just a chain that gets followed. So obviously, you're sourcing your products depending on how much money you spend on this, then you have to account for the tax you pay on it, and obviously you have to build all this cost. And this is what a business like Sebastian can help you do. They will be able to see if your sourcing solution is really the best and then is the most cost effective because everything, everything starts from there pretty much, and correct me if I'm wrong, based on how much you're paying for your products, that's the head start of everything. The real money is made in purchasing, right? And obviously, I presume from your case, being a business owner on uh on your own, you can very much relate to your customers when it comes to advising to choices, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah, I mean obviously look at I mean if you're selling your product, you know, you're selling the same amount of products. You continuously sell whatever one of my products sells like two and a half thousand times a year. Um calculate this up. This is what, like 30,000 units, or let's say I'm selling 30,000 products a year, what if I spend one dollar less in purchasing? I got $30,000 more on profit, right? If I make $30 revenue, it's not another $30,000 more profit because taxes, like you say, and everything else, of course, subtracts from the $30k. So, yes, I mean if you have the same quality, if you have a product in demand and you spend less, that's immediate profit.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

A small decision or a small a small dollar dollar or a small euro can make such a big difference, and obviously that's in this is why it's important for people to get in contact with company like yours and to be directed in the in the right location. So obviously, how old is Zignify now?

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Well, officially Zignify, let me guess. I think we're like four and a half years into the run. Um I better have, though, she has been doing sourcing and purchasing all her life long. So that's years, but don't tell her. I told you.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Yeah. I assume obviously during those four years you've seen we've seen changes all the time, pretty much on a monthly basis in our world. Is it anything like um a common misconception you had before you started this of how would it be to be directly in the field?

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Well, if I'm thinking back like 12 years when I started my first business, which was originally I started building brands, right? Selling on Amazon, selling in retail. Um right now, of course, it's a lot tougher. Right now you have so much more competition, even though it goes away a little bit, right? The corona times, there were massive, so many sellers out there, so much competition. Now things are slowing down. Um I think the misconception that I had in the very beginning, it sounds like, oh, I'm doing the max that I can. I'm thinking back right now, 10, 12 years. I should have just invested all that money wild, wild west back then. Not much competition. You could sell pretty much anything. Um I think the misconception right now is still that you know there's a massive amount of there is a massive amount of competition, but I feel, I mean, now it's equaling out, now it's sorting out. Um you do have the big sellers, but there's still potential to of course get started, whether in Amazon or in any of the other markets, um, as long as you have good products, as long as you have USPs, um you can stand out. I think one of the misconceptions is oh, I'm just starting this product and I'll be successful. No. Stop doing Me Too products, right? One of my products is like a blocker card which you put in a wallet that protects your wallet against RFID theft. This is just such a Me Too product. You get it from the next supplier, print your logo on there, and that's it. So that is obviously something you should not do in today's world anymore because you have a hundred competitors. If you set yourself out with some specific, some better product than the market offers, um you will be successful if the market, of course, wants those changes.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

We touch basis in a in a couple of podcasts on like how things have, besides obviously, industry changes overall, and as we're saying, obviously, rules, regulations, and everything else, but how things that were, I would say, relevant even five years ago when we're talking uh during COVID times are suddenly not as relevant anymore because things and mentality have changed, and we're talking from both perspectives, both sellers and buyers. And in your case, when a new brand comes to you, what what is one of the not necessarily wrong, but do they come up with some expectations which cannot be met immediately? Do you will find yourself in a situation like this often?

SPEAKER_00 6:22

I think people are too stuck on thinking of it must be from that country or China must be like the the country of production. Um I think one of the things that are still there, like again, the term misconception, is that China is the cheapest country. It isn't. I mean, by long time not anymore. There's many other cheaper countries than China, but you still do go to China for production because the prices are okay. But they also have the processes, the systems for production set up well over the last years or decades, right? So I think one of the things that they expect it must be China. No, it doesn't necessarily always have to be. Where in terms of right, now especially, I mean you guys also have a lot of US sellers, right? Correct. Um where there should be like the biggest wake-up moment, and there is that due to Trump and his administration, etc., all the taxes against the import tariffs, the import taxes against Chinese goods are moving so many sellers away from China that right now we still do about like 40% of sourcing in China, which used to be 90%. 6% is done in the rest of the world, and that can be so much closer. It can also be Mexico, it can be the US itself, it can be South America, it can be other Asian countries. So don't necessarily jump to the conclusion it must be China.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

A lot of sellers I feel like they're still reluctant to this, and I hear this like, oh, manufacturing abroad is uh it's like manufacturing abroad because it's cheap as a myth. Would you agree with this? Because should be what? The manufacturing abroad is uh cheap and sort of like it has become a myth now when you add up all the costs.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

I mean, one of the big things that has changed over the last years is for especially the US, the import tariffs, right? You gotta have Chinese, it's like whether you have 55% or you used to have 145%, you may have China, Indonesia, Vietnam with 19 or 20%. Um for sure, shipping costs also raise up. But if you look at those, those are prices ups and downs. People always tell me, like, hey, can you get me the prices for shipping now? It's like, no, why not? Because those are day prices, because they change every every uh all the time. I look at what happened back then. It was the Suez Canal, then there were the Houthis, right? Now it's the Strait of Hormuz. Then the question is, do we go around the Cape of Good Hope? What about how many containers are uh on sea or how many vessels are in sea? Is it right now prime uh daytime? Is it uh um whatever, is it is a Q4? The changes are uh constantly, of course, going up and down also in the uh in the shipping cost, yet sometimes it also makes sense to even produce for more expensive in what we call the near shoring. Yeah. It means perhaps closer to the why w the the point where you're selling, but you may get it may sound more expensive, but you may get much faster delivery times much cheaper shipping, it may be more expensive in production, but at the same time, what if you work on your terms and conditions that you don't have to pay everything up front? If you're like here in the EU within the same economic region, you can very quickly, very fast say, okay, I'll make a 10% down payment, and maybe then 40% and 50% after receiving the goods. So you're building yourself a positive cash flow, which is a complete mindset. Then you kind of say it's like I don't care about what it costs, I'm selling and I'm making money before I have to pay my suppliers.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Which is a great solution, of course. I actually haven't like that was an epiphany, I actually haven't even thought about it because obviously I feel like the general, not necessarily overall, but if you were to say, Oh, I'm looking to uh to acquire a product or to build a brand, then your first your mind automatically goes to China, as you're saying, and obviously that as you're saying has become a misconception, but then why not manufacture local? You're looking as you say closer to home, even though uh it looks like you're paying a little bit more for that product, as you say, like what you're saving in shipping, and you have the options to spread pretty much the payment. Do you do you find yourself giving this advice to your uh to your clients?

SPEAKER_00 10:32

I mean, to finish your question earlier before, like whether it makes sense to produce abroad or not, is it cheap or is it not? You can't generalize this question and say yes or no, because usually when you look at the product, what is it made from? So, say for example you have a product made from bamboo. Does it make sure it makes sense to uh produce it in Europe? Probably not, because bamboo doesn't really grow here. Right? So you probably go to some countries which are more in the tropical or subtropical climates and where bamboo grows. Now, at the same time, it could be that some countries are so far developed when it's about plastics, metal, wood production, that it may be countries closer. So you always need to look at the product and the base it is made from and whether or not labor costs and where could those be produced. Look at Europe. The further you go, of course, to the east or the southeast, usually the cheaper it is, right? The further you you go away from the western uh or central rich Europe, um there may be the chance, but you need to look at every product. But yes, definitely, um continuously you need to always look with every client to say, show me the product. Only then I can tell you where's a potentially good place to produce it. Oh, wow, that is extremely interesting.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

And I said, thinking of like overall when when we have our clients, it's good to see and obviously to remind them because I feel like not everyone would go even even now, like I answer you just a simple question regarding a single product, and then you opened up with some length in which you have to look what is it made from, where is that product actually originally sorted from. And I feel like sellers obviously being bindi and bombarded with everything that we need to do, they oversee those type of things. And you probably see that on your um on your day-to-or day-to-day activity all the time. Uh um, but I feel like our focus is not made in such a way in which we have to look at all these little details. The example you showed earlier with bamboo was amazing. Like obviously, it doesn't grow in Europe, so not the best place to find a manufacturer for it. But there's alternatives which can which can then work.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Which is the same for you guys, by the way. Go to Alvasque when you have the question to do cross-border taxation, right? If you were storing all of a sudden, like in Poland or Czech Republic or in the UK, what does it mean for your taxation? There's so many things that you would also calculate through Alvasque and see is like, okay, which countries make sense? Which countries should I start storing my products? And this is where we have experts like you guys who can help and see like, does it make sense at the moment of um depending on how much you sell, right? So is it worth it to start exploring and declaring uh taxes, for example, in every single country, or it's maybe not yet the right moment? Corate, I think you like a real like a one statement for all uh questions, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Exactly. There's no there's certainly no one fits all sort of solution. And I feel like in on the other side, on our line of work, when it comes to taxation, same as you get like, oh, I want to get products and they'll most likely be from China because they're sort of the leaders in in manufacture, we get the same thing when it comes to German taxation, obviously, Germany as well as successful countries when it comes to e-commerce in general. And I mean by just like I want to store and do imports in Germany and do everything from Germany, which works, but then you face the blocker at the imports because Germany would charge you based on how much your products sell for. So on top of the sourcing and manufacturing cost and everything that you're incurred so far, they actually don't even care about how much it costs. They want to see how much you're actually selling it for, which can be a very big hit in your cash flow. So again, little things that you have to look, and that's why we say stock in Germany but don't import there. I presume the same goes for you. Obviously, manufacturing this place, even though it may seem a little bit more expensive, you actually save money in the long term. Um, that's sort of not necessarily as a non necessary, just the information historical is just lacking a little bit, which just changes what the information actually meant to say. And that brings me to another um another question for what I'm thinking will get. I don't know why for varying high-end brands, like top level brands that you have also, and you all could work with like you basically sense. What one of like um not necessarily mistakes, but uh what's the first expectations of them coming to you? What do they think it will happen magically and it suddenly doesn't work like this?

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Well, I usually tell them it's like it doesn't matter, I can give you the most me. We we have 25 different services. We start with the first idea, even if you don't know what kind of product could be profitable to sell, we do what we call product hunting, niche analysis, trend spotting. So which products are like right now the ones coming up that still have a lot of or will have a lot of demand, but not so many products in there yet. Sorry, not so many sellers yet. So not so much competition. Then of course, going in with the sourcing, doing the quality control, mass production, contract design, making sure that everything goes through smoothly, you protect your money against the suppliers, of course, factories, uh compliance research, obtaining the whole compliant uh until the whole negotiation with international shipping, packaging, packaging design, packaging cost optimization, until pretty much all that stuff is like in your warehouse to take to sell. Now, when you started the very first one, for example, say, oh, bring me products that are like very potentially profitable. Sure. But it doesn't mean that they will like go through the route. Because I try to put it in friendly terms, but how did if I say, you know, you really don't know anything about marketing, then I can give you the best potentially profitable product, but you will fail because you don't do the things that are necessary for sales and marketing. So sales and marketing is still something that is definitely needed. And you need to know about great images, great listings, great PPC, great everything, getting good reviews. But if you're an absolute genius at sales and marketing and you know all the hacks around like what how do you get external traffic, how do you get YouTube influencers, etc., also promote your stuff, how do you run PPC on Amazon, which is a good advantage that we have because we have two own brands, of course, as well, and we can help guide our clients a bit of so what are the next steps you should do, which external traffic pages, comparison pages, and so what shouldn't you use to get more external traffic? Um but it can be a mediocre pro product, but you're the absolute expert in selling it and it will go through the roof.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

And that's where you turn nothing into something.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Right, exactly. But those are exactly all the skills. Just because we get a good product, you look like a glass bottle from uh what was it called here? The uh um you put the gas inside and I'm missing the name right now, like big famous brand. But if you don't know how to sell the glass bottles or the uh um what do you call like carbonation machines? Um solar stream is ones. Solar stream, there we go, thank you. Um you know if you're a company you focus on that, you can make that product sexy and it goes through the roof. But on the other hand, if you say, Oh, I'm selling uh carbonation for water and I get those bottles and then nobody cares. So you've got to be an expert pretty much in every field. And if you are an absolute beginner at e-commerce, you will need to see that there's like so many other things that you also need to have. Because having a web page and a great product doesn't get you any clients if they don't hear and know about it, and you can convince them. So same for you. That's aligning and be compliant in all the markets, you better have an expert on the side who helps you be tax compliant in all those countries.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Do you mention that obviously there's the step by step that they have to take, and then you mentioned obviously relationships and marketing and everything else that has to go into it. Do you feel like it's do you need a mix of all of them together, or one of them can sort of override everything? Like is it skills versus relationship versus luck, or is it a mix between all of them?

SPEAKER_00 18:44

When it comes to retail sales, for sure it's relationship. And that's a good thing that I I have access to several of the purchasers throughout uh Germany and the big retail businesses, but I do believe that when it's all about online sales, when it's about e-commerce, when it's about Amazon, it's skills. It's skills and knowing who is a good one who helps you with taxes, who is the best one who helps you with reducing your cost and finding manufacturers and making sure the product is safe, who is another great one who will make those images that really get the clients to buy, and who's another one who really rocks and gets the uh Amazon PPC or web shop building and uh external marketing? Um who grows it to so that you still stay profitable. So I think for offline market and getting single people to buy, like big purchasers, it's relationships for sure. But the rest, I would believe it's skills and knowing who can help.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Perfect. And as you've mentioned earlier, that's a very important thing to note because a lot of brands would be like, oh, I don't know what, like it's the beginning, especially the the newcomer ones. Like it's the beginning, I don't know what to do. It's important to note, as you said earlier, they can speak to someone like you, and then you can actually help them find the product that they can put in their catalog. That is also an option. You can speak to someone like us who can teach you what the taxation actually involves. So you can make this plan, and that's how you acquire those skills to make informed decisions later on. So we'll make sure that everybody will get uh will get your details if they would even like to pretty much rerun what they're doing just to make sure that it's still the best option for them. Uh you mentioned that yeah, that should be we have to discuss anyone who would like to um better pretty much their option just to make sure that they're still I mean I have to hope there's no large companies listening in here because we do have since we're Amazon sellers ourselves, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:37

We are e-commerce starters on our own. We have like two of us, or pretty much a few more, who help bring out the products that we have for our other companies. That's why we have such really cheap and affordable prices for the e-commerce starters because this is where we come from. This is like our network, this is where we are in all those trade shows and all those podcasts and all those uh events. And I mean look, Avask and Zignify and Getita and Fortinet still also have another company where we did worldwide Amazon events, right? Scale for E-tel. Now, this is where we know it's all the smaller starters or also the larger e-commerce sellers, but for the industries, like the heavy uh industries, we charge a lot more money for this. This is why I'm hoping nobody of the bigger ones listens in here right now that there's different price. But of course, I mean, you gotta start as a small seller, you gotta bring up some products, you gotta gain the experience. And I always say when you start your own businesses, start doing the sourcing, first of all, for the first one, two, three parts on your own. See what it takes. Do the images, on the other hand, also on your own, because in the beginning you don't have the money. You need to learn the ins and outs. Learn about the PPC, learn about bookkeeping. This is something you should know because, of course, you need to check whether the the bookkeeper or the tax consultant does the right thing. In the end, it's you who is responsible. But then when you grow and you you learn from podcasts like yours, you connect like The best people in the industry, you show good business partners, you show who is usually always helping your clients. Well, and then you know this is how you grow and you start working with others together. So big kudos to you. You do an amazing and important job to help all those online sellers understand what is the right next step. So I wish I had the time for this. I would take the time. Kudos to you, Alet, for making this the online hustle podcast. This is good. Ring Big, thank you so much, Intel Vicky.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Thank you for being part of it and the sharing such important insight. Um I I'm curious, as I mentioned to you earlier, as much as uh not as much, as middle, actually, as I know about sourcing, okay, just know the basics, you are the expert, and everything just uh should go to you because you know best in this case. I'm just thinking of anyone new who would listen to us. And then let's say, for example, I have I have a capital and I'm ready to invest in, and I'll come to you. Uh, I have already something in my castle of can you do me like a three to five step by step, what should I do? Because I'm I sort of don't know which direction I should go. What would I do the very first product for you, or do you have some products launched already? For the example, say let's say I already put something on the market, just something acquired randomly from um not necessarily randomly, but just online from Chinese suppliers. Uh, but I'm looking to better this, and I have the capital, I have some money to put down, just don't know which direction to go.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

I mean, the typical way of when you have the idea, say you want to launch a new product. I mean, either you invest into um a market research, the one that we call product hunting niche analysis, and see which of the categories still have which product coming up and not so much competition in there. So base everything on data. If I would look back right now and I would look at my my mistakes that I've done back then, I fell in love with my small slim wallets, you know, card holders where you put banking cards inside. I made some out of wood and some out of carbon fiber and some with a pull tap, and I just fell in love with them so much, but nobody gave nothing about my wallets, right? There were better ones out in the market, and at the same time, how many wallets do people need? One! And I launched like eight, and I was like, why is it not selling? Because people need one wallet, and on the other hand, the wallet market isn't that large, and there was loyal competition. So I've tried to make it with better images with outstanding products, but it was me who fell in love with the product, but not the client. A friend of mine usually says the war for fishing, you know, the war must taste good to the fish, not to the fishermen. So I find out, actually, do some research, ask us or do it on your own with tools like helium 10, Smart Scout, Data Dive, Jungle Scout. By the way, we have discounts pretty much for all of the tools available out there. We can help and hook you up so you get some uh cheaper access to it. Um some of them are affiliated, some not. Um but you find the data and you know that this product, that the slow feeder dog bolts, that's an old example from a couple of years ago, that oh my god, people are putting so much money, or I give you an example, um diffusers for pets here. It's like, what is wrong in this world? That diffusers are pets, not gonna say about which one, but you put your little diffuser in there in your room, it puts out the water and anything else, uh, and and and the smells, and then makes your I'm not gonna say your fish, but whatever your pets at the home calm. And it's like, is that what people buy? And I was like, nobody's buying this. I checked the market, Amazon.com, $8.5 million per month, was like, what? If if those are the problems we have in today's world, we have no problems. Now look at the data and find out what the market really wants and where there's still not so much competition. Where can you get your $100,000, $200,000, $500,000 per month in terms of revenue? Then of course, when you know about this, the most important thing is whether you do this on your own or you work with us, for example, look for 15, 20, 25, maybe 30 potential producers, because not all of them, the ones that you will find, will be able to do the way how you want the product. Secondly, you need to get as many quotations as reasonably possible in order to be able to negotiate them one against the other one. Thirdly, you need to look at different samples and see which one can actually really do it, and then of course, still have some backups where you can say either first one fails, or I have some backups, or I have still different power of negotiation. Then in the first place, you do have products when you get the samples and you then look through mass production quality control that you then have products uh available that have a good potential and you bought them for the best price possible for the needed quality, right? And then, in my opinion, by now, I mean for the first quick start, you can do so many with AI, uh Nano Banana Pro or version 2, or even with Chat GPT or many of the other tools, you just start creating the first images. Put them on there, put the nice text, put the USPs on there, put the product up online. And when you later still say it's like, holy smokes, this is good. Um it sells, but I still want to be better at my competition. I mean, hire an agency um that will make the best product images and shows the biggest USPs and knows how to sell your products against the competition, then hire them. One of the things you should definitely do for the beginning is make sure you are correct with your taxes, whether it's about sales and import, and go to people like Alask, right? Work with them together, especially when you grow larger and when you go international, because those governments they want their money. And this will not be friendly anymore when they figure out that you aren't doing everything in the legal way.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

And obviously, we're already starting seeing that countries like Italy, a lot of our listeners would have, especially international, non-EU, no case sellers will be impacted by what they've done so far. Uh, to sum up pretty much for everyone, obviously, the 50,000 euros bank guarantee that they require for anyone that would like to do business in Italy, that is huge. And in our opinion, they will just pretty much set up an example for the other countries in Europe. That's that's always the way. One starts and the others follow. This situation, uh, Italy, like a sort of not necessarily the biggest country when it comes to e-commerce, but still significant enough. Have started this trend, if we can call it like this, and then others would follow, they do tarot checks, and as you say, they would come for their money if you become the next thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Listen to people who know about the industry. I would, to be honest, I would not have known this without knowing this from a mask. I knew it in the back of my mind. I was like, oh yeah, true, true. I wouldn't have heard it if I wouldn't have heard it from you. Right? So you know actually where is their opportunities, you know the data, you know the demand, you know the products, you know how to do it legally right, you know how to do the sourcing to get the best prices, you know how to do images stand out against your competition. And one of the steps where we could also then help you, for example, is okay, let's make sure that nobody else will copy you. Let's make sure we get the the um the design or the utility pattern in place, whether in Europe or even in China, so nobody can then really copy you. And or you could go to court and/or block exports of your competitors. Um by the way, this is also some of the things that people actually do, is they may take your own brand registered. So if you're my competitor and I'm going black hat technology, that's what they are black hat, uh not technology, black hat methodologies. More and more people do this. I'm taking your brand when I know you're producing in China. I'm gonna register your brand under my name in China. You will have all your production running, you will have all of those, uh, you know, it goes through, you invested your money, products are being packed, they're being shipped out and export stop. You will not be allowed to export because that brand is not yours. Because I went to the car and said, Hollet's brand, that's mine. And this is this is more and more things that are happening. So protecting your own products, even in the country of production, registering your brand, protecting your brand, say in China, if you're producing in China or other countries, will make sure that nobody else who has you on the radar may block you. And we see this more and more and more. I mean, of course, a lot of people come, and it's a quick thing to be done in like $1,000,500 or so. Usually, you get your own products protected from exporting. So, not a big deal, but more and more where you know, even whether Chinese or competitors come in and try to block you in in illegal ways. So you have a lack of information about it, so I presume you've seen that with your own eyes happening. I have my own brands protected in China, of course, even though I'm not selling in China, of course. And yeah, there's several of them who have, I mean, also some of the things. Listen to those news, what's happening? Somebody says, Oh, I had a problem, I was blocked from export in China because somebody else registered my brand there. Competition is it's getting ugly. The bigger it gets, the tougher the market it gets, the more creative competitors will get. And unfortunately, there's a few black sheep out there who also do things that are not really legal. You can always fight it for sure.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

You can always go to the market and say, is there if somebody is listening and they interfere with this, is there anything we can do once they've been blocked if they have control while on the gun or the product?

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Yeah, I mean we can also approach them. We have uh for once, I mean, we are global product sourcing, so we're in all the countries. Usually I say we're not in North Korea, we're not sourcing currently in Russia, Iran, or Afghanistan. Um joking, of course. But of course, we're in in China and many of the other countries. So some of the things you could actually do is you're going out and you of course going in to complain just about the registration that is there if you're still within time. Or we have Chinese partner lawyers, for example, we say, all right, let's go and fight this in front, whether in court, or just um address it to court and to the authorities and fight against it. It's ugly, it's long, there's a way out because you can also see it's like, no, they have no intention of selling it, say, inside China, for example. Those categories are not there. And by the way, this is my brand over here, produced and selling in the UK, in Europe, or in the US, and obviously they're just blocking it because they want me to export uh they would they want me not to export anymore because it's competition. So sure you can fight those things as well, but it's we would get it done the first way, not to have to fight it in the end. But anything is production, anything that's factories, anything that's export, imports, etc. That's us. I mean global product sourcing.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Wow. I'm actually showbiz over it. It's it's something so simple, but obviously, again, something that doesn't come on people's radar, or you won't think that somebody will just take your brand. But you're right, like a direct competitor would immediately do so if they can, especially if they have a tiny bit of knowledge on how things work there and knowing that they can in order for their business to be successful. So, from your perspective, is this one of the things that they should have on their radar, or one of the things that would end up costing them money in the future if they don't spend money initially on as they grow?

SPEAKER_00 33:31

It doesn't mean it will happen. But I mean, we see it happening over, I mean, I don't know, five years or so. Maybe it's the first time I heard about this ago. Um but if you're a little bit larger or you know that you have competition, imagine. I mean, if the competition sees you in your marketplace, they can start becoming creative. And you know that there's a lot of Chinese competition, right? They become especially creative. And they just found another company who then complain uh claims this, and you can't really backtrack like who does it belong to or so the company shuts down, opens up the next one. There's a lot of things that are a lot easier, a lot easier than over here for say in Germany. Um it doesn't mean it will happen, but it's something where I would say, I mean, I got it for my small first brand, protect it as well. So I'll same thing goes with the pin uh patents, right? When I uh here in Germany, like getting a design patent for a product, just the way it's it's like six euros per design, so I get like 10 of them at the DPMA register for like 60 euros. Why do you do this? Well, so that somebody will not do exactly the same product so you can fight it. It doesn't mean you need to have it, it doesn't mean it will happen, but there's still unfortunately so many things that could happen. And what's the easiest way to block your competitor from having products that are being produced in China? It's a it's a quite smart and efficient way. I don't never want to promote this, but be aware that you may spend below states of the glaciers like this in which you'll be you'll be stuck. Do you have your marketplace? Do you have a lot of Chinese in there? Or do you have even is it a tough market where also your local competition could become creative and say me as a germ seller or my German other sellers, they may go some black hat and go over to China and just pay somebody to register this brand under their name? Well, it probably comes from everyone.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Like I hear people are actually rightfully doing their research and they know exactly what their competitors are doing. But then again, I'm hoping everyone will take note of what you said, go that extra mile, and rather than just being informed to what they're doing, protect yourself so you're not even more impacted by the fact that they're doing maybe a little bit better than you are.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Yeah, I mean to be honest, I also had with the second brand that we have, we had one competitor where it's quite obvious to me they just bought themselves negative reviews against my product. Brother, you said 4.7 stars. They went in and bought like a 50 or 60 negative reviews, and now I'm at uh 3.9 stars. Game over. Wow. I could tell you now the secrets of how do you do this so Amazon doesn't delete those reviews then, but I'm not gonna say this. Uh figuring this out on my own, and that hurts. That is painful. That product is pretty much dead. Do I have the energy? Do I have the capacity to start launching this product now again? This company is taking Signify is taking most of my time. So to be honest, some of my products or other companies are not getting, of course, as much attention until I built them. So again, such things can happen as well. What are the stories that you know? Would people do, for example, for taxation? Is there something competitors can do where you should protect yourself against that we did not plan before? It's just a real spontaneous one. Let's see if the uh Hallet has some some hex as well. If not, let's just cut it out.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

No, no. There's misconception everywhere. I said, like I mentioned earlier the example with Germany. Everybody just wants to import into Germany when it's technically, excuse the wording, the probably the worst country to import into Europe. It's a very good country to be in. You want to have a German presence, you just don't want to import there. So don't deal with their customs authorities. Stop in Netflix, stop in France. Just that there's alternatives there. You can stop in the Netherlands or the customs clearance there without even having a VAT number. So there's not even an extra cost for you. The truck, the vessel, would typically stop at somewhere, especially if it comes by sea, they would stop somewhere to do the customs clearance anyway. So do the customs clearance in the Netherlands and then deliver into Germany. It's exactly and almost added total. What we want to say is like those are all, of course, legal ways. Don't ever cheat. Of course, yeah, yeah. It's not something sketchy, it's not something, oh, we have something, uh it's something done under the table. No, don't worry.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

You don't have all the compliance regulations or issues. The product should still be safe and sell it, of course, in order to sell. But you know what? There's so many other things where they just, I mean, do it the right way, but they may not check as detailed as us anal Germans are.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Correct. It's just it's just a matter of strictness. And there obviously there's nothing wrong with that. There's just ways about it in which you can save money because you're paying your duties on a normal rate, the rate from the manufacturer. You don't pay import VAT at also, it's a very good cash flow uh solution, especially because sometimes you have to wait three months or uh Germany, sometimes a year until you get the tax refund payback. So works. Another risk conception again, going on um going on talking about research. Some of the products have different VAT rates. Maybe you should pay less tax. But unless you prompt Amazon or the tax authority when we don't do that engine like us, you won't know.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

Let me if I may add one thing here right now because it fits like perfectly. This is also one of the questions to say, do I want this product from China or other countries? Countries do not tax a product because of its category. Countries tax and import or put the import duties and fees, not the fees, but the import duties taxes onto a product category depending on which country it comes from. Exactly. So many Americans say, I give you an example, like you know, nail accessories, fingernail accessories, not going into details. Used to be 27% import tariffs from China, from Vietnam, zero. And this person was selling 500,000 units on a $6 purchasing initially. We found a new supplier $5, so $1 cheaping, $1 cheaper, half a million dollars saved on the product, but 0% import tariffs on $3 million that made a difference of an additional $810,000 just because that product didn't come from China, but from Vietnam. So this is where it exactly like you go. It could be a different category, it could be this different product from the same country, or this is I think where the cooperation between Navasque and Ask will come in. It's like, hey, can we get this very same product from another country for less import tariffs? And of course, and there's agreements between companies.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Same as we have UK with Europe, we have agreements. Anything manufactured in the UK going into Europe, it's actually duty-free. So going back to Sebastian's points from earlier, for anybody who's listening, it would actually make sense for you to manufacture in the UK if that fits your business model, even though you might pay a little less. There's no duties, you're not losing anything at the point of sending them in Europe. And vice versa. And there's other countries who have those sorts of agreements. For example, like all the products, is it? Yes, yeah, all the products, no matter what.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

All 0% importers. Yeah, because then they're products. But if it's all of them, I mean fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Although it's still we can give exam exactly, yeah, then this is exactly how they wanna they wanna seem like you might need some additional paperwork for them, but again, you're local, it's very easy for you to obtain them, or we can look help you obtain them. But again, it's it's duty-free. And going back to Sebastian's examples where we're talking, we might talk a euro or a pound or two, three percent, but when you multiply that by hundreds of thousands of products, how much can you actually save? Just by switching that that little country. And when a country like China for sourcing money out, it actually makes sense if you're selling in Europe or in America.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

I'm always saying when you're spending like, let's say 50,000, even when it starts like spending $50,000 per year, what if, and it's really realistic, what if we can save 10 or 20%? Very often we even achieve 30 or 40% savings. What if you save, let's say 20% on $50,000? That's a $10,000 or pounds or euros additional savings, which is a hundred percent additional profit because you never spend it. Now, what if you go even higher and you spend $100 or $200,000 or $500,000 a year? Or we have clients, of course, who spend a couple hundred million dollars per year in purchasing. Um what if you say you have an import tariff of 9.5% from the product that you get from China into say Germany or into other markets? What if you could reduce it to 3.7% or 2.0 or 0%? So of course I'm looking into my product as well, the import tariffs, the duties. But the same thing is like, what if what if you send 10 or 20% most of the time possible by just getting more quotations, do more offers, more uh uh uh alternative producers and negotiate the prices down? Our record is actually 100% cost savings. Actually, I usually turn the story the other way around. The record is 96.5%. There was a big seller over here in uh Germany, about 15, 14 million euros per year of revenue. Um he had a product that he bought in Europe, it was already imported and said, uh price is okay, yeah. You should pay like six euros selling for close to 30. Um we said, let's look at the product. We take this, we produce it in China, open an own mold, and we reduce it from six euros down to 21 cents. Unfortunately, only sells 5,000 units of this one, but now he's making close to 150,000 euros revenue on this product for 1,000 um investment. So I'd love to pay a thousand dollars and make 150 grand a year. Where before it was like um how much was it like uh like 30,000 euros or dollars or so to make 150, which is questionable already, is it very profitable? So, same thing, look at the products, and whenever you just discover it, I'm spending 50,000, 100,000. Or you say what if what if the likelihood of 20 or 30 percent cost and import duty savings would be potential? Does it make sense to get in touch? And then Avask will also help, on the other hand, to say that anything we've spent on purchasing and importing, I mean, you guys are the experts when it comes to all of this cross-border taxation. So we'll help get the costs out, you help to make the product uh the taxes, of course, legal and or redemption. So looking with Avas together into which product, which category, which alternative country. It's like one of the easiest ways to consider besides reducing the the cost, uh reducing the the the plain X work cost or FOB cost of your product. Uh look at how much just think for yourself, how much money is on the road. Pick it up.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

This is why this is why I I like companies like ours. And that's why I guess obviously we work this well together and we're a little bit different than than other than other companies who pretty much may do what we're doing. It's just like we have that bit of besides the connection that we have and obviously the partnership we have with people like yours. It's just we have a little bit more information um from the field which are might not necessarily be ours. Obviously, each of you is just about sourcing, issue about taxation. And it's important to know because if we just give our pieces of information alone, we're like, oh yeah, uh sourcing in South South South uh sorry, in Europe, sourcing Europe sounds five, uh you're making a profit that's great, without actually thinking, oh, you can actually speak to a sourcing company and see if there's an alternative for the same product. And then when you're getting that same product, look a little bit at the taxes. Usually with people in in this industry, they each have their own niche and then they can't really not even touch basis when it comes to other things. I see that with uh transport provider and freight forwarders. And it's obviously not a critique, they just want to specialize what they're doing. But a lot of the um people I uh I started working with, they just find themselves, for example, stuck at customs because nobody told them they need a special customs clearance procedure because they're not basically inward UK. The transport provider said, Well, you hired us to do transport. We've done the transport, we have customs, give us the document and we'll return it. And you won't get a refund because we've done the transport for you. So it's important to speak with the right people, as you said earlier, and to go a little forward. Yeah, found the product, what's next?

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Now, let me actually show you another example because this is a very important topic as well, which most of the people don't necessarily really look into. I mean, besides, of course, product cost, input duties is very obvious. Second thing to really look into is like your packaging, primary and secondary packaging. Is there something to optimize? Most people do not optimize those things. We have a big 120-year-old company or so over here in Germany, um, where we just help them, you know, just to cans, jars where you put supplements in. They used to produce in China, we got them over here, found producers for packaging in Poland 19 cents cheaper than in China. Uh, we're not even talking about landed costs. Landed costs, of course, I mean much less and much faster there. Of this product, they're only selling 200,000 units a year. That's $38,000 savings on an export cost for the packaging, and it's inside Europe. That's mind-blowing. But the much bigger thing there is, I mean, of course, which company could be a better one knowing about the import tariffs besides you guys and or us when it's about international production, anyhow. But the third major thing when you're working with forwarders, and uh this is where most of the people also don't look into, is the cost for logistics. So you may get your supplier to give you the prices of your forwarder, and you don't really compare and say, Oh, okay, that's a bit more expensive this time. Same guy, 14 million euros revenue uh per year. He said, Oh, I think we have a good container price of 4,200. It's like Dennis, hold on, we're gonna have a look. Went in and found the same time container prices for $1,900. That's $2,300 difference. He had six containers, so it was almost $14,000 saving on the logistics. Imagine what this does to your product. If you're selling whatever, like $14,000, that's it was probably more. I don't know how many products it was, but let's say it was 14,000 products or so in the containers. Look at the larger 2,000 products each could be well, um the amount, it's a dollar more profit per product sales. One dollar more product. And if the product is whatever, like 20 euro revenue, you got 5% additional margin, clean margin because it's savings. So think about the product, think about the import tariffs, think about the packaging primary and secondary, think about the logistics, think about the country. There's so much to save. Actually, margin.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

Do you see people that necessarily obviously I sometimes the focus shifts and instead of focusing on the brief examples you just given earlier, their focus goes some someplace else? Do you see your not necessarily your clients, but do you see b brands in general pouring money into things that don't matter as much in the beginning? Is that a sort of like where do they put money initially when they shouldn't?

SPEAKER_00 49:16

Any example? I mean looking back at myself, like we know one of the biggest clients, or not one of the biggest clients, one of the biggest learnings I had was a guy who did cosmetics, and we have our own cosmetics brand. Um, he built his company from zero to twenty-five million dollars per year within three years, and he told me, he's like, Sebastian, you know what, you ask right questions about the product that you're selling, but do me the favor, go into this and that network. That's like Dennis Lee, also named Dennis. Dennis seems to be a magic name. Um Dennis, like, leave me alone. I don't want to go into any of those tools and coaching. I've been doing this for years. But yeah, you know what? I've spent the first six, seven years on optimizing this image, tweaking this a little bit, making near the changes. Oh my god, this is gonna be world-changing. I'm gonna change the text in the first bullet point. It was such a waste of time. If I would love to write an LS, you know, immediately if you have the chance, get a mentor, get somebody who can guide you, show you the right ways, uh, whether they know it from themselves or they have learned from, say, 8,000 products that we have sourced, thousands of clients that you had asked get the learnings from somebody else what matters most. So, yes, even I have done, I've wasted years of my life doing the wrong things. There's people doing wasting thousands and tens of thousands of dollars, say, on sales and marketing. Yeah, you grow your sales, but you know what? The margin becomes smaller because you're spending more in A cost. You're spending more on ads. What if the smartest thing before you invest into sales and marketing? What if the smartest thing is you optimize the purchasing cost and you got all of a sudden more money to spend into sales and marketing and still stay profitable? Isn't the smartest thing to first things like let's optimize the purchasing cost so I have more money? And then I can see because I can scale myself up on Amazon, I can get easily place number one top left to get the advertising. And the question is, do I say profitable?

SPEAKER_01 51:14

So they went asked, how much did it cost for you to actually get there? And then you think you have competers that do that naturally, they haven't done anything, and then they're just above you who have paid this many thousands to be up there, and just because they have a different procedure, they're just under you, and they sometimes even sell more.

SPEAKER_00 51:33

Yeah, and to be honest, what I always believed, like Amazon, for example, so oh, you get one cent more and you overtake your competitor, bull on um almost said a bad word, shouldn't do this on the online hustle podcast. Um but the uh then I talked with them, there was my competitors like guys, look, let's have a look. The product we're selling cost seven back then 7 euro 80. Now I think it's like $5.60 or something, right? I was like, guys, don't tell me that you're spending $2.51 or Euros on a click to get we all need still our seven or eight clicks. We're selling a product for not even eight dollars, but we're spending seven times two fifty is two four fifty seven seventeen fifty if I have it right in my mind, right? We're wasting, we're killing money. I was like, no, Sebastian, we don't. What do you mean you don't? I have one cent more. If I go from 251 to 252, I overtake you and get place number one. I was like, no, we never spend 250. I was like, what do you mean? Well, here, I show you the screen, and they showed me they're spending one 1 euro zero two. So I had to spend 1 euro 50 more to overtake them. And all those assumptions to say you take one cent more and you overtake. No, I wasn't just as relevant with my products to overtake them, and then the thinking was oh, if I get this block number one, then I will sell more. Yeah, but I'm zero profitable. So you make a thousand uh sorry, a hundred thousand dollars more per month, per year by what's up, you double your revenue. What's happening to your margin? They get so much more insular, yeah. So maybe it's best like another suggestion, in my opinion, is don't aim for the bestseller batch. Best seller is cool, it's nice for the ego. Yeah, yeah, I sell the most product, but is it problem? I prefer to sell a tenth of the products of the bestsellers, but make five times the margin that they do, right?

SPEAKER_01 53:37

And obviously, I can see how adamant and how not necessarily angry, but how passionate you are about this because I presume you've seen it, you've done it. Obviously, you've done it yourself because you have your own brands, and then you've done it for so many other people when just a quick change, a dollar save, has even in cases saved the business or kept it going or managed to shift it to a better place. So good to note for anyone who's listening or who's watching, a small change, uh oh, it's something someone like Sebastian would would change a lot.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

It's all me. We have just initiated the company, and our company is like 95% female. I call them hashtag, and I hope this you can find it by now. Hashtag Queens of Profit. Our ladies have achieved for our clients far more than $500 million in cost savings over those years. Soon we should be hitting one billion dollar bee with a Bravo, B like Bravo, whatever. Those ladies at Zignify, they go in and they optimize the cost and they find somebody. It's again, it's not us. It's here's a big shout-out to hashtag Queens of Profit and hashtag Genets of Zignify. It's not us anymore. Without the team, the same as I I I love your founders, you know, Melanie, Angelos. I mean, we've we've been doing so much business together or working on the same clients that we got to know each other's as friends. But you guys are of us. It's a huge team of professionals. The same as ours is not as large as your company, but it's it's it's the companies themselves, the employees, right? The teams that put so much focus on the clients and help them make more money, help them to stay compliant and do business that will feed their lives.

SPEAKER_01 55:26

Of course, we're not here to support, to help. We we do care about it and we're trying to be very close. And again, that's why we're same. What you're doing is dignified, same what we're doing here. We're trying to better ourselves to learn, even though the fields might not necessarily be our main fields, but we're trying to learn about sourcing and to direct you to you're at Zignify, you're learning a little bit about tax, and we teach each other things, and then we do this with all the other partners we have in the industry to help and support you. So obviously you know you know where to find us. You'll find all those details if uh if you need to find uh find the contact details for a specific talk on your situation. I know we've talked briefly and we use some uh very interesting examples which I hope everybody makes note of. Um talking about how great and successful Zignifies, and again, congratulations on all those achievements. If we're looking at the length of the company, that it's monumental what you've done so far, and obviously, I I can forecast there's even bigger and better things to come for you. So those those one billion will turn into a couple in uh in four ways with no doubt with your uh with your female agents. Wanted to ask or do say I'm I'm pretty sure we have centers now, brands, look. When when does it actually make sense for them to to come to you? Or um is it a time when it's a bit difficult to put in there somewhere like your um your listening?

SPEAKER_00 57:00

I guess thanks again for the good words, and I guess thanks again, of course, for our team to doing this this good work again, not not Yulia and myself anymore. Um I mean, when does it make sense for sure? What I usually say, if you if you're starting really out on your own, whether if you have some money and you're willing to say, I'd say, okay, I understand the effort that goes in, I mean it's still very affordable, usually two, three, four thousand or so for a full sourcing project or a couple hundred for product hunting or compliance research. And this it reaches from until, you know, like from a few hundred to I mean, the sky is the limit, of course. Um, but it makes the most sense when you say if you have purchasing already, if you have say 50,000, 100,000, 200,000 or so spendings per year, what if you save 10 or 20 uh percent? I mean, our aim is always we cost less than we bring in the value. The dream for me is one day that we'll bring in, we cost 10% of what the whole benefit, the value that we bring. Um if you say you want to launch new products, feel free, come to us. If you've I always say it's like if you've done two, three, four times it on your own, then you would need to understand as a business owner. Or if you need to find new product ideas, I mean it's a couple hundred dollars, right? It's nothing really but to find potentially profitable products. Um if you want to say, okay, I'm selling so much, I would like to reduce my cost, or I have such strong competition that I need to reduce the cost because there's no real money in the product anymore. Um or whenever you say, I mean, it's a smaller one. If you're the larger, sorry to hear, but if you're larger industries, it will cost you a bit more because you probably make a couple millions or tens of millions of dollars more, and of course we have a few more services to offer there. Um whenever you feel ready. I mean, it's quite simple. Zignify.net z-i-g N I F Y, grab a slot, grab a call, drop a sourcing request, and that's probably the easiest to get in touch with. And just like you say, if you want to find us with the need, it's we know each other, we're on the market, right?

SPEAKER_01 59:08

Of course. And uh maybe something a little bit more difficult once and out who have more to one fields, the skepticals, the ones who are afraid, the one who say that they can file their tax on their own or file the products on their own, or like a company like yours who just give them a supplier's list. What do you say to people who come up with this uh I don't even made you laugh? It's um it's a common wise really that you're you're just giving a list with people to contact, and that's all you're doing. Uh but again, just use it for an example sake. What do you say to someone who comes to you with uh with that sort of uh ideology?

SPEAKER_00 59:51

It is very true that there's a lot of sourcing companies who maybe know they're three, four, five suppliers, and to be honest, they get a kickback from those factories if they place an order there, and it doesn't matter where they place it, they will always get 10, 12, 15, 20% of them as a kickback. But I mean, it just checks the results in the end. You will see we share everything, we share the whole contact list. We it's not like we click a button. I mean, of course we use Alibaba, but we use like 60 plus different additional platforms. We also use Google, Yandex, Baidu, of course, also AI. Calling, calling, calling, and you will see you'll get first of all all the contacts of 15, 20, 25 potential producers, and you'll see pen worth the contact, and then all the negotiation one against the other one. Uh finding you a list and sort of searching this and dropping this over to you, that's no has no benefit because you need to do all the contacting, getting the quotations and receiving them, screening them, bothering them again to get more quotations, start negotiating one against the other one, defining which one is the best one, um, which one is the should get into the short list, doing the background checks about the companies, about their financial, legal, etc. situation, getting the cell phones and comparing them, and then still negotiating all this. That's also included in a normal sourcing project. So if you have somebody else that just drops you a list of three, four, five suppliers, I mean, go in and question. Okay, how many did you look for for in total? Did you get in touch with them? Did you negotiate with them? Do you get the quotations? Did you ask them again? How many quotations did you get? What happened? How many times? And you will see all of that. We document all of this, exactly which data. You see the contact details, you see, you can call them up, you see there's no hidden fees or anything because you have the contacts to them and you're paying directly to the factories, not to us. I don't think it can be much more transparent.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:39

Unless it's not this transparent. I think it's good to know. I feel I feel like we're both getting those sort of answers. And I don't blame anyone who's asking what goes into our work, which of course, if you're hiring, if you're working with someone, you want to know what's happening, but from going there to, oh, I'm going to file on my own, or you're going to speak or find all this information on your own. There are cases in which you probably can, but then all your focus goes into that. And it's in our field, I'm not sure I'm not sure into yours because obviously it's not just research that you're doing, and that's that's a misconception I feel people would have about sourcing companies. It's not just research or knowing someone somewhere, it's all the work on the behind.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:27

And when you get something on the table, it's sometimes days and weeks of communication, of chatting with them, of getting the end. It's so much, yeah. And the same thing, you can also do all the tax declaration and the accounting and everything on your own. But to be honest, I hate doing this. I do not enjoy this. I like to focus on sales and marketing, and that's probably the mind switch a lot of the entrepreneurs should have. It's like, where do I? There's a nice term, it's like RGAs, revenue generating activities. Focus on the revenue generating activities and get all the other stuff done by somebody else. Because while you focus your time on something that cannot bring revenue, who will?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:07

Like those things that we we're doing for our clients and the brands we're working with is just there's things you guys actually have to do. It's unfortunately not uh not the thing you can choose whether or you have to do your research about sourcing because otherwise you'll be losing money. You have to file your taxes because otherwise your market will be blocked and again you won't be making money. So there's mandatory things that you have to keep in mind. Uh, there might be ways to do them on your own sometimes, although even in our field, it's done by even if you let's say you know file your own German tax return, where do you send it to? Or who would speak to you if you are banking United States at the German tax office? They only speak German. And even if you were to speak German, they going to need in-depth information which you may not have if you're not an agent or you don't follow their procedure of them receiving the information. So there's all these little extra steps which sometimes you may not see, but we can both assure you they're both happening on our side, obviously, the actual physical work of filing and calculating every single cell and on Sebastian side, speaking with every single person and negotiating and getting the best thing on the table for you. Uh also I presume to note there would be people in your industry that even if I'm trying to ask them as an individual or as a brand, I won't necessarily get to them. Correct? And they won't necessarily speak to everyone unless they come via connection or via specific company.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:43

Of course, I mean not everybody's listed everywhere and you don't necessarily find them, so it's a lot of networks and connections. We have like lists of more than 50,000 uh self-invetted factories by now that we've worked with. But let me give you an example of uh when it comes to tax declaration where I was going nuts. Um I have my products only stored in Germany because so super cheap, it doesn't necessarily make sense to put them into uh well, it probably does make sense to um put them into uh uh Czech Republic and Poland for you know getting European fulfillment network by Amazon. But the effort or so, I was like, okay, it's such a small product, such small revenue, I don't want to have the headache with it. So I have OSS. And I mean in general, you of course need to have OSS. So then came one of the things. I yes, I did a mistake, I paid OSS too late. I'd had like three weeks of trouble with Denmark. They sent me letters and like, oh, now you need to pay this, and here's a little money and this and that, and I needed to request with Denmark to get through mail shipped here to my address so I can sign up on their uh online platform to then go through and request another letter, which will then give me the authorization to do this one booking, and it was about it was about uh 17 cents. I needed to pay Denmark 17 cents and had three weeks of headaches, and I was like, leave me alone.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:07

Yeah, I I wish I say this is not familiar, but the amount of letters like this we get all the time for sellers, they're just so they're not doing this. They just always multiply it by all those many brands. I'm 37 countries in the EU, almost all the back and forth, so you you probably you probably got experience the probably the peak, and then they come, there comes the aggressive in-commas way of them chasing and taking you to court for actually 17 cents.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:38

If I would have folk action in Germany doing launch products to make images to do something else, I would not have to spend so much time on 17 cents or even $1,700 or so. Focus on sales and marketing, RGAs. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:56

That was a no, thank you. It was super insightful for me. So I definitely learned a lot. I hope the viewers and the listeners have done too. Uh, once again, if you can tell people where they can find you, because I am sure you think here of what should know, but I presume there's a lot of people there that would need even more of your help and your great team so where they can find you, please.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:16

I mean, very obviously go to zignify.net, z-i-g-n-if y dot net. Um just book a call, you'll get in touch with our pretty much, of course. I mean, the first hand experts, you'll book a call, you drop the sourcing request, you can find me, obviously, Sebastian the connector hurts on I guess obviously on LinkedIn, on Instagram, and even though I'm not that super active here on social media. But I guess zignify.net, z-i-g-n-i- at y.net is the best way to just book a call with the team.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:49

You also find all those details in the podcast description, and if you're watching us again in the description of the video. Um, again, thank you for all the useful information. I'm definitely forecasting a part two with you because I knew there I feel like there's more and more. We just we just talked about the tip of the iceberg that we can see. But I'm actually curious, and I'm sure some of the audience to to work on examples, to look at this course in matter in depth, and honestly, people, I hope people will do this with you in um in-depth over a private consultation. Everyone's joining us. Thank you all for uh for being here and for listening. If you need anything from any of us, again, all the contact information will be on the description. And until you next time, take care and take care of your business.