Amazon Business Update (Product, Packaging Before Marketing) with Zack Franklin

We bring Zack Franklin on the show to have more of a chat about our Sisitano Amazon business, listing optimization, product packaging and other nuggets.

√ AMZkungfu.com GFA Review
√ Panda-leap.com
√ Zack Franklin’s GFAVIP profile
√ Four Hour Work Week Book

Here’s Zack and Mike recording this show together on a bus:

Here’s Mike’s visit to the Ningbo factory making moka pots. So important to see your factory.

This has been fascinating. Everybody in the community has always been impressed with how Zack gets things done. Thank you Zack for sharing and not holding back on your experiences within the trenches of the Amazon arena.

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Episode 258

Episode 258 of Global from Asia, a little bit of update on the Amazon Venture. Let’s do this. Welcome to the Global from Asia podcast where the daunting process of running an international business is broken down into straight-up actionable advice and now your host Michael Michelini.

[00:00:23]Thank you for choosing to download or stream or however you get this magical, all-new content.   Mike Michelini and we are at episode 258. It’s pretty funny, it’s a little bit the opposite. I’m doing the intro after I get back to Thailand. It was an intense week and a half in mainland China and Hong Kong. In today’s show, the interview is on the bus. Usually I do the intro, but I’m testing things out.

[00:00:52]Plus it was a great chance to catch up with Zack Franklin from AMZ Kung Fu.  He has been on the show a couple of times. He’s helped us out quite a bit gave me some tips over dinner while we were in a Malaysian restaurant in Hong Kong and then we shared the bus ride together back to Hong Kong Border in Shenzhen.

[00:01:14]And I thought hey, why not without the gear got some expensive gear and make a recording? So we did this just to kind of update people about what’s happening with Sisitano, the Amazon brand we’ve been building for almost two years now. At least since the kickoff was last July 2017 and Zack’s been in the background helping us out once in a while with some questions and he’s been following along and you know, I just kind of update you guys and have Zack there to help give me some input and feedback and as always he’s.

[00:01:50]Giving his knowledge freely and helping out. So I think you’ll learn some ideas little bit more heavy on the manufacturing and product side talk about some packaging and other ideas. So we will just jump right into that and then I’ll do the blah blah blah in a quiet setting here in my studio in Thailand home studio.  All right, let’s tune in.

[00:02:12] Are you looking for Content creation services for your business and press the Global from Asia and our ability to create content regularly. We’ve put together our team to help you make blogs, audio podcasts, video production, Amazon listings and more, www.contentinvestments.com and tap into this amazing content creation team for your business.

[00:02:36] Whether it’s your eCommerce, Amazon or whether it’s your agency or other services, content is critical and totally needed for today’s competitive online marketing world. We would love to talk to you.  See different packages and different price ranges for all different budgets. Check us out and it will also support this show as an official partner.

[00:02:56]Thank you so much for your support and it’s Mike Michelini and we have a great team there. I’d love to work with some of you at www.contentinvestmentes.com. All right. Thank you for tuning in to another Global From Asia podcast. You know, I just saw Lorenzo and Lucy and some other amazing people here in Hong Kong.

[00:03:20]And you know, I know Lorenzo liked it when I did some some content on the bus. So we have a repeat guest,  Zack Franklin. So is it AMZ Kung Fu now or is it Panda-Leap. It’s still AMZ Kung Fu. Panda-Leap is kind of a brand under that. If you guys are selling in Europe check it out. Yeah, definitely. So he helps like launch services for a Europe, European Sellers in Amazon.

[00:03:44]And unfortunately, I need your service but I’m still US Seller. We’re working on the US version. So just be patient. Okay, great. So we’re just to give people a bit of a background. We’re on a, on a bus. CTS China travel services from Prince Edward to Hong Kong border into Shenzhen China. We both had some intense meetings in Hong Kong and happened to be here at same time and.

[00:04:12]had some amazing Malaysian food. It’s so good. Yeah, dude. Thanks for taking me there and treated.  You treated too, so really appreciate it. And what was the noodle things we had, you had? Laksa. Laksa. So he thinks I’m crazy. I don’t know if listeners ever had Laksa. I think that was the first time. Maybe I maybe have had. Every time I talk to you like I’m in Kuala Lumpur.

[00:04:35]I’m in Malaysia and this. How could you not have their most famous food? Don’t know, somehow, somehow I didn’t, didn’t have it. Or maybe I’d eat it, but I didn’t realize it. But it was pretty awesome. So, thanks for that.  Glad you enjoyed it. Putting a word to what I’ve probably eaten before. But so today is, is a much well overdue update on Sisitano and our case study.

[00:05:02]Well, I think we have another guest that we check, all are next to us.  Then this needs another more background. I have I think Zach if you can send me that photo will put it in the show notes. But we, I was trying to get away with having an empty seat to put my bag. But this dude next just stood there and just waited until I moved back so he can sit down.

[00:05:24]Yeah, we are doing this super live. Mike has all of his microphone equipment, like on his lap, his camera’s like balanced there. He’s got his headphones on. We’re surrounded by like 40 HongKongers in a thunderstorm. On our way back to China so it doesn’t get more real than this. This is truly Global from Asia.

[00:05:42]All right, seriously, this is the dream and this is all totally improvised. This is this is what I think people. This is what I don’t know I think listeners hopefully like it. I mean we got some pretty expensive gear. I mean on my lap, it’s about $1,000 stuff like Zoom H6, and we got ATR 2100 and I got a got a what’s it called some kind of Canon Rebel 5i that thingy but.

[00:06:11]I mean, this is what I think I think this is cool like and I hope people can can get some benefit but Zack gave me some PPC tips also at the Malaysian restaurant. I should have recorded that for the show, I is actually has been behind the scenes. So I’ll be honest. It’s been a little bit quiet on Sisitano at least for the Global from Asia listeners for the last six months.

[00:06:31]So today’s show is not really an interview. It’s more like an update and I know Zack’s not prepared. I’m, so I’m, I’m back in China. Well heading back. I literally flew back from Guangzhou. So I was in Yiwu for about 5 days and I showed I showed Zack some of the samples. We got about five new listings.

[00:06:50]We’re gonna be working. Got lots of work and a couple new lists. Of course our main Moka pot and Lorenzo’s going to help us some, some advertising. He’s the clickfunnels guy now like a walking advertisement for clickfunnels. I think everyone that does clickfunnels is a walking advertisement for clickfunnels, even give you a shirt when you sign up. Nice. So, I didn’t see a shirt but we’re you know going to try that.

[00:07:15]You know, like he’s saying take some of your advertising budget off of Amazon and then try some, some Facebook ads and some other things. But, but um. I know you’re the expert in Panda-Leap as with Europe, but I guess I’m just going to. A little bit nervous. Where do we get to like, you know. Like last week’s show we had Ino and I was in the factories and we were at the warehouse.

[00:07:37]So we got like a couple of cart like one carton of four different new coffee accessories for this Sisitano brand. And, you gave some tips on the packaging. It’s true. They’re just white boxes. So you had some some insights on Packaging. Yeah, I mean, I’m not, not a Designer but I’ve seen the impact that we have on our products when we do take the time and effort just to do some upgraded packaging. Because no one really takes the time and effort if it’s maybe just.

[00:08:09]Product less than $30. No one is really putting a lot of effort into the packaging but the main like everyone knows that images are one of the most important things on your Amazon listing in your packaging. You can show it in your listing. I always advise people to look at categories that are much more competitive than their own.

[00:08:29]Okay, because by looking at the fast-moving spaces on Amazon, you can take the tricks from there and apply it to your own category. So for example, looking at supplements, you notice that some of the biggest brands there. For example, Bioschwartz. What they did is they ended up using their packaging in the image and what they were able to do with that was.

[00:08:53]Have a very distinctive image increase their CTR and dominate the category, you know now they’re consistently top 30 on one of our packages. We did some really really crazy 3D printing. Okay. Our like 3D die cut stuff on cardboard and you’ll know if you search essential oils, you’ll see exactly the listing that I’m talking about because we have two spots in the top five if you just search essential oils.

[00:09:19]Wow. And about 15% of the reviews mention that design is the reason they chose this product. And so we all think oh people care about the product. They’re just going to throw away the packaging but that experience with the packaging is really not something to overlook. Because for example, if you’re doing a white cardboard box or just a cardboard box one thing you see all the, the Vape Brands doing a lot of other brands is they’re able to make a little sleeve.

[00:09:52]Looks really nice and it’s super cheap. It’s a couple RMB and you can just slide this over this White cardboard box and immediately. You have a better image for Amazon. You’re going to get more people you have a product that people are much more excited to unbox. You put a little emotion into it. So I would say if you guys are just doing a white box or if you’re doing a cardboard box.

[00:10:15]There are a lot of efficient ways that you can make you look more exciting without having to overhaul your entire process and spending a lot more money on premium material on a product. You just want to test.  Makes sense. I mean, I think we do a pretty good packaging with the Moka pot. I mean you keep looking, look at the listing we have. It’s a cardboard, you know, it’s a cardboard box but it has our branding it’s brown and we put it in the listing like you said so it sticks out to the eye when people are scrolling and that.

[00:10:45]You know, it’s a darker image where everybody else has just the stainless steel. You also have some brown and dark colors. I think, you know attracting the eye and separating yourself from the from the competitors. You guys are starting to rank pretty well every once in awhile search Moka pot.

[00:11:00]Thank you, and I’ll I’ll be like, okay. I see these guys on page one all the time now. So are you clicking through and adding to cart? Yes. I am. Actually I might do it from a couple other computers. So I’m helping you out mate. Thank you. I think if you look at my Amazon car right now, it’s like five Sisitano Moka pots add to cart. Get you some coupon codes, but.

[00:11:21]I think I mentioned it maybe last week’s show but I want to talk about it again and I can definitely think he’s connected to to the velocity or ranking or the sales. But you know, another thing I’ve been kind of quiet about Sisitano was kind of an embarrassment, a little bit hard. So we had a recall we had to pull the products out of Amazon and I didn’t have to but we or I made the hard decision to pull it out.

[00:11:49]Basically we had three times in one cycle delisted or Amazon took it offline to say we had over seven percent refund rate or return rate and they gave us the reasons and we had to review the reasons and I think the first two times we just hit relist. He said okay acknowledge relist, but the third time I was like man we got to do something.

[00:12:10] So we pulled out almost all of them to third party warehouse and then the handles were broken so somehow in shipments. I don’t know by air by sea. We sent it by both.  But we went through this painful process and I think last week’s show I talked about it. If not people I could come by later. But basically when we resent it back the refunds of course dropped because there’s no more broken handles and I think and the sales has definitely picked up and I don’t think much has changed.

[00:12:37] Besides fixing the quality. So I think you know, I think obviously Amazon cease your sales, cease your returns rate. So by having obviously a product that’s not just sales but also doesn’t get refunded will be ranking. So I’m feeling a little more confident or you know, obviously we’re not making huge money with this product yet people can see the BSR and everything but you know, it’s about doubled in the last couple months a couple weeks from our previous couple months of sales history.

[00:13:04] So it’s just.  Again, like mayor and others have said, you know, we’re trying to build a long-term brand and it’s tempting to just keep trying to sell out what you get and not not take that short term hit but but really lose money long short term for a long-term. You know, I think we would have destroyed the listing with reviews.

[00:13:25]There was already getting some pretty angry customers.  One customer got a broken handle twice, so she was really mad.  But, I don’t know if you have any feedback on that side, but of course, obviously it sounds obvious. But so many sellers just focus on marketing in but you got to focus on your product.

[00:13:43] Yeah, if you can’t do marketing really if the products just isn’t there, you know, the product has its its issues. It doesn’t matter, what else you do. That’s why everyone is going to tell you do do Facebook ads or this, so do this. But they’re missing a lot of the root causes of success on Amazon.

[00:14:03] Which even as a marketer guy I want to say comes down to your product. It comes down to your margins. It comes down to your quality control and you did the right thing pulling it out.  But, I do see because I see a lot of accounts and in every state, you know, some that are absolute monstrously huge accounts and some that.

[00:14:26] Are getting in trouble all the time. But there are a lot of reasons why you might need to pull out your inventory and realize when this happens you have to pay Amazon to take out the inventory. Nightmare. He does pay a 3PL to receive your inventory and change whatever happened. You need to pay to send it back in. Nightmare.

[00:14:44]And so this can be if you’re on razor-thin margins. This can be the difference between a profit and a loss and this can really be something that’s preventable in the first place. For example, for Europe, I see a lot of people that don’t have their, their importer – designated EU representative and stuff like this on the packaging. And, then they get caught and they’re like, oh what me, I wasn’t doing anything wrong.

[00:15:10] Why do I have to do this? And it’s like if you would have just ordered five of your competitor products look take a look at what’s on the boxes. So you’re compliant and then you send it in, you’re going to have a much better shot. You and I recommend buying the big Brands because they have the money to invest in compliance.

[00:15:31] A lot of smaller Brands don’t but sometimes that quality stuff just happens. I had a case once in the supplements that I was selling. A whole shipment went out like a whole palette or something went out with- without labels. So they were just getting this blank white tube of green powder and they’re like what the fuck is this and I got about 40 bad reviews 20 to 40 bad reviews before we just close the list in and had to do the same thing.

[00:16:02] You know, we had to pull it out. We have to relabel it. We had to send it in and the listing wasn’t really the same after that. So do what you can to prevent these problems and realize whether you’re in it for cash flow or whether you’re in it for more of a long-term approach constantly make the decision before you have your business.

[00:13:43] What do you want to do with it? So, you know what to do when these things happen. And then, another quote because I was reading 4-Hour Work week again it’s just on my phone.  Was talking with Mike about this is, you don’t need to gain money the same way you lose it. So, for example, you know, if you’re betting on something if you’re gambling and losing money there you don’t need to make the money, gambling again.

[00:16:45]You can make the money by doing something else. So okay, you lost money by pointed out, but you can make money by maybe switching around some of your PPC or launching new products that sell well so you don’t need to. When you lose money on Amazon, you don’t need to freak out, you can make money very easily in another way.

[00:17:06]That’s, that’s good point. I mean, of course Amazon or any biz, any business, don’t get stuck on. Yeah. Don’t get stuck on how you, how you lost it. And, we’ve talked about that a couple weeks ago with the trade War discussions. Just, just focus on what you can control and can and do the best you can at the, at the moment you’re in.

[00:17:27] Another thing just to go back on the packaging. We did buy some of these, like coffee bag looking products for 1 RMB each. So it stands up on its own. It’s like got a circular base. So what the idea is we’re going to put that into product photo with our logo on it so that it would like another way to stand out on the product image, but.

[00:17:51]You know, we are also reordering the Moka pot. So I went there. We’re going to put a FAQ. I did a v-log, a video with the production. I thought I was crazy. I’m carrying this huge camera, like selfie-style through the Factory. And there’s like Factory workers like kind of like waving at the camera and then the factory girl is like are you gonna flip the show?

[00:18:15] Your customers is. I’m like, yeah, I would have thought that you would have shown it to other suppliers. True. She didn’t think seem to care about. A lot of factories’ a little bit paranoid about me taking the attack and going to the other suppliers. But I do feel pretty confident last week. We were with Ino and going to these factories but I am coming back from the trip and they move to another Factory.

[00:18:41]This has been such a, this Moka pot has been a nightmare. Remember we had to recreate, had to send back some, now had the handles broken. Now the factory moved to sales rep changed like but I did a full video people can watch it will embed the video YouTube video on the show notes. We’ll be ready by the show, but.

[00:19:02]Once we get the supply side on and will course you’re working on both sides. You’re a hustler you like trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents as Amazon Seller or as a business owner trying to buy by keep your supply chain good but I do feel really really confident confident now about the supply chain going up there.

[00:19:21] I met the factory. They remembered Lorenzo. Like oh, you’re the guy with Lorenzo, right? I’m like, yeah, you’re like, oh, yeah. We remember Lorenzo like never forget him. Thank you. And so, still the best podcast title I’ve ever seen. Oh, yeah, you like that Yiwu Catastrophe. That was a nightmare we refunded like well now we luckily we didn’t have to pay for him to give the money back but that was actually a different Factor than this one.

[00:19:48] But yeah, this has been definitely a learning experience for everybody involved but. We’re, how are you feeling about what Christmas, Zack were in? I know it’s not even in July. What is it like mid-June? So I, you know, I, we got some new listings. How do you think we are looking at for Christmas sales?

[00:20:08] When, when would that listing go live on Amazon? When would it have stock? Stock is sitting in Yiwu Warehouse. Or, paid for with? It’s in a white box. I’m gonna try to get some stickers. I took some notes from what you said. We’re going to put the special bag that basically the price, shipping a couple weeks probably by sea.

[00:20:25] So probably like a month a month from now, maybe a little more, maybe five weeks from now. So like July probably like, maybe late, maybe Late July. Yeah, that’s plenty of time to sell through and but it’s only like, like this one. I’m nervous like 24 to 48 pieces of these things. Exactly. So you’ll be able to you know, whichever one kind of does the best.

[00:20:47] Just immediately place a reorder me and want to send, send it in basically by late October. Yeah, early November you want to be in there for holiday season because at some point every year and I always forget when it is, they just stopped accepting. Yeah, they do stock for the holiday season. So we’re ordering a couple thousand more Moka pots.

[00:21:11] I already placed. Well, I asked him for a quote but ah. So the other reason, the handles broke we got another feedback for listeners. We thought we would differentiate by having a bunch of extra crap in the package. We had the milk frother, we had like a clip spoon, we had the latte art like, then there was some feedbacks like oh the book about was awesome.

[00:21:36] And there’s also a bunch of other stuff that came in the Box for the other stuff. Cost like five or six seven bucks, you know. So we cut that all out, but then the box was too big so we didn’t and we didn’t.  Anyways, I’m not going to, of course. There’s a lot to learn but we should have shrunk in the Box more and packaged it more tightly.

[00:21:55] And I think that’s what at the handle issue. This is why I like to have plastic trays that fit the items exactly and you can just swap out the plastic trays. You could have one just for the Moka pot that fits in the box and one that fits the Moka pot and everything else. We’re doing this for our vaporizer kits.

[00:22:12] Okay, great is that we have one with the charging case and one without and we just have a different insert tray for each. Each one. Okay. And so that way they don’t move around at all. They’re, they’re very stable. But I think you brought up a really good point which is a lot of us. Guess what the customer wants and we might put a lot of time and effort into things that don’t matter in the end.

[00:22:37] Maybe people really just want to Moka pot and they’re kind of want some extra stuff. But if we’re paying six, seven dollars for that. And they don’t even know this or we could do the best kind of marketing there is which is just reduced the price. Yeah, we did and if we you know, this is what Walmart always tried to do and every all the Discounters just take the marketing budget and put it into reducing the price.

[00:23:05]So it’s something you got a test you can do this with variations. You can do this, these things like mturk testing where you just figure out what do people actually care about. So if you’re for example, I just did this last week. I went into 10 or so different Facebook groups for Vapors. And I said, hey, would you guys rather have a charging case or would you rather have extra pots?

[00:23:31] More than 80 percent said that they want extra pots. Well, so are we spending so much money on this charge case? So it. You know know your customer ask your customer directly. Would you rather have this this or this always give them at least three options because every choice is really between at least three options this or this or this and if you give them that you’ll figure out a lot more quickly.

[00:24:03] What do people really want to do. Need to make these accessories, these ebooks, whatever else, because if you just ask people would you like this? They’re all going to say yes, but if you say. Which one do you want more? They have to think more critically. Make sense. Another thing. We we added a 9 cup Moka pot.

[00:24:20] In addition to the 6 cup. The factory wanted 1 out of 1000MOQ for each size, but somehow after sitting there and talking about broken handles for an hour. When I brought it up again. Just an hour? Well, no, that was the first hour. I was there about three hours. It was a mournful morning until we didn’t have lunch with them.

[00:24:43]But the almost deep into lunch time and then I was like, are you sure? There’s nothing you can do about a less than 1000 MOQ for the 9- cup. And then she said she could do an overrun when they get an order for nine cup they could run an extra 500 for us so that and they seem like they get it pretty often.

[00:25:04] So we’re going to do that. Okay, and and then we talked about this but it’s a ,we, Mark, Mark on team said making a variation on a new listing because I’m still in this variations versus new listings. Do you have a rule of thumb that you follow?  I don’t really have a rule of thumb for anything people think I use a lot of processes, but I kind of done this stuff and have to have more intuition but in general when you’re doing a product that’s very similar and you can use a reviews from from one thing.

[00:25:42] I needed to check the the policy to make sure it’s not a unapproved type of variation. But if it’s things like maybe a size or maybe a color variation it can it can work out. Okay, and so you would do that until your other listing has enough reviews to stand on its own and you can split them because if you split them and they can show up differently in the the search results so you can have more spots on the first page which is.

[00:26:08] At least for the Chinese sellers most of them ,they’re our end goal is just down the even use the same supply chain, you know, I know a lot of guys to do phone cables, but they’ll do like 10 different brands of phone cables and they’ll try and rank all of them on the same same page. Hmm because Amazon is just a real, real estate game.

[00:26:28]If you own 10 spaces on the first page. It’s a lot better than having one thing on the first page. Yeah, it’s true. That is true. Zack checking where we’re at on this bus. I think we got some more time.  In a toll booth.  But I’m feeling I mean we did really really good in Christmas. We made it. We made it through without running out of stock, but we didn’t end up running a stock in January which then causes to rush in an Airship and then maybe it’s what broke the handles but I feel pretty confident about this the factory looks like they’re on board.

[00:27:07] To support us. We’re going to fix the packaging issue. We’re going to add a new variation. We’re going to add a few new listings.  How are you feeling Zack? About anyone else looking at our PPC? I guess that needs some work. But how are you feeling with as a as a as a spectator? So I think it’s really rare and really a great thing about the level of transparency and honesty that you bring to this podcast to show what.

[00:27:36]It’s really like because no one is really going to talk about the problems in their business, especially on a podcast and it’s something I wish more people did so people can get into things with kind of an expectation. No one that reads, sees a course while someone drinking a mai tai on a beach thinks.

[00:27:57] Oh, I’m going to have to go to EU about broken handles. This product or what if I had to pull everything out and put it back in or how do I even negotiate with this level of moq? So these are actually really relatable challenges to a lot of people that are actually in this business and that’s what makes this really great to hear and refreshing because this level of honesty is something that’s completely lacking in this.

[00:28:26] Entire Amazon business from almost every sort of online Channel you could listen to and I think you’re showing the other thing which is you have to show up and keep fighting. Yeah, I mean cuz it’s not a rollercoaster. How you get there sure every day just kind of got a show up and eventually it works out and that’s the pattern of success.

[00:28:49] I see for everyone that I do know so looking into your account looking at some stuff. The only thing I could recommend is one thing I like to do to keep myself organized while I work is I kind of write a list of all the potential areas of operation and then what usually needs to be done and I call this a trigger list, right?

[00:29:15] If you’re familiar with David Allen’s getting things done. It’s basically taken from that but customized to the type of business I’m doing. So then I go through that every day and I come up with exactly what would need to potentially be done. Okay. So what I see on some of your stuff, I don’t want to be too harsh for example listing change that could have been made a long time ago was put off because maybe it was good enough.

[00:29:43] But if you have a list of these things that you need to continuously improve as you keep analyzing them. You will say maybe this isn’t the best we can do. Maybe we can improve this and so having some of the stuff broken down into checklist things are going to think about and then making sure that you schedule some time.

[00:30:08] Every couple weeks every month to look over things that you thought were already done or thought were taken care of or thought were someone else’s responsibility because those kinds of things can really trip you up what happens in a lot of businesses I see is when. People think somehow this is someone else’s someone else is going to do it and that other person thinks someone else is going to do it and then it never gets done and figuring out these kind of gaps in responsibilities and figuring out how to continuously improve things not get complacent is a really important part of an Amazon business and any online business, I agree and I mean, yeah, I’ve been.

[00:30:54] We’ve been chatting over dinner and everything and I’m much more active in this business than I had anticipated to say the least and it’s. You know, like you said I’m putting myself out there and I’ve gotten some comments that I’m some people say so green or showing some some some holes and the way I operate or lead the team or whatever.

[00:31:19] It’s been.  It’s been it’s been a roller coaster and but I really feel confident about realigning and yeah, I’m taking ownership of this process. But yeah wonderful listings. Zack’s talking about is like the portable French Press which is kind of true. I’ve been it kind of has been sitting there. I didn’t really look at the listing.

[00:31:39] It’s only got like a two percent conversion rate. 3%, don’t sell your, yourself short. So, rounded down. Yeah. So, rounding up its frank closer to 3 than 2. But the, I, he was, give me some tips on title optimization and in the image optimization, but I’ve been really deeply focus on a Moka pot because that was that is our money maker.

[00:31:57]I mean we had to some other and is that another thing? Is that like shit? Should we just double down in Moka pot again? The 9 cup get 2 to 3 cup, why am I getting these other five listings that are kind of like I’m kind of shooting in the dark. Honestly. I already bought the yeah one product. It’s sitting there.

[00:32:13] And I think if you tweak it a little bit you can get that 3 to a 6 to a 10 maybe more. I think it’s just not a targeted correctly and little bit of writing can make it more exciting. Okay. Yeah, so I think just I think also to summarize what you mean. It’s just always be optimizing always be reviewing your numbers looking at the conversion rates looking at your PPC a costs and your cost per you know, how much you’re spending.

[00:32:43] And what’s your what kind of keywords you can segment out to be more focused on and just in your bibs and but just just look just all I think whether it’s Amazon or has any business is really optimizing your numbers and and reviewing reviewing right. I mean just look at things as they are and realize just write it down have a list of things someday to improve and then figure out if these are actionable things that are easy to do.

[00:33:13] And then just do it. Sure. Well, this has been fascinating Zack. So how how can people I think we’re kind of wrapped up unless you want to add something but of course little, little bit of plug you’re doing quite a bit lately. I mean, you’re you gotta pretty awesome Shenzhen meet up you’re doing with them big, a big seller and you’re going to speak in you can speak at Yiwu in a couple few days and then you’re going to Barcelona for affiliate world.

[00:33:40] You got a lot of stuff going on man. Yeah. I have that I have. Super secret project in the works. Okay, super secret. I have two interesting projects related to vaping nicotine CBD and have a couple other secret web dev projects and some good stuff happening. So I’m putting in the work and it’s showing.

[00:34:02] That’s it man, I mean you’re always I think everybody in the community is always pressed with your ability to execute and get things done so it’s panda-leap.com, right? Yeah, it’s very important to remember the – and  leap.com so you can do that or if you just want to ask me a question about anything kind of Amazon if you have some kind of service that can help my vape business or CBD or something.

[00:34:29] If you just want to chat by the best way to reach me is probably email Zack Z-a-c-k at AMZ Kung Fu.com. Awesome. Yeah, definitely shoot him a thank-you note for sharing as always not holding back on his amazing experiences within the trenches of the Amazon war war the Amazon Arena the Gladiator getting more and more like a war but that’s for maybe another episode.

[00:34:59] So I do feel like I’ve had some competitors leave me negative reviews some really hard to hard to determine. But yeah, it seems a little dirty seems a little bit dirty, but I think we’re getting another time. We’re getting close to the border and our guests are screaming and Cantonese Mandarin to get off the bus immediately.

[00:35:18] Yeah, maybe I’ll try to record that, but I got all this gear. I gotta clean up too but thanks again Zack for sharing. Are you getting ready for the Canton fair and trade show season this fall then join us at the cross-border summit as our fourth annual conference. Two-day event, October 22nd and 23rd 2019 in Guangzhou China.

[00:35:46] We’re going to have of course amazing speakers and always great networking opportunities deal-making. It’s going to be multiple full days as well as even up dishing workshops and masterminds if you’re really craving for more. I would love to see you there. It’s a critical part of our podcast and our business here and we put a lot of effort into it to make it as valuable for you as possible.

[00:36:10] So if you’re coming all the way over here for the trade shows, definitely invest in attending this event.  www. crossborderSummit.com/ China. So thank you Zack. I hope the quality of the interview is good. He’s like Mike, can’t we just do this online? Of course, it could have been like an online recording with some of our various softwares for recording these podcasts online, but I don’t know I feel like some of the listeners have.

[00:36:42] Told me that you like it when I’m on the road, on the go and this is really what I believe Global from Asia is about I mean man, it’s getting harder. Now I don’t want to get political but you can’t even pass their admiralty MTR, you know, there’s this trade War happening. There’s just a lot of changes happening in the world and we’re always on the go and I’m on the Go, I mean I was I did a few of these shows in cars and buses.

[00:37:06] Because I want to give you access to the insights as much as I get them. I think that’s why this show is little bit maybe different than others. You know, we’re here in Asia. I mean technically now, I’m in Thailand, but I’m probably going into China more and more often just seems like it’s a it’s something I need to do whether it’s with the product development.

[00:37:27] Our events, our other things we’re doing and I wanted to extend those experiences and knowledge. Knowledge and people to you around the world and I don’t know what’s going to be the future to be honest of everything there. Everything is changing. I will say that for sure. I mean like I just was mentioning with these protests in Hong Kong with these trade Wars happening.

[00:37:59] And immigration policies getting stricter everywhere. I mean it’s struggling for me and Thailand, you know.  It’s really challenging the whole idea of global from Asia. I mean, we were all about running your business online from anywhere with like, you know, originally start with a Hong Kong business, you know structure in many of our earlier shows and now.

[00:38:25] We’re really under a challenge, but I’m trying to make it opportunity. No, I think with every every threat or every you know, I think was that the SWOT analysis with every up, you know with every challenge creates new opportunity. So I think if you are keeping an open mind keeping your ears open listen to shows like Global from Asia learning as much as you can.

[00:38:46] I think there’s going to be huge opportunities. I mean, I think there’s a huge shakeups with massive companies within this International shake up and I think that I think that’s going to be a future for people like us, ones that can run online, the ones that can run anywhere, where location doesn’t matter because locations are getting shaken up right now like shaking up.

[00:39:06] I mean you can if you have a fixed office somewhere with staff. It’s going to be much harder to move but for us at least me. We got an amazing online team and we can work anywhere. I mean as long as there’s internet, which is something even that seems like challenge sometimes but as long as you can get an internet decent internet connection, which can access.

[00:39:29] let’s say online tools, then you can work anywhere and that’s what we’re doing with Sisitano and are technically Paraliving Inc, we are. I believe that’s what a lot of you are too, you know, your online based business owners traveling hustling making the best of what you can and I am strongly recommending.

[00:39:48] I don’t want to set up offices and especially with these Changing Times mean. I’m so happy. I used to have an office of 10-11 people in Shenzhen and that that was a lot of costs not just cost but also just in flexibility. You know, you don’t know what’s going to happen. And then you have your you know your team and then they’re used to working in your office and they you know, they’re in the system the system of the Matrix, you know, and you gotta keep dealing with that, but when they’re online and flexible.

[00:40:18] I mean it makes you more flexible as a business owner and I’m definitely going to keep investing and running online team scaling online teams. I really am it’s a lot a lot of work and you gotta change your mindset. You got to have really good operating systems really good procedures in place. I mean not working online is a little bit more effort for management, but the rewards are amazing.

[00:40:40] And that’s what we’re doing here with Sisitano. Also, of course Global From Asia our media and our events were running online teams, you know, I just really am nervous about the future of business in cross-border. I mean international business seems like governments want us to stay in our home country and have have offices and have everybody sitting in the same office and filing your taxes and following those local laws and doing in that currency.

[00:41:06] But that’s totally against what we’re doing here at Global From Asia. We’re doing the opposite. We’re about cross-border. We’re about to bring international business working with cultures all around the world, whatever the background. I mean if people have ability, I don’t want to be limited to working with people in a specific location and it seems like governments were forcing us to do that.

[00:41:27] I got a scary letter from HSBC and in my own and its own company Shadstone in Hong Kong and they’re they’re trying to they’re trying to KYC probably. I’ve been here more Banks getting shut down. Anyway kind of ranting. It’s not really relevant to what we did at today’s talk with Zack, but I’m really excited about Sisitano to be honest.

[00:41:46] I mean Lorenzo’s working on developing some clickfunnels. Some funnels is a new channel of Revenue where we’re fixing this QC nightmare. I’m taking more active role. And there’s a Mark’s still helping out with the Amazon management and and our ads so we’re just pushing forward. You can’t let things get in your way.

[00:42:09] And while this Venture I wasn’t planning to be as active. I am getting more active the last couple of months because I want to make this a massive success and it should be I mean a lot of listeners have helped out with some input and suggestions and we’re going to use this to grow everybody’s business.

[00:42:30] I want this to help everyone, you know Zack says we’re being so transparent. It is almost scary and you know, a lot of seller friends say we’re totally crazy to be just open and you know, I honestly somewhat agree with that but we are trying our best to be as transparent as possible and we’re dealing with these.

[00:42:51] Quality problems and we’re dealing with these, you know, even some negative reviews probably because the quality but also somewhat probably because of competitors.  bending the rules or breaking the rules, but you got to just keep on going forward. I was talking to Meyer was in Shenzhen another partner at Paraliving and you know, it’s all about I think is some negative reviews from competitors and he’s like welcome to the game.

[00:43:18] This is the game. And that is business. You got to try to keep a positive outlook. Stay mentally strong physically strong. I’m really also really getting more sleep. I used to try to work late and I took care of his advice back in the day of not sleeping too much. But I think that was the worst decision I ever made I was not feeling well, I wasn’t thinking clearly I think you need your sleep now.

[00:43:43] I’m getting I’m getting eight hours as much as I can sometimes seven. But aiming for 8 daily at measure it so you just got to stay healthy and sharp. It’s the quality of your work, it’s the quality of your product, the quality of your output, rather than the quantity. I think there’s going to be more and more true.

[00:44:00] I also did an interview with Lucy from Shenzhen and will be on a Chinese Channel. I’ll see if I can link to it once she publishes it also this coming week. But I was telling her she says a lot of Chinese sellers are having trouble on Amazon. Now, it’s getting more difficult. I like difficult. I think that’s why I’m getting more excited about about it because it’s not as easy and I like challenges.

[00:44:24] I like also differentiate based on quality and your effort of your work. I so I do believe of course. I’ve plugged some ads in our show, but content Investments is one of our, our service businesses. Because I believe you have to make quality content and as branding not just putting a you know, decent photo and you know some very minimal text and expecting to get results.

[00:44:49] Now. I think you’re gonna have to stand out you have to build true branding. I can have to have you know, relationships between these products not just take any random product. You can get a good price for and think you can sell I think I have to do related products and I’m trying to add new listings.

[00:45:05] There is a new project, you know you mentioned the first while is taking his break from Global From Asia. We were working on some secret project, which is hopefully gonna be ready in a month or two and we’re going to use this Sisitano’s listings and assets to to build it out even more. I can’t say too much more but I’ll leave that hint towards the end of this blah blah blah session.

[00:45:26] I hope this has inspired you. It’s really about taking action you I’ve also learned so much getting back involved in the Amazon if you just talking about it or just studying it or listening to it. You’re not going to get as much as actually doing it. You got it. Your hands dirty whether it’s e-commerce, whether it’s any kind of business or anything in life, you know, you can’t just study and do keyword research forever. You actually have to get out there and be willing to you know to make mistakes and learn and adjust and stay positive and it’s a long-term war.

[00:45:57] It’s not a battle. I mean you have battles but you got to survive the war or a marathon, you know, it’s not just a Sprint you’ve got to survive the ups and downs of business whether it’s entrepreneurship or any venture. Anything you’re trying to do to really stand out you got to get through the hard times because when most people will give up when it gets too hard and if you can stick through you can succeed and that’s what we’re going to do.

[00:46:19] In Sisitano.  This case and we’re rebuilding building things back up and I look forward to making a positive ROI for this investment and the partners everyone. And you and I want you to take action. I want to hear some more case studies and I’ll wrap it up but we also have a picture of Zack and me on the bus in the show notes.

[00:46:39] Globalfromasia.com/episode 258. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Bye bye to get more info about running an international business. Please visit our website at www.globalfromasia.com. That’s www.globalfromasia.com.. Also be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.