Preparing For A Sourcing Trip: Product Preparation, Mapping, & More with Michael Michelini feat. India Sourcing Trip

This was a live webinar where Mike shared his product discovery ideas, and we delved into a fun Q&A session discussing preparations for trade shows, insights about India, and effective bargaining strategies with factories.

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[00:00:00] Episode 424 of Global Formia in India, talking about product sourcing and preparing for my first ever trip to India. This February for India sourcing trip with Mega and Marg. It’s a great, fun, interactive session. Let us tune in now. 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 [00:00:30] Micheli. Thank you for choosing to listen to maybe watch Global from Asia. Episode 424, we are rolling deeper into 2024, almost into February. I am preparing for my trip to India. First time ever going to Delhi for the India sourcing trip. Mega, it’s been great. She came out to Chang Mai for the Cross Border Summit.

We’ve known each other so many years, and I, I’ve always wanted to go. Finally gonna make that move going out there. [00:01:00] February 4th to the 14th. Today. We did a live webinar last week and we are sharing with you today. It was so much fun. No slides. I think even if you’re on audio version, you should be getting some value on this.

We’re talking about product discovery, product research, some tools, and then we get into q and a. We talked about sourcing in India and of course China and a lot, a lot of nuggets. I mean, honestly, like this should be paid, but there’s just so much more value. I can’t wait to be on the floor trade show working with people.

Maybe you could [00:01:30] even join too. We’ll tune in right now. See you in the show. Are you looking for USA banking solutions for your e-commerce business? I am proud to say mercury.com is supporting the podcast here, third year in a row at Global from Asia. And we’re proud to say, ’cause we use ’em ourselves for many of our own Amazon brands and e-commerce brands and joint ventures with our US structures.

And they’re super easy to do online application, no fees, and they have great customer support. Have helped us with trouble with Amazon [00:02:00] Seller Central over the years about some receipts and statements and everything like that. So we’re so happy to say thank you, mercury, for supporting our show, being a great service and supporting other e-commerce sellers.

We’re really proud to say they’re a sponsor here. And we also have a video tutorial as well as an overview and a special link with a little bonus for you as well for us under certain conditions. Check it out@globalformasia.com slash mercury for that information. Thank you for listening and thank you Mercury.

Good [00:02:30] evening. Good morning. It’s, uh. Early evening here, I think afternoon, Meg for mega, and a little bit over evening for Marge. How, how you all doing? Doing great. Thank you so much, Mike. Yeah, it’s great to, great to have you. We have a few people here in the live audience. Maybe they could in the chat say where they’re dialing in from.

I’m looking at the profiles. I see people from all over the world, Paul in Australia, [00:03:00] Oksana in Australia. So if, if you just wanna say in the chat where you’re dialing in from and, uh, what you’d like to learn today. We have. A fun one today. I was, I I, no slides. We’re going, we’re going to no slides. I actually think those are the more fun ones and I’ll be sharing some of my own strategies.

I’m my first time to India. We’re, we’re getting close, right? So it’s getting close. I gained sleeps.

19 sleeps. I like that. [00:03:30] 19 sleeps 18 now I think. Is it 18? Michael Today. 18. Now we got the countdown. It’s exciting. Yeah. Go. No slides. Yeah. O Sana. Thank you. Laurie Oksana is here. Sana is coming to India. You’ll meet her there. Oh, I can’t wait. I can’t wait. Yeah, I can’t wait. And we’ve got Laurie as well.

Laurie’s on the trip too. Hi Laurie. How are you? Nice. From Miami, so she’s early 6:00 AM I think. Right? Right. [00:04:00] Uh, we have a global audience. Well, I think you’re also gonna get a double session with, with me, I’m gonna do, this one’s a, a webinar style, but I’ll also do a private one for a confirmed attendees next week as well, where it’ll be a little bit more interactive.

Of course, today you can ask me questions as well, but I’ll be more talking about like a single product selection. But, you know, for those that are confirmed, we’ll get more time with me and we’ll be going through, we’ll, going through your own products and your [00:04:30] own questions in a much more intimate style.

So let’s, uh, get started. I will share my screen or Melo, or would you like to say something first while I get my No, I just wanna, uh, say that, yeah, this is gonna be, you know, very helpful for anybody who’s of course planning to go to India, but also, you know, other sourcing trips, right? I mean, if you, if you’re planning to go to China, for example.

Exactly. You know, these tips might be helpful for you. For any ba any trip [00:05:00] basically. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we’re, we’re trying our best to give, you know, it’s always so much to share, so much to go through. So this is the webinar page, just to, to give you a little bit of an outline. Of course, Marge is here too.

Co-founders, well India Sourcing Network. And we have Mela. I’m Mike Micheli, the host at Global from Asia. I’m dialing in from Chiang Mai, Thailand, where we’ve been doing sourcing in China and Thailand and Asia for 20 years, if you can believe that. It’s crazy. Crazy. [00:05:30] Time flies. So today I’m gonna go through my sourcing preparations.

I will be going to India. I’ll also be looking for some of my own products. So I’ll be sharing today some of the products I’m already buying. I’ll be sharing some of the strategies, the tools, the tactics, but not just the tools. The thought process, expanding brands that already has products decision making.

We have a map of the trade show preparing to talk to the suppliers and, uh, we will have some q and a at the end. [00:06:00] Uh, but like Mela says, this is of course we’re gonna focus in India, but I think you’ll learn strategies for all of your sourcing and, and e-commerce needs. And thank you for being here live.

Thank you for attending. So I’m just gonna go right into screen share, if that’s okay. We’re gonna get right into the fun part and, uh, maybe if there’s questions maybe I don’t mind while we’re going. So this is, this is one of my brands. It’s a newer brand. So I, I have a few brands. This is, uh, just [00:06:30] getting started on Amazon, so it’s a new brand.

It’s from China and Thailand for right now. But I would, I want to find some in India. So it’s a, and it’s Dried flowers, pompous. So it’s mostly a single product for right now. And when I think of a, a brand, this, I, I, I actually purchased this brand. I didn’t start, this brand started. But, uh, when I think of a brand, I think of a, of a, of a type of a user.

I think of a, a group of products, not a [00:07:00] single product, but, uh, so you can expand the brand, right? So what we’re gonna talk about today is some ideas of how to find new product ideas for existing product category. And of course, like, sure, there’s so many strategies, but, uh, and of course we have Mega and Marge here with their experience.

Maybe they could even give some more suggestions. I’m always learning as well, but this is, this is the concept for today’s webinar. And then of course, for those that are confirmed, or we’ll confirm, [00:07:30] we’ll have a private session where I’d love to also go even more depth and also looking at your products as well in a, in a private, more private session.

But I’m gonna go right into Amazon. I, I also recommend you put your deliver to address to New York or us. I’d just like the 1 0 0 1 0, which is a New York City. Zip code, it sometimes helps with the search algorithm. And I’m using a tool called Seller Sprite. I know a lot of people [00:08:00] use Helium 10. I’ve used Helium 10.

It’s, it’s somewhat similar. You can check into the pricing yourself, but I will be using this tool for today’s demonstrations and this is how I’ll do my product research today. Alright. I will, uh, start to look for some products. So I’m gonna look in what my current product category and, uh, you can see this is actually another plugin.

I’m forgetting the name, A MZ suggestion Expander Pro. So I, I had [00:08:30] this, this also, this one’s totally free. So this, as you can see, I just put in a base keyword and it’s given me all kinds of keywords here for my ideas. So, for example, of course, I, I, I, I’ve been thinking about this brand a lot. I, I’d love to take some questions at the end for your own brands.

But you think of complimentary products. But if, if you’re already buying from, say, China or other countries and you wanna start in India or another country, I wouldn’t really [00:09:00] try to have a, I would try to have an independent product. I can see here pompous and vase. I might not really want that as a combination because if I’m buying one from one country and uh, another country, it would be very hard to do together ’cause of assembly and all that.

So I want to kind of find a standalone new product. But I could find a, a vase, right? I would think maybe a vase might be a good one. We don’t sell this with the vase at the moment, [00:09:30] so vases are something I’m thinking about. So I could maybe just do pompous vase and you can see a, see more variations can be a little bit less quantity.

But let’s just put in a pompous vase. You’ll see the search results page here. And seller Sprite is running in the background inside this browser, and I can do some product research buttons. I should have been logged in. [00:10:00] Okay, so seller Sprite, similar to Helium 10 or is it different? Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s got very similar features.

Okay. But yeah, you can compare as you see. But I think this is of course gonna be a very low, low, uh, low search volume product here. But I’m just giving you some ideas of how this looks. So you can see this search results page. But yeah, it does look similar to Helium 10 as you may. May look, may agree with me on.[00:10:30]

Hmm. Yeah. And yeah, and you can see here the number of reviews, the, the ratings. But there’s some cool other features that, uh, but I’m basically, right now I’m just trying to get an idea of size of this category, of this niche to see if it’s, how much it’s worth my, my investments and my time to do this. So, BSRI believe people know is bestselling rank.

So the lower the better. That means it’s selling a a lot. Usually people think higher might be better, but lower is better. [00:11:00] That’s a bit of a basic one. And you get an idea. So this, this one, this one here is selling 85 units a day, right? According to this tool, which, you know, I think might be worth your time if you can do it.

This is the monthly revenue, the margins, this is FBA fees. So similar to any other tool, I’m just using seller Sprite today. But you can of course use Helium, Dan. And there’s other tools as well for product research. But, you know, I’m just gonna, you know, dive into this. This one, this is kind of sticking out.[00:11:30]

You can also see here if it has other kinds of content, all Amazon Choice and Vine, and our video introductions and other points. So I’m going to dive into this, this one here. And another cool feature about this is it, it pulls it automatically into the listing. So I can see here the different, uh, variations.

There’s multiple variations. I’ll be honest. I mean, there’s four variations. I don’t like variations [00:12:00] because that means I have to buy more inventory of different kinds of sizes and colors. I like to focus on one. I don’t like a lot of variations ’cause it just makes me have to spend more money on inventory.

But I can see the, it doesn’t make, these don’t, according to this, this data, these might not be really worth it. This looks like the main one, right? This white variation. Again, I, I have to keep an eye out when I go to the India trip. If I can see something like this. I don’t know if [00:12:30] mega can give us some insight, insights if she thinks this is an India source product, but, uh, could be.

Yeah. But, uh, you know, I would, I would think vases are potentially India made and probably, yeah. Could be also competitive on price. Actually Mike, there is a fantastic supplier that we, I’m sort of, every time we go there, I have to go back and see and they actually make planters and VAEs and they’re actually made out of metal, but they look exactly like ceramic.

But when you pick it up, [00:13:00] it’s lot. Wow. And of course, a lot easier to ship because it’s not heavy, it’s not breakable, and they are gorgeous. So you’ll have to check that one out. Wow. Okay. I’ll definitely have to see that. Thank you so much, planters and VAEs. I think you, Mela knows the straw I’m talking about, don’t you?

Yeah, I remember that. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. So it looks like people are picking this white variation over the, over the black, which actually the black looks nice that finish. But this is just like a plain white [00:13:30] finish. So you can also, you can see multiple trends here. But I mean, basically I, I, I kind of like this because I’m getting, I’m, I’m, I’m giving you, I’m just thinking out loud for the people watching.

I’m thinking I don’t wanna have multiple variations, so I think I can get away with just maybe this, this variation. I’m not sure why the seller has these different ones. At least from this data, it doesn’t look like it might be worth it. They different sizes, they’ve got large and medium. Yeah. I see. But, uh, as far as this data tools saying it’s, the majority of the sales [00:14:00] are just medium sized white.

So I don’t know why they bother. I mean, yeah, of course they’re making some money, but you can see 88% of the reviews and uh, ratings and the sales are on this white, white one. So I wonder if they’ve just added tho those other ones lately, because they don’t seem to have hardly any reviews either. True.

It’s a bit strange. Yeah, so there’s so much data. Again, I’m just kind of [00:14:30] getting some inspiration. Today. We’re gonna go to the trade show, right? 19 sleeps or 18 sleeps to India. So I, I just want to, I, I don’t want to exactly find the exact vase or the exact product, but I wanna start to see what some top sellers in the category I’m looking for.

I want to come prepared to my, uh, my trip in India. So I wanna do some basic research in advance. I wanna see what some top sellers, maybe now I have white, over black, I don’t know, medium over large. And this is again, just, we’re just five, 10 minutes to this session, but I’m just getting some [00:15:00] inspiration.

Today is. You’re getting inspiration, you’re trying to understand some kind of categories. You’re trying to understand, you know, the markets, the trends, you’re, this is Kipa. It’s like another plugin on top of this tool where it’s, it’s showing you the trends over time of this product. So you can see if they’ve been, the price is not moved, you know, it’s always, according to this tool, it’s always been at 9 99, but you can see the blue, the BSR has been decreasing, which actually means [00:15:30] increasing sales.

We talked about that. BSR means lower is better. It’s counterintuitive, but, uh, it’s 8,000, which is better. And then you can see here the blue, the ratings are increasing and, uh, the ratings been staying steady at the, at the 4.7. So it’s uh, it’s a very well done listing. The sellers worked really hard on it.

It might be hard to compete with them for her because they’re improving. It’s definitely been improving, but it also means potentially the [00:16:00] market is in increasing. And, uh, so this is, so one other cool thing about this tool is the ai, AI generator. So a lot of these tools, every tool, I think even Google and Facebook are using ai, but they can run AI to read all the reviews for you.

Because a lot of times what we used to say in our older webinars or older podcast was read the reviews and see what people are saying. But I’m not even gonna have to read the reviews. I’m getting the data right here. [00:16:30] So you can see how many are women and men. I don’t know how they exactly figured this out.

So, you know. You know, do your own research or trust it as you could. But 40% men, 60% women, which is not as good as I wish. I usually like it to be higher one way or the other. ’cause I like to know if I’m selling to women or men. So it’s kind of even, but a little bit heavier on women. Right. And you can see what kind of, uh, homeowners office students, right?

So you’re getting some ideas of who’s the customer [00:17:00] buying this product. And again, it’s ai, you can’t totally rely on it, but you can, uh, get some insights, right? That it’s pretty evenly distributed across these, these topics. Bedroom. Right. So it’s reading, it’s reading. The, this is from the reviews. Isn’t this kind of amazing?

It’s reading the reviews. Yeah. Like how do they know who they are? How, how do they know? How does it know their homeowners or office workers or students, right. Yeah. I mean, that set of information is not really well. They’re, they’re [00:17:30] extrapolating it from the review Cs for the office. They’re Mm-Hmm.

They’re mentioning, they’re kind of maybe grabbing this, we couldn’t course read the actual reviews directly, but they’re, so actually when I, I go back to this blue post, actually, this story is a little bit of a mess. It’s not live on Amazon right now. They lost their inbound shipments, so it’s gonna show you outta stock, but I will show it to you anyway.

But we use this to put in our, our product video. [00:18:00] So we use these keywords that we learn in the actual videos or content. Right? Ah, so you’re, you’re learning from this data, and I would highly recommend that you use this in your own listing to, to, to reinforce the potential customer. Oh, this is good for my bedroom.

Right? You say it’s for the bedroom, you say it’s for the office, you say it’s for the bathroom. Right. So again, I’m not getting a little bit off topic, but I, I. I think this is helpful for your [00:18:30] marketing and your listing creation, but you’re also reading the negatives. So one of the biggest things that all of us Amazon sellers do over the years is read the bad reviews of our competitors or our potential products.

We wanna sell and try to understand from the reviews how to improve the product. I did that very specifically with a coffee pot brand Ciano, where the customers on my competitors were all complaining about burning their hand when they touched the handle. And [00:19:00] so we took a, a heat resistance material handle that would not pass the heat to the handle.

So you’re reading their negative reviews to understand, and again, like going back to the India sourcing trip or, and the sourcing trips in general. You’re taking this research and you’re bringing this to your, to the booth, and I know Mega and the, they have a very good ebook that they’ll share to those that are confirmed to come to the trip.

I definitely recommend you to take that in advance and research it. I’ll leave that for [00:19:30] her to share with you. But one, one concern is don’t look like you’re a brand new seller that’s never sold on Amazon, or you, you don’t wanna look like you’re a newbie, so if, if you don’t even know how to sell on Amazon, or you never sold, or you don’t know this product, I, I can understand maybe what, what customers are saying.

So when I talk to this supplier, I can, I can talk about the importance of the, the, you know, about some of these features. Of course, broken, right? [00:20:00] You can, but you know, the coloring, the texture. So you’re, you’re educating yourself on why they’re buying it. You’re educating yourself. So, you know, while you’re not the seller, you might not have experience.

Selling this, you can start to really understand. So this one’s very, uh, this one’s very important. I think. I don’t know. It scratches the surface of the shelf, right? Mm-Hmm. So, which I could agree with. So maybe when I’m looking at it on the floor, at the trade [00:20:30] show, I would maybe look on the bottom. Is this gonna have something like that?

Is it, is it, maybe, you know, this is actually my favorite part. You, you’re like designing the product before you even, you know, the more you know before you even start to manufacture, right? So you, you can improve. So you’re thinking maybe there’s some kind of like a, a ve padding on the bottom of the, of the face, or at least a finish or, so you’re trying to write this all out, right?

Maybe a pen and paper, maybe a Google doc. I [00:21:00] also would, if I’m really serious, I would. Recommend making a Google spreadsheet and a Google Doc where you’re listing out your products and going through it. You’re taking these notes. I’m honestly taking this right? I I’m, I don’t wanna spend too much of your, I like to write on paper.

I’ll take this notebook to India. I like paper over, uh, everything on computer. So I can flip to this page and I can go to this. But this is, this is what you’re trying to do, right? You’re trying to understand this product and [00:21:30] understand what’s into the mindset of the customer. What type of customers are they?

What, what they’re want, what they’re liking, what they’re not liking. But I feel like maybe they’re not addressing the scratch bottom. Like I don’t, I’m not sure if show a little bit on the bottom here, right? Hmm. But you see how they’re talking about these different requirements. It looks like it’s a plastic, you’re, you’re diving in and then you’re going into similar products.[00:22:00]

So you’re, you’re really trying to understand this and then you’re getting a lot of research into this, but they actually all look the same and, you know. Yeah. Don’t they all look the same? Like, come on here. I feel like I wanna get a little bit differentiation here. I, I like to put my packaging, I like to differentiate with packaging.

If you look at our, our listing, our main image has the packaging next to it. So I really work hard on packaging so that I can stand out to my [00:22:30] competitors with the packaging, of course it shows my branding too and, and the product. So I don’t know why they’re not willing or able to do that in these current listings.

And they’re pretty low price, to be honest with you. They are pretty aggressively low priced, so it’s a little bit scary, to be honest. What’s the material? Is it plastic or is it ceramic? It’s probably plastic, right? Does it say with the material list? I can’t really tell. Uh, let’s see if we can get on this preview page.[00:23:00]

But you can also see the seller’s location, of course. China. Pakistan. Pakistan. Two. The top sellers are Pakistan. Interesting. Which is, I don’t, doesn’t mean they’re buying from Pakistan, but they’re Pakistan based seller, which is interesting. They might be buying it from China. Well actually it’s the same seller.

This, this brand. So real type Standard. Standard. What a standard. [00:23:30] Yeah. Not very. Let’s go back to description. Yeah. They’re not ceramic. Ceramic. Oh yeah. Fire at high temperature. Yeah. So it’s ceramic. Yeah. Interesting. But I like your, uh, I like your idea of Marge of metal. ’cause it’s not gonna break. But yeah, see, I mean, this is something, again, you know, today’s like more of a case study.

I’m sharing pretty openly my own brand. But yeah, I mean, I could sell this [00:24:00] separately, right? I could add this, I can buy this from India and I can buy something from China. You know, I’ve, we’ve had other webinars and sessions over, over time. You don’t have to go all in in one country, of course it’s easier, but you know, if you wanna experiment, like I’m gonna start to get from India, you could get a completely separate asin, but you could kind of cross promote it with your other listings and then experiments, right?

And start to grow your product categories and your, your brand. So, yeah, I would, I’m actually excited for Mar of course. I also have Marge and [00:24:30] Mela on our, our side on this trip to, to, to help us. And of course attendees will get that attention too, to get some insight information about what booths or what places or what differences.

But, you know, I would, I would change, you know, I would try to differentiate with the packaging. I would try to make it where it doesn’t break. I would make it where it doesn’t scrape the bottom. Maybe people are complaining this is, uh, scraping the bottom. Right. Again, I’m looking at the, the negative reviews from the AI tool.

I could also dig in deeper [00:25:00] onto the, yeah, I did the AI review. You can also download them if you wanted. You can download the images. It’s interesting, Mike, that’s only seven inches high that far, so it’s very small. That’s why it’s nine. Nine. Oh yeah. Small. So it’s tiny. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I see there.

That’s why. Yeah, it’s very small vase. Yeah. So, so then we can, uh, that’s interesting that [00:25:30] such a small vase is, you know, that it’s, it’s popular. Yeah. I mean, bigger, right? I mean, it, I, I put in the cq of pompous. Pompous, which is this Mm-Hmm. Which is this bouquet. And this is also rather small. Actually, I, I have, I guess you, I might not be so big on the video, but this is the old products.

It’s a pretty big box. Yeah. But I actually, I, I killed this listing and when I bought the [00:26:00] brand, it was just too, too much cost. And, uh, but it’s this, this now, so it’s this dried grass and, uh, packaging. But yes, so I think that vase is for something like this, right. So the idea is that people are searching for a smaller vase to put in their bathroom, their office, their desk.

I think it’s meant for like a desk and off a bathroom table. Yeah. Uh, whereas the large ones, but you can s we, we went into it where we were doing the, the [00:26:30] research. People weren’t buying the bigger one. ’cause remember there is the bigger one there. Yeah. That, that doesn’t make sense because to me, a se I don’t even own a seven inch bar.

I’m thinking like, that’s just so tiny to put anything in. Yeah. I would want 10 or 12 inches at least. I think you shiny. Yeah. That’s really interesting. Unless it’s like for more tiny, you know, like little bunches of flowers. Just like the small Irish little things. Not, not like a big flower [00:27:00] display. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, because it’s, it could also, it is about the price too, but uh, yeah. They have the other variations. Yeah. The bigger one. 99. How big’s that? Can we click into that nine? Still not that much. It’s still, it’s still a rather, still, I feel like India does have large, I mean, again, it’s my first time, but I’ve seen India vendors in, in other, uh, other shows.

I think they usually have, [00:27:30] I guess they can make any size, but you know, I’m getting this data so they’re showing the two next to each other. Yeah, so that looks really, the black one looks large. I would reckon they would get a lot of returns because if I looked at that, I would expect that black vast to be at least 12 inches high.

It just looks so much bigger in that photo. Very deceiving. True. Yeah. [00:28:00] Interesting. That’s very deceiving, I think for people going on the trip. You know what? Like some people have specific products in mind because they’re maybe already selling something and they wanna maybe look for new designs or new suppliers, or maybe they’re sourcing from China, they wanna diversify.

So some people Mm-Hmm. Have specific products in mind and we help them find suppliers of those types of products. So, for example, I’m of course not gonna take. [00:28:30] You know, names of any specific products, but Lori has a very specific product that she wants to source and okay, so she’s very focused that, okay, this is what I wanna do.

And we’re, you know, helping her with that. We’re setting up factory visits and all Cheney has joined as well. She has specific products too, but at the same time, I think this is also a discovery trip. So there’s just so many cool products out there, and once you go to the trade show, you know, you should go with an open mind that you might be able [00:29:00] to discover something that then you have to go back and research and see if it’s viable and what the competition is like.

So I think that’s, you know, both approaches work because for people who’ve been to the trade show, they know the types of products that, you know, they will see there for, but for people who haven’t been there, it’s just, uh, more of a discovery sort of, you know, at the trade show you’re discovering new products.

And then what we also tell people is just. Whatever catches your attention, you take note of [00:29:30] it, whatever’s you know, it, it seems different, unique, something that you haven’t seen before, take note of it in your diary and then you can also do research on it later on. You know, that’s also one approach, specifically if you don’t have any products in mind.

But I think this also really helps Mike, like if you, you know, do research beforehand, you know, if you have specific products that’s, that’s fine. Then you go discover products. That’s the second thing. And the third thing, I think what you’re saying is [00:30:00] do some research on Amazon and see if there are some high demand products that you could potentially source.

So there are three approaches, right? Exactly. And some of these here, like I’d sort of never really looked at VAs, but one of those you just flipped through had a thousand sales a month plus. Plus that. Yeah. So I mean, yeah, I mean these, these are big. I would not have, yeah, look at that one k plus board in the past month and that, yeah.

Like that’s a, you know, big sort of, [00:30:30] so how would you start from scratch, Mike? So let’s say, you know, we know that there are a lot of wooden products at the trade show. There’s like mango wood and there are a lot of home decor, decor items that are made from mango wood. And this could be, you know, anything, things like, uh, trays, bowls, cake stands, and, you know, cutlery and like huge amount of wooden products.

So how would you start looking for wooden products that are popular? Actually, [00:31:00] well, you can, you can see here, I mean, uh, if I really was totally clean slate and I had wood, you can see I typed in wood. Again, I’m using this free. Plug in. I forgot the name again. I set up once and forget about it, but it’s right.

Was it expander? Yeah. A MZ expander. It’s, I think it’s, yeah, I’ve told you could, as a marketer, you just plug in all these things. That’s a lot of, you can see wood hangers is pretty hot. You know, wood, I wood, uh, this one is really sticking out to me ’cause you can see wood hangers and wood and it’s 90,000.

Right. [00:31:30] So, I mean, I guess if we’re really clean slate wood. I don’t know if you think hangers, it has a little bit of metal, but, uh, those just come up. I don’t look as sponsored because, you know, we wanna find the organic, so I’m looking down, Mike, you could do wooden vases because you don’t want water in your Pampers grass.

Yeah, I agree. I, uh, you could get a fantastic mango wood vase for that pamper. I know. I think you’re, uh, brilliant. Yeah. I mean, there’s wooden VAEs or VAEs. [00:32:00] Yeah. Here it’s, I I, I’m ready. I wanna, I wanna do it. I want. I don’t know. I mean, the choices, let’s just are gonna be so different because, because that you can choose, it can be all shaped how you want it.

Yeah. You find something really different, I think in a wooden V. Yeah. Let’s get some inspiration. Of course. You know, if you want really pure inspiration, you go to Etsy, Pinterest, you know, if, if people really just do a very high level just concepts. I work with some product designers in some of my brands that are very [00:32:30] talented branding experts.

They don’t really look at Amazon first. They look at Pinterest first. They look at, they look at Etsy first. But, uh, you know, I’m looking at more as a data, but if you want really pure inspiration, we, we could even do it now, but jump in. But this is giving us also a, uh, an overview. Again, this plugin is embedded into Amazon, so you can see it’s, uh, across all wooden bases, right?

So it’s giving me some data here. It’s 69,000 units a month with a million in revenue, over a million. [00:33:00] $23 average selling price and four and a half average out of five rating with each rating about 3, 400, 3 41. Which I think, you know, actually Tober obit is a very good Amazon expert. I, I learn from, I think a lot of people say if it’s too many, if it’s like a thousand reviews average, it’s very hard, you know?

I mean, of course the less the better ’cause that means it’s easier for you to come in. But I, I’m not too scared with 341 reviews, of course, that’s still not so easy. But [00:33:30] that means you gotta get up to like, you know, more reviews of course the better is anybody here, but no. But, uh, I’m not so, so scared with 341, like a thousand or something more would be very, very competitive.

But I feel like I could still enter this. So that gives me an overview of the category. Again, I skipped the sponsored, I look at the, this is starting to be like the Amazon picks and the others. And again, I’m, I’m not gonna be pick exactly what I want, ’cause I’m gonna go to India sourcing trip and see all these.

Vendors [00:34:00] maybe gonna see a vendor I like to work with, or maybe Megla or Marge have some recommendations ’cause we’re going with their expertise and their network that if I find a supplier I might wanna work with them more than just the exact product. So I wanna just get some ideas of the product to look at the pricing.

But these are some of the top selling wooden VAs. Um, those first two were India products. They’re both mango wood. Oh, okay. People listening. Don’t know mango wood is India centric. It’s from a mango tree [00:34:30] and it is sustainable. So it’s a really good brand story as well. Being mangoes, once fruit is finished bearing, which is about 10, 12 years, the tree is chopped down and a new one planted.

So you’re not actually killing a hundred year old forest or something to get the wood. So mango wood is a very, very popular wood in India. Very light. It’s a lot lighter than acacia wood in weight. So it’s great for shipping as well. So it doesn’t weigh as much. You won’t, you won’t see it on China because they [00:35:00] don’t have mango woods.

So you’re gonna stand out from the crowds. See, this is the benefit of people coming to India. Yeah. If you go up to Alibaba, those white ceramic VAEs are gonna be everywhere. Well, that’s not what you want do. And look for that in India. You wanna look for something like these mango wood type things that are unique, that aren’t on Alibaba.

Agreed. Agreed. I’m saying. ’cause then you don’t need to, you know, to do as much because even if they’ve got a lot of reviews, you’ve got something totally unique on the page that [00:35:30] no one else is selling. So the reviews don’t really come into it as much then because it’s more that grabbing the look of the person.

So there’s another couple of different, no, they’re not mango wood. That one’s not. Well, you could, you could almost find one you like and maybe haven’t made a mango wood maybe. Is that I actually like this ball one personally. Yep, of course you could. Yeah, I can do anything once, once you have something you like, you just give them the style and I’ll just make it do be whatever you want.[00:36:00]

But, you know, I still see some opportunity here, you know, we’re scrolling through, you gotta call. So just be careful. They’re, they’re, they’re, they’re putting more and more sponsored everywhere. So I’m trying to not look at sponsored, I’m looking at, you know, just because of product research. ’cause they’re paying, right?

You wanna find the ones that are, that are, that are organic. So, you know, they’re not having that many reviews and they’re pretty far, far up. I’m personally liking this. I just think it might be cool variation with the pompous, right? So within this, put it up on your wall and you [00:36:30] combine it with the pompous potentially.

And the offices might like that more for saving table space. But, uh, and I know for a fact one of those is sourced in India ’cause I recognize the name of the Interesting. Alright. Yeah, this is the Mango 55. Actually, it’s getting a little bit of a, you know, not, I try to get 4.5 usually. So it’s good. Some issues go down to the one.

Let, let’s have a look what the one stars are, what the problem [00:37:00] is. Be interesting. Uh, can seller Sprite tell us what the Yeah, I mean it’s still an, it takes, takes a little bit, but it’s also not so many reviews. It usually wants more reviews. Okay. To do the ai. But we can also, while it’s, it’s running, I click the run button.

But let’s see what these critics, oh yeah, I was right there. Yeah. It says, do not buy stinks. Smell. Smell, smokey smell. Smoky smell. Yeah. Well, [00:37:30] well maybe there was some moisture when it was packed. There was some moisture. Yeah. And because of that smells, it’s always smell, right? Gotta make sure that you’ve, that the wood is dried properly.

It’s curd. But I mean, this is painful to read, but, you know, this is how you learn. But yeah, it’s all about the smell here, so we gotta learn. Yeah. So definitely that’s a good learning actually. Exactly. I mean, this is, this is saving us, you know, thousands of [00:38:00] dollars or in time to, to know. And then we go to the vendor at the booth and we say, oh, we don’t want it to smell.

How do we make sure it doesn’t have any smell? Right? We, we bring it back to them. Um, yeah, there’s certain temperatures that it has to be at, and the moist readings. So if you get a QC done and they do a moisture reading, they will be able to tell you whether it’s. You know, got any too much moisture in it.

’cause they’ll, there are certain degrees of moisture levels. Yeah. That, that will [00:38:30] work. So again, you can see how much, yeah, it’s not, it’s not enough reviews, but I think we can read it ourselves. The uh, but it’s really unfortunate, you know, I’m sure the seller, I feel, I feel for the seller, they probably work really hard on this and you know, but it’s gonna be hard for them to recover that they, and maybe they gotta fix that problem ’cause if they keep selling it, so we’d have to make sure we have to learn about this and then when we go there, um, fix that.

And maybe, I don’t know, maybe learn. But this [00:39:00] is very valuable insights. Right. So before I go to the trade show, uh, I know this is an issue with this potential thought and I, I speak to them, but the time’s flying when you’re having fun. I can’t believe I’m looking at the time. And we have some questions there actually.

Policy. Yeah. Maybe there are questions. I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m starting strategies for not being overwhelmed by the number of opportunities. Also, what are the best prices and terms are we likely to be able to negotiate? Paul, are you coming on India sourcing trip? No. Right. Are you going, [00:39:30] can we discuss sourcing trips rather than product selection?

Sure. We can talk sources. It’s a discovery trip for me, for sure. Okay. What happens when three mm MM come together? Sourcing life gets easy. Yes. Yeah. I’m with three MSS today. Yeah. It’s this time. Yeah. Yeah. It’s true. We were a little bit more heavy on the product research, but I’m basically, I, I’m making a, uh, even in my brain, but I should be writing it down, but I’m taking [00:40:00] some rough notes.

You’re trying to understand the products. You’re, you wanna know your product. You know, I think the biggest mistake buyers make is they think the factory is supposed to be the expert. Right? People think so. You need to know your product and by knowing the problems in your product. I, I’m, I’m now a little bit of a.

I’m not an expert, but I know a little bit more about the wooden vases. When I go to India, and I’ll go through this category for sure, thinking about how I can complimentary sell my a product with [00:40:30] another product I have and bundling or, or cross-promoting, but I’m, I’m learning the, the landmines. You’re, I feel like selling on online or e-commerce or product is, is, it’s more about dodging the bullets.

You know, there’s a lot of landmines, you know, and, and one mistake can really cost you a lot of time and money. So you’re trying to almost prevent those problems and also look like an expert. But I guess the first one was how to not be overwhelmed, right? Is that one, should I [00:41:00] stop? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You said how do we not get overwhelmed?

And I mean, if, if you want, we can also share the other document that you have, which is the trade show document. I mean, that’s something that we share with the trip attendees and, uh, Mike and I were contemplating whether we should share it publicly or not, but maybe we can share a bit of it publicly, but not too much.

Yeah, I didn’t want, I did, I didn’t get access to that. And it is very valuable. But, uh, you know, I, I wanna respect your, your hard work I know is [00:41:30] to make these, but um, yeah, but go ahead and share it and maybe we can go through that document a little bit. ’cause that does have some tips specifically around the deli fair and, you know, how it’s organized and, and everything.

And I mean, all the trip attendees here. We’re gonna do a deep dive for you, you know, once we are there. But do you wanna up? Yeah. So I, I have the, the PDFI showed the map a bit. But, uh, but yeah, I mean there’s, there’s, there’s tons of, tons of rooms here, right? And, uh, you know, [00:42:00] we have this layout that’s very overwhelming.

I know it’s definitely overwhelming. I mean, I mean that’s, that’s why I, that’s why I guess I haven’t been focusing on product search here because I, again, it’s first time India, but it can’t unfair, or China or Hong Kong if you just go in with no idea what you want. I, I know people that do that and, and they, they’re usually, you know, it’s, it’s not, it’s not as effective.

At least pick a category, at least pick a group of products, you know? I mean, ’cause you can’t, you can’t really get everything. So I, I would at least say pick [00:42:30] a room, right? Look at this map. That’s why I asked Megla for the map, at least pick a couple of sections and, and, and strategize. ’cause it is overwhelming.

But what would you say. Yeah, I was just saying that for the deli fair specifically, I mean there are about three and a half thousand, 4,000 exhibitors, and there are two areas basically. One is the permanent installs, which are more like shops if you’ve been to, you know, maybe like a wholesale market, like Iwo or something like that.

So it’s more [00:43:00] like that. And then there’s a temporary boots, if you scroll up a little bit, there’s a shot of the temporary boots. So this go down. Yeah, so this is, they’re basically just temporary boots, like, you know, any other trade show. And so most of our focus is going to be at the temporary boots when we are at the trade show.

But then we also can go to the. Permanent boots and you know, see what products are on display over there because those, I mean, they’re basically showrooms, you know, like there [00:43:30] are sellers or suppliers that have showrooms over there and they display products year round and they have more samples over there than they, than there are in the, in the temporary area.

And in the temporary area you’ll find, you know, small booth that are maybe just like 10 square meters and there are huge ginormous boots that are, you know, in the middle of the hall. And those are the more well-established suppliers generally because they have invested more in the booth and [00:44:00] in the products and everything.

Whereas, you know, the smaller booth are of course, maybe smaller suppliers. And most suppliers at the trade show, they are manufacturers. First of all, all of them are exporters. So that’s a good thing about this fair that it’s really export. Focused. So they have, you know, their export licenses, they understand the products that are required in overseas markets, and they’re export ready.

Now most of them are manufacturers, but some of them may be trading companies who are [00:44:30] maybe just, you know, sourcing different products from different types of, you know, manufacturers and selling them. But by and large, most are manufacturers and sometimes it’s very easy to tell if they’re a manufacturer or not.

You just look at the product display in their booth and if it is really, you know, focused on one particular material, then generally it, they are a manufacturer. Like if they have everything, you know, in wood and metal, they’re most likely a manufacturer if they have everything related to, you know, home [00:45:00] furnishings or rugs.

And that works in China too, right, Mike? That’s something similar strategy. Yeah. Even at the Global trade show. That’s what talk about over there. Exactly. But it’s very common in India for suppliers to outsource. And uh, you know, they, they might manufacture one product in-house and they might outsource other products.

So that’s something that you have to be aware of. And you also have to make sure that, you know, in India, the issue sometimes is when a [00:45:30] supplier doesn’t specialize in a product, then there could be, you know, potentially quality issues down, down the line. So as much as possible try to find a supplier that specializes in the product that you’re looking for.

Um, agreed. Yeah. I mean, it’s not India, but China. Like I was a Canton Fair last year and I, I, I found a new supplier for a product. It was definitely, I think a China product, but I I, when, when I saw the booth, they only had that one product, which is a flask. ’cause it’s a, it’s a drinking flask. Yeah. [00:46:00] All they had, it was like shelves and shelves and shelves of flasks.

Like, whereas you go to another booth and they have like. Oh, you’re looking for this product? Oh yeah, we have it. We have it over here. And it’s like one shelf in the back, like on the third shelf and then there’s like four of ’em in a box and they take out the, that’s not their product, right? Or so Yeah, for sure.

Like, like uh, I agree. Yeah. And so going back on that VARs, because you’re going to the fair, you know, you’re getting an export manufacturer and we don’t know where those people source that [00:46:30] virus. They might have got that from India, mark, which is the local, not the actual export focused suppliers. So and so if they’ve bought those and they haven’t been packed properly, haven’t got the um, right sort of little decant things in the boxes when it’s on the sea and things like that.

And they can be the difference between getting a good supplier and a bad supplier. ’cause if you just go onto India Mart, and don’t dunno any better, you could end up with an inferior product with a supplier who doesn’t really know. How to export those [00:47:00] products and how they should be packed for export.

Agreed. So that’s the thing with this fair that everyone there is an export licensed sort of person, so it makes a difference as well. Agreed. Yeah. So we’re here on this. Yeah. Yeah. And then like in this document, of course touching the products to see their quality. ’cause if the sample at the show is bad, you gotta assume their mass production’s gonna be worse.

If their samples aren’t, even, [00:47:30] if the samples not even good at the show, then you can’t imagine the quality of the production. I think you’d be pleasantly surprised at the quality. I look, I remember the first time that we did the fair, we went as groups around and we were looking for bad, you know, like things that, you know, weren’t really perfect and it was very hard to spot things.

It’s yeah, amazing. The quality there is is amazing. Really great. Yeah. Yeah. I’m really, [00:48:00] Paul, do you have any other specific questions about the trade show or about navigating the trade show? Yeah, I mean, it’s a pretty extensive document. I, yeah, this is an extensive document and, okay. Terms and prices. Yeah, so prices, so you’re not placing orders at the trade show, right?

You’re basically there to find potential suppliers that you can, you know, work with to understand their capability and to get as many supplier [00:48:30] contacts as possible in your specific niche. So, Paul, I know what your niche is. You know, you would focus on that niche and you would spend like two days, two days out of three days in that one hall where you can find, you know, your niche and talk to each and every supplier that does that category.

And so you would discuss prices at that time terms, you can ask the supplier for terms, but. I don’t think that’s the right time to negotiate [00:49:00] prices and terms, you know, because at that point you’re just collecting as much information as possible. Then you’re probably go, go into sampling and, and you know, that would be done after the trade show.

Or if you can visit the factory, you know, when while you’re there. Sometimes they can even produce a sample for you, you know, while you’re there. For example, if you go to J or we’re spending two days there, and if one of the suppliers you meet at the show is from J or they can even develop a sample for you.

But you know, you can, uh, you have like, if you’re coming [00:49:30] with us on the trip, you have access to our sourcing experts who can go with you along, along with you. They can walk around the fair and they have a good idea of the prices, like what the price should be of specific products. So at least, you know, if, if a, if a supplier quotes you a very high price, they’ll be able to tell you, okay, no, this is not a right price.

So they can help negotiate the price as well. But at that point you’re not really negotiating and, and all of those, you know, not going into the nitty gritty. Would you agree, Mike? I mean, what do you generally do? Yeah, I [00:50:00] mean, I mean, my biggest point is you, you came all this way. You shouldn’t be like really ha haggling or, or negotiating.

I think you’re just really building this relationship and letting them offer something to you. And if they’re there, they, I don’t know. I mean, they’re definitely invested time and money to be there, so they want cost to you as a customer. I don’t think you wanna just dive right into, uh, price and terms.

Of course you wanna get some basic ideas, but I would, uh, more focus on building the relationship, making sure the product quality is good, [00:50:30] knowing they’re, uh, someone I can work with long term. I mean, I think my, what I tell people is the biggest mistake a lot of people have made, especially me over the years, is we focus too much on the price.

Right. We focus too much on the price, which of course is important, but you should, if you have a, if sometimes, I don’t know about India, but definitely in China, if you push the price too low, they’ll find a way to make it cheaper. You know what I mean? They can make it right. They make it cheaper. Yeah. [00:51:00] Yeah.

So I think delayed payment terms. So Paul has a follow up question, right? If I can achieve delayed payment terms, that helps me grow faster. Absolutely. And generally what we found is delayed payment terms comes with repeat orders. So for example, mark, I, you know, your supplier doesn’t even ask for any advanced payment, right?

So when do you generally pay your supplier? Now, when my goods are on the water, I say, you haven’t billed me yet. And then I pay. But I’ve been dealing with the same supplier for since 2 0 1. [00:51:30] Seven. So, yeah, but I mean, you know, your tax to build up. But something that, and I, not everyone agrees with me, but I like to say to a supplier, ’cause if I see something I like, I would go and research it and think, right, I can get $40 for that.

So I can’t pay more than eight or $9 for it. So instead of me dreaming about that for the whole, you know, three days at the fair and thinking that I’m gonna do that, and then I find out that it’s gonna cost me $14, I would say to the supplier, [00:52:00] can you make me that? I can only pay $9? Is that a, you know, fair price?

And if they say no, we 12 or 14, I just walk away that that product isn’t for me. A lot of people don’t think that they like to haggle and negotiate, but I don’t want something that’s. Going to be $9 if it’s gonna be paper thin or inferior quality or inferior materials. So to me, if they can’t do it for, maybe, you know, you can negotiate down one or $2, but if it’s going to be like [00:52:30] $5 gap or something, it’s, it’s a waste of your time because you’re never going to achieve that.

And it’s so important now that you have that profit margin in it. So it’s no good looking for something that you know is going to be selling for $14 and you, you, you know, buying for 14 and you can only get 40 for it ’cause you’re not gonna make any money on it. It’s just not gonna be enough margin in it with all the Amazon costs and everything.

So you’ve gotta think about that as well. And I think be honest with the supplier and tell them what you can afford to pay for a product. But Anna, Mike, what do you think about that? Or do you [00:53:00] like to do it the other way? I mean, and I mean there’s different ways of getting financing, right? There’s, it depends on where your company’s registered, but you could also get financing.

1. You know how to get financing. You’re basically trying to get financing from the supplier, right? Is basically a question. But you can also get suppl fi financing, even Amazon themselves, depending on your company’s background and registration. You can get Amazon financing on your inventory or your, you know, your purchases.

And, uh, there’s other third party platforms. But I just, I just feel like if you just come to, [00:53:30] in, you know, anywhere, your first question is, is, is terms before you’ve even done any business with them? Maybe I would just say over time, I, I, I wanna build my relationship with them. I, I, I, I, I’ve, I’ve been able to do this in China and Thailand and other countries, but I think at least that’s my style.

I’m also not a very aggressive bargainer. I guess I’m the good cop. Maybe have a bad cop in your business or, uh, some other strategies is some fun ones is maybe again, like, I don’t want to be [00:54:00] deceiving, but I. In negotiation, maybe you have a, a business partner or an investor or a board of directors that’s not with you, that you have to convince them to buy from them, and you’re trying to help, you’re a good cop, right?

You wanna buy from them. But I have to report back one after my trip to my, uh, partners and my investors, or my board of directors, and I have to justify this, this order. And I wanna order from you, but you have to help work with me. It’s not, [00:54:30] I’m not the decision maker. I’m not, I, I may be part of the decision, but it’s not only my decision.

I’m not the only one deciding. You have to give me a case to bring back after my sourcing trip, to propose to my partners about this decision. And even my wooden vase, I have to even, they’re not my, maybe a partners. I do have partners, but even my team, I have to justify this to my team, right? They’re like, what?

This price is so high or this term. So you’re just trying to collect information. You’re not trying to like bargain with them. You’re saying, oh, [00:55:00] is it possible? Is it something we could work out now or later? Maybe you can give us terms that I know. Maybe it’s, we don’t know each other right now. You know, we can do it like this at the beginning, but hopefully over time, is this something you’ve done before?

Is this something we could do together? Is this something you can help? I can offer this to my partners when I come back and I put this on my notes. When I go back to my, my office, my home country, can I say that this supplier, you would be willing to do that at some point? Maybe not now. Like this, this is my style.

Yeah. I give them like, and I think the conversation [00:55:30] becomes, yeah, the conversation about terms becomes easier at this point because you’re there, you’re face-to-face with the supplier. They know that you have invested time, money, and effort to come all the way to India and you know, you are basically a serious buyer.

So they would definitely. Give you better terms. Maybe not on the first order, but maybe on the second or the third order, they will definitely give you better terms because they know that you’re a serious person, a serious buyer, they have met you face to face, you know, compared to somebody they’ve only met [00:56:00] online or who’s just sent them an email.

Like if you send a call, email to a supplier and say that, Hey, I want, you know, 70 30 terms, they would never do that. Right? But if you are there in person, you place the first order, maybe their terms are 30, 70, and you say, Hey, I want 50 50. You know, this is my product. I’m selling well and I wanna launch this brand, blah, blah, blah, whatever, tell your story.

They might agree to 50 50. And then you tell them, Hey, on the next order, I want 70 30. I think that just becomes an easier conversation because there’s more trust there. They see [00:56:30] you in person. Some, I can’t say I’ve done it, but, but some people do three payments. I mean, I, I think that’s a little excessive, but some people do like the last 20, 30% later, like at in arrival and things like that.

There’s a lot of creative ways. So you could do like 30, 40, 30, if that’s the right math, something like that, you know? But I feel like that’s the successive, just for me personally, something that we haven’t touched on and is big in India is having an order value. And so a minimum sort of [00:57:00] order value. So instead of, so if you go into a booth and just say they’re selling all nice wooden things and you think, oh gee, I like that, that, and that, you can go to them and say.

What is your minimum order value? So if I spent $8,000 with you, what can I have? And they might let you take four different products with a much lower MRQ to, to do like best order, and then you can sort of see which products work. You might decide to keep them all. You might not, but it’s better than having to buy [00:57:30] 500 of something and being stuck with it if it doesn’t work.

So you can two, do two or three, and particularly from one manufacturer, you’ve got a bigger shipment then. So your shipment is going to be cheaper and you, you’re actually starting off trialing four products at, or you know, three, four, depending on what you like. And if you’d use the same. Material. And this is what I did.

I have my, I’ve got a brand and there’s nine products in it and it’s all made of the same material. All different niches, different types of products. [00:58:00] But every one of my products, if I go into it, will have the three of my products frequently bought together because people buy them ’cause they match their home.

’cause the day decor matches amazing. So, and that’s how I started. I was a kid in a candy store and I didn’t know which product to pick. And I said to him, God, I dunno what. And he said to me, well if you spend $8,000 you can take. And I actually started off with eight products that day. Amazing. And that’s how, and I actually ended up keeping some, some don’t sell as good as others, but they still sell [00:58:30] because I don’t even advertise, I don’t do PSC on a couple of them because they just sell, because people buy them to go with the other things.

So that’s something else you can look at in India because they will do that for you. And I mean, you can get down to 5,000. Depending on the factory. So that’s something else that you can look at. When you’re in a shop and you’re a bit, I don’t know what to take. And if it’s something that will cross sell, hey, it’s a great brand story.

It’s everything because it’s, it looks the same and people wanna buy matching things for their home. So I think that’s something else people [00:59:00] should look at. You know, it could, could be hammered metal, it could be, you know, mango wood. It doesn’t have to be, you know, exactly the same product. Just something that looks similar.

Yeah. The materials. This is great. I mean, this is gold. I mean, I think I’m getting some good comments from people here and. But I think we should start to wrap up today. We’re gonna have an, another live session for confirmed attendees next week where we’ll have more like interactive. They could, you know, come even on the, on the screen sharing and the [00:59:30] audio and, and, uh, share their, I can’t wait.

I mean, it seems like me says some people confirmed today already had products I’d love. I can’t wait to work with them, you know, next week on a call and meet them in person in India. Maybe we talk a little bit about the show again, for those that might wanna see if they can grab a last chance and, uh, ticket.

It’s February arrival’s on the 4th of February, and there’s two choices, right? There’s, you can enjoy in the factory visits or, or, or not. But it’s about, it’s a 10 day, 10 day trip [01:00:00] to the 14th lots and there’s a huge agenda. Maybe we could share the screen. I could go through the agenda on, it’s right on the website.

I’ve been studying it myself for my own preparations. But it’s, it’s a lot. And I know how much And trip attendees, we’re gonna give you a detailed agenda, so you don’t need to look at the one on the website. And Mike, you too. Like we’re gonna give you a detailed Oh, I’m sure I’ve, but yeah, the, the core events the fourth to the 11th, [01:00:30] and then there’s the optional factory towards 11th to 13th.

But yeah, it’s gonna be really, really intense. Hyper learning, networking, culture experiences. Where did Bollywood night? I, I do, I I can’t wait. Wow. This’s some. It’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be great. I guess if you scroll right at the top, there is a, yeah, you can go. Yeah, I think it was a separate page.

Yeah. Yeah, it was a separate page. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So we arrive on the fourth. I already have my flight and Visa all set, so I, I can’t wait. And then we’ll meet [01:01:00] each other. And then there’s the Sourcing Conference. I. So we get everything ready. The dinner in Bollywood night on the fifth, and then the trade show starts on the sixth.

So each day we have trade shows and I’ll be there with you coming and like mega says, other experts will be helping you. And then we have masterminds at evenings and networking dinners for those core days of the trade show. Also, I’m curious about the school. I, I think I’m going to pick the school. But there’s other things to [01:01:30] do on recreation days or sightseeing or school visits and dinners, but it’s action packed.

And then trade shows again, and a day trip to Taj Taj Mahal. I can’t wait for that. That’s gonna be amazing. Got of course, a photo there for the social media. And then the trip is done. But then there’s the factory tours on the 11th and, uh, factory tours and visits. So it’s a, it’s a, as you can see that we started on the fourth and get all, all the way to the 13th.

So it’s a, it’s an [01:02:00] intense, intense learning, networking, cultural experience that I think is one that I can’t wait for. I can’t wait for. So we also have code. Yeah, you use GFA coupon code for $150 discount and I’d love to see you there and we’ll help you. There’s also telegram groups that we’re chatting in with other attendees already, and uh, there’ll be some pre-call workshops.

So, I’m sorry, what were you [01:02:30] saying? No, I was just saying yeah, the coupon code. And we’re gonna start our pre-trip webinars this week. So Friday’s the first one and we’ve got two next week and then another one. So we’re gonna be covering first as one session with you. Then we’re gonna be covering walking the trade show, and then we’ll do one session with all of our sourcing experts.

So introduce the group to all of the experts that are gonna be with us on the trip. Yeah, so there’s a lot of preparation and of course we help you with the visa, with the [01:03:00] flight guidelines as well to be, have very detailed documents about, you know, how to do your visa. Yeah, it was very well planned. Was it easy to do the visa, Mike?

I mean, it was as easy as could be for what they asked for. I mean, your documents really helped. There’s a lot of information that they ask they for a lot, I’m not gonna lie, but I mean, your documents and support was really helpful. But yeah, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s uh, it’s all set and, uh, it was issued pretty quickly I think.

And if you made a little, I think I had one [01:03:30] clarification I had to send and they were, it’s pretty easy online. I did it all online with the forms and, and online flow. Okay. Yeah. Sometimes ask for an invitation letter as well, so I don’t know. They ask for it, you know, for some people they, they ask for it, but previously they never used to ask for an invitation letter.

But this time for some reason, they are asking most people. Yeah. I had to do it. Yeah. I tried to kind of, I kind of, I don’t know if I, I tried to just put like, uh, [01:04:00] I uploaded your itinerary or your welcome letter. I was hoping they would just get, I was hoping to just stamp it, you know, like they actually asked, they refollowed up and then I asked you, but sometimes I just stuff, stuff it with something because maybe they just rubber stamp it, but they, they, they still wanted it anyway.

Ryan just, but, but yeah, it’s, it’s gonna be great. And I think we’re mostly. Good for now. I mean, there’ll be another session, so if, I think there’s some people already on [01:04:30] this call that are, uh, confirmed. So I, I’ll see you again next week. Live in the call and I’ll see you in India, in person. And, uh, you know, any questions?

Hopefully today’s session was helpful. You know, Megan and I were chatting, we’re like, are we giving too much away, you know, for free? I think it was, I’m seeing Mark giving up all this about MOV and everything, man. We gave a lot, you know, but I think there’s even more, I mean, there’s so much more knowledge and experience that we can’t possibly share on a, a webinar that we’ll be doing in the in person and, uh, in these [01:05:00] next upcoming masterminds.

So thank you all for, for joining us today. I, I really have fun with, this is the same second or second one, megla and Morgan and I have done together and we have fun here on these, so it’s great

at the MM squad. Yeah, I think just spending the day with all different people and chatting. I love it because you, you get to meet people from all around the world. They’ve all got different ideas, different products, and everyone’s learning together, and I think it’s brilliant. [01:05:30] Awesome. Can’t wait. All right, everybody seems like we, I hope we got all the questions.

There was a lot actually, but I thank you everybody for your time. Okay. Bye everyone. Bye. Save the date Cross-Border Summit 2024 is coming back. 2020 threes was epic. Never got such great feedback in all of our events. Cross-Border Summit 2024. We’re planning already a year in advance. Save the date.

November 14th and 15th will be the core event. But of course it is [01:06:00] a full week of amazing things. There’s pre-event, post events, workshops, trainings, elephants, sanctuaries. We have a lot of amazing things here in Chiang Mai, Thailand again, so I would love to see you there. We’ve already pre-sold some tickets to previous people.

We will be opening up tickets soon. Subscribe to get updates at 2024 dot cross-border summit.com. Also, check out videos and testimonials from last year as well as all of our years. We did ’em in China [01:06:30] and this will be our sixth one. It’ll be great to meet you there and network and make some great relationships.

I can’t wait. November, 2024. Thank you so much for choosing to listen to these shows and watching Global from Asia. 4 24 of these every other week. We already got the next one rolling. It’ll be a fun one talking about the load pipe protocol show and tell meeting our co-founder, CTO Bo. I can’t wait for that one and I can’t wait to go to India.

So [01:07:00] I really appreciate all of you. I have never been busy here my whole life. I’m actually, a lot of you I’m talking to about working together on projects and businesses. It’s the dream’s, the dream, and you know, it’s over 10 years of global from Asia, 15 in Asia, 2020 years in e-commerce, you know, but that’s what it takes, you know, that’s what it takes is dedication, passion, love, you know, synergizing with your team.[01:07:30]

But, uh, let’s back to India. First time to go. There’s also gonna be some interactive sessions. I’m gonna do, I’m gonna do masterminds. I can’t wait to work with a group, going already talking to them, doing a private session. I think that’ll be finished by the time this podcast goes online. But if you want to join, I don’t know.

The next time I’ll be going to India, and if you wanna work with me and other experts there, this is the time to make it. But no matter what, I really recommend India Sourcing Trip. I know Mega is doing amazing things. Everybody’s always so excited when they go, [01:08:00] both attendees and experts and everybody else.

So it would be really cool to catch you there. As we mentioned, GFA is a coupon code for $150 discounts, and we’d love to just meet you there. Go to Taj Mahal, I’ll share some updates. Probably do a, we’ll definitely do a video blog on it, but uh, maybe even do some podcasts on the floor and other sessions, so I can’t wait.

This is what life is about, taking action, making things happen, traveling, exploring cultures, new products, ideas. And more. [01:08:30] Thanks again for watching. See you on the next episode. Subscribe like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Take care. bye-bye. To get more info about running an international business, please visit our website@ww.global from asia.com.

That’s ww.global from asia.com. Also, be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.