Print On Demand (POD) Strategies in Shenzhen, China with Eric Wang

In today’s episode, we will talk about Print On Demand. Eric Wang is back on the show. Today’s show is a little bit different as it is audio only. I met with Eric and Luciano a couple of weeks ago and we visited some seller offices, you can watch it in the video above or on youtube. Let’s tune in.

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gfa377

[00:00:00] Yeah. Welcome back again to another episode of Global From Asia  podcast. Today, we’re going to have episode 377 and the set up here is kinda not the usual one. Welcome to the Global From Asia podcast, where the daunting process of running an international business is broken down into straight up actionable advice.

[00:00:21] And now your host, Michael Michelini. Do you hear the coffee machine and background or. No. Okay. Yeah, the mic is pretty good. There’s Luciano’s. He’s here cooking. So I started before you guys. No, it’s all good. It’s all good. I don’t think it. Aubrey, do you hear the coffee? No. No. He is making some coffee here. I’m hanging out with Luciano.

[00:00:46] David. So episode 377 of Global From Asia as Aubrey just said, how are you Aubrey? You, I think you said you’ve been traveling a little bit in between cities. Yeah. I’ve been doing well. I hope so.] because on my previous city, or previous province is kinda really so hustle due to power interruption and such. As in almost every day, almost four hours to five hours.

[00:01:12] that’s crazy. Yeah. Crazy. Do you think that’s because is that anything to do with the pandemic or anything, or is it just, is that normal? Due to, uh, due fuel I guess. Fuel shortage and high price of it. Oh, that’s the reason, I don’t know if you saw. Wendy at the GFA kids bought a generator for one of the teachers you saw that I don’t know, maybe, maybe I hope that helps them because they have actual live, you know, sessions and then it’s been canceled to the power outages.

[00:01:46] So it’s crazy times in everywhere in the world. I mean the, but we have to be creative and, and positive. It’s really great. Thanks for always your hard work Aubrey. And we can talk about today. Show print on demand. Eric Wong comes back. He was on the show earlier this year about logistics and supply chain during the pandemic.

[00:02:09] I did it actually in the same seat, but today I went to meet him with, with Luciano a couple weeks ago. And it’s audio only. So it’s a little bit different, right? Aubrey and yeah. It’s kinda different than our usual set up, but I believe it will still be helpful for our listeners.

[00:02:25] or viewers. Yep. So I think during the interview, it’ll just, if you’re watching this on YouTube or in WeChat, we put this a lot on WeChat. It’ll be just a, a static image of the show, but of course it’s going. I just felt like I didn’t wanna put the video on, because it was just us sitting to, you know, it, would’ve taken a lot of video bandwidth and I also think people don’t talk to same when they’re on camera versus.

[00:02:49] Just in a microphone, like I’m thinking about my hair right now and, you know, things like that. So we decided to, to not do that, but also we did a little video tour after, of the, of the facility and that. I think we’ll make it a separate video clip. It’ll be like a three minute video. And I think our video team will help make that as a separate video so people can watch the tour with Eric’s facility as a separate video.

[00:03:18] But also maybe before we go on. How about how long are we? We don’t, I don’t wanna take too much time on our intro. So maybe after the intro, we’ll talk about the status, the Excalibur Brothers products, and also some ideas that we got from the interview at the print on demand. I think we’ll tune into the interview.

[00:03:35] Audio only today. Let’s do this ready Aubrey. Ready. Let’s tune in. Let’s go. All right. And thank you to our sponsor, our returning sponsor mercury.com online bank while it’s a real bank, but you can into a totally online for US. Our blimp program participants are going through this as well. Thank you, mercury.

[00:03:52] Travis’s great. There it’s been on our show has been in our events. We’re gonna have another event where we will have them attending as well. And if you wanna get a little bonus for you and us, if you sign up and do some special circumstances, you can go to globalfromasia.com/mercury. I also have a video tutorial that we use, even for the BLIMP people use the same exact video to learn how to use it.

[00:04:13] I hope you can check it out totally free. Why not see you there? All right. So thank you, everybody listening to another Global From Asia  podcast, we’re here in Bao’an district of Shenzhen. Eric’s Eric Wong’s office. How are you doing today, Eric? Uh, it’s been pretty busy and, uh, and from the business, it’s kind of like a picking up great.

[00:04:39] I know it’s we did a were on the show a few months ago. I was, I think you were not locked down. I was locked down with Lucianos here. So we were both locked down, but it seems like things are in June, were in June now it’s mostly open at least in Shenzhen, right? Yeah. I think Shenzhen now is like a fully open and fully operational.

[00:04:59]Yeah, I think it’s back to normal. Yeah. Shanghai is also getting back, uh, as, as far as we can say, we have been, uh, talking with some of our customer in Shanghai and they are also starting to run. Okay. That’s great. But I heard Beijing, somebody just told me they escape Beijing to the south, uh, Beijing. I think only some of the community, because last, last week also I got a friend who, uh, came from Beijing so only got the, the, the, the COVID test.

[00:05:26] And then if the, the test is okay, and then he’s okay to go anywhere. Okay. Interesting. All right. So today’s, we talked about logistics last time, which is your specialty, and we’re, we’re gonna do a video tour after the audio recording. So I just thought today we’ll do some audio only content, and then we’ll take a tour of the facility where we’re at.

[00:05:47] So definitely we’ll link that in the show notes so people can watch the video, but, uh, for today we’re talking about print on demand or. P O D, which you’ve mentioned to me, and I’ve been curious, I don’t use too much of it, but can you, you just kind of give a first intro of P O D for people that didn’t hear of that before.

[00:06:04] Okay. So, um, P O D as known as like print on demand, um, it is very popular, uh, for Shopify sellers. Mm-hmm were those guys who run their independent like website store and, uh, the POD. Uh, most of the POD product are like t-shirts, uh, just, uh, dress and even shoes. And also there are some guys, uh, using the POD thing to, um, work on products like, uh, or like drinking bottle, like water, drinking bottles, this kind of thing.

[00:06:42] They want to edit, add some element, like their own brand. Yeah, it’s really cool. And I think we mostly talk about private label, Amazon at Global From Asia. Like I think we’re doing a current case of Excalibur Brothers Luciano sitting next to me, but he’s, he’s just, uh, relaxing for this show, but we, um, we’re still, you know, I’m still used to the old fashioned 1000 piece MOQ, you know, production

[00:07:11] uh, custom, uh, making, but I think the beautiful thing about P OD is, is kind of like Luciano says it’s like half drop ship, half private label. True. Right? Like you can still get your unique brand, but also have the low, low MOQ. So you could even do one, you could do as low as one piece with that. It is doable.

[00:07:33] It is doable, definitely doable. But, um, this kind of one piece model is very painful to service provider. So that’s why, uh, in most cases, uh, the service provider will reject our only one piece model. And we tried to do this without MOQ, but it turned out that there’s so many rookies, you know, they came here, just ask and, and then, uh, ask, for quote and will go away.

[00:08:02] And nothing really happened. I agree. So that’s why I think it’s, it’s, it’s interesting for Amazon sellers to learn about this because Amazon sellers are used to the 1000 MOQ anyway. So even if it’s a, what do you think is a reasonable MOQ then if it’s one piece, what, what 50 a hundred. What do you think?

[00:08:21] Is I something like 100 units will definitely doable because especially for like FBA seller, want to test the market and buy something and send to the Amazon warehouse. And 100 pieces is not a big investment. Yep, but it’s still not too uncomfortable for the service provider. Yep. Yeah, that sounds fair.

[00:08:39] And, um, you were saying the process of putting the, the branding on it is ultraviolet or U UV. So, uh, it can be, it can be UV or engraving or laser printing. There’s a lot of like, uh, way to. uh, but the key is to add branding element onto the, the product or at least the package. Yeah, exactly. Um, also, you know, if you ever, if you wanna populate the question.

[00:09:08] Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I think not only the. the logo itself, but you can also, uh, use this, uh, techniques like laser and UV to customize your product in a very creative and unique way in, in a way that your competitor is not gonna have. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So, um, You know, you’re unique. We’re, we’re also in China as foreigners.

[00:09:34] You’re, you’re Chinese. You speak really good English and work with foreign. Is it mostly Chinese sellers doing this or foreign sellers or is it a mix of both? Like, or what do you think? Um, both the first of all, if some sellers in, in other country where US, they have the own printing facility, they also do the POD thing, but it’s more like providing a service.

[00:09:53] Them or if want, I want to put like, uh, Mike name on, on t-shirt. Yeah. As a birthday gift, it’ll be easy to do. And, uh, they’re also, Chinese are doing Chinese are doing like they do in a massive scale. Yeah. So they have a lot SKUs, you know, a lot of inventory. So whenever the customer, they either want to print their logo.

[00:10:17] We print anything else. Right. Or, or if for, for, for, for their, uh, like, uh, election campaign or just for a sports event. So they have, they cannot, uh, uh, like business model. And then one of my friend as told previously, he just. Uh, she just does the, uh, POD for the sports Jersey. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, he sells around like $100.

[00:10:42] Yeah. But it ended up actually you wanna do this in, in Chinese market. If you buy from the Chinese eCommerce website, it is cost only around 60 to 80 or no more than 100 RMB. Yeah. So you see, there is like a six times difference. Yeah. That’s really cool. So let’s just go through the, the normal workflow, the process to get started for somebody.

[00:11:04] Um, the, I think the first step is finding the supplier that could do this. Yeah. Would that be a normal Alibaba, Ali express Tabba or is there, um, so there, I think, first of all, if you want to go to Alibaba or Aliexpress. sellers or this company, actually the treating company, they buy from the wholes seller in China will buy from the manufacturer in China and they mark up the price.

[00:11:30] So those guys, in most cases, they, they were probably not willing to do it. So the right approach is if you can find a sourcing agent or you find, or you, if you can read the Chinese website directly, let’s say 168. So you go there and find a product and you buy like, uh, 50 pieces or hundred pieces. And then you find the right service provider and use the UV where engraving and they just put logo on it and then drop down.

[00:12:00] Yeah. So the whole process, I think takes less than a week. Yeah. And then the AI file is, you know, yeah. Just say logo file a local format, which is PDF file that we’ll do great. And we talked about it in a previous show that you did, which was great, but there’s different shipping ways. I know we draw it on the board before the recording, but normally it’s, it’s, what’s the normal fulfillment way you recommend.

[00:12:25] So there are, I think there are two ways. Let’s say first, you, if you sell on Amazon, that would be very easy. Then if we have the product ready, you can create the, uh, FBA shipping plan. And then we just send to the Amazon warehouse. It’s pretty easy. And. It is a pured model. I assume that the product where the package will not be too heavy if we use the, uh, ups send to the Amazon warehouse in a, in US, just a matter of five to seven days from our warehouse to the, uh, Amazon warehouse.

[00:12:59] And then there will, another way will be if you sell on Shopify or other, you know, or what price whatsoever, something like Shopify, um, that the other can be fulfilled from China directly. Uh, now it’s, let’s say that the fastest one will be five to seven where no, it’s like three to five days. There are also available solution, like, uh, five to seven days and 10 to 15 days.

[00:13:23] And the faster, the more expensive for sure. And, uh, this also this kinda shipping methods also available for, uh, European market, uh, most of the European countries and most of the Southeast Asia countries. And, uh, I think around 50% of South America, uh, C. and so this is the two business models. The first one is shaping, uh, sent to Amazon warehouse and then that, and second one is, uh, ship from channel directly to the customer’s, uh, address.

[00:13:52] Yep. And for the second one, probably normally the way I would think I would, I would do it is, uh, like where you put all the boxes into one master carton and then shipped to the us and then last mile from the us rather. Yeah, that’s a, that’s, that’s an interesting way. Um, so let’s talk about you, you were briefly talking about, but I think maybe we could dive in a little bit more of some examples.

[00:14:19] So like the Jersey business. So, so your, your client, your customer, they are just focused on the basketball Jersey soccer and soccer and American football as well and American football. Yeah. Yeah. So then they have those, um, Designs on their website and then their customer is buying one piece. They do one piece or do they do one piece where like multi pieces.

[00:14:46] Okay. And then probably Shopify website. Yeah. Shopify store. And then, and then use the free Facebook ads. And they actually have, they have their returning customer quite a lot. and so then the customer would upload their design to his website and then ships to them. Yeah. So upload design is actually very simple because, um, they will list those available, uh, designs, let’s say, uh, white label t-shirt and the customer only upload, uh, their logo were or other creatives.

[00:15:20] Yeah. With, with a, with a principal or, um, Uh, PDF file were a AF month file and then they want to print it on it. Cool. Yeah. All right. It’s pretty straightforward. I think for us, I, I, I, you know, Luciano and I are here talking about Excalibur Brothers, the Amazon brand, but I think the, the, the other ideas just for Amazon sellers.

[00:15:44] So maybe we go into an Amazon seller example for Amazon seller. do they, they do do P POD as well. I, I, I, there is, there is, uh, I know some, or at least I know one a sellers in China, they do the P D on Amazon. Interesting. Yeah. And then they, the business model, the shipping model is FBM. So the have the kind of hoodie, at least the hoodie on the Amazon and, uh, the customer also give the, the information for them.

[00:16:16] And then the. And then use the, uh, the, the, the ups or, uh, the DHL sends the customer directly. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t, honestly, I don’t have experience with that, but that could be a second. So the first one was the, the jerseys on Shopify, which is pretty clear, you know, the customer, their customer uploads, the logo, they then buy from the, the supplier.

[00:16:40] The second is FBM from Amazon, with P O D, but the third, I think is. Maybe Lucy O and I can implement for Excalibur Brothers is, uh, use your own brand. Like don’t let the end customer, you just put your Excalibur Brothers or your Amazon brand. Right? So if you’re Amazon seller with your own brand, you could put your brand on these products rather than buying a thousand MOQ from the factory.

[00:17:07] You could do a hundred MOQ with a print on demand. and then have the supplier do that here and then use your fulfillment, send to FBA. Yeah. And then have lower quantity. Yeah. And the, the, the, the one you just said, uh, compared to the, uh, old school one is first of all, save all the time. Yeah. Because, and also say a lot cost first.

[00:17:31] It’s very straightforward. I just want to print the brand logo on it. Yeah. The requirement is pretty straightforward. And also time, the time used is also much less because in the past you have to like, uh, design a mode. Right. And to send to the manufacturer back and forth, back and forth a very long time.

[00:17:51] And also you have a much bigger MOQ awesome. Getting some ideas already, but, um, it’s, it’s definitely an interesting way. And what it works on, what kind of materials do we said leather? Um, cloth, basically almost everything, basically everything, everything, everything UV can print over everything, almost everything.

[00:18:15] It’s very, uh,

[00:18:27] wood ceramic, stainless steel, plastic. Yeah, it works. Yeah. Awesome. Is there are other points that you think we should add for people listening? Like.of course you can’t sell copyright products, right? You can license and it is getting more and more difficult on any platform to sell fake. You know, it has to be, you have to have the license or approval to sell that brand.

[00:18:44] Right. Of course, everyone wants to put Nike or, or Adidas on their product, but they can’t do that legally. Uh, it’s getting less and less, right. There’s less of that all the time. You. uh, in the open field, there are less and endless , but you know, now that there are so many tools, like Discord, Telegram.

[00:19:06] If you, if you dive in or just search, uh, rap on Discor, you will find a whole different world. Whoa rep. REP, uh, Replica. Oh, got it. Got it. Yeah. and also if you search on Reddit yeah, it be, it be a whole different story. Got it. The shipment’s still very, very big. Got it. Another one I wanna talk about is before we recorded, we had this little private team meeting, which was fun.

[00:19:39] Almost felt like we should have recorded that. But one part you were talking about is we could get our own machine. Um, what would be the reason to get our own machine versus, you know, work with a supplier? Uh, so first of all, the mission is, is actually kind of easy to use you. uh, if, if, if the guy who has bit understanding of mechanic will have the spirit of hands on, so it is very, it would be very easy to do so you, you can actually, if fulfill ideas easily and second, uh, the cost is not that big.

[00:20:14] That can be, I think, just slightly more expensive than the, the latest iPhone . Yeah. If you want a smaller one. Interesting. It’s kinda like 3d. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, if, if you also have a kind of local business, I think it’d be fun to have one. Nice. Yeah. Cause it’s very easy. Cuz I went to the, uh, UV printer manufacturer.

[00:20:35] Uh, it’s pretty easy to hands on. Nice. Yeah. You made me think back in Thailand. I was, you know, I’m, I’m honestly working on getting back to Thailand, but when I was there for a couple years, there was these little family businesses in the. right. And they’re, they’re doing, I guess, print on demand, right? They have the blank shirts and then you could give them your file.

[00:20:57] I, I think I could show you later. I have a Global From Asia logo, pencil case I got in Philippines actually, but it’s true. So, so people listening overseas could order the machine, send it there, get a lot of blank. product and, and, and, uh, and do their own fulfillment. Yeah, I think this, uh, I know, um, a girl from Texas, she also had, she, she bought some like, uh, uh, white label t-shirt and then I’m, I don’t, I’m not sure what kind of, uh, stuff he used to do the, uh, private labeling, but he do it as a service in, in their, in his like local township.

[00:21:37] Okay. um, you know, a little bit more specific kind of for Excalibur Brothers or us, like, you know, we’re you, would somebody like us use it and put it in your fulfillment center in Shenzhen would that makes, is there still a reason for us to, or even a listener, like a seller to have their own machine in China?

[00:21:56] Like why would I want to do that? I think it’s unnecessary. Still. You need some better here to do the service mm-hmm so if just either buy wine to get a back in your own yeah. In your own, your own country or at home, or either just buy the service here in China. Got it. Yeah. Cause left. Nevertheless, you have a guy here.

[00:22:17] Do the service. Yeah. Yeah. Why don’t we just buy the service and act like makes sense. Makes sense. Um, The sneaker sounds cool. Do you, can you give, can you kind of give me some ideas of products that people are doing this with? Like you said, I guess it could be anything, but let’s, I just kind of wanna brainstorm.

[00:22:35] Yeah. For some people listening, they can sneaker things. Is there, there are factories, uh, in another province Futian province. Right? So they are, first of all, they are very well known for making very high quality replica yeah. But now the government’s kind of cracking down. They at least openly, but secretly they still making it in replica, but there are some factories, you know, they’re trying to switch their business into a more legal business.

[00:23:02] So they are still, they are like still making this kind of very good shoes where they have their own design, but there are wires who want their, um, the, to be more, how do I say, um, to be more creative, where to have to present his or. Or identity. So they wanna print something on the shoes, you know, different design or different logos or different colors.

[00:23:27] True different, uh, graphics. Yeah. Yeah. It’s awesome. Yeah. So in the end, it’s still kind of, um, how do I say kind of service business? Yeah. A service business, which attached to a physical product. Another. we chatted about this on WeChat talked about today, but NFTs, you know, like all these artists actually Luciano designs, his own NFTs as a, as an artist, he’s an artist.

[00:23:56] Um, you know, I’ve seen like board ape club shoes, like the collector just prints their own shoe. Mm-hmm with their ape, you know, I’ve seen it for some other collections too. I, I think there’s a huge opportunity for selling, you know, NFT, uh, print on demand. That’s doable. Yeah. Cuz basically NFT you get a, a digital file, right?

[00:24:19] Yep. And then you just, you just need a physical product yep. Attached to it. Yep. And as long as you own the NFT rights or have the commercial rights, then you could, you could sell those. Yeah. I think the T is because I’m not really into the T, but since you come out this idea, I think it’s a very good idea.

[00:24:37] Cuz T is a physical is a virtual one. Yeah. I think you have the physical product yeah. To put on it. Yeah. It’s awesome. There’s so much, so much, so much opportunities. Yeah. And also the, um, the, the in terms of UV printing, it can come up with a very. visual details. Nice. Yeah, it can, can, can be very detailed.

[00:24:59] Yeah. Also the laser, the laser as well can, can do a lot of stuff even can buy like, uh, um, uh, Uh, metal lighter, aluminum, lighter, and engrave with laser. It will feel like it’s manufactured. We’re not gonna feel it is print of demand. It’s really cool. And also let’s say the empty, if you want to kind, uh, uniqueness, let’s say iPhone case, right?

[00:25:29] Yeah. Yeah. Where just put you put empty file graphic on it and just put I own it. Right. it’s true. It’s true. Yeah. It’s really cool. Yeah. All, I think this is a fun discussion. Also. We’re gonna include in the show notes of video. So I think we’ll take a walk around the facility. As a additional piece, separate content, um, just to give you some visual and you’re also a member of GFA VIP thank you for that.

[00:25:58] And also in our, we check groups for you to connect, connect with Eric, right? Yeah. And, uh, any other last words you want to add? Well, I mean, in the world is changing pretty fast. That’s true. You know, from a business perspective last two years, Was pretty good as for a shipping company, but this year, man is a very tough year.

[00:26:25] Oh no. And, uh, but, uh, uh, we do do believe that, I mean the next half of this year probably can be better. Nonetheless, people have, you know, have a, have a life to live, you know, if they need to buy stuff, they need to consume stuff. There’s still, uh, some opportunities. Awesome. And also, I believe. uh, in the long run, the, the supply chain resources here in China is still, uh, very abandoned and it’s gonna be more and more advanced.

[00:26:54] So how to, uh, connect yourself with, with, with the Chinese supply chain resources that will still still be a very, uh, big run to do business. Okay. Yeah, it’s really nice. Well, yeah, it’s been a rough year for, I think so many people like May crushed me. I, I don’t know, Luna crypto crushed, there was, uh, that hurt.

[00:27:18] Uh, there was, uh, you know, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of things. Aggregators, Amazon aggregators have been downsizing and laying off and cutting contracts. A lot of things been getting, getting cut. Um, so I think. It makes us stronger, right? Like it makes us creative and be creative and also aim for the long run.

[00:27:39] That’s true. I still have a challenge, you know, do the right thing, you know, just create value, you know, find something good. Let’s it? I think, uh, we still can get it, you know, the business running. It’s perfect. Okay. Thanks so much, Eric. Yeah. Thanks Mike. All right. So Aubrey, do you wanna give us an update on Excalibur Brothers products, production and shipping right now?

[00:27:59] Yeah, right now the polishing cloth, I believe, are about to enter the US, right. Yeah. And I believe we are targeting to have it live on July already. And for other, other two products, the, the production is almost done as well. And yeah, I hope we are going to have those products live. Yeah, I know it’s taken a lot longer than I think all of us thought it’s it’s half a year since we started, but it’s, it’s really amazing.

[00:28:29] I mean, we’ll link to the, maybe that’s the listing, but Aubrey, maybe link to the Excalibur Brothers product page. We have a, we made the page and I don’t know if the website will be up to date by the time this show goes online. It’s big task. I think Phenie and Manly are working on it, but we, Luciano helped make a really nice new whole website so we can link to the product pages in the show notes as well.

[00:28:54] Okay. And let’s talk about what we learned or what I learned, you know, we Luciano and I went up there to it’s about. Half hour, 45 minutes drive, I think from where we are in Shenzhen. And we saw Eric right by the airport. It’s like, one of those things, I’ll be where the plane might fly. Right, right. Over you landing, you know, he’s like right at the airport area.

[00:29:18] And you know, I think the one big takeaway I got from it is, you know, print on demand. A lot of people think about the obvious stuff, which is printing t-shirts with like a logo, right? Like you. Maybe some political or some sports or whatever you print your, but what we were trying to say in the interview is you could be a little bit more creative and print on demand could be on any kind of product.

[00:29:43] So of course, Excalibur Brothers, we did this 1000 MOQ style production that took some time, but we could also take some products and make them unique by printing, you know, the brand. Say Excalibu Brothers and some design. And instead of having to order a large quantity, you could do a smaller quantity, even, you know, maybe, maybe a 50 pieces or a hundred pieces, but then still be able to be different.

[00:30:09] You know, you don’t wanna look the same. You wanna have differentiator. So that’s, that’s kind of the, the one big point. And then Eric was just saying, you know, FBA sellers could learn from this and could, could try more products with lower quantities. So that’s the custom ideas there. Aubrey, what do you think of that?

[00:30:28] That’s a good advantage, right? Having low MOQ plus you can customize your products. Exactly. I’m not sure if it’s already not a blue ocean market already or, or still a blue ocean market or is it popular right now? Of course there’s depends. So the idea is, and we somewhat discuss these in the interview.

[00:30:50] There’s different ways of printing on a product, right. There’s screen prints, which is kind of, I think the traditional where they, you know, you go to the mall in, in Manila, right. And you want to get a t-shirt and they, they have. They just put the sticker and they melt it on the shirt. That’s kind of the traditional, but there’s some more advanced ways that could, that could put it on any kind of product.

[00:31:12] So you, of course selling mugs and t-shirts is, I would say red sea, you know, like you said, blue ocean, or I’d say this is like red, you know, it’s very bloody, very competitive, cuz everybody’s trying to sell t-shirts and cups. So, but you could take something that’s not normally a print on demand. Maybe even like I’m just looking at something randomly.

[00:31:32] I picked up this scale, right? So maybe you could take this scale and you could print your logo on it. And sometimes if you ask the factory to do that, the factory will say, oh, you need to give us a 1000 piece order, but maybe you can instead order it from the factory without a logo. And then either they could do it, or maybe they don’t know or want to, but send it to a print on demand machine factory.

[00:31:59] And you doit yourself. And then you could have your own private label product. Okay. Yeah. Lu is helping me out. He says UV ultraviolet, uh, ultraviolet lit is the, is the technology. So the idea to answer your question, Aubrey is you could almost take almost any product and UV print on it. So. So basically instead of you having to get a large quantity to customize it, you could UV print on it and make it look like you’re unique product for a much lower quantity.

[00:32:32] So that’s, that’s kind of the main idea. And so, but of course, if you take something that’s very competitive on Amazon or anywhere. And put your logo it’s or UV print. It’s not maybe gonna be different enough, but if it’s something that’s not so common and put your logo or branding on it, then you could maybe differentiate and also cause competitors can’t sell again on your listing cuz it’s your product, your brand.

[00:32:57] Yeah. That’s great. Right? Yeah. And they should leverage this one for sure. So it’s another idea and you know, one thing we did, I think you saw is. We have our own Amazon account too. That’s not selling products. So we, we did some flags and we sent them to Amazon and we did low quantities and, you know, we could make it pretty unique.

[00:33:21] And of course, with the, our designs and our, our branding, but the idea is we could add these and then you could also use these as giveaways. So one idea we’re doing is maybe. Give away the flag. Right? So in our, in our upsell cross sale type promotion, you can give discounts or giveaways to customers and use these also as, as unique giveaways or upsell cross sales to add to your core product line.

[00:33:47] So they could be like supplementary products around your core product.

[00:33:52] Okay. All right. Those, those are some of my takeaways. So, you know, we are already, and like, so one idea, one product I saw is a coaster. So, you know, like I have my tea here and you put it on a coaster. Right. So that was actually a product that looked like it had good demand. And then I, that could be some Semias easily print on demand with ultraviolet so we can make our own Excalibur Brothers.

[00:34:20] branded and styled coasters. So that’s a product that we have on our, our list now. And we could start with the lower quantity for the franchisee that it wouldn’t have to invest as much and could get that one started. So that’s just one other idea there. All right, Aubrey. So great. Glad you’re back settled from your moving around.

[00:34:38] I’m planning to move somewhat soon, maybe in the end of the summer. It’s very stressful. I know. So look forward to doing more things together soon, and it’ll also open up the blimp method batch very soon. I think we’re talking about an email. If people on our email list is probably the best way or on a wait list at blimpmethod.com to get, get updates, right.

[00:35:00] Right. You can just join our list there. Great. Mm-hmm all right. That’s it. Thanks so much Aubrey. Thanks. And then Mike, thanks everyone for tuning in to our latest episode. Thank you. To get more info about running an international business. Please visit our website www.globalfromasia.com. That’s triple www.globalfromasia.com

[00:35:25] Also be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.