On today’s Lunch with Norm we have Michal Chapnick and Tim Jordan, two eCommerce entrepreneurs that came to talk about the benefits of selling on Walmart. In today’s episode they discuss the approach to take in comparison to Amazon, what to expect when selling, and what kind of resources are available to sellers. Tim is the Founder of Private Label Legion and host of the AM/PM podcast. You may also recognize him from the YouTube Series “Project X” with Bradley Sutton. Michal is a mom and a full-time eCommerce entrepreneur who has been selling online since 2011. Her specialty is maximizing profits through multi-channel sales and has lately been helping sellers start their Walmart journey.
Global Wired Advisors is a leading Digital Investment Bank focused on optimizing the business sale process. Our approach combines decades of merger and acquisition experience with online and e-commerce expertise to increase the transactional value of your greatest asset.Maximizing the value of your company in a business sale is achieved through the full expression of its future potential. Choosing the right representation to provide this vision to the right buyer, means putting your future in focus.
For More information visit https://globalwiredadvisors.com/
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Episode: 193
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Talor Ofer – Chief Sales Officer for private labels
Subtitle: “Selling Products to Retail Stores – Are You Retail READY!?”
Final Show Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFAkJufbKV4
Back on Lunch with Norm…Retail expert Talor Ofer is back on the show to talk about the importance of being “Retail Ready”, the different channels for the retail market and branding tips for retail products. Talor has been selling to retailers since 2005, during the years he sold to over 60 different retailers across the USA, this gave him a bast experience in the retail market that he uses to both coach online vendors and continue to sell his own brands.
If you are a new listener to Lunch With Norm… we would love to hear from you. Please visit our Facebook Page and join in on episode discussion or simply let us know what you think of the episode!
In this episode, we discuss:
Our favorite part of recording a live podcast each week is participating in the great conversations that happen on our live chat, on social media, and in our comments section.
In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:
Free Consultation for everyone https://retail-empire.com/retail-ready-service/
Talor Ofer LWN Episode 136 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-EN8mPMV5E
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Norman Ferrar 0:01
Hey everyone this is Norman Farrar, aka the beard guy here and welcome to another lunch with Norm, the Amazon FBA and Ecommerce.
Norman Ferrar 0:22
Okay, today’s show we are going to be talking about some hot topic, how to sell your product into retailers in the USA. So we’ve talked to Afolabi about sourcing products in the USA. Now, how do you sell products into retailers in the USA, which I think would be awesome. We’ve talked about it a lot this year, but don’t be stuck being a one legged stool. Todd Snively came on and talked about wholesale. So this is just another outlet for you to push your products. So today’s guest, he’s got a ton of experience in this. He started selling into retailers or offline, to retailers back in 2005, to a bunch of different specialty stores. He’s got a ton of products selling in about 60 different retail outlets right now. And I can tell you, he’s been on here before this guy knows his stuff. So he has a ton of his own brands, he coaches, and he’s really an interesting guy. So that’s Taylor Ofer. So we will be talking to him shortly. But before we get to that, a big thank you to our sponsor, global wire Advisors, a leading digital investment bank focused on optimizing the business sales profit. For more information, contact Chris and his team at global wired. advisors.com Alright, Kelsey,
Kelsey 1:46
That’s my name. Hey,
Norman Ferrar 1:49
And don’t wear it out. Yeah, I get it. I get it. Okay, how are you?
Kelsey 1:53
Good. I’m doing great. Welcome, everyone. Happy Mondays. We already have a bunch of people.
Norman Ferrar 1:58
I just went to my COVID test.
Kelsey 2:01
Oh, did you?Because you’re going to..
Norman Ferrar 2:04
getting ready for the billion dollar seller Summit. That’s something. I’d be curious. Is anybody going to Austin? And if you are, let me know. It’s going to be a great conference.
Kelsey 2:16
Yeah, that’s the billion dollar seller Summit. happening in Austin. Awesome. Yeah, let us know in the comment section. Also, just want to say hello to our Bure nation. Joining us we have Jessica Rabbit for Tia, Chelsea. Randy Howard. Yes. From LinkedIn to cheese. That’s great. Great to see everyone. All right. So we do have a great price today. But we’ll dive into that a little bit later into the show. But if you haven’t yet, please smash those like buttons, get those thumbs up going. And if you have any questions about retailing, you know this, a lot of people are just selling on Amazon. So if you have any questions, and they can be as simple as as it needs to be, but just feel free to answer this dumb questions here. But yeah, put that over in the comment section as well. And if we are still looking for a couple people for our beard nation appreciation episode, that is our 200th episode. So we’re looking to our audience to see if there’s anyone that wants to be on the lunch with Norm podcast on. I think it’s like September 29 On the Wednesday. So if you are interested, you can send me an email K at lunch with Norm and just tell us your favorite episode or why you’re interested in make it
Norman Ferrar 3:38
up as you go a little. Yes, you do that all the time. You just make it up as you go.
Kelsey 3:43
You’ll see. Okay, that’s it.
Norman Ferrar 3:49
Oh, is that good? Is that good?
Kelsey 3:50
That’s good. Yeah, I can leave now.
Norman Ferrar 3:52
Nope. Wrong way. There. Get off the screen. Okay, so if you do have any questions, just throw it in the comment section. And Now sit back, relax. Grab your cup of coffee. I did and enjoy the episode.
Taylor Ofer 4:06
Hello, everyone. Hi, norm.
Norman Ferrar 4:08
Hello. Hello. Now I got to ask you this. Because these Israeli names really mess me up. Am I saying your name right?
Taylor Ofer 4:16
Isn’t it you are but i Hello? Yeah, it is an oral that’s how my mom and my wife calls me but back in the States or actually across the whole world that people call me Taylor because it’s easier to pronounce in English.
Norman Ferrar 4:27
That’s what I would have said. Yeah. Yeah, it’s like Chevron, Chevron, Evan. Right. I always say her name wrong. But Chevron even. Yeah, sure. is easier. Right. Okay. You got a great topic today. And before we get into it, you’ve been on the podcast before we’ve talked about this before, but I think it’s really relevant because we have been talking about sourcing products in the US. And now like being just more more us focus. Before we get into it. Can we just know a little bit more about you and what you do.
Taylor Ofer 5:02
Sure, well, I mentioned that before, but I’ll do that like, as fast as I can. It’s almost two decades. So it’s a little bit hard to do
Norman Ferrar 5:10
an hour long podcast, so you can take your time.
Taylor Ofer 5:13
Yeah. Right, we want to focus about, you know, real stuff. Anyway, history. So I started my road, actually 2001 2000 to 2003, for I been living in Japan and building in Spain, I’ve been living all over the place. And I ended up living in China for seven years. And that’s where I started my real road in terms of retail. So I gathered with a bunch of business men in China, foreigners, no Chinese, but anyway. And we stablish factories. And we were producing for Walmart and producing for BCBG. And so on a couple of like, interesting names. And, you know, after a few years in that field, I kind of realized when I’ve seen like a lot of people running and rushing to the online space, that it is a great opportunity to sell online. But besides having an account on alibaba.com, as a manufacturer, I didn’t really do anything online. So I just figured my thing is the retail, like the offline, this the real, you know, physical stores. And that’s what I did during this 2010. I left China and then I started to build a brand with with a friend here from Tel Aviv, but we had a company in New York. And that brand was a great success. And we managed to sell like to more than 60 different retailers, as you mentioned before. And yeah, that like, you know, that point of thing of selling to more and more retailers. And we were talking about, like big names, not only Macy’s and target and Costco, but also Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, even American ego. We did some, you know, co branding with the famous names as well like garment names and everything, although we didn’t do garments. So anyway, that focused me a little bit more and more on this, like channel off. That’s why I call it today I call the channel because around 2016 and 17, when I started to understand that this line of products is not relevant anymore in the market. I was like thinking what’s next. And then all of a sudden, like, out of the woods, I would say a lot of Amazon Seller approached and asked, Hey, we heard that you’re doing like, selling in retail space. And we are interested in doing that. Because the thing is that, you know, when people sell in Amazon, and that’s what that was the first thing I noticed. They speak my language like, I mean, now it’s everyone’s language in the Amazon community. But back in those days, it was like I went when I spoke that language and when I’m saying language, I’m talking about terms like you know, manufacturing lead time FOB, all these terms, all these things that you’re you know, supply chain things and everything. Three PL logistic world, and everything. And when I’ve seen like, I was quite amazed seeing that a lot of Amazon sellers are not they’re not just buying products in China, but they’re really really big building like a brand. And that’s something that you know, and I love seeing that on your, on your groups like the rise of the micro brands, because this is a great definition of what’s happening in the market. Like, you know, you have this big news, right? Oh, cool. I love that. I didn’t brought my coffee today, but anyway, I can smell yours. So yeah, I mean, the rise of the micro brands is it’s it’s very big thing, really big thing. And I’m seeing this happening for like, a bunch of years. And again, when I’ve seen like those Amazon sellers, you know, struggling with all the Amazon, PPC issues and whatever, you know, technical stuff, but at the same time, being capable of building their brand, I was like wow, you know, this is amazing, like these people actually knows everything in terms of the supply chain, and they know it good. And they some of them even did like very good branding and everything. And I was like very happy about it because I thought alright, so maybe I’ll end up you know, either helping them to sell offline or selling their products myself. So in the early years of my retail Empire activity, like you know, selling moving, I would call it moving brands from online to offline. I was focusing on on on coaching because I had the understanding that you know, they do know all the language and everything of supply chain but when it comes to retail language, no, they don’t know the language and they don’t understand how it really works and it the same way like if I would want to sell on Amazon I wouldn’t know I will have someone to guide me because I wouldn’t know you know, how to do it, how to upload what to upload, how to handle competition, all these you know, topics. Sounds basic to you. I know because you guys are I’m hearing it on your podcasts that you have very advantages very advanced. I’m sorry, very advanced topics in terms of Amazon. So anyway, I was starting to coach and everything. And then
Taylor Ofer 10:07
recently, I realized two points. The first point I realized is that I’m getting tired from coaching. Because, you know, it takes a lot of energy to coach one one, even for groups takes a lot of energy out of you. And it leaves you a little bit empty. That’s number one. Number two, it’s easier to do it yourself. Like, as a company, me and my team, we can do the whole process of online to offline ourselves as a service. And the third thing I realized is that, you know, the majority of, you know, the micro brands, I would call it the online sellers. They want service, they don’t really want to be coached, because they already have a lot on their plate in terms of what they billing with an Amazon site. So that’s what I do today. That’s yeah, I do like this service, which we’ll talk about later. But yeah, that was my not really short brief.
Norman Ferrar 11:03
I mean, that’s great to know, that fits perfectly into the the podcast today. One of the things I should mention, because I always forget, but we do have a really great giveaway. And it’s onpoint. So, you know, if I know people are going to love this, go ahead and tell everybody what they’re going to get, I’ll let you do the I mean, this is going to be great for anybody who wants to get into the retail world.
Taylor Ofer 11:29
You got it. So normally, yeah, normally I would, we would talk about the giveaway of consultation, like an hour consultation with me. But now we have something totally different. higher level of of that. So there’s like a link, which you guys gonna see during the podcast or afterwards. And this link is leading to my website. And there you have a form to fill in the form is asking you basic questions. And I’m seeing these form myself, or either my team, but usually me. And I’m like, looking at this and saying, all right, is there an opportunity here with these products and with this information for this vendor, to have presence in retail space? So that’s the first thing I’m going to do. And that’s like, open for everyone, but the one who’s gonna gain the spinner or not sure. What’s the term for Danielle Kelsey, we’ll have Kelsey I’m sorry. Yeah. So the winner of we’ll have Kelsey is going to get for me, if his line or her. If this Windows line is like read already, it’s already there, it’s already like, Fine, then I’m going to connect that vendor to at least you can start with but at least two of my connections. And it could be upon the windows choice. It could be, as I mentioned before, it could be Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, or an outfitter, you name it, you can choose from the list, and I’ll make the connection. And you can have a great start, hopefully, in the retail space.
Norman Ferrar 13:00
So how’s that guys? So if if the product is retail ready, great. If it’s not, to Laura is going to be talking to you about how to get it put together. So that console is hashtag, we’ll have Kelsey, if you want to join twice, get a second ballot, it’s just taking two people take advantage of it just doesn’t happen too often, to direct connections. So okay, so let’s start talking about retail. Why do you think it is that Amazon sellers are not looking over at these specialty stores? And right now, we’re talking specialty stores, not the Macy’s or the Costcos. But there’s so many advantages out there. What is it? Is it the perception of being a hard why? Why is it?
Taylor Ofer 13:45
Well, I think people just don’t know where to start from, like, they understand the market is there. And they’re there. I think, at least from what I’ve seen, people are like, Okay, let’s try on LinkedIn, let’s try on Google, let’s try sending emails and stuff like that. But then there’s a conversion here the same way you have conversion online. And the conversion, let’s say you sending like shooting 100, messages, emails, or whatever it is. text message, whatever, out of the 100 If you’re not already, and that’s the biggest term we’re going to talk about, if you’re not already, most cases, your conversion is going to end up with one to 5% of the maximum. And if you’re lucky, it might be even a zero conversion. Okay. The thing is that, I mean, from the vendor side, it’s like, some of them are trying and those who try ending up sometimes with bad conversion thinking like alright, that’s not my game. That’s not my thing. I tried but didn’t work. So forget it. Second, I think it’s a matter of understanding. What are the opportunities out there you just mentioned about specialty stores, which are what they call in the states moms and pop stores. But I mean, this is like it’s a huge business. It’s a huge business, right like hundreds and have 1000s of stores like that individual ones, you know, street, street stores or mall stores or whatever, without these big names, Macy’s or whatever, like family, family business store? And again, how do I reach them out? People are asking themselves, how do I reach them? And then if they, if I reach them out, what am I going to do? Like how much I’m going to sell it for them? Like, what’s gonna be the pricing? What am I supposed to show them people are getting like, you know, a little bit frightening. And the funny thing about it is that there’s not much if at all information out there about it. Because if you search on YouTube, or whatever platform, how to sell on Amazon, you get tons of information, so many, you know, gurus and so many people talking about it and giving free tips and free courses or whatever, at least partial ones. And which is not happening in the in the in the retail space, like people just don’t talk about it, they just do. That’s from the vendor side. And as I mentioned, I mean, it’s not only the special tools, specialty stores, and not only the retailers, there are other channels as well, because if you look at the online channels, which are properly proper online, like Macy’s dot com, I would say appear that play one.com leaning and things which drop all the stores and move to online lnt.com. And so on and so on. You see that those like huge business there. And again, the sophisticated, or, let’s call it that vents that fence sellers would sell on Walmart, some of them somehow would reach home depot, or another two or three different retailers, the most advanced I’ve seen were sending it sent club.com, which is a retailer they have, you know, physical stores. And obviously, once you’re selling online, with those retailer, retailers, online platforms, you can sell offline with them as well. It’s a matter of just a switch to do there. But still it’s possibility. So I mean, I’m not sure what what’s the biggest issue here. But I think it’s something about like, there’s no, there’s no information out there, like people don’t talk about it enough. And I’m I do hear a lot of groups that I’m connected with that a lot of people are, you know, in the last year in a year or two. So I started to talk about it within these groups, like how are we getting moving, you know, to new channels, because Amazon is great, but hey, we need more. Right? We don’t We can’t put all the all the balls in one basket. So well, the I
Norman Ferrar 17:32
think it’s so important right now. You know, if you’re going downtown, the cities are opening up. And you know what, that could change tomorrow, right? They can close down, lock down everything, but cities or towns are opening up. And they all have those specialty stores. They all have those mom and pop stores. And if you can get into those stores. That’s fantastic. One thing I’d be interested in hearing from anybody who’s listening today, do you sell on any do you sell into any retail stores? And if so, I’d like to hear your experience. So I think I know a few people that that I see online here that probably had some experience. But if you do, throw it into the comment section, I’d love to hear what your experience has been. Okay, next question is. Let’s talk about retail readiness. How do you get your micro brand on Amazon retail? Ready?
Taylor Ofer 18:27
Right. That’s the biggest question. I mean, just to understand and define it with already is like, is it term. And you know, I’m using this term for quite a lot quite a while by now. Because I just realized during the years when I started working with online sellers trying to sell their products that they were not ready. And I started hearing this feedback from my contacts in the retail space. They were like, mate, this is not read already. And I was like thinking about these terms, because I heard it again and again and again. And I was like, what exactly defines with already, so I just, you know, researched on my own on my side and build something that I think that is building the return already. In points, like will you know, we love numbers, a number of things on my number here. It’s not the best number, the best number is seven, but my number here is six, eight divided to six, six sub subjects, which are making it read already. So well. The first first thing I mean, it’s not first it doesn’t have to be in that order. But one of the things the first thing that we’re going to talk about is is branding and we look at when you look at branding. Suppose that you approached one of the retailers or the specialty stores and you showed them whatever you’re writing them Hey, my name is Sam and I’m selling these products and sending them a link. So they go to that clean Can you see your store and your store looks like Amazon Seller store which is not bad when you sell on Amazon but out there in the retail space. It’s not good meaning just for the example like having, you know, those five stars from Amazon, Amazon vibe, white background pictures and so forth like the branding is not, they would immediately see that there is no branding, there’s no language, there’s no, you know, it’s just products, nothing beyond that, seeing that they would get afraid of working with you. And we will explain the reason for that later on. But this is going to be like, the first thing that you have to look at it, when you’re talking about branding, the actual website. Now, I mean, some of them even sending, you know, instead of being able to give them the option to sell, to buy to buy products on their website, they’re sending like a referral link to Amazon, which is even worse, because like, it’s your website, you can sell there, even if you don’t have you know, the operation for that, at least make it look like you’re selling there, you know, at least for the first step. Because if people would look for you on Amazon, they would find you on Amazon, they don’t need your own website, if they got your website, they want to see something else. So the website is the first thing, the second thing I would put under branding as well. But this is like something that a little bit more advanced than that. That’s what we call catalog. Now it can be it can be lookbook, or catalog or teaser deck, it doesn’t matter how you define it, I just call it catalog because it’s easier. And I did see I did see some, you know, catalogs of online vendors. And I always see that there’s, there’s like a huge gap between what they show in the catalog. And on their website. It’s not the same vibe of colors, not the same phones are the same pictures. Something is different. Something is not making sense in terms of branding. And I don’t want to dive into branding, because a lot of people came here and spoke about branding yourself, I think you’re big experts of branding as far as I heard. But in general, when we say branding, we know what we’re talking about, we’re talking about mainly being like attractive. And if the catalog looks poor and not attractive, and sent something people would send it on Excel or Word file, I mean, come on the basic is to have it on PDF, not on PPT x, because that makes it a little bit harder to open in use, and so on. But just the PDF catalog with whatever, 510 15 pages.
Taylor Ofer 22:21
And even even those, you know who does to these catalogues, they don’t really know how to how to do it properly, because they see it on their view, like, Wow, it’s beautiful, it’s amazing. Let me send it, you know, I’m going to send it. But then the thing is that you have to think all the time, what’s happening on the other side, what’s the, you know, basic psychological side on the other side, meaning when a buyer or GMO CMO, whatever title is opening your email designing that, alright, these two lines in the beginning, make sense. I’ve seen the website that see the catalog. If they’re getting that far. And they open your catalog, you have, it’s like a stage, you still think about you walking into the store, telling them, Hey, I’m showing you my products. Now, there are so many ways to do this presentation. But you really have to know one big thing, you have to make them, keep them aware, keep them alive, don’t start to show them three, four or five pages of telling them who you are and what you do, because they don’t care. They don’t know you, you feel like you’re a micro brand, you have to, you have to step in with the bump. First of all on the table, and then to talk first of all, show your bombs the first page, yeah, it could be your, you know, logo and stuff like that. But the second page should already be like, boom, a product that I can see. And I can understand in a second what the product is, what it does, and what is special about it. Now, if you have products that tons of people have doesn’t mean that it’s not spatial. Because if you take a pattern, for instance, you taking white dots, or black dots or whatever crazy pattern, it doesn’t even have to exist in your inventory. It could be rendered, right. So if you’re taking a crazy or not just crazy, but really good looking pattern into your product, suppose that you’re using so called boring product, then you’re getting attraction from the other side and the buyer, the GMO or whatever, they would look like, Oh, this is interesting. I haven’t seen that before. I mean, I’ve seen that product but not not like that. Then they want to scroll to the next page and so on. So the thing here is to make them go through the levels they go because they look at with already and they go to those levels without saying and without even thinking it’s like it’s automatic happening in their mind. So you want to go through them on this process on the right way. So first of all, you go to the website as I mentioned, then you do it with a catalog. You keep them attractive and everything and then they would look at the pricing right which is the third big arm you Important thing, they will look at the pricing now? Well, I would suggest always to keep like, you know, just telling you’re exposing your MSRP, your retail price MSRP is Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail price for those who are not familiar. This means like the retail price, the price you’re selling on Amazon on your website or their final price for consumer, you don’t want to show them wholesale prices in the first shot. Because, you know, it depends what their pricing method is. Like, for instance, if I look at Bed Bath and Beyond, yes, they work on 50%, meaning MSRP is $100, the wholesale price will be 50. But if you look at Neiman Marcus, they’re working on a markup I’m sorry, markup Yeah, not margin markup of 60%, meaning from that $100 MSRP, you will have to offer them $40 If you want them to be able to buy it to make their margin. And if you’re talking about TJ Maxx, TJ Maxx is walking on 25 because they take the benchmark wholesale price, which is half usually meaning if I’m selling $100 product for consumer for end buyer and consumer and the wholesale price is benchmark side would be $50. Because that’s you know, something that you start you want to start to work with, then TJ Maxx would buy it for half of the of the wholesale price meaning half of the half. So eventually, it’s 25%. That’s what they buy for. They make it easy for you in terms of processing everything with TJ. And yes, I mean, they have more than 4000 physical stores and they have like a very good growing daily online channel and everything. And they’re also including Marshall on the orders because Marshall and TJ are the same company, one under each other under the other. But this is what pricing is, you know, talking about. So that’s why I wouldn’t suggest wholesale price in the pricing. Now the pricing could be on the catalog as an MSRP. But you cannot send an introduction email with pricing inside because hey, Nobody asked you for that. Right? It’s like saying, You know what, let’s go for let’s start from step three. And you know, and you have to play, you have to play it again. That’s how it works.
Norman Ferrar 27:20
Once it actually stores is there kind of a ballpark that they’re looking for. So we’ve gone through TJ Maxx and the other options, but what about specials, small mom and pops.
Taylor Ofer 27:32
So moms and pops that work for 50 50% If you sell it for 100, they would expect for 50 The good thing about them is sometimes they would be willing to pay a bit more than that, like if you have special products well designed, patent, unique, whatever it is, then yeah, you can charge 55 or even 60% and it’s fine. It’s all about your products and about their volume. Because if you’re offering that then you’re saying hey my minimum you know first order is whatever $500 $1,000 5050 pieces, you define it whatever you want, and they won’t less than they will you would say Alright, so we have handling process and you have this and we have that so it’s 60% like it’s $60 not percent plus you have to keep in mind that these prices are always FOB warehouse. I know this is a wrong term, because it cannot be FOB warehouse because warehouse is not aboard and FOB is free on board but we call it fob in the industry. And the meaning is like same meaning that we use in China like EXW like price in the gate of my warehouse is this now from here either you pay or we pay for the freight, which is which is like calculated separately. I’m saying that because people are frequently asking this question. Yeah, that’s for specialty stores. And I could mention and we spoke about it last time that for subscription boxes which is a whole different channels if channel and we won’t talk about it today because we spoke about it. You’re very well invited to watch previous podcast I have been on is it’s mostly we spoke about that channel. So subscription boxes would pay between six to 12% of MSRP which is very low from the other hand, their opening orders would be somewhere between 20 30,000 up to 300,000 which is quite quite heavy. And another one that I wanted to mention his TV segments I’m working from time to time with the Good Morning America which is under Oh my god. Good Morning America. It’s the show and there’s bills and stills inside the show. It’s a corner for you know shopping, buying and so on. They have the view they have GMA they have a bunch of them but I’m working with it’s the same buying team. So with them again, it’s Like, you have to offer it for 50% for the audience, because they’re going to buy it for wholesale price because it’s, you know, it’s a special sale. And then the ABC channel that the the GMA team, they will take 25% of that 50%. So you’re going to be left with 37%, more or less out of this $100 that we’re talking about. So if your buying price is $10, or 15, then you’re all good. But if your buying price is 35, then you know, for $2, I wouldn’t go for that. That’s really in general. That’s for the pricing, which is like a thing. Now, there’s another block, and it’s always related with the pricing, because we spoke about pricing a little bit, but then you’re thinking like, Alright, so how do I know what’s the best pricing for me? Because, okay, I understand the percentage you’re seeing here and everything. But then there’s another thing we haven’t spoke about, which is very critical. And that’s your, your competition, because there is competition, obviously, everywhere. The most, you know, the best thing would be not to have competition sometimes really rarely happens. But yes, you have competition, much less than Amazon. It’s not the same thing. It’s not a jungle. It’s a different jungle. But it’s not the jungle like on Amazon.
Taylor Ofer 31:31
So the thing with that thing of how to know the right pricing, and everything is talking about the next point that is related to the return ready. And that’s the research point, which is the so called boring point, because research is something that is time consuming, tiring in some way that you always look at it, like, Okay, I’m going to finish that coffin. I’m off with the sauce. I’ll start again tomorrow. That’s how it is with research is always tiring. But the thing is that it’s also exciting sometimes, because if you look deeply and you start scrolling and seeing like what other people are sending, let’s take an example. Suppose that I’m selling a product doesn’t really matter what the product is. And I’m selling the rise of the micro brand cup. That’s what I’m selling in retail. These are the cups that I’m selling. So I want to go to Costco and target and Macy’s and all the retailers that are potentially going to be holding this product. And I want to see similar products. Now, if I want to see if I’m selling this cup, and this is a high end cup, I wouldn’t go to TJ because they are a low end and low pricing retailer. So I would go to William Sonoma, I would go to companies, you know, Bloomingdale, urban outfitter, whatever free people, stuff like that a little bit more, you know, advanced in higher prices. And then I would start to see now it’s the same thing is on Amazon, once you see similar product to yours, you can find very easily, you can see actually in your eyes that on the website, the vendors name, and you can go to their website and start researching on them. Now, if you research them deeper, you would find if they’re sending on other retailers as well. So if you found them on Costco, and Walmart, then most probably there are very advanced, but still sending online only. But you want to know what these companies are holding in their stores. And you want to do it without even moving from your chair and without going to the physically to the store and look for it. Because for instance, I’m in Tel Aviv, I never go to stores, right? I mean, I have my bunch of people I work with in the US, I can ask them to do to do that for me, but I want I just do it for my chair. And that’s the thing. Now, suppose that you found three, four or five companies and one of them you found that they’re sending in like five different.com, like different, you know, online channels of retailers or whatever channels, then you start to suspect suspect that they’re going to be able that are able to sell offline as well. So what are you going to do next, you’re going to place their name plus unboxing term in YouTube. And then you’re going to start and see, because when people uploading, I’m running fast, I know. But when people upload videos independently showing, hey, I bought a product today from whatever Rise of the micro brands cap brand and look at this and everything. Oh, I bought it. I bought it at Bloomingdale’s boom, you know that she went physically to Bloomingdale. If she would buy online, she would mention she or Hey, whoever does the unboxing. So an unboxing is also related to the research I’m giving you, like as far as I can with the short time which we have today, but this like real tapes, real things that I work with, and that works. So I
Norman Ferrar 34:53
like the idea about going to YouTube, or wherever and just typing in unboxing thing soap, or whatever it is seeing where it came from. Yeah, that’s a, that’s a very good idea. One other thing that you talked about, which I thought was very helpful, is, when you’re on Amazon, there’s an Amazon look and feel. You mentioned last time that you could also go to the retail stores that you want to sell in, take a look at how they’re packaged, and then see if there has to be any adjustments to your packaging, to sell into the retail shop. So I thought that was a very interesting point that, you know, a lot of Amazon sellers, or online sellers wouldn’t take into account.
Taylor Ofer 35:39
Right? Because suppose that you found it the competitor, one of the competitors of Rhizoma of the micro Ben’s cup, or lunch with non cup, you have it on the other side, named after, I don’t know, let’s call it, Max, okay, just named Max Max cups. So you will want to search Max caps plus unboxing, on YouTube, seeing how they pack their product. Once you see how they pack the product, you understand that you cannot sell yours in a cardboard simple box, because it won’t be selling on the shelf. Next, you will want to find out how they sell it in the store. Is it like shelf stocked? Is it hanged? Is it on the floor or whatever? Whatever it is, and then you know, you know what to expect and what what to offer? Even if you don’t have that packaging? You You at least you would know, what do you need to talk with them? What do you need to show them, you can even render that you don’t really need to have an actual packaging, you can always say, Oh, we ran out of our retail packaging products, we have only the online ones, I’ll send you the samples. And you’ll see the retail packaging later on. Here’s the PDF and so on. Yeah. So that’s like, that’s like another point. So we went through the market research, the webstore, the pricing, the E catalog, and we’ll touch a little bit the packaging the packaging is a whole big thing. And as much as this research, at least for my point, the research is a little bit not a little bit, but really boring. Sometimes packaging is exciting, because packaging is like what shirt I’m going to wear today. You know, if I came here, red today, I wanted to I wanted some kind of attraction, because I knew I’m going to have a white background. And if I would come with my white shirt that I’ve been with two hours ago, it would it wouldn’t look good, right? This is packaging packaging is how to make yourself bold, above others, because your product is great. And you know, it’s great. And it’s selling like you know, massively in Amazon and everything is cool, but then you want to bring the you want to deliver this message to the offline channels, you want to deliver that. And you have to deliver it in the right customized clothes. And the clothes are the packaging obviously. So yeah, obviously, I mean, you have the question of is it going to be a J hook, you know, that small hole inside or it can be hooked. Sometimes I’ve seen people using as for the, you know, green friendly environment movement that we’re seeing these days raise raising, rising, so they’re using, like a bamboo straw, not straw, but bamboo, dreams, yarn, to be holding their packaging, like you know, as a small, you know, half moon or some whatever. And it’s not a J hook. But it’s cool because it’s friendly environment in a friendly, like environment friendly, which is something that is very, very growing very, very fast in the in the retail side there. When I spoke with Who was it, I think it was Rei, if I remember correct the retailer. They’re selling outdoor and sports in, I’ve showed them a couple of samples and everything. They were like, mate, everything is beautiful here, but check this link, please. And I opened the link. And there was like pages and pages and pages only talking about how friendly environment friendly your packaging should be have to be recycled. They prefer to have it like you know, how do you call those brand cardboards. There’s a name for that I forgot it. But anyway, everything has to be so called green. So this is another point of of packaging. There are other points as well. But yeah, so that’s for the packaging. Last thing, which is going to be your actual, you know, front face, and you’re going to have everything that I spoke about. Until now you’re going to have it behind this six thing. And this thing is what I call brief. Sometimes when I’m saying briefs people don’t know what do you mean about what do you mean by briefs? So the brief is the way I present myself like I get my brief in the beginning of this podcast and it took me like hours
Taylor Ofer 40:01
But, you know, thinking about, I mean, you were patient enough to listen to me, but where’s the buyer sitting out there and seeing like tons of products every day, you wouldn’t have that patient, you know, reading like, whatever a whole bible about your product they don’t care about your family found it here and there and your friend flew to Australia and found it on the beach. That’s not to say that you can tell those stories and, and on online on your website, but not in the brief. The brief is the way you present yourself in an email, or text message or LinkedIn or whatever, you know, the media is the message. That’s what they say. But it’s not only the message, but it’s also the length of the message. Because if I’m dropping, you know, if I have a brief and I build, like 567 lines of presentation on email, I’m trying to adjust it to LinkedIn, because I’m not going to send this huge thing on LinkedIn on email, it looks like you know, short email. But on LinkedIn, it’s going to look like wow, what do you send me here, I’ll look at it later. And then they forget, because you want to, you want to have something attractive Not to mention that. Just an example of cute exam. Cute example. If you take a simple rendering, and you can do it on the phone, you don’t even need to go to fiber to find someone. Sweet rendering, there’s tons of apps doing it sweet rendering of your product just turning or you know, whatever flying I don’t know, whatever it is just moving. Okay, not not stable, not static. And you put that link on Dropbox. And you took you take that link, either with it as it is or with Bitly. And you put it on LinkedIn message, there’s a preview of that in the message running. So think about a person who opens like so many boring messages on LinkedIn, and there are boring messages. And all of a sudden, not only they see link, which is like, Hey, what are you sending links for? Are you going? Are you taking me out of the platform? Oh, well, wait a second. This is turning, this is running. This is flying, whatever. There’s a product here. It’s sweet. It’s cool. It’s beautiful. It’s thick. It’s everything. Just, you know, a cute tip that I can give you guys to whomever is listening. Very Good grief. Yeah, so those are the six steps.
Norman Ferrar 42:20
Okay, very good. So the, just in case you joined just a little bit late, we’re going to be giving away a consultation. And if your brand is retail ready, if it’s not telar is going to help you out with that. But if it is, it’s going to be to at least to direct contacts into retail. So you don’t have to fight for it, you’ll get a personal referral, right to the retailer. So that’s kind of priceless. I think that’s a great giveaway. And that’s we’ll have Kelsey, so if you’re new to the podcast, too, if you see I’ll just we’ll have Kelsey, that’s what it is to register for the giveaway at the end. And if you take two people will add another entry to it. Okay, so I have still a bunch of questions. But we I see we have a bunch of questions, right kills.
Kelsey 43:18
All right, we have lots of questions coming in.
Norman Ferrar 43:21
So I’ll wait till next time.
Kelsey 43:24
Also, people in the audience are beard nation. If you are not selling to retailers right now, what’s your hesitation right now? What’s the thing that’s holding you back? I asked the question in the comment section. But yeah, just looking to see what are those things that are keeping people from selling to retailers? But a good question. Our first question from Patea. I will be launching my first product in q2, it’s a large product with a large packaging box thinking about thinking ahead for retail. Do you have any tips on how I should design my box to appeal to the retail customers? Any must haves?
Taylor Ofer 44:03
I’m trying to look at the question in the question the comments just to have it in front of me. So yeah, basically. Yeah, I have I have a big tip for you. And for everyone else as well actually. Here’s the thing, think about yourself going in a store, looking at the product on a box of product because the products cannot be out there sitting on the shelf, right? So there’s a box or whatever, something similar to block box. And and you have seen that box but you don’t know what is inside. And if you don’t know what is inside. You just go on to the next shelf because you don’t care. I mean, there was a boxer who cares. But if you would see the box and you would have either a picture on the box showing the product properly or having a window or having It even transparent, then you would say, Oh, I know what it is I understand what it is, oh, wait a second, I need one for my cousin. See what I’m saying. The biggest thing here is to be noticed by the people who are walking there it’s refer to that is the main picture you have on Amazon, that should be selling for you because the picture you know sells more than the text. If I’m not wrong,
Norman Ferrar 45:25
and this is one of those products, I know what fatigue is product is fatigue, there’s going to be a link at the end. And it’ll also be on our resources page. Right over to learn more, and he will give you some thoughts on you know, whether this is retail ready or not. So take advantage of that. Okay, next. Hey,
Kelsey 45:49
sir. Next one, just following up about that link. Can we reach out to you if our products are still in productions? Or do we have to wait till we have them physically ready to show you them?
Taylor Ofer 46:01
Yeah, you can definitely approach me if they’re still in production, I think, you know, sometimes I work with people from scratch, like people are building building their brand, although they have other brands are selling other products while building the brand. And they catch me in the very beginning of the process. And I recommend them it’s much more work for me in a lot of you know, it’s very time consuming to be involved in the whole process. But I prefer that because then I have you know, the ability to create the product being retail ready from first from the first day. Now keep in mind, one very big thing that is I see it. If you’re written ready. You’re also ecommerce ready. But if you’re ecommerce ready doesn’t mean your retail ready. So obviously, if you can, you would rather be retail ready because you catch both of them. Right? So that’s for your question. Definitely. Yes.
Kelsey 46:55
Okay, great. And we did reach out or we asked our audience if they are selling to retailers, and Howard came back with we sell her natural oral care product lines and natural grocery health and wellness, vitamin stores, spas, boutiques, and CBD stores with their CBD product line. So great to hear Howard. Anyone else from the beard nation? Let us know if you you’re also selling to retailers. Okay, next question.
Taylor Ofer 47:20
That’s a great niche, our great niche. I love this niche. Also the CBD by the way I’m involved with, with line of CBD right now. So great niche, very good one. And it’s funny. There’s also, by the way, there’s also a lot of subscription boxes, especially for CBD products. It’s amazing. I didn’t know that. I just found it out two months ago. Yeah. Okay, great.
Kelsey 47:45
Yeah. Do you like to see online sales volume before you approach retail stores?
Taylor Ofer 47:51
Well, obviously, it has effect. Yes, I would love to see them. But then I don’t measure a brand by its online sales, because I’ve seen very good brands selling so so online, when they did, and they did very good offline. And I’ve seen, you know, the opposite as well. So but yeah, I mean, obviously, it’s it’s like you have to have something in hand, either special products, or unique or good sells something that you know, defines you as a label rather than just someone who buys products and sell them. And label.
Norman Ferrar 48:29
Yeah, the other thing is going on to online. So walmart.com getting onto the Walmart marketplace, and twice a year. If you’re selling if you if you’re performing, guess what? You’re invited to pitch at the head office. So you know, it could work the opposite way to use your calm, get your sales going and get invited from a retailer.
Taylor Ofer 48:54
Right? And you know, much better on about Walmart than me. I think you have also me hell yeah, I think yeah, right. And she knows like 10 times better than me about Walmart I used to sell Walmart years ago. I don’t right now, I am just involved with one label with Walmart right now as we speak, trying to get something into the stores. So I’ve seen also a question about Walmart. But I’m not familiar with them because at least on the offline side on the store side for me, it was very hard with them. But I know that online is a whole different story. So I’m not I have no idea about the online as I said, You know better than me.
Kelsey 49:32
So a couple of people came back with their hesitations to retailer, so I’m just going to go through a couple. If you have any thoughts about it, let me know but for many, my hesitation the rules of the new game. Somehow I know Amazon and how it works but with retail no idea which leads to the fear of the unknown. And the biggest hurdle we have as a startup in the US is finding warehousing logistics that doesn’t cost the earth. And then from Nathan, one thing that concerns me is finding making connections to the right people and then placing a large order with limited budget. Yeah, no, that’s
Norman Ferrar 50:12
not Nathan. Like on that point, you do have your big box stores, you know your Walmart’s or Costcos. But a lot of the times, you’re not putting in a huge order for the specialty stores. So you were saying to lor, E, there’s hundreds of 1000s of these small stores. So let’s say I’m targeting a CVD. Store, well, you’re targeting those stores, they’re ordering from you, you have a lead time, which I mean, if you have the product in stock, great, but they’re ordering smaller quantities. And something we didn’t talk about. These types of specialty are mom and pops, they pay you in advance. Except that’s the other bonus here. Now if you’re, if you’re using if you’re going to Walmart, like I’ve dealt or like with my family’s business, we’ve dealt with the Walmarts and the targets of the world. That’s a whole other ballgame. And there’s different ways of financing. And another thing we talked about with Todd Snively, last podcast, was working with distributors to move your product. You know, if somebody’s already got a line of specialty stores, you know, selling products into, I don’t know, toy shops or health health stores, then you don’t have to do the legwork. You’ve got somebody there that can do it. So the other thing I wanted to talk about is you ran by that very quickly, I think was Simon about warehousing. Yeah, there, there are different facilities you can set up right across the US, you know, that you could tie in and integrate. Your delivery delivers one that I know Walmart uses quite a bit. That’s probably their go to. But yeah, there are different facilities that you can use. But you’ve got to build that into your margins, right, ie, having a warehouse and having that service is part of, you know, part of your budget.
Taylor Ofer 52:11
Right. Okay. Right. Totally.
Kelsey 52:15
All right. Another question that just came in, from Abdullah. So he’s asking if so he has a large product that’s expensive. $400 Plus, and he’s wondering how you can sell it to retailers. It’s in the home fitness niche. Is there anything different though? Those large products?
Taylor Ofer 52:34
No, no, no difference at all. Actually, I just had someone taking my master class, which I did, like quite a while ago, from Australia, and they were selling also products for between 400 to 600. Very big vase, for funerals. I don’t know the niche, but that’s what they sell. And they ended up doing great wholesalers both in in Australia, US and the UK. And but again, it’s a matter of like pricing, like, what’s your buying cost? Versus what your MSRP? That’s that’s the point. That’s that’s where the answer is. But retailers are selling expensive stuff as well, obviously.
Kelsey 53:18
From red, how do you make the retailer pay within 30 days instead of 45 and 60 days?
Taylor Ofer 53:23
Well, usually the only way to do so is by giving them like one or 2% of the price. That’s or bargaining Well, I managed to work with after working with TJ for quite a while for net 60. I managed to get net 35 or 30. I’m not sure. Just by bargaining just like you know, asking again and asking again and talking with the buyer and talking with finance and so on. So either bargaining or giving them like a discount. Sometimes they offer that themselves.
Kelsey 53:58
Okay, great. One from that. Does UPC code on the packaging have to be registered with GS one?
Taylor Ofer 54:06
Yes. And our bypasses, for that. You can always use non GSA verified UPC code in the beginning until you get your orders once you see the order and you know the money is going to come in then is when you’re going to register with GS one if you haven’t registered yet. Okay, that’s a solution. I’m recommending people. To be honest with you, I had a GS one account, and I use the same SKU same UPC for different SK use and whenever an SKU went out of the line, it just took the same UPC and use it for another product. I know it’s not the best thing on earth to do it, but I did it and it worked good. It worked fine. There were no problems. So that’s something to keep in mind because you can buy different packages of GS one you don’t necessarily have to buy the big one. And it was cheaper in UK. Yeah,
Norman Ferra 54:58
we’ve got A brand and eight figure brand that we work with. And Amazon came back and just nailed this brand. For some reason they allowed four items to go through. But the 11 items that do not have GS one, have now been struck down. So we can’t get it listed. We can’t do anything. So you can go ahead and do that. What? I just go and get the GS ones, I mean, it costs and then the second year for renewal, it’ll cost you five bucks, or whatever it is. But yeah, more and more people are going that route. I mean, if you don’t have the prefix at the beginning, you don’t own that GS or the UPC code, you can have a problem. But, you know, if, if, if you have to, or if you want to take a chance, you know, go ahead and do the other route. But I just this is a really timely question because Vandana my, my senior project manager is going crazy right now trying to get these back online. Yeah.
Kelsey 56:09
Alright, so we’ll do two more questions, we’ll move on over to the we’ll see from Tia, what happens if an order is not delivered due to issues out of your control, for example, shipping congestion, or inventory, getting lost in transit.
Taylor Ofer 56:25
Inventory, getting lost in transit is something never happened to me, because you’re in retail space, you’re handling, you’re controlling the the shipping, you’re controlling the forwarder. So this is something that cannot happen. But I can tell you something I had, I’m having quite a big order right now. Two orders, one for Ipsy subscription box, and another one for causebox, which recently changed the name to Altru. And altogether, it’s like almost half million dollar order. And obviously, we had issues with bringing the stuff from China because you know, all the congestion in the port and everything. Although, I mean, it’s an exception. And the POS said, I think first and fifth September 1 And sorry, August 1 and August 15. We delivered end of August. And last week we delivered like, you know, the second container third one, I don’t remember, it was fine. We just managed to tell them that we’re asking not for them not to charge back us because of the situation in the port and to take everything in consideration. And they did. So yeah, there are human beings on the other side.
Kelsey 57:41
Yeah. Okay. And our last question that will take where to go? Okay, here we go. For non US sellers, how would we approach retailers? Does it make a difference if we do it in person compared to an online connection?
Taylor Ofer 57:58
Not sure what it means in person, but almost half of the vendors that I work with are non US sellers that are you know, based in UK, Columbia, New Zealand, Australia, Israel, some of them, so it doesn’t really matter. But I’m not sure what is the like to do in person. But online connection is the best way to do like, as I mentioned before,
Kelsey 58:26
okay, great. So I think it’s that time is it. Okay, right. So here we go. Thank you everyone who has entered. And if you are the winner, please email me at K at lunch with norm.com Especially you YouTubers, I cannot reach you, you have to reach me. So here we go. 321. This is for the consult and possible two connections with Tila to lower. And the winner is Howard. Oh, so Howard is already
Norman Ferrar 59:20
in retail. Perfect. So this would be Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. Howard. Okay, congrats. And so just reach out to Kelsey as K at lunch with norm.com. So that’s it till or how do people get ahold of you?
Taylor Ofer 59:38
Well, Facebook, tell or offer or on my websites. I think the link is somewhere dropped on the comments. Yeah, and there’s contact us You can reach me out on LinkedIn email, what’s up or filling the form directly? whatever is more comfortable.
Norman Ferrar 59:57
Perfect. Alright, so This was great. Got to have you back again. So I can answer your asking my last three or four questions. Anyways, stick around after I got to talk to you about a few things. But Google Talk to you soon. Thank you for coming on, we had a lot of really wanting a no problem. This was a subject that I think a lot of people want to know about. Alright, so I think that’s it. It was a great episode today. Kelsey, where are you?
Kelsey 1:00:28
Actually. So the link with the free examination from the Lord, that’s for everyone. That’s not just for the winner today. So I’m going to post it just one more time. If you are interested in having to look at your product, whether it’s ready or not, you can use this and
Norman Ferrar 1:00:47
that’s a great offer as well. I mean, it’s not an offer. I mean, you go there, check it out. And if you’re retail ready, perfect. If you’re not get some advice on it.
Kelsey 1:00:57
Yeah. Oh, so that’s posted there. Yes. Chelsea something.
Norman Ferrar 1:01:02
I did forget something. Our sponsor are very important sponsor. Okay, this episode was brought to you by href. Master Webmaster Tools. So you know, we preach this at lunch with normal the time that you want to build that e commerce website. It’s crucial to build your brand. But how do you as an Amazon seller have the time to worry about your website, and everything that goes along with it rankings for keywords and all that stuff. H refs is here to help you they monitor the health, the backlink to keywords and everything is done for free using their h ref Webmasters Tools. That’s right, you can just sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee, enjoy the podcast, and let h refs do everything else. So check it out, sign up, it’s zero cost H refs comm slash AWT, that’s H rfs.com/awt. It’s awesome. And by the way, after our last podcast, I received their blog, they have a blog that that comes out a newsletter that comes out every week. And I was really impressed with the information that I received. And it was all free of charges is great content that they write every single week. So check it out. Now come back Kelce.
Kelsey 1:02:19
Alright, so we just got a good question from Patea. So she’s asking, Who do we have on later this week? Great question. We have Vince Montero from Helium 10. He’ll be doing the trends and updates on PPC. And we also have awful lobby coming on on the Friday too. And yes, so thank you, everyone, for joining. We had new users again, which is great to see. Yeah. So hopefully, if you enjoyed the show, you’ll be back on Wednesday. That’s 12pm Eastern time. We’re on every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So definitely tune in if you can. But all of these are recorded. So if you go over to our YouTube channel, Norman Farrar, you’ll be able to see our full catalogue and we’re getting close to Episode 200. So if you are interested on being on our show, this is a fan episode. This is our beard nation episode. Go over to our Facebook group. There’s a post there where you can let us know that you’re interested. Or you can just email me Kay at lunch with Norm calm. And yeah, me contact me that way as well. All right.
Kelsey 1:03:29
And you know, one thing we haven’t talked about a long time is our newsletter that goes out every week. It’s all it’s pure content, just blog articles that we write guest blogs, curated content from around the industry. We’ve got a ton of members that get that every single Monday. So just go to lunch with norm or Norman farrar.com. Sign up for the newsletter and you will get it and it’s just it’s gold. There’s tons of content there. Okay, so I think that’s it, Mr. Kelsey. So tune in tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at noon, Eastern Standard Time. And thank you, everybody, especially starting to see a bunch of new users or new listeners. Thank you for joining us, join our community. We’ve got a great community. And you’ll see when you join the group, and thanks for tuning in. We’ll see you next Wednesday on Wednesday entre entre
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