We have once again on Lunch with Norm, Co-Founder of HONU Worldwide, Afolabi Oyerokun that joins today’s to discuss his experiences with US manufacturers, how to present your products to US manufacturers and tips on re-designing your products to save money. For over 20 years, Afolabi has been learning and developing the best logistics strategies, relationships and tactics to streamline and improve profitability for his clients. Now he is a sourcing expert as well as a successful 7 figure seller on Amazon.
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Episode: 195
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Afolabi Oyerokun – Co-founder of HONU Worldwide
Subtitle: “US Manufacturing Opportunities for Amazon FBA Sellers!”
Final Show Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlNhIJQaaVM
Back on Lunch with Norm…Co-Founder of HONU Worldwide, Afolabi Oyerokun is back to talk about his experience with US manufacturers, how to present your product to manufacturers, and hybrid manufacturing techniques in the US. Afolabi is a sourcing expert with an over 20 years of experience sourcing products that helps his clients improve profitability.
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Norman Ferraar 0:01
Hey everyone, it’s Norman Farrar, aka the beard guy here and welcome to another lunch with Norm, the Amazon FBA and Ecommerce podcast.
Norman Ferrar 0:20
Okay, so today I was able to break away from the sessions going over, I’m over here in Austin with the billion dollar seller Summit. It’s going great. It’s gonna be a long day, late night, and the same thing tomorrow and the next day. So I’m really looking forward to hearing what everybody has to say at the summit here. Today, we’ve got a great podcast going on. It’s US manufacturing opportunities. We’ve touched on this before, but there’s more and more opportunities happening not only here in Mexico, South America. So I’ve got my business partner friend, Afolabi Oyerokun, that’s going to be on in just a second. And if you don’t know, Afolabi, he’s just a great guy. I’m going to get a little bit into his backstory in a second. And he runs 100 worldwide. If you don’t know, I am a partner with him there and just want to be completely transparent. And we’re going to be getting into why US manufacturing. Why take a look at that? But before we get into this, I just wanted to give a great big thank you to our sponsor. I actually got to go to dinner with them yesterday with Chris and his team. But global wire Advisors, a leading digital investment bank focused on optimizing the business sales process. For more information, please contact Chris ship brewing and his team over at globalwireadvisors.com All right, Kelsey, where are you sir?
Kelsey 1:52
Oh, hello,Is he treating you?
Norman Ferrar
I miss you.
Kelsey
I miss you more. I think.
Norman Ferrar 2:02
All right. How have you been doing?
Kelsey 2:05
I’ve been doing great. We missed you on Wednesday. wasn’t quite the same with Tim. But I think Tim did a heck of a job. And yeah, Zira is a little replacement there. So if you haven’t been able to watch Wednesday’s episode, Tim Jordan at private label Legion came over and did the episode with Vince one, Taro.And yeah,
Norman Ferrar 2:27
I thought I’d be out of a job. I
Kelsey 2:30
think Tim was gunning for you for your position. Yeah. He’s a commodity. But I welcome everyone to the show. We’ve got Jessica Rabbit Red batea Oh, leg. Andrew Smith, we got Manny. Great to see everyone. We’ve got a great show. We’ve got a giveaway today. It’s not, it’s a very interesting giveaway. I think it’s gonna be very useful for some of the Amazon EECOM sellers here. So stick around for that. Also smash those like buttons, get those thumbs up going. I’ll be over in the comment sections hanging out with you guys. So if you have any questions for me, Tim, or see,
Norman Ferrar 3:13
I’m already kicked to the curb.
Kelsey 3:15
Already replace any questions for normal raffle lobby? Just put them in the comment sections? And we’ll answer those in the last half of the of the show. And yeah, we can just jump into it. We do have our 200th episode coming up. So that is September 29. That’s gonna be a lot of fun. And yeah, hopefully we have a big turnout. And you get to meet some of the beard Nation members coming on the show.
Norman Ferrar 3:42
Yeah, and I guess one other thing. We do have a member a membership section. Everything is free here. However, the membership section, you can buy Kelsey a cup of coffee, or we do have a bunch of extra training that we do and provide additional giveaways and all this other stuff. So if you’re interested in getting like Kelsey says a bit more of the beard, check it out on our lunch with norms site. And also we do have a really great, we call it the newsletter that doesn’t suck, which is provides a ton of content. So now that we got all of that out of the way. Anything else to say?
Kelsey 4:24
It’s it’s and I think you did a good job.
Norman Ferrar 4:27
Well, thank you so much. Okay, so any questions, throw them over in the comment section. But if everything’s done, sit back, relax. Grab your cup of coffee. Hope I don’t spill this thing on myself. And where is the man the myth, the legend?
Afolabi Oyerokun 4:45
Hey, hi. Oh, are you I’m doing great. How about you? AvalonBay Good, good. Good. How was your flight?
Norman Ferrar 4:55
I was. Yeah, it was good. You know, the snacks. Why did They serve healthy snacks on planes. I want a chocolate bar
Afolabi Oyerokun 5:05
I get I get like yeah
Norman Ferrar
give me some awful food.
Afolabi Oyerokun 5:17
It’s because he was just supposed to be on the plane for just a few minutes, a few hours you could go down when once you get down on you know land, you can eat as much as you want, you can still buy the, you know, whatever, a burger place or whatever to do whatever you want, but on the plane, you’re only getting peanuts and granola bar.
Norman Ferrar 5:39
Story, my wife. Sir, for those of us who don’t know you, can you give us a little bit of background about yourself?
Afolabi Oyerokun 5:48
Well, hi everyone I’m afolabi have been sourcing products developing products for a long time, I started selling on Amazon from the very beginning 2001 2002 when Amazon was just moving over to FBA, you know, did some work, we you know, Alibaba as well, you know, worked on some of their platform, you know, have, you know, Amazon stores or my own accident one about to exit another one. It’s just great to always be here, and to help people develop their products, help people, you know, look at what they’re doing that can save them cost and improve the quality of their products. So I’m always happy to be in this to be IT guy.
Norman Ferrar 6:38
It’s really great that you can bring the experience of, there’s a lot of service providers out there that have not the slightest clue about Amazon. So you can come in, and you can talk about experience. And we’re not talking small brands, either. These are, you know, seven figure brands that, you know, they’re they’re very good brands that you have. So, anyways, anyways, you know, I, you give me 20 bucks to say nice things about you. I did get into the meat and potatoes.
Afolabi Oyerokun 7:12
Yeah, let’s do it.
Norman Ferrar 7:13
Very first question. So we’re seeing a huge trend. And the trend is coming more back to the US. Yes. And why is that?
Afolabi Oyerokun 7:26
Well, the first thing is the shipping from all over the world into the US is being three to 600% Higher. And then we’re seeing high prices increase in raw material cost from China, we’re seeing most of the factories in China are heavily booked and they are short staffed, that means the quality is dropping every day. Now you place an order or you place a you want to get a sample from China, it’s gonna take way longer to even get a sample out. And then your first order is good, the second order is was so everybody’s starting to see their products fail inspection, you know the defect rate is getting higher. So, when you had the cost of shipping and the tariff and the defect rate and all the risk involved in making products in a country like China, it looks like the US is getting very attractive from some products.
Norman Ferrar 8:34
Right now, the big question, can the US be competitive?
Afolabi Oyerokun 8:42
Yes and No. in let me start with the no the No Is there some products that I just labor intensive one. There are some products that the raw materials is not there, raw materials are not readily available in the US like bamboo. I don’t know if us as any bamboo. So there is no way the US can compete in those kinds of products. There are products that take too much. Like I said, touch points, they require so much hand labor, they require so much materials that are not available. Those ones you cannot make in the US. But the Yes, part of the question is products that are big and bulky products that are premium quality products that are very innovative in the way it’s designed and the way it’s produced. Like I visited a factory last week in the US here and I was really impressed with the new ways of building products. I mean, this guy showed me patented way of him how he built a shelf like wow, that is it. He says, Look, I can finish this, I can finish this shell from start to finish in 20 minutes. And he showed me. And these are, if you had to use the conventional way of building this shell of he would have taken two hours to build it. But he was able to reduce the way to build this product in less than 60 70% of the time cut off from the time of production. So I’m starting to see that for automated or semi automated production. Us is having more opportunities. I even heard that some factories from China are starting to look relocate to the US. Can you believe that? It’s happening, it’s happening? Well,
Norman Ferrar 10:49
yeah, they’re, they’re going to have to compete. Even the Japanese, I can see it happening. Because if it’s out of their control, especially the shipping costs, and they’re seeing their business drive well, or drop, you know, what are they going to do? But what I’d like to talk a bit more about what are the competitive niches that you can look at. If I’m in, if I’m your design shoes, your very first product was a lot of people don’t know this, that you designed your own shoe line. And it’s not something that you could do over here, that would not be a product that I would go Okay, let’s go find us shoe manufacturers, not profitable? What are some no categories, niches that you would look at?
Afolabi Oyerokun 11:41
Okay, so I started to develop a whole database of us suppliers that are ready to do business because not all of them are ready to do business. Unfortunately, I’m starting to see the number one on my list is wood products or meal millwork. And I ll WR K millwork. And wood is number one, because the raw materials are readily available in the US and Canada. Number two would be plastics, anything that is injection molded, that you create a mold once your biggest expense is your mold. And then they fit the fit the mold into a machine and the machine runs your product. 24/7 is all fully automated, that doesn’t require any labor. Right? So the US is starting to be a good contender in in products like that. Also other products that are printed materials that use like substrates or, like magnets, like vinyls and stuff like that they’re readily printed here in the US. These products are actually the the chemicals or the the raw materials for this product actually shipped from the US to China to be to make into a product and they shipped back to us here. So those kinds of products are good. Another one I’m seeing more than I’m talking to suppliers here is metal, like powder coating. Yeah, metals. Yeah, there is a lot of steel, there’s a lot of aluminum. And there’s a lot of hybrid metals that the US has developed, that if you’re not married to a certain kind of metal, you could actually get into hybrid materials. I’m seeing a lot of film, like the factory I visited the day. They showed me a wooden product. And they asked me a question and they said what material is this? And I just couldn’t tell. And I said Well, is it rude? Is it MDF is it word and they call it a special name that like oh, it’s a new material. It’s not wood, it’s the set is better than wood is better than MDF. And it’s it’s a mixture of some sort of composite with wood and some metal chips or something. But it’s very durable, they actually charging premium for it. So that’s one of the reasons I know if somebody is going into the premium market. The US would always be number one for you because we have a lot of materials that are just newly invented. And they are in the USA and they they are a top contender.
Norman Ferrar 14:30
I saw something the other day. I didn’t know what it was. And I’ve dealt a lot with wood wood products, but it was a resin that had sawdust. It looked like a ton of sawdust. And then it had a vinyl coating over top of it so like if you were to cut it you could see the vinyl would protect that right you wouldn’t see this resin saw this kind of mixture. I don’t know what it was. I have no idea you ever seen that?
Afolabi Oyerokun 14:58
Yeah, I do. know a lot of those products are now coming up. In another one I discovered yesterday no is recycled paper. So yeah, they using recycled paper to create something like something like this. So they will mold it, they will recycled paper and some pork or something, they would put it in injection mode and they will turn it into products like these and they all biodegradable and recyclable. It’s coming, it’s becoming really big, especially in the cosmetic industry. So now the US is number one producer of recyclable biodegradable cosmetic bottles. Even China hasn’t caught up with that yet. So for and people are getting more environmental, you know, conscious. So when you see, you put a product that is ABS plastic, and loaded with LED, and you see another product that is so good. It’s made out of recycled material or it’s made out of recycled paper or pulp. Which one are you going to go for the conscience is you would always lean more to environmentally safe products. And us is leading at the at this moment in those kinds of materials. Yeah,
Norman Ferrar 16:26
you know, I didn’t tell you this. So AvalonBay partnered in, it’s a soap company. And so I do all the heavy lifting, he does very little. No, no, no. I was looking for packaging for it. And I didn’t talk to you about this yet. But you know, the inserts that have to go into to tax right? Yeah, so yes, it’s a it’s a cardstock. And we always like to make it a little bit thicker. So it’s a it’s a thicker cardstock. I found it cheaper, way cheaper to do it in the US now than to bring it in from China and China used to be you buy 20,000 inserts, it was so expensive. And the other thing that I found was the transparent stickers. So just the trick, you know how we’re sealing the box with those stickers? Yes, way cheaper than getting them overseas. So these are two things. And we’ve already talked about even the packaging, right? Like you can get your product in. You can do kidding in assembly, yes here. But it’s a packaging now. And I, I’ve got a buddy who’s going to be coming on to the podcast, in a month or so whenever he wants, everything is set up. But they’ve invested like $7 million into this specific Printing Machine. That’s for EECOM EECOM. Sellers. So you can do 100 units, 250 units, and it’ll be as good. Maybe a bit more expensive, but most likely a bit cheaper than going over to China. And yes, with those prices now that yes, container prices.
Afolabi Oyerokun 18:12
Yes, I believe it.
Norman Ferrar 18:13
I believe your packaging is you know, this is going to be a really interesting thing to see what’s happening. Now with metal. I didn’t know about that. But before I forget, I just see, we’ll have Kelsey, what is your giveaway today?
Afolabi Oyerokun 18:28
So today, I would like to give away a consultation with me. I want to help people look at the product and see if they could make it into us cheaper. And if not, is there a way we could redesign the product to make it manufacturable in the US because some people look at their product. They’re like, Yeah, well, there’s no way I can make this in the US, right? It’s this you don’t know, you, whatever you don’t know, you don’t know, why not? Let us explore it and see, maybe there’s a way we could, you know, redesign something like I was talking to one of our customers two or three days ago. So he noticed that he is doing a special wooden product. This is really cool, is doing a special wooden product. And the product is about $60 from China. And he was going to check the tariff, the tariff is 3% plus 25%. So more than 28% entire if he was going to pay. So as we were talking, I say wait a minute, where is the wood coming from? So he said the wood is coming from Thailand. I said so. Wood from Thailand is definitely not 25% He says no, I say good. But by the time the wood gets to China and they turn it into something else Then the 25 to 28% tariff goes on it. I say How about we ship the wood from Thailand. And we ship the other pieces from China or I actually can source the metal piece here in the US. We do the metal piece here, you ship the special wood because it’s not available in the US or Canada ship the wood finished wood here. And then we do the assembly at the three PL we calculated the cost, it was way cheaper. Yeah, it was way cheaper. So we brought the price down from 75 or $80. landed back to about $65 landed. Huge difference by by just doing that. Yep. So you don’t know. So when you winner a consultation, we’ll look at your product together to see if it’s a good candidate for US manufacturing or not? If not, we’ll find a way to see whether we can make some changes. If you’re open to making some changes, then it might, it might be compatible, you never know.
Norman Ferrar 21:03
Okay, so if you are interested in this great little giveaway, that’s hashtag, we’ll have Kelsey, if you want to enter twice, just take two people, and you’ll have the second entry. Okay, so let’s talk about the costs. When again, when when I think of US manufacturing, I think of high costs, we touched on a few things. But are there any other ways that we can bring the price down from what I would expect to be high cost due to labor?
Afolabi Oyerokun 21:38
Yes, I think from what I’m finding out these days, the first way you could bring your price down in the US is to make sure you’re actually dealing with a factory that is very compatible with your product. If you if you if you make a product that involves let’s say you have a wooden product and it, you need to do lacing on the wood, which means you have to make the wood round, they have to lay the LLC he, if your factory doesn’t have a lathe in technology, they’re going to charge you a fortune. Right. So first, you have to know does my factory is my factory compatible with my product, if not, the cost is going to be high. And you’re going to think, oh, making this product in the US is so high. I’m witnessing that these days. That’s why I’m we’re talking about this today, because I’m seeing it the more factory I talked to, the more I’m finding now that US factories are so niche, you have to really find a sweet spot, the one that really really is your best match. The number two is how you present your product to this factory would affect your cost. If you I saw that if I showed them a photo, I say this is my product, cost it for me. Nine out of 10 times the cost, the the price quote is very high. Because they don’t really know what your product dimensions are. Even if you list it by just looking at it, they don’t know. So they are guessing that’s a lot of guesswork involved in them just looking at your photo and trying to figure out what the cost will be. So to get your prices low, really, really low, find a compatible factory, and be very detailed, do a technical drawing of your product. As a it could be a black and white technical drawing that specs out everything in your product and give it to them. Because these factories are mostly run by or owned by engineers in the US. So when they see spec sheet, they understand it. Remember, the only thing that has been keeping us factories afloat the past 30 years, projects from bigger companies, they give them projects, big projects. And when they give them this project, they give them spec files, they give them very highly technical spec files. So in order for us to enter into this space of US manufacturing, we need to give them at least something to work with. We need to give them something that is very close to what they are already getting from the bigger companies giving them products to do.
Norman Ferrar 24:27
Yeah, I know you and us we’ve heard back from manufacturers that we’ve gone out into China, who we think have dealt very, like on a regular basis with Amazon sellers. And we’ve seen so many shut down like that will not sell to Amazon sellers anymore because they don’t give the proper information or they’re constantly changing their minds. And this is something that’s going to be extended in the US people Because manufacturers in the US, I just saw Jason Lam, he was talking about why do manufacturers keep ghosting me? Well, it might be because of information. Or it might be the niche that you’re in. They’re not used to. There’s so many manufacturers were like, What the heck, why are these ecommerce guys or Amazon guys, all of a sudden, you know, contacting me? Now that’s different, completely different in the beauty side, or in the supplement side. There’s a lot of US manufacturers that, you know, are sellers that have gotten us companies, you know, for your soaps or for eye makeup, or whatever it is. That’s the norm here in the US, but other types of manufacturing. They’re brand new too. And then all of a sudden somebody wants 250 pieces. They don’t know what they’re talking about, or they’re not getting the proper specs. So you get ghosted, or it’s just a niche. It’s not that you do it. You may not be doing anything wrong, Jason, but it’s, you’ve got to be as specific as possible. What do you think?
Afolabi Oyerokun 26:05
Yeah, yep. Yep. It’s, and then Jason, you need to call them where maybe you’re sending them emails, I found out in a hard way that this factory is do not respond to emails whatsoever. I don’t know why they’re not hungry enough. They don’t believe you, Jason, they don’t believe you can move products. When you tell all these people that somebody sets is set is selling 2000 3000 to 10,000 units a month, they don’t believe it. This practice, don’t believe it, the factory I visited last week now. They do over $50 million a year in revenue. They don’t sell a single thing online. Yeah, they have no clue how online works. They don’t have any ecommerce clients. They don’t know anything about that. They only deal with stores and brick and mortar. And that’s it. So when I’m telling them about different products, they’re like, what is it? What is it? Are you sure, you know, you can actually move this much product, they don’t know, they don’t know. So when you give them your product, let’s say Jason give them his product by just sending them a link or a photo, they look at your product. Some of them, I go to the extent of doing the research online, and seeing your product that you’re selling for $100. And because of that they come at you with a $50 price. But we’re going to make it for $50. If you’re selling it, if you’re selling it at $100. Let’s see we can make this $50. They don’t understand FBA fees. They don’t know understand PPC, they don’t know storage, they don’t know everything you need to go through to sell your products online. So they see that retail price. And they think that’s Oh, wow, this is a huge margin. That’s not That’s not bad. Instead of doing that, why don’t you give them a very detailed spreadsheet. Jason. It’s a spreadsheet game in the US I learned in a hard way. So I I got a pricing back this week for a product. And it was almost four times the target price. I was saying something is wrong. This the first thing I noticed was the spec sheet was in millimeters instead of inches. So your you want the factory to convert for you. They sometimes they lazy number one, they don’t understand what you’re doing. Now you want them to do more work, right? You want them to help you calculate from millimeters to inches, they don’t like that. Another thing I found out is that they couldn’t tell. They see the photo, they see the dimensions in millimeters. And there was no detailed specification of this is how to do this part. There are some parts missing in this product specs that the factory had to fill in the blank. And there are three four ways of doing the same thing. And then you didn’t specify the way you really want them to do it. So I’m reaching back at the factory back to the factory. I’m like, okay. All right. Where is the labor cost in this? Why is this thing so expensive? Well, we need to do these, and then we need to do that. And then we need to pack it. And I said, Oh, what if my three PL does the assembly? Will they bring the price down? They were like yeah, if you have a labor to take care of the final little packing in the box will knock off another X amount from you. Ah, okay. All right. So I’m finding out that this factory, even though they could produce 50% of this product, the rest of the 50% is not really their specialty, right? I better I better ticket off their shoulder. If not, they’re going to charge you a fortune for it. So I’m like Okay, help me cut the wood. Do the CNC and ship it to my 3d You will do the rest. Right? So these are the things I’m finding out that if you get a high price from a source supplier in the US, it doesn’t mean, that might not be the final price, you just have to rework it sometimes. So this product, I’m just re engineering it again and say, Okay, let’s go back to the drawing board, what can we take out of here? Okay, maybe the screws and special parts of it, I’ll give it to another meal factory to do that, and ship it to me. And only the thing that this other factory specializes in, is what they’re going to do. And I’m finding that the price keeps coming down to Mohammed, the engineering and we are arranging this thing, the prices are starting to drop, and getting close to what China is doing.
Norman Ferrar 30:49
Right now, I still think there’s a lot of arrogance for manufacturers that are looking either OEM space or retail space. Compared to EECOM, I remember I was I was going to pet excuse me, Pet Expo, and looking at a lot of different places, just seeing if I can bring any products that I could rebrand, you know, private label brand on my my one pet product. And this one guy, it didn’t happen once it happened all the time. But they’re used to large, big box stores buying their product. And I went in there and I was talking and this was the owner’s son, he wouldn’t give me the time of day, he wouldn’t look at me in the eye. And then somebody in that booth looked at my brand, they recognized it, went back to him and said, hey, you know, this is so and so from this brand. And all of a sudden, now they’re paying a little bit of attention. I didn’t pay any attention to him anymore. You know, if he couldn’t give me the time of day, then I wouldn’t play. But the guy came up. He apologizes. That’s the That’s our culture. We’re not used to an E commerce seller selling any modernities Mm hmm. Yeah. So you really do have to fight for your brand?
Afolabi Oyerokun 32:07
Yes, yes. Because they don’t know anything about e commerce, they don’t know, you’re probably selling more than whoever their current customers are. They don’t know. Until, you know, I’m fine. I’m finding that I’m having to educate these suppliers. Honestly, I’m telling them about e commerce, I’m telling them, Look, these are the volumes, my customer is moving. So you better take me seriously. If not, you’re gonna lose out on this opportunity. So they’re starting to learn about this, I still, I still think we are two years or two years away from most of these manufacturers are really, really getting it. But to have a start now would win. Because if you could start locking up these factories and start giving them orders, and lock up their production line to your product, you’re gonna win at the end of the day, because they’re not going to have room it takes about three to five years for a factory to build a to increase their capacity to produce right, you have to buy a new machine, you have to hire new people, you have to do a new, you know, line, you have to get a bigger building to be able to take on more orders, right? So what have jumps in now and start doing something would win at the end of the day. And you have to keep it in mind that stat. One thing this guy told me last week at the factory was he said this is a 70 something year old guy is been in this business over 50 years. He said look, tell your people that, that this you when they want to if you want if they want us to make stuff for them here in the US, they should start looking at the premium markets as well. Because so many sellers on Amazon are very afraid to sell premium products. You know, I can use myself as an example. I wasn’t, you know, when I got into, you know, in the E commerce space I was selling, you know, $50 shoes 70 $65. US I wasn’t used to products in that 300 400 500 $600 range. So if you want to make some really high quality premium products in the US, you have to start thinking premium premium market. And these are markets that most of that Chinese factories they don’t compete with. These are the markets that you don’t have everybody Joe block competing with you. These are markets that you can actually make products on demand from all these factories, factories can actually make this product for you on a very small quantity run. And you don’t even have to ship it to your Threepio they can just ship it directly from their factory straight to Amazon or they can drop ship for you This factory that I went to last week, they will do drop shipping. Especially if your products are large, you know, they’re bulky, you don’t need to take it away from the factory, have them, manufacture it for you 2040 50 A month and ship it. So start looking at premium made in the US premium market. There are people that would buy a $5,000 stuff $2,000 or $750, organizers or desk or whatever, let’s start looking at those premium market because the US is really good for that. And us competes very well.
Norman Ferrar 35:37
Do you know earnest apps?
Afolabi Oyerokun 35:42
Earnest,
Norman Ferrar 35:43
earnest, earnest EPS EPS?
Afolabi Oyerokun 35:46
I’ve heard that name before is what does he do?
Norman Ferrar 35:49
Incredible guy. So Earnest has this program. And it’s exactly that. He’s saying, I’m not gonna sell $10 soap, right, but let’s not give up on so we’re doing a good job with $1. So you know, you gotta sell too much of it, which I agree with. Let’s focus on $1,500 barbecues, or $2,000. And he goes out and he finds very, very expensive products, premium products that he like, he’s got a course out there on how you find these products, put them on Shopify drive traffic over, spent very little because you don’t you don’t have to spend a ton on the traffic to get Uber. Yep. And now you don’t have to sell 1000 bars of soap, you sell one barbecue, and you’re getting the same amount of profit. So yeah, that’s what I like about this. And when you start talking about be the leader in premium, rather than the leader in sales volume, its you know, or crappy products, bottom dollars, the only thing you’re gonna get out of low or high competition, high volume products is product cannibalization, nobody wins, you move product, you make pennies, nothing. It’s no good. If you can move up to a middle tier, or the highest tier, push the envelope. And I mean, you do have to do your research. But what I can tell you is the numbers really don’t add up. Because people don’t realize a lot of the time that there is a bigger market. There’s just not the opportunity. So if you go on to Amazon, and you’re looking for a case, a glass Cara glass case, well, if there’s one that’s made that $100, but you don’t get the opportunity to look at it, or it’s just the ones that are suck. But there’s a lot of mid tier and low tier, you’re going to go into mid tier. Yes, there’s no opportunity at the height here. Exactly. Well, I love doing that. I love being able to take a product that didn’t exist. And we did that with a toe wart remover, where we took a product that only had like the top seller was $15,000 a month. And with the repackaging and rebranding and external traffic, we got that over $100,000 A month when a 999 to 2499 price point. So it’s doable?
Afolabi Oyerokun 38:25
Of course it is and people ask people listening now your Amazon you’re always racing to the bottom. Leave that market alone. Stop thinking about something premium. Let me give you a name of a company’s called Thomas Moser. th o ma s mo s er thermos Moses sales $25 million a year online selling premium furniture made in the US. Each of his dining set is like $7,000. He sells a chair for $2,000. Some of his sets are $15,000. Guess what? People buy? Yep. People buy. When I saw it, I heard about this. This company. I’m like really, and I went to his website. It sells a lot. $25 million. He doesn’t have to, you know, it doesn’t have to advertise a lot. It doesn’t have to spend any money on anything. It goes straight to his clientele. His clientele knows him and the order. These are people that buy products for their paint houses. These are people that only buy premium stuff. I was talking to a guy sometime last year, and I’m like, what, how do you shop on Amazon? This guy says I never buy the cheapest. I never buy the me do I always go for the highest since because I’m just afraid that those may do or the low grade are going to be crap. I don’t want to return products I don’t have time, my time is precious. I don’t want to put anything inside a box and drop it off at the UPS store to rebook to return it, my time is more precious. I’ll go for the very, very premium one high, you know, ratings and stuff like that, because that’s just what I want. So premium market us is ripe for it. If you if you want to go into it, I think it’s going to be well worth your while.
Norman Ferrar 40:27
And for exporting, we can’t forget about that you bring in premium products, like for us with our soap we sell in japan, Japanese love Hawaiian soap, and they’ll pay $24 to $36 the bar?
Afolabi Oyerokun 40:39
Yes, yes, correct. It’s
Norman Ferrar 40:41
crazy. But not anyways. Yeah, I was gonna say I just wanted to remind people that we’ve got a great giveaway, Apple lobby is going to consult, take a look at your products, see what you can do to improve or revise the product to make it better for the US manufacturing marketplace. So it’s a full consultation with them. If you’re interested. It’s hashtag, we’ll have Kelsey, if you want to join twice. It’s just take two people. So we do have a bunch of questions. I think I keep saying I’m blind as a bat, but I see down. Is there anything else that you want to add? Before we go to the questions?
Afolabi Oyerokun 41:19
Okay, before we go to questions, you can, you can also consider hybrid manufacturing. This is what I learned last week as well. I knew it as a concept, but I didn’t realize that US manufacturers are doing it. So this guy says, Look, I make the wooden products here, but I bring all my accessories from China. So he’s bringing some little little items that like some knobs or things that go into the furniture or that goes into is bringing them from China. So is looking at the US market is that okay? I think price wise or economy wise, I think it’s better for me to bring this one from India is bringing some from China, the little ones that don’t have high tariffs, he brings them in, they’re not so big and bulky brings them in, and then he uses them to finish the main product in the US. And then the number two thing is I found that also the US manufacturers they don’t like to do finishing, they don’t like to do the final packaging and finishing. Because they don’t, they don’t just they don’t have enough workers to be doing all that. So you can have three or four factories, make different components of your product, and ship it to your Threepio and let them do all the final packaging. And another thing that is so good is if you’re selling products that could be flat packed, you know, you could just put in all the you know all the components in a bag, and then the other ones just laid flat and protect it with whatever and sell it short and you should be fine. So consider hybrid manufacturing when you’re thinking about us as well.
Norman Ferrar 43:04
Good point. Okay, so, Mr. Kelce.
Kelsey 43:11
It’s Hello. Okay, we got lots of questions happening over in the comment sections. I also just want to give a shout out to our whole new live that I just made available for next Wednesday. So awful lobby does a we biweekly whole new Facebook Live video about sourcing in the US. We’ve done live demos, how to find your products, all that good information. So if you go over to the whole new worldwide Facebook page, you’ll see an event that I just posted about so you can RSVP there and check it out. It’s about redesigning your products for US manufacturing. So yeah, check that out. But yeah, let’s jump into some questions. First one from Jessica Rabbit. Do you think differently about which products to source depending on the sales platform? For example, Walmart, or Amazon or Shopify?
Afolabi Oyerokun 44:08
Ah, not really, I don’t think differently. Because if you’re going to make stuff in the US any of this product will sell in any platform. You could use Amazon to start because it seems to have a easier entry barrier. But Walmart is really catching up on Amazon. They’re not slowing down. So I would say you have products and you can sell in multiple platforms. And Mr. Nog will talk about the Walmart platform as well that they’re not kidding. So Jessica, you the same product you make here. You can sell all your you Sally across multiple platforms. Maybe your question is also towards retail like brick and mortar retail Jessica. So if you’re thinking about brick and mortar retail, not just online, let’s say Walmart, or mom and pop store, you should think about your packaging. When you’re doing your product, make sure your packaging can also be sold by all those brick and mortar stores as well. Right? So you make one product and sell it in multiple platforms, it doesn’t matter what platform you’re selling. Or if you want, you could make different versions of your product. You can say, Alright, I want to make this one, I want to get to the WalMart customer. And I want to make this one I’ll get to the Amazon customer. And I want to want to make this version of variation. I want to get to us Shopify SKU version, if that’s the strategy strategy you want, because it looks like Amazon customer might be a little different from WalMart customer. And they Shopify, the guy that I sell is selling 25 million US furniture is selling through Shopify, believe it or not. People are paying 1000s of dollars for this furniture. So the same way you could, you could go in different ways. But let no talk about Walmart. What do you think, sir?
Norman Ferrar 46:07
Oh, Walmart, that’s what I’m speaking here at BTSs. Walmart is a contender, they’ve got this new thing called Project Glass, which is taking the retail experience and enhancing it with online sales, pickup delivery. So they’re kind of it’s the new, it’s the the new retail. So they’ve got fulfillment centers all over the 5000 fulfillment centers all over the US, it is going to be a biggie. So I would be definitely looking it. It might not be this year, but by the time next year rolls around, being able to sell on Walmart calm. And if you’ve got a good product, solid sales, get invited into WalMart stores. And so being able to pick up there, so there’s lots of huge opportunities right now. And by the way, just a quick note, if to apply right now you want to make sure that your US company
Afolabi Oyerokun 47:10
another thing not to forget is house, and Wayfair. So those companies are starting to take on tech speed. They’re starting to be a top contender. So look at Wayfair look at house as well. I know him fair. And yeah, and fair. I know three, four people that are selling five times more on our house than they’re selling on Amazon. So you might want to check that out as well. Yeah.
Kelsey 47:42
Okay. Next question from Steven, are there any tips to navigating Thomasnet? I found it cumbersome and difficult to sift through the search results.
Afolabi Oyerokun 47:51
Yes, I agree with you, Stephen. Thomasnet is more of a very, very dominant directory. I don’t think it’s a sourcing platform. They try to be fit into a sourcing? I don’t think so I’ve used it before. It’s just most of the most of the companies you see there. They’re not even looking for business. They’re dead. They’re like, some of them the phone numbers don’t work. Some of them do have emails. So I tried it. I wasn’t liking it. So what I do now, Steven is I want to go to companies that are actively promoting themselves to do business. And they are not on Thomasnet. Well, some of them may be on Thomasnet. But they’re not active there. So what I do is I go on Google, I see who has SEO, who is advertising on Google, if I type in, let’s say I want to make I want to make cell phone case in the US. I’ll type in silicone manner silicone silicone case manufacturer in the US into Google, who is who is spending money on Google ads, who is spending money on SEO, that tells me the serious, they want to do business. And then I take it a step further, I go to their Facebook page, I want to see what activities they have on their Facebook, if they’re still in business, or they’re not in business, then I take it to LinkedIn, what are they doing on LinkedIn? I want to see if they have any official executive on LinkedIn, what are they saying about the company? And then I go to YouTube, I want to see what if they put a video of factory tour of their products of their facility, you know, what are they doing actively to promote that the business and they’re looking for more business? Thomasnet definitely has not worked for me. It’s just a directory. You can find product, you can find companies on there. But that’s just the beginning. Whatever information about a company you find on Thomasnet ticket, the next level, go to Google, go to LinkedIn, go to YouTube, go to Facebook and verify or validate that these companies are actually ready to do business. If not, they’re going to waste your time. You’re going to reply you got to email them most They will never reply, unfortunately.
Kelsey 50:06
Okay, yes. And Sharon just said, she loves the YouTube and LinkedIn tip, which I agree you actually did the live demo the other day of how you search for YouTube or factories with YouTube.
Norman Ferrar 50:17
And Sharon, Sharon is the queen of doing that, by the way. So I learned the LinkedIn one from her because she said, the LinkedIn and the YouTube she says she’s going on YouTube, she’s just googling. I mean, she’s just YouTubing and finding out who has the factory tool as the videos. She’s going on LinkedIn, she’s just tracking down all the executive like one would that is a cool tip. And I started using it. Yes, it works. It really works. So take care.
Kelsey 50:50
Okay, next one is from Huisman, just like Chinese manufacturers realize that they can sell on Amazon themselves and sell knockoffs of their sellers products. What happens when these big manufacturers do the same and start doing with the Chinese manufacturers they’re doing? Is there any risk of that? Do you think?
Afolabi Oyerokun 51:08
That’s a good question? So in the US here, before you start manufacturing, you have NDAs, you have NC NDS, you have noncompete, you have all these things, which are very easy to enforce in the US. In China, it’s not, it’s not easy to enforce that in China. So before you show your design or whatever to anybody, you have to be able to let them sign some paperwork, some agreement before you do that, if they sign, it’s very easy to enforce another thing you what that I like a US manufacturing is, honestly, you may have to go through three or four factories to assemble the product. Right, if you have a product that has five different parts, what I’m doing is I make one part from one factory, the other part from another factory, the other part from here, because not all these factories can do everything at the same time. And then I bring everything to the three PL facility, and then we assemble everything from there. So in that way your your US manufacturer doesn’t even know what you’re doing, because you’re only buying a little piece from him. Right? He doesn’t know how you’re going to put it together. It doesn’t know I’m working on a project now. And it’s one two, we have five, four parts in it. And I’m buying it from different manufacturers, not because I don’t want them to copy but because they’re just each of them is just specializes on one thing, they do very well. So I go to them and I buy that thing they know how to do and they can do for me at a very cost effective way I buy from them. And then I go to the other one. I buy it how we put it all together. That way is cheaper, is easier, and its chances of anybody knocking you off is very, very little. Okay.
Kelsey 53:04
Okay, next question. Let’s see. This is from Dilip Abdullah, is there. Are there any possibilities? The UK company? Are there any possibilities for UK companies getting wholesale accounts in the US? We’re getting a lot of nose. So how do you convince the wholesalers in the US?
Afolabi Oyerokun 53:24
Okay, see, they’re all CLS or the R or the manufacturer because that’s this. That’s the difference between the two. If somebody is a wholesaler, honestly, I will. And I did this just last night. I’m looking for a product and I’m getting at 75 cents. And I’m reading the about us on the page of this wholesaler that made me know it was an wholesaler actually, I thought it was the factory until they wrote in their about us and they said, Well, we buy from, you know, local Vermont sellers. I’m like, Ah, is a wholesaler. So I changed my search term to these products in Vermont. And boom, I see a whole list of the real factories that are actually making that product in a month. So I’m reaching out to those to those people and say, I want to buy your product direct. So if you’re dealing with wholesalers, maybe you take it a little step further and go deeper, peel off one more layer to go deeper into where the factory really is. And if you find a factory, that’s who you want to deal with wholesalers may be afraid of you wholesalers may think because you’re coming from outside of the country. They don’t want to deal with you. For whatever reason. I don’t know why but I see. I mean I don’t doubt it at all that they would not want to deal with you because US companies seem to have a reputation of being afraid of being concerned of the unknown. Especially if you’re coming from outside, they don’t realize they think you’re a time waster, they don’t realize that you might actually be a savior for them at the factory. So maybe you approach them a different way, call them up, and or dig deeper to go find who their real factory who their supplier is, and just cut them off and go straight to the factory.
Kelsey 55:34
Awesome. Do you have any resources similar to like Alibaba? 1688. For China? This is from Muhammad.
Afolabi Oyerokun 55:44
For us, for us? No, no. Another thing I found, you can just that me post this site, made in america.co. Made in america.co, is a site that I found that showcases a lot of US manufacturers, their products, products that I didn’t even know existed, that that could be made in the US, and they all 100% made in the US. So that one is there. And then honestly, Mohammed, you’re you’re you’re at the mercy of Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and which one you know which one else I talked about? The the Thomasnet? I don’t know, they’re supposed to be good. They’re supposed to be top contender for Alibaba with us. But they don’t they’re not there yet. Unfortunately, they’re not there, you might have to use four or five different platforms, just to get what you want in the US, unfortunately.
Kelsey 56:53
Jessica, how do you determine whether the factory you’re interviewing specializes in your particular niche, so you source correctly and most economically?
Afolabi Oyerokun 57:02
Oh, good, good one, Jessica. So the first thing I can that you can know, is by their price. If the price is way off, completely way off, you know that they’re not a perfect fit. And number two, you check out all the products they have made, if in the US is actually easier than in China. So China, China manufacturers are very, they are angry, they they will do anything, they will adapt to your needs. In the US. They’re very rigid, and a very Nietzsche. So if a US manufacturer is only making five types of products, Jessica, don’t even bother to give them any type, because they only will stick to that five, with a slight variation. slight variation, they wouldn’t want to go overboard, because they will have to reinvent the process. Remember, the US factory tribes in automating their workflow, automating their manufacturing. So if you give them a product, they don’t have a workflow, they don’t have a process in place. If they have to change their process and change the arrangement of the factory just to accommodate your product, it’s going to be expensive. And you’ll be able to tell by the kind of price they’re giving you and the time it takes for them to reply you with a quote, If you give them a product, you’ll give them your product specs. And it’s taking them two weeks for them to give you a quote, no doubt something is wrong. They’re trying to figure out how they can fit you into their mold, which might not be the best fit for you. And by the time they give you the price, you will know that it’s not worth it. They’re not the right person for you.
Kelsey 58:56
And as we’re wrapping everything up, I just want to say once some more that we have the hashtag we’ll have Kelsey happening that is for consult with alpha lobby to see if your product is a good candidate for US manufacturing. So that is hashtag. We’ll have Kelsey just put that over in the comment sections and we’ll close out with this question from Mark and red. So Mark is asking, Do you have any recommendations for packaging makers in the US and red is asking if you have any packaging recommendations in China?
Afolabi Oyerokun 59:31
Oh yeah, lots of packaging. So packaging but nom, you know a company in the US with packaging. I want to talk about that.
Norman Ferrar 59:39
There’s a bunch of them. So the one that I’m recommending and I’ll bring bring Rick on is central graphics. They’re not 100% up and running right now. But if you want to give a shout out over to them, it’s record drew over at Central packaging there. huge company getting into the Econ business you can also take a look at plus printers. Boxer. Yeah, I think it’s called as another one, the boxer e.com. There’s no bubble pack progress container. But I think the first ones I mentioned are probably better. And just for kind of bulk packaging, there’s a BA packaging, which goes into bottles and drippers and all that stuff. So there’s, there’s a ton of them. And by the way, you just have to go onto Google and do a search and you’ll see, you know, bottle wholesalers or packaging wholesalers distributors, and you can just check out for yourself, but I am going to have central on and go through their whole organization and what they do how they do it. Yep.
Kelsey 1:00:58
Okay, great. So, I guess it’s time for the wheel of Kelsey. Okay, you guys are good. We are a little bit past the hour, so we’ll have to wrap things up. But uh, okay, here we go the wheel Kelsey.
Kelsey 1:01:28
If we missed any questions, and answers to them, please go over to our Facebook group. Lunch with Norm Amazon FBA and ecommerce Collective, we can only get to so many in an episode. So if there are more, just put them over into the Facebook group. And someone will for sure answer or give you an answer and their feedback. All right, here we go the wheel of Kelsey I’m going to shuffle the names up real quick. As for the console with Apple lobby 321. We’ll have Kelsey and the winner is idle TV. So this is a new to Apple TV, you need to contact me at K at lunch with norm.com. If you need to contact me, there’s no way for me to find you. Lucky if not, we’ll have to spin again. And pick a new winner. But anyways, it’ll TV.
Norman Ferrar 1:02:35
It’s probably Simon with another name.
Kelsey 1:02:40
I wouldn’t be surprised. But yes, thank you for everyone for entering today’s contest and come back on Monday and we’ll do another we’ll have Kelsey.
Norman Ferrar 1:02:51
Okay, so I’m still gonna be here at in Austin at the VDSS on Monday. So hopefully everything is I can get on like I did today. No glitches with the Internet. But Apple lobby, how do people get ahold of you?
Afolabi Oyerokun 1:03:05
Just send an email to savings at owner worldwide or hit me up on Facebook. Just do a messenger to me on Facebook. You know, I’ll be able to reply and see you. If you want to do a zoom call, whichever one you can save. Is that only worldwide.com or Facebook Messenger? I reply you immediately. All right,
Norman Ferrar 1:03:28
sir. Thank you for coming on today. You I’ll be I’ll be contacting you a little bit later on and talking to you about more soap.
Afolabi Oyerokun 1:03:40
What’s the lunch over there? What are you guys having for lunch?
Norman Ferrar 1:03:43
I have no idea. I know it’s happening in an hour. So not gonna miss Nice.
Afolabi Oyerokun 1:03:48
Nice. Awesome. Okay, enjoy yourself over there. I wanted to come but you know, I needed to take care of some nickel for my son this weekend. So don’t worry next time. Maybe I’ll surprise you guys and show
Norman Ferrar 1:04:05
that would be awesome. Alright, Bobby, thank you for having me, son. And we’ll see you later. Okay, everybody. So thanks for joining us today. On Monday. Like I said, I’m gonna be back but I’ll be doing it live from the hotel room. But Elena Sarris, is going to be coming on. She’s got an incredible new book that just came out this week. And it’s, it’s something really interesting. So those of you that don’t know, Elena, she is a public defender and she left this great job. She’s still doing it, but she’s for the most part, she’s selling on Shopify. And she wrote a book about shiny object syndrome, and how to weed through the shiny objects and really take advantage of the full time opportunities. So those of us who have heard her talk on this podcast before Have you ever known Elena? She’s incredible, incredible to listen to. So she’s very engaging. She’s awesome. Now I don’t tell her that I said that because her head will get that big. Anyway. That’s going to be happening on Monday. Kelsey, anything else happening?
Kelsey 1:05:19
No, that’s pretty much it. Yes. Jessica Rabbit loves Elena. Elena, her energy is fantastic. And yeah, it’s, it’s captivating when she talks. So definitely tune in for that. It’s gonna be great. And, yeah, I think we have our big fan episode happening. September 29. We’ve got the roster figured out. So I will be releasing some more information about that. But again, if you want more of the beard, if you’re looking for more trainings, small group sessions with me and norm, like next week, we’re doing a q&a session with me about social media, answering all types of different questions about branding and social media. Go over to our lunch with Norm website, click on the membership area, and you’ll be able to see all of the different things or if you just want to buy us a cup of coffee for the month. That’s something that’s available too. But yes, smash those like buttons if you haven’t already. And I think that’s it. Our Facebook group is called once the norm Amazon FBA and ecommerce collective. So that is the main area where will we post updates, and anything that’s happening in the group or on the podcast site to
Norman Ferrar 1:06:36
you know, there is one other thing I wanted to talk about. It’s not just because Chris bought me dinner last night, but global wired advisors. We were talking last night, and you don’t have to have $100 million account to talk to these guys. Chris was telling me that he’s had a bunch of people call their Amazon sellers. They want to get into a position where somebody is going to buy their company, and how do you do it? Now he’s in like, he said to me last night, he’s in for the long term, he’s willing to give as much advice as you want. So when you do sell your business, you get a great deal. So really do check them out over at global wired advisors calm. And I, you know, it’s part of it. They’re a sponsor, but after sitting down with him last night, I mean, he had so much so many really great, interesting things to say. So if you are looking or want some free advice, check that out. So join us every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at noon, eastern central time, central time, Standard Time. It’s getting late and
Kelsey 1:07:41
Eastern, Eastern.
Norman Ferrar 1:07:43
Did I say that? That’s true. That’s how these events it’s these events. Alright, thank you everybody for watching and we will see you on Monday.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
