I am joined by serial entrepreneur Tony Sagar. Tony is known as the sleep doctor. He has more than 25 years of business experience in different businesses, including extensively in retail where he made the successful transition to the online space. In today’s episode we dive into the benefits of looking local for manufacturers and importers. We discuss how you can find local suppliers and vendors, what the advantages of going local has to offer, and local options for funding and incentives that are available! Try researching programs in your area, you may be surprised what is available!
Jokingly Tony is known as the sleep doctor. He has more then 25 years of business experience in different businesses, including extensively in retail where he made the successful transition to the online space.
15 years ago at his peak and his partner Tony’s brother Victor owned a 8 store chain of high-end linen & mattress stores in the greater Toronto area doing close to 8 million dollars a year in sales.
His greatest success is being able to harness the power of Amazon and then using their brand “Down Under Bedding” brand to optimize other platforms like Shopify, Walmart Etc. Tony is very proud that the majority of their online sales come from local suppliers and manufacturers or importers…. by thinking local we help to make better local communities and workplaces where we all live.
Today with his entrepreneurial experience he is helping small business people think local. is examples include using government programs for wage subsidies. Promoting made in Canada or USA local premium products.
Date: October 9, 2020
Episode: 49
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Tony Sagar, a Serial Entrepreneur and a Branding Expert.
Subtitle: Why source local?
Final Show Link: https://lunchwithnorm.com/episodes/episode-49-looking-local-finding-manufacturers-and-importers-w-tony-sagar/
In this episode of Lunch With Norm…, Norman Farrar introduces a serial entrepreneur and a branding expert.
Tony Sagar is known as the sleep doctor. He has more than 25 years of business experience in different businesses, including extensively in retail. He discussed the benefits of having a local manufacturer and supplier and how to find them.
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Norman 0:02
Hey everyone, it’s Norman Farrar, a.k.a. The Beard Guy here and welcome to another Lunch With Norm, rise of the micro brands
Norman 0:22
Alright, today we have a special guest serial entrepreneur, Tony Sagar. Tony will be discussing the benefits of finding local manufacturers and importers for your business. But before we get to Tony, just want to mention that we are broadcasting live on Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. If you are watching this on a replay, just skip ahead and if you’re watching this on my profile page, you can always go over to Norman Farrar, a.k.a. The Beard Guy and you’ll see tons of content, more video highlights as well as whole episodes. Now, Kelsey, where are you?
Kelsey 1:02
Hello, hello.
Norman 1:03
I’m just gonna start doing this. That’s my part. I smash things.
Kelsey 1:07
Yes, that’s right. Ring bells, smash the like.
Norman 1:11
Interrupt my son.
Kelsey 1:12
Interrupt. Yeah, I’m used to that.
Kelsey 1:17
Alright, yes and Happy Thanksgiving, everyone in Canada. Yes, it is our Thanksgiving weekend. So yes, Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy the holidays and if you haven’t already, liked this video. I see someone already has. Thank you and let us know where you’re watching from. We’re always eager to see where in the world you’re watching. We’ve had guests from Australia, Malaysia, US, Canada, so it’s good to see ya. Okay. So yeah, and a little thing, just the YouTube, it’ll be anything that you see here goes directly up on YouTube. So if you missed out on some of the episodes, you can always find it on the YouTube channels. There’s full episodes. Looks like Waseem is back too. Hello Waseem.
Norman 2:08
Hey, Wassem.
Kelsey 2:09
I see Marina from Canada and Victor. It’s too early to like I don’t know. Very nice and yeah, this is a podcast. So you can find us on Lunch With Norm. You can go to Apple podcast, Spotify, anywhere you find your podcast, you can find us Lunch With Norm.
Norman 2:33
Alright. We’re getting very good at that.
Kelsey 2:35
I know a little bit of practice.
Norman 2:38
Alright, good. Yeah and remember, if you have any questions, just feel free to put them in the content area or comment section and we will get to them. If we can’t get to them, we will definitely answer them after the podcast. So sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the show. So Tony, where are you?
Tony 2:58
Norman, how are you?
Norman 2:59
Good. How are you?
Tony 3:01
I’m awesome. Happy Thanksgiving to you as well.
Norman 3:04
Oh, yeah. A former Canadian or fellow Canadian?
Tony 3:08
That’s right.
Norman 3:09
Yes. So yeah, getting ready, getting that Turkey ready. So hey, Tony, why don’t you tell everybody just a little bit about yourself?
Tony 3:18
Yeah. Well, I come from a very strong retail background about 15 years ago, me and my brother were at our peak here in the Greater Toronto Area. We had a chain of bedding and bath furniture stores as well and we were getting close to revenue of almost $10 million a year with seven or eight locations and we just did not really see the rise of the Internet coming and sales really dropped and we had to really change our whole strategy and from that sort of humble beginning that I learned everything and I jokingly always say like, would Walmart do FBA? Could they do FBA and to me, it’s been like the journey has been so sweet and special to make that transition from the retail space to online. It’s been spectacular.
Norman 4:21
Well, I mentioned this just before the call that you had sent me a product, and you sent it over to me, and Kelsey can verify this. When I got it, I was blown away. We always talk about high perceived value and quality, quality packaging, just everything about the product. It was like you were doing 100% bang on. Literally, from the packaging, to actually building a community and you were telling me that’s actually what you try to do and when you gave me the instructions and it was personalized and it was such a great product. I don’t want to tell everybody but what it is, but you know what? You just nailed it.
Tony 5:11
Thank you, and to me, the best part of it is that product was made in Canada. A lot of times people feel when it comes to a lot of items like textiles, even furniture, it has to be made offshore and that’s not always the case. What we can do is we can make a premium product and build better communities where we live and I think that’s more relevant than ever before, in the age of COVID, where people have more concerns than ever before, of where something is made, the standards, the quality behind it.
Norman 5:48
Right, so let’s just dive right into that. So if you are looking for a new product, how do you go about finding local suppliers or vendors?
Tony 5:57
Well, I think before we can just look at how to find it, I think we have to step back and say, why do we do it? Once we answer the why, then it’s easier to really find what you’re looking for and the advantages are just immense. Like, when I step back and look at the retail world that I come from, and the traditional model is people really just running off to China for every creative solution. It’s not always the case, because we have so many advantages when we source locally. First of all, we know the standards, the certifications. We know the fact that when you sourcing local, you’re going to have shorter lead times. So right now, that’s very relevant with the fact that people are having, like a lot, a lot of shortages in terms of delays and getting stuff checked into Amazon and we step back and say, what are the other advantages in local? I mean, I can pay my suppliers usually on credit, anywhere from 60 to 90 days, which is, which is amazing, right and then those are like, the starting point of some of those great advantages.
Norman 7:11
Hey Tony, just to let you know, your internet is cut out, you hanged a couple of times during the call. So if it continues, maybe what we could do is just go to an audio call. But anyways, let’s just continue on with that thought.
Tony 7:29
Sorry, can you hear me now?
Norman 7:31
I can hear you perfectly. You were just hanging, the video actually was hanging for a second or two.
Tony 7:34
Okay and like I was saying before, like, we really need to look into our own purchases in our lives. That’s where we start, right? What am I using? Can it be made locally? Can it be sourced locally and that’s really the starting point.
Norman 7:52
Right, and one of my products, one of my better selling products, it’s all made in the US and they have about a one week turnaround, I don’t have to worry about inventory and right now, like we talked about in my last podcast was about inventory. Inventory is king going into Prime Day now going into Black Friday and if you can rely on a one week turnaround, and you nail it, you don’t have to worry about heavy expenses and what you were talking about before, being able to go even 30 days, what that does for your cash flow over a period, over the Prime Day or the fourth quarter helps tremendously to loosen up some cash.
Tony 8:38
I would even add another advantage. There’s certain suppliers, I left to pay because I’ve negotiated a 10 day prepayment 2% discount, which is great. So for every hundred thousand dollars, that’s $2,000 directly in my pocket and these are things that we can do when we source locally, and it’s about really building the relationships to figure out can it happen and I think one of the things we’re going to be talking about and I was talking to Kelsey earlier is about the amount of different government programs that are really meant to have investment in local and the first one starts was that hiring program that I had sent you the information on.
Norman 9:24
Right. Yeah. So we were talking one day, and you had mentioned that you had picked up one or two people at a very low cost and it was subsidized by the government. Now, we’re talking about Canada right now, but the US has probably got similar programs in the local community. A matter of fact, I know for a fact. Well you know Afolabi, so Afolabi, we’ve been able to go out and secure a warehouse based on just the government assistance. So there’s money out there for people, especially if you’re developing new products or wanting to create new jobs, you just got to find them.
Tony 10:08
Oh, yeah and the thing is, people really don’t want to do their effort. They just want to have an easy link, everything that my dear, and like Gary V had said, like, you got to really harness Google. The information is there and in this case, I have actually two people starting on Tuesday after the long weekend with this program and I have possibly a third. Currently, I have seven people on staff from this program, what they do is that for nine weeks, they will pay the minimum wage $14 an hour for 30 hours a week and the best part about it to me is the fact that they actually screen the people. So I’m getting quality people for graphic design, copywriting, I’ve got two virtual assistants, literally, the amount of each of you I’m doing has reduced, unbelievable, because I get them to do a lot of the interviews that I need and it’s freed up a lot of my time and I worked it out, it works up to almost $4,000 per hire.
Norman 11:21
Yeah, and after that, you can choose whether that you can basically use that as a probationary period. Correct?
Tony 11:29
That’s right, well, this is an apprenticeship program. So we give them a letter of reference, and softwares and I have kept on some people because they were invaluable and to me, there’s so many advantages when we talk about local, when somebody when you have a VA, and they’re at the same like, like just the same hour as you, I mean, the same day like so you can communicate, it’s not the next day, it’s just fine. It just works so much better.
Norman 12:00
Yeah, and when you’re talking now, not so much suppliers, but when you are talking local vendors, or when you’re bringing on local people so that you actually have an office. I love outsourcing, I do it all the time. But it’s just that feel that you can go in, you can have everybody there, you could put up the whiteboards different than Zoom and although I think I’m pretty good at holding meetings and and delegating on Zoom, it’s just a whole different vibe, if you can have actually somebody that you can look at eye to eye not on Zoom. But in a boardroom, or, somebody comes to work and you can have a discussion, and it’s not waiting 12 hours, or there might be three hours or five hours difference. Who knows. But yeah, definitely a big advantage there.
Tony 12:57
Well, I’m in close contact with a coordinator that program and because I still have a retail store, there are actually a bit available to extend that too. The reposition doesn’t have to be from remote. So I can get somebody to come in for the holiday season if I need warehousing, moving shelves and things like that, which is great.
Norman 13:19
Okay, I got to ask you one thing completely down a different rabbit hole. Yeah. There are people that ask me all the time about Canadian warehousing and I don’t sell in Canada, I typically sell US. Do you have any warehouses that you can suggest in Canada? For those that are selling amazon.com that want to come up and explore .ca?
Tony 13:44
I do. But it really depends on the scale, right? Because I find typically, to do well, you really have to ship it in directly from the source countries to Canada. Right? If you’re trying to ship it from the US to Canada, you’re gonna have double duties and extra shipping charges.
Norman 14:06
Right. Okay, well, if you have any names, maybe what we could do is post them in the comments section after the podcast. Alright, one of the other things, this is the nugget of the day. So if you’re listening, get ready to write this down. There is a program that very little people have heard of, and it’s global. It’s called Acadium. Okay, we’ll post the spelling in I think it’s A C C E D I U M or something like that. Anyways, I failed spelling, but it’s called the Acadium and you can source people locally in the United States, Canada, Mexico, pretty much any country in the world, and you’ll get them for three months. It costs $289 and they work 10 hours a day, and you can specify exactly what you want. If it’s a social media expert, copywriter, this is another area, if you don’t have the access to like, let’s say, what Tony’s talking about the access of these interns in Toronto, this is just a global program that’s available. I’ve used it, and I highly recommend it. So if you want to take a look at it, I’ll talk to Kelsey after the podcast, pop it in there and Tony, you might want to take a look at it.
Tony 15:27
Oh, I will for sure.
Norman 15:30
The people, I’m not talking about, some of these people are looking at some, like from Berkeley from you talk about some of the top universities, there in this program and there’s thousands of people, even if you were looking for something like social media, copywriting, podcast editing. But you know what, Hayden does a great job. I’m not gonna kick him out of his job yet.
Tony 15:58
But you know what I will say this, the first person to hire from our local program was this student at Harvard too.
Norman 16:08
Very cool. Okay, now, let’s get back into the more this the supplier side. Yeah. So let’s go through some of the advantages of working with local factories other than the turnaround time?
Tony 16:23
Well, I think it’s that you can really get to understand the customer, you know what I mean. You can explore variations, other products much more quickly, and I can’t really emphasize enough the issue regarding safety. Because I don’t know if you remember, an older episode of The AM podcast, AM/PM podcast with Manny Coats and he talks about this guy who had these glasses for the solar eclipse, that if remember that, and what happened was, he could never compete with his glasses were made in the USA, and they were double and triple the price and all the Chinese products had fake certification and it took him forever to figure that out, and get it publicized to the media and in the end, he’s like how he went in six months to having millions of dollars in sales and that’s just like, something that went viral. But what I meant is that it’s an extreme example of something we have to be very cautious of these days.
Norman 17:24
Yeah, so certification. Okay, are there any other advantages, right off the top.
Tony 17:31
The other one I’m thinking about something we might not think about is local lending, as well. Now, a lot of people may have heard of seller funding, which is getting well known in the US, we have our own local version of it called loop lending. Now, they have a very similar platform, and this was this sort of platform was actually pioneered by another Canadian company that started by Michele Romanow, called Clearbanc. Where they can give you an answer within 48 hours of your lending needs, based on your history and what I found great about it was not only was I offered a much cheaper rate than south of the border, I was offered a lot more money as well, and that, to me, again, another local option and just to let people know that anybody listening from the US loop is now actually lending to people in the US as well.
Norman 18:31
Okay, very good.
Norman 18:34
We’ve talked a little bit about the government incentives. Would you like to add anything to that? Or do you think we’ve covered that?
Tony 18:43
No, I think , you know what issue is that people really need to do more research on that because it’s very sector specific, item specific, you know what I mean and you have to look into your local area, you could be in Australia, we don’t know what’s being offered. But there’s a lot of incentives people, the government’s are really trying to keep people employed, and active and sometimes there’s just things that aren’t not well as well publicized, like what you just gave us a great tip right there. Like, I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never actually tried them out.
Norman 19:15
Yeah, and some people don’t think about other types of local packaging. So I’ve got a very good friend. I don’t know if central packaging here in Mississauga, Ricky’s wood. He’s brought in a machine that can do one box. He can do 50 million boxes. It’s a huge company and what his specialty is or what he’s trying to target are all those e-commerce companies, Amazon sellers that have products in North America or are bringing products over, that you can specialty have a specialty package for and the company, you would think it would be just crazy expensive, but they are competing with the Chinese pricing now, because everything is so automated. So that’s another area that people don’t think about, even if they bring in, okay, here’s anti fog, glass treatment, because it’s so hot in this room. But put it in a nice box, it’ll cost a few cents, but the perceived value goes up, just like what you did. Another Canadian thing was a Canadian packaging, but US packaging, you don’t have to go Chinese packaging to have an incredible package at a cost effective rate. So one other part about local sources. We always talk about the, the handwritten letters, the handwritten notes. Well, that’s another area that we can look at and what we don’t look at a lot of the time are the programs, especially programs that have sometimes people that have challenges, they might have a disability of some sort. They just, it might be just not cut out for regular work. Well, there’s all sorts of these programs that you can get people to help package, help kit and assembly. Help do the personalized letters locally, not only does it give people just a sense of where to go and and work and just have self confidence. But it’s also fairly inexpensive and that’s another area of local sources that a lot of people just forget about.
Tony 21:37
Yeah, you know what, beat it boggles the mind in terms of what we can actually achieve, because I believe, like, the amount of manufacturing that’s going to come back to North America, it’s gonna take time, it’s gonna take 15-20 years, but we’re going to see a lot more manufacturing, it’s going to be targeted and because people want to say, where’s it coming from, and it can be cost effective as well.
Norman 22:05
Right. Kels, I saw a question up there from Victor, what does that say?
Kelsey 22:09
Oh, yeah, he’s commenting. So he’s saying we’re about to start separating the colorbox printing from a product manufacturing and he was also saying about his Chinese supplier. He was quoted a 20 week production lead time from China. Normal is eight to 10 weeks, and yeah, the compromise is 14 weeks.
Norman 22:31
Oh, my gosh, yeah, it’s it’s happening right now and just think, Okay, so we’ve got a double whammy and so we’ve have the crazy in it, what we have a no, it’s what is it called the trifecta, you’ve got the Prime Day, you’ve got Black Friday, Cyber Monday, then you’ve got the Chinese New Year, and Chinese New Year is going to come I mean, this is it’s gonna be crazy for inventory and we just don’t know how long it’s going to take for Amazon, to be able to receive all this stuff.
Tony 23:07
You know what Norm, I don’t really go out shopping a whole lot anymore. Because of that, people are very cautious. When I go into the stores, the first thing that strikes me is how empty when I go into Costco, Homesense, the shell seems to be half empty, they’re having supply shortages, like crazy and if things do get shut down again, it’s going to people going to be people online that are going to have that advantage and right now there’s a big rush to get everything order in every stock in and it’s gonna be interesting to see what happens.
Norman 23:43
We sometimes forget about, we think of Fiverr and Upwork and FreeUp and all these companies sourcing out to Ukraine, India, Philippines, but you can filter these and, like on Fiverr. Here, why don’t you take that I know that you’ve used that filter, correct.
Tony 24:09
You know what, the person that I have using my doing my CEO right now, my SEO I should say, I actually filtered on Fiverr for Canada, and he’s based in Edmonton. He’s doing an amazing job and people wouldn’t think hey Fiverr, you have to go to the Philippines or India or Bangladesh and you don’t have to.
Norman 24:28
A lot of the times when you’re using, so I usually say when you’re using Fiverr you get what you pay for. But if you do search and you do find people on there that are good and they can show you like a really incredible portfolio, then why not hire them. Sometimes they’re just looking for work, they might have been it they might be just looking for work due to COVID or they might just be out of college or university looking for a break. But the filter I’m talking about is just search by country and you’ll be surprised that you might pay a little bit more. But I’ll tell you that if you’re working with somebody in the same time zone, and you can communicate direct, instantly back and forth, that saves sometimes that extra few dollars, like you were saying, nine or 14, or whatever it is, it pays off, it pays off in the long run because of the ability for you to communicate instantly. Just not sure if a lot of people are using those filters, but it’s not always the cheapest that’s going to get you the best.
Tony 25:44
Norm. Let me ask you this. Are you using a Loom?
Norman 25:49
I’m not, No, really. I’ve never heard of it. By the way. I’ve never heard of Loom, I’ll check that out.
Tony 25:56
Yeah, you just can make a basic screen video, right? A screen share video, and then you just send them the link right away.
Kelsey 26:04
You know Loom, we use it all the time. The video editing.
Norman 26:09
Oh, I thought you were talking about funding. Okay. Yeah, of course. We use Loom editing suite, it was loop funding, right?
Tony 26:21
Yeah. Similar.
Norman 26:23
Okay. Alright. Yep. Loom is awesome and it’s free and they have a premium version. Yeah, we communicate all the time with Loom with all of our people. Yeah. Now, what about, like Honu provides sourcing, and I guess they’re their sourcing agents in China or overseas. But what about finding a local sourcing agent? Have you ever experienced that?
Tony 26:49
You know what, some of my best selling products, I actually get sourced locally and in my case, because I have deep contacts in for my industry and in my niche, where now this particular product, I just signed off, and we’re getting our third container coming in, in end of November and the great thing is that, because I’m working with companies that work with big companies like TJ Maxx, and Costco, and Loblaws, and all that, I have the advantage of them taking care of it for me, and I don’t have to put as much money down, like, on a shipment of that container must be hundred thousand dollars, I put down 10%. It’s always very convenient and I know, because they have access to the some of the best factories that I may not always get, they get me the pricing that I haven’t been able to see and to me, that’s an advantage of local sourcing, in a way, even when you’re importing as well.
Norman 27:53
So do you have any idea on how our listeners can find local sourcing agents?
Tony 27:58
Sure. The key is to really look inside your niche.You know what I mean, and then going to Google, that I use it all the time and find the sources of related searches, you know what I mean and then you want to find people that are really approachable and first thing you want to do is see, are they already selling on Amazon? Are they selling online? Because if they already have a presence, you could still work together, if it’s not optimized, I was talking to somebody yesterday, a huge American company and I said to him up front, I go, you know what, you got to have exclusivity, where they only sell on Amazon, they don’t want anybody else selling on Amazon and their listings were really not optimized and that’s how it is because of the fact that sometimes they have so many different streams of income. They’re not always looking at that, but I’m looking at the business potential, that hey, maybe how I can leverage that to get in there. Maybe we can work some type of agreement, but the key is, you always have to be looking for those types of opportunities.
Norman 29:05
In Canada, at least when we had our promotions company, let’s say we found a shirt, it would have an RN number, that RN numbers are linked to a Canadian database. So the Canadian government actually has a full database of every category you can imagine of manufacturers, and it’s at your fingertips, you just have to find the you just have to go to the the RN database and they also have a book or they have a hardcopy, and in the US they have something very similar and I forget what it is, and I’m sure I can find it fairly simple. But there is a database as well of manufacturers, and also right now in the US. This is perfect timing for people to go out and look at US manufacturers. People are you’ll probably get a discount. I can’t tell you for sure if you will. But manufacturers are and there’s more manufacturers opening up now than ever before. Yeah, they want business. They want to take it away from China. I’ll tell you a few really great niches. Beauty. There are so many beauty and supplements as I mean, these are tough categories. So beauty supplement, baby pet. Yeah. I sell bully sticks. They’re all North American sourced and now it’s a commodity of course, it’s a tough sell. But anyways, there’s so many niches that you can look into and again into pets, you’ve got these antlers and really healthy quality pet food, raw food for pets. It’s out there, you just have to explore it.
Norman 31:01
Now, either it’s frozen, or Tony’s face is permanently like that in awe of what I just said.
Kelsey 31:09
Hopefully, he’ll be able to refresh.
Kelsey 31:13
Unless it does, maybe we’re frozen. Maybe. Okay.
Norman 31:19
Are there any questions?
Kelsey 31:21
Yep. So we have a couple, maybe wait for Tony to come back, just hold on everybody. But Doctor Cause, we’ll just go through the questions first. Hey, Tony, tell us your online footprint. So Amazon Shopify or Walmart. Any new marketplaces you like and does Tony have any tips for making wood based products? Where would you go to make a product out of wood? So yeah, actually, do you want to talk about the Facebook group as we were waiting for Tony to come back?
Norman 31:54
Yeah sure. So Tony is gonna come back on in a second. Those are both good questions, we’ll see what Tony has to say about that. But we’re trying to come up with a Facebook group, we have a Facebook page. So, I said, why don’t we just keep the page, Kelsey goes, because we can give so much more information. So we can provide files and just a lot more access, I thought, Well, okay, we could probably get a lot of the people that we have on the podcast in the group, and have a just, it’s not a Lunch With Norm group. I don’t know what we’re gonna call it, give us some names. But we want to really grow a community that is not just about Amazon, it’s about online sales, digital marketing, social media, just what it will take to make your online business grow. So, again, we’re not going to be promoting any products there. If we could suggest, but it will be without affiliates. These are just products that we use, different apps that we might be using. So it’s just an area that Kelsey and I have been discussing and just give us some of your feedback. We’ve got a pretty solid community already. We just want to grow that community to make it better for everybody.
Kelsey 33:11
Yeah, Victor’s asking the important questions. Will there be a secret handshake and a code word?
Norman 33:18
Absolutely. Absolutely. It’ll be like the old Flintstones Lodge. Those of you who remember the Flintstones, so absolutely, Victor.
Kelsey 33:29
I’m just gonna make sure Tony is emailing us. He should be back shortly. But yes, let us know what you think and if this is something that interests you and yeah, and if you have any more questions, please feel free to put it down. Put it in the comments. Or if you have any questions for Norman, maybe about?
Norman 33:53
Yeah, sure. So now that we have a little bit of time, instead of me crawling up into the fetal position, which will happen in about a minute if you guys don’t give me any questions. Just feel free to shoot if you have any questions about Black Friday or Prime Day or Amazon in general. Just go ahead, guys.
Kelsey 34:14
Oh, and it looks like Tony is back and just a second. I’ll bring it up. But he said yes, guys. Yabba dabba doo.
Kelsey 34:25
Okay, we got lots of stuff coming up. But Hello, Tony.
Tony 34:29
Hey, I apologize.
Kelsey 34:33
No worries, we’re good to go. You do have a couple of questions, waiting in line for you. So if you’re, are you ready to answer them? Okay. So, first of all, Dr. Koz, he’s asking now, what’s your online footprint? Are you in Amazon and Shopify, Walmart and do you have any new marketplaces you’d like?
Tony 34:52
Yes, I’m on amazon.ca which is our home market, amazon.com which is growing fast for us. The thing with amazon.com is literally, I just can’t get the goods in quick enough, some of our best sellers, we’re at the point where I’m gonna have to be getting containers coming directly from China next year I can foresee straight to Amazon FBA or third party warehouses.
Norman 35:19
You mean China, the local suburb of Toronto?
Tony 35:24
Unfortunately, it is what it is. There are certain Items, we just can’t do it. But I’m still glad to admit the majority of our sales are still made in Canada, and even the practices that we do may in Canada are growing on .com, as well. But the thing is the price point in certain issues. But we’re also growing, I’m seeing better quality sales, and meeting Canada products selling much better and made in USA products selling much better is on our Shopify website.
Norman 35:57 O
Okay, are you outside of Shopify? Any other market?
Tony 36:00
We just started selling on Walmart, in Canada and I haven’t seen a lot of response on that and it’s gonna see what happens in the busier time, but it hasn’t been a lot yet.
Norman 36:11
You just mentioned something about cost. Do you feel that the perceived value outweighs the higher price?
Tony 36:21
Oh, of course, that’s how we try to get into every single launch every single product, but it has to the volume has to justify it and one of the things in terms of the local that we’re going to discuss as well is the fact that I’m working with some local suppliers now to actually reduce shipping costs as well. So we’re taking some products, like the same for example product that I sent you and we’re actually going to be able to vacuum roll it or vacuum packet. So my shipping on that particular product goes down from 18 to $20, to maybe 10 or 12 and those are ways that I’m trying to really find local synergies to maximize the volume and scale it.
Norman 37:07
So you’re thinking, no pun intended outside of the box? When you’re doing packaging.
Tony 37:13
That’s the way to do it.
Norman 37:15
Yeah, no, that’s a really great idea. Kelsey, any other questions?
Kelsey 37:20
Yes. So from Nathan, does Tony have any tips for making wood based products? Where would he go to make a product out of wood?
Tony 37:29
Wood, ideally, China or other countries? I mean, but you know what? The problem is you there are a lot of certifications in wood. I haven’t done too much in wood. Maybe. Norm would know, could speak more to that.
Norman 37:44
Yeah, we used to bring in some wood based products and some of the products problems we had was on curing. So the product would come in, it would look fine until we hit fall or winter, the product would split and then there were a ton of refunds and these were on some larger products like clocks. So we found that was a big issue. Also, you have to fumigate wood to make sure that there’s no bugs coming in. Now, a buddy of mine who’s going to be on next week, Tim Jordan. I don’t know the exact name of the YouTube video, but he recently did a video called sourcing wood and it just kind of goes through all the certifications and everything. So you might want to just take a look at that, he can answer in detail. Or you can wait until next week and Tim’s gonna be on talking about fourth quarter sales.
Kelsey 38:43
Okay, and Marina, she said, Taiwan might be good for wooden products. I’ll go ahead, I’ll try and find the video and put them in the comments
Norman 38:52
Marina you are bang on. That’s where we were doing wood handled stamps out of Taiwan and we were able to source a very similar wood to maple and very inexpensive and they’ve got some great quality wood there too. So Yep.
Kelsey 39:08
Okay, so from Renee, how do you source a good sourcing agent?
Tony 39:14
I would definitely say you want to really look at referrals. That’s the number one thing, the people that hopefully that you’re networking and you’re talking to, that’s the best, as opposed to like somebody randomly on Facebook where you really don’t know, the credibility. I think that’s for me the best source.
Norman 39:35
Right? If you’re looking for a local agent, for me, it’s a little tougher to take a look at, but you might want to go to some sourcing companies like well known sourcing companies, and ask if they cover off on North American products. That might be somewhere that you could look. Also just going into North America, again, going back to Google, and checking out North American sourcing agents and see what comes up.
Kelsey 40:10
Okay, let’s see. I think we have one from Victor. I’m curious to know what a four c colorbox in the size of a toaster oven would cost China suppliers on dropping the unit by 25 cents for a naked product? I don’t know if I can get it done separately for that.
Norman 40:30
Do you know the material?
Kelsey 40:32
Yeah. So Victor, can you let us know the material and he also says Upwork is okay for finding sourcing agents, but you need the due diligence and Simon’s saying, Sri Lanka is also good for wood.
Norman 40:49
I have never tried that.
Kelsey 40:51
Three ply.
Norman 40:54
Victor, if you give me the exact dimensions on the product, I can give you an accurate quote, it also will depend on the quantity, right? So if it’s a smaller quantity, or if it’s a larger quantity, I can just let me know what it is and I’ll ping you afterwards.
Kelsey 41:16
Okay, and we have one from Dr. Koz. So what is your traffic drive strategy for Shopify?
Tony 41:25
For me, personally, for Shopify, I outsource my expenditure in and on Google where I find the best. What really works the best is Google Shopping, in terms of the rate of return and we’re doing all sorts of other retargeting from, display, Google display ads, and so forth and now, I think the last six months, even though they have a small percentage of the market, we’re trying Bing as well and I’ve seen results in that and the other thing that I’ve spent a lot of time this year is organic traffic as well. So we’re really building a really good staple of really good content blogs to drive traffic to the site, and get it. Get it organically as well.
Norman 42:19
Yeah, high quality 1500 words or more. Yeah, like Neil Patel says, if you’re not the best blog or blog article out there, don’t even bother publishing it. There’s lots of different ways to drive traffic over to your site, Shopify site a lot of the times, and this is kind of off topic. But some of the things that we do, when we drive traffic, either from Facebook, it could even be from YouTube. It could be from any of the Instagram, any of the social media platforms, is that you drive them over to your Shopify site, you give them a deal, that is something unique that they can’t find on Amazon, but it might include one of the Amazon products, then you give them a code immediately to go over to Amazon and buy your product and so now you’re getting two hits. So they’re excited because they get this really great code, and they get this value added product and that’s something that you might want to do and we talked about this at the last podcast about just driving traffic, and how to drive traffic. So you might want to check that out. But anyways, yeah, there’s lots of different ways that you can drive traffic, even on your inserts. Just getting people to come over to your page and give them something I’m not talking about something like, Oh, just joining our loyalty program, registrations another thing, but give them something of value, like for me, like giving them a sample, like bar of soap, or a sample like a smaller size, but they get it for free. Or like a free bar soap that’s not available on Amazon, or a new product, a conditioner, a bath bomb. So it is a value. So it’s gonna cost me a couple of bucks, but I’m getting their name, because it’s recurring revenue. If I get them into subscription, I can always get them into an upsell or downsell or whatever you want to do it. But I’m always increasing that order value by just offering a new product, offering additional products, three months supply or whatever. There’s all sorts of ways to do it.
Tony 44:37
You know Norm, I would just add that our number one Shopify conversion has been a free gift with purchase. It’s just worked so well that I’m having a hard time, I’m running out of the free gifts. It’s great because we know we’re keeping the item at the same price as Amazon but we’re giving them a separate reason to purchase from us directly and you’re right, we get them into that funnel, we have their email, and we retarget to them, and we really get them loyal to that brand.
Norman 45:07
Something else to consider because today’s topic is local, you might want to partner with a local company and I know, like for your product, I know a company that is perfect for you. We’ll talk later. Okay, you can offer a product that complements your product. Perfect. Then you’re both helping out the local community. Yeah. Now, Simon, I think I just saw something up there about Pinterest. Pinterest is awesome if you’re targeting especially women. Pinterest has the highest average order rate of all social media platforms.
Kelsey 45:50
So yeah, we also have a couple more, if you don’t mind answering them. Let’s see. So Renee is asking about finding other sellers to partner with. So I’ll go from the very beginning. So I’d love to partner with another super marketer on Amazon with my product which is a simple folding pet door insert in many sizes and I have many customers in Canada. How do you seek other pet product Amazon sellers to partner with? So is there a way that you can reach out to Amazon sellers?
Norman 46:30
So when you were off, Tony? Okay, we were asking people to drop in other questions. So anyways, this is one of them. So Rene yeah, it’s so, once you start this, it’s so easy to do and people just you’ll get responses right away. So with your product, you might want to talk to a company that will give a free snack, like a bully stick or a beef tendon. It could be a pet scent, because they’re going into let’s say it’s a dog bed or something, you might want to have a dog spray. Or it could be a shampoo, or it could be there’s so many ways that you can do this. Now, you do not want to partner with a crappy company. So if you’re checking it out on Amazon, let’s see, do that. Go out check out Amazon like if it’s in .ca, amazon.ca and see what are what’s selling. What’s a top seller, you can also check the internet to see what our pet top sellers. You can check Pet blogs and see what people are talking about. It could be a like, it could be a toy. There’s so many ways of partnering with people, and then you just reach out and they will
Norman 48:02
Fairly quickly.
Kelsey 48:03
I think,
Norman 48:05
Anyways, let me know if you want me to be more specific.
Kelsey 48:09
Okay, I think we cut out just a little bit during that. So if there’s anything that you missed from that explanation, just let us know in the comments, and we’ll let you know. Okay, and we’ve got I think two more. Okay, Victor. Now that full contact information is forced to be included on Amazon listings, just find some complimentary product listings and reach out directly and then one from Robert. Hey, guys, this competition really matters on Amazon with everyone shopping online now.
Norman 48:47
What do you think about that, Tony?
Tony 48:48
Well, you know what, I’ll give you an example. One of my best selling items that we’re talking about earlier, I found out recently that the competition turned out to be Amazon. There wasn’t another third party seller and right now, I’m not as mad about it as I should be. Because of the fact that, like, I can’t keep my own product and stock everything is selling. But I think the issue is going to be going forward is, are you profitable? Can you make enough money? You know what I mean? Because we really have an uncertain future. We don’t know what’s going to be in 2021 .
Norman 49:25
Yeah, I was talking to Paul Baron just before this call, and we talked about a traffic blitz. So you’re bringing external traffic either to your website or over to your Amazon listing. I have, Victor knows this. I have no problems. First of all talking about my products, I have no problems competing with anybody. So to give you a great example, a friend of mine, Kevin King is a good friend and just as we were getting to know each other, we were in Hawaii. He was having a conference, I attended it and anyways, we decided that we’re going to go sit on the beach and have a cigar. During that conversation, I found out that he was selling the exact product I was selling. So anyways, instead of being the typical Amazon seller and being paranoid, we shared information, we talked about marketing strategies, we talked about different ways that we were driving traffic over to the page, we talked about packaging. At the end of the day, if Kevin’s driving traffic over to the page, or I’m driving traffic over to the page, then it’s up to the individuals to buy the product. I have no problem and as long as it’s the listings optimized, you’ve got great quality images, that the titles and the bullets are good, that you’ve got it, you’ve got the back end optimized as well, then it’s up to the consumer and yeah, why fear competition? It’s not a big deal.
Tony 51:03
I will say this my best day, Kevin story is I met him two years ago, I think it was cabana in New York and it was great, just learning so much and the best part is, I got a special coupon code. So it helped me out, helped me a lot in a special software that we all use, it’s hard to get that code anymore. So it’s just like
Norman 51:27
I thought you’re gonna say you bought his bully sticks.
Tony 51:33
No, not that I didn’t get that far yet. But this right here, that’s the power of marketing. I got 50% off on the software every month, and that saves me $1200 a year. Wow and that’s what I mean, what we really want to reach out network with people and establish those kinds of contacts.
Norman 51:51
Absolutely. Yep and also, not only for Amazon, service providers, but as a community reaching out and working together. Even if it’s in this niche, similar product, let’s say it’s a pet category is lots of different ways to market pet product and if you can help each other out, sort of an inventory of skills, then it just helps out you and I mean, the multiplier, I don’t know what it is. But I mean, if you’re working as a group, with best interest in mind, then you’ll see a lot more sales coming in. So are there more questions Kels?
Kelsey 52:34
Yep. So we have with COVID, that means less trade shows in the USA? How are US manufacturers able to find customers?
Norman 52:44
Like, you want to handle this?
Tony 52:45
Well, for now, I think you would have a lot to say as well. But I would just say that you have to be really inventive. You know what I mean? You have to really look at the competition, see what’s out there, not just online. But when you do go into a store, pick it up, where is it made? examine it and that can lead to different things, making phone calls, doing a Google search, I think that’s the place to start.
Norman 53:10
Don’t forget to go to trade association directories and if you’re like, let’s say the Pet Expo, for example, they’ll have virtual trade shows still happening. So go to your niche, go to those associations or directories and there’s usually multiple associations or directories and you’ll be able to find something there. That’s another way of doing it.
Kelsey 53:39
Okay, and I think that’s it for now. I’ll just read Renee’s comment. To back her product, I have a unique product and like to partner with another Amazon company to sell my product. I’m not good at marketing and it’s a hot, unique product, and I have them in stock.
Norman 53:54
Alright, you talk to me, Renee.
Kelsey 54:01
That’s it for questions I think. We’re at the 54 minute mark, just to let you know.
Norman 54:07
Okay, so I do have one thing for you, Tony going back on to local suppliers. So, are there any action steps people can take? Just a few that they can take to try to find a local supplier?
Tony 54:23
Sure, I guess really examine what your purchases are, look at your own life first of all, to see what I have bought? Can that be local, you know what I mean? Because some things are made locally, that you may not even have thought of. I remember I was talking to Amy that we both know recently and the product that she invented is made in the USA. Which is awesome and I always I have felt that hey, even though even the competition is made in the USA, you still want to bring that out because if nobody’s marketing If you should, you know what I mean, because you can’t ignore that and then it all goes back to listen, since there’s not a lot of trade shows, we can look use Google to find the relevant suppliers, the relevant contacts, because of the fact that trade shows will come back, but it’s going to take time.
Norman 55:18
Right and even if you’re doing product development, you can use companies like Ghmba and Zach over at Ghmba, he does product development. See, you’re still using local suppliers to develop the product and whether you can get that done here or overseas. That’s up to you at that point. But that’s still sourcing locally.
Tony 55:41
Yeah, well, that’s the key. I mean, think about the food that we like, I mean, we try to buy organic, locally sourced products as much as possible and sometimes, it can work in terms of the business model, sometimes it can’t. But the key is, I think I’ve seen a real difference in people’s opinions. I mean, like, normally, I’d be traveling the world, and I’d be in Barcelona, or had just come back from my Elephant Sanctuary earlier in the year in Africa, which was amazing and now, like, I’m really exploring Canada or local areas in Ontario where I’ve never been, and I think that’s gonna really translate to our whole lives in different ways that we just don’t even know about yet.
Norman 56:28
Right. I’m just a Ghmba, I believe is spelled G H M B A, I believe that is and you’re going to be talking to Zach over there. I’ll put their website into the chat after the podcast, great company to work with. I’ve known the guys for about a year now. Very inventive, like, wait till see some of the products that they’ve done and developed. Okay, so I think, Tony, I think that’s it. I think we’ve run out of questions. Okay, I know that we’re short for time. Kelsey, is there anything else before we end the podcast.
Kelsey 57:11
Is Ghmba the product development company?
Norman 57:14
Yes. Okay.
Kelsey 57:15
So, okay, I’ll put it in the comment.
Norman 57:19
Okay, very good. Alright, Tony.
Tony 57:23
Well, I want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving to both of you guys. Enjoy the family time and get out there and just have some nice weather if it’s gonna be beautiful. I hope.
Norman 57:33
I’ll be out there having a cigar.
Norman 57:36
Alright, well, thanks a lot, Tony, for being on the podcast today. This is a different subject. I don’t see it being talked about too much, too often. But I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your time.
Tony 57:50
Have a great weekend. Thank you.
Norman 57:52
Alright, You too, Tony. Okay, everybody. Well, thanks for joining us today. I hope you’ve learned a couple of things. Remember that one website I talked to you about, it will be posted up after the podcast called acadium.com and that will save you a lot of time a lot of money finding some interns, as well as make sure you source your local cities or states provinces for any government programs that are around and that’s it. Okay, Kels.
Kelsey 58:26
Yes and if you haven’t yet, please like and share the podcast, it does a lot just to get different eyes on it. I’ve also added the woodworking or the wood video from Tim Jordan.
Norman 58:42
Oh, great.
Kelsey 8:43
In the comments. So it should be available. I believe I’ll pull it up on the screen here. So this is the link for the wood for anything. It goes through tons of stuff about account good importing. But yep, follow and subscribe to us. We are podcasts or you can search for us, Lunch With Norm on Apple, Spotify, Podbean anywhere you get it and thank you guys for listening. It’s awesome. Got lots of questions today, lots of engagements. We love hearing from you and if you have ever want to say anything to Norm, or I, I’ll throw in my email. So it’s just k@lunchwithnorm.com. So we’d love to hear feedback and if you have anything you want to tell us, any topics, people that you think would be a good fit for the show, let us know we’re always looking and I think that’s it for me.
Norman 59:44
We did get a request the other day for learning more about graphics and packaging. So I’m going to find somebody to come on to the show to talk about that. So thank you for sending that over. So Alright.
Norman 1:00:00
We have a newsletter.
Kelsey 1:00:02
Okay, you go first.
Norman 1:00:04
You always interrupt me.
Kelsey 1:00:05
I know I’m the worst.
Norman 1:00:09
We have a newsletter, it doesn’t suck, subscribe, tons of content. You’re not gonna see advertising, it’s just content is going to be videos. It’ll be some repurposed clips from different podcasts. They’ll be a little bit about the other podcast. I Know this Guy, but also about just content, content marketing, press releases, it could be from digital marketer or Neil Patel. It’s a variety of different articles that we’ve come across that we’re just publishing every Monday and coincidentally enough, Tim Jordan is going to be on the podcast on Monday. So I can’t wait to talk to him. He’s always a great guy to talk to and Kelsey, did you want to say anything before?
Kelsey 1:00:56
Yeah. So I’ll just quickly go through some topic ideas that we just got from our audience. Okay. So product search, inventory, forecasting, selling books, affiliate marketing. So these all came from you guys. We’re currently looking for them. But we also are getting some people’s comments. So Drew is asking how to subscribe to the newsletter.
Norman 1:01:23
Oh, hey, Drew. Nice to see you. Okay, so all you have to do is either go to normanfarrar.com, or lunchwithnorm.com and my dog is sensing that there’s another dog in the house. So anyways, go there. You’ll see this subscribe, and you subscribe, and you’ll get a newsletter every Monday sent directly to you.
Kelsey 1:01:47
Alright, and we have some people. We have Melanie. Happy Thanksgiving, Melanie. Yeah. Jeff, Jeff Bezos. Do we have Jeff on the?
Norman 1:01:59
I talked to Jeff the other day. He says he’s going to clear his schedule, maybe next week. So on Friday.
Kelsey 1:02:06
Tim is better than Jeff. So, well let him know and Marina, compliance is another topic to link into. I’ll write that down right now.
Norman 1:02:20
Just keep them coming. Now, we do have the podcast is booked with some really great speakers for the next month.
Kelsey 1:02:25
Yeah. Up to December 7th, I think.
Norman 1:02:28
Yeah and we’ll be having a couple of special episodes as well. So we’re going to be talking about one subject that we’ll be bringing Wilford Lionheart on. We’re going to be talking about ADA compliance with your website, which is a big topic. But we’ll get into that. We’ll get into a few other things. But thank you, everybody and he is better. Okay.
Kelsey 1:02:56
Okay, I think that’s it.
Norman 1:02:58
Alright. So tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, noon, Eastern Standard Time. It was great talking with everybody, tons of questions. Thank you so much for engaging with us. We really want to build up this community. Everybody, enjoy the rest of your day. Have a great day and for all the Canadians listening, Happy Thanksgiving.
Kelsey. 1:03:20
Happy Thanksgiving.
