In this episode I am joined by returning guest and my partner of HONU Worldwide, Afolabi Oyerokun. Afolabi is a sourcing expert as well as a successful 7 figure seller on Amazon. This podcast, we discuss how you can get ahead of this years Q4 by using low cost 3PL solutions and how you can use these services to outsmart Amazon’s inventory storage limit. We’ll also share how one can plan better to save on storage all year round!
Date: September 28, 2020
Episode: 43
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Afolabi Oyerukon, an Entrepreneur at Heart; Afolabi loves Helping People Develop their Ideas and Inventions Into Top Selling Products.
Subtitle: Choosing the right 3PL
Final Show Link: https://lunchwithnorm.com/episodes/episode-43-how-to-get-ahead-of-q4-w-afolabi-oyerokun/
In this episode of Lunch With Norm…, Norman Farrar introduces Afolabi Oyerukon, an entrepreneur at heart; Afolabi loves helping people develop their ideas and inventions into top- selling products.
Afolabi has always been passionate about finding “things”, haggling and negotiating prices. Hi discusses how to use low-cost 3PL services for inventory storage in Q4.
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Norman 0:01
Hey everyone, it’s Norman Farrar, a.k.a The Beard Guy with another Lunch With Norm, the rise of the micro brands.
Norman 0:20
Alright, well, we’re broadcasting to you live on Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. If you’re watching on the replay, you can always skip ahead and for those of you watching on my personal profile page, you can always go over to the official fan page sounds complicated, but it’s not. Norman Farrar, a.k.a The Beard Guy and we have the whole episode. We also have clips, we have other content. So check it out. It’s got what we’re trying to keep you informed. It’s everything e-com. Alright, so today, Kelsey, are you there?
Kelsey 0:53
Hello. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the show.
Norman 0:57
We’re running a little bit late. But sorry about that.
Kelsey 0:59
Yeah, we had a little bit of difficulties, but we’re back at it.
Norman 1:03
It was the Gnome. Yeah, the Gnome was, it was contract negotiation time.
Kelsey 1:08
Yeah. Alright, so you guys know what to do. Follow us on social media, Facebook, YouTube. Anything that you see here goes directly up to the YouTube page. So we have full episodes, short clips, everything going out. We are an official podcast. So you can see us on Apple and Spotify too. So it’s great and we are Hello, Nathan. Welcome to the show.
Norman 1:33
Hey Nathan.
Kelsey 1:34
We are looking for names for the community, because we are starting to grow. So if you have a great name that you guys want to be called, let us know. It can be the Normies, the Narmy, whatever. Let’s make it fun and yeah, that’s it for me. I think if you’re watching this already, just like and share and get the word out about us and we have Mow from Mocha Hill. Hello, welcome to the show.
Norman 2:00
Hey Mow.
Kelsey 2:01
Okay, perfect.
Norman 2:02
Alright. So the other thing I want to just talk about briefly is the other podcast that I’m working on, called I Know this Guy and basically, with that podcast, it’s just about interesting people and what I found with most of the people that I’ve talked to throughout the years, is that it’s taken a heck of a lot of failure to get to a success and I didn’t want to show Lamborghinis and, oh, here’s money and they were lucky getting there. It was very easy to be successful. It’s not, a lot of people, they struggle, they have ulcers, they learn, they get dragged through the streets. I mean, it’s tough to be an entrepreneur, some of the time, you get to hit a home run right off the bat, that’s not the norm. But in this podcast, I Know this Guy. It just talks about what we dive deep into just what’s good, what’s bad, what’s ugly and hopefully, it gives people inspiration to think outside the box, and to let them know that there are options, not only for e-com, but just in life in general. So with that being said, let’s get on to today’s show and I have a very special guest today, Afolabi Oyerukon, who’s also a partner in our sourcing logistics company called Honu Worldwide. So there’ll be no bias, actually, and remember guys, I not only had other sourcing companies on just the other day, we had Novuland on. So I try not to just say, Oh, this is from our standpoint, but why not? Anyways, no bias. We’re not going to be selling anything. It’s just content and today, it’s going to be about Q4 and I think it’s important that we take a look at Q4. This is gonna be a different Q4 than ever before, and Afolabi’s gonna help just clarify some of the things that are happening. So why don’t we just sit back, relax, grab that cup of coffee and enjoy the show. So without further ado, Hello, sir.
Afolabi 4:16
Hi how are you?
Norman 4:18
I am doing great. You scared the heck out of me.
Afolabi 4:19
Thank you. Thank you. I’m always always happy to be here on the show with you.
Norman 4:25
Yeah, well, we had a bit of a miscommunication and it was on me. But anyways, I’m glad that you’re here and we can talk about this now. I’m sure we’re gonna have a lot of questions today. So, let me see where should we start Sir? Why don’t you give a little bit of background about yourself?
Afolabi 4:44
Ah, I’m trying to find, to see where to start. Well, I enjoy sourcing. I’ve been sourcing for over 20 years and like logistics, just moving goods from one point to the other, and just negotiating prices, I just enjoy that and so I started several years ago. I was one of the first few people to actually start selling on Amazon when they used to do transitioning from books into other merchandise. So, that was, like 20 years ago or something. But now I just focus on sourcing, supply chain, I just enjoyed having offices in China, and having a 20,000 square foot warehouse here in PA to help brands with their sourcing needs and their order fulfillment and storage and one stop from the beginning to the end, I just like to do stuff like that.
Norman 5:52
Yeah. So when you said that 20 years ago, when Amazon was transitioning, so they actually called you in to get your opinion on a bunch of stuff, huh?
Afolabi 6:04
Yeah, the item, I think my wife posted the shoes that I designed several years ago, and they liked it, they say, look, we like to have your products on and those were the days there was no Seller Central. They were all flat files, you gotta put everything in a flat file and upload files, and you’re gonna shoot back a lot of errors. You have to spend a whole day fixing the errors, but it was fun.
Norman 6:34
It still is fun.
Afolabi 6:38
It was Sally who was doing very well. So yeah, I still remember those days.
Norman 6:43
What is funny is we’ve talked before, and one of the things I almost became was a shoe designer apprentice. Yeah, back, gosh, 30 plus years ago, that’s what I was starting out to do is to design shoes. So it’s funny that you ended up designing shoes and putting them on Amazon. So anyways, let’s get into this. So the fourth quarter is going to be completely different this year. So for those new to Amazon, can you explain what is different this fourth quarter than other previous years?
Afolabi 7:20
Wow, a lot. Yeah, a lot. This is going to be the biggest because everybody’s home. Everybody’s home, and people are buying a lot of products and this is going to be the biggest so far and another thing that just came up is these crazy IPI restrictions that you cannot, last year, you can send a bunch of goods for Amazon to store for you. But now, they don’t want your goods, they only want a small number. They’re kind of segregating with maybe even the highest highest sellers competing, if you don’t sell to, calling to threshold, they don’t want a lot of your stuff to be sent in. So that is a game changer. We don’t know why they did that. But it’s definitely going to change the way for us to react this q4.
Norman 8:16
So just for those that don’t know what an IPI restrictions are, it’s the inventory planning index, or performance index and it used to have, it’s rated based on four different areas and if you’re below 500, it restricts your product from being shipped. You could ship anything in before. Now it starts off at 200 units. So do you have any strategies there for the IPI? I know, I’ve got a couple that I use. But do you have anything that you can give to Amazon sellers?
Afolabi 8:53
Well, it depends on are you comfortable having your products sitting in China, or you want it for peace of mind, and for whatever reason, psychologically, you want it on US soil. So if that’s the case, you should plan 3PL strategy, which is shipped the 200 allowed into Amazon, but have the remaining stock at a facility waiting to be shipped out in a fraction of the time like getting ready to be shipped out immediately. So right now, Amazon sellers would need more storage and warehousing unfortunately, because we don’t know what’s going to happen after the election. We don’t know what’s going to happen with COVID. We don’t know what’s going to happen with the flu. Right now anybody sneezes, they think he has a COVID or something. So for that reason, I think it’s better to store your goods closer so that you can respond really fast, when Amazon allows you to send in goods, you have it ready to send out, even the high speed vessel now is taking longer. Before, it used to be 17 days, but now with high speed vessels are now taking 25-30 days because of all these congestion all over.
Norman 10:22
Right, and that’s something that we should touch on. So a lot of the time, it’s all about inventory, fourth quarter this year, in my opinion, it’s whoever is going to have the inventory. We don’t know what’s going to happen with Prime Day, October 13, I think it is now. So we don’t know what’s going to happen. We don’t know if people are going to just go crazy for Prime Day and then forget about Black Friday, I don’t think that’s going to be the case. But if you don’t have the inventory, and you’re restricted by these IPI restrictions, how do you get around it? So some of the things or if you do have problems with inventory, let’s say you’ve left the inventory, or your manufacturing to the last minute, how do you get the product into Amazon, and do it on without losing your rank and we’ve talked about this Afolabi, people don’t combine the different types of freight out there. So by using a mixture of air freight, high speed vessels, and just ocean, just by ocean, there’s different ways, there’s different costs. But the most important thing is you’ve got to keep your inventory in and if you’ve got a $50 item, and it costs you an extra two bucks to get it there for air. You’re going to complain, I know we see it all the time people are going to, “I can’t afford it.” Yes, you have to afford it, depending on your ranking. Because if you go out of inventory, you want to make sure that your rank or your sales history is there, that you’re not out for weeks, that we can keep you in Amazon with the inventory. So I know I told your spiel here, but it’s important and can you explain the difference between the three different types of cargo, and how you can combine them to get it into a 3PL?
Afolabi 12:15
Awesome. So first, you have to make sure that the 3PL you’re using has really good software to be able to help you divide and handle your packages very well. Because if you’re going to split into three different strategies, like Norm just said, you can ship some by air and then as air, the ones you should ship by air, as they are they’re selling, the high speed one is coming behind them to filling, the high speed wants to go straight to Amazon as well. Or if they don’t allow it, send it to your 3PL and then the last one is the ocean coming behind every one of them go in first with your air shipment if you can, it will be really good and then gradually push the high speed next to it and then your ocean to come after the ocean definitely is the cheapest way is also the longest takes, could take up to 30 days and the high speed depending on where the final destination is, it can take about 15 to 25 days. But the air could get there in like five days, seven days. So that’s our advice to go. You have to have inventory. Whoever has inventory wins. If you don’t, you’re going to lose out. But if you do, even if it costs you a little more to have inventory. Look, some guy was telling me last week Norm that he was running out of inventory and so were his competitors as well. They were also running out of inventory. Guess what? He started raising his prices and the more you raise his price, the more you grow because he’s the only one that has inventory. Right? If you’re afraid of spending money to get your goods to where it’s supposed to go to. It’s not a smart move, you should have inventory and if you’re the last man standing with your inventory, you can charge as much as you want for it.
Norman 14:35
Right. So I mean that is a really important point. So keeping, getting your inventory either over to Amazon or into a 3PL so this is really where the discussion starts. So now you’ve got your product over at a 3PL. Now how do you control that inventory? So that you can work with your 3PL and with Amazon FBA. So for me, and this is Kevin King came on a little while ago and he was talking about, I’m working with 3PL and what he’s doing is he’s creating the FBA. Now we all know that we’re having problems in some areas. But we’ve waited over four weeks to get received. I know people that actually one of my clients has waited three months to get some product in. So we don’t know what’s going to happen. Sometimes it only takes days. But if we have the FBA, and it’s taking a lot more time to, to get received into Amazon. Let’s say you can ship 1000 units or 1500 units, it doesn’t do you any good if it’s stuck, and it’s not going into the fulfillment center. Now, this is where if you have an FBA listing, and you create a FBM listing, we just change the skew and it’s called just adding a condition. So you just go in, create your FBA listing and then if you go under inventory, you go to Edit, you click Edit, and you’ll see add a new condition, you add the new condition, you create a new skew number, and now you have an FBM. Now, what happens is that if you go out of inventory, or if it’s taking forever to get into fulfillment, it switches over to FBM and you’re working with your fulfillment center. So it takes a while, you still get this sales. Afolabi, in your opinion, is Amazon promoting FBM more now than before?
Afolabi 16:39
I think so. I think they are allowing more FBM listings to rank because we realize that the FBA is their fault. It’s because they put a lot of restrictions on them. That’s why everybody’s scrambling. So they are also favoring FBM now like the more than they used to.
Norman 17:07
Right. So with the struggle that sellers are having going into FBA, going into Amazon getting it received and having the 3PL. Are there any other struggles that you see that can happen and I guess any struggles sending inventory over to Amazon FBA?
Afolabi 17:37
I think most of the struggle apart from the IPI, the most of the struggle is happening on the West Coast for whatever reason, we don’t know why it’s taking so long for goods to be received in California side, even though you ship from China, it arrives at the California port in 15 days, or 20 days or whatever. You still have to see before Amazon checks you in. So I think the struggle is almost on the West Coast. That’s why it’s almost, it could be a smart move if you can ship to the East coast warehouses, because I have a VP one in Pennsylvania here. These get checked in right away. Yeah, we send stocks, we send pallets, we send everything every day. They get checked in and I heard somebody said that would be in a month ago or something he mentioned ABT one, which is in Pennsylvania as being the most effective warehouse now that Amazon operates. So if you can avoid the West Coast and ship your stuff to the East Coast or East Coast facility for 3 PL, or whatever, I think you can, you may be able to get stuff checked in a lot faster.
Norman 19:05
Right. Okay, so one of the things that we don’t think about whenever we’re talking about a 3PL or a warehouse is somewhere over here and we don’t think about China and their hours. You can split what you’re doing and this goes back to more inventory strategy. When we had Chelsea on and we were talking Chelsea about this. But keeping your inventory, keeping a part of your inventory in stock, either at the manufacturer or 3PL in China and just having it there ready, because we don’t know what’s going to happen. So if you have that inventory over there, and you’ve got inventory over here. Once it’s triggered to go from here, from the warehouse here over to Amazon, you can get the inventory sent over either by air or a combination from your Chinese 3PL, and then put another order in. So you’ll never run out of inventory, you should always have inventory in and right now, based on the negotiating podcast that we did with you a few months ago, the ability to negotiate with your manufacturers so that they can keep inventory in stock for you very inexpensively. It’s the way to go. So you don’t think of it as just your 3PL here in North America, you can utilize 3PLs in China to split it or you could use your manufacturer for warehouse until you trigger some sales from the 3PL here over. Okay, so is there any other thoughts on sending the inventory over to a 3PL here in the US?
Afolabi 21:03
Well, I would say some of the things I might want to talk about is how do you choose at 3PL? Or before you choose a 3PL, what are the factors to consider and some of them would be do they accept returns for you? Because now after going into Q4, products that are not going to sell in Q4 a lot of sellers are running around now trying to find a way to tick them off of Amazon’s warehouses to send it to some 3PL to keep for them. So what I mean, the first thing is does your 3PL take returns? The second question would be what are the storage prices for them to store for you? I’ve seen rates as much as $40 a pallet before in some of the 3PLs online. I think on the West Coast, it may be 25 bucks. On the East Coast it is about 15 bucks a month to store your goods. Another question to ask your 3PL is can they do FBM orders for you? Because we are talking about people having FBM listings, what if you have a 3PL that is not set up for fulfillment, that means they will not be able to fulfill your orders for you. They will not be able to do kidding for you. They will not be able to take care of stuff for you and then I do have people ask me questions about what if my order, if I need to do, or if my orders, if my products have some defects or damages or minor stop repackaging. How flexible are your 3PL to help you handle all the problems that can come from your products. You might want to repackage, you might want to nail, put some nails into some places, you might want to do so many things that will make your life easier if you want to do bundling, if you want to do so many things. So that’s what I think people should take seriously, ask these questions, ask your 3PLs about this question so that you just don’t create FBM orders for fun and realize that after you create your FBM orders, your 3PL says I’m sorry, we can’t fulfill it for you.
Norman 23:23
Hey, Afolabi. So I had a client just recently that big brand, large brand. Anyways, they just came on board. So I thought okay, this is great, we created a shipping plan. They didn’t accept it. So they wouldn’t ship it out, they could only send over 200 units. Anyways, they had to use their warehouse, their warehouse wasn’t used to just the typical UPS pickup. So it has been almost two months and if we put in a shipping plan, it could take them one week to two week just to pick the product to get it over to Amazon. So you’re absolutely right that if you’re not set up when we’re working with these IPI restrictions, and let’s say that you might be working with rebates or you might be working with some influencers, and you want to send out 50 units or 100 units ASAP. You’ve got to be able to do that and then replace them with the product from your 3PL and if they can’t turn around for a week or two, and that’s got to go into Amazon and that’s gonna suck.
Afolabi 24:37
Yeah, I agree. That 3PL is probably because they don’t have a USPS route or they don’t have a box shipment in that area. They’re just like a volume. Maybe more of a warehousing setup. They don’t have a fulfillment setup and some 3PLs, they are not set up to do what we call batch scanning. Batch scanning is, let’s say there are, you have 40 orders today, right and the USPS come to pick it up. The guy is so tired, the guy that comes to pick up is so tired, you expect him to scan each one of your 40 packages. Remember, other coins, packages are going to be picked up with you as well. This guy’s going to take two hours just scanning, scanning, scanning. But if you have a 3PL that has what we call batch scanning, you just print out one paper, it has one barcode on it. Once they scan that barcode, it already automatically scans all the packages in one shot. So a lot of 3PLs don’t know how to do that and for that reason they let goods sit for a while and they also not on a frequent USPS route for that reason your goods can sit there for a long time.
Norman 26:08
Okay, Hey, I just noticed Kelsey, there was a question from Nathan.
Kelsey 26:12
Yep. So Nathan is asking, Is it true the same product can have an FBA listing and FBM listing and Simon think helped out and said, Yes, Nathan, you can use FBA and FBM as the same product, you need to create a skew code for one just add FBM to your skew.
Kelsey 26:30
Is that correct?
Norman 26:32
A lot of people before would create a completely separate listing. You don’t have to do that. So you just go into whatever your FBM listing is right now, or FBA listing, and click at it, then you’ll see add a condition, you add the condition, and now you and a different skew number, and you’re going to have an FBM. So no problem whatsoever. One thing you might want to consider, depending on your profit margin, it’s the shipping cost. How do you keep it in line, and you don’t want to have people get turned off because of huge shipping costs. For me, I’ll eat some of the shipping costs, just because I want to get the sale. So they might look at it and think oh, it’s not prime. So I’m going to be paying a little bit extra. Or it might be the length of time that it might take. So you can adjust that all in the back end. But anyways, yeah, check that out, I can’t emphasize that enough. Do the two listings for the fourth quarter. So getting back to you Afolabi, you were talking about some things that people should check on and make sure that the questions to ask an FBM. Alright, sorry.
Norman 27:50
A warehouse. 3PL.
Afolabi 27:53
Yeah, we talked about this code, your 3PL software could make or break you. The software that your 3PL uses. Typically, your 3PL software should connect into your Amazon store and pull your orders from there and sync your inventory with the warehouse into that into your Amazon’s FBM listings. So you don’t want to be doing that manually, you have to sync that perfectly. So that you can do that. Also, you may want to consider multiple channels. If you have your Shopify store, or you have Walmart or whatever, you can also make sure that your 3PL has a software that can connect to your multiple channel so that you can sell in, because if people don’t see it on Amazon, maybe do Google lead or whatever. Just be ready for that as well to make sure the software connects very well and how easy it is for you to send work orders. I like So Stocked. I like Chelsea So Stocked to run.
Norman 29:11
That’s a great app.
Afolabi 29:12
Yep, you can create a lot of work order through that system. The 3PL software we use, you can also create work orders and from that as well. But make sure that your 3PL is using a really good software. Another thing we didn’t talk about now is forecasting. Many people still use an old school spreadsheet to forecast and Chelsey’s software is also very good, it has a really good algorithm in forecasting. So it’s all about planning, where all what Norm is talking about today on this show is about planning. Let’s plan ahead. If you plan ahead of time, you will not find yourself in a difficult situation. Make sure you put a forecasting into your system, let the forecasting software forecast how many pieces you should prepare for q4. Now break it down into the units that are going to be sitting in your 3PL warehouse and the units you’re going to send into Amazon and also let your 3PL know that they will be fulfilling 3PL, or I mean FBM orders for you. Once you set up that way ahead of time, come Prime Day or come Christmas or Thanksgiving you out, you will be ready to go because the software would help the 3PL manage your orders, get your orders out the door really quick. I’ve seen 3PLs that shipments come to them and unfortunately, because you don’t have a good system in place, they don’t have good software in place, it takes them a while to be able to pick, pack and ship.
Norman 31:01
So let’s talk about that. So those types of expenses, they’re not so much hidden. But let’s talk about different charges that you can expect from a 3PL.
Afolabi 31:12
So you have your inbound. That means when you send your goods to 3PLs for them to offload the truck or to receive the goods for you, they have to charge you for it and then for them to put it on a pallet, wrap it and then put it on the rack in the warehouse, they charge for that the charge for the cost of wrapping it for you and that’s the inbound. Now the outbound and the storage is just the cost of storing your goods. Some you can calculate, if you have very small items you can calculate per cubic feet. But if you do have a lot of inventory, then you calculate the pallet. Usually, a pallet could be up to four feet high when they stack it up for you and then the cost of the pallets, the wooden pallet itself, sometimes it’s like 10 bucks and then you have your outbound. So when you’re shipping stuff out, or when you tell your 3PL to send stuff out for you, there’s a cost involved: the cost to go fetch the to go get the carton or the case and put a label on it, and then send it out. Or if you’re shipping multiple pallets, they will charge you to put it on a pallet and ship it out. Now, there’s a trick to that, when your 3PLs, if they’re really good, if they’re receiving your goods, and you are shipping large items, your goods will be palletized according to the skews. Don’t let them palletize multiple skews on the same pallet. The reason why is if you have multiple skews on the same pallets, and you want to ship out pallets in the future for your outbound, it will cost you to grab some skews from one pallet and then go mixing with another pallet. Every time 3PL picks up anything they charge for it and it’s legit because somebody is doing the picking, and somebody is doing the packing for you. But to avoid that if you’re if you have large goods or large products, make sure they palletize per skew. So that way you’re about to send out your goods on pallets, it’s the same pallets they already made for you that they’re gonna slap labels on and send it out you’re not paying twice, you’re only paying once.
Norman 33:50
The other thing to some of the other costs could be putting a sticker on. So just putting the FN skew on the product. Yes, it’s a minor amount. But you know what the difference is, what I like when some of the products, I sell soap. So I bought my own soap to see what it was like and they had put the FN skew on the front, right over top of the brand, like right over it looked ugly and when you’re doing it through a 3PL, you can tell them hey, I want it on the side, I want it like this and it’s typically about the same charge as what Amazon would would be or cheaper. So it might be a little bit more, it might be a little bit less but that’s something that you have control on. So just keep that in mind and there’s other type of packaging. So exterior packaging or just different prep packaging that can happen. It costs more, but I’d rather have the control of that and giving Amazon the control who really gives two hoots about your product and it shows just take a look at the products that you receive from Amazon and like I bought a, what was it? It was seedlip. Okay, so I bought a product, it’s a non alcoholic gin and it came in and it came in this huge bubble pack in an egg carton and I’m going oh my god, like this brand. It was expensive and it just cheapen the brand so much. I mean, it looked like a good product. But why would they do that? That 3PL, I guarantee you if they would have just spent a little bit of time on a nice carton, you would have probably done it or had a 3PL just create it for them instead of letting Amazon do it.
Norman 35:43
Alright. So Sir, what else can we think about for the Amazon seller? Or Oh, no, I hear here. You just talked about multi-channels.So we are talking about inventory, and it’s going to be a great shopping experience on Amazon. But we haven’t even touched on Shopify or those other channels. They’re going to boom, too and one of the things that you can do to compete against Amazon is have your own Prime Day, put it out there on Facebook that you’re having a special day, same thing 20% off, 30% make money, but give a discount code, let people know about it. For me, I’d put it into a press release or whatever it is, but put it on Facebook, let them know, drive it over, and then have your 3PL, send it out and multi-channel is what a lot of people are not thinking about. They think strictly of Amazon when they think of FBM. But the service is like yours. It’s for everybody. It’s not just for Amazon.
Afolabi 36:54
Yeah, people are not taking Walmart seriously. If you have a Walmart, wear the product. Ends don’t fit into that. But Walmart is not. They’re not joking. They are moving really fast and they’re really serious about it. One thing you said about packaging, another way to save on your 3PL cost is to have your products made in such a way that your boss could actually be the shipping box.
Norman 37:31
Now I know why you’re my partner.
Norman 37:35
In China, it is very inexpensive and the perceived value is higher, you can sell it for more Oh my god.
Afolabi 37:44
Yeah, you’re saving yourself sometimes three, four bucks, just in 3PL cost per item, because some of the boxes may be so big. But if you have a colorful box straight from China, your product is ready to go in his own beautiful, blue, yellow, whatever color thing you have. All the 3PL will do is just to slap a nice, four by six label on your beautiful box. Now you can even create a little white spot on the back of that box so that you can put that label nicely on that, it will be lovely.
Norman 38:21
Yep, yep, it’s perfect. That’s I mean, that is definitely a way to go and it would be inexpensive. But here’s another trick for that. Make sure when you’re designing the box, that you don’t put too much space in it. So you’re going to get for Amazon storage, not so much long term storage. But if it’s a larger container, if you put an extra inch all the way around or quarter inch all the way around, you’re gonna get dinged for that. So as long as it’s got the ability to cushion a drop, or if it’s for protection of the product, it’s all good, but make it more conservative in the space that you use and it’ll be less expensive to store.
Afolabi 39:08
It also prevents damages. If you have products in a box that is too big, the products move around. Once your product is moving around, especially if you have a wooden product or something like that, it starts to ding. By the time it gets to the customers, I’ve seen products that they’re in pieces by the time they get to where they’re going because they’re always moving around nd Amazon puts this little product into a large box and it’s moving, moving all over because, I also encourage people too, if you have an Amazon warehouse everywhere else, close to you, you can go take a tour. I know there’s Troy in Pennsylvania, for a New Jersey. Go take a tour, just go see how they handle your stuff. You’ll be better prepared next time and it’s free. It’s a free tour, you even get a free mug or something.
Norman 40:05
Can we give free mugs?
Norman 40:11
You know what? The people that are listening, I should have said this at the beginning. But Afolabi is also a multi seven figure amazon seller himself. So he knows about Amazon, he knows about branding. So just it’s not just 3PL. This came because he had such a successful product that he decided to open the 3PL originally, just to give you a little bit of background, so you know some of the anxiety and some of the issues around Amazon. Amazon prime, okay, so if you want to do amazon prime eligible, what do people have to look at? We don’t do that. But what should you look at for a 3PL that does do the prime eligible?
Afolabi 41:08
They have to have the seller fulfilled prime badge and they have to be able to ship out, ask for their cutoff point. When orders come in some of the 3PLs, well when orders come in, before 3pm it ships out the same day or before 12 noon, it ships as the same day. Just ask them. When does the order ship out for me? Once I received that? I mean, once I have an order, when does it ship out? Another thing is how many hours notice do you guys need if I want you to send stuff to FBA for me.Do you need 24 hours notice, do you need 48 hours notice? The faster they can push stuff out for you the better. There’s something we are implementing in our 3PL facility, I don’t know whether other people have it is before you even send your goods from China, we would be able to send you a label, we’ll email you a label for every box for your supplier to put on every box and each of those labels have a backward and that back would records the content of that box. So if you’re sending 17 boxes, and the 17th box has only 50 pieces, and the other 16 boxes have 85 pieces, we want to know ahead of time so that it’s going to be faster. It will save you time. Can you imagine we receive your 17 boxes and we log it in and we tell you, oh Suzanne, we received 17 boxes for you and Suzanne says, well, there is one box in there that contains 50 pieces instead of 85. Can you help me check? Anytime somebody gets up in a 3PL, they’re charging you. They charge you, why not already get a label from your 3PL before your product leaves China, let them slap the label on it, the one that contains 70 I mean, the 17 bucks that contains only 50 pieces, it’s already there in the label that we’re going to give you. So when we scan it in, we know that this is this box of 17 I mean of 50 pieces instead of 85 pieces, then we don’t charge you anything to go count. Anytime somebody sits down and opens your box and it’s counting. Guess what? You’re paying for it.
Norman 43:38
Right and here’s another tip to look for. Especially overseas. So if there is a kidding issue, you want to check with your 3PL and your Chinese it could be a freight forwarder but at 3PL over there. I found in the past, this happened oh my God, what a nightmare. So I had these fridge magnets, and some little kid had swallowed a magnet. Talk about a problem, right? Like a real problem and so we had to figure out we didn’t think this was a fake review. This was a real thing that we had to jump on and anyways we had 480,000 fridge magnets, so not boxes, just individual pieces that we had to the manufacturer refused to it was all pressure. So we had to glue a magnet in so a kid couldn’t pull it out or couldn’t fall out. I’m sore thumb 62 pieces, put them in a polybag, heat sealed a polybag, put them into the packaging and then package them. I had a US company quote on this, it was $155,000 in China, the complete I had 22 people working, I think it was two weeks, and I paid 5500 bucks. So don’t always explore, there are options in China that are incredible, it’ll be well worth it compared to the American counterpart and if you do have 3PL here, ask them if they are aligned over in China with anybody because that was $150,000 savings on one order.
Afolabi 45:34
Yes, I agree. If you can keep from China, you will be better. But I do realize some I mean, we have some brands that just prefer to keep here, just want to watch how you want to see how the market is reacting to their sales and to their ranking. So that’s fine. But if you can do the kidding from China, it’s better to do it, it’s way less than to have somebody here in 15 or $20 an hour person, do it here where you could do it for $3 an hour person over there.
Norman 46:13
Right.
Kelsey 46:16
We do have some questions that have come up. Also not sure how to pronounce it. But they says hello and I think we also have a couple of people, Yelchin is joining us.
Norman 46:32
Hey, Yelchin.
Kelsey 46:36
Mark
Afolabi 46:39
Hi Mark..
Kelsey 46:40
The question is about the colored boxes. So don’t the colored boxes get damaged during container loading? If not inside a shipping carton? Is there a chance the lovely colored box will be damaged if sent FBM from the 3PL?
Norman 46:55
One thing that can happen with your printing, like if they’re rubbing, they can put a coat coating on that will stop it from rubbing or it’ll take more to rub off the coating. A lot of people don’t put on the coating that protects the actual ink from rubbing off. But that’s one way of protecting it. Anyways, go ahead Afolabi.
Afolabi 47:17
Yeah, I mean, that’s one of the first things I’ll see as well, you have to put a lamination on your box printing first and if you’re talking about damages with puncturing. If you use a very good quality box, it will be harder to puncture the box. If you sent FBM from the 3PL, there’s a chance of course, when UPS comes in to pick up your product or FedEx comes in to pick up your product. They could damage it, it happens. But if you’re unloading, that’s another major thing when you’re unloading your boxes from the container into a 3PL facility. Usually, I like to send photos, honestly, when we unload anything and we notice, if we notice any damage, we take a photo and we attach it to your file for that inbound. As we take inbound and we see a box that isn’t looking so well. We’ll take a photo and we’ll say you know what, we already fixed the box, we will take it in nicely and say, don’t worry about it. But if there are some, like we’ve got a box, we got some shipment, like two, three months ago, and they were all soaked and wet. Because I guess they’ve been sitting in an UPS van over the weekend and the van was leaking or whatever. We don’t know what happened. But they came in and they were all soaked and so we had to take photos, sent it to the customers, hey, look, your boxes came our way. But we can buy boxes for you and transfer. Do you want us to do that and she said yeah, yeah, so we transferred it into a better box. But when you’re shipping from FBM directly to your customers, anything can happen. The best way to protect yourself is to use a very good quality box at the very beginning because a good quality box could be a difference of 20 cents and people, just I don’t know why they don’t want to spend 20 or 25 cents to have a good quality box and then when something bad happens, it’s costing you $2 or $3 per damage. So I would say invest in really good five tear boxes or whatever. If you have heavy products, please invest some money into your really good box. It will save you a lot of headaches.
Norman 49:54
You’re talking about an outer box to package the good. Yes, yeah. Okay.
Kelsey 49:58
We have one more question from Simon again. Does a 3PL really take care about where they slap the UPS label?
Norman 50:07
A good one does.
Afolabi 50:09
A good one.
Norman 50:12
It’s in the direction of it shouldn’t be. But sometimes, if the 3PL doesn’t know, let’s say that you want it on the right behind a certain, like under the ingredients, if you give instructions, then we would know about it or the company would know about it. If you just don’t say anything. They don’t happen to know where they should put it in, it might go in the wrong spot. But yeah, that would be something that the 3PL, if you’re asking somebody to put a sticker on you, you would just give them the direction is that correct?
Afolabi 50:48
Yes, I will say, Simon, make sure you give instruction the way you want your stuff to be done. Because this facility processes thousands of boxes, thousands and it also goes into the 3PL software, when you scan a product to be shipped out on a conveyor, right? Once you scan it in, your instruction will pop up and say make sure you slap your UPS label on the left side. So that’s how I think you will take care of that. Make sure you tell your 3PL to do that and usually they will do it.
Norman 51:32
Kelsey, is there another question?
Kelsey 51:34
No, that’s it for now.
Norman 51:37
Okay. Alright. Well, we’re getting close to winding it down. Is there anybody out there that has any questions about 3PLs? Either for Amazon or working with other multi-channels and if not, Hey Afolabi, is there any other tips, tricks, anything that you’d like to add?
Afolabi 52:02
Well, I think I can just do a summary of everything you talked about and I talked about. The number one thing is plan, plan, plan, you got to plan. Don’t chew for, I know you’ve been talking about in all your podcasts. Norm, you’ve been talking about planning, planning, planning, you really need to plan, if you don’t plan, you’re gonna pay a lot of money. In air shipment, you’re going to pay a lot of money. In high speed, you’re going to play and you’re going to lose a lot of sales if you don’t plan ahead of time. So planning is number one. Plan, how much, how many quantity you’re ordering, plan how much, how many is going to 3PL, how many is going to by air or to buy FBA plan, plan plan, everything is the first one and the second one is non setting too. You can use your supplier’s warehouse first, that’s your first 3PL and it’s free. Talk to your supplier. The second one is you can use China to 3PL as well. So we partnered with some very organized Chinese warehouses, they can store stuff for you, if your supplier says no, you can reach out, we can help you out to get your stuff in China. Then set up your FBM listing. If you don’t have an FBM listing q4, you must have an FBM listing, you must. So that, because of the restrictions. Once Amazon’s inventory runs out, then the FBM kicks in to help you out and then the fourth one always have enough stock. Whoever has inventory rules is the last man standing.
Norman 53:51
That’s it and the last person stand.
Afolabi 53:55
Yeah, yes.
Norman 54:00
Okay, so that’s great and if that’s the end, if there’s no other questions? Yeah, I appreciate you coming on Afolabi.
Afolabi 54:07
You’re welcome.
Norman 54:08
There’s lots going on. We’re going to have you on again, probably next month to talk about something else, maybe follow up and see what new trends are happening. But yeah, really appreciate you hopping on the call with me today.
Afolabi 54:22
You’re welcome. It’s always an honor to be here. Thank you, Kelsey, for having us here.
Kelsey 54:31
Thank you Afolabi.
Norman 54:34
Alright, so I think that’s it for the podcast today. I hope everybody enjoyed the show. Look, like I was mentioning at the beginning. If you’re looking at the whole episode, just go over to Norman Farrar, a.k.a The Beard Guy and check out the page. It’s got tons of content on there, highlights from this podcast and other podcasts as well as the whole episode. If you’re looking at videos, Kelsey has also set it up on YouTube where you get the full episodes, plus a bunch of other content and he’s got a ton of playlists that he’s developed over there for you. We also have a newsletter, which I continually say does not suck, take advantage of it. There’s no sales, you’re not going to see a ton of ads, it’s just content for online sellers, and how to better their businesses. Now, it’s not all about our content. It’s about maybe it’s from digital marketer, or Neil Patel, or all those really great guys that we publish, usually, as a digital marketer, Seth Godin, Neil Patel. There’s tons of content out there, that’s going to provide you the ammunition to be a better salesperson. So, next Wednesday, okay, on Wednesday, we’re having another incredible guest on profit factories, Tim Francis, and we talk about knowing your numbers and that, for me at the beginning, that would make me crawl up in the fetal position. Knowing your numbers does not mean taking a four year course in accounting. He’s going to tell you about a very simple approach about understanding your numbers and by the end of the episode, I think you’re gonna walk away with Wow, that was not all that bad. It wasn’t that painful and now you can run your business that much more effectively, and efficiently. So anyways, that’s it for today, Kelsey, what do we do?
Kelsey 56:31
Alright, follow us on social media, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok. Wherever you’d like to find us. We are there. Smash those like buttons.
Norman 56:46
Ringing the bell.
Kelsey 56:48
Ringing the bell. So if I need to make sure you ring that bell. Anything else?
Norman 56:55
No, you’re telling me about bells, bells and like and smashes and stuff like that? Let’s do it.
Kelsey 56:59
Yeah, so also, we are a podcast, so make sure you subscribe to us. You guys mentioned Chelsea Cohen’s episode, and Afolabi’s negotiating episode. So you can find, if you guys are interested in that, since you’re watching this one. You could go back and watch those two podcasts there.
Norman 57:20
Oh, yeah. One other thing about that Kels, let’s put So Stocked, the information. It’s an excellent app, just put in the information in the comment section. So if people are looking at it, it’s very inexpensive. I don’t know if it’s still up, but it was like $59, they might have raised the price. I have no idea. But for what you get. It’s probably the best value out there for an inventory management system and on that note, join us every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at noon Eastern Standard Time and I don’t think we’ll be doing any special episodes. We were doing special episodes on Thursday. But that stopped so Monday, Wednesdays and Friday. Enjoy the rest of your day and I hope again that you enjoyed the podcast and thank you Afolabi for joining us.
Kelsey 58:14
Thanks, guys.
