I am joined by the founder of The India Sourcing Trip, and Host of the Asian Seller – Meghla Bhardwaj. Meghla has been working in the Asian sourcing industry for close to 20 years. She has visited hundreds of factories and tens of trade shows in India and China and has a deep understanding of manufacturing and sourcing processes. In this episode, Meghla and Norm discuss why Amazon and eCommerce sellers may want to look at India for sourcing their products. Many sellers usually only think of China as a sourcing country however India has benefits as well. We also dive into the opportunities that may be awaiting in Amazon Singapore!
Date: October 23, 2020
Episode: 54
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Meghla Bhardwaj, the founder of The India Sourcing Trip, and Host of the Asian Seller.
Subtitle: Things to remember before sourcing in India
Final Show Link: https://lunchwithnorm.com/episodes/episode-54-sourcing-from-india-and-amazon-singapore-w-meghla-bhardwal/
In this episode of Lunch With Norm…, Norman Farrar introduces Meghla Bhardwaj, the founder of The India Sourcing Trip, and Host of the Asian Seller.
Meghla has been working in the Asia sourcing industry for almost 19 years. She discussed the factors that sellers might want to look at before sourcing in India.
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Norman 0:01
Hey everyone is Norman Farrar a.k.a The Beard Guy here and welcome to another Lunch With Norm, the rise of the micro brands
Norman 0:20
Okay, so our guest today is Meghla Bhardwaj, she is the host of the Asian seller and the India Sourcing trip out. I’ve heard a lot about this trip and it’s been all good. A matter of fact, it’s incredible what she’s put together over the last couple of years. Unfortunately, I guess what’s happening right now is we’ve got this COVID thing happening and I’d like to see what she’s going to be doing with that now due to COVID. But anyways, today we’re going to be talking about the benefits of sourcing and in India, as well as the opportunities of selling on Amazon, Singapore. But before we get to Meghla, I just wanted to let everybody know that we are broadcasting live. So I hope I don’t flub up again, like I usually do every episode, but on Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn and if you’re watching a replay, just skip ahead. No need to watch this. Secondly, if you’re on my Facebook page, my profile page, you can always skip over to my Norman Farrar a.k.a The Beard Guy page and watch the full episode live or smaller clips as well as just multiple content. Now I’ll bring in my son. Where are you Kels?
Kelsey 1:33
Hello
Norman 1:34
Hello, sir.
Kelsey 1:35
Happy Friday.
Norman 1:36
Happy Friday. Are you behaving yourself in the big city of Toronto?
Kelsey 1:39
Always, always.
Norman 1:41
Very, very, very good.
Kelsey 1:43
Oh, it looks like a Gholam’s here. Hi, Norman. I’m so interested in this, been in India for 20 years.
Norman 1:48
Hey, Gholam. How’s it going? I haven’t seen you in a long time, my friend.
Kelsey 1:53
Alright. Yes. So I hope everyone is getting ready for the weekend. Have some plans. Let us know what you’re doing this weekend in the comments. We are an official podcast so you can find us anywhere you find your podcast. So that could be Apple, Spotify, Podbean, just search Lunch with Norm, we’ll show up and if you want to watch the full episodes, like Norm said, just just go over to our YouTube channel you can find us on if you search Norman Farrar, or just Lunch with Norm will pop up and you can find the full episodes and highlight clips. But yeah, if you’re watching right now, please like and share and I think that’s what we want.
Norman 2:35
We absolutely want them to like and share and smash.
Kelsey 2:40
Smash that button.
Norman 2:44
Ring the bell. If you’re on YouTube.
Kelsey 2:47
Yep, ring that bell.
Norman 2:48
Yep, you got that’s great. I still don’t understand what that is. Anyway, okay, so we got that out of the way. If you have any questions, just throw them over in the content area and we will get to them during the podcast, or we will answer them after the podcast in a timely manner. Anyway, sit back, grab a cup of coffee, and relax and enjoy the show. Now where is, there she is. Hi, Meghla. How are you?
Meghla 3:17
Hello, Norm. I’m doing well. How are you?
Norman 3:20
I’m doing great. Thanks. It’s really great to be on a podcast with you. I mean, we’ve talked a few times and you’re just an all around nice person.
Meghla 3:29
Thank you.
Norman 3:30
I love talking to you.
Meghla 3:34
It’s good to hear that.
Norman 3:35
Hey, why don’t you tell everybody in case they don’t know you? I mean, I’m sure most of the people watching do, but tell everybody a little bit about yourself and what you’re doing?
Meghla 3:46
Sure, absolutely. So first of all, thank you so much for inviting me on the podcast and I apologize in advance if my brain is a bit slow today because it’s 12am.
Norman 3:57
Well, thank you for being here.
Meghla 3:59
No problem. Yeah, so my background has been in the sourcing industry. So I’ve been working in the sourcing industry for almost 20 years. I worked in India, China, Philippines, and I’ve been in Singapore for almost six years and yeah, I lived in China for almost 10 years and I was there visiting a lot of factories, producing research reports for a company called Global Sources. So understand the manufacturing aspect and also how the intricacies of trade really well and more recently, I’ve started my own entrepreneurial venture. As you mentioned in the intro, I do a sourcing trip to India, called India Sourcing Trip and because I haven’t been able to do the trip due to COVID, I’ve started a virtual sourcing show. This is the monthly sourcing show where we interview manufacturers from India. It’s called Virtual India Sourcing show and I do this with my partners Margaret and Kevin.
Norman 4:59
Oh very good and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting them recently as well. So it sounds fantastic and I have watched some of the episodes and if you haven’t had a chance, I mean, I’m not telling you to leave this podcast. But when you have a chance to take a look, because there’s tons of information, great guests and anyways, I’ve really enjoyed watching the episodes that I have. First of all, I have to apologize in advance, I know this is going to happen. Kelsey, if you can come on and tell me if I ever have any froth in my beard. I’m doing this bulletproof coffee thing and I can’t tell and I know it’s gonna be like a milk mustache. So just please let me know before I embarrass myself too much. But anyways, why don’t we just dig right into it and let’s start talking about your sourcing. But the difference between maybe sourcing in India from China, then China?
Meghla 5:56
Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, China is the main production center for all sorts of products, right. So I don’t think there’s currently any other country in the world that can really compete with China as far as producing products are concerned. You can practically buy anything and everything in China. So India specializes in certain categories and there are certain products that are better sourced in India, you get competitive prices, you get better quality products. So there are certain products that India specializes in, that’s really important to remember and some of these categories are, for example, handmade products. So there are a lot of these home decor items, home use, kitchen use items that are handcrafted. These are made from materials like metal, wood, other products, other kinds of materials. There’s also a lot of fabrics. So fabric based products are very competitively priced in India. So you’ll find a lot of cotton fabrics, for example, and specifically organic cotton, is increasing nowadays and there’s a lot of Amazon sellers, in fact sourcing organic cotton products from India and then there are a lot of other, smaller categories like eco friendly products are increasing as well. So you have things like disposable plates made from sugarcane waste, or made from Areca palm leaves, those sorts of products and then apart from that, there’s also food items, so superfoods, for example, turmeric, or ashwagandha, those kinds of superfoods, which are really popular nowadays, given what’s happening with COVID, people are very health conscious, and they want to make sure that their immune immune system is robust. So yeah, those kinds of products is I think that’s the biggest difference. India specialize in certain products and then China produces a lot of different products as well, for certain categories that require a lot of labor. So labor intensive products can be lower cost in India, because labor is cheaper. More of the mass produced products and machine made products are better sourced from China.
Norman 8:14
What about I’m in the beauty category, any beauty pot products that you would recommend? I know going to China cosmetics, I’m not looking at. Can you order or can you source quality products like that in India, like soaps and serums and shampoos?
Meghla 8:38
Yes, absolutely and a lot of those are actually herbal products. So you won’t find a lot of the synthetic products or cosmetic products that you find in China, but they’re herbal creams or shampoos and other kinds of things and they’re made from natural materials. That’s what India specializes in.
Norman 8:59
What about certifications? With woods or with, and I’m not we haven’t touched on this. I know that we’re both good friends with Tim Jordan, and he talks about wood and the problems sometimes bringing in woods. What about different types of certifications? Is India similar to China? Can you get the certifications fairly easily?
Meghla 9:25
Yeah, absolutely. So there are a lot of different testing labs in India. So for example, SGS and in all of the key labs, they have offices in India. So if you do want to get a specific certification, then you can just send a sample to one of those labs and they will do the testing for you. So that’s not a problem. India, in fact, is a really big production hub and a lot of the products have been exported for decades and most of the importers who are buying products from India are either the large retailers and large importers. So Amazon sellers have newly discovered India I want to say, and one of the reasons why a lot of Amazon sellers started looking to India was because of the trade war between the US and China and when that started two years ago, that’s when people were like, Oh, my God, this is really affecting my costs and I need to look for alternative markets and India was an alternative market. Yeah. So coming back to your question, testing is not a problem, what you want to do is make sure that you’re dealing with an export focused and an export experienced manufacturer. Because India is a big country there, there’s 1.2 billion people there. So there’s a lot of demand domestically, and a lot of manufacturers produce products, and sell them exclusively in the domestic market. You don’t want to source products from a supplier that focuses on the domestic market, because they don’t have any idea of, or they might not know about the testing requirements or other quality requirements of overseas markets. So you always want to make sure that you’re sourcing from an export focused, export experienced manufacturer.
Norman 11:04
Now, are there any products in particular that you would just say no to, but just don’t bother? It’s not at that level, yet. The quality isn’t there yet.
Meghla 11:15
So electronics, I would say, is currently not being produced. I mean, there are electronics products being produced in India. There are a lot of mobile phones, for example, in fact, India is the second largest producer of mobile phones. However, currently, most of the mobile phones that are being produced are consumed domestically. In fact, there are lots of Chinese companies that have set up factories in India, like Xiaomi and they’re also some of the bigger like Samsung, for example, they have set up factories, or they subcontract to manufacturers in India. But most of the production is consumed domestically, they’re not exporting much. However, I see that changing and, for the next virtual India sourcing show, for example, we’re going to be featuring a manufacturer and exporter of headphones and so I do see that changing in the next couple of years. I mean, currently, India’s not a good source for electronics products. But I think that will change in the next few years.
Norman 12:22
Is the setup like China, where you have different geographic locations that specialize in different products?
Meghla 12:31
Yes, absolutely. So India is a big country too, and I mean, it’s smaller than China, but it’s still quite big and there are different locations or production hubs that have developed for certain categories and most of the specialization is by material. So for example, in the North, there are a few different cities that specialize in different materials. There is a city in the North called Moradabad, that specializes in metal works, and they do a lot of brass, iron, all those kinds of products and then there’s another city that specializes in wooden products and then there’s another one that does ceramic, and there’s another one for glass. So they usually specialize by material and then there are other cities that specialize in apparel production. In the South of India, there’s a lot of knitted fabrics that are produced and most of the organic cotton knitted fabrics actually come from the South. There’s a city called Tiruppur that has hundreds and thousands of factories making knitted products and that is developed as a production hub, because there’s a lot of cotton grown in the South and so because there’s availability of raw materials that has sort of developed, or that has facilitated the growth of production of fabrics and related industries.
Norman 13:52
When you’re talking about textiles, let’s say cotton. Does India have quotas like China would have?
Meghla 14:01
I don’t think so. I mean, yeah, I haven’t heard about quotas recently. I know previously, there used to be quotas. But yeah, I’m not sure if the quotas are still there. Does China still have quotas for the US?
Norman 14:18
I know that we were bringing in cotton before and I’m talking about a couple years ago, and we had big problems with quotas. I don’t know if they’re lifted now. But I know that that was an awful experience.
Meghla 14:31
Exactly. Yeah.
Norman 14:32
One of the biggest benefits and let’s just go back to that, you touched on it, 25% Trump tax.
Norman 14:42
So you’re not experiencing that when you go to India?
Meghla 14:45
Yes, exactly and that is one of the biggest advantages. So most products I mean, there are some import duties but import duties range from two to 4% on most categories and previously, a lot of the categories actually were exempt from import duties altogether. But recently, that was lifted. However, yeah, I mean, if you have a product that has Trump tariffs, then you’re definitely at an advantage if you’re sourcing those products from India. In fact, I was talking to somebody, just just earlier today, they were previously sourcing from China and they have shifted to India, she was actually on the India sourcing trip with me last year. That’s where she found her supplier, and she visited the factory and everything and they have been able to save 40% of their overall cost, because the overall product cost is lower in India, because it’s a labor intensive product and because of the Trump tariffs as well, so 40% that’s significant.
Norman 15:54
Yeah, absolutely and people just don’t think of India as a spot to go and source from and that’s what I love about what you’re bringing to the table and your trip, we gotta get that trip going.
Meghla 16:09
Yes. Oh my gosh.
Norman 16:11
I wasn’t at your last one. But I mean, I’ve heard so many people talking about how fantastic it was, how knowledgeable, it was a mastermind as well as this trip and by the way, if you’re listening, I don’t take any affiliate fees. So I’m talking about this because it’s a good event, not because I’m going to make any money off of it. Okay, so just just to put that out there. The other thing I like to talk to you about is logistics. How tough is it? Is it any more expensive? Is it equal to China?
Meghla 16:42
So logistics, sea shipping out is mostly competitive, and it is almost the same as China. In some cases, you might find that it is a bit more expensive, especially if your factory is located further away from the port. So let me just quickly touch upon this and talk about the ports in India and why that’s important. So in China, most of the production happens along the East Coast, right? So, there’s the province of Guangdong, there’s Zhejiang and Fujian and most of these are production hubs for various product categories and they’re along the coast. So there is a port near most key production cities. So wherever you produce in China, you’re likely very near a port. However, India is different. If you look at a map of the world, you see that India is a triangular shape and so there are ports that are in the West of India. So Mumbai port in the West is the most commonly used port for exports and then there are a couple of ports in the South and there’s one port in the East, which is called Kolkata though, there’s also one in the West, actually. So the ports are on all four directions and that’s why it’s really important to know where exactly your factory is located and how far it is from the port, because that can add time for two to have your goods transported from the factory to the port. So you just have to keep that in mind and that’s one key difference between China and India. But overall logistics, in terms of the pricing, quite similar to logistics from China. You have to preferably go into the East Coast of the US, if you’re shipping to the US, it’s relatively faster and cheaper than if you go to the West Coast. So that’s something to keep in mind when you’re importing into the US and also all sorts of options are available. So you could do sea shipping, air freight courier, there’s DHL, FedEx, if you want to do couriers, there’s all sorts of air freights available as well. You do want to make sure that your freight forwarder is familiar with FBA requirements. Because a lot of the supply or a lot of the freight forwarders are used to dealing with larger importers that have their own import licenses or have their own companies in the importing country and they are importing products directly to their warehouse or wherever. However, when you’re selling on Amazon a lot of the times the sellers are not based in the US so they don’t have companies there. So that makes it a bit tricky and then you’re sending it directly sending your product directly to FBA. But Amazon is not the importer on record. So it’s a bit tricky, especially if you’re not inside the US. So you want to make sure that you are dealing with a freight forwarder that understands FBA requirements.
Norman 19:44
What about negotiating? So in China, we’ve always found there’s a particular way of negotiating and we we start with the product First, get the price and we’ve talked about this at length on some of these other podcasts, but then we’ll bring in the packaging, and have the negotiating done after the actual, like the beard brush, is we’ve got the final price, and then we’ll talk about the packaging. Is there any special way? Is there anything that Indian suppliers have? That we should be aware of.
Meghla 20:22
So first of all, you should negotiate. So if you’re not negotiating, you’re leaving money on the table. You’re kind of expected to negotiate similar to China. In fact, India and China are very similar in many ways. So especially the cultural aspects. So definitely negotiate. So whether you’re negotiating for the price, or the MOQ, or packaging, or functions, teachers, it could be anything doesn’t always have to be the price. In terms of the way to negotiate, it’s pretty much the same. So, you negotiate, you first talk about the product, you want to focus on the quality of the product, rather than the price. Because once you, you want to keep emphasizing that, hey, the quality is more important to me, of course, the price is important, I want a competitive price. But you also want to keep reminding the supplier that hey, quality is super, super important for me, because I’m selling on Amazon. I don’t want bad reviews. Because otherwise, if you talk too much about the price and try to squeeze them on the price, then you might encounter quality issues down the line, they might try to cut corners. So you want to be aware of that a little bit, when you’re negotiating, and always try to focus on the quality first, and then the price
Norman 21:41
Cultural differences. Sometimes we accidentally offend without meaning to offend. Are there anything that we should be aware of?
Meghla 21:52
Yes, so relationships are super, super important in India. I think they’re even more important than they are in China and Indian suppliers, they do like to develop, kind of personal relationship with buyers and it’s quite normal to talk about your families and just be kind of casual. It’s not only about business. Sometimes I’ve found some suppliers, if they feel that the buyer is being too offensive, or he’s too arrogant, arrogant, or too know it all, they will not do business with the buyer. Like, Oh, I don’t care. This buyer, like, what does he think of himself? So I think, yeah, don’t be the know it all, foreigner or know it all importer. Try to treat them with respect, and try to learn from them. I mean, they are in the business of producing the product, they are the experts. So treat them with respect and yeah, learn from them, leverage their expertise, their knowledge of the product to your benefit, and work with them as partners. I think Indian suppliers really like that if you work with them as partners, because they do like to develop long term relationships with buyers and have repeat orders. Of course, all suppliers want that, right? They want to have repeat orders, because it’s more expensive to go find a new buyer than to get repeat orders from customers. So yeah, but they really do focus on the relationship and building a long lasting relationship with buyers. You’ll also find that if you travel to India, they’ll often take you to their house, and they’ll introduce you to their families and, they come pick you up from the airport, even though even if the airport is like five hours away from the city where they are and yeah, they’ll go out of their way to take care of you if you are a good buyer. The other thing I would say is just be a responsible, good buyer. Make your payments on time and make sure that you communicate everything very, very clearly in terms of your specifications, your requirements, don’t leave any, don’t leave and don’t have them assume anything. Just like in China, I guess that’s something that you need to be aware of. Yeah, so I guess those are some of the tips that I would have.
Norman 24:10
Yeah, they’ve probably gone through it all, like been there done it bought the T shirt when it comes to delay of payments and it’s just like us, if we like if we’re getting payment on time, every time, then you’ve got a much more you’ve got to feel good attitude about that person. The first time it happens, and there might be a delay. It’s like, okay, little amber flag goes up. If it’s continuous, then not the quality but maybe the lead time. If they’ve got better and tell me if I’m right, I’m going off of China but I know that if you’re a better customer, and you go to them and you need a rush and they have to bump you ahead of that person with the amber flag, they will and I’m not sure if they’ll do that. In India, but I’ve seen that in China.
Meghla 25:02
Definitely, they will definitely do that and in fact, if they have, of course, if they have a Walmart or a really large client, then it doesn’t matter how good of a client you are. If you are just placing an order of a few thousand dollars and but here comes Walmart with a couple of million. So, yeah, they’re gonna definitely prioritize Walmart. But yeah, you’re right. I mean, if they do have tight deadlines, or if there are any other issues, they will prioritize buyers who they have a good relationship with, and buyers who pay them on time and who are just generally good business partners.
Norman 25:38
So I see there’s some questions. But before we get to them, I got another question about perceived value in packaging. So in China, I always know, I can get the packaging inserts, high quality packaging, I’ve got some tricks to that, like buying a little bit more to bring the price down, and then asking the manufacturer to hold it for me because they know it’s going to be a recurring order. But packaging in India, how does that compare? Can we go like, we’ll negotiate on that beard comb, but we wanted it in a really beautiful box with a nice design.
Norman 26:16
Is that available?
Meghla 26:18
Yes, absolutely. That’s definitely available, you can get any sort of packaging that you want. Typically, they specialize more in cardboard boxes, you wouldn’t find too many options for molded kind of packaging, I would say. So it’s more of the cardboard boxes or other types of I mean, not the plastic molded one I would say. But yeah, in terms of packaging, you can either work with your supplier to do the packaging for you. So, they would work with another packaging company, and order the boxes for you and do the printing and everything, or you could work separately with another with a packaging supplier and develop your packaging with them. Now, a lot of the packaging suppliers, they also have design departments, if you need help with that, they can also help create your dye lines and just help design the packaging for you, they can help with that as well. Another thing that I found is that the packaging suppliers actually have a lower MOQ and this is generally for the smaller packaging suppliers. There are a lot of smaller packaging suppliers in India too. So if you’re sourcing, let’s say 200 pieces of a product, it is possible to get 200 pieces of customized packaging for your product. Whereas in China, typically the packaging MOQs are much higher.. But in India, you’ll find that you can find smaller MOQs. In fact, just recently, I’ve sourced a product, just 200 units, it’s a new product that I’m trying to test and because of Amazon’s requirement, we just sourced 200 and I got a really nice packaging, really nice box with with compartments and printing and the barcode is printed on it, the logo, everything is printed on the box and it’s just 200 pieces. So yeah, I think that’s one advantage, I would say for Amazon sellers, that you can find these smaller companies in India that will do low MOQs and not only for packaging for other products. I think that’s one big advantage actually, sourcing from India, especially for handmade products. There are low MOQs, of course, some products like fabric based products, the MOQs would be higher because the MOQs are based on the textile factories. Especially if you have a customized pattern for your fabric. But for wooden products, metal products, any of the handcrafted products, MOQs are pretty low. Typically MOQs would be anywhere from 200 to 500 pieces, but they can even do as low as 50 pieces, although that’s not advisable. I mean, where would you go with 50 pieces. But if you wanted to do lower MOQs, they could go as low as 50 pieces.
Norman 29:03
Oh, that’s beautiful. There’s, look, I like going in. Usually I’ve already got my research and everything’s done. I go in, typically wanting to take on the market. But there’s so many people that just want to test products, and 50 or 100 or 200 units, there’s really nothing. I do have an idea. I’m not sure if it would work. But let’s say you have a product and the type of packaging is not working. You could always go to China or to a surrounding country that might have different types of packaging and send it over or you could just send it over and have them kit it in India. Would that be another alternative?
Meghla 29:44
Definitely that is an alternative and I know people who are doing that for essential oils. So essential oils come in these little glass bottles and China is better priced for these glass bottles because they’re larger factories producing at a higher scale. So even though there are glass factories in India, the prices could be higher. So I know a couple of people, what they do is they sourced the bottles from China, ship them over to India, and then they’re sourcing the essential oils from India and then they do the packaging in India. You got to be a bit careful about that though. Because once you import products into India, you need to pay import duties and taxes. But if you are clear on the customs form that this is for re export, then you won’t have to pay those duties. So yeah, just make sure you’re working with a freight forwarder, a customs broker that understands how to import products that are meant for re export.
Norman 30:44
Okay, I just thought of something. While you’re talking about that. What happens, so you’ve got your essential oils, but what happens if you’ve got other products that you can send to a bottler in India? Then you send it to the bottler, you have the package, you have the bottle, would that be a tax advantage? Would that get around the Trump tax? Because it’s being packaged, assembled, everything’s being done in India, and you’re just sending over shampoo from China?
Meghla 31:18
It is possible. So I know that there are specific regulations and rules, and X percent of the product should remain in that country to be labeled made in whatever. Because a lot of people, what they’re trying to do is assemble products in Vietnam, for example, and then ship them to the US. But yeah, in some cases that works. I think you have to be Yeah, I don’t know the exact rules around it. But, for example, let’s take mobile phones, mobile phones, most of the kits are imported from China into India and the kids are different components, basically and they’re assembled in India. So, that is considered a made in India product, even though the components are not produced in India.
Norman 32:12
Yeah, the reason I was saying and by the way, I am not telling anybody to try to skirt the taxes. So, absolutely not. If this is a legal way to do this, then that’s fine. If this is illegal, do not do what I’m saying or what I’m thinking of. But like when you said the essential oils are such a small amount, like point five milligrams or milligrams, right? Yeah, milliliters, I don’t know. But anyways, let’s say it’s half an ounce and the bottle takes up more room than the liquid. I’m not sure if that would be enough to trigger the tax for India rather than the Trump tax. Anyways, it’s just a suggestion. While you were talking, I was just thinking about essential oils. Well, packaging, I wonder if you can get around that save 25% I’m not sure and I’m not advising it. But yeah, but Kels. We’ve got some questions here.
Kelsey 33:13
Yeah, we got about four or five questions lined up here. So first off, let’s get Tony’s question. Hi guys, great episode. Are Indian suppliers gearing towards smaller Amazon smaller orders initially, like only 300 units to start versus with that 10,000 etc units from your clients? How is Amazon India doing? So you guys kind of touched on this before I think but yeah. Any other thoughts on this?
Meghla 33:42
Yeah. So overall, I think MOQs are smaller in India. But of course it depends on the product. So if you are for example, ordering handcrafted products, definitelyMOQs are smaller, versus other products that are kind of mass produced. Are they gearing towards smaller Amazon sellers? I think what suppliers are realizing is that ecommerce is growing significantly. So there’s a lot of interest in catering to Amazon sellers. However, the feedback that I hear repeatedly from suppliers is that it takes a lot of time and effort to deal with Amazon sellers because they’re often very new to the product, very new to the sourcing process. So, some suppliers that have large scale productions, they would still prefer to deal with larger bottles and not spend too much time dealing with multiple smaller Amazon sellers to get the same amount of revenue. So it really depends on the supplier. I found that typically small size, mid sized suppliers. They’re very keen to work with Amazon sellers, but maybe not the bigger suppliers and then Amazon India is doing really well. It’s growing really fast and in fact, Flipkart and Amazon, those are the two main marketplaces in India and Flipkart is owned by Walmart. So it’s basically Walmart and Amazon fighting it out in India and there are a couple of other marketplaces, but these are the two biggest ones.
Norman 35:14
So I’ve got something on there. So I was talking to a guy and I wonder if I’m not gonna say the brand, but he’s selling in India and he was saying, Yeah, I’ve got a product. It was a supplement. He says, Yeah, I’ve got a product that’s doing pretty good. He’s saying, he was telling me it was doing 10,000. Wow, 10,000 a month. That’s really good. He was like no, 10,000 a day. He was selling 10,000 units a day in India.
Meghla 35:43
Wow. Oh my God.
Norman 35:45
Crazy.
Meghla 35:46
Yes. That is a huge, that is a growing market. Fitness is huge. Yeah.
Norman 35:50
So the other thing, when you were talking about handcrafted products, I was thinking about, okay, you’ve got the Amazon market, but you’re skipping some of the best markets, Etsy, like, check out Etsy, check out eBay for these sort of things and we had them. We had John Lawson on last week talking about marketing on eBay. It’s a huge opportunity. Building a brand, you can build a brand with handcrafted products. If you do it right, even on Amazon, you can probably get into the custom, or the handcraft marketplace. So that’s another area instead of just going on to Seller Central and instead, you can apply for handcrafted, but there’s so many opportunities when you get into the handcrafted marketplace and again, the first thing that comes to mind is Etsy, and Etsy is growing, at a huge rate right now as well. So it’s not just Amazon, there’s so many other opportunities that you could look at. So I think, yeah,
Meghla 36:58
I totally agree with that and Etsy, previously, they were very strict about who they allowed right there on the marketplace. But now they’re more lenient, and even if you yourself are not making the product, as long as you’re designing the product and getting it hand, it’s still handmade, but by somebody else, it’s still acceptable. So yeah, a lot of the products in fact, a lot of Indian manufacturers are selling directly on Etsy.
Kelsey 37:27
Alright, so another question from Lisa. Are there any extended holiday closures in India that folks need to be aware of that would affect their order patterns thinking along the lines of Chinese New Year’s closures in China?
Meghla 37:41
Yeah. So India has one major Festival, which is the Festival of Diwali. It usually occurs toward the end of the year. So it’s usually October or November and typically, it’s a Hindu festival. There are different religions in India. There are Muslims, Christians, Hindus, but the majority of people are Hindus, about 80% of Hindus. That is the biggest festival and typically, factories would be closed for a week, or maybe up to two weeks, three weeks. Or maybe sometimes the workers go back to their hometowns to celebrate Diwali. So sometimes there is a shortage of workers. But it’s not as big of a holiday or as extended for holiday as Chinese New Year is in China. The official holiday is probably like, I think two or three days for the actual festival. But, factories may close for a slightly longer time. So that’s one major festival that you need to be aware of and then there are throughout the year, there are quite a few, one, two day festivals that you need to be aware of and there’s so many different religions, as I mentioned, so there’s, Muslims, so there’s holiday on Eid, for example, and there’s Christian. So Christmas is a holiday as well and then there are all of the national holidays. So there are quite a few individual holidays here and there that you need to be aware of and you also need to be aware of where your factory is located and if the majority of workers in the factory are Hindu or Muslim. Because sometimes if the majority of workers are Muslims, for example, they won’t celebrate Diwali, which is a Hindu festival and you’ll be fine. The factory will still be open. So yeah.
Norman 39:30
Just ask, right. You could ask, right? Yeah,
Meghla 39:34
Yeah, exactly. You should do that. In fact, I want when you start working with a factory.
Norman 39:39
Okay, Kels.
Kelsey 39:40
Okay, next up from Nathan. Any tips for those trying to source from Bangladesh?
Meghla 39:47
Yeah, so Bangladesh specializes in apparel, basically textile based products and there are quite a few big factories in Bangladesh, but I would advise you to maybe try using a sourcing agent. There are sourcing agents in India that have, that run operations in Bangladesh as well. So yeah, you got to be a bit cautious of the quality. When you’re sourcing from Bangladesh, make sure that you’re sourcing from a decent sized factory with, again, export experience is really important. There are a lot of smaller workshop type factories as well over there in Bangladesh. So I think it helps if you work with a sourcing agent.
Kelsey 40:27
Okay, great and from Gholam, we got two more after this, as of right now, but from Gholam, is there a site with trusted manufacturers list?
Meghla 40:38
Yes. So actually, Alibaba and Global sources, which are the main websites for China suppliers, they also have Indian suppliers listed on those two websites. In fact, I started working with Global sources in 2000 in India, so that was 20 years ago, and they were in India even before that. So, these companies have been in India for a long time. They have offices there, and they actively recruit suppliers for the website, as well as for the exhibitions. Alibaba is also very active in India. So yeah, you will find manufacturers on Alibaba and Global sources. What you need to do is use the supplier location filter. So after, you do a search on any of these websites, use the supplier location filter to see suppliers only from India or other countries as well, I think there’s suppliers from Vietnam, Thailand on these marketplaces, of course, there are fewer suppliers because, 90% of the suppliers on these websites are from China. But you will find some suppliers here too. Another thing that you can do is there’s especially if you’re looking for handmade products, there is an exhibition in India known as Delhi Fair, that is organized by the Export Promotion Council for handicrafts and this is one of the most important export focused exhibitions in India, it’s known as the Canton Fair of India, even though it’s not as large as the Canton Fair. There are about 4000 or so exhibitors at the show. But all of them are export focused and they are legitimate companies because they are members of this Export Promotion Council, which is a government organization and so what you can do is if you can’t travel to the exhibition, you can look for the exhibitor list online. So just google search, Delhi Fair exhibitor list, and you can download the list and contact any of those suppliers. Now, the Delhi fair is also being held virtually. So they did one virtual show in August, I think, and the next one is coming up in November. So you could also contact suppliers there. Apart from this there, Export Promotion councils that you can contact. Now these councils are basically government organizations that are responsible for increasing exports in certain industries. For example, there is a cotton Export Promotion Council, or Silk Export Promotion Council. So you can try to search for these councils on Google and, just contact them, send them an email, sometimes they will also have their list of suppliers on their websites and you can download the list and start contacting suppliers there.
Norman 43:20
I remember back in the 90s I actually, you know what, back in the early 90s, I started outsourcing to India.
Meghla 43:31
Oh, really?
Norman 43:32
Back in the 90s. It was all, I had one of the first print on demand companies. So we were doing all our logo, web design, just corporate identity. But anyways, I owned a promotions company, and we were getting products from China at the time and other areas, but these associations, like this is old school, and I just wrote these books, but they would have catalogs, the Hong Kong Board of Trade. Yeah, I had 20 huge catalogs and you would have to go Oh, there’s jewelry. Flip through, flip through and that’s how you sourced like, and then you’d have to oh my gosh to try to get a hold of somebody to get a sample and it was a complete, well if you think of it nowadays, it is a complete nightmare. You couldn’t get online, you couldn’t just go and look at the product. Oh, times have changed.
Meghla 44:30
I know. For the better.
Norman 44:31
Yes. Oh, okay Kells. Anymore?
Kelsey 44:39
Yes, there’s three. All right next from Simon, are Indian factories open to ODM?
Meghla 44:44
So when you say ODM, do you mean, if you supplied your design to them, would they manufacture a product based on your design? Yes, absolutely. They would do that. In fact, they prefer that and some suppliers also have their own design departments and they develop their own products that you can modify. So yeah, similar to China, if you have both options.
Kelsey 45:07
Okay, and let’s see. How do handmade products can be listed on Amazon as each product is different and needs different reasons?
Norman 45:21
You do? Yeah, they’re if you’re listing them as, like, if I’ve got Norm the Gnome here, and he’s handcrafted, this Norm the Gnome over here. Some were there and he’s handcrafted. You could add it under the handcraft. Like, that’s what that service is for. Also, if you’re personalizing any, like, let’s say you’ve got some textiles that are coming over. You can also there’s, it’s not under handcraft. It’s under personalization, I think. Meghla, help me. It’s under personalization service, right?
Meghla 46:03
For print on demand?
Norman 46:04
No, no, the service that you’re allowed to have on Amazon. Come on, I have it. It’s not merged. But there is a service provided by Amazon, that if you have a product, let’s say it’s a plate, or let’s say it’s something that you could put a print on, you can personalize, like a bar of soap, not saying this in bar soap, but you could put somebody’s name on it. They have a service that will do that and I forget what the service means. I’ll post it in a second.
Meghla 46:33
Righ, I know what you mean. They can etch the name on the metal.
Norman 46:36
Yeah. A cup or whatever. Yeah. So if you do have something handmade, if it’s different, like, let’s say it’s a Norm the Gnome has a green hat instead of a red Hat, then you’d have to create an asin. But yeah, being unique because of being handmade. I don’t think you have to have a different asin for it. Don’t worry about that.
Meghla 46:59
Yeah, I agree. However, I think what Gholam might be referring to is that if a product is handmade, there are inconsistencies in the product. So because it’s handmade, you can’t have the exact same specifications for each and every product, there might be minor differences. So that’s something that you’ve got to, I think, communicate on your listing that this is a handcrafted product, and there may be some differences. So yeah, but otherwise, it’s the same product. Yeah.
Kesey 47:35
Okay, and let’s see, Simon has another one. If you’re sourcing in India and selling on Amazon India, will customers pay EU or US prices?
Meghla 47:44
They will pay India prices, which are significantly lower. So India is a very price conscious market and because it’s still a developing country, and so this is something that you have to be aware of, that you’re selling on volumes and margins are typically lower than they are in the US, but you’ve got higher volume. So that’s why your friend was selling 10,000 pieces per day, but maybe he was making, like, I don’t know, $2 on each item or something.
Norman 48:15
I take that. Yeah.
Norman 48:19
No problem. Can you, let’s just go back to the Amazon Marketplace for a second. So over in North America, hey, look, if somebody’s selling soap for $1.99 or 3.99, let everybody compete, let them be the product cannibals. I’d rather target at a higher price. So can you do that on the Indian marketplace where you can, okay, everybody else is at a much lower price and they are moving volume, but you want to target those people that can afford the higher price product? I’m sure there would be, okay, so maybe it’s not 10,000 a day, maybe it’s 100 a day or 1000 a day, but I’m sure if you wanted to stand out from everybody and have something selling at $29 rather than 7.99. Is that still applicable?
Meghla 49:10
Yes, that is definitely applicable and there is demand there’s in fact growing demand for more premium products. There’s a growing middle class and so definitely that is possible you of course won’t get those kinds of volumes for, that you getting for the others but yes as possible. In fact, there’s a lot of demand for cosmetic products or other products that are made in Australia for example, food items, or any of those kinds of luxury luxury items that are made in Australia or New Zealand or the US there is sort of a market for those kinds of high end, premium products that maybe are not found in India or there’s something in, cosmetics is a good example. Actually, there are a lot of these creams and other beauty products, for example that are made overseas and they sell really well in India. Korean products, for example and, yeah, in fact, Amazon India had a section for Australian made products recently on on the website, and they were promoting Australian made products and there was like this whole campaign that they did with a government organization in Australia to promote Australian products. So that’s something that you could definitely look at, especially if you have something that’s made in the USA or made in Australia, that would sell well.
Norman 50:39
Do you know Jamie Paros?
Meghla 50:41
Yeah, I do. Who doesn’t?
Norman 50:43
Have you been on the Endgame?
Meghla 5:46
Yes. In fact, I was, I think I want to say I was the first guest on his show.
Norman 50:52
You got to go back again. You’ve got such an engaging energy. So again, if you’re watching this podcast, I’m not saying go over and watch Jamie’s but he’s been on. He’s excellent. Why I’m saying that, is for you. His audience is it engages so much and if you’re letting people know that Amazon India is opening up more to Australia. His audience is perfect for that. Because he’s based in Australia.
Meghla 51:28
Yeah. In fact, there are a lot of people from Australia in my India sourcing group as well. Margaret and Kevin, they’re from Australia. Most of the attendees on my previous India sourcing trip were from Australia. So, yeah, I think there’s a lot of interest among Australians sourced from India as well.
Norman 51:46
So Tim was just the one loud American?
Meghla 51:51
Yeah. One of the few.
Norman 51:55
Okay, Kelsey, Any more questions?
Kelsey 51:57
Yeah. Just a couple more. Okay, so first off, I’ll just put this in Victor.
Norman 52:04
It is a merge. Okay. I wasn’t sure Victor.
Norman 52:08
Yeah, thank you, sir.
Kelsey 52:10
Okay, and he actually just posted. I was very late in joining the session today, was Aadhaar discussed with respect to the future expansion of the e-commerce buying population in India?
Meghla 52:22
So Aadhaar card, this is basically, similar to the social security number, I guess, in the US. So this is something that the government has implemented, and everybody needs to have an Aadhaar card and you also need it for running a business, for lots of different things. So I’m not sure what exactly is the question here related to Aadhaar. Yeah, I don’t know what else to say. But it’s like a future expansion of the e-commerce buying population.
Kelsey 52:59
Okay, so Victor, if you can clarify.
Kelsey 53:04
Okay, and Yarrow saying, great show.
Norman 53:08
Thank you, Yarrow.
Kelsey 53:10
I do wooden toys in China, can you recommend better options to consider in India? Whom to contact?
Meghla 53:15
Yeah, so wooden toys or wooden products would be a good option and good, competitive product from India. You can reach out to me later if that’s okay. I can connect you to a few suppliers that we’ve featured on our show, on the virtual India sourcing show and we also have a few sourcing agents that we vetted for our India sourcing trip, I could connect you to them as well. One of them specializes in wooden products.
Norman 53:41
Very good.
Kelsey 53:43
Okay and Victor’s back saying enabling more people to open bank accounts, get credit cards, etc.
Meghla 53:49
Yes, so one of the problems in India is, of course, because it’s a developing country, a lot of people don’t have bank accounts and cash on delivery is very, very common and popular. Especially in the smaller cities, tier two, tier three cities, villages, and all I mean, I don’t think there’s much e-commerce happening in the villages yet. The smaller cities, cash on demand is definitely more popular. So I think, but I think that’s changing and there are more people getting bank accounts, and banks are making it easier to facilitate, opening of bank accounts for people. Credit cards are again, mostly it’s the bigger cities and all that I would say have credit cards, the smaller cities sometimes they wouldn’t have that, I mean, credit card usage is not that prevalent still. So they would still use a debit card or maybe, direct debit from the bank account. That’s something that’s very common in India as well. But otherwise, yeah, cash on demand is actually or cash on delivery. Sorry, no cash on demand. Cash on delivery, that is a very popular option.
Kelsey 55:06
Gholam is saying I thought India has become a cashless society.
Meghla 55:09
Yes. In fact, that is also happening, Gholam. You’re right. So there’s a lot of these apps that are being used nowadays for buying different things. So similar to Alipay in China, there are a lot of apps that people are using for payments and for buying stuff. So yeah, that’s happening as well. But I think that in a lot of the smaller cities, tier two, tier three cities, it’s still taking time to filter through over there, but it’s happening.
Norman 55:39
With the app. Do you love to use it in North America?
Meghla 55:45
I’m not sure yet to make payments. I’m not sure yet. Yeah.
Kelsey 55:50
Okay and our last question. How reliable are tools like H10 in India?
Meghla 55:58
Actually, Helium 10 has recently activated or is now active for the Amazon India marketplace. I think they just announced it like, a month ago, or maybe a few weeks ago when they say, and so yeah, it is available now and I mean, how reliable it is, I’m not really sure about that. But I think it is as reliable as it is in the US marketplace, right? I mean, how reliable are any of these tools? So but yeah, the data is available now for Amazon India.
Norman 56:30
Let’s just touch on Amazon, Singapore. So can we talk, just give a very quick overview about Amazon Singapore, and why should .com look at going on to Singapore?
Meghla 56:47
Right. So Amazon Singapore is one of the newest marketplaces that Amazon has launched and it is very, very aggressively promoting Amazon Singapore, they’re trying to recruit sellers from Singapore and other neighboring countries and of course, overseas sellers are all trying and sell on Amazon, Singapore. Now, Singapore is a small country. But ecommerce penetration is extremely high. There are a couple of different marketplaces here that are very popular one is Lazada, that is actually owned by Alibaba and there are a couple of others like Shopee, and Q 10. Those are the local marketplaces that are very, very popular and a lot of these products are actually available. A lot of the sellers are from China. So the products are literally just coming from China and because Singapore is not far from China, it takes a few days for the products to be delivered and that’s why these marketplaces are super popular. But Amazon is kind of new in the game over here and they are trying to very aggressively take market share. But it’s tough. It’s tough competition for Amazon. But Singapore is a very important market for Amazon. Because, as you might know, Amazon was not very successful in China, they had to leave China and currently, they are not in any other marketplace in Southeast Asia. They’re, of course in India with that South Asia, but in Southeast Asia, they’re not in any other marketplace. So what I feel is that the success of the Singapore marketplace is really important for Amazon and that will also determine their growth in other countries in Southeast Asia, for example, Thailand, Indonesia, all of these other Southeast Asian countries where ecommerce is growing very, very rapidly. So if you sell on Amazon Singapore today, if you start selling, you’re not going to get too many sales. It’s a very slow marketplace, I’m selling there and it’s like crickets. However, I feel that if you start selling now, you might have a first or an early mover advantage and down the line, it might give you access to the bigger Southeast Asian marketplace and countries in Southeast Asia, which are bigger markets basically, bigger than Singapore. So I think what you should consider doing is sending in maybe smaller quantities, there is FBA available here and you can import products into Singapore, you do need a company to help you with the imports because you need somebody to be an importer of record. So you can work with a company and there are a lot of companies that the Amazon Singapore team has recommended on their website and if anybody needs this information, they can always reach out to me as well. But yeah, you need a company to import products into Singapore, but it’s relatively easy and FBA is available. So I would say send in some products to FBA and list them on Amazon Singapore. You can also port over your listings with your reviews from the US marketplace to Amazon, you have to contact Amazon Singapore in order to do that. The other thing I like about the Singapore marketplace is that everybody gets an account manager. It’s not only the bigger sellers, but even like the smaller sellers would have an account manager and the account manager is actually contactable and reachable and if you have an issue, you can send them an email and they will reply to you. They also have telegram groups where they engage with the community and I’m in close touch with Amazon Singapore, I do webinars with them. They are very keen to help people, sell on Amazon Singapore and grow. So I don’t see Amazon being that proactive with any other marketplace, in terms of how they work with sellers and help sellers. But yeah, Amazon Singapore, they are really trying to help sellers and offering a lot of different services and they also do webinars very often. They used to do meetups in the Amazon office previously, of course, they haven’t done that recently, because of COVID. They’re mostly doing virtual webinars. But twice, I’ve gone to the Amazon office to present over there and talk about sourcing best practices and all. So yeah, that’s an overview of Amazon, Singapore.
Norman 1:01:20
So I think that probably winds up the questions. Is that right Kels?
Kelsey 1:01:25
Yep. Yeah, no more questions. I think we got everything.
Norman 1:01:29
So I’ve got a question. Going back to Amazon India, just action steps. Can you lay out the different steps about getting an account on India, on Amazon India? In the past year and a half ago, it was incredibly hard.
Meghla 1:01:51
It is still hard. It’s not, I wouldn’t say it’s hard, but there are a lot of steps and it’s not straightforward. So, basically, to create an account on Amazon India, you need a GST number, which is a Goods and Services Tax number and in order to get a GST number, you need to have a company in India. So before you do anything else, you need to incorporate a company in India, and you need a business partner in India to incorporate a company. So that’s step number one, if you really want to go go all out, and list your products, there’s another way to go around that if you do have a good product, you can partner with an existing Amazon seller, and maybe they can be a distributor of your product and that will help you test the marketplace and see if if your product does well and then you can maybe after a few months, decide if you want to go all in. So if you do want to go all in, there are service providers that will help you set up companies, they will provide a director, a local director at a fee, that will have a nominal share in the company and it’s more like a sleeping their partner or something like that. But they will provide that and they’ll set up the company for you. They’ll also manage your GST filings, your taxes, because in India, you have to submit your GST reports every month, every quarter, there are different regulations, depending on which state you incorporate your company in. So it’s a bit complicated. So I would always advise to work with a company, a company that’s familiar with all of the GST and tax regulations and there are lots of companies out there that will do this and yeah, you can just do a Google search and you’ll be able to find companies and the processes nowadays, they’ve streamlined the process a lot. I mean, these companies have become more tech savvy, and you can do everything online. So you can send yours, the documents and do your signatures and everything can be done online seamlessly. So yeah, that’s one option.
Norman 1:04:05
I know. I know. Victor should know this person, Samish.
Meghla 1:04:11
Yeah, exactly. He offers a service. Yeah.
Norman 1:04:15
He does it. Yeah and he’s a great guy. If anybody’s interested, just message me and I can give you Samish’s information.
Meghla 1:04:25
Exactly. Yeah. I did a webinar with him last year when he launched this service and yeah, I had met with him when I was in an exhibition in the UK. So yeah, they’re a really lovely couple.
Norman 1:04:38
Yeah, they really are. Okay, well, look at you’re off the hook. Unless you have any other advice that you think we should cover?
Meghla 1:04:50
No, I think we’ve covered quite a lot. The only other thing I would say is, when you start sourcing from India, be patient. Things move a bit slower than they do in China. I think things move really fast in China, everywhere else in the world, people kind of have a balanced work and life but in China, they’re like me. They’re just working 24/7. But no, I think things generally move a bit slower in India. So just be a bit conscious of that and don’t get frustrated, if things move slower. If your sample takes a week, instead of two days, in China, they would turn around the sample really fast. So yeah, I mean, that’s the only thing but otherwise, it’s fun to source in India and, you can communicate with the suppliers really well, because most of them speak English and so I think that will be a huge difference that you suddenly notice, like, when you’re talking to them, you don’t have to, speak slowly, like you do to your Chinese supplier, or there’s less of that miscommunication.
Norman 1:06:03
Yeah, very good. So I think that’s probably it. I’m out of questions. It’s been great having you on, you covered so much. How do people get a hold of you?
Meghla 1:06:16
I think the best way to get a hold of me is to join my facebook group. So search for Sourcing from India, on Facebook, join the group. If you have any questions, you can post them in the group or reach out to me on Facebook Messenger.
Norman 1:06:32
I was just wondering, you’ve got that live event, which is going to come back one of these months. You were talking about Delhi. The festival there. Do you coordinate your event with that? Or do you coordinate it with other events that are going on in India?
Meghla 1:06:48
No, I do coordinate it with the Delhi Fair. So the Delhi Fair is held twice a year, April and October and that’s when I do my trip. So it is around the Delhi fair. We spend three days at the fair.
Norman 1:07:00
Fantastic. Well, one of these days, I’ll get out to the Delhi fair.
Meghla 1:07:04
Yes, yes. You have to join us, Norm.
Norman 1:07:06
I gotta go.
Meghla 1:07:08
Absolutely.
Norman 1:07:09
Okay. Well, again, thank you so much. It’s 1am in the morning, and I really appreciate you taking your time and sharing all your knowledge with us today.
Meghla 1:07:19
Thank you so much for having me, Norm.
Norman 1:07:21
Oh, you’re very welcome. All right, everybody. So I hope you enjoyed the podcast today. Like I said at the beginning of the show, if you want to see the whole episode, just whip over from my profile page, go over to my fan page, which is Norman Farrar at a.k.a or a.k.a The Beard Guy and, or if you want to actually see the beard. I don’t know why you would, you can always go over to YouTube, and check it out there. So Kelsey, where are you?
Kelsey 1:07:53
People love the beard Norm.
Kelsey 1:07:58
All right. Yes, I forgot to mention this at the beginning of the show, but we do have Lunch with Norm Facebook group. So join Meghla’s Facebook group, and then go on, head over to us and join our Facebook group too. It’s right here. Lunch with Nor, Amazon FBA and e-commerce collective. We’re just starting up. This is about week two of the group. So it’s pretty new. I’m gonna go change it to a private group pretty shortly just to yeah, make it fun and yeah, if you haven’t already, please subscribe to us on our podcast. We are on Spotify, Apple. Anywhere you listen to podcasts, you can find us and I know you love to say it. What do we do Norm?
Norman 1:08:49
Smash, smash them likes.
Kelsey 1:08:52
Smash the like button. Follow us on, Yeah. Oh, thank you Gholam. I’m glad glad you like the show and yeah, I think that’s pretty much it. Oh, the newsletter.
Norman 1:09:03
Yeah. I gotta talk about the newsletter.
Norman 1:09:06
What does it not do Kels?
Kelsey 1:09:08
It does not suck.
Norman 1:09:10
Very good. This newsletter does not suck. It’s full of content. If you’re interested, you can head over to lunchwithnorm.com or normanfarrar.com. I think it’s news.normanfarrar.com, it’s right on the page. You just hit the subscribe and you’ll get a subscription and it’s covering everything about becoming a better online seller. It’s not just Amazon. It’s everything. So it’s just full of content and hopefully, everybody who signed up, they’re happy. So we’re not trying to push product. We’re not trying to push affiliate links. We’re trying to provide knowledge and education and that’s strictly it. Alright, so Monday is a special show. I get to abuse Shane Oglow, my partner in prREACH. So we’re going to be discussing the power of public relations and what it can do for you as an Amazon seller and I can tell you one thing. There’s probably 1% of Amazon sellers that are using public relations. Public Relations is different from press releases, and he’s going to get into it and I can’t wait. I can abuse him so much.
Kelsey 1:10:20
It’s gonna be fun.
Norman 1:10:23
I don’t get to abuse too many people but Shane is one of them. Yeah, Shane, I can abuse. Alright, so I think that’s it. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at noon, Eastern Central Time and thank you, everybody. Thank you so much for building this community and enjoy the rest of your day.
