Latest / eCommerce Podcast / How to Ship Bulky Products Internationally Without Breaking the Bank | Robert Khachatryan

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How to Ship Bulky Products Internationally Without Breaking the Bank | Robert Khachatryan · eCommerce Podcast

• 0:04
  Well, hello and welcome to the eCommerce Podcast with
• 0:07
  me, your host, Matt Edmundson.
• 0:09
  For those of you who don't know me, a very warm welcome to you.
• 0:12
  I've been an eCommerce since 2002.
• 0:14
  Uh, I like to call myself an eCommerce because I like to make it works.
• 0:18
  It's just generally the way it works.
• 0:19
  Uh, but I've been one since 2002.
• 0:21
  Uh, I tend to partner with e-commerce brands these days,
• 0:24
  helping them grow, scale and exit.
• 0:26
  And obviously if you'd like to know more about that and how we
• 0:28
  could work together, excuse me.
• 0:31
  Just head over to the website eCommerce Podcast dot net, where incidentally
• 0:36
  you can sign up to our newsletter called the eCommerce, uh, which
• 0:39
  has got lots of added value, so, uh, and it's totally free as well.
• 0:43
  So do go check that out, all at the eCommerce Podcast dot net website.
• 0:47
  But that's enough about me.
• 0:48
  Let's talk about today's guest, Robert.
• 0:50
  Robert, welcome to the show, all the way from Sunny Los Angeles.
• 0:54
  Uh, how are we doing today?
• 0:56
  And tell us a brief bit about yourself.
• 0:58
  Good sir.
• 1:00
  Hey, Matt.
• 1:00
  Thanks for having me.
• 1:01
  Um, we're, we're doing great.
• 1:03
  It's, um, you know, uh, it's an unlikely rainy day, uh, in
• 1:07
  Los Angeles, but we're, uh.
• 1:12
  You should try living in Liverpool.
• 1:13
  We have a sunshine day, which we're happy to see as well, so maybe,
• 1:17
  Well, we test to burn down here every once in a while.
• 1:19
  So rain is always
• 1:20
  welcome.
• 1:21
  But, uh,
• 1:22
  Yeah, no doubt.
• 1:24
  yeah, so I'm, uh, I'm the founder and CEO of Freight Wright.
• 1:27
  Uh, uh, what started as a, uh, as a logistics company, then
• 1:31
  evolved into logistics and logistics technology company.
• 1:35
  And, uh, do quite a bit of work, uh, these days on the, on the intersection
• 1:40
  of e-commerce, uh, logistics, uh, and technology that, you know, uh,
• 1:46
  ties all of that together, uh, with more emphasis on, uh, on larger items
• 1:51
  and, and then more expensive goods than your typical, you know, parcel.
• 1:55
  Yeah.
• 1:55
  That's great.
• 1:56
  Well, Robert, I've been looking forward to this conversation
• 1:58
  because, uh, two reasons.
• 2:00
  One, we don't really have many people on the show talking about
• 2:03
  shipping products and two, I. There is probably one important aspect of
• 2:09
  e-commerce, which rarely gets discussed and that shipping products, right?
• 2:13
  So it's, it's, it sort of worked well on both sides because I know from
• 2:18
  my own experience, we get people on the show and, uh, you know, all our
• 2:22
  guests have been great and we, we talk about email marketing, we talk
• 2:25
  about social media and, and social commerce and so on and so forth.
• 2:29
  Um, but actually once we've sold the product, obviously we've
• 2:31
  gotta get it to our customer.
• 2:33
  And this has been one of those things that's actually had a
• 2:35
  big impact on our business.
• 2:36
  So, uh, I, I, I think it's great that you are here.
• 2:39
  So thank you for joining us.
• 2:41
  Um, let's jump straight in.
• 2:44
  Uh, you obviously have shipped millions of products, uh, all over the world.
• 2:49
  I think you, if I, if my data and research is correct, you are
• 2:53
  involved in 166 different countries, uh, as things currently stand.
• 2:58
  So, you know, a thing or two about moving boxes around the world.
• 3:03
  What's the, what's the biggest mistake you see e-commerce businesses
• 3:08
  making Time and time again?
• 3:11
  Yeah, definitely.
• 3:12
  Um.
• 3:13
  Boy.
• 3:14
  Um, that's, that's, uh, let me choose one.
• 3:18
  a,
• 3:19
  There's a lot, uh.
• 3:21
  there, there, there's a lot.
• 3:22
  Now, um, again, the, I'm, I'm, I'm going to approach this from the
• 3:25
  lens of, uh, bulky items, right?
• 3:28
  Because
• 3:28
  that's kind of, uh, where I have the most expertise.
• 3:31
  So, uh, the biggest mistake we see, uh, eCommerce brands make is actually not.
• 3:39
  Internationally, right?
• 3:40
  Not, not expand into international markets.
• 3:43
  Um, and that's probably a tie with, um, again, in the
• 3:48
  bulky, larger item, um, space.
• 3:52
  Um, the second or maybe, uh, tie that first place.
• 3:56
  The other mistake is, um, brands basically build in the
• 4:02
  shipping into the cost of goods.
• 4:04
  Um, because.
• 4:06
  It's, you know, they, they, it's very hard to figure out how to
• 4:09
  calculate shipping for larger items.
• 4:12
  So they tend to basically just, you know, mark up the product enough to hopefully
• 4:17
  cover most cases where they have to.
• 4:18
  Right.
• 4:19
  Okay.
• 4:20
  Right.
• 4:20
  So these are, well, we've got two there.
• 4:23
  Let's dig into the first one.
• 4:24
  So not expanding into international markets.
• 4:27
  Now, if I'm gonna think this through, and I'm, I don't ship bulky items.
• 4:32
  I ship, I ship tiny things like this, like supplements.
• 4:36
  Uh, although that said, we are just about, hopefully we're, we're, we're
• 4:38
  getting involved with a company that does ship very bulky items.
• 4:41
  Big old, I say very bulky.
• 4:43
  I'm talking, you know, maybe four foot.
• 4:46
  By three foot, by two foot, not, not like a couch or a car kind of book.
• 4:51
  Um,
• 4:55
  I can understand if I say sell couches, which is the immediate
• 4:59
  bulky item that comes into my head, why I would only ship those I.
• 5:04
  Nationally and not internationally.
• 5:06
  'cause it will just fill me with dread.
• 5:08
  Do you know what I mean?
• 5:09
  Just, just even thinking about shipping those internationally.
• 5:13
  So I'm curious as to why you see this as the biggest mistake
• 5:17
  e-commerce entrepreneurs are making.
• 5:20
  'cause that's quite a bold statement and I'm, I, I want to dig into that.
• 5:24
  Yeah.
• 5:24
  And again, um, this is from the lens of, you know, lo logistics guy, right?
• 5:29
  Um, or, or a global logistics guy.
• 5:32
  So, uh, by the way, uh, a four foot by three foot by
• 5:36
  two three, that's pretty much.
• 5:37
  That's very bulky, considering, you know, like FedEx, U-P-S-D-H-L parcel carriers,
• 5:43
  that they, they don't like that stuff.
• 5:45
  It doesn't
• 5:45
  fit very well into their workflows, into their processes,
• 5:48
  into their conveyors, right?
• 5:49
  So that's essentially freight.
• 5:51
  It's not parcel.
• 5:53
  So, uh, what, what we see time and time again is, um,
• 6:01
  basically.
• 6:03
  If, if you are a brand and, uh, that, that, that's especially has, you know,
• 6:07
  social media presence, let's say, because with social media, you don't really
• 6:11
  have a lot of control on where your content is, uh, shown in which country.
• 6:17
  Right?
• 6:17
  So you see, like, especially if it gets, you know, uh, picked up by some
• 6:22
  kind of an influencer, they might have.
• 6:24
  You know, influence overseas, right?
• 6:26
  And then so you get all these people clicking on your, um, social media
• 6:31
  content in other countries, then your home market, uh, and they essentially can't
• 6:36
  buy your product in most cases, right?
• 6:39
  So, uh, we hear from brands all the time, oh, you know, this is like, we
• 6:42
  sell exercise machines and, you know, um.
• 6:46
  Let's say a US brand gets their, uh, social media content, uh, clicked
• 6:52
  on in Europe and people click on it, they like it, they want to buy
• 6:56
  it, and then they go on the shopping cart.
• 6:58
  And there's no shopping shipping options available to Europe from
• 7:01
  United States.
• 7:02
  Um, one of two things happen.
• 7:05
  Uh, one is they.
• 7:07
  Basically give up and move on.
• 7:09
  So you've lost the sale.
• 7:11
  Two is they actually reach out to the brand and say,
• 7:14
  Hey, I want to buy your stuff.
• 7:15
  I'm in Europe.
• 7:16
  How do I buy it?
• 7:17
  Uh, then the brand, you know, operators are kind of, you know, at a loss,
• 7:22
  uh, at what to do because, you know, two, the traditional method is to
• 7:25
  go and request quotes manually and then get back to the, to the lead.
• 7:30
  And by the time you've done all that, there's so much work goes.
• 7:34
  Yeah.
• 7:37
  So this is, this is the, the status quo, if you will.
• 7:42
  Right.
• 7:42
  But, uh, this is especially true again, of brands that have social
• 7:46
  media as as a, you know, um,
• 7:50
  as a channel to advertise.
• 7:52
  Um, or not, I shouldn't say advertise because advertising, you can control
• 7:56
  Yeah.
• 7:56
  No, I, I, I, I get what you mean.
• 7:58
  It's an interesting one, and I, there's a brand that springs to mind, right?
• 8:01
  And there's a, you talked about exercise equipment.
• 8:04
  There's a brand called Rogue, okay.
• 8:06
  R-O-G-U-E.
• 8:07
  And Rogue is an American manufacturer of fitness equipment.
• 8:14
  Um, they're quite popular in strongman and CrossFit kind of areas.
• 8:19
  And the way that they seem to have got around this, because CrossFit was a
• 8:25
  worldwide brand, was they set up, I'm guessing, a distribution center in Europe.
• 8:31
  Um, and so I'm guessing there's some distributor in Europe somewhere,
• 8:34
  which imports a whole, I'm gonna imagine a container load of
• 8:37
  goods at any one point in time.
• 8:40
  And then they distribute across Europe.
• 8:45
  Is that.
• 8:47
  What, say a US brand wanting to get into Europe should do, or can actually the
• 8:51
  US brand ship from the US direct to the consumer now, has that become a lot easier
• 8:56
  and maybe a lot more cost effective?
• 8:59
  Yeah, that's, uh, see, uh, fitness is a great, uh, example because
• 9:04
  fitness is your traditional.
• 9:08
  Into new markets, which is essentially you find a distributor,
• 9:12
  either you find a distributor or you set up shop in that region,
• 9:16
  right?
• 9:16
  You, uh, essentially, you know, it's the same setup essentially,
• 9:21
  because now you are giving up.
• 9:23
  Uh, first of all, it's a huge undertaking because a distributor, you have to
• 9:28
  convince a distributor to carry your brand, to buy inventory, uh, to hold
• 9:32
  inventory, to have a marketing campaign.
• 9:35
  Uh, right.
• 9:35
  And you are competing against the distributors, other brands, the
• 9:38
  distributors representing now to get that.
• 9:41
  You go to trade shows and, you know, uh, it's just like this really big
• 9:46
  undertaking and takes months and years sometimes to establish in a new market.
• 9:50
  Um, again, alternative being, you go and set it up yourself.
• 9:54
  You set up a branch or, you know.
• 9:57
  So you set up local offices and then it's basically all that cost.
• 10:01
  So, uh, you know, what we're seeing, uh, this is very general and obviously
• 10:07
  may vary, but, uh, rock Fitness probably spends about 40% of the, uh, of their.
• 10:15
  Overseas.
• 10:16
  Basically they give up about 40% of their revenue, either to their
• 10:20
  distributor or to inventory costs and to logistics costs and, uh,
• 10:23
  administrative and all of that stuff.
• 10:25
  So it's, it's at some point you sort of graduate to it because that's the most,
• 10:30
  uh, I wanna say efficient place to be where you have enough business in that
• 10:35
  region where you can establish yourself.
• 10:37
  Right.
• 10:38
  But what do you do before that?
• 10:39
  What do, if.
• 10:42
  A bunch of smaller countries, smaller markets where you don't want presence
• 10:45
  or it's not worth going and spending money and finding distributors, right?
• 10:49
  So, uh, if you are selling smaller items, this is, there
• 10:54
  are solutions for that, right?
• 10:55
  You can, uh, actually integrate your shopping cart with, you
• 10:59
  know, FedEx, U-P-S-D-H-L.
• 11:02
  Uh, they will automatically populate, calculate shipping.
• 11:06
  Uh, there's a bunch of products out there that calculate duties and taxes.
• 11:09
  They'll manage them for you.
• 11:11
  And, you know, I think, uh, Shopify recently launched, uh, a product where
• 11:16
  they will actually act as your, uh, fiscal representative locally to, uh, actually
• 11:22
  pay duties and taxes on your behalf.
• 11:24
  Right now, uh, it, it of course cost a 3D penny to do that, but, uh,
• 11:29
  uh, ultimately there's a solution.
• 11:32
  Now, again, if you're selling larger items, say exercise equipment.
• 11:35
  Uh, the solution doesn't exist because UPS or DHL would not carry your
• 11:39
  exercise equipment, uh, because it's just too heavy and too big, right?
• 11:43
  That you need a freight solution for that.
• 11:46
  So, uh, it, it hasn't, uh, the, you know.
• 11:52
  The, the way we approach it is basically we're, uh, replicating the DHL service
• 11:57
  or FedEx service, but with freight.
• 11:59
  So it's commercial freight, you know, delivered with heavy trucks and,
• 12:02
  you know, dollies and, uh, often multiple people, you know, doing
• 12:07
  unpacking and assembly even sometimes.
• 12:10
  Uh, and, you know, uh, essentially we're, we're treating the,
• 12:17
  uh, the buyer as our customer.
• 12:20
  Right, so, so that we're able to represent them for local customs in
• 12:24
  the local countries and all of the duties and taxations so that the brand
• 12:27
  doesn't get involved in all of that.
• 12:29
  And what that allows you to do as a brand is, uh, you know, let's say you
• 12:34
  are getting interest, your US brand, and you're getting interest in Europe, right?
• 12:37
  Instead of trying to go and spend, you know, tens and hundreds of
• 12:40
  thousands of dollars to build out the distribution network, you basically
• 12:44
  just enable shipping to that country.
• 12:47
  Enable duty and tax calculation to that country and maybe use that budget
• 12:52
  instead on some, uh, ad campaigns in that country or in that region.
• 12:56
  And that allows you to ship directly to the individual consumers
• 13:00
  in those countries, uh, to at the very least have coverage.
• 13:04
  Not lose the sale, but also to test the orders
• 13:06
  and see is your product actually doing well in these regions?
• 13:11
  Does it mean then, um, and this maybe speaks to your second
• 13:15
  point about, uh, brands building shipping costs and cost of goods.
• 13:20
  Does it, does it mean then that I am.
• 13:25
  I'm a British customer, I go onto a rogue fitness website or the equivalent, um,
• 13:31
  you know, uh, what's another website in the states that I use quite a bit.
• 13:34
  Woodpeckers, uh, which is a woodworking brand, right?
• 13:37
  So, um, I go onto the Woodpecker website.
• 13:39
  There are certain things that they will sell and there are certain
• 13:42
  things that they won't sell.
• 13:42
  I'm guessing it's due to freight.
• 13:44
  'cause one they can shit with FedEx and the other one they can't.
• 13:47
  Um.
• 13:49
  Does it mean that the costs though are gonna start to become quite prohibitive?
• 13:54
  Because, um, I'm thinking maybe with a hat of 15 years ago, Robert,
• 14:00
  where it was just like crazy money to ship from the states to the uk.
• 14:04
  Um, when I lived in the States, it was crazy money to ship from the US to the uk.
• 14:09
  I I, I dunno if things have got any better.
• 14:11
  Um, how do, how do you deal with the shipping costs of, of this activity?
• 14:19
  Now that part has gotten, uh, has gotten better, uh, granted.
• 14:23
  Uh.
• 14:25
  You know, assuming you're working with a, with an eCommerce, logistics
• 14:29
  comp, logistics company that specializes in eCommerce brands, right.
• 14:33
  Uh, so I think one key differentiation is, is to keep in mind is, you
• 14:39
  know, freight versus parcel.
• 14:41
  So parcel we're all used to, uh, we're all used to Amazon or UPS drivers showing
• 14:46
  up, you know, with small, that, that, that's very efficient, very mature.
• 14:53
  Service slash product.
• 14:55
  Uh, freight has always been a commercial product.
• 14:58
  It's always been businesses buying large items for, from
• 15:01
  businesses, right?
• 15:01
  So it's, it's, you know, most freight companies, uh, don't actually have even
• 15:08
  customer service personnel so that they're not geared towards dealing with consumers.
• 15:12
  So you, the service expectation, the service level is kind of.
• 15:17
  But it's definitely changing as we get into more and more, you know,
• 15:21
  uh, as, as, uh, species, I guess.
• 15:24
  Uh, we're getting more and more into, uh, buying stuff online,
• 15:27
  even larger stuff, right?
• 15:28
  Like, think of mattresses.
• 15:30
  It used to be bulky deliveries of these large
• 15:33
  pieces that were pretty buly requires tool and to deliver.
• 15:36
  Now.
• 15:36
  Most mattresses shipped, basically vacuum rolled up, right?
• 15:39
  And they
• 15:40
  right.
• 15:40
  Yep.
• 15:41
  So, so we've graduated to buying mattresses online.
• 15:44
  The design of the product is evolving to support digital, sort of purchasing
• 15:49
  and, and, and, uh, e-commerce deliveries and things like that.
• 15:52
  So as we're moving more and more into that space, even heavier stuff is becoming
• 15:57
  more and more common to buy online.
• 16:00
  Right?
• 16:02
  20, 30 years, you wouldn't really buy furniture online.
• 16:06
  Now
• 16:06
  No.
• 16:06
  Yeah, it's quite common.
• 16:08
  um, so we as an industry, like the logistics industry is definitely evolving,
• 16:15
  uh, with, uh, you know, e-commerce, uh, brands like Temu and cn and, you know, uh.
• 16:26
  Uh, the efficiency game, uh, when it comes to consolidations, you know, making
• 16:32
  basically, uh, building up containers, uh, or, or airline containers, let's just
• 16:38
  say, or ocean containers of consolidated e-commerce goods, which basically reduces
• 16:43
  the cost is you bringing the same kind efficiency that, uh, retailers use.
• 16:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:51
  For eCommerce brands.
• 16:52
  So think of, you know, instead of a container that has, let's say 10,000
• 16:56
  t-shirts, uh, going to say Walmart or Target, you have a container with
• 17:01
  10,000 t-shirts that are individually labeled to go to the final buyer.
• 17:07
  Right, So you, you are still consolidating the container.
• 17:10
  You're still making use of that space.
• 17:19
  Uh, you could also, uh, I think successfully argue that, uh, you
• 17:24
  know, shipping directly, again, I'm gonna jump back to bulky items here.
• 17:29
  Uh, shipping bulky items directly from the country of Origin to the consumer in the
• 17:34
  country where you're selling individually, uh, saves a lot of logistics cost compared
• 17:41
  to, uh, shipping to a distributor.
• 17:44
  Who then has to basically inventory this stuff,
• 17:48
  you know, add a margin, right?
• 17:50
  Cover their operations.
• 17:51
  There is, there is like a whole world of logistics cost there where, you
• 17:55
  know, shipping an individual item, you are basically bypassing all of that.
• 17:58
  You're cutting all of that out.
• 18:00
  Uh, so you've done efficiently, uh, it could potentially
• 18:04
  be a game changer, right?
• 18:05
  And think of all the de mini rules, which admittedly are, uh,
• 18:10
  under attack and getting cut in
• 18:11
  A little bit under flux.
• 18:12
  Yeah.
• 18:15
  But that, that's huge because then for a lot of products, you're also
• 18:19
  avoiding, uh, duties, So, so in the US it's, uh, it's been a game changer.
• 18:24
  Obviously, uh, you, you know, not, not a great one for the consumer,
• 18:29
  uh, but, uh, you know, under $800, basically you don't pay duty.
• 18:34
  Uh, which means, you know, traditionally if you bought, let's say, a. A chair
• 18:39
  that cost a thousand dollars, right?
• 18:41
  A lot of it is logistics cost.
• 18:43
  A lot of it is duties, warehousing and all of that.
• 18:46
  Uh, whereas if you ship it from the Origin under the minis rules, you only
• 18:50
  declare essentially the cost of the product and not any of the logistics.
• 18:54
  So that allows you to bring that declared value under $800.
• 18:57
  Therefore.
• 19:00
  That whole thing just
• 19:00
  makes it a lot more, uh, cheaper.
• 19:04
  It also throws out a lot of regulation and a lot of consumer safety style,
• 19:08
  so it's, it's not necessarily a great thing, but at least Costwise.
• 19:14
  Yeah, it makes it easier.
• 19:16
  Makes it easier.
• 19:17
  Listen, uh, this is great.
• 19:18
  If you are listening to the show and you're involved in eCommerce yourself.
• 19:22
  You're an eCommerce founder.
• 19:23
  Uh, why not check out E-commerce Cohort?
• 19:27
  Yes, e-commerce Cohort.
• 19:28
  These are, uh, monthly Cohort groups which are run totally free of charge.
• 19:33
  You can come meet other e-commerce entrepreneurs.
• 19:35
  There's one in the states, there's one in the uk.
• 19:37
  There's one in, uh, Australia, uh, which also services New Zealand.
• 19:41
  So, uh, if you'd like to know more about Cohort, hello to the
• 19:44
  website eCommerce Podcast net, it'd be great to see you in there.
• 19:48
  Um.
• 19:49
  Robert, you mentioned, uh, briefly there, and I, I want to circle back to it.
• 19:53
  How's the whole tariff thing, uh, at the moment with e-commerce?
• 19:59
  Um, especially, I mean, I know if I import steel into the US I'm screwed.
• 20:04
  If I try and sell cars to the us I'm screwed.
• 20:07
  Um, but I mean the, you know, how, how it feels a little
• 20:12
  bit wild westy at the moment.
• 20:14
  Um.
• 20:16
  Just because you never know what's gonna happen one day to the next,
• 20:18
  but how's that affecting shipping?
• 20:21
  So, um, maybe customers who are actually exporting to the US and
• 20:26
  maybe not the US shipping to Europe.
• 20:27
  If I'm in Europe and shipping to the us, how's it, how's it all looking out there?
• 20:33
  It is, uh, it is very volatile.
• 20:36
  Uh.
• 20:37
  Uh, I think Wild, wild West is, um, a comparison.
• 20:40
  Uh, I've made a couple of times.
• 20:42
  I've heard of it, I've heard a few times.
• 20:44
  Um, and then I, I think there's a good reason for it.
• 20:48
  Uh, the, look, the tariffs are not, it's not just about tariffs, right?
• 20:54
  The f first of all, nobody likes v like.
• 20:56
  Business doesn't like volatility.
• 20:57
  So, you know, having, uh, containers on the way or having shipments on
• 21:00
  the way that you already pre-planned and in a lot of cases pre-sold to be
• 21:04
  hit with tariffs, um, is, is uh, uh, quite, quite, uh, quite a disaster,
• 21:12
  right?
• 21:13
  If you are a, if you're a business.
• 21:15
  Uh, but there's, uh, a whole logistics challenge side of it because, uh.
• 21:20
  What ends up happening with, uh, you know, the current administration,
• 21:24
  they're, they're kind of, they're moving very fast and a lot of times
• 21:27
  seems making decisions on the go.
• 21:30
  Uh, you know, maybe based on, uh, negotiations they're having at the
• 21:34
  time with a particular country or, you know, whatever the case may be.
• 21:37
  But, uh, but it's very, it's moving very fast and, you know, the world
• 21:42
  of logistics, uh, is, you know.
• 21:45
  System wise, you can't move that fast.
• 21:48
  Right?
• 21:48
  So I'll give you an example.
• 21:50
  When they announced, uh, a 25% tarone, uh, steal, right?
• 21:55
  The, the new one, um, or I think aluminum
• 21:57
  or aluminum for, uh, our European
• 22:00
  Europeans.
• 22:00
  Yeah.
• 22:03
  uh, so when they announced that.
• 22:05
  You know, it went into, it supposedly went into effect.
• 22:09
  And the way, as a customs broker you handle that is there, there's a, you
• 22:13
  know, you have your HS code or HTS code for the product that you type into
• 22:17
  your system, and it calculates the duty amount that you're supposed to pay.
• 22:21
  There's another one that you type in there specifically for aluminum that would
• 22:24
  add another, you know, tariff on top.
• 22:27
  Problem is customs, you know.
• 22:30
  It takes a lot of software programming and a lot of system administration
• 22:33
  to actually make that work, and it took a good, I wanna say, seven to
• 22:38
  10 days for it to start working.
• 22:40
  Now, all of the shipments that were in transit and arrived
• 22:44
  and were pending clearance at that time, couldn't be cleared.
• 22:47
  Now, seven to 10 days, maybe not that big of a deal.
• 22:51
  I think of all the air freight shipments that are sitting at
• 22:54
  the airports, they cannot be
• 22:55
  cleared, cannot be picked up.
• 22:56
  You're talking about God knows how much money, storage
• 22:59
  charges and, you know, delays.
• 23:01
  You know, uh uh, like a thousand kilo shipments that arrived in
• 23:05
  United States and sits at an airport past 24 hours can easily accrue
• 23:11
  like $600 a day in storage charges
• 23:14
  and $6 if your freight sits there for.
• 23:22
  Literally the doesn't work.
• 23:24
  It hasn't been program yet, so, so there's a lot of this kind of things happening.
• 23:29
  They're happening all the time.
• 23:31
  Uh, we have a brand, uh, customer of ours that's, uh, you know, their product
• 23:36
  seemingly fits into the, uh, the aluminum tariff, but it's not actually on the list.
• 23:43
  So they don't know how to set the sale price.
• 23:44
  They don't know if this is a mistake, it's gonna get added later, or
• 23:48
  can you, you know, because you're talking about 25% on your cost.
• 23:51
  Obviously
• 23:54
  there's a lot of.
• 23:57
  Inconsistency.
• 23:58
  There's a lot of risk, there's a lot of unknowns that people
• 24:01
  are, uh, you know, battling
• 24:05
  Yeah.
• 24:05
  And I imagine it's not just into the states as well.
• 24:08
  I imagine it's the same for the US now.
• 24:10
  'cause a lot of countries have retaliated, right?
• 24:13
  They've gone well, if you are putting tariffs on me, we'll put tariffs on ours.
• 24:16
  And so you've got, you've got problems with it.
• 24:19
  Kind of reminds me, I suppose a little bit, Robert, of um.
• 24:23
  The pandemic, you know, with COVID and just, it just, nobody knew what was do.
• 24:28
  And of course in the UK we had Brexit and then that just went and screwed
• 24:32
  everything up worship and was concerned.
• 24:33
  And so it kind of feels like it's been a volatile thing for a few years.
• 24:39
  Uh, if I'm honest with you, the, the, the whole shipping thing.
• 24:43
  Correct.
• 24:43
  I think we got a little bit of a break between, uh, COVID and, uh,
• 24:48
  this trade war, um, um, explosion.
• 24:52
  Uh, but you're right.
• 24:54
  I mean, you know, honestly, um, you get a little desperate at times with,
• 24:58
  uh, you know, with all the problems.
• 25:01
  Uh, uh.
• 25:04
  But then, you know, I always look back and, you know, my, I've been in, I've
• 25:07
  been handling international logistics and customs for like 23 years, you
• 25:12
  know, so, uh, it's very rare that you have like a period of no disruptions,
• 25:17
  right?
• 25:17
  It's so, there's always something.
• 25:18
  It's, it's, you know, you have the,
• 25:21
  Well, you're dealing with governments, aren't you?
• 25:22
  So there's gonna be something.
• 25:24
  Well, governments, pirates, uh, I mean, natural disasters, right?
• 25:28
  You've
• 25:28
  got, uh, you know, uh, ever given, getting stuck in the Panama.
• 25:33
  I mean, uh, not Panama Canal.
• 25:34
  Uh, Swiss Canal, right?
• 25:36
  So it's, it's just, it's just not a, not a day goes by.
• 25:41
  something being a disruption in the role
• 25:43
  of logistics.
• 25:44
  Uh, and as for us, logistics logisticians, right?
• 25:47
  But really not a year goes by without something that becomes mainstream
• 25:51
  media kind of level disruption.
• 25:54
  So, uh, it's just, uh, I feel like it is what it is.
• 25:57
  It's just, uh, times are, uh, volatile and uh, you know, I don't think
• 26:01
  it's something that just happened,
• 26:03
  you know, it's been many, many years I think.
• 26:07
  You know, it's, it's, it's, uh, that's the paradigm, uh, we operate in.
• 26:11
  And I think, you know, so,
• 26:15
  Yeah, it
• 26:15
  you know, there's that saying like, life is really hard, but if you
• 26:18
  really accept that life is hard, it just no longer matters, right?
• 26:23
  So, so that's international trade.
• 26:26
  You know, like, uh, once you truly accept that this is just how international trade
• 26:32
  works, then you learn to, uh.
• 26:36
  So that actually, I mean, that ties in nicely with your first
• 26:38
  comment about how not expanding into international markets is a big mistake.
• 26:43
  I wonder if part of the reason for that is because people just, there's too
• 26:48
  much uncertainty in people's heads.
• 26:50
  Like, if I, if I ship this item that is big and bulky, will it get there?
• 26:57
  Will the customer claim that it's not arrived?
• 26:59
  Do you know what I mean?
• 27:01
  There's all these kind of questions that just get magnified.
• 27:03
  I think when you put an ocean between the two countries, don't they?
• 27:08
  Uh, correct.
• 27:10
  Now I look at it a little differently, right?
• 27:13
  Um, I, well, in fact, I look, I see it quite the op, quite the opposite
• 27:18
  sort of light because me, um.
• 27:22
  Especially in the context of, let's say Europe and United States, or UK and
• 27:27
  United States, that the trade between, uh, these countries, you know, a lot of
• 27:31
  the goods are actually not manufactured in neither of these countries, right?
• 27:34
  These are brands that manufacture typically in Asia,
• 27:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 27:37
  right?
• 27:38
  So, um.
• 27:39
  You know, when you're talking about international freight and, and,
• 27:44
  and international expansion, uh, now think of expanding and actually
• 27:48
  fulfilling from the source, right?
• 27:50
  Let's say, uh, you're a UK brand selling to us, uh, let's say Chinese made goods.
• 27:56
  Uh, now you bring them to CHI to UK and then you ship them to us.
• 28:00
  Uh, there's, you know, it's a longer, longer lifecycle for the product.
• 28:05
  There's a lot more things that can go wrong in between, you know, now.
• 28:09
  Imagine fulfilling that product from China.
• 28:14
  Maybe not the best example given the tension between us and China
• 28:17
  with the trade, but, but at least you, you know, you are removing all
• 28:20
  of these other things in between.
• 28:22
  You're removing the time it takes for this product to move around.
• 28:24
  You're removing a third country with its own, you know, sort of,
• 28:27
  uh, trade and political dynamics.
• 28:30
  So it, it's becoming a more straightforward, um, transaction.
• 28:35
  Now looking at it from a US brand perspective where, you
• 28:39
  know, we, Americans are not.
• 28:41
  You know, the most popular country right now, um, in, in the world, right?
• 28:45
  So if you're sell, if you're selling Asia made products to, let's say Canada
• 28:52
  or Australia, or you know, Europe, it would be like a whole different thing.
• 28:57
  Shipping your product stream from the factory to the consumer
• 29:00
  versus shipping it from your US inventory where it's subject now to retaliations and
• 29:04
  all this other stuff.
• 29:06
  Right?
• 29:06
  So it's actually, it could be an enabler and it could be a, a nice, uh,
• 29:11
  sort of hedge strategy, uh, basically allowing you a lot more flexibility
• 29:17
  than just selling in the United States or just selling in the uk.
• 29:22
  that's very true.
• 29:22
  I, I had not thought about that.
• 29:24
  So the, the idea that with the trade war, especially if you're not a popular
• 29:28
  country like the US at the moment.
• 29:30
  Um, then actually that, that makes a lot of sense.
• 29:33
  So you can send your goods to, to Canada still, but to send 'em straight from
• 29:37
  China as opposed to bringing them into the US first, where it's just gonna be
• 29:41
  problematic and then shipping 'em out the US to Canada is another set of problems.
• 29:45
  Whereas I imagine the trade between Canada and China's pretty reasonable.
• 29:49
  In fact, I think team, you have just started something in Canada
• 29:52
  from memory, so I think there's.
• 29:55
  I, I, I see that making a lot of sense actually.
• 29:58
  Um, and, and hopefully resolving at least some of the issues, uh, if, if not all
• 30:06
  of them, where do you, let's say, um, the company that I was mentioning to you with
• 30:11
  the four foot by three foot things, where, where's a good place to get started?
• 30:14
  So they're in, they're in good old Blighty, um, uh, good old uk,
• 30:18
  uh, Blighty as we like to call it.
• 30:20
  Uh, they.
• 30:23
  Manufactured, uh, the product's manufactured in China, and so let's
• 30:28
  say we go, actually, we feel like we could do a good job in the US market.
• 30:32
  We feel like we've, we're starting to get some traction there.
• 30:34
  How do I get started?
• 30:35
  Where do we start?
• 30:38
  I think, uh, you know, well, uh,
• 30:43
  I guess a good start is to understand, uh, uh, which you seem to have
• 30:48
  done already, how well you can do in the United States, right?
• 30:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:52
  Uh, I would start with, uh, uh.
• 30:55
  Very, you know, if you're talking about like the shipping and tax
• 30:58
  calculation, that's you, you know, for, for us, that's, that's very easy.
• 31:02
  That's what we do.
• 31:03
  Uh, we can probably, uh, uh, set that up within a week or so and you
• 31:08
  can actually start playing, right?
• 31:09
  If you're a brand, you can start playing around with, uh, you know,
• 31:12
  analytics and maybe put a little bit of a, a campaign behind it to see if
• 31:17
  you can get people to, uh, to purchase.
• 31:24
  If you don't need a new shopping cart, you don't need to enable anything.
• 31:26
  It's just you're basically enabling additional countries for
• 31:31
  additional products and you can, um, select which, uh, skews you
• 31:36
  want to enable internationally.
• 31:37
  So it's, it's, it's pretty dynamic.
• 31:39
  I think the, the first things you wanna look at is, uh, returns
• 31:44
  are still challenging, right?
• 31:45
  So you
• 31:45
  want understand, uh, how returns.
• 31:52
  Either not accept returns or maybe change your return policy a little bit.
• 31:57
  Uh, typically if you're shipping international and it goes through
• 32:00
  commercial customs clearance, you wanna have custom return policy for that market.
• 32:06
  So I would definitely look into the return policy.
• 32:08
  One of the most obvious things is, uh, that is, is your product.
• 32:13
  Uh, compliant in that country.
• 32:14
  And there's your product work in that country.
• 32:16
  I mean, we're talking about electronics.
• 32:18
  You wanna make sure you know it.
• 32:21
  Outlet,
• 32:22
  Yeah.
• 32:25
  uh, you know, these days most products.
• 32:28
  Do you just include an additional sort of, uh.
• 32:31
  An adapter of some sort, and you can start with including an adapter.
• 32:36
  And then once you see your market develops, basically, then you
• 32:39
  make a US specific product, right?
• 32:41
  With, uh, you know, whatever that may mean for that particular product.
• 32:46
  But those are some of the things I would look at is, is can I actually
• 32:49
  readily ship the stuff to the United States and would work there?
• 32:53
  And, you know, on a very general level, uh, is this product
• 32:57
  compliant with the US regulation?
• 32:59
  You know, can, will it run into some kind of government issues?
• 33:02
  You know, uh, we, we do have slightly different standards
• 33:06
  between US, Europe, and uk.
• 33:08
  Um, but, uh, you know.
• 33:12
  For most products, it's, it's not, it's not that big of a deal unless you're
• 33:15
  selling specialized things, right?
• 33:18
  So, so those are the things I would look at first, and then,
• 33:20
  you know, if you clear those hurdles, then actually talk to somebody who
• 33:24
  can, uh, enable, you know, instant shipping calculation and duty and tax,
• 33:30
  uh, handling.
• 33:33
  So the.
• 33:35
  This is an interesting one, isn't it?
• 33:36
  That you sort of, you've raised there that the, the, there are legislative
• 33:40
  differences between the us, Europe and the uk, um, and Australia as well.
• 33:46
  I'm gonna, you know, throw those guys in there as well
• 33:48
  down in the Southern Hemisphere.
• 33:50
  So there you do have these different regulations, which I know about this
• 33:53
  because shipping supplements to the UK is different to selling supplements in the uk
• 33:58
  they've got the FDA, they have different sets of rules, um, some of which are.
• 34:06
  More intense, some of which are a bit less, uh, like statistical.
• 34:09
  I, I suppose, um, my question here, Robert, is, is it legislatively, uh,
• 34:20
  is it a case of generally legislation is more intense in the US than
• 34:24
  it is in say, Europe and the uk?
• 34:26
  Or is it the other way around?
• 34:28
  I'm just kind of curious which one's easier to ship to?
• 34:33
  You know, uh, I feel like, uh, us, uh, is a little more intense than,
• 34:38
  uh, uk um, Europe and, and Europe.
• 34:44
  Um, I think regulation in U Europe and UK is largely sort of, uh, uh, on par,
• 34:51
  uh.
• 34:53
  But us, uh, in some respects is a little more intense.
• 34:57
  Uh, but it's also, uh, in, in, in all of those four, right, the
• 35:02
  Europe, uk, Australia, actually New Zealand, uh, us, it's, it's actually
• 35:07
  generally pretty easy compared to everywhere else in the world, right?
• 35:11
  Uh, so they're all sort of declaration based, right?
• 35:15
  So it's all what you declare kind of is taken as.
• 35:19
  The basis, uh, versus let's say middle Eastern countries or, you
• 35:23
  know, uh, Asia, where, you know, you have to have like a whole, um,
• 35:27
  sort of proof of everything, right?
• 35:29
  Uh, from the declared value has to be based on actual purchases versus like
• 35:35
  a declaration and things like that.
• 35:36
  So in some respects, they're all pretty easy.
• 35:40
  Um, in others.
• 35:42
  Um.
• 35:45
  You know, if you're shipping, uh, I guess again, it depends, uh, whether
• 35:48
  you're shipping supplements or you know, things that are under a certain
• 35:51
  value and under de minimis rules versus larger items, which typically tends
• 35:56
  to be more expensive and typically tends to be commercial clearance.
• 35:59
  You know, they tend to require commercial clearances.
• 36:02
  Uh, with commercial clearances, you have to comply with all the
• 36:05
  government requirements, right?
• 36:09
  Declarations, those processes.
• 36:12
  United States, uh.
• 36:14
  And, and to some extent in Europe as well, uh, if you fly under the minimums,
• 36:19
  you fly under radar essentially, because other government agencies don't actually
• 36:23
  check, uh, you know, if you were shipping like a parcel, it's considered
• 36:29
  a personal, you know, it's going to an individual, it's a personal parcel.
• 36:32
  FDA actually doesn't look at it.
• 36:34
  Mm-hmm.
• 36:36
  Which is, uh, good for the brand, but for the American consumer because, you know,
• 36:39
  you don't know what you're putting in your
• 36:40
  body,
• 36:41
  Yeah.
• 36:42
  Yeah.
• 36:42
  Yeah.
• 36:42
  But it kind of depends on, you know, are you under the minimus
• 36:46
  or above the minimus, right?
• 36:48
  That's, that's, uh, that's the biggest, uh, I guess, differentiator whether,
• 36:55
  um, compliance is an issue or not.
• 36:58
  Yeah, it's an interesting one.
• 36:59
  We, in the early days, we used to ship from Jersey in the Channel.
• 37:02
  Islands a small, for those of you and Dunno, Jersey is a small island
• 37:06
  off the north coast of France, which is kind of independently British.
• 37:09
  And um, we shipped from Jersey to the UK and to Europe, and there was no sales tax.
• 37:16
  If the product was like.
• 37:18
  Under 20, I can't remember what it was.
• 37:20
  Let's say it was 20 pounds.
• 37:21
  You know, if the value was under 20 pounds, you didn't have to pay the
• 37:23
  sales tax, which in the UK is 20%.
• 37:25
  So that's a lot of money, right?
• 37:27
  You're, you're saving instantly.
• 37:29
  And so what we used to do was actually, it was cheaper.
• 37:33
  I. I dunno if this works and when you multiply it out, Robert, maybe,
• 37:37
  maybe, but when it was cheaper, um, or it was cheaper to send out three
• 37:44
  parcels, but all under 20 pounds than one parcel with a value of 60 pounds
• 37:49
  because of the VAT savings versus the cost of shipping, if that makes sense.
• 37:55
  Yeah, definitely.
• 37:56
  And we, we've, you know, uh, a lot of brands do this kind of optimization.
• 38:01
  You even hear, um, which, uh, that, that, it was pretty shocking to, uh,
• 38:05
  discover that that's actually done is.
• 38:09
  You know, if you go to a retail chain, let's say, uh, Nordstrom's in United
• 38:14
  States, now I don't, I, if Nordstrom actually does this, but this, this
• 38:17
  is, you know, similar retailer.
• 38:20
  You could go and buy, let's say an expensive purse.
• 38:24
  And if it's, uh, uh, let's say it's, it's an 800 per, if you go, uh, to
• 38:31
  Norstrom and it's, it's in stock.
• 38:32
  It's in stock, and you get it off the shelf and you pay for it, you
• 38:35
  pay everything right due and taxes, everything's included in there, you
• 38:38
  know, the sales tax calculated on
• 38:39
  Mm-hmm.
• 38:40
  Uh, but if, if they, if they're out of stock and they ship it to you, right?
• 38:44
  You order it, you go in store and you're like, I like this person.
• 38:47
  Like, we don't have it, but we can order it for you, right?
• 38:51
  And they take your information and they ship it from their
• 38:54
  supplier overseas directly to you.
• 38:58
  Now that becomes a de minimis transaction because it's addressed to an individual.
• 39:02
  It's not addressed to Nordstrom.
• 39:03
  And you know, it bypasses duties, it bypasses, uh,
• 39:07
  even sales tax at that point.
• 39:10
  Well, maybe not sales tax, but it does bypass the duties because
• 39:13
  now it's shipped from overseas.
• 39:15
  It's an international de mini transaction to the consumer, uh, handled
• 39:19
  by a large brand that just bypass paying duties on the product, right?
• 39:24
  So these kind of optimizations, uh, you know, the more the very organized
• 39:29
  companies do this really well.
• 39:32
  Uh, and you know what's interesting in that example is that the
• 39:34
  consumer is none the wiser.
• 39:35
  The consumer doesn't actually get passed on the savings, right?
• 39:39
  Because they just paid the retail price that, uh, that was in the store.
• 39:44
  So,
• 39:45
  That's really interesting.
• 39:46
  Yeah.
• 39:46
  Yeah.
• 39:47
  I, I, I'm thinking actually, like with subscription e-commerce, that's, that's
• 39:51
  a really interesting strategy because you actually know what's getting shipped.
• 39:54
  I. When, so if you're shipping internationally and it's gonna
• 39:57
  take a little bit longer to try and take advantage of the, those
• 40:01
  kind of rules, then I suppose you can plan a bit more ahead of time.
• 40:07
  Right?
• 40:07
  So, um, 'cause there's, as I know in the UK there's such a large expectation
• 40:12
  on next day delivery because the in the country is so small, right?
• 40:16
  Why would you not get next day delivery?
• 40:19
  Of course, if I'm shipping from.
• 40:21
  Source.
• 40:22
  If I'm shipping from say China, then it's five to six days delivery.
• 40:26
  It's not.
• 40:26
  It's not next day.
• 40:28
  And so that, I think you either do that on a subscription model where you can plan
• 40:32
  ahead of time with the dates or you give, I suppose, the customer the option if you
• 40:38
  want it next day, it's this much money.
• 40:39
  If you want it in seven days, it could be a few, a few pence, less maybe.
• 40:43
  I don't know.
• 40:43
  It's an interesting problem.
• 40:45
  Absolutely.
• 40:46
  I think, uh, it's, it's a very interesting problem and I think all
• 40:49
  the, sort of, all the pieces and the foundation is there to explore it.
• 40:56
  Exploit.
• 40:57
  Maybe not the good for for it, but optimize it, right?
• 40:59
  Optimize for this stuff, because this is a huge, this is a strategy.
• 41:03
  Could, that, could be, that could have a huge impact.
• 41:05
  Now, you know, the example I always like, uh, to bring is, uh, you
• 41:11
  know, uh, especially after COVID, but even now, if you go on a, uh.
• 41:17
  Well, let's say a a a a brand website that sells, you know, furniture
• 41:22
  furnishings, uh, you know, let's say, and none, none come to mind.
• 41:26
  But, uh, you know, you, you select a couch, right?
• 41:29
  You like a couch.
• 41:30
  You select it and it'll give you three options.
• 41:32
  Actually.
• 41:32
  You'll say the colors that are available to ship immediately, colors that
• 41:35
  are available to ship in seven to 10 days, and then everything below this,
• 41:39
  50 colors you can choose is gonna take two months to get your product.
• 41:44
  Uh, and you know, it's obvious, right?
• 41:46
  The, the ones that are shipping immediately, they have them in stock.
• 41:49
  The ones that are shipping in seven to 10 days, it's inventory in transit.
• 41:52
  They know it's coming.
• 41:53
  It's not necessarily in stock, but they can trace it back
• 41:55
  to even to, um, the skew.
• 41:57
  That's, uh, an appeal that's in
• 41:59
  transit.
• 42:00
  And then everything else is essentially like, you, you, you click this
• 42:03
  color, we're actually gonna go manufacture this thing for you, right?
• 42:07
  Uh, and it's, you know.
• 42:10
  It makes so much sense that it's broken down into these three categories
• 42:14
  and these three shipping timeframes because, you know, not everybody is
• 42:18
  urgently wants this couch, uh, right.
• 42:21
  People would
• 42:22
  rather have the color they want.
• 42:23
  They don't care if it takes two months.
• 42:25
  Uh, so not especially when you get into bulky items and more expensive items.
• 42:30
  The, The, sort of instant gratification thing, it's a
• 42:33
  lot, uh, uh, less prevalent than
• 42:37
  Well, yeah, there's an expectation isn't there, that it's gonna take
• 42:39
  longer, uh, with a bigger, bulkier item just 'cause of the shipping.
• 42:43
  I've just gone and ordered a new ho and it's gonna take a week to get here.
• 42:47
  And you kind of, a week would be insane if it was a supplement.
• 42:50
  But because it's a ho coming from John Lewis, you kind of go, well, I, I okay it.
• 42:56
  It's big, it's bulky.
• 42:57
  We've gotta arrange that.
• 42:58
  Right.
• 42:59
  So, yeah, so, so with bulky, larger, expensive items, that's, I think,
• 43:03
  uh, the expectations are different with, uh, after COVID especially.
• 43:07
  I think people are used to it and, and you see more and more brands doing this
• 43:11
  with this, these different options, right?
• 43:13
  So I think it's become, uh, pretty common.
• 43:16
  Uh, people are used to it.
• 43:18
  It's not, you know, it doesn't look weird.
• 43:20
  It doesn't look out ordinary, it doesn't look to sort of diminish
• 43:24
  the brand's performance anymore.
• 43:26
  Um, so I think it's definitely a great strategy to do that, especially if
• 43:30
  you can optimize for, you know, cost.
• 43:33
  Right?
• 43:34
  It is a really great idea.
• 43:35
  I, I'm, I'm curious Robert.
• 43:38
  Uh, 'cause I don't know the answer.
• 43:40
  Now you've got my brain thinking.
• 43:41
  Now.
• 43:42
  It is dangerous.
• 43:43
  Uh, really, um, if I'm, let's say I'm shipping goods to the US and the current
• 43:50
  rate, the current level is $800, isn't it?
• 43:53
  I think the current de minimis level is 800 bucks.
• 43:58
  Now, is that $800 cost of goods or is that $800 invoice value
• 44:04
  value that the customer has paid?
• 44:07
  Uh.
• 44:08
  So, so it's invoice value, but uh, with a nice kick to it so you don't actually
• 44:13
  have to include the freight charges in it.
• 44:16
  Um,
• 44:17
  so invoice value less freight.
• 44:20
  yeah, so if you're charging, you know, if you're charging $790 plus,
• 44:24
  you're charging $200 to ship it.
• 44:26
  That's not a $990 transaction.
• 44:30
  It's a $790.
• 44:33
  full under the minimums
• 44:34
  Mm-hmm.
• 44:34
  you know, uh, is, is, is broken out.
• 44:38
  Uh, US and, uh, Europe and uk, um, are different in that US
• 44:43
  doesn't duty, uh, the freight.
• 44:48
  Uh, if I'm not mistaken, in UK you pay, uh, duty based on CIF value,
• 44:52
  which is basically cost of goods plus insurance, plus freight.
• 44:55
  In the US you take the insurance and freight out.
• 44:58
  So it's not considered cost of goods when customs looks at it.
• 45:03
  Yeah.
• 45:04
  So this is another thing that de minimis allows you to do is basically,
• 45:08
  uh, you know, you break out the freight, whereas if you sold local
• 45:12
  inventory, your landed cost already includes all of that stuff, right?
• 45:16
  So your sell price is much higher.
• 45:18
  Your sales tax is much higher.
• 45:20
  Your, your everything's much higher.
• 45:23
  That's really interesting.
• 45:25
  I'm gonna go and investigate, uh, and have a little think about that because
• 45:28
  that seems like an interesting idea.
• 45:30
  Like you said, I wouldn't be surprised if England charges more
• 45:33
  because we like to tax everything to stupid levels, uh, in England.
• 45:36
  It's just the way it works.
• 45:38
  Well, and I mean, at 20, 21%, that's, that's, uh, that's a huge
• 45:42
  problem for international trade because, you know, like international
• 45:46
  eCommerce, because you're se you're selling something that's $10,000.
• 45:49
  It shows up at customers country and then they get a call and they're like,
• 45:52
  oh, you have to pay thousand pounds in,
• 45:54
  yeah,
• 45:55
  in taxes.
• 45:56
  Right.
• 45:56
  That, that's, it could be quite the.
• 45:59
  Well, it is, and it's, I mean, it's not even on smaller items like I've
• 46:02
  ordered a pair of trainers, um, I didn't realize they were actually shipping from
• 46:06
  the us but they were, and I, I had to pay not only the import duty on those
• 46:12
  trainers, but I also had to pay UPS for handling the, Do you know what I mean?
• 46:17
  That they shipped it.
• 46:18
  UPS charged me 20 some bucks just to handle the money, and then somebody
• 46:22
  else charged me some money and it, and I paid the value of the trainers again.
• 46:26
  Which I ironically didn't fit, but I couldn't send back.
• 46:29
  And so it was just, it was, the whole thing was a nightmare.
• 46:33
  So, um,
• 46:36
  it's quite an extraordinary thing when you, when you, when you go through things
• 46:39
  like that, but I, it wouldn't surprise me.
• 46:40
  'cause, you know, welcome to Britain.
• 46:42
  Um, Robert, while I remember.
• 46:45
  Uh, I like to ask my guests for a question, a question for Matt.
• 46:48
  This is a question where, uh, I will go and answer it on social media.
• 46:54
  Uh, I don't answer on the podcast.
• 46:55
  This is my little tease.
• 46:56
  Ladies and gentlemen.
• 46:56
  If you don't follow me on LinkedIn, come follow me, uh, at Matt Edmundson,
• 47:00
  uh, and you'll find the answer to the question, which Robert is about to ask me.
• 47:03
  Robert, what's your question?
• 47:06
  Oh, that's, uh, that's interesting.
• 47:07
  Uh, lemme think I'm, I'm keep it conversation.
• 47:13
  Um, I'm curious what.
• 47:18
  What do you think is the most popular American item that Brits like to buy
• 47:26
  Oh,
• 47:28
  that's not, that's a really good question.
• 47:30
  How would I answer that?
• 47:32
  Uh, I'll answer that, uh, maybe slightly different ways.
• 47:34
  One, from my teenage daughter's point of view,
• 47:39
  there.
• 47:40
  Certain flavors of m and ms that are only available in the us, but no, I
• 47:43
  will, I will have a think about that.
• 47:44
  Um, uh, and uh, um, and I will answer that question if you'll know I'm gonna
• 47:49
  answer that question, come follow me, like I say on LinkedIn at my Edmundson.
• 47:53
  Speaking of contact details and how people reach you, Robert, how do people find you?
• 47:57
  How do they connect with you if they wanna do that?
• 48:00
  Um, real easy.
• 48:02
  Uh, freightright.com.
• 48:03
  F-R-E-I-G-H-T-R-I-G-H T.com.
• 48:07
  Everything's there.
• 48:08
  Uh, if you wanna contact me directly, click on teams.
• 48:11
  Uh, click on.
• 48:14
  File there and, you know, uh, send me a message or you can
• 48:17
  contact the company directly.
• 48:19
  Uh, there's a lot of stuff on the website about e-commerce, uh, solutions,
• 48:22
  international taxation solutions, and how to sell your vegan, bulky
• 48:26
  items internationally, uh, as well as your traditional logistics, uh,
• 48:31
  you know, for, uh, brands that, you know, import and export commercially.
• 48:36
  Uh, all of that information is there.
• 48:39
  Fantastic.
• 48:39
  We will of course link to Freight wright, uh, freightright.com in the show.
• 48:44
  Notes.
• 48:45
  Um, and so if you're listening to this on the podcast app, just scroll down and just
• 48:49
  click the link in the, if you wanna find out more, just go and click that link.
• 48:53
  Of course, you can also be able to in the YouTube description
• 48:55
  if you're watching online.
• 48:56
  Uh, and also of course, if you're subscribed to our Rot Wonderful
• 49:00
  newsletter, even if I do say so myself, uh, you'll find the
• 49:03
  information in that as well.
• 49:07
  Robert, thank you for joining me.
• 49:09
  Uh, I genuinely enjoyed this conversation.
• 49:11
  I feel like I've got a few strategies now, uh, which is always super helpful.
• 49:15
  Um, but before you go, before we sign out, we've started doing this.
• 49:19
  Save the best till last thing.
• 49:21
  Um, and so I'm curious you, according to my notes here, um, you started
• 49:27
  selling newspapers from the age of nine years old, um, in Armenia,
• 49:32
  and then you are now living in la.
• 49:34
  You started the logistics company in the middle of an economic crisis.
• 49:39
  'cause, you know, what else are you gonna do in the middle of an economic crisis?
• 49:42
  Um, what's your top tip for, um, entrepreneurs, whether e-commerce
• 49:49
  entrepreneurs or just people in business generally when things are genuinely
• 49:53
  unstable, um, and as they are probably quite rightly now in the world.
• 49:59
  Um, what's your, what's been your biggest tip as an entrepreneur?
• 50:04
  Yeah, I think, uh, you know, there's never probably a good time to start a business.
• 50:09
  Uh, you know, starting in the middle of a recession, in the middle of a
• 50:12
  crisis, in the middle of volatility seems, uh, very counterintuitive.
• 50:16
  Uh, I have discovered, uh, it's not, uh, I, I've discovered it makes a lot
• 50:22
  of sense, uh, because this is where.
• 50:25
  People are looking, this is when people are looking for solutions,
• 50:29
  right?
• 50:30
  Um, you know, people are dealing with a lot of issues with a lot of unknowns.
• 50:34
  Uh, and, you know, search volumes around specific things may be higher than usual.
• 50:41
  It actually is a great opportunity to start.
• 50:43
  Uh, when I was getting started in 2007, uh, I didn't understand this.
• 50:49
  Uh, I was doing it because I was forced to, uh, I couldn't find a job
• 50:53
  that paid enough to pay my bills, so I, I basically jumped into this
• 50:57
  entrepreneurship, uh, experiment a lot sooner than I had planned.
• 51:05
  Two, two customers of mine at the time, basically, uh, their, their, their advice.
• 51:11
  So simple was so simple, it kind of registered.
• 51:13
  And I, I always repeat, uh, those two.
• 51:15
  One was, uh, if you start in the middle of a recession, there
• 51:19
  is no where else to go but up.
• 51:21
  Right?
• 51:21
  It's not gonna get any worse.
• 51:23
  Uh,
• 51:23
  true.
• 51:24
  Yep.
• 51:24
  and then the other one was saying, Hey, we, we had a meeting, uh, with our board
• 51:29
  and we basically decided that we're gonna participate in the recession.
• 51:33
  Right.
• 51:34
  That's, that's the other one that, uh, that really stuck, which is,
• 51:37
  you know, just, they just, just.
• 51:40
  If you truly believe it, uh, you can play above it.
• 51:43
  You don't, you don't need to participate in the recession.
• 51:45
  It
• 51:45
  doesn't need to be your problem, especially if you're getting started,
• 51:48
  because that's the environment in which you're getting started.
• 51:51
  This is, you know, no surprises.
• 51:52
  It's, it's, it's pretty crappy.
• 51:54
  So, uh, you know, just, just, uh, make the best of it and bring real solutions
• 51:59
  to the problems and people will.
• 52:01
  Yeah, that's top advice.
• 52:03
  Top advice.
• 52:04
  I do like that because like you say, in the middle of all the, in the middle
• 52:08
  of a recession or when things are turbulent, um, people are uncertain.
• 52:13
  And when people are uncertain, you've got a tremendous amount
• 52:15
  of opportunity, I think.
• 52:18
  And I. Figuring out what that is, is, is a, is not always straightforward,
• 52:22
  but I think there is opportunity there and, and, and finding it
• 52:25
  is a, is a, is a great thing.
• 52:27
  Robert, listen man, loved having you on the show.
• 52:29
  Thank you so much for coming on.
• 52:31
  Uh, it's been a wonderful, wonderful conversation.
• 52:35
  Um, but yeah, and if, like I say, if you're new to the show,
• 52:37
  very warm, welcome to you.
• 52:38
  Make sure you like and subscribe and do all of that really funky stuff
• 52:41
  'cause I'll be back again next week with another fabulous conversation.
• 52:44
  But from Robert and from me.
• 52:47
  Thank you so much for joining us.
• 52:48
  Have a phenomenal week wherever you are in the world.
• 52:51
  I'll see you next time.
• 52:52
  Bye for now.