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How to Transition to a New 3PL Without Losing Momentum with Rachel Go · Selling on Giants: The eCommerce Marketplace Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Selling on Giants.
0:03
SPEAKER_01: In today's episode, we're tackling a critical topic for e-commerce brands as we head into Q1, how to transition to a new 3PL without losing momentum.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: Joining me is Rachel Goh, marketing director at MyFBA Prep, a leading e-commerce warehouse network trusted by top Amazon sellers and enterprise brands.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: Rachel's insights today will help you navigate the challenges of switching 3PLs, avoiding costly mistakes, and setting up your logistics for success in 2025.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: Whether you're scaling operations, optimizing your supply chain, or just thinking ahead for the new year, you won't want to miss this conversation.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: Let's dive in.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: Hey everyone, welcome back to Selling on Giants.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: In today's episode, I sat down with Rachel Goh, the marketing director at MyFBA Prep, a global e-commerce warehouse network handling over a billion dollars in GMV annually.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: Rachel brought some incredible insights into the world of logistics and 3PL transitions, something a lot of brands deal with, especially after the holiday rush.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: Before we dive into the full interview, I want to give you a quick rundown of the biggest takeaways from our conversation.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: These are the key things you should be thinking about if you're considering switching to a new 3PL or you just want to tighten up your logistics game.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: First, Q1 is prime time for switching 3PLs.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: The stress test of Q4 exposes weaknesses in your supply chain.
1:37
SPEAKER_01: Rachel explained why Q1 is the ideal time to evaluate your logistics partners, make a switch, and ensure your systems are ready to handle the rest of the year.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: Next, transparency and communications are non-negotiable.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: One of the most common frustrations Rachel hears about from brands is unclear invoicing and lack of communication.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: If you don't know exactly what you're being billed for or who to contact when things go wrong, that's a major red flag.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: A good 3PL makes pricing easy to understand and keeps you in the loop.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes even at the co-founder level, like my FBA Prep does.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: One of the biggest takeaways, redundancy is key.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: Rachel stressed the importance of creating redundancy in your supply chain.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: Whether that means using multiple 3PLs, mixing FBA and FBM, or running your own warehouse alongside a partner.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: If one channel goes down, the other can keep you running.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: Lastly, let's talk about messy prep.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: Rachel shared a fun story about MyFBA Prep's willingness to handle ugly prep, those chaotic shipments with mixed SKUs or last-minute bundles.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: Many 3PLs shy away from this kind of work, but MyFBA Prep, it's all part of the job.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: So if you're feeling the strain of your current logistics setup or just want to be better prepared for the year ahead, you won't want to miss this conversation.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: Without further ado, let's jump into the full interview with Rachel and learn more about logistics.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: Hey Rachel, welcome to the show.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for joining us on Selling on Giants.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to have you here.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: To kick it off, I'd love to get to know you a little bit better and your background in 3PL.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: So what inspired you to pursue a career in e-commerce and logistics?
3:34
SPEAKER_01: And kind of what was your path that led you to my FBA prep?
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, and thanks for having me on here.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited to chat about what a lot of people would call a boring subject, but I hope that through the course of this podcast, we kind of change that perception.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: So my career path started out in SaaS, actually.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: I was running a guest post program, and the founder of Skubana read one of my articles about how I was doing that, reached out and asked, Hey, can you do this for us?
4:04
SPEAKER_00: So I joined them to do that.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: And then during the course of that, it's a lot of partnerships and chatting with, you know, um other brands and companies to figure out where your alignment is, to agree on guest post topics and timelines and everything.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: And so someone who I had worked with at Symphony Commerce had asked, you know, we notice a lot of your content is out lately, like it's been a boom over the last couple of months.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us like how you're doing that?
4:29
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, sure.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And partnership sharing is caring.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: And I brought over my own process.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: So I basically showed him like this is kind of how many writers you need for this like scale and all of that.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: And then when that person went on to start deliver, he asked me to join them and basically do the same thing.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: So that was my trial by fire in e-commerce, I would say.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: From there, I joined pre-launch, and I think I was the only marketing, dedicated marketing person until I think after Series C.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: And so it was essentially rapid growth.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Any like we were investing in content partnerships, events, a lot of that good stuff.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: And then while I was doing partnerships, again, I was chatting with so many of our partners, like trying to help out where I can and getting their advice and what they're seeing.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: And so that's where I've met Tom over at my FBA Prep, who asked me to come and build their marketing team similar to what I had done in the past.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: And so now I'm there building their marketing function, kind of observing how the FBA prep process works, the nitty-gritty, the benefits of it, all of the like, you know, typically considered boring aspects of the behind the scenes part of the exciting brands and promos and influencer marketing and all of that.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: What makes it run?
5:44
SPEAKER_01: That's really neat.
5:45
SPEAKER_01: It sounds like you've worked with a lot of startups launching and building out something from the ground up in terms of the marketing and the outreach partnership.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: So it sounds like you're used to very fast-paced environments and you're able to be really nimble.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: What excites you most about the logistics space now that you've been working with Tom and the MyFBA prep team?
6:05
SPEAKER_00: Logistics is, again, as I've said, historically thought of as boring.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: I think if you had spoken, if you asked most brand owners, sellers, they would say they would rather not think about logistics at all.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: They would rather it just works and they don't have to think about it.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: So I really enjoy when you get that aha moment from them where you put it in such a way that they start to understand, hey, you know, this can actually be a revenue driver.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: It can help us be more competitive, it can help us do all of these cool things.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just a necessary evil.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: So it's like when you have a hobby and your friends, you know, it's a respectable hobby, they'll they don't like judge you for it or anything, but they're not really interested.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: And then you find the right metaphor or the right way to explain it, and your friends are like, Oh, yeah, that is cool.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: And you're just like holding yourself back from saying, like, come join me, you know.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's always really exciting when when sellers and readers and you know, the people we want to chat with and learn from start to realize logistics is actually a really good growth lever.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: Amen to that.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: And that's a definitely a necessary evil.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: And hopefully on this podcast, our listeners will get a few aha moments and realize how cool logistics can actually be.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: So, on that note, let's dive into the main topic, which is how to transition to a new 3PL without losing momentum.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: And I know I work with a lot of e-commerce brands, and uh especially when you get started, you'll work with one 3PL and you kind of learn the hard way of like what core customer service or what happens when a 3PL fails to deliver to customer expectations.
7:38
SPEAKER_01: So I'm really excited to dive into I'm excited, I'm an e-commerce nerd, so I'm excited to dive into this topic with you.
7:45
SPEAKER_01: So on that note, I want to start super high level.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: What is a 3PL and why might an e-commerce brand need one?
7:53
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: So starting super high level, 3PL stands for third-party logistics, and it essentially is a company that you outsource your logistics to.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of brands need it because when you want to start a business, when you want to start a brand or become a seller, you don't sign up to run a warehouse.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't sign up to hire warehouse staff to learn how to prep and package, to have a bunch of cardboard boxes that need to be built and taped in your kitchen table, like, you know, filling up your garage.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: So brands usually look for three PLs because they have more locations and services.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, they can scale up and down depending on how well you grow, quiet seasons, busy seasons.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: You can outsource to the experts.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: So if I went into an, you know, if I built an e-commerce brand now, I know how to market for one.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, for example, based on my customer data, like the history of my sales, which, for example, two or three nodes I should place my inventory in.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: And that's what a 3PL can help with.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: And you just free up your time and your brain space to grow your brand in ways that only you can do.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: So on that note, what's a good size for a business?
9:04
SPEAKER_01: So let's just say I'm running e-commerce out of my garage and I'm starting to see sales.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: Typically, what's on the small end, what size do you see brands coming to you and saying, hey, my garage is full of crap.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: My kids need to get this stuff out of here.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: My wife's gonna kill me.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we need a 3PL.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: So I'll answer this from two different angles.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: One of them is from the MyFB prep angle.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: So we actually work with larger sellers.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: We have a minimum of around 15,000 units per month.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: And so that is already a very respectable brand, right?
9:38
SPEAKER_00: So at with your at that point, you can definitely use the economies of scale that a 3PL can bring and you can you can benefit from it.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: You won't have a hard time kind of finding a good fit and benefit from outsourcing.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: However, someone a couple people actually have mentioned when your logistics starts to affect the relationships, your relationships of people around you, like whoever your roommates are, whoever you're living with, is starting to complain, they said that's always a good sign to start looking into getting someone who's more of an expert and has dedicated space for that to help out.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: Well said.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: And that makes sense.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: And just so our listeners know, uh, depending on the size of your brand, it it varies on if a 3P elbow service you had to your point.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: My FPA prep does at least 15,000 units.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: You have to shop around to figure out who who has the ability to handle smaller sellers, uh, and likely their footprint's going to be a lot smaller.
10:36
SPEAKER_01: They may, in your case, you guys have over 100 warehouses, right?
10:40
SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so they, you know, they require a larger uh client, whereas somebody who's maybe running it out of one warehouse uh will have a smaller threshold.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: So considerations for those of our sellers who are maybe just starting out and considering uh moving their operations from their home into a 3PL.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: But um, to dive deeper into the main topic, why do brands commonly consider switching 3PLs?
11:05
SPEAKER_01: And and why is why in Q1 is this kind of where a lot of those switches happen?
11:12
SPEAKER_00: So, what we've seen typically happen is Q4 is crunch time for e-commerce.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: It's when you make the most sales, and it's also where all the faults in your system become more apparent, right?
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Because you're stress testing them.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: So when it comes to Q1, you actually can look back through all of last year, not just Q4, and see what went well, what didn't.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: Did our current logistics setup, whether it's a 3PL or your own in-house warehouse, did they drop the ball anywhere?
11:38
SPEAKER_00: Were there a lot of mistakes and missed deadlines, um, lost SLAs, that kind of thing?
11:44
SPEAKER_00: And so you can evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your current setup and then pivot or layer on different options to kind of accommodate those.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: It is also a good time to try new things because you have time to pivot before summer sales.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: If you, for example, have two different three PLs that you want to go with and you're like, I think, I think this is the one, you try it, they don't work out.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: You still have a little bit of time to move over to your second option or find another another choice before the summer sales start, and then um you snowball into Q4 again.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be back before you know it, right?
12:19
SPEAKER_00: And then I would say the last bit is Q1 is typically a slower time.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, you want to focus more on, I would say, reverse logistics, unfortunately, than sales in Q1 historically.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: So it's a good time to basically try new things, um, obviously staying on top of your customer satisfaction and and returns and all of that.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: I guess uh similar to like getting in shape for the gym where everybody gets a Q1 membership, it's a good time to uh exercise and try some new things and uh why not experience a new 3PL to see if you can get better services.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: Before I dive into some deeper questions, what are typical KPIs?
12:57
SPEAKER_01: So you mentioned customer service, you mentioned a little bit about cost.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: So, like when you're when I'm evaluating a 3PL, like what KPIs do your brands hold you guys to?
13:08
SPEAKER_00: So when you're selecting a 3PL or when you're already working with one?
13:14
SPEAKER_01: Let's go with what when you're already working with one, because I'll have some follow-up questions on the selection process.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so when you're already working with a 3PL, you want to, well, first of all, follow your goods.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: So are in addition to are my orders being delivered on time, are they correct and are they in good condition?
13:33
SPEAKER_00: So have they been packaged well, have they been handled well and all of that?
13:37
SPEAKER_00: You want to feel comfortable that if something happens, you know who to reach out to.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: Your 3PL is going to take accountability.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, you have the phone number of your account manager, or in my FA Prep's case, a lot of our customers say that they have a direct line to one of our co-founders.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: So that's always nice to hear when I chat with our customers.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: And essentially you want to look at is this company, is this partner a true partner?
14:06
SPEAKER_00: They invested in your in your business.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: So my FBA Prep, for example, will actually invest in machinery, like dedicated machinery based on our customers' needs, right?
14:16
SPEAKER_00: So for us, you look at speed, how quick, um, quality, how well, and um, you know, your comfort.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: How much do you trust that partner to be a true partner and have your best interests in heart?
14:27
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: I like how you broke it down.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: So speed, uh, how fast are we gonna get it out of the drawer?
14:32
SPEAKER_01: Quality, are we making mistakes?
14:33
SPEAKER_01: Is the products getting damaged, or is everything good to go?
14:36
SPEAKER_01: And then faith, and that comes down to just good customer service.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: How are we gelling?
14:40
SPEAKER_01: If there is an issue, can I reach out?
14:42
SPEAKER_01: If customization is required, am I able to is my 3PL gonna be able to work with me to maybe do bundles or add in an index card that says, hey, if you love our services, be sure to check this out or leave us a review.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: I should add, I mean, I sometimes I forget to add this because I know every seller is already thinking about this, but also costs.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: They have to fit your budget.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, they have to bring the value that they that they charge essentially.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, money, I know everyone like will be like, hey, what about money?
15:10
SPEAKER_00: So let's throw that in there to make sure we cover our bases.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: Amen to that.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm on the marketing side.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: You probably relate to this.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: If we're not making our customers money, they're not sticking around no matter how much they like me or my team.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: So uh I can relate to that.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: So on that note, so let's say it's Q4, and I love to use supplement brands.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: We work with a lot of supplement brands here at Belavix.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: So let's just say uh I'm a supplement brand and I had a poor experience with my existing 3pl.
15:34
SPEAKER_01: What what do I look at as I start to transition to uh when I'm considering and I'm shopping around uh for another 3PL to look at?
15:42
SPEAKER_01: To your point earlier, like what do I consider if I if I'm gonna change 3PLs?
15:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: So just a quick question.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to skip around or I am probably skipping around as we go, so definitely Okay, all right, good.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: I will um ignore the the sequence then.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: So when you're looking, okay, I'll just hello editor.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna start now.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: So key considerations brand should prioritize when choosing a new 3PL.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: When you're looking at who you might want to go with if you want to make the switch, you want to look at expertise.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: And this is really important because at my FB Prep, for example, um, I'm gonna chat about some real life examples.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: We have seen brands who will say, I don't want to do FBA prep separately.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: I want to keep my number of contracts and number of contacts at a minimum minimum.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: So I want to have my manufacturer do FBA prep.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: Or I want to have my current 3PL, which is just a general 3PL, do FBA prep, which is a very specialized service that requires a lot of expertise and staying on top of the ever-changing kind of regulations of FBA.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: And they will come to us and say, like, hey, Amazon sent our stuff back, or they it's not compliant, or we got a shipment in and we had to remove it, or we had to basically trash it.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: And so you want to look at the expertise.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to try to force um a 3PL or manufacturer who's not familiar with FBA prep to do FBA prep.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: For example, you want to look at their services.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: So do they offer everything that you need and everything that you might need looking at your growth plan?
17:24
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to add more products, more types of products if you're a FB company, or you can add anything frozen or that needs to be temperature controlled?
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, clear costs.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: So one complaint that we get usually that causes people to switch to my FB prep is they look at our invoice, like a sample of our invoice, and they say, like, I understand everything.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: Like I know exactly what all the line items are, and it's really clear.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: Locations.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: So if you are selling on the East Coast, obviously you want an East Coast location.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: If a lot of your consumers are in California or spread around, you want like two nodes, for example.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Scalability, reliability, and customer service.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: So these are all things that are just gonna give you peace of mind.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: Like if I grow, they can help me.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not gonna say, hey, I have a huge shipment coming in.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, can you find space?
18:14
SPEAKER_00: And they're not gonna say, oh no, we're just one location and we're full.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, we're we would never do that.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, so you want a company that can scale alongside you with your goals that you can rely on and that you can trust to really have your back.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: And again, someone that you can, you know who you're going to, like the name of the person you're going to if anything goes wrong.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: Those are some really great points.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: And the highlight, I love the expertise and the services.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: Because to your point, shipping to Amazon FBA, more fulfillment services, like how it's packaged, how it's labeled, uh, makes a big difference.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: And we've had situations where uh we use an FNSQ and they have their own barcode, and they there'll be two barcodes on a bag, and then it throws the whole system off, and things either get sent back, which ends up costing you a lot of money in the long run.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh, the financial aspects, I can't tell you how many times where it's not clear on the costs that go into it and their invoice and there's confusion around it.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: Anybody else with you when you mess with people's money, it creates like bad blood, it seems ill-intense.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: So transparency into the finances and the charges is important.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: And scalability is huge.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we've worked with brands that have started off relatively small and they've scaled to high volume, and they've actually outgrown some of their three PL relationships and had to go back to the market.
19:35
SPEAKER_01: So, working with being the right size and understanding does this business have the ability to scale with my business is great.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: And it also points to like what a long-term partnership might look like.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: So you hit a lot of really good points and some of the language you're using.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: So you mentioned nodes, multiple points of entry.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: So if I'm, you know, shipping from Europe versus shipping from China.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, can you talk about the importance of you know tax compliance, the port locations, uh, capacity a little bit when evaluating some of these new partnerships?
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: So when I first started in logistics, I if you would ask me that question, I would say, you know, how much can a location really matter?
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: I would have been super wrong.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: I know now how important location is.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: And even just for speed of delivery and how affordable it is to deliver quickly, location matters.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: And one example I'll give is we have a customer who was saying they need to use their credit card for all their like manufacturing, their logistics and everything because they get cash back and they get a couple hundred thousand back just from that.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: So just take one percent, a one percent improvement for a company at scale, a hundred, a couple hundred thousand, you can start another company with that.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: So it really does make a difference.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: And I do so I believe wholesalers don't have to charge um sales tax if a retailer is not the end consumer.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: So, like, you know, places like sending items to like a no-sales tax state may not play such a huge role.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: But if you look at section 321, for example, sending a lot of your items to Mexico and fulfilling like sub$800 orders into like just for California, like looking at your metrics and saying, okay, we usually make$500 a day in sales for California.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to send all of the inventory we have allocated for there to our warehouse in Mexico and then fulfill it every day as the orders come in.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to pay customs and you know, say most of your most of your sales are in New York, and then some of your sales are in California.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: That's a really smart way to set it up.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Have one warehouse in the East Coast and then one warehouse in Mexico, and then every order from California gets there pretty quickly, and every everything in the middle can kind of be fulfilled by one of those two areas, depending on how much of that$800 threshold you have left, um, you know, location and speed, kind of that kind of tier.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: So every little bit counts, it counts for money, it counts for speed.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: I will say though, a caveat I this is not legal or financial advice.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: Section 321 might be changing.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: It could be different already by the time this comes out.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: So I would say just do your own research, chat with your, again, chat with your three PLs because they should be your advisors on this.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: They should have the expertise to kind of advise you on this.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: So chat with people who can provide that kind of financial legal customs advice.
22:24
SPEAKER_01: That's a really uh great example.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: And I like to hear like uh being aware of the different tax codes and implications.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: And to your point, you know, if you're saving a certain percentage on the orders, but you have the volume there, to your point, could be enough to start a whole other business.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: So uh it's a really smart way to think about um logistics to kind of how it plays into the bigger picture.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, because what I have found with logistics in general, it's about operational efficiency.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: So, how can we save money in order to improve our margins?
22:55
SPEAKER_01: Uh, which is different from like your advertising, where it's like return on your advertising spend.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: So very interesting.
23:03
SPEAKER_01: Um, so you definitely shared about the finances, how to vet this out.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: So I'm still that supplement company, and I decide, hey, uh, I think I'm ready to transition to a new 3PL.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: What does the transition process look like that it won't interrupt my existing business?
23:19
SPEAKER_01: Is there a phase out?
23:20
SPEAKER_01: Do you guys take it all over?
23:22
SPEAKER_01: Like uh in your experience, what does it look like to transition from one 3PL to a new one?
23:28
SPEAKER_00: So you want to start before you actually move any inventory, right?
23:32
SPEAKER_00: And I will say maybe not the most important thing, but the key starting point is you need to know what you need and what that's gonna look like with your new 3PL.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: So are you transitioning because you're unhappy with your old 3PL or you're growing, or because they're making mistakes, or like what's the reason, you know, and then figure out how that's going to be resolved with your new solution.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: There needs to be like you would be surprised how sometimes a customer will or a seller will just switch to a new 3PL and find that a lot of the same pain points are still there.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: And it's because they didn't really understand what they would their process would look like with a new 3PL.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, they were sold a lot of rainbows and butterflies and you know, not shown the kind of paperwork, the RFP, all of that.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: So you want to ask for a sample invoice.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, I always I think that's a good tip because you want to see if you can understand it.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of the veterans will be able to read it and say, like, oh, you know, this is like an extra fee, or like this is a little bit more than we can afford for our margins, that kind of thing, or they'll be able to say, oh, this is gonna scale a lot more for our situation.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: Um and then you want to run a test.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: So I usually recommend selling down if you're moderately happy with your old solution as well.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to sell down?
24:50
SPEAKER_01: So if I'm strategically transitioning and and I'm optimizing my current stock levels, is it like as one 3PL sells out, I'm just replenishing with the new, and then just kind of hit a switch when you're at point critical?
25:06
SPEAKER_00: Right.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: So again, if you're happy, if you're still kind of happy with your old 3PL, maybe they just can't handle Q4 volumes, but they were fine the rest of the year.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, run your test with your new 3PL.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: Make sure they can fulfill orders and then route all of your other orders, especially the orders for your slower selling items to your old 3PL because you want to sell down that inventory so that you don't have to pay to take everything out from your old 3PL and put it into your new 3PL.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: Right.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, if they've given you problems though, like if they are, and I've heard this too, if they're sending duplicates, so it's costing you money, if they're sending the wrong size or the wrong items, or in your case, like you know, a different supplement, um, then just you know, chat with the new 3PL, say like, hey, what can we do to get our items out of this area and into yours?
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, then then you don't sell down.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's a situational process.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: Your ticket value is going to depend on this too.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: So, like if you are selling things that are expensive or hard to get, that'll also affect whether or not you should sell down your inventory in your old 3PL as like a strategy to kind of save money and and create redundancy while you're switching over.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, think about all think about your unique case um and consider selling down.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: Typically, how long does the transition?
26:23
SPEAKER_01: So if I do the sell down process, because I don't hate my 3PL, I'm just looking to uh just have a better partnership.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: Like, is there a standard timeline that you guys typically would go, or is it does it just vary based on the category and the brands?
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Very, very, very general, generalized timeline.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: Couple months, two months, three months.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: If you sell furniture, then longer.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: If you sell, you know, best-selling supplements or like band-aids or pharmaceuticals, maybe um, it'll be a little bit quicker.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, depending on your sales volume, the season, and all of that good stuff.
27:02
SPEAKER_01: Beautiful.
27:03
SPEAKER_01: And then if it's a situation where you're just unsatisfied, you want to get it out as fast as possible, is it typically just how long it takes to get to your fulfillment centers?
27:12
SPEAKER_00: So again, create redundancy.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: I don't recommend, even if you're, you know, your warehouse is terrible and you're like really kind of annoyed and frustrated, don't just pull everything out right away because you still need to make sure you have a reliable way to fulfill orders, especially the orders that are coming in, especially in Amazon and marketplaces where if you sell out, it affects, it's like a tumble effect, you know, like um a domino effect.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: You sell out, your listings drop, the listings that you worked hard for, um, and you might lose the you might lose the buy box, etc.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: etc.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: You might get dinged in your account metrics.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: Um so make sure you create redundancy.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: But as soon as you have a reliable alternative other 3PL, maybe your own warehouse for like a slow volume, you say, like, hey, we don't sell that much during Q1 anyway, so we can fulfill it ourselves.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Then you go ahead and remove the items, get them into your new 3PL.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay, beautiful.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: And so this was super helpful on the transitions and like just rough timelines.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: So that's helpful.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh, to dive a little deeper, like what role does technology and real-time visibility play when transitioning to a new 3PL partner?
28:18
SPEAKER_00: It's just about staying informed.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, it saves you time and resources, like talking from the company side too.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: You really want to allow your customers to see exactly where their inventory is at all times.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: It's a huge stressor if they don't know where their inventory is, especially if they've trusted you with almost all of it.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, because that's that's they won't have a business without their products, right?
28:40
SPEAKER_00: In e-commerce, usually.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: And so you save your customer support team time, headache, um, stress.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: You save your your sellers, or I'm talking from the B2B side, you save your um like brands and sellers all the stress, the the uncertainty.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: If their customers come to them and say, like, hey, where's my stuff?
29:03
SPEAKER_00: You can go in and say, like, hey, it was shipped, that kind of thing.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: So it it's um it's different layers of good customer support, which creates the entire kind of purchasing process because there's so many parts of it.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: And then if there's any mistakes or anything looks wrong, you catch that early.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: So check your check all your inventory when you wake up, uh, when before you log off, have someone doing that alternatively, um, and just make sure everything looks as it should, and there are no red flags.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: The more you do it, the more you'll see like, hey, that's that's odd, that's unusual.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: That went out really early, that went out kind of later than I expected.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: This quantity is different.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's really good to have like real-time visibility into where your things are for your customers, for your business, for your revenue, um, just for your peace of mind as well.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty interesting.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: So, from like the B2B side, if I ship you in a case of 50 supplement bottles, like the first thing you guys would do would arrive to your warehouse, you check to make sure the quantity is there, then it's real-time updated to whatever systems, and then you kind of monitor it.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: And then as the sales come out, you guys don't do the end-to-end, I'd imagine.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: It would be, you know, sent a USPS, for example, and they would drop it on the customer's uh doorstep.
30:17
SPEAKER_01: But you guys are responsible for labeling it and getting it out the door, correct?
30:21
SPEAKER_00: So we do largely FBA prep, but we also do D2C.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: We do, you know, we can prep for Walmart as well.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: And so what that'll most likely look like because we do so much FBA prep is we'll receive.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: If you want us to check the quality, like if you know you say, Hey, I've been having problems with this manufacturer lately, can you just site like check that everything is as it should be?
30:42
SPEAKER_00: Then we'll do a quality check as well.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: We'll let you know if anything, like I've I've seen this too, we'll let you know if anything came soggy, like it's been wet, or a box was slashed open, like it's you know, been like scratched by a machinery or anything like that.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: So we'll do that.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we'll scan everything in, you'll see units, um, you'll see all the paperwork and everything.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: Then we get it into any like any FBA warehouse essentially in America.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: And what we've done in the past is we've actually been able to get an item received, prepped, and checked into FBA warehouses in, I think it was like one or two days.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: So it was really as really so I'm not gonna promise that for everyone because obviously if you send us like a hundred thousand like units, we we probably can't do that in in like 24 hours.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: But um, or like you know, I think I think we've actually we can actually do that scale.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: But if you send us like a million units, for example, that's obviously too much without us preparing.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, we we have done really, really fast turnover and we've done messy prep as well.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: So that's something we're really proud of.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: We will we will deal with the things that other three PLs kind of don't want to touch.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: We've received items that have been a lot of different SKUs in a box, and they're like, hey, we need like this and this pack together um as like a holiday pack or something like that.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: We've been able to do it.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: Um it was it was clearly messy, but it was done and it was quick.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: So that's pretty neat.
32:16
SPEAKER_01: So what uh can you define messy prep?
32:18
SPEAKER_01: Is it just like disorganization, just somebody sending you a box of randomness and being like, hey, sort this out and get it out the door pretty much?
32:25
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I want to send you this this clip um because we actually did our warehouse sent us clips, so we turned it into like a fun thing for our website.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: And I'll give you the link so you can add it to your um to your docs afterwards.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: But it is basically we call it ugly ugly prep.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: Ugly prep.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: I like messy better.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: Ugly's uh but I get what you're saying.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: And for all our listeners tuning in, anything shared, all these links are gonna be inside the show notes.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: So if you want to see what uh ugly slash messy prep looks like, uh be sure wherever you're tuning in to click on the links, uh it'll pop it'll populate to uh wherever this video lives, and you guys will be able to check it out.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: But again, Rachel.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: Um I well, I will send this to you because I'm not gonna go digging around our website right now.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, I would I would love to share the video with you.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: It really looks like they sent it to us with a lot of trust that it was gonna get done in like a day.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: That's cool.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: Well, it says a lot about your customer service and the experience.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: And um, I know not a lot of 3PLs will will do that, and uh, or it can get expensive for uh deviating outside of uh typical processes.
33:42
SPEAKER_01: So the fact that you guys are flexible says a lot about uh how you guys do business at my FBA prep.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: I would love to chat about that, by the way, because what I've seen with a lot of 3PLs is they'll try to fit their customers into a box, no pun intended.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: But it essentially means that in order to scale and make money, because they they work with maybe a lot of smaller sellers, they need everything to come in a certain way, um, be packaged and labeled and everything a certain way before they'll accept you.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: And my FA Prep is one of the few that doesn't do that.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to send us a lot of SKUs that have just been thrown into a box and you're like, figure it out, we'll actually take that.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: And not only that, we every every contract is like customized.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: So we'll work with you to say, like, hey, you know, next time we can do this.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: Or if you have more of this coming, we can get this, you know, piece of machinery that'll make it faster.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, every contract looks so different and varied because of the scale, the size of the customers that we work with, that it's a unique challenge and adventure every time.
34:51
SPEAKER_01: I like your optimism, unique challenge and adventure.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: So spoke of like a seasoned 3PL uh uh advisor.
34:59
SPEAKER_01: Um, beautiful.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: So on that note, what are so now I'm I'm committed, I'm working with the new 3PL.
35:06
SPEAKER_01: Uh, what are some red flags or warning signs that maybe this wasn't the best decision?
35:11
SPEAKER_01: Is there anything uh post-purchase you would recommend our sellers be on the lookout for to know if uh they may need the transition quickly uh out of one uh new 3PL to another?
35:24
SPEAKER_00: So I always say follow your gut, especially if you have worked with a couple of 3PLs already.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: You a lot of our customers, so I chat with our customers, I try to chat with at least one or two every month, and a lot of them will say it just clicked.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: When we started working with you, it just clicked.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: Like you know when you have a good partner because you can trust them.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: And so if you have like slow communications or unclear communications and they just leave you in the dark, that's a concern already, right?
35:50
SPEAKER_00: Because you don't want to run a business with so much anxiety.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: You already are thinking about so many other things, you don't want to be worried about your three PL2.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: If there's no contingency contingency plans, like if you can't, you say, if the truck drives off a cliff, I mean, knock on wood, if a truck drives off a cliff, we are just gonna lose all that inventory.
36:10
SPEAKER_00: We are not gonna be able to fulfill fulfill from any alternative warehouse or anything like that.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: If you're worried about things like that, then that's kind of a sign that maybe you didn't choose a 3PL that you can be confident in in the long run.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: If you have confusing, missing, weak onboarding, um, that's a red flag too.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: You should feel really prepared and well-informed going into this partnership.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, like I said before, trying to fit you into a box.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: They have really rigid processes.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: You can't really grow like that.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: So the bigger you get, the more kind of weird anomalies you're gonna see with every brand.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna see, you know, one brand that's like, for this product, the label needs to be like this.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: For this other product, it needs to be like, you know, like that.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, for for this item, it comes from the manufacturer.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: We've actually had this happen.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: For one item, it came from the manufacturer with a loose sleeve, like one of those decorative kind of wraparound things.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: And our warehouse is the one that caught it.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: We were saying, like, hey, you Amazon won't accept that because it can slide off and it needs to be attached.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: And so I was speaking to this customer.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: He was saying we really appreciated that instead of just shipping it off and making your money, you reached out to us and said, Do you want us to attach it with a tape, double-sided tape?
37:27
SPEAKER_00: Do you want us to print a branded sticker and put it on there?
37:31
SPEAKER_00: So being able to work with your kind of oddities instead of see it as an inconvenience, um, that's a really that's a strength.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: And so if that's not present, I would say that's a red flag because of the quality that I've of service that I've seen with my FB Prep.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
37:47
SPEAKER_01: And it sounds like like uh, as we've been having this conversation, there's a few uh qualities that stand out.
37:53
SPEAKER_01: It's it's good communications, it's flexibility in process, it's scalability, and that customer service seems like a big portion of it.
38:01
SPEAKER_01: So whether you're identifying potential issues before you send products out or they're sending you messy boxes and you're having to scramble to get it together and out the door, uh, the end user is it's most important because at the end of the day, with the sleeves, for example, that customer experience meant a lot to that brand.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: And true brands differentiate themselves by having good experiences, especially if you can't get them in the store.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, so I like what you guys are doing here.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: And on that note, let's talk a little bit about my FBA prep because I think we we can segue nicely into that.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: So, what does onboarding actually look like for new clients at MyFBA Prep?
38:38
SPEAKER_01: And how do you ensure a smooth transition between the current 3PL and working with you guys?
38:45
SPEAKER_00: So let's chat about our bread and butter, which is FBA Prep.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: What'll happen usually is we'll get your items, we check them in, we prep them according to like a process that we worked out together.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: So oftentimes our co-founder will kind of brainstorm with um a brand owner and say, like, hey, we can pack things like this, like you know, sample, take a picture.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: How does this look?
39:09
SPEAKER_00: This is the dunnage.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, this is the size of the box.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: Like finding a the right box size also saves you a lot of money.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, if you use a box that's too big, you're gonna get charged more essentially, and you have to use more dunnage and pay for that, obviously.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: So figuring that out, getting the item prepped, ready, and sent out, and then checked into FBA, any FBA.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: So we actually use economies of scale to create full truckloads, and that actually saves a lot of money because we can send items out at a good rate to whatever you know node that FBA requests.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: And so that saves on the inbound fees as well.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: I will say though, that every single customer contract looks different because our customers are kind of a larger scale, and so at that, at that stage, they all need something different.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, they all would benefit from brainstorming with our founder, which he often does.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: I know like a lot of the customers that I've spoken to personally, they'll say, Oh, I had a question about this.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: So I just like texted Tom or like I just called him up like because we were worried about this.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Great, good, keep doing that.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: But every again, every contract is brainstormed essentially with Tom as like a and or like one of our other co-founders with strategy in mind.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: And so I'll tell you that one story that really stood out to me is we had a customer who was getting his parts in to California, trucking them across to I think Michigan or something, and then selling to customers also in California.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, also on new in, you know, on the East Coast, but in California as well.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: So Tom was essentially like, why don't you just use our warehouse in California?
40:48
SPEAKER_00: We'll prep it for you.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, send whatever you want to Amazon and then fulfill whatever you need to customers in California.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: And so we were able to do that, save a lot of money on trucking, get items into FBA warehouses that were actually in California and Nearick without, you know, ping-ponging it around the United States.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: So that's just one example of how kind of unique every customer is and why you can't really expect and you shouldn't expect the same onboarding, vetting, like communication like steps for for every client.
41:24
SPEAKER_01: Sounds like you guys have a really boutique process, which is pretty awesome.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: And just so I understand, so if I my supplement company, if you guys will get the product and be like, hey, um, how you're shipping this wrong, you know, let's do it in this size box or you know, whatever else.
41:40
SPEAKER_01: And then um, you know, a lot of your orders are being fulfilled in California.
41:45
SPEAKER_01: So let's make sure that, you know, geographically we're we're we have a warehouse there so we can save you guys money.
41:52
SPEAKER_01: And do you guys do a lot of like, I guess how do you get that information?
41:56
SPEAKER_01: Is it um you look at historical sales or like what what does this process look like that allows you to have optimization?
42:04
SPEAKER_00: If you have historical sales, um, that's great.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: We can work off of that and figure out kind of what the best place to place your items are in.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, if you can show us, like, okay, Amazon wants us to send to these warehouses, that's another data point that we can use to figure out where your items should land and be prepped, for example.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, but if you don't have any of that, for example, we can if you have, I think it's like two or three warehouse nodes, you choose these two or three locations, you can get to almost anywhere in the United States, um, the you know, the central United States, um, within like one or two days.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're looking for speed, for example, that's what we can provide.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: If you're looking for cost, that's another question.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, we can get it to the closest node where your items land.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: So you save on trucking costs, we can get it to the closest node or like the center point of all of the places that you need to send to FBA for.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: Like, so there are a lot of different questions that you will get asked if you're trying to work with my FBA prep to help us figure out all of that um kind of money saving, time saving kind of optimization that we would suggest.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you can say, like, hey, I I live and work in uh New Jersey and I want to be able to walk and see my warehouse or my items like with my own eyeballs, then we'll be like, okay, well, use this then.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: You know, so you can say that too.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: But if you're open to kind of a more of a dialogue, then we can go through all of those questions.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: We can give our suggestions.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, we when we can say, like, here's what fits with our network, here's what we suggest, here's, you know, um maybe a brand that's doing the same thing who can give a referral.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: So by the way, I forgot to mention you should always ask for a referral, chat with a current customer of a 3PL that you're switching to.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty solid.
44:04
SPEAKER_01: And so with a global network, so you guys have 100 warehouses.
44:07
SPEAKER_01: How does MyFBA Prep ensure like seamless inventory management, uh visibility for its customers?
44:14
SPEAKER_01: I know technology is involved, but like um how do you guys put that all together?
44:19
SPEAKER_00: So MyFBA Prep has a tool called Preptopia.
44:23
SPEAKER_00: It integrates directly into your Amazon account.
44:26
SPEAKER_00: And I know that for select clients, or actually, I think by now it should be most clients.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: We can handle um on your behalf, like creating shipping plans, um, making sure everything connects.
44:41
SPEAKER_00: And it's like a really easy process for the customer.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: So ah, I have a quote that I that I I was just chatting with a customer um the other, I think this was last month, and they basically said they said something that stood out.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: I want to see if I can find it.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: I'll read it to you like verbatim.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: Um so they said it seems like you guys get orders out the door in just a couple of days all the time, and we don't have to worry about it.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: My lack of knowledge and concern around turnaround LCLAs is the most flattering thing I can offer.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know because I don't have to deal with it.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: So I was asking them like something about um timing of your orders, like turnaround, how quickly are we able to do this for you?
45:27
SPEAKER_00: And they just said, I don't know.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: You you do it and it's good.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to worry about it, and thank you.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I have I pulled I did pull a couple of quotes to share if you if you wanted to link to like case studies or anything like that.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: But in terms of I said, definitely.
45:48
SPEAKER_01: I think that's really great to have that.
45:50
SPEAKER_01: And also to your point, what we talked about earlier, where it's like having faith in your 3PL is that they're just gonna do it.
45:56
SPEAKER_01: It operates in the background and they're looking out for your best interest.
46:00
SPEAKER_01: Uh, like the example you shared with the the sleeves being sent in, and it would have definitely got rejected by Amazon uh and either sent back or it would have been a bad customer experience, as they may have lost all those sleeves.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, the the risky thing with sending an item or a batch in that's not compliant with Amazon is is not just like time and money, it's your listing health too.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: It's your kind of your brand health um and all that.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: So I really recommend whether or not you work with you know my FA prep or not, learn, learn the regulations, stay on top of them, um, follow them to a T.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: Don't take risks.
46:37
SPEAKER_00: Like it's not worth being lazy and saying, like, oh, that's probably okay, or like, you know, we're probably fine.
46:44
SPEAKER_00: And then later on, like having so much regret about that because you kind of knew that some you had a you already had a feeling that it would be a problem, and you just were hoping for the best.
46:53
SPEAKER_00: Like that is the worst feeling.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: And it costs you more than one way because to your point, not only the uh operational cost of moving inventory out, having it destroyed, sent back, like all the possible things that can go wrong, the best seller ranking on your listing gets depleted, not having inventory is a bad customer experience.
47:13
SPEAKER_01: It also messes with advertising and marketing strategies.
47:16
SPEAKER_01: So um it's really it can hurt a lot of aspects of the business, and it takes time to recover that.
47:23
SPEAKER_01: Um, Rachel, this is really helpful for all our listeners.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we'll have a few more links to some testimonials.
47:29
SPEAKER_01: If you guys are looking for 3 PLs and you guys have this scale where it makes sense to consider a company like my FBA prep, we'll have that all in the show notes.
47:38
SPEAKER_01: What not while you're driving, but uh while you're sitting at your computer on your mobile device, uh feel free to check those out.
47:44
SPEAKER_01: And Rachel's information is going to be inside there.
47:47
SPEAKER_01: You can reach out to her with any pointy questions, anything I might have missed in this interview.
47:52
SPEAKER_01: But Rachel, we have a tradition here, the future of e-commerce and technology.
47:56
SPEAKER_01: And I ask all my guests for them to make some type of prediction that we can expect in the near future.
48:01
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna ask you to pull out your crystal ball and make a prediction for us.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: So with the ongoing supply chain disruptions and increasing international opportunities, how should e-commerce brands prepare their logistics strategy to stay competitive in 2025 and beyond?
48:21
SPEAKER_00: Good question.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: I will give you the basics that will set you up for whatever happens because 2025 is an interesting year.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: We really don't know what's going to happen.
48:32
SPEAKER_00: Really, really don't know what's gonna happen.
48:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, but stay flexible, find true partners, and create redundancy.
48:39
SPEAKER_00: So redundancy means you have maybe a 3PL and your own in-house logistics, or you have a 3PL and FBA, which you can, you know, potentially also use for multi-channel fulfillment.
48:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, or you have FBA and your own in-house warehouse.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: So like you have a you want to create layers where if one layer fails, you have another one that can step in.
49:07
SPEAKER_00: And so this is the same thing with FBA and FBM listings, for example.
49:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, back when there were a lot of supply chain constraints, we uh we've seen people have success with if you have trouble getting items into FBA and your listing sells out, switching on an FBM listing instead and fulfilling from a 3PL or your own warehouse just to keep that momentum going.
49:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm not sure how it affects ads, like to your to your point, but create redundancy, make sure you're covered in all bases.
49:41
SPEAKER_00: I know it's not a term that businesses like because redundancy typically means cost.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, maybe a necessary cost, but I will tell you in 2025 and beyond, it's gonna be a necessary cost.
49:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I could see that.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: And who knows with the tax legislation, NAFTA, and all that stuff, like what's actually gonna change for a lot of our brands moving forward.
50:00
SPEAKER_01: But to your point, flexibility is gonna be key and the FBA, FBM things used.
50:04
SPEAKER_01: I remember doing that a lot in COVID, and it does really affect advertising for your notes.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you just put both products, FBA and FBM, inside your campaign.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: So it is a great way to have some of that redundancy without having the stress of your FBA listing goes and now you're not moving any more product.
50:21
SPEAKER_01: Um, really, really great and sage advice, and I gave you a tough one.
50:25
SPEAKER_01: But Rachel, thanks for being here.
50:27
SPEAKER_01: The insights today and your expertise were really fantastic.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: I hope our listeners took a lot away from this conversation.
50:34
SPEAKER_01: Uh, before I let you go, could you let our listeners know where they can find you and if you have anything else you want to share about yourself or my FBA prep?
50:42
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
50:43
SPEAKER_00: If you go to myfbapeprep.com and uh you go to slash newsletter, which I believe will and the team will link, you can subscribe to our newsletter.
50:52
SPEAKER_00: Please, please, please sign up.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: We share everything that comes out on our blog.
50:57
SPEAKER_00: We share notes from our founders, we share like alerts kind type things.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: So our founders have written, like, hey, you should know that this is happening on Amazon type of messages.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: And it's just a great way to stay in touch with everyone who is moderately interested in logistics to get them more interested in logistics.
51:15
SPEAKER_01: I like it.
51:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, if anybody else is nerding out and getting excited about this topic, I highly recommend following my FBA prep newsletter.
51:22
SPEAKER_01: We're actually subscribers at Bellavics.
51:24
SPEAKER_01: We use a lot of that information to keep our clients and brands informed.
51:28
SPEAKER_01: And of course, you can definitely find Rachel on LinkedIn.
51:31
SPEAKER_01: We'll have uh links in the show notes.
51:33
SPEAKER_01: Rachel, thank you so much for being here.
51:35
SPEAKER_01: We appreciate your time and expertise and have a wonderful rest of your day.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
51:42
SPEAKER_01: That wraps up today's episode of Selling on Giants.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: If you're considering switching your 3PL or looking for ways to streamline your logistics setup, Rachel's advice is invaluable for ensuring a smooth transition without losing momentum.
51:58
SPEAKER_01: To learn more about my FBA prep, check out the links in the show notes wherever you're tuning in, including their newsletter for even more actionable tips.
52:07
SPEAKER_01: If you found this episode helpful, don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe so you don't miss future insights.
52:15
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on Selling on Giants.