040: Deana Karim On The Art of Stock Management & Online Retail

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Welcome everybody to the Brand Fortress HQ podcast.

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I'm your host, jon Stojan.

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I've got my co-hosts, matt Atkins and Mike Kaufman, here today and we have another Brand Builder episode.

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If you're an Amazon seller or a D2C brand, you want to share your story on one of our Brand Builder episodes?

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You can apply at brandfortresshqcom backslash brand builder.

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Today our guest is Dina Karim, the founder of Good Deeds.

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D the founder of Good Deeds.

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Dina, welcome to the podcast.

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Thank you for having me, so I'm excited to talk to you.

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I've seen a little bit, you know, of the work that you've done, but I'm curious, just for folks that haven't heard your brand or you before, can you tell them a little bit about yourself and kind of how you got into e-commerce and how do you got into your brand specifically?

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Yeah for sure.

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So I had my first son in 2012.

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And about six or seven months after he was born, I just I was only 27.

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And I was like I just didn't feel healthy and I feel like I was too young to not feel that way and I went, I started cutting sugar out of my diet.

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I did very low carb, atkins, ish and then I delved in and found keto and I realized that I still miss having kind of like my treats.

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So I thought let me make it myself, because back then this was 2013, no one had anything.

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So I started doing research I'm a big researcher and I just made them myself and at 2014, my sister's like I would just make them for people.

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I was like what do you think?

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What do you think?

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And she made this very offhand comment.

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She goes these are so good, you should sell them.

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And the joke in my family is don't tell me anything because I'll already have it done by like yesterday.

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So I go okay.

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And she was like okay, I did some research and I realized doing ready to eat was going to well.

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I was I'm a perfectionist when it comes to this and I was agonizing should I use grass fed butter in the cookies or should I use coconut oil?

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And I was like you know what?

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I want them to make the decision and at that moment I said, let me do a mix.

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So I did a chocolate chip cookie mix as my as my first one.

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I couldn't find anyone who would be my co-packer because they wanted such large runs and I'm in New York so I can't actually do it in my apartment.

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I found one that was willing to do it, but I had to change the recipe to sunflower seed flour and it worked out because my son was two at the time and I was able to let the other moms try it because it was nut free, so I took it.

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Then I launched in 2015 of October.

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Two months later, I launched on Amazon, which at the time felt very scary because it's like you know, you think Amazon, this is like such a big thing and it kind of just took off from there.

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I reinvested in my company multiple times and every time I put the money back in I would just launch a new mix, and all the mixes are my formula.

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So it was very easy to kind of make new ones, because I was making them myself and I'd send it to my co-packer, who I've now been with for almost nine years.

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Okay, and what year did you say you launched on Amazon?

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December of 2015.

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Wow.

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So at that time, I mean, Amazon was not nearly as well known as it is today.

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What kind of inspired you to sell on Amazon in 2015?

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Because I used it so much I've always been, I mean as a precursor.

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It was very hard to even connect to the podcast because I can't connect my headphones to my computer, but I can be tech savvy at times.

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I used it all the time, and before that I was in digital marketing, so it felt like just something I wanted to try.

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It seemed overwhelming at first.

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I was like, let me try it.

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And I actually I launched in October.

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So I launched it there in December, which is when I found out I was pregnant with my second son and I was still working at my job.

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I was still doing digital marketing as a project manager and during this time I would just use the money I made to funnel into the company.

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I had no one giving me anything and at that time I was working on a brownie mix.

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And in May, a couple of months before my due date, they let me go a brownie mix.

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And in May, a couple months before my due date, they let me go.

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And so I was like, oh my god.

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So I was like, well, I have this brownie mix.

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Let me just put the last amount of like money I made put into this mix.

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I went in August 2nd to do my c-section August 3rd.

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I was in the hospital and my husband's like oh, here's your phone.

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And I looked and the brownie mix had hit number one for brownie mixes on Amazon.

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And I was like, ah, and he goes.

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You just had surgery.

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Like relax, like calm down, because the plan was, after I had my second, that I would try to find another marketing job just to fund good deeds until I could keep it going.

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But at that point he looked at me he goes, I will help you Because New York's expensive.

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He goes, I will help you, but let's give it a like this is your moment, give it everything you have.

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And then I never looked back from there.

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So that was August 2016.

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And it just it grew from there.

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So it was really very exciting.

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When you see like number one, like bestseller for Amazon, there's like no feeling like it.

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I have to be honest.

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No, that's amazing.

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Congratulations.

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Thank you.

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So I do have a question.

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You know, based on the notes that you said here and you kind of mentioned it a little bit there which was, you know, starting with, I think you mentioned like around $5,000, which you know, all three of us have.

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You know, either either have our own brands or have run our own brands before, especially when you're talking about e-commerce.

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$5,000 doesn't go a long ways, whether it's launch, and then even you know it's almost harder ones if you're successful in order to buy inventory and all that type of stuff.

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So I'm just curious, what sort of challenges did you face kind of in those early days as growing your business, when it came to the capital portion of it?

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You know I just bootstrapped a lot.

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I didn't pay myself in my companies.

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I started in 2015.

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I didn't pay myself for almost over two years I'd say two, two and a half years because I was just like, so focused on this, and I think that.

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But again, I'm lucky like I have to in the, in the sense that, no, I didn't get financing and no one was investing, but I had a supportive partner my husband, that you know and I had the two kids and all.

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Don't get me wrong, it was very hard having two kids in New York city, putting the I for about.

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For about two years, I was the one doing all the fulfillment as well, and it's sending the boxes to Amazon, which was, you know, apartment buildings do not like it when you have pallets coming in right now.

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They are not happy about it.

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I had some people in the building who were complaining and I was like, oh my God, but it was able that's what really.

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I was able to keep my costs down so low because fulfillment is so expensive.

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So what I would do is I would pack everything my son would like.

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He was a newborn, he was a baby, so I would like breastfeed him while I'm printing out the labels and he's asleep, and I would pack everything, I put it under the stroller, drop it off at the mail and then go pick up my four-year-old at the time, and I think that's really how I was able to do it.

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Not everyone has that luxury, but I also did have a cushion.

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I saved as much as I could when I was working because my digital marketing job was good.

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I was a contractor for them, so I had no like package or anything.

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It was like, okay, see you later, because everyone's like, oh, but you were pregnant, did you get?

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I was like, doesn't matter, when you're a contractor maybe you get paid really well per hour, but you get nothing if they let you go.

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So it was just kind of like what do I do with this?

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So it was hard, but I think the biggest thing, the biggest takeaway from it, was I was able to learn how to do everything and I realized what I was good at.

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So I kept those.

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And what I wasn't good at is what I learned eventually to outsource, because in the beginning you're very controlling.

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Because it's like it was my third kid.

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I was like no one knows how to do this like me, I think I didn't let anyone help me with my Instagram for almost five years and then my grandma passed away God rest her soul and I needed the person I had at the time had hired to help me a contractor and I very begrudgingly gave her the login.

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I was like, if anything doesn't look good.

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So I was like like this you know all this before iOS changes.

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I don't want to get into that, but yeah, so I went off on a tangent, but that's how I did it.

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That's great.

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Well, and I think the question Dina.

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So today I mean we all know this, as Amazon sellers, like in the current state, running into low inventory or stockouts is obviously a really huge deal.

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Back in the day, though, I started on Amazon in 2014.

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So I know that space and how it's changed since then till now, but back then it wasn't as huge, fortunately.

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I'm curious what your experience was in the category that you're in.

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How regularly did you experience stockouts because of you know, cash flow or whatever the reasons might have been, and how did you?

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How did that affect you in terms of, say, rankings and things like that, as compared to how it would affect you now?

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I'm just yeah, no, that's a good question.

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So back then, because I was just like it was such and I know you'll agree it's such a learning curve when you're doing this Because at first this is great, I'm making sales and you just don't know how to gauge.

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And again, buyers are also super fickle, so like I'll have amazing months and the next month I'm like, am I going to go out of business?

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Like I'm so confused, do you not like me anymore?

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It's like a lot.

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Back then it really was.

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I was just winging it as I was going on and whenever I had to buy.

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Sometimes I would then have to just take from my savings, because I initiated with the 5,000 and then I would sometimes just have to take from my savings just to keep it going.

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But I got lucky that because I didn't touch my money for any reason, I was able to just keep using the money that was coming in to buy the new stocks.

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Now the issue is back then when we would send inventory, it would get there fairly quickly and check in fairly quickly.

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Now it's taken sometimes up to six weeks and it can be literally in the same state and from where I'm shipping it from.

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So it makes me super anxious.

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So now and again I also launched a bakeware line to kind of complement the mixes and the sprinkles and the frosting and everything and that's added a whole new level of stockouts because I'm now shipping it from overseas and that's a whole new ballgame.

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And you have Amazon Global Logistics, which is its own kind of thing.

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So I'm still learning.

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It has hurt me because one of my products I have a brownie pan with dividers and it does very well and I love it, it's a great product.

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But it stocked out and then it finally came in.

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It was there, just it wasn't checked in.

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And when that happened the BSR went down.

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And not only that, because because with ads I was looking at it, I was like why are my a costs?

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Why is my a cost so high?

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I didn't even have stock for two, three weeks and you don't want to turn anything off, right, because then you're, it's just, it's a nightmare, so you pay for it and I think like I think that's the biggest thing that I'm learning and you're getting.

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I know we're all getting those emails now about you know you need to make sure you don't have low inventory levels like very, very stressful.

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Back then I remember the trick was just kind of closing a listing if you didn't have it.

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That's not really what's happening anymore, but that was a fun trick.

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For a while we enjoyed it.

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But right now it's just me now having to put in more money to make sure that I have so much stock just in case, especially for because I some of my items can be very seasonal.

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So it's just, it's like a sometimes.

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Here's the problem with Amazon you either have too much and then you pay storage and you don't want to do that, or you have too little and now you're going to get penalized.

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So it's it's.

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It's a very weird spot to be in right now.

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What I've done recently and I think this is what's helping is that I already have a separate warehouse for my inventory, because I also sell direct to consumer on my website.

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I think because I have that, I'm in a good spot that if I ever need to send something, I can send something.

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If I need to send anything back, then we're good.

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But if I'm ordering things from overseas, I don't have that.

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So it's now learning it all over again.

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But it's a nightmare.

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I'm not gonna lie to you.

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I really hate it.

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Well, I'm curious because I feel like you have an extra dimension there.

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One of the brands I used to have was in the CPG category, and when you're talking about, you know, food and beverage products, you also have an expiration date on it that you don't have with other products, and so I know.

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The challenge that we ran into and I'm curious if you have the same issue is that it seems that Amazon has not discovered first in, first out, or at least how to execute.

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I know, I know that was a huge frustration.

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I.

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I hate it.

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I've what I was able to do because this was a problem and you lose money Like I'm losing all the money you could have sold it.

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It was there.

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I would get messages like you have expired inventory.

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I was like that's impossible.

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I was low inventory.

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I sent new inventory.

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Why didn't you use it?

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What I did is I went and I lengthened my shelf life, so meaning that I went and you can do testing and like food testing and stuff, to be able to lengthen it.

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And that's what helped me, because before that my shelf life was only a year and it was very, very like so stressful.

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Now we're at 18 months and it gives me that cushion Especially.

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And then I've learned with my slower sellers where they sell, but not as much as like my top five.

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I really do let them get kind of low and I don't send anything new until I'm like I really have to and I'm usually sending it from my warehouse, so I know what the shelf life is.

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And then I try not to send newly made items, meaning like ones with different expiration dates, because I think that's where the problem was happening, like I would have two, three hundred units left and then I'm sending another five thousand and then they're.

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Just then they forgot about those three hundred.

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I'm like they still count, they're still good, and then later it's like we're gonna have to remove these.

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They're destroyed, they're this, they're that.

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I'm oh my God, just take it, I don't even care at this point, but lengthening my shelf life.

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It is very nice, though, having now the kind of baker items, pans and stuff where I don't have to worry about that.

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That's been nice.

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Can I dig in Dina?

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So I don't sell food items, and certainly not consumable food items.

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So this is a new.

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It's a new area for me, For other sellers who are in that category, listening to the podcast.

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What is that process?

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What does that process look like?

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To get that extended?

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In case they don't know that it's even possible or maybe don't know how to do it, I could see how it would be very useful.

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What was that process like?

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Oh, so there's like there are food labs and you can send them and you send them all the ingredients that are used.

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You'd have to work with your co-packer, I guess, because I the items that I sell, they're not white labeled, like they're my intellectual property, they're my formulas.

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So I work very closely with my co-packer.

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So it's a little bit different in that sense.

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But if someone was working with maybe like a white label food company and they're putting their name on it, they always those what those companies have.

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They reached out to me before because I was so curious about it.

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I didn't use it because I thought my mixes were better, my formulas were better.

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But you know I digress, they have internal labs in those and they will do it for a cost, but they will do it and so it's basically just called shelf life extension and it's almost like an experiment and then they can tell you and then what they do is they'll go based on the ingredients.

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So some ingredients obviously will become rancid faster and you have to be careful, like some, like a couple of my mixes, have coconut flour, which is fine, but when I was shipping to like the caribbean, the bags would inflate with the coconut because of the humidity.

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So it's just I implore people who have food items, if they didn't make them themselves, like they didn't actually create it and know because I know how every ingredient works, I implore them to actually research how it does, because it will save you a lot of money in the long run, because I've I've seen people especially competitors that I know are some of them have like very, very closely copied me and then they'll have issues.

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Maybe something leaks, maybe this that you have to know what you're trying, because there's just like every ingredient is so different.

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If you just trust.

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It's kind of like what I said in the beginning when I first started you want to know how to do everything.

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You don't have to do it well, just know how to do everything so that you know which questions to ask.

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I think that's the biggest thing.

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So it sounds like oh, I'm sorry, you know, one of the things that you mentioned was outsourcing.

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We've talked about a lot of that.

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We actually had a full episode on what it was like to start outsourcing.

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The other thing that I saw was the difficulty that you had in outsourcing, and that was part of the discussion that we've had.

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We all had a hard time letting go of certain things in our business.

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What kind of walk me through.

00:16:46.336 --> 00:16:48.268
What were the first things that you just decided to outsource in your business and did that change, kind of, over time?

00:16:48.268 --> 00:16:49.905
You realize that maybe you outsource something that you didn't want to outsource, that you do internally.

00:16:49.905 --> 00:16:51.650
Now what is what did outsourcing look like for you?

00:16:51.679 --> 00:17:00.246
Yeah, in the beginning it was customer service because I was just I, just you know, I mean I love my customers and I became friends with so much like so many of them.

00:17:00.246 --> 00:17:01.288
I keep in touch.

00:17:01.288 --> 00:17:04.509
Some of them send me like holiday cards, I mean, like it's really nice.

00:17:04.509 --> 00:17:06.392
So I'm very close to my community.

00:17:06.392 --> 00:17:15.903
But I needed to give that one away because it was just that's when things started to pick up and I had two kids under four and I was just like I can't, I did that I.

00:17:16.335 --> 00:17:20.426
And then I outsourced, eventually, fulfillment to like actually having a fulfillment center.

00:17:20.426 --> 00:17:26.675
And that was the biggest blessing and curse, because from then I had to figure out.

00:17:26.675 --> 00:17:29.682
I'm now on my like sixth fulfillment center.

00:17:29.682 --> 00:17:34.219
It's just it's a and you know right, like they give you something.

00:17:34.219 --> 00:17:37.644
And then you get there and they're like well, there's this fee and this fee and this fee and this fee.

00:17:37.644 --> 00:17:47.465
And then you know you, you try to work around it, like there's the time we're putting on the asin labels for amazon, the amazon is only charging 30 cents and I was like, okay, so what's more?

00:17:47.465 --> 00:17:49.114
Like I would just do kind of a cost.

00:17:49.114 --> 00:17:50.876
Like okay, should I just let the warehouse do it?

00:17:50.876 --> 00:17:53.200
Should I send it from the co-packer.

00:17:53.200 --> 00:17:54.041
Let me figure this out.

00:17:54.041 --> 00:18:06.895
Then they increased it to it was, I think, january of 2023, to 55 cents an item, and I was like that's a huge chunk when I'm selling something for $14 and you're taking 55 cents and it hasn't even landed yet.

00:18:06.895 --> 00:18:08.359
And so I was like no, no, no.

00:18:08.359 --> 00:18:17.145
So I need to move, and I think the biggest advice for fulfillment centers is finding someone who does know how to do Amazon and making sure they're not actually charging you more than Amazon would charge you.

00:18:17.145 --> 00:18:20.157
That's I just feel like people don't look at the fees.

00:18:20.157 --> 00:18:21.161
They're just trying to send stuff.

00:18:21.161 --> 00:18:22.285
I'm like, please look at the fees.

00:18:22.285 --> 00:18:23.596
It adds up so fast.

00:18:23.596 --> 00:18:25.720
So I outsourced that and it was.

00:18:25.720 --> 00:18:26.180
It was good.

00:18:26.180 --> 00:18:29.325
I mean that one yeah, you have to, but it took a long time to find it.

00:18:29.325 --> 00:18:42.887
I have a good place now who's very familiar with Amazon, which is great and with Walmart, because I have started selling on Walmart fulfillment services, which is almost identical FBA.

00:18:42.887 --> 00:18:44.479
They don't have such a great built-out system.

00:18:44.479 --> 00:18:45.865
So I outsourced that.

00:18:45.945 --> 00:18:50.843
I outsourced social media when things were getting really big, and I think that's the one I would regret.

00:18:50.843 --> 00:18:58.505
It was overpriced for what it was, to be honest, and I was doing it myself and I was editing and I was like correcting and they would send me what they're going to post.

00:18:58.505 --> 00:18:59.817
I'm like I just should do it myself.

00:18:59.817 --> 00:19:06.857
I think I was anyway and I think that's one thing I would take back and I did, but that's one thing that I thought was not worth it at all.

00:19:06.857 --> 00:19:07.538
To be honest.

00:19:07.538 --> 00:19:19.875
I think maybe for some people, but I was also so part of my community, so maybe it's a little bit different, maybe for maybe someone who's not in it as much, but I I wanted to respond to my customers on social media because they became my friends.

00:19:19.875 --> 00:19:21.239
So that's one thing I would.

00:19:21.881 --> 00:19:24.106
I would not put that at the top of the list.

00:19:24.106 --> 00:19:29.965
I would have something to spend when you're outsourcing book bookkeeper.

00:19:29.965 --> 00:19:35.365
That was the best thing, number one, anything to do with finances oh my God, anything to do.

00:19:35.365 --> 00:19:35.935
And I don't.

00:19:35.935 --> 00:19:38.765
I think in the beginning it's fine when you have programs and you can put it in.

00:19:38.765 --> 00:19:47.494
But finding a proper bookkeeper and I'm like, wait a second, they're taking how much for Amazon advertising Cause you don't think you get your payment and you're like I guess that sounds right.

00:19:47.494 --> 00:19:49.778
Being able to see the breakdown has been huge.

00:19:50.278 --> 00:19:53.122
So how large is your internal team?

00:19:53.122 --> 00:20:03.059
Let's say actual employees or freelancers who are working for you in a, you know say, more than 20 hours a week, like how large is your team?

00:20:03.555 --> 00:20:08.664
So for that, at one point it was bigger, now it's smaller because, again, you figure out what's important or not.

00:20:08.664 --> 00:20:16.836
So right now I would I have a contractor, slash freelancers, four or five and not working a ton, but it's enough, like I think.

00:20:16.836 --> 00:20:28.295
I think when you first start out and then you're growing, you're like I'm going to get someone to do this, cause you see those, you see those things on like Instagram and whatever, and they're like work a couple hours, look just have, outsource everything.

00:20:28.295 --> 00:20:30.358
And then I'm just like, no, that's my business.

00:20:30.358 --> 00:20:35.836
Like no, but you get you, you get you do, get caught up and you're like, oh, I can afford this now, so let me do it.

00:20:35.836 --> 00:20:38.241
And then you're like never mind, because you don't realize.

00:20:38.261 --> 00:20:42.761
With Amazon at least for me, you know I have my really, really great months.

00:20:42.761 --> 00:20:44.976
And then I have months where I'm just like why are you here?

00:20:44.976 --> 00:20:46.538
You have nothing to do for me.

00:20:46.538 --> 00:21:06.786
So I did have someone who was great and she worked for me for five years and they just came to the point where Amazon is up and down and with the, you know, all the time the news is like the recession's coming, recession's coming, and they've been saying that since 2020 and then after the iOS changes in 2021, with Facebook.

00:21:06.967 --> 00:21:31.201
It just came to the point where we had to part ways last year and that was like very sad for me, but she was, she was amazing and that was someone who's like a huge help me, but yeah, so like four to five, and then obviously freelancing for graphic design, for images now, and I think you know one thing is it's good to finally let go and let you know, outsource and get that help, but then you also need to know when you don't need it, and I think you realize that quickly when the cash is going fast, you're like wait a second, I can do that myself.

00:21:31.201 --> 00:21:32.988
So, yeah, you're like, wait a second, I can do that myself.

00:21:36.180 --> 00:21:40.407
So, yeah, yeah, switching gears a little bit, what would be your advice?

00:21:40.407 --> 00:21:53.018
So we have a lot of listeners, you know, very Amazon focused, but obviously, which Amazon is can be really great, but I think at this point where you know, when we talk about building a brand, you have to have things besides Amazon.

00:21:53.018 --> 00:21:57.182
So, yes, one of the things I noticed that you had is expanding out to some brick.

00:21:57.182 --> 00:21:58.744
You know working with some small brick and mortar.

00:21:58.744 --> 00:22:03.790
Can you share a little bit of your experience with that with listeners and what that looks like?

00:22:03.790 --> 00:22:05.556
Yes, what?

00:22:05.576 --> 00:22:06.038
that looks like for you.

00:22:06.038 --> 00:22:07.347
Yes, I've been lucky for the smaller stores.

00:22:07.347 --> 00:22:12.844
They've reached out to me because they saw me on Amazon, to be honest, or their customers had asked for it.

00:22:12.844 --> 00:22:26.249
The problem, the only thing I would highly strongly I don't want to say discourage, I would strongly encourage people to research before they do it is signing up with a distribution, with a distributor.

00:22:26.249 --> 00:22:28.476
I signed up with a distributor in 2020.

00:22:28.516 --> 00:22:31.942
And I thought like I made it, that's it.

00:22:31.942 --> 00:22:35.565
It almost ruined my business and I think that's when my ego came into check.

00:22:35.565 --> 00:22:36.472
I was like, oh my god, I almost ruined my business and I think that's when my ego came into check.

00:22:36.472 --> 00:22:38.080
I was like, oh my God, I lost so much money.

00:22:38.080 --> 00:22:40.102
It didn't sell like I thought it was.

00:22:40.102 --> 00:22:43.885
And just because you sell really well online does not mean you're going to sell well on the shelves.

00:22:43.885 --> 00:22:47.345
And it was a huge, huge humbling moment for me.

00:22:59.454 --> 00:23:01.268
And I think, once you put your ego aside because you know when people ask you like, oh, you're're on amazon, but are you in whole foods yet?

00:23:01.268 --> 00:23:01.974
Are you in central market yet?

00:23:01.974 --> 00:23:04.230
And before I said no, but I want to, and now I've seen like competitors that were in those stores and they're not there anymore.

00:23:04.230 --> 00:23:04.413
You know why?

00:23:04.413 --> 00:23:05.232
Because you don't make money.

00:23:05.232 --> 00:23:16.909
So I think that was probably the biggest lesson that I've learned is like don't be so focused on what looks like being successful, because I've talked to people who are in those stores and my sales are more than theirs and I'm like, so who cares?

00:23:16.909 --> 00:23:27.943
Like I think once you just don't think about what looks like you're successful and you just do what is working for you, that was the smartest thing Just working on the bottom line and focusing on that.

00:23:27.943 --> 00:23:35.527
I think also having backups, like health sites, if like for food for me, like being on other websites, has been helpful for me.

00:23:35.527 --> 00:23:40.788
Being target plus is a new one and that's been like a slow start but pretty cool.

00:23:41.190 --> 00:23:43.402
And then walmart that was one that surprised me.

00:23:43.402 --> 00:23:44.145
I was like, should I do it?

00:23:44.145 --> 00:23:44.809
Should I not do it?

00:23:44.809 --> 00:23:46.056
But they really are coming in.

00:23:46.056 --> 00:23:59.048
I mean, they don't have a sophisticated system in the back end like amazon does, but you know they're getting there and I you know it's not like I'm making even like 5% maybe of what I make on Amazon, maybe 10.

00:23:59.048 --> 00:24:04.463
So maybe I make like 10% when I make on Amazon, but that's still 10%, and so I think that's really cool.

00:24:04.463 --> 00:24:13.102
I think once they finally build out their ad center and they build out everything a little bit better which hopefully they will soon it's very, very basic right now.

00:24:13.102 --> 00:24:25.894
That's something that I think a lot of sellers it's very similar to FBA Just send it in you already have, if you have the stock and but just know that it's not going to sell at the same speed, obviously, as Amazon.

00:24:31.674 --> 00:24:34.209
So, on Walmart, the, so you said you're, you said you're selling maybe 10% of what you're selling on Amazon.

00:24:34.209 --> 00:24:35.355
I assume that you're referring to revenue.

00:24:36.055 --> 00:24:37.980
Yes, I was just trying to figure out in my head right now.

00:24:37.980 --> 00:24:39.164
I was actually doing the numbers.

00:24:39.164 --> 00:24:46.174
Yeah, maybe like 8% to 10%, but again it started at like 1% and so then it went to 5%.

00:24:46.275 --> 00:24:48.038
How is profitability there, though?

00:24:48.038 --> 00:24:58.442
Because Amazon's fees are really high, we're not on Walmart anymore because we sell at way too premium of a price point to be able to make it work in our category.

00:24:58.442 --> 00:24:59.605
For Walmart, it just doesn't work.

00:24:59.605 --> 00:25:04.707
But I'm curious are the margins better there in terms of the fee structure?

00:25:05.455 --> 00:25:06.258
It's almost identical.

00:25:06.278 --> 00:25:07.843
Okay.

00:25:08.284 --> 00:25:10.596
I cause I did a comparison, it was just I.

00:25:10.596 --> 00:25:22.262
The only issue I had with and I figured it out was I don't love their payout structure in the sense that with Amazon they do the advertising fees for the actual timeframe that you're using them and in Walmart they're lagged.

00:25:22.262 --> 00:25:34.566
So maybe one pay, maybe like one pay period they don't have your ad fees and then maybe the next one they'll have it for what was the last month and you're like wait, and so it just makes bookkeeping a nightmare.

00:25:34.566 --> 00:25:39.086
My bookkeeper's awesome, but it makes it just kind of like but I would say it's almost identical.

00:25:40.016 --> 00:25:41.077
Okay, thank you.

00:25:41.077 --> 00:25:42.823
What about advertising cost per clicks?

00:25:42.823 --> 00:25:45.477
Are they close to the same or are they a lot less?

00:25:45.616 --> 00:25:48.023
on Walmart so they're close to the same.

00:25:48.023 --> 00:25:51.883
At one point I was just running, you know when you just kind of run it and you're trying to see and then you forget.

00:25:51.883 --> 00:25:58.199
Just kind of run it, you're trying to see and then you forget, you go back.

00:25:58.199 --> 00:26:03.839
So at one point, not good, but I would say pretty similar, a little bit cheaper, I would say a little bit cheaper and not as much competition.

00:26:03.839 --> 00:26:11.740
So the roaz is easier to like, it's better to, it's easier to achieve a higher roaz with, with walmart and.

00:26:11.800 --> 00:26:18.480
But the thing is again, you can't make sophisticated ads as targeted, especially on Walmart.

00:26:18.480 --> 00:26:20.366
It's just, it's very, very basic.

00:26:20.366 --> 00:26:23.781
So it's really just like you make something and I was just like Can I add this, can I?

00:26:23.781 --> 00:26:25.047
And it's not like that at all.

00:26:25.047 --> 00:26:29.940
So I think my 11 year old can run an ad on Walmart Like that's how easy it is.

00:26:29.940 --> 00:26:32.523
I don't know how successful it will be, but that's how easy it is.

00:26:33.105 --> 00:26:38.700
Yeah, like Amazon, I have a contractor who does my ads and that was another thing.

00:26:38.700 --> 00:26:45.344
That probably helped me the most is getting people to outsource for advertising, because some of those Amazon stuff, the ads, are tough.

00:26:45.344 --> 00:26:48.916
You have to really know your stuff and I would recommend.

00:26:48.916 --> 00:27:02.807
If you have the funds for it, that's something I would definitely outsource on Amazon if you really don't know how to do it and I didn't know how to do it and I didn't know how to do it because I grew completely organically I didn't have any ads for I think like a year and a half.

00:27:02.847 --> 00:27:03.388
I didn't even know.

00:27:03.388 --> 00:27:04.894
I did like one ad and it was called New Year's.

00:27:04.894 --> 00:27:09.626
I still have it and I thought my budget was a dollar and then it made like a thousand.

00:27:09.626 --> 00:27:11.877
I was like okay, but that was it.

00:27:11.877 --> 00:27:12.298
And then no.

00:27:12.298 --> 00:27:14.702
And then when I hired someone, he's like do you know?

00:27:14.702 --> 00:27:15.104
You have no ads.

00:27:15.104 --> 00:27:16.926
I was like oh okay, do I need them?

00:27:16.926 --> 00:27:23.519
He's like yes, and that first month my sales jumped double, which was so cool to see.

00:27:23.519 --> 00:27:25.505
Yeah, those were the days, guys.

00:27:25.545 --> 00:27:31.925
Those were the days, those were the days kind of speaking of those you know newer platforms.

00:27:31.925 --> 00:27:35.663
You mentioned target plus and I think you said that's fairly new for you.

00:27:35.663 --> 00:27:41.166
What has been the most surprising part of getting on a Target Plus so far?

00:27:42.797 --> 00:27:44.884
I think it's that you have to find.

00:27:44.884 --> 00:27:49.942
I'm able to get on it because I have a fulfillment center, so that's what's helpful.

00:27:49.942 --> 00:27:51.961
You do have to ship it within two days.

00:27:51.961 --> 00:27:53.381
It doesn't have to get there within two days.

00:27:53.381 --> 00:28:03.221
I think, again, it's finding the right partner to help you to do it, because, as, just like an individual, you can't it's a kind of a system, what is it called?

00:28:03.221 --> 00:28:13.583
It's kind of like a I don't want to say hierarchy, but there are certain sellers that already have the approval, and those are the sellers that are now reaching out and selling their own stuff and then reaching out to companies like me.

00:28:13.583 --> 00:28:16.728
Like, well, I can sell it for you, I'm gonna take this commission.

00:28:16.748 --> 00:28:17.829
You didn't get an invite.

00:28:17.829 --> 00:28:21.762
You went through somebody else as a third party that got my brand approved.

00:28:21.762 --> 00:28:26.079
Yeah yeah, we did the same round yeah, and it was just easier.

00:28:26.221 --> 00:28:30.877
And so I think like at first I was like what don't they see I make sales with something?

00:28:30.877 --> 00:28:36.648
You're offended like, almost like don't you know am it's just how they didn't offer anything to me, very humbling.

00:28:36.648 --> 00:28:39.059
I was like come on Target Plus, but someone said I can get you on.

00:28:39.059 --> 00:28:43.174
I was like, do it, and it's just interesting to see what those customers also buy.

00:28:43.174 --> 00:28:44.654
And then it's a different price point.

00:28:44.654 --> 00:28:47.255
It's higher actually, because I now have to pay for the shipping.

00:28:47.255 --> 00:28:50.958
I don't have those beautiful like Amazon shipping fees.