Ep. #1155 - International Selling: The Headaches, Struggles and Horrors

Andrew Morgans  00:00

Hey, what’s up Hustlers? Welcome back. It’s Andrew Morgans, founder of Marknology. Here’s today’s host of Startup Hustle. Today we’re gonna be talking about International Selling: The Headaches, Struggles and Horrors. And before I introduce today’s guests and a friend of mine, shout out to today’s sponsor, today’s episode of Startup Hustle is powered by FullScale.io. Hiring software developers is difficult, Full Scale can help you build a software team quickly and affordably and has a platform to help you manage that team. Visit FullScale.io to learn more. Today’s guest is no stranger to the show. Been on before and I’ve been on his podcast as well. Years have passed and here we are, again. Ryan Cramer, welcome to the show.

Ryan Cramer  00:39

Andrew, thanks for having me on, man. I’m, I’m so excited to be on your podcast because, man, you’re rocking it with, you know, 1000s of people. Over here we’re trying to scrape together just yelling from the rooftops for international expansion and don’t get as many people interested. But hey, I’m, I’m so excited to be talking with you today, man.

Andrew Morgans  00:57

Yeah, it’s, you know, the differences. Like sometimes it’s the topics and I know Frisbi just getting the podcast started. So you always got to start somewhere. Super glad to have you back on. I think it’s honestly been since, like, 2020 I’ve had you on the podcast. So it’s been it’s been a minute, but we’ve obviously linked up since then. So super excited. Forgive me super excited to have you on, especially since you just got back from vacation. So first day back, I’m getting your brain fresh.

Ryan Cramer  01:27

Exactly. Well, this is what I was joking. I said I needed a sabbatical one year into my job, I’m just going to take two weeks and spin it in a different country. So I’m doing a little product research, you know, checking out the local, locals and see what they’re doing and kind of get into scout for land and call the vacation.

Andrew Morgans  01:43

No, I love it. I mean, if you’re gonna help people sell internationally, I think you probably need to be traveling internationally as often as possible to just get you know, boots on the ground.

Ryan Cramer  01:52

That’s my pitch to the people who have read the paychecks here at Frisbi.

Andrew Morgans  01:55

I love it. I love it. I think I know a couple of them. So I know she’ll be laughing at that one. But, you know, I’ve had you on the show before but for anyone new listening, I think it’s just helpful to know who’s talking to him. Who’s Ryan? Yeah. And I know you’ve been around e-commerce for years and years. But let’s talk a little bit about your story. And how you got the Frisbi like, did you start out in e-con? Did you start out in logistics? You know, where’s your story? At least in regards to e-commerce coming in?

Ryan Cramer  02:22

Yeah, I love kind of says I love talking about my story. My story is weird. And just like everyone else is it’s a happenstance rule story. I was my first job out of college. I had a communications degree and marketing degree, very general setting, but I wanted to be a graphic designer, had a had a professor in college that said I would never be a graphic designer. So that really distraught, was distraught for Ryan, young Ryan 20 years old. But I was really good at like sales. I did, you know, sales, I was selling Cutco cutleries and knives. I was advertising marketing for our newspaper ad or college magazine. I was really good at talking to people. And I was really listener. So I really wanted to find something that can mesh all those things together. And marketing was that right? It’s full sales of not just yourself, but an idea or product. So yeah, that’s what marketing is boiled down to. But I got a job with a newspaper company in Southern Indiana first started out new business development. So I was on the road gathering 50 business cards from new businesses trying to learn about them. Trying to understand how we can help them grow on our website or print material, you name it. Whatever solution that made sense. I was pitching to them. I did really well. It was a lot though, driving around all day. You know, you’re in your car eating and there was a lot for someone who started out but in the newspaper industry, as you know, things shift all the time. It’s not many people are reading newspapers physically anymore. They’re all digital. So you don’t need as much people support. So I was a young one that was like, Oh, my first job out of college. I had a fiancee at the time who was in Connecticut, who was graduating in four months, I had no job. And we were marrying in five months. So we were literally at this crossroads figuratively and literally have no job. Neither of us had an income. We’re getting married and I felt like a failure already of college. So over one. But then I kind of got lucky she got a job first and my wife now at the time we’ve been married nine years. She got a job in Virginia. So we decided to pick up and move on currently in Indiana, but we moved at the time to Virginia. And I got lucky with a an affiliate marketing manager position at a home and garden manufacturer. Like

Andrew Morgans  04:51

Did you know I was an affiliate marketing manager as well?

Ryan Cramer  04:53

I didn’t know. I think everyone should at least go through affiliate marketing to get that side of the brain like working because there’s nothing like it.

Andrew Morgans  05:00

Yeah, it was like networking. It was influencer marketing really, you know, or like network marketing at the beginning. And my first role at the toy company was ec-ommerce and affiliate marketing manager. So there they had like a several million dollars going through, like Linkshare and commission junction and those kinds of the

Ryan Cramer  05:18

Yeah. So, same thing I literally was selling myself of, I have no idea anything about e-commerce, but I’m willing to learn. And I remember saying those words and he looked at me, he goes, you’re the person. So it was a it was a channel that wasn’t, wasn’t built, it was zero revenue, some so this company was used to selling out of catalogs, and they still do, they’re still around today. They’re selling out of catalogs to retail stores, but they’re really trying to jumpstart this e Commerce Industry. Inside of it. They’re the number one seller of home. Home gift garden items like garden flags, if you search carbon flags on Amazon today that are up there, people reselling them. There’s all sorts of craziness going on. But it was a really cool, unique way of 10,000 skews. My job was to say, hey, I need distressed inventory or products that we can work with margins, get listed on our DTC websites, and try to get affiliate channels to push through them. So Ryan was like, that sounds great. So I got integrated with building websites on guy ship back then it was like, it was like, it was not Webflow. But it was like a, like WordPress, but not really WordPress is one of those really archaic, build your websites, companies. I was building landing pages for, like Commission Junction, blog sites, deal sites are still around today like slick deals. And he sort of blogs and making putting their logo on it and driving traffic to it. And then kind of the breakthrough came when I created a deal almost like a Prime Day deal. For one of our distressed inventory pieces. We had like 1000s of units. And overnight, I sold it and had it listed on this one particular blog. And I sold through 2600 units for one day. And they came to my desk and they go Ryan, what did you do? And I said, What are you talking about? And they go, we have 2600 orders for this one particular SKU and I said, Oh, yeah, it was me working with them. And we switch the price around. So there was a good deal. And it was exclusive to them. Bada bing, bada boom. And like all of a sudden, our warehouse is like freaking out there shipping things out like crazy. offering free shipping and all this other stuff. So I got that taste. And then the CEO knew my name, all of a sudden, the President knew my name all of a sudden. So we started developing strategy around deals and other affiliates and outside traffic driving to our website, because we’re making a lot more shipping ourselves than on Amazon. So that’s kind of my introduction to ecommerce.

Andrew Morgans  07:46

Were they on Amazon back then?

Ryan Cramer  07:48

They were Yeah. So the so they’re doing their own FBA channel. They were sending directly from manufacturers in China directly to like UK. And they were starting to dabble in other different countries. But that was back in 2016. So there was no all this data, all these different software’s out, there was just what sales were telling us that were coming in, we were trying to forecast, or like nine months in advance of inventory, new product, and we had 10,000 skews. So it wasn’t very easy to just create 1000 units of each. There’s so much velocity, we kill units, you, you know, you create new ones. So it was a lot of interesting insight from a manufacturer side of things, who was also selling directly to b2b, but also selling directly to B to C and try not to step on your own toes. So that was a unique perspective of omni channel selling. I loved working with them. But after two years, we wanted to move back closer family. They wouldn’t let me work remotely, which is kind of funny at this time in our age. So I found a different job outside of ecommerce, hated that job after two years and got back into it with software. I’ve worked with Viral Launch. I’ve worked at a software company launching Viral Launch. That’s interesting, right back in the day. Yeah. Introduction back to the third party world of Amazon. Yeah.

Andrew Morgans  09:10

Definitely was a user of Viral Launch like brands. Like I don’t know who wasn’t back then. That was interesting. I think we met while you were at Viral Launch. I

Ryan Cramer  09:20

think we know. Yeah, I was running Pong. Foreign launch in 2019. Was there a year and then we launched our PPC software at that time, and then, like any startup, things go up and things go down. We went from 70 Something employees down to 15 was one of the 15 left and everyone’s kind of looking around like Okay, what’s next? Ping pong came knocking out the door actually, right after that are lucky enough and swooped me up right before COVID started and there’s a lot of crazy things are gonna happen in 2020 before COVID And then everything shut down and I I was working on my office here in Indiana, kind of met people like you virtually. And then a couple of years later, just opportunities and learnings and things like that. And international growth expansion started meeting people like girl out. And she came knocking on my door one day and met up in New York and said, Hey, we are we’re gonna be making this really big move. And we want you to be a part of it. I had no, I mean, I’d love to pat myself on the back. But she’s, she’s a believer in people. And that’s kind of my, my journey I’m, I’m gonna give myself credit is, I’ve made people believe in me, and I haven’t let them down. So, yeah, that’s where I’m at today.

Andrew Morgans  10:37

You know, I think when you’re in marketing, in this e commerce, you know, industry, it’s really about just knowing all the pieces of E commerce, like, you know, from a high level, and really understanding what works with what and I mean, you really think about understanding how to launch products, understanding payment processing, and transaction flow, understanding affiliate marketing, and CO marking influencers, like the effect that those can have on it, content from creating those pages together with people, you know, and that’s just to name a few of the things that are all different parts of the E commerce and understanding what goes into them. I think, with my own journey, I’ve done all the different pieces of Amazon specifically. But before that, I was in affiliate marketing, e commerce, I was also a bartender, I was also in a band, you know, where we were making MySpace flyers and album art, and T shirts, and merch and, you know, things that now I do every single day in EECOM. But like back then was, you know, something new for me learning sales, learning how to push my albums, learning how to schedule a tour, you know, a six week tour back to back to back, like, what’s that look like? And event planning, and, you know, all the things we bring with us to make us who we are. But it’s like, you know, now I’m learning about tic tock and I’m learning about, you know, off Amazon Marketing Strategies, and also, I spent a lot of time within the agency. So instead of building the brands, exactly, the team does a lot of that. How do I make my agency more efficient? Well, each time I get to something new, I didn’t know it before, right? I think it’s long gone is the times where maybe you work at the newspaper and the print shop for 30 years, and you’re perfect, you’re perfect at what you do. It just doesn’t work like that anymore. You know, jobs evolve. And we have also, you know, I love Pearl, we were partners with first choice shipping before it became Frisbee. You know, so been then partnering with your company and pearl on both sides of the ball. With ping pong, we still use ping pong today. So let’s talk about let’s get into international, some of the headaches, some of the horror stories, international selling, I currently have three brands, right now that we’re working with are expanding into Canada. A UK brand that launched in the US first in we’re going to be launching in the UK. So, you know, this is like very relevant conversation to my real world every day. You know, and there’s a lot that can go into it. Like, um, you know, from on the logistics side, everyone wants to know, like, well, what, you know, what is needed if I’m going to start selling these marketplaces well outside of logistics, and that and you know, business identity and getting things set up like that. It’s pretty straightforward. In regards to the Amazon side, maybe you’re doing localization, maybe you’re you know, so your content, your images, for anyone who doesn’t know, maybe you’re making them more localized where you’re selling, or you’re translating the copy. But a lot of the hurdles at the beginning of a launch come down to like, logistics, you know, and supply chain and all those kinds of things that today’s title is, is the headaches, the struggles and the horrors, but I think we can talk about some of the good as well, I think that’s gonna be okay. And people can handle that. You know, but for me, honestly, there are international channels as from a profitability standpoint are easier for me than in the United States. They’re smaller channels, sure, as far as revenue, but when we start looking at those profit loss statements, and things like that, things like conversion rate differences, and being able to raise prices as American made products that we’re not selling internationally, those are all things that help the bottom line. Let’s just talk about some of the few things that can come up when it comes to international selling. I remember I’ll tell one of my horror stories early and then I’ll set the bar and pass the mic. But we it’s a brand I still work with today. We are in Canada now. And we launched to the UK in the early days of Amazon UK. And they made a rule change there that kind of just pulled us out really scared us. You had to essentially have a warehouse I believe a physical warehouse in the UK to be selling an FBA and now you can correct me maybe if I’m wrong, I don’t believe that you have to but at the time it was like this two year maybe window where we were already selling in the UK and then they’re like Do you need to have a warehouse there and as far as us with costs, and we weren’t super successful yet at that time, and we just pulled out, and you know, we probably lost several $1,000 between getting inventory there and pulling it out and all those kinds of things, but simply like, you know, rules changing things like Brexit, where you know, at first it used to be okay, let’s launch in an English speaking country of, of the UK, and that would expand us to Germany, France, you know, all of these different countries. Because of their unified FBA will now with Brexit, the UK and Germany are different markets, and you’re now you’re launching in a German market, which can have its difficulty. So I don’t know some of the horror stories maybe that you can share. But what’s a what’s a couple maybe in the last six months that you’ve seen, from some people trying to expand internationally and doing it wrong?

Ryan Cramer  15:50

Yeah. So to clarify, yes, you can, you can go to those different countries without having a physical entity now, there now it’s UK has changed to where you can actually partner with, you know, a third party and, you know, it’s called an importer of record YNAB, a person who acts on your behalf, is that NRI or NRI for Canada, so non resident number would be for Canada, but for UK, the importer of record or or Iowa or so, yeah, I like to set the bar and say, like, people think about international expansion. So you had mentioned at the top of the episode, I came back from Italy, right? And so the story we like to say is, well, what does it mean to move your products from one country to another, when you come in to another country, whether to or from, you’ll have you have Border Patrol, right? You have people who stop you? And they say, Do you have anything to declare? Mainly it’s to protect the country or their imports or exports, make sure that they’re profitable, and you’re not like smuggling, you know, 50,000, hibiscus plants or something crazy like that. They want to support their local economy. So if you bring in something from the outside, they will tax you on it. So that’s kind of Long Story Short of like, what customs is when they say, do you need to declare anything, it’s mainly taxing outside products that are not made in their country. Most people live but don’t tell anyone. But it’s a lot different with business when you’re, you know, you’re shipping 1000s of dollars in goods to one country, because you have Border Patrol, you have all these people who actually look at their invoice and say like, what are you actually shipping. You see it on movies all the time TV shows like big freighters, they can move to one country or on a train or on a truck, they get stopped. You give them a big clipboard, and they look through and say what’s in these containers. And every every product and every item has a different tax bracket, I won’t get into the boring details. But that’s kind of the the movies and crossings and goings of, of goods. horror story that comes to mind is when you know with Brexit, you were talking about I go back to the financial side of things. People don’t think when you sell into different countries, you’re not thinking about other currencies as well. So when I went to Europe, recently, I had to change by dollar to the euro. The dollar is not as strong as the Euro is. So every time I actually bought something equivalent. If I went to Dolce Gabbana, for example, both in the same country, if I listed for 100 euros versus $100, I’m actually I’m actually losing money if I bought it overseas than if I would have waited and paid $1 $1 Instead of convert my money over lose seven cents on the dollar, and then buy the same exact product at a higher markup. So again, it’s it you have to think about it in different ways, both financial cost, but also just the valuation of the different countries in the world where you’re selling your goods. So first story that comes to mind is when Brexit happened, anyone who had the pound at the time when Brexit was announced, that valuation plummeted, so if I was a seller making, you know, $10,000, that the value dropped down to like 3000 watts. So even for doing nothing, but just because of the economies change. Yeah, political changes uncertainty of how value is the pound gonna be now as part of Europe, side of your hands, you can’t just write a letter to the editor and say, Excuse me, can you make that change in your policy change that’s in the blink of an eye, your money was now not as valuable as what it was. If it’s sitting in a pound. You don’t want to exchange any more because you’re literally losing $7,000 In that example. So that’s a horror stories from the past where a lot of sellers were struggling because they were afraid that the value of the pound is just not as strong as the dollar. So you’re literally losing money is the same as if I was in the cellar in the UK, for example. And I was selling in the United States. Why would I want to sell something in the dollar when I exchange it back to the pound, I’m losing seven cents on every dollar that exchange doesn’t make sense financially but now because the pounds higher and they’re kind of coming out Up in valuations are coming almost look a little bit more identical than a year ago, you’re seeing a lot more UK sellers who are saying now’s the time I want to sell into the United States. Because even if I was just flat out year over year, I’m now increasing my revenue just because of the valuation of the dollars I’m so again, financially, people don’t think about the fluctuations around the world, I’m selling in one market, it might behoove me to just not sell in that market at all, because of how strong or how weak a certain currency is, or take advantage of where you’re located and maybe move products from one country to another based upon tax regulations and things like that. So not to bore the listeners today, I’ve already probably lost a couple. But those are the things that we were experiencing and have horror stories of, oh, my gosh, you know, my inventory, I can’t even get it in to a warehouse and fulfillment center in Canada, because they’re not accepting shipments anymore. We’ve had sellers who didn’t fill out their Incoterms trial or their purchase order, and they didn’t pay their taxes before sending it to Canada. So once they got to the border, the border patrol, you know, they check, they check with Amazon, they’re like, Hey, are you going to pay these taxes because they didn’t. So which one is Amazon refuses 100% of the time. So it just sat there and then they shipped it back. And that’s on the sellers dime, so they lost 1000s of dollars just for not, you know, marking a simple we’re gonna pay the taxes ahead of time before Amazon does. So those are, those are really sad things that are all avoidable, that we try to teach our sellers that they’re kind of like headaches, and they’re, they’re implying their horror stories.

Andrew Morgans  21:40

Yeah, it’s just, it’s just super important either, if you can do it in house, and you can take that risk, you know, great. Otherwise, find a partner or an agency that can help you with that. I think the best move really, if you can afford it is to hire the partner agency that can help you until you learn enough to not implode, you know, and avoid those mistakes. And hopefully, you’re finding a partner that will educate you along the way. Otherwise, you’re just paying for them to get it done. But, you know, honestly, some of my biggest mistakes as an Amazon consultant, even before I had an agency have been in regards to inventory, you know, sending in the wrong inventory, we just had a brand, literally, they’re a Canadian brand, like this is the type of stuff that happens. They’re a Canadian brand. They sent pallets of inventory to their US account. And they sent the inventory that was supposed to be sent to their Canadian account, also to the United States account. So and they’re in Canada, so you can imagine that they’ve paid to export it to the United States. And like now, Amazon doesn’t know what to do with a shipment, it’s gonna come back, it’s gonna cost us you know, double, triple maybe we’re actually trying to get them the US to re label we’ll see because it has Fs and SK use right for Canada. So someone already talked, but essentially, product was labeled for Canada, not for the US. And so United States, Amazon Fulfillment Centers not gonna know what to do. But this is stuff that happens every day.

Ryan Cramer  23:07

So not just for Amazon sellers. This is on the economies of scale, this is a, hey, Sephora is inbounding their, their their containers of makeup products or whatever other products are selling from, you know, I would call China but it could be from anywhere in the world. And they’re dealing with containers. I mean, that’s what we sell during COVID. Home Depot bought their own freighters because they just needed inventory. And they can rely on anyone else because everything got stuck at ports. And that’s just the shipping and logistics side. You know, manufacturers got shut down because of sicknesses. Canada, fulfillment centers did not candidate on Prime Day One year because all everyone got sick in their fulfillment centers, and they literally just couldn’t handle it. So they just decided to nix Canada Prime Day, one year, I remember it was like 2021. But now obviously, it’s things are getting better. prices are coming down and freighters. There’s just so many moving pieces around the world that when I ask people what is a global brand mean to you, and you think about like those, those things. You think of the Nikes of org right? And you read Phil Knight’s book, Shoe Dog, you think about all the crazy stories he had to work with his suppliers in South Korea versus you know, all over the world, Mexico, and they were just comparing and they’re on the floor and they were looking at like the quality of product to get it in. They’re innovating and there. They had to negotiate prices because of royalties. If you’re if you’re a royalty based product. It’s completely crazy all over the world. And that’s why you see Apple make their products overseas. It’s all cheaper and they keep their money overseas because the exchange rates terrible. There’s all these economies of scale of international movings of both products but money and people. So wherever people can work better or cheap or, or your products can be made cheaper or just makes more sense to assemble here in the United States, and so produce and make over there and produce it here and put it together. All that matters depending on what product or service you’re selling.

Andrew Morgans  25:13

Yeah, and, and I have like some, I have some interesting stories that I won’t get into, because I don’t want to, like, get myself in jail. But, you know, I grew up in Africa, I grew up in Cameroon, Botswana, Moscow, and specifically Congo, Congo during a war where if you, if you were to Google this and research this, you’ll just have to take my word on it was one of the worst exchange rates in the country’s history, it was like a backpack of money for like, 1000 US dollars, you know, just like an absolute bunch of money, if you, they were at such bad odds with the US at that time, that if you were to go to the bank to exchange your money, we were missionary family, if you were to go to the bank to exchange your money you would have liked I mean, they would have been getting like pennies for $100. In francs, Congolese francs, he’s making up his own money, they’re printing money, it was crazy. So you had to go through back channels, you had to go through back channels. And, you know, to get the real street value of what the US dollar was worth. It was dangerous, like, but it was also the only way to survive, you just literally couldn’t you can’t exchange 100 US dollars for pennies, you know, so we had to get it done. So at a young age, I understood this concept of exchange rates and, you know, money differences and how far 1000 US Dollars can get you in a country like Congo. Same thing in countries like Colombia, or like Mexico, or even Portugal, Portugal is one of the cheaper countries in Europe, your money goes further, and knowledge about this, that’s for the better for better. So as a traveler, I’m thinking, where’s my money go further, right? As a business person, you can be looking for those same things. And those opportunities, as much as it is just like, regular straightforward business opportunity. There’s also differences around location, and labor and talent and staffing. And, you know, all of those things. So super, super interesting stuff, like, you know, we’re working with where was I going with talking about expanding internationally, I was gonna ask, you know, we talk about the UK and Canada and stuff like that. But I actually just had a conversation this weekend to speaking events in Jordan, the country of Jordan, where they have a free trade agreement with the United States, like there’s only a few few countries over there in the Middle East that have free trade agreements. So a big opportunity for manufacturers there. And for sellers, they’re trying to get into the United States, they’re coming into the United States. So I was, you know, advising them about all the costs to consider and, you know, the opportunity as well as, like, the main things to think about when you’re launching products, and what type of products to launch. And it was a lot of fun, because I love talking to markets that haven’t got that education yet, you know, it’s one thing to go to like one of the hot zones, like, say, Miami or New York and speak and people are very educated, they’re around what we do. But going into new markets, where it’s like, a big opportunity is exciting for me, especially as someone that was like, raised internationally, I know what it means for them to be able to get into like a US market, right. So it was really, really interesting and really cool. And I had to do quite a bit of research on the free trade agreements and understanding what those were to be able to do the presentation and just found it, you know, very interesting, we talked about Canada, in the UK as being, you know, the markets that always come to mind, because those are usually the first ones that I’m pushing people to expand into. But there’s so many more markets that keep emerging. Honestly, it behooves everybody that’s like looking into international to, to learn the process in general, like the like, you know, it’s not about learning it for each specific country, but learning the process in general, because the opposite it’d be like being able to get on Amazon in the early days, like some of these markets, and it’s a huge opportunity. What are some of the just for fun? Like, what are some of the markets that you now know of that are doing well that maybe you wouldn’t have thought of initially?

Ryan Cramer  29:16

Yeah, so I I think it’s really funny when I did break down so I recently did a presentation for all of Amazon global sales team in Canada. And I looked at the traffic in Canada based upon you know, ecommerce stores amazon.ca Number one, that’s awesome. amazon.com was number two, and then you had other ones have like Canadian tire.com, which was for anyone who’s not in Canada, that’s that’s kind of like Costco or like a big bulk store where you can buy everything. It’s a really cool marketplace for Canada. But when we talked to the head of Amazon, Canada, he said specifically something so interesting, because of the population of where Canada is 90% of people live within two to three hours driving range of the US border. Why you see.com. so high up on that list is because if it’s not available in.ca, they will literally go get a Pio box or some some person’s home that they know in the United States and Vancouver or like in that border area, it will get it shipped there. And then they will literally drive across the border, pick it up and bring it back with them, because it’s not available to them in Canada. But they’re really trying to get more people in more inventory up there. So it’s available. But people do that because their catalog isn’t the same as.com. So we try to educate of, hey, you might think that there’s just not as many sales, there’s just not the same catalog in.com As there is in.ca.uk or D E across the board just because of the adoption yet. What’s surprising, I mean, I’ve been I’ve been really excited about the Japan market. I think Amazon recently in the last eight months, overtook Rakuten, which is, you know, Rakuten here in the US we know as a cashback site. So going back to our affiliate marketing, they bought Ebates. They make a big play for their marketplace, but they get a lot of it from affiliate marketing. They get a lot of their brands that they work with their affiliate marketing. But in Japan, what are they based out of? They were overtaken by, by Amazon strictly on volume strictly on, you know, revenue. So that’s super fascinating for us. But Amazon, they’ve announced their plans again, it constantly changes. They’re really focused around South America and Africa right now, which is going back to you where you’re saying about Africa, Africa, I think Ghana, Ghana will become the number one most populous country in the entire world by 2035 2045. Something crazy, where if you’re talking about just eyeballs and strictly the availability, if you can figure out how to enter a market with the number one, you know, populous country available, and you can deliver to them, you’re you’re doing pretty good. So I know that Amazon’s focus on the rumor was South America coming down the pipeline. They talked about Chile and South America, Africa for first and Chile in South America. You know, the mind do Honduras, they’re kind of like circling Brazil. So it’s a little bit easier. It’s just logistically, it’s a little bit tougher. Yeah, I mean, surprisingly, I think Mexico is the most fascinating, but still stringent and tough and difficult market did to really just do well. And I think it’s because of you need to have that physical entity in Mexico. As of right now, there’s still not an absolute solution to get your products and to sell to.mx people to customers right now. It’s just logistically because of how the countries are set up and legally, what you have to do as a seller, if I was based in any other country, it’s so difficult and it’s not worth the headache. We tell our sellers, hey, North is probably going to be the easiest thing for you right now, to be honest, and the best way to sell to that consumer right now. But I mean, Germany, I mean, if you think about it, the Amazon and I’m looking at a report from Amazon Small Business empowerment report. Amazon US sellers, actually the the exported 260 million products last year, which is crazy number that will continuously go up the numbers that they’re talking about going outbound. But we’re not talking about the numbers of products, we’re getting inbound from sellers who were in China, or us, we’re not talking about Europe into the US and those GM B’s. So like GMV, for everyone who’s here, like you’re talking about areas of the world. So South Asia, talking about Japan are talking about Singapore, you’re talking about that it’s a number four in the world. And they’re logistically if Amazon kind of got its act together, you would be talking to a really populous area of Australian sellers buying from Japan, Japan buying from China, China, China buying from Australia, they all took talk to each other, because if it’s not available, one they know for a fact they can get probably that from a different country right over around there. Same with Europe. Number two in the world, the US is still up there and one, Africa will be there pretty quickly. It’s just you got to think of regions of where you’re available. And people are cross border buying all the time, not just on Amazon, but on Shopify, they’re buying on, you know, you’re talking about tick tock. I can I can count on my hands, how many times I bought from a foreign brand, because it’s available here locally, and I bought and it was shipped from, you know, it was shipped from the UK but they still sold it and they had a partner in the US and they got to here in five days. Right doesn’t matter. I still they still captured me because, you know, they they’re a global brand and that’s what the world’s going towards.

Andrew Morgans  34:56

Yeah, I buy a lot of a lot of the things I buy I, internationally are off of Etsy. I think

Ryan Cramer  35:03

Canada is big on Etsy right now. Like I’ve bought a ton of products from Canadian sellers on Etsy.

Andrew Morgans  35:08

Yeah, if I’m just looking for something unique, like, you know, sometimes it’s like a game board or like, you know, something for a costume handmade or like, I’m just giving some examples in my last few, but it’s been these like, kind of custom pieces or like, something unique that’s being made there. And Etsy, like Etsy has a good showing for that, for sure. You know, I want to echo Japan, we’ve launched some sellers there. tremendous results, you know, a little bit of like, interestingness to it to any Amazon sellers listening on this. The credit like credit points, you know, that they do in that system. I don’t know if you know about it, or anything, but everything that basically gets bought in that economy has something to do with like points. There’s a point system. It’s interesting, I’m still trying to get my head around it. But it’s essentially like getting like, you know, credit card points for using your travel card. But it’s like for all purchases not just for the card that you’re using. They like getting

Ryan Cramer  36:05

a little gift for everything. Every time they spend their money. It’s it’s great. I mean, if you think about that economy to when people are I had the most fascinating podcast conversation with her to Yabba, which was from PPC on PPC ninja. Yeah, sorry, there’s a lot of PPC blanks out there. But she had a conversation around Japan and PPC. And she said she has to do the same cadences and for different, like languages, essentially. So it’s for bent men, women, and then the two localized like languages in different parts of Japan, which, in my mind, I’m thinking right there alone, I can guarantee that half the people listening to that, they’re like, nope, Japan seems difficult. But if you think about that as an opportunity, and saying, there’s so many people are just going to look at that and think of as lost, cause I’m gonna think of that as a good keep those people out, it’s easier for me to clean up right in there.

Andrew Morgans  37:01

I love the difficulty, like I’ve always leaned into that, like, you know, creating a service based business versus a SAS, for example, is more difficult running people is more difficult. Amazon very difficult channel. Andrew, as a person likes the challenge likes it difficult to see difficulty. And I’ve always been on the outside looking in of groups and like, you know, this club or that club, like growing up, I think is put me in a way of being like, not everyone’s gonna be able to do it, it’s gonna come down to the people that can be able to do it. Like I lean into that. And so like ecommerce is equal playing field, if you can figure it out, then you know, it’s an opportunity. And you know, the way I handled Japan, just, if anyone’s listening out there, you obviously need to get logistical help that’s on your own. So I’ve got Frisbee on today to kind of give you some knowledge. But, you know, we, we essentially, I hired a partner out of the UK partner agency, they helped me get set up in Japan, because they actually all live there, and they just focus on Japan, they helped us get set up, then mark Knology took over, in regards with like continuing the shipments, you know, the content and things like that we got it translated, we got the content we wanted. And I took our US campaigns, and I have the Japanese agency, translate them get them set up, right? Well, then it’s a matter of data. And there’s plenty of tools, like once you get help with the setup and the localization to continue to run it. So you know, we just swapped services for a couple of months, essentially. And then I had then I was set up in the Japan marketplace, and we’re crushing it. So it wasn’t really, that I had to learn all of the ins and outs of Japanese culture and everything like that, to be able to sell and be able to get my business set up. I simply found someone that was good at it a pro at it. You know, even me as an agency, I didn’t just hand my customer over to them, we made an agreement of being like, Okay, I’m gonna reach out to this expert agency, I’m gonna make this connection, we’re going to work together, we’re going to get you set up and then we’re going to take over and as we need as needed if we need to, we reach out to them to say, Hey, can you go through our PPC make sure our terms are correct, like things like that, because you know, you’re using Google Translate and things like that once you’re set up, but very profitable, very profitable channel. And there’s not a lot of competition for us there. So once you get through the hurdles, a lot of times what’s on the other side of those shipping woes, or those inventory was the paperwork was is blue ocean in regards to lower PPC costs, lower cost of acquisition costs, customer lifetime value goes up because they continue to come back to you because there’s not other options for them to keep trying different ones. So as the game goes, in those markets, a lot of times the profitability just gets better and better and better. And I have I have no skin in the game other than to say that I like as an agency, it’s been a way that I can continue to bring value to brands maybe that aren’t launching new products or that like you know, we’re like hey, how can we continue to grow sales without just like spending more or doing these things? Well, we can take some time to figure out logistically, maybe it’s a nine month process to figure it out, you know, from top to bottom and get your products there and get selling. But next year, we’re going to be in two markets. And the next year, we’re gonna be in three markets. And the brands continue to grow. And I can tell you that if you’re trying to sell, there’s nothing they like more than seeing you diversified, you know, across different marketplaces around the world, its stability for the brand. You know, I have a few more questions before we wrap up. One more shout out to our sponsor, finding expert software developer doesn’t have to be difficult, especially when you visit full scale.io where you can build a software team quickly and affordably use the Full Scale platform to define your technical needs. And then see what available developers testers and leaders are ready to join your team visit full scale.io to learn more. So one question for you. By the way, what’s that?

Ryan Cramer  40:49

You’re so good at that, by the way,

Andrew Morgans  40:50

man, I’ve got these sponsor reads, We got to do them live. I had to get good at it. I wish I could just like nail it once. And they would they would run it

Ryan Cramer  40:58

again. No, those are great. I love on air and live reads. I’m a person who consumes it. I never have done it. I would drive home and make it up as I go. I’m I’m just full of it. I just whatever the top of my head can’t read a thing. You’re like,

Andrew Morgans  41:11

Okay, well, honestly, FullScale.io. Even if you’re not looking for software developers, anyone that cares about e commerce and tech and SAS and stuff, I’m telling you check out the website, check out their blog, the way that they’ve displayed their team, because basically, you’re hiring software developers to work and join your team in the way that they have just built this proprietary software to show off their team and what they do and their personalities, and everything is really cool and unique. Worth a check. So as we’re running out, and I want to get into some final closing questions I usually have for all of our listeners, but have one more, just as a general like, what are some common mistakes sellers are making whenever they first go to expand internationally, just a few of those common mistakes that you see over and over and over?

Ryan Cramer  41:54

Assuming they could do tomorrow.

Andrew Morgans  41:56

Yeah. Expectations.

Ryan Cramer  41:58

Expectations. Yeah. I have a bone to pick with people who can say a we do it all in one, which again, Frisbi is striving. But what we’re honest about and I’m gonna pat us on the back is that we’re pretty forefront of, we say we are not good at it, we either find someone who’s really good at. You had mentioned finding partners. Finding partners who are experts in that area. On that account, I don’t even want to pretend I know what international tax and law is like. But I do know a bunch of people who kickass and they can take care of Amazon sellers. And we know a collection of them who are really fantastic at it. We’re gonna make sure that they get in touch with them, and that they’re doing the best job for the people who come and find Frisbi. And so we can help pave that path. I call us like the snowplows, right? People want to get to school on time, or parents need to get to work on time, they need to have a plow, that kind of pushes all that crap off the road, as heavy or as late as it is. You have to do that work ahead of time and need to work with that team. So I don’t like it when people claim that they can do everything because it’s impossible. I don’t know. I mean, agencies are good at a lot of things. And I just like Marknology. They’re fantastic. I don’t think that they have the time or bandwidth to figure out how to do that same thing and 20 different countries, I think it’s impossible. But But again, I think they’re really good at you know, what they’re good at. And that’s why people buy either they buy the person or the service are, you know, they figured out, they’re gonna make it work if they don’t know. So, first of all, that’s what I think I think the other expectation is to say that timeline is not like, in order to be as a business, you need to set expectations, I think and forecast and know and understand what time is the most valuable asset that you have. When you don’t know the timelines. And you think you can just switch it on and switch it off. Whenever it doesn’t work like that. If you’re stopping market? Well, you have to like recoup your inventory, you have to like shut down your listings, you have to deal with the consequences of getting your inventory back. But if you’re trying to go into a market, and you make sure that, hey, Amazon won’t shut me down, when I first start a goods are there, I need to make sure like, I’m selling a supplement. Well, that country has different rules and regulations and what Japan does or what Australia does, or what the UK does, that it takes a lot more time. Us is a little less stringent, but it’s more stringent in Japan. So that actually has a lot of factors for brands that are like, Oh, maybe I don’t want to do Japan. Yeah, I mean, that’s our point is education. It might take six months. Again, it’s those artificial barriers, but barriers and time. So time is always relative to a seller who’s trying to think if I start now, six months or months from now, I’m looking at December already. Do I want to start in December? Probably not. So maybe I push it another three months or I should have started three months ago. So we tried to set expectations and I think that’s the hardest thing for anyone in the service or software space. Is that everything everyone wants any everything instantaneous. Signing For like a helium 10, for example, you can start getting data today, or working with work analogy, you guys are probably up and running after consultation and things like that after a certain timeframe. For our timeframe, it’s kind of funny, we kind of see people relatively like a six month timeframe of, hey, they explore, they’re doing things they’re on the go, when they have time, quote, unquote, air quotes, they’ll get to it. But other people, if they’re really passionate about it, they can speed up that time when they work with the right people. So I think the expectations is always key and working with people have done it, you want to make sure that they’re not just waiting around and not answering quickly because time is of the essence, especially with some of these brands, quickly up and running. That would be the two things that come to mind of be careful if they say they can do everything. Again, relative in that those terms, but ask questions like ask what you get out where they, you know, where they might fall short. You know, we don’t do translations either. So again, I point people to our translation partners and things of that sort. So we always want to be I was pointed the hedgehog concept with, you know, be really good at what you’re good at. And no one can like mess with you. So like, Don’t spread yourself too thin. But find those trusted people and make, you know, the experts, you know, do their work and kind of give you all those timelines and according to the brand, so, hopefully, I love

Andrew Morgans  46:35

I love that I think those are both great answers. And I’m gonna add a third from my agency side, which would be I feel like the people that drag their feet that take a long time that aren’t really pushing it, are the people that are not great at admin. They’re not great at like paperwork, they’re not great at organization. You know, the paperwork is kind of like their their, that’s what they’re going to procrastinate, right. If you have like somebody that’s just really good, all their stuff is in order. Their Doc’s are in order. You know, those are the best Amazon clients in general, because you’re applying for stuff that you need to get your ingredients list, you’ve got your labeling lists, you’ve got your FDA approvals, you’ve got all your different things. If you’re working with a partner that’s good at those things. International expansion is easy, in my opinion. You just jump in, you got to figure out what documents next. You’ll get that one, figure out what’s next to get that one. And pretty soon, we’re selling internationally.

Ryan Cramer  47:24

Yeah, who reached out to me after three years of me like introducing myself, we we saw each other in a chat room in 2020 and December, it was like a webinar and we haven’t a Connect. We like had a call. And she’s like, Oh, that sounds good. Like, I’ll think about it. And I literally just got an email the other day, she’s like, I’m finally ready for Canada. That was three years ago. And I was like, that’s awesome. Thanks for thinking of me. Like, it’s kind of those things of people will meet you where you’re at. And when they’re ready. And I and I hate it goes back to where I learned sales. And I learned pushing, pushing, pushing. No one likes a pushy salesperson, not a single person does, no one likes to be shoved something down their throat that they don’t want. But if I understand them, and I know where they’re at, I can feed them the things that they need at this point. And then they can come back for more education, like, I want one more, like, what else do you have? I’m not one for shoving everything that we have down the road. Because believe it or not, I like saying no to people because we’re not a good fit. Otherwise, I’m wasting my time you’re wasting your time. Time is the most valuable asset we have.

Andrew Morgans  48:25

I couldn’t agree more just came to mind. Like I actually launched one of my brands into Canada recently, I’ve been pushing like our partners with that one, two partners. And, guys, we have to expand internationally, guys, we have to expand internationally. I think we hit around a little shy of 30k. We’ve just we just got up selling with no PVC. So I’ll let that one land for everyone that wants to complain about PVC, whatever. Yeah, we just literally got the product up, obviously good content, good listings. But that’s just organically, because we’re probably one of the first in our category to be there. And we’re capturing we’re capturing those sales. And imagine I mean, the profit margin is is way higher than our US side where we’re having to advertise to get those sales. So that’s a big win we’ve had internally on one of my brands. Okay, as we wrap up the podcast, I love ending it with what’s something you’re working on with Frisbi that you’re excited about this this year as we close out, and then something personally, Ryan and I just got back from a trip. So maybe it was to take a trip, you know, but we’re on the other side now. So I need a different different answer that one with some you’re working on that you’re excited about. It can be family, it can be work, it can be whatever. And then lastly, where people can contact you.

Ryan Cramer  49:38

Yeah. So Frisbi. We’re really excited as everyone in the space knows Amazon’s constantly throwing curveballs, there’s constantly prod programs that they’re announcing and my favorite thing right now is finding out about a program that they’re launching, asking about Amazon employees about that program and they’re, like, never heard of it. What is this? And uh, I love our partners, I love Amazon, I think that, I think that there’s a pivot point here. And I feel it feels like in the last three weeks since I’ve been gone on vacation, that there’s a lot of this headway and you’re starting to see it. Amazon’s getting back to the basics, Amazon’s going back to, hey, we need to support a third-party sellers, we need to give them data, we need to give them availability, we need to make it easier. So there’s this launch of the Amazon European Accelerator Program, get up and running and start selling in Europe. They say two clicks, and five business days, something crazy like that, through their P and E Program. So they’re building and taking your listings in one European country. And they’re getting it up and running. And they’re basically duplicating it into all the countries in Europe. And you can, you know, pick and choose. But you basically can start selling all of Europe in like five days, which is bananas, after you’ve launched in one country. So

Andrew Morgans  50:55

That’s how it kind of used to be.

Ryan Cramer  50:57

Yeah, it’s how it used to be it was almost like the the Wild West days of like, let’s get as much as we can up and running as fast as we can. And they started running quicker than the like, slow down. Let’s be methodical. Let’s start. Let’s start doing this a little slower pace. Now, it’s, like, now it’s like floodgates are open. So they’re they’re doing that there’s a lot of cool programs I’ve reached out to frisbee about which I want to talk about but just so many cool opportunities, not just on Amazon, but on E-commerce in general. How can we make this more omnichannel? How can we make this a brand, you know, focus company instead of an Amazon-focus company, right? Because as I talk to sellers all the time, they’re like Amazon’s great they got us up and running. But now we’re not we rely heavily on B2C, or go back to affiliate marketing, or now we’re going new Shopify we’re doing, there’s so many other opportunities that fit our mold, that they get just get smarter, and they kind of condense and consolidate and focus on the channels that matter and don’t get shiny object syndrome. So that’s what I’m excited about. Me, personally, my son, our baseball team that I’m coaching, they’re 3-0. So I’m pretty excited about, Okay, hopefully, we can bring home a couple more wins, which would be exciting. But he’s a and he’s, he’s, he loves to be competitive. He’s one of those kids that if we were playing horse yesterday, basketball, or shooting around, like, back from vacation, and like taking it easy, and I’m playing horse, I’m jacking around having fun. And he’s like the last shot and he missed it. And he’s just like, bawling his eyes out. So I’m really trying to teach, not be so competitive. But he’s like some person he’s like, I will kill people to like when a horse, like, he’s just this one of those hungry kids. He’s not he does not like to lose. Fun for him is just getting one over on an adult, which is a lot of fun as a parent, but also exhausting as a parent. The I got back from vacation for two weeks, with my wife never had a vacation that long, I highly suggest everyone listening to it, find a time to like, not look at emails, don’t look at messages, disconnect from Slack, don’t look at social media for two weeks, your life kind of gets a lot lighter. Biggest challenge I had was finding where to eat every day. That was nice. But here we are back in the cold real world, talking to all you people, so I love it. But it’s it was a nice departure from working so hard on the business of, you know, making things grow. And then yeah, where people can contact me, um, I tried to be everywhere as much as I can. But uh, either email me at ryan@frisbi.com or, and that’s f-r-i-s-b-i.com, not not like a disc but close. We’re, it’s hard to get a six letter word now or a URL, but you can find us@frisbi.com. Or if you just search Ryan Cramer on LinkedIn, that’s my favorite channel to engage with people learn about stuff. And YouTube is also fun, where we get to talk to people like Andrew on our podcast and drops in awesome knowledge. And yeah, I love talking to people. I love learning about stories and brands and how they evolve. And every story is different. That’s why I’m in the service space and on the space I’m at, I don’t like to talk about myself or my brand. I like to learn about everything at once. So it’s my background. That’s my history. And that’s what, it’s what drives me.

Andrew Morgans  54:29

Thank you. Thank you, Ryan. Those are amazing. I love that your son’s so competitive because I feel like you’re so kind and gentle. I’ve seen you you know, but I also like that you can be competitive and just be like, you know, quiet about it not like, you know, like if you know if I’m playing a game I’m trying to win don’t get me wrong, but there’s a different level right? And so it’s i It’s interesting or it’s fun for me to think of you coaching the team and you know how that’s

Ryan Cramer  54:56

Oh yeah, it’s a lot of fun. I get super competitive basically was my sport, big baseball fan. I played it when I was three all the way till I was 18 and won the state championship and I love it. I travel baseball. That’s how I saw the world like the US and eventually traveled and I just love learning new things. And, you know, it’s part of me that teaching them and yeah, teaching to is also cool. Um, you see some kids who are like, also very competitive, but you’re like, they throw home and you’re like, Hey, stop. You’re not the only person who’s ever encountered this problem, take a breath, reevaluate and move on. And it’s kind of like, seeing it through the eyes of an eight year old. It’s like a reminder, what’s distraughting in the world is like getting out or like, not, they’re all winning. And they’re like, Oh, but I didn’t do that. I didn’t do XYZ, like, but it’s a team sport. And like, that’s where I’m trying to get them. It’s not individualized now. It’s a team. You’re all working together.

Andrew Morgans  55:48

Yeah, no, that’s awesome. Thank you so much for being on the show. It’s a pleasure to have you back, especially your first day back from Italy. And if you guys haven’t already checked out Ryan’s podcast, The Global Spin, worth checking it out. Frisbi’s got a new show and Ryan’s the host there. It’s absolutely awesome. They have a ton of great guests. A lot of guests that have been on Startup Hustle in the past or will be in the future. So definitely give it a check. Check out and again to our sponsor FullScale.io. Do you need to hire software engineers? Testers are leaders let Full Scale help when you visit FullScale.io? All you need to do is answer a few questions about the platform match you up with fully vetted, highly experienced team of engineers. At Full Scale, they specialize in building long term teams that work only for you. Learn more when you visit FullScale.io. Thank you Hustlers. Thank you, Ryan. We’ll see you next time.