273 – How to Get your Product Made Overseas with Brian Miller of Easy China Warehouse

Gift biz unwrapped episode 273.

And we always tell factories,

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Now today we're going to be talking with Brian.

He's an American who's lived in China for 10 years and

coordinates the logistics of getting products from the factories to us

over here in the U S have you ever wondered how

people get their products made abroad?

It can be an entire product or individual pieces for a

product that then you assemble state side.

You're going to learn where to go to source a factory

overseas, how to communicate with them and the process you go

through to get from concept to having an actual physical product

in your hands.

We also discussed the Corona virus and what it's been like

for them there.

And you know,

me, I don't shy from the tougher topics like the frustrating

risk of knockoffs right now.

I get it.

Tension runs high between China and the U S.

So I was hesitant at first to air this episode,

but regardless of what happens,

politically, this information can be applied to any foreign factory you

may work with regardless of the country.

The process is essentially the same.

So let's take a trip abroad.

Shall we?

Today it is my pleasure to introduce you to Brian Miller

of easy China warehouse.

Originally from Trumbull,

Connecticut. Brian has been living in China for the past 10

years. He previously worked for one of the largest Chinese government

owned manufacturers,

managing their Northern American export operations.

Now Brian runs a third party logistics warehouse in Shen Jenn

China. The company provides third party logistics and shipping for Amazon

FBA sellers and any e-commerce company,

creating products in China.

Brian, welcome to the gift biz on repped podcasts.

Hey, thanks for having me.

I appreciate it.

I'm really happy that we are talking today because we haven't

really covered the subject before.

So it'll be brand new information for everybody.

So again,

by the way,

what time is it over there?

It's 10 o'clock yeah,

you just got me before.

I'm ready for bed,

but it's perfect.

I'm still awake now.

And it's 9:00 AM here and I'm drinking my coffee anyway,

before we get started,

I do something.

That's become a little bit of a tradition here,

Brian. And that is to have each of my guests describe

themselves by way of a motivational candle.

So if you were to share a little bit about you

in a different way,

what would a motivational candle look like by color and quote?

Yeah, so the color I'm going to be a little bit

boring with.

I think it has to be red for me and red

shows kind of the energy and passion that I have for

the work I do,

but also kind of a symbol of China,

right? So I've been in China for a long time and

it's kind of my home now and a place where I

live and that identify with very closely.

And of course,

China is very famous for their Chinese red.

And so that's what color I choose for myself.

Okay. And do you have a quote for the candle?

I do.

Yeah. Well,

it's kinda my own quote,

actually. It's not any other people's quotes.

That's better.

Cause that's original.

Yeah. So I always tell people that we never take the

shortcut because the long,

hard road is always more sustainable for our business.

So that's kinda my quote that I'd put on the outside

of my candle.

They really liked that.

Given that I work with people who want to turn a

hobby or a craft into a business,

one of the things I'm really adamant about saying is there

are no quick wins here.

There are quick wins in terms of small parts,

being small pieces being successful.

But if you're looking at doing this to automatically make a

million dollars in a year,

forget it,

like that's not real.

Right. And it always takes a while,

right? Like everyone thinks that success comes easy,

but usually it takes time and it's tough.

And so every time that we've taken,

the more challenging road,

it's been a better thing for our business and it's provided

more value for our business.

So I always like to avoid the shortcut which I did

at the beginning when I started my businesses.

And now I just take the long,

sustainable route.

Perfect. All right,

well, let's go back there.

That was a perfect segue.

Tell me how you got to China and take us through

your story.

So this is like a great kind of beginning because the

beginning of me going to try to start it at the

university. And so now we have the Krone crisis,

as we know,

but at that time there weren't many jobs and I didn't

really know what I wanted to do with my life.

And so I left the U S for Europe patrol level

for a year,

without any plan.

I just wanted to like,

kind of go explore and see the world.

And that's what I did That tells us you're an adventurer.

Brian, Actually,

after that year,

I had a friend in Taiwan.

He was my college roommate and he had started a business

in Taiwan and he told me,

Brian, you've got to come out to Asia.

Everything's like the economy's hot here.

The culture is very different and it's super exciting,

like the environment and you got to come out and see

it. And so that's kind of how I ended up going

from Europe to Asia and I arrived in Taiwan and I

lived at his place for a few nights.

And before I knew it,

I kind of really loved the atmosphere,

the people,

the culture,

and also the opportunity business-wise because Asia was growing and also

China at the time was becoming a larger and larger force

in the world.

And Taiwan also speaks Mandarin.

And so at that time,

I started studying Mandarin about 10 years ago.

And from there I moved to Beijing where I continued my

studies and then I started working for that firm,

stayed on company,

doing their manufacturing in the heart of China.

How did you jump and learn how to do manufacturing?

Or were you learning on the job?

Yeah, I learned more or less on the job,

so they kind of hired us to help with their export

market. So we had different foreign employees that were at the

company and we each kind of manage the region that we

were from.

So from the U S and I managed the North American

region of exporting,

and I had other colleagues that manage Europe and South America

and Russia.

And so on the job,

they gave us a lot of the training about like how

manufacturing works and how you make molds and how you make

tooling and how we design products.

We were doing manufacturing for industrial products.

So those are products that went into like automobiles,

railroad cars,

wind power.

So like bigger,

larger components that were more industrial,

uh, not consumer,

however, like the same kind of manufacturing principles are very similar

across all types of manufacturing.

So that's where I've learned how it works and how kind

of China works and how manufacturing in China works.

So it was more like on the job training as I

help them sell their products to us companies.

Got it.

And so were you working with just one set of factories

or were you finding what factories would be appropriate for whatever

products you were making?

Yeah, so I actually worked for the factory.

I was hired directly by the Chinese government at one of

their government manufacturing facilities.

So our company was a subsidiary of a larger company and

we in our city had about 11 different factories and those

factories manufactured different components in the industrial market.

So even though we were just a small company within a

larger company,

we did have multiple factories that were making all different components

out. Gotcha.

I love that because that means you were really close to

the action.

So you really got to understand a lot,

even though you weren't working in the factory,

per se,

you weren't the export portion,

you were right in there amongst everything.

So you weren't like in a separate area of China and

just talking to them,

you saw everything,

I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Yeah. Like I worked with Chinese colleagues,

like in the overseas sales department and our office was basically

like right next to the factory.

So although we didn't like go there often,

like we could literally walk a hundred yards and just be

right in the middle of the factory.

So yeah,

it was good exposure to like how manufacturing works and how,

when we hear a lot of problems from our factories,

like I really got to see what was really happening in

the backend and not always what they're saying is what's actually

happening. Right.

So, yeah,

I got like a really good view of what the world

looks like behind the factory.

Got it.

Okay. And so let's continue on to where you are today.

Yeah, Sure.

So after I worked there for five years,

I started with a friend and eCommerce company.

We developed some Bluetooth speakers that we manufacture on our own

like custom Bluetooth speakers that we sell mainly in the U

S online.

So we sell primarily on Amazon,

but also on our own website.

And then from there,

I basically started a company that help e-commerce companies like mine

ship their products from China.

So in the process of starting my own eCommerce company,

I felt like there was a huge opportunity where a lot

of my friends were having trouble basically taking their product from

the factory and how to get it overseas or how to

get it to Amazon warehouses or how to get it to

their end customer.

And so we have a warehouse in Shenzhen,

China, which is the border city to Hong Kong.

I know a lot of people know Hong Kong and we

help eCommerce companies basically take the product from the factory and

distributed around the world to their customers or to other fulfillment

centers for their company.

Okay. So logistics of any kind.

So it might be pieces that you're using as part,

like, because all of my listeners are creators.

Right. So it might be parts that they're getting,

if they're going directly to a factory or it could be

the completed piece,

whichever. Yeah,

for sure.

Yeah. So we might ship components to people like maybe a

lot of the people that you talk to are assembling own

products, or we might take the product directly from China and

ship it to the young customer.

So maybe if people manufacturer higher scale in China,

we can ship the product to the end customer anywhere around

the world.

Or we can ship it in bulk by like sea or

air freight to a warehouse let's say in the U S

for them to distribute the products to the customer.

So we do both sides of it.

Yeah. Okay.

All right.

Perfect. Wonderful.

Okay. I think right now,

since we're still in the middle of the Corona situation,

as we're speaking,

although we're going to talk further,

Brian, I think about manufacturing in China overall,

because I think that will be significant and interesting for us

as we move forward.

Just share a little bit about where you are right now

in the situation with the factories.

Are they back up and running,

what's happening with shipping pricing of shipping?

Just give us a little bit of an overview and for

reference gift biz listeners,

where we're doing this interview,

interestingly enough,

on Memorial day here in America.

So that gives you a little bit of reference in time.

what's the situation over there right now?

Yeah. So I'll just bring it back a little bit,

just so that people can have a slight background on how

production progressed throughout the months and basically in January where it

first started and where it kind of ramped up in China

and to the end of January is where we went into

Chinese new year.

So typically in China,

that's when manufacturing slows down a little bit,

like just getting into Chinese new year.

So in the beginning of January,

or we saw like a lot of factories finish out their

orders before the end of the year for China.

And then starting after Chinese new year,

which started in February,

we saw a lot of factories,

very slow to get back up to production.

And that was because the virus was still spreading quite rapidly.

And also a lot of quarantine measures were taken within China.

So a lot of the factories and people were not able

to get back to work.

So we saw most of the production offline in February.

And then in March,

we saw a lot of the production start to come back.

So I'd say by the end of the March,

we had about 80% of production back,

online production capacity.

And then in April,

we were about full capacity.

So that's kind of the timeline.

And as far as like production,

so we were kind of,

if people were making things in China,

it was really tough to get their orders out,

or orders started to be made in February.

But by now actually factories are relatively desperate for orders because

demand around the world has kind of contracted because of the

virus. And so there are a lot of factories that are

like really looking for new orders,

but that can probably help a lot of the listeners negotiate,

lower order number amounts or negotiate a better price or payment

terms at the moment,

because really it's a buyer's market.

The buyer really has the power at the moment.

I'd say,

as far as manufacturing goes,

Is this a statement across the whole country?

All of China.

Yeah. I would say in general,

like we've seen a,

quite a few factories that have gone on like longterm vacation

and by long term vacation don't have enough orders to like

open the whole facility.

So we're seeing like the economy kind of a struggle.

So the opportunity for buyers to come in and purchase low

quantities is really good right now because a lot of factories

will take any order they can get.

I don't want it to sound so great.

But like for your listeners that might just be starting or

might be looking to order something smaller in the beginning.

I think it's a really good opportunity now to start talking

to factories,

to see what type of quantities and prices you can get

on some of the products that you might want,

or the components that you want to buy it from China.

Well, you've just given me an idea because I worked directly

with the factory down,

like in the garment creating area and my orders supposed to

get on the water,

I'd say within the month or so.

So maybe I ought to go back and add to it.

See if I can add in some things a little bit,

do some negotiation here.

We'll see.

Yeah. And I don't say like be too tough,

but at least it's time that you can at least bring

up some of these questions and you might be surprised at

how willing factories are willing to work with you.

You know what I mean?

And helping them out too.

Right. Because if they have a lot of downtime right now,

because the demand hasn't been as great,

then it's a win win,

really. Yeah.

And also if you think about that as well,

as far as like developing new product lines,

a lot of factories right now do have a lot of

downtime. So they are more willing to spend more time with

you to develop maybe a new concept or maybe a new

idea that you have for a product.

So at the same time,

it's also a really good opportunity now to think about new

product lines that you can develop with your factories,

because they're eager to do it at this moment.

For sure.

Very good.

All right.

So let's talk then to a listener.

Who's never considered this before,

but they've created a product that they're now making themself.

Right. And they're getting to the point where the demand is

such that they need to either bring in help like an

employee. Who's going to be with them here in America,

or now maybe we've sparked an idea of Hm,

should I maybe consider making whatever my creation is over in

China? What are the pros and cons there of doing it

here in America versus hiring a factory in China?

Yeah. So I guess there's a few things like in the

U S for sure,

if you're going to do it on your own,

you're definitely going to be able to control the process more.

And also the quality of product that you push out on

your own.

Right? It's not to say that China doesn't make good product

because there is good factories that make really good product,

but it's much more difficult to control the quality when you

are manufacturing in China.

So I would say that's one of the negatives,

but one of the,

a few of the big positives are obviously scale.

So China has very strong supply chains,

including a large labor force that are able to manufacture like

really high volume products.

So that's one of the benefits.

If your business does grow,

it's easy to keep up with sales as your business grows

quickly, which is a huge advantage.

And of course we all know is cost,

right? So you're going to get a better cost price point

in China,

and it's going to help you improve your margins and also

produce more cashflow obviously for the business that will help you

grow. So I'd say those are like big benefits,

as opposed to the benefit in the U S the negatives

would also be as long lead time,

right? So in China,

you need at least probably a month to manufacture something.

And then if you ship it by sea,

you probably need another month.

So like two to three months to get your product on

shore in the U S.

And so the lead times,

and the complexity of shipping also can add a bit of

complexity to your whole process.

So there's pluses and minuses on both sides,

right? You have to look at your specific product and see

if it makes sense.

Plus, I'm thinking the volume that you're going to produce.

I mean,

you're not going to have a Chinese factory producing 10 pieces.

Like there have to be quite a few,

like, how do you figure out what the volume break would

need to be to make this worthwhile?

Where would you go if you were doing this?

Well, I'm not even going to say It depends on what

type of product you make.

So if someone's interested in this,

okay, so they hear the pros and the cons,

the pros that you gave her,

obviously the scale,

the volume and the cost,

because production costs,

we all know is lower there,

but then you do have your shipping tariffs.

You know,

all of that from experience,

I'd say the pricing is still better when you're doing something

like that overseas versus trying to source it in America,

depending on your product.

And then the cons of course,

are quality.

You have to clearly have very specific guidelines of your product

and lead time,

as long as you're planning far out,

and that can fit your process and your inventory,

you can work it.

You just have to know that you do need months.

I mean,

not my product coming in.

So I do all of my ribbon over in China,

Brian and it's turnaround at the very shortest is three months.

And it's been up to six months.

Right. But if you know that in a complaint for it,

then it's okay.

What I've also found.

And you're the logistics guy.

So you know,

this better than I do.

But what I've also found is if you have a smaller

order and you're going by sea over the water,

it might take longer because they need to fill up full

containers. So when I was just starting in,

my orders were smaller as I was testing everything out,

my shipping took longer because I was such a small part

of a container.

Right. Yeah.

That's absolutely true.

That makes sense.

Yeah, for sure.

Okay. So if someone is thinking,

okay, I don't know if this is for me,

but I don't even know what steps I would take first

to even consider this,

but talk about someone who has a product that could be

replicated and let's go so far as they already have the

design spec.

So they've already got that taken care of on this end,

over here.

What's the next from there?

Yeah. I think that the best way to start,

and it's kind of cliche,

but it's still the best place to look for factories is

to go on Alibaba.

So we all know Alibaba or some of us don't,

but it's basically a search engine in China for factories.

There's both factories and trading companies on the platform.

So you have to be aware that there's both types of

types of companies,

but in that interface,

and in that website,

you can basically search for your commodity and or whatever you're

trying to make.

And factories will come up in the search results that might

match the product that you want to make.

And so on this website,

you can look for factories and you can directly contact with

them directly through the website,

or sometimes they have their email written on their sales page,

where you can send them an email to kind of inquire

about making your product.

And so for anyone starting,

I still recommend that this is the best way to start

looking. And would you suggest choosing one or three,

or you already said that it makes sense.

This is pretty obvious,

but it makes sense to choose a factory.

Who's already making something similar to what you have because they

have the experience and the equipment for it.

Right. Should you choose one or three and start talking to

several at a time?

Or what do you say?

I mean,

that's clearly what I do in America.

Yeah. I'd say there's no like magic number,

but definitely more than three.

So I would say,

I mean,

we've talked to like 20 or 30,

just to find one or 50 to find one good factory,

but it depends on how the progress with the first three

to five factories that you talk to,

how you feel about it,

the pricing they give you how the communication goes,

whether you believe that they're trustworthy,

et cetera,

et cetera.

So usually I like to tell people first,

get your feelers out.

Have people provide quotes when they do provide quotes,

the quotes will be all over the place.

Meaning you might get a quote for making something one factory

quotes, $3,

the other factory quotes,

$8, the other one quotes $10.

And after they quote,

you can start asking them,

Hey, why did you quote this amount?

Why is your so much lower than other people's?

They might be using different materials.

They might have a better production line set up for that,

and they're already making it.

And that's why they're able to keep the cost so low

is because they're so experience.

So you've got to start asking questions and open that dialogue

and understand how professional they are and how they respond.

And that's where you start getting a good feel for who

you want to narrow down the factories to kind of be

the last couple that you consider,

basically. Okay.

And then when you get to your final two,

any suggestions there?

Yeah, absolutely.

So we always recommend that even if it's not exactly your

product, even if it's close to your product,

that you purchase samples from the factory.

So you purchase one sample from each of the factories and

you have those samples shipped to you.

And that's where you're going to get an idea of,

okay, is the quality of the product.

Very good.

Is it bad?

And that's where you can compare the costs between each factory

and the product that you actually have in your hand.

And so that's where you really start understanding where each factory

is. And then from there,

you can go into the next negotiation,

which is probably choosing one of those factories to start developing

your prototype.

Okay. So that's when you would send over the technical drawings

and those would then already be copyrighted here,

how do you protect your product?

Cause now you're sending it to China,

Right? Yeah.

I'm going to be a little,

this is probably gonna make a lot of people a little

bit uncomfortable,

but I don't believe regardless of what you do,

whether you sign an NDA or not,

that you're protected in any way,

other than having protection in the country of sale.

So if you have a patent on your product in the

U S then you're definitely protected.

However, the thing about China is if you have one factory

that can make a thing,

a widget,

same widget.

And so even if you have your factory,

who's a trusted factory,

make your product and you become successful,

which we all hope everyone does.

It's not to say that some other factory could make the

same product,

right? And so I don't recommend that people worry too much

about protection,

or let's say IP protection in China,

they should focus on the IP protection in the country that

they want to sell their product in.

That's the only way to really protect your company and yourself

from people trying to copy it.

We've learned from other interviews we've done on the legal side

with copyrights,

trademarks, patents,

whatever it is.

It's always based on whatever country you're selling in.

So if you are selling internationally,

you need to get these documents in every single country.

So I totally buy into what you're saying,

Brian, that makes a lot of sense.

The other thing I want to say to you guys who

are listening is remember just as Brian saying,

like our products can be replicated.

Your candles can be made by somebody else.

Not as good as you.

We all know that,

but what you add on top of your business,

your branding,

who you are,

how you go to market,

how you're special and different from everybody else is the added

layer that gives you the magic,

if you will.

So today what we're really talking about here is specifically how

to get your product created in mass.

So I don't want you guys to freak out,

you know,

and especially people who are just starting and saying,

Nope, I'm not doing this,

but you're absolutely right,

Brian. I think that does make people uncomfortable,

but I agree with what you're saying,

and we need to be bold enough and confident enough to

stand up to the market and represent our product uniquely.

Yeah. And just to add that,

to that,

like, I completely agree.

And also,

like, we also need to think that a lot of people

can probably make the same product as us,

but we need to add value in our companies,

through credible customer service and caring about our customers and our

company values and the values that our products provide to our

customers. And that's what really shines one company over the other,

rather than there's a lot of people that can copy you,

but you can still stay competitive as long as you're passionate

about your product and your business,

and you provide a lot of value to your customer.

So I think that's like the best offense rather than worrying

about whether someone's going to copy you because the fact is,

is they probably can,

you know,

so Right.

And I have so many people,

I'm just going to go a little side tangent here,

and I am going to stick with these words.

So many people who will be like,

I have an idea,

but I'm not telling anybody because someone will steal it.

You know?

And the fact is the second year ideas on the market,

someone can copy it.

Let's just be real,

right. Even if it's the most unique product you've ever thought

of someone can knock you off.

I mean,

that happens all the time.

So the things that both Brian and I were just talking

about are the ways that you make yourself different,

that you're attracting your right audience,

that people are going to buy from you and you'll have

a profitable business,

but it starts with having the product to sell.

So let's go back to that And we'll continue this conversation

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So you get some samples,

they look good.

You then send over the specs and then you get a

prototype and the prototype comes back to you and you might

have a couple of rounds right back and forth.

And what I love about this process,

Brian is if something ends up faltering,

you've already done your research and you have some backup factories

that you can go to later if need be.

So you're already further along in the process,

but you finally get the prototype that looks good.

You're like foams up.

I'm excited.

This is going to work.

Then what?

Yeah. So then you would make,

I mean,

this is what we recommend to make a final sample.

So the final sample would be like the exact sample that

you want them.

You make an order for 100 or a thousand or 10,000

pieces. And you want every single unit to look exactly the

same. And that's from the size,

the shape,

the material,

the packaging,

everything. So you want to make sure that you have that

final approved sample and that there are some guidelines that you

give the factory to tell them how they might package it

or how it fits in the box or how the sticker

on the top is labeled or where it's put in the

top. All those little details are important.

And because if you don't mention it to them,

they're going to put the sticker wherever they want,

or they're going to shove the product in the box and

whatever the way they want.

So it's important to have that final sample and then have

additional instructions to denote every detail that you might think that

they might not put in the way that you want it.

Okay. This is important.

And this,

the quality I'll be honest,

Brian, maybe you can give me some pointers.

Here has been a little bit of a challenge.

Now. I think if I had a product that had specific

hard piece parts,

it might be different.

I'm doing a fabric material that has a special finish that

we've created that needs to go on.

It's cut in certain ways that the rolls are rolled to

a certain size.

All of that.

And I have seen a variance from lot to lot that

comes in,

which becomes very challenging because then what I've put on the

website that we are selling isn't necessarily the product that's come

in. Now having said that,

I absolutely love my factory.

I've been there.

I've seen them.

I can tell everybody with a million percent confidence,

it's not a sweat shop because that's of course always a

concern here.

Maybe we can address that in a little while.

I love my people.

I think they're honest.

I believe in them.

And anytime I've had a bad shipment,

they have made it right for me.

I know there's been timing issues then.

Cause we've got a couple more months before we get it

in, but my experience has been very good with them.

I just wish that the consistency would be better.

Do you have any comments?

Yeah, absolutely.

How many Brian?

I've got tons,

but yeah,

like as far as consistency.

So there's a few things.

One is like,

people need to keep in mind that factories are factories and

humans are humans and there is going to be some variation,

always between products just because we are humans and we make

everything differently,

right. Even when you mold a product.

So when you put a plastic piece in a mold and

you mold it,

so you heat it up and you create a piece of

plastic, there's going to be variations in weight and how much

plastic you put in and even the color of the plastic,

because when you die things,

it's not going to die perfectly.

So I think as buyers,

we need to keep that in mind specifically,

like if you're buying a textiles or some type of yarn

or threads or whatever,

they have to diet to the best of their ability to

the closest that they can get to the Pantone color that

you're working with.

And there's always going to be a little variation.

The goal of us is to make sure that that variation

is to the minimum.

And there are industry regulations too,

right? Their industry regulations of acceptable variances in color.

So yeah,

I get that.

Absolutely. But I think the best way for us to kind

of control it,

to create some type of it,

doesn't have to be like a serious document,

but some type of written document that you send to your

factory to tell them what you have to sapped and what

you don't accept.

And when you do that,

it kind of clearly sets out the guidelines.

And then before you do make the shipment,

we recommend specifically when you just start working with a factory

for the first few batches of shipment,

you hire a China inspection agency to go to the factory

and inspect the product.

And this shows your factory that you're serious and that you're

willing to reject products so that they're going to lose money.

Right. And just showing them this will make them more stringent

on their own quality checks that they do for you.

And so I think this is a really good way to

like put them in line for me,

since I live in China,

people are going to laugh in order to get my factories

to get better in shape.

I actually go to my factory myself and I check the

product one by one,

myself, if there's bad product.

And I reject to myself and this makes the factory feel,

they kind of like lose face that the boss is going

in there and sweating the factory all day to check the

product and usually embarrasses them enough that they won't do it

again. So I know everyone can't go to China,

but the best alternative is to hire an inspection company that

can go on your behalf and check your product before it

leaves the farm.

Okay. I have a couple of questions about that.

So I didn't know about these inspection people until recently,

but I've stayed just tightly working with the factory.

And now my liaison there,

who's like probably the only person who speaks English there does

exactly what you say.

He goes in and he inspects and make sure everything's going

as it should.

And then he also sends me pictures for verification.

And if we see something over on our side,

I'll be like,

okay, hold on,

go back and look at this,

this color,

this size,

roll this tightness of rolling,

you know,

whatever, make sure it's to our standards.

So we kind of work it back and forth so that

I feel comfortable that what is going to take yet another

30 days on the water to get to me is actually

going to be usable once we get it here.

But I didn't use to do that in the beginning.

So I would highly recommend these China inspection agencies as you're

getting started.

How would you find an agency there?

Yeah, that's a good question.

I just know from experience,

we have one that we always recommend.

They're a little bit more expensive than the average inspection agency,

but they do a really good job.

I can give that to you.

And you can maybe put it in the show notes and

share it with your listeners.

But yeah,

we have one that I recommend to my friends.

We have no affiliation with them at all.

Just so everyone knows.

We just think they're like a really good company and yeah,

you can share it with your listeners in the show notes

or if you want to send them out an email or

whatever. Okay.

So you guys,

if you're willing to give it to me,

I will put that in the show notes as an agency,

Brian would recommend.

Okay. So product's ready.

It's been inspected.

How do I decide whether I want to air it over

or send it on the water besides timing?

Cause that's obvious.

Yeah. So if you have a very small order,

Yeah. Some of them can be very small products.

You could might have thousands,

but they're small.

Yeah. So if it's less than we always go by kilograms,

but if it's less than about a hundred kilograms,

usually it always makes sense to ship by air just because

the cost to ship by sea is just too exorbitant compared

to air.

But once you get over a certain threshold for our company,

we consolidate freight for other people at a minimum of a

hundred kilograms,

which is really small.

And usually you can find people that will ship it by

CTU, a hundred kilograms and above.

And so for really small shipments,

you've got an Airship and for larger shipments,

we recommend sea shipment.

Okay. And then people would come to someone like you,

right. An export company,

right? Yeah,

exactly. So we basically help companies or small companies take their

freight from the factory,

put it in containers that go onto the ships,

bring it to the U S clear it through customs and

then deliver it to the end destination.

So that's like what we do to bring your product from

the factory to wherever you want to get it.

So we would arrange that whole travel for your product wherever

you wanted it.

Oh, interesting.

Okay. So what I'm doing right now is my factory is

arranging everything up to the port in China.

And then I have someone state side picking up from there.

So they're doing the same type of thing you just happened

to be there versus the person I'm using here.

Right? I mean a little bit different because we add value

because we basically take a lot of people's freight and load

it into the container before it gets to the port.

And then we take a full container and split all those

port fees against,

or amongst all the sellers in the container.

And so for doing less than container loads,

which can be expensive.

We lower the cost in comparison to our competitors because we're

loading the containers before they get to the port.

So we do a little bit different not to get in

it too much detail,

but we optimize for people that have smaller amounts of freight

that want to ship by seat.

Okay. So you are definitely a resource for all of us.

If we are looking at getting into this,

we could certainly ask you questions,

et cetera.

Absolutely. Yeah,

sure. Yeah.

If anyone has questions,

I mean,

I could tell you our contact information at the end and

they can get in touch with us for sure.

We'll do that.

Okay. And so what is your comment on right now?

Like the tariffs and the shipping costs currently?

Because this is a question I actually,

Brian asked my audience,

like what types of things do you want me to ask

Brian, here's our chance.

And one of their questions was what about shipping costs right

now Turning the whole Krone virus.

Basically most of the sea was relatively stable and stable in

terms of the amount of capacity in the market and the

cost. So you would see a relatively,

a similar costs this year,

as you would,

the years previous,

however, air freight this year was a lot different.

So usually in Q4 going up to Christmas,

we have like kind of the highest air freight prices of

the year.

And this year was a little bit different because the highest

we've ever seen during the coronavirus outbreak.

And the reason for that is a lot of people don't

realize is about 50% of air freight is shipped in the

bellies of passenger flights.

So since most of the passenger flights around the world or

in our continental ones were canceled,

we basically had about 50% of the capacity in the air

freight market taken away.

And then we had an increase in demand because we had

a lot of factory delays after Chinese new year.

So a lot of people wanted to get their product on

planes, but also we had a big need for PPE personal

protection equipment for a lot of hospitals around the world.

And those were all being airfreighted.

And so we had a huge surge in demand and a

huge shortage of supply and capacity.

And so air freight prices have almost tripled.

So, but luckily,

actually about two weeks ago,

I have good news for everyone.

It kind of peaked.

So we saw the peak of prices and for about two

weeks, we've seen prices go down.

And so I think this is a relatively good trend that

we're seeing every week.

We're seeing the prices go down slightly.

So I think for people that do want to Airship,

it's been a good trend and I hope it should continue

in the next few months to continue to go down as

well. You have a different product that I also source overseas

only because honestly,

and I have to say this for our customers only because

I can't get it in America.

It doesn't exist here because I do try to buy American

as much as I can to support our Homeland,

especially as we're talking Memorial day right now,

but I do have another product and they did not increase

my prices for shipping at all.

It stayed the same.

And I just did that.

What last week I placed the order last week.

So I can confirm what you're saying.

Brian is the point and that's a relief to all of

us, I think.

And not only that,

I think it's a relief on the personal end too,

because when we go shopping for things,

a lot of things that we buy are still made overseas.

And if now the channels have kind of been cleaned up

and things are starting to go,

I don't know about flights coming in as much,

but maybe a little bit,

like you're saying,

it'll take a little while to catch up,

but things should start getting back to what we're accustomed to

is what it sounds like.

Yeah, I hope so.

I think if there is still spread around the world,

which there should be until there's kind of a vaccine,

I think prices will be relatively elevated a little bit higher

than normal,

but we do see them going down from here,

from there kind of crazy outrageous two or three times what

they used to be.

Right. So yeah,

I think throughout the year they will be higher than normal.

However, we're starting to see them going down,

at least in the market,

which I think is good for everyone.

Okay. And what about timing?

Yeah. So timing,

we've seen a lot of delays,

usually your typical DHL or ups express shipment from China that

takes three to five days to the U S has taken

at the worst times up to two weeks,

which is like unheard of.

And that has to do with a lot of the fact

that they couldn't get a lot of the products on planes.

So a lot of the product would actually sit in line

before it was loaded onto those express planes.

We had a lot of our product stuck in Hong Kong,

sitting at the airport because when we book our freight,

it's like first come first serve.

So if we book the freight and we put it at

the airport,

whoever's in front of us,

gets loaded on the plane first.

And then we have to wait in line depending on when

we get our product there.

And so we saw like large lines for freight getting onto

the aircraft over the past two to three months.

But we're seeing that these lines are reducing over the last

few weeks.

So for most people,

I think there still should be some slight delays in the

market, but we're seeing that shipment times are getting improved and

they should get better and better over the next month for

sure. Alright.

And is it the type of thing where they're going to

try and be as efficient with the space that they have

available as they can?

So if they have,

let's say three large shipments that they're trying to fit on

a plane,

they can fit too,

but they have space for a smaller shipment.

Will they go and try and find that shipment and put

it in there?

Like, so they'll try and fit full capacity based on the

space available.

Yeah, absolutely.

So like maybe some person,

like a little bit pushed ahead just because they have a

little bit less,

but generally it's kind of first come first serve,

but we're seeing less and less lines going out on air

freight in the last two weeks.

So I think people will have to worry about it less

and less when we look into like June,

July for sure.

Well, great,

perfect. And someone who's just now considering by the time they

go through this whole process,

probably be a nonissue depending on how fast you would go

through. If you're considering it.

Once again,

I do want to tackle this question,

which I think is something that's on a lot of my

listeners minds and that is over here.

Sometimes we hear like how much can you trust the factories?

And I hear people saying,

well, it's not always truthful the message that you're getting.

I will tell you that has not been my experience.

I've already said how much I love my factory,

but not everyone is in a situation like I am where

we took the trip and the trains way down into remote

areas to actually visit and make a connection with the factories.

I mean,

I know that I'm fortunate enough to have been able to

do that.

The majority of people never will.

So what can you say in terms of that,

to help people with this idea of you?

Okay, but this is a foreign country.

I really don't know a lot about them.

Is it worth my risk mean?

I think I'm Lucky I've been here for awhile and I've

never had any trouble ever with any factories apart from like

small quality issues,

which is probably everyone's going to have,

I think,

a good way to kind of mitigate that is to always

start small with your factory.

So never put in a huge order on the first order.

And you could do that if you visited them and you

understand who they are and you've signed contracts and all that

stuff, but as smaller businesses like us that want to get

started, it's probably good to start with a very small kind

of you like to say to the factory of sample order.

If you do say that,

then they're more willing to like create a very small order

size for you to get started.

And we always tell is,

Hey, it's a sample order so that we can understand you

and to test your quality.

And they're usually okay with making a smaller batch in the

beginning. And so that's how we always recommend that people start

out just in order to not only get a feel for

the factory,

but also mitigate your risk if someone were to run away

with your money.

And if you do have one of those small orders and

it's only a thousand or $2,

you're not going to lose everything.

Right. So that's what we recommend to do in the beginning.

Okay. You know,

I think another thing,

and even my factory is a little bit hesitant with this

only because of the language barrier.

But if you were able to deepen your relationship through,

for example,

having some of your calls over Skype,

where you can actually see each other that starts to build

more of a relationship.

And I know I had already been there,

so I knew my folks,

but it just continues to reinforce the relationship and give you

a little bit more confidence and trust.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think also you can ask them for maybe like,

not all of their buyers are gonna want to do this

because they also don't want other people to know where they're

buying stuff,

but they might not have like a recommendation letter or a

reference that you can ask for.

And that might be helpful for you to like get a

little bit more confidence in them.

Okay. All right.

And so real quickly,

because I want to cover everything with you,

Brian, let's say you're not going to do a full product

over there,

but some of the sub components,

I think you call them of your product are being manufactured

over in China.

Um, what do you say about the middle man who is

purchasing those products for you?

Is there anything that we should be aware of from a

middleman supplier?

Yeah, actually this is probably gonna surprise a lot of people,

but I actually don't mind buying from middlemen.

There's a couple of reasons for that middleman serve like a

really good purpose in the market.

And they're usually very experienced buyers of certain types of commodities.

And so the benefit of them is they understand the supply

chain really well.

They have really good relationships with factories.

They often can get a better price than you can get,

even if you were to go directly with the factory.

And that's because they've been working with that factory forever.

And so from middleman,

you get all of that experience,

but you also get the ability to buy smaller quantities because

they've been working with that factories for so long.

So you got to leverage kind of,

person's really like strong experience working with these people over a

long period of time.

So I'm not very as negative as a lot of other

people are about middleman because I think they serve a really

good purpose in the market.

Of course,

if you have a product that you make over a long

period of time,

you might want to work directly with the factory just for

kind of production reasons and ease of manufacturing and ease of

communication. But I would recommend to your listeners that don't just

count out a middleman just because they're a middleman,

give them consideration and seriously consider their offer if they do

give you an offer.

Okay. All right.

Great advice there.

Anything we haven't covered that you think we should include in

our conversation here?

Wow. That's a great question.

Which of the thousand things,

right? Any big holes doesn't mean we don't ever have you

on again,

right? Like if there's a lot of questions after this,

maybe you'll be hearing from me to say Oprah,

we need more information,

but are there any holes?

Yeah. Like China's,

I mean,

it's hard to say like one thing,

cause there's a lot of complexities to manufacturing and China's kind

of complex in that way.

But I think going through the route that we kind of

told you guys like the start with finding a factory and

start creating the samples and then create a prototype and then

a final sample and then mass production.

And then your quality check is kind of like the really

good, basic way to get started.

Don't go for a home run on the first,

hit, get a smaller production than run and see how it

goes. And the only thing I could say is like,

if anyone has questions,

they're more than welcome to send me an email and I'd

be happy to try to answer anyone's question.

Cause it's really hard for me to kind of pinpoint.

There's a lot of different problems that arise when people manufacturer

and everyone kind of has their own unique issues,

let's say.

And so it's really hard for me to say like one

thing in specific,

I would say it's kind of a bad answer,

but Well I want the real answers.

Yeah. I think what we went through is okay.

Alright, perfect.

And we'll have your email also over on the show notes

page. So if there's listeners,

you'll be able to jump over there,

but go ahead and throw it in here right now to

Brian. What's your email?

It's Brian B R I E.

Brian with an I n@easychinawarehouse.com.

Super easy.

Perfect. So if anyone has any questions more than welcome to

send me an email about manufacturing or logistics or whatever you'd

like to ask and I'll try and get back to you

as fast as I can.

Wonderful. Okay.

As we close on out,

Brian, I'm really curious,

you know,

you've had a little journey already,

you know,

who knew that when you were going off to just travel

for a little bit,

that you'd end up in China for your life,

at least your life up to this point.

Right. And neither did my mother for sure.

I'm sure.

What do you see as the future,

as you start dreaming bigger and looking further,

what do you see for your life?

Yeah, so I think like one of the biggest things for

me is like I started my business for ultimately the main

reason why I do it is for freedom and freedom being

to kind of wake up and do what I want to

do every day and have the opportunity and the time to

do it.

And so like for me,

I'm optimistic about continuing to grow the business and also to

provide more freedom for myself.

And that's,

for me personally,

what I'm most optimistic about in starting a small business,

specifically creating products and selling them to other people.

So for me,

that's what I like the most and what I'm the most

kind of hat I'll be about and excited to wake up

every day.

Doing wonderful.

Do you think you'll stay in China?

That's a great question.

My mom asks me all the time.

I bet I've built a lot of skills here and they're

super useful in China.

I think they're less useful probably in other places.

And so because of my unique set of skills,

I think it's likely that I'll stay here longer term to

kind of utilize what I've built here.

You'd say.

Yep. So for now,

at least I'd say yes,

Well, you know,

you found something you love,

which is awesome.

And now you're just going to keep building on top of

what you already have.

Absolutely. I love that.

Well, this has been such great information.

I learned some things,

our listeners,

I know,

learned a lot.

I know this will be an interview that people will come

back to and I'll reference,

you know,

as they start developing and establishing and taking their businesses to

the next level.

So I so appreciate your coming on,

sharing your knowledge,

also offering for our listeners to talk with you directly.

So thank you once again.

I really,

really appreciate all your information.

Great. Thanks for having me on.

I appreciate it.

I know it feels unpatriotic to have products made overseas.

We all want to buy American,

but the truth at least for now is that not everything

is even available here for us in the U S and

until that changes,

it's good to know that there are options.

And hopefully today you've seen that the process is not as

mysterious or cumbersome,

as you may have thought next week,

we're entering into a brand new series.

I'm going to be bringing you experts,

covering all the various selling platforms that are available to you

online from Facebook shops to Etsy,

Amazon, and next week,

the first one eBay you'll learn the pros and cons of

each platform.

So you can choose the one or more.

That makes sense for you,

always in conjunction with your own website.

Of course.

And before we sign off,

if you have a second,

will you please jump over and leave a rating or review

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So here you go.

Just answer this question.

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An easy way to leave a rating and review is right

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forward slash gift biz unwrapped.

Thank you so much to those of you who have already

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and thanks in advance for those of you who are going

to do it now.

Okay. That's a wrap.

Have a great week and I'll see you again next Monday.

Be safe and be well,

bye for now.

I want to make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook

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It's a place where we all gather and our community to

support each other.

Got a really fun post in there.

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I have to say where I invite all of you to

share what you're doing to show pictures of your product,

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