Navigating Expensive Freight, Supply Chain Issues, and Amazon’s Inventory Restrictions
The international logistics, especially from China to US, UK and EU is a bit messy nowadays, it is not only the pricing issue at the moment, but as well as the space issue. 2020 was a difficult year in terms of logistics, most of the air freight, almost was about to stop and the price increased a lot. And most of the people who used to ship the product by air, then they changed their shipping methods to ocean, and then we had an overbooking situation in the ocean freight. In 2021, we still face this problem. Basically, most of the companies Amazon FBA companies, need to stay in the competition.
In order to stay in the game for Amazon FBA sellers, in terms of logistics:
- Just make sure you’re planning everything on time.
- With Amazon, you never know what happens, make sure you have a plan B for last quarter to have a warehouse service, wherever your main market is.
- The more you repeat, the better it gets.
- Use a digital platform to track your supply chain and logistics process.
- Never be shy about asking, especially if you’re a beginner.
David 0:00
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Burak Yolga 0:42
In order to actually save some money in cost, the best thing to do is actually using prep center wherever you guys are shipping. If your market is main market is US then it’s better to work with the West Coast prep centers warehouses, if you’re doing you know UK, Europe, you also need to have like your warehouse servicing. I think most of the companies they don’t even offer price they say okay, we’re just going to book the container if we can. And then if we accept the price that you continue with that if not, we’re not going to give you the space and I’m like we cannot just like close our eyes and get the price and then you know let us like you know, let us basically like become a millionaire. You cannot do that basicly. When it comes to Europe, as I mentioned now there’s a rail option, which is almost 20 25 days to ship it. But this is of course, the rail I’m talking about from China, and it’s about like almost 20 25 days to ship it by rail. The price is close to $3 but there are less delays like you know they schedule pretty well now to train shipments. I like it. I know for most of my customer if they sell in europe they use the railway.
Intro 1:51
Welcome everyone to the firing the man podcast a show for anyone who wants to be their own boss. If you sit in a cubicle every day and know you were capable of more than join us. This show will help you build a business and grow your passive income streams in just a few short hours per day. And now your host serial entrepreneurs David Schomer and Ken Wilson.
David 2:15
Welcome everyone to the firing the man podcast. On today’s episode, we are joined by Burak Yolga, a specialist in international logistics product sourcing and navigating the complicated global marketplace. Burak is our first second time guest. Welcome to the show Burak, how are you doing?
Burak Yolga 2:32
Thank you guys for having me back. I’m doing great. How are you guys doing?
David 2:36
Very well, very well. Now, I have to say 2020 was a rough year, there were certainly presented some challenges. as it related to just navigating the marketplace, there was a lot of backlog, shipping was challenging. And now we are into 2021. And similar to the president gives a state of the union tell me the state of freight in summer of 2021.
Burak Yolga 3:00
I mean, I don’t even know where to start. David, we thought that 2020 was a tough year. But it seems 2021 is even harder for most of the companies. You know, we can talk about a lot of different issues, especially if you’re sourcing products in Asia or in Europe, a lot of shortage in the material, the labor cost inflation. The raw material shortage is one of the biggest problem now the price is really increasing. I think everybody’s kind of suffering for the cost increasing. And a lot of Chinese factories or companies in Asia, they need to increase their prices. So every company is looking for alternative sourcing channels like in Asia, as well as maybe in different parts of Asia like India, Bangladesh, or like in Eastern Europe, Turkey, Russia, and other countries. When it comes to the buying habits. It has been changing. Definitely. And you know, the last point to that is the transportation, the logistics, when it comes even like more complicated, not only the pricing issue at the moment, but as well as the space issue. So 2020 was a difficult year because no one ever had the pandemic experience before international businesses really suffered. And most of the air companies or air freight, almost was about to stop like 80 to 90% capacity went down. So the price increase a lot. And most of the people who used to ship the product by air, then they changed their shipping methods to ocean, and then we had a overbooking situation in the ocean freight. So it’s still continued this problem since 2020. And right after the chinese new year, we had a big problem with the cost increasing I can explain this way the last year per kilogram the cddp fast ship when we say in fact is about delivery time was about 1.3 to 1.5 dollars. Now it’s almost two to 2.2 dollars. So basically most of the companies who are selling on Amazon, they need to stay in the competition. They basically they cut their own margin and the profit. So because of the increase in this cost full container was about like $3,000. Now it’s almost like $10,000. And, you know, there are a lot of things that the issue with the supply chain actually continues and it seems end of may almost none, it still has not been sold. And it’s kind of getting worse before fourth quarter.
Ken 5:25
Yeah, Burak. So I’m excited to have you on a second time. It’s pretty awesome. So a question for you. You know, you talked about a little bit on David’s question. But what why is shipping so expensive right now? It’s almost like, you mentioned for full containers, it’s almost like the price has tripled since like, last year or the year before?What factors are causing this price to, you know, it’s not like we lost a bunch of boats. We don’t have the boats. I mean, what are the factors? You know, why is it so expensive?
Burak Yolga 5:56
Actually, Ken that is a great question. Sometimes I’m also asking the same question to myself. And unfortunately, there is no single answer to that. It’s a little bit of economy factors a little bit political factors. Obviously, it’s not our business to talk about the politics. But as far as we know, I mean, you know that we have an office in China in Hong Kong. And everyday, I’m talking to my preparations in China, what we’re facing right now is the one of the reason actually real reason with the business wise, there are a lot of container shipments from China, or Asia to the US or North America or Europe, but there’s not enough shipments backwards. So basically, most of the containers, you’re shipping from Asia to the US, the shipping lines, like the boats, they don’t want to take empty containers back. So that’s why most of the containers, which come to us or North America, let’s say they don’t go back as quick as before the pandemic. So this is one of the actual reason why we cannot actually find enough containers in China in let’s say, in Europe, because most of those containers are not going back. So this is one of the reason. Another reason is I think it’s more about, you know, most of the companies they lost business in, let’s say, last year, February to, let’s say, April, or may with the you know, the worst part of during the pandemic. So those companies are trying to make more money. But the biggest problem is finding the equipment, which in freight equipment is the empty containers. So this is the actually the biggest reason why we cannot find basically we want to get a space, but then the freight company that the those liners, they tell us like there’s an empty container. So they cannot basically send the containers to us. So this is one of the reason they don’t want to also depart before it’s 100% loaded. So that’s why there are also a lot of delays. So the delays also causing this kind of mess, because then most of the vessels they don’t depart on Sunday cannot enter the port on time. So they kind of lose the last three days. So they get like penalties. And they cannot unload on time. They’re like some sort of congestion on the port. So that’s why it takes longer time for them to enter the port unloaded. So they get also charged more by the ports like let’s say the busiest ports. Now I will say Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, let’s say and last week, I was in San Francisco to visit our warehouse in San Francisco, I saw myself there at least like 15 to 20 full boats are waiting to enter the port. So this normally never happens actually. So there are like some factors that actually is really causing the price increase. But there’s also some not realistic price increase I think it’s due to the market conditions a little bit you know, every sort of like chaos situation is actually helping some companies to make a lot of money but actually suffer the rest of the company so I think the situation is a little bit of both economy real station as well as some part of the politic also that companies kind of fighting each other so little bit of everything unfortunately.
Ken 9:15
Okay, yeah, that’s interesting, kind of that perfect storm of supply demand and price now what I would call price jacking.
Burak Yolga 9:25
Exactly. But you know, since we’re entering the summer this month normal in the businesses kind of slow us down because most of the companies they want to bring the actual you know, the big inventory before Christmas, or most of the companies place a big order before Chinese New Year, she bought everything and then by the time it gets like May, May really slows down, and then until like August, September is still slow time because most of the companies they increase their quantities for the fourth quarter and they don’t get like ready before like August and September, let’s say, but now it’s the highest price in the entire year actually, this year, it has never been this high before may. So I think it’s also like the people are coming back, you know from pandemic, people are really tired of, you know, not doing anything so they start buying this is also the fact that the demand has not been decreased for most of the Amazon sellers. Still like, you know, sales is pretty good for May, June July season. So that’s why I think we keep receiving more program, a lot of retailers also turning into their businesses to the online. So this is also another reason I think last year, the retail didn’t do really much business and most of the people now are trying to digitalize their business. You know, focus on online, Walmart’s, Etsy, Amazon. So that’s also another factor, I think. I’m sure you guys hear that a lot to a lot of retailers actually physical store they close, and then they start focusing on the online businesses.
David 10:59
Yeah, absolutely. We’re seeing that. And I think that dovetails pretty nicely into my next question for any of our listeners that are selling on Amazon right now. They are most likely running into inventory restrictions. And I can personally say this is I’m getting a couple gray hairs and then some my hair’s falling out from these Amazon inventory restrictions. And so you know, typically the motto would be place an order with your Chinese supplier, you generate shipping labels, put it on a boat or plane, and it arrives at Amazon warehouses, and now, we can’t do that, right? We can’t even generate shipping labels. And so my question to you is what are the smart Amazon sellers doing to combat this?
Burak Yolga 11:38
Unfortunately, a lot of people are facing this, a lot of my friends, a lot of our customers, the only way I think doing it, I mean, the last thing you want to do is to ship your product by air, it’s extremely expensive. Now, shipping from any large international airport in China or Hong Kong, or Taiwan, Korea to us is something about eight to 10 US dollar and then there’s still like a quite a bit of a waiting time, you know, the schedule has not been back to normal for most of the air companies. And so in order to actually save some money and cost, the best thing to do is actually using a prep center in the wherever you guys are shipping. If your market is main market is us then it’s better to work with the West Coast prep centers and warehouses. If you’re doing you know UK Europe, you also need to have your warehouse servicing I think, because there you have two options. Number one, you can produce your products and ask your supplier to store them in the warehouse in China or in Asia. And then once you have new limits then you can ship out but since Amazon is going to let you ship out like only certain amount of quantity until you ship it by sea the time it gets to the Amazon warehouse you’re running out of stock. So probably that’s the last thing you want to do as an Amazon seller. So that’s why I highly recommend to produce enough quantity and even if you don’t have Amazon labels ship those quantities to the warehouses Where’s your main market and then keep it they’re still gonna as much as Amazon is letting you to ship in that you send out like you’re sending partially like five cartons 10 cartons two pallets, whatever you’ll be able to do. Another thing actually, right now Chinese suppliers is want to receive like larger orders for most of the people now the expanding to the new market is an important opportunity actually to you know, start selling in different markets. So instead of maybe focusing only on one one market, it’s also a good idea to start studying International. And you know, you will receive basically you’ll receive, you will give more orders to your factories and then amazingly you can drop your costs a little bit on inventory, I mean, obviously requires more cash flow, maybe more people to manage the business in different marketplaces. But I think it’s also important for most of the people to start looking into the new markets especially us is getting very very competitive. So still there are some markets are less competitive and shipping to those markets are also for some people it’s a challenge, but we have a way to solve that issue. Especially in UK and Europe. Absolutely. We actually as a forceget logistics we are utilizing our website right now where you can track your shipments online. that’s a very important I think for most of the Amazon sellers to track their shipments online and see where is the shipments when it’s going to go in when it’s going to arrive. What is the updates there will be UPS and FedEx if you ship it by small parcels. And also we have warehouse in California which is in Tracy, San francisco that where we receive the products and store it and ship it on behalf of Amazon we apply the UPS or Amazon labels either shipping like SPD small cartons, or we can do pallet shipments by truck. So if anybody needs like this kind of service or requirements people can visit forceget.com or reach me out on sales at forceget.com we’d be happy to help out with the storage and as well as international shipments.
David 15:08
Absolutely. And we’ll post links to all of that in the show notes. One thing I do want to elaborate on in how we’re just for purposes of full transparency, both Ken and I are working with you right now, with your Tracy, California warehouse. And just to our listeners, how we’re utilizing that is, we’ll order say 5000 units from our China warehouse, but Amazon will not let us send anything in. And or they’ll say only let us send in 500 units. And so what we’re doing is we are shipping to California. And we like having our goods on US soil that way, as these inventory restrictions lift, we can take pieces of those 5000 units, say 1000 and send them in to Amazon warehouses kind of trickle in that inventory. And so one advantage on having it on US soil is, you know, your a week and a half or two weeks out, whereas when the goods are still in China, say sitting in storage at your supplier, if it’s something that you ship by boat, you’re eight or 10 weeks out. And so that’s what we did when we couldn’t generate labels, we just decided to ship them to your warehouse, and it’s something that I think is going to help us navigate through this messy landscape.
Burak Yolga 16:20
Exactly. I think the only issue David, you would agree with me hopefully that maybe for some sellers, the cash flow. Because once you ship out everything from China and also to Chinese factories are asking you to make an upfront payment. So I think it’s also a good idea. Maybe we can talk a little bit about like what is the best way to negotiate with the suppliers to maybe become like a better partner with them so that they don’t ask 100% upfront a shipment because let’s say you produce you may manufacture 5000 units. And maybe Amazon is going to let you send them in two months, let’s say after it arrived to California, right. And you’re looking at like 30 days sea shipments. So basically what you’re looking at, let’s say after you ship them into Amazon, you sell them and then Amazon pays you in 15 to let’s say take what you’re looking for is actually 120 days, almost a cash flow circle. And plus you need to maybe place a new order in the next level. Because you know, maybe it’s a seasonal product, maybe Christmas is coming. So it’s also very important for companies to manage this, isn’t it?
David 17:26
Yeah, absolutely. I think the two comments I have I agree with you. The two comments I have is one rule of thumb that I apply when negotiating with suppliers is generally if you don’t ask you don’t get. I’ve never had a supplier come to me and say, Hey, just because I’m a nice guy, I’m going to give you better terms. Right? And so I also think that because the markets are kind of messy right now, right? Like it’s, you know, putting myself in the shoes of a Chinese supplier. They know that their supply chain disruptions, they know that there are issues with Amazon warehouses, and this is a good time to ask, right? And you have a good reason. You know, your example, you could say, Listen, generally I would send these products right into Amazon warehouses, but I have to use a third party warehouse, and that’s tying up my cash. Could we extend my terms by 30 days? And they may say yes, they may say no. But again, if you don’t ask you don’t get. And then, you know, kind of the last thing would be if you have access to a line of credit, this may be a good time to tap into that to help you fund that cash flow shortage. Because in the physical products business, you need to have physical products. And so if you’re running out of stock, that’s gonna hurt your ranking. And so if you have a 20% profit margin on your goods, and you can have a line of credit, that’s five or 6%, you’re still profitable, if you’re drawing on it. And line of credit generally is like a short term financing mechanism. So it’s a nice tool to use to bridge that gap.
Ken 18:57
Yeah, one thing I’d just like to add to David’s comments is, I think he’s spot on this is an excellent time to ask for better terms, because the markets hosed right now. And one other thing is, you know, once those extra term, say we’re going to extend it 30 days, 60 days, whatever, like, it shouldn’t go backwards, right like that should be in place moving forward and perpetuity until you’re not doing business anymore. So take advantage of the timing now for future business. One other question I had Burak, as you mentioned earlier, kind of like international expansion. Now are you seeing shipments from let’s say you’re sourcing out of South America or Europe and shipping into the US. Are there a lot of logistics problem with those or just shipments from China?
Burak Yolga 19:48
Most of the things like for example, we have a couple of good customers are shipping from Turkey and especially they’re in the textile business. Actually the station in some of the European countries are like, let’s say Turkey. India is worse, because China takes the big part of the cake. Like they take the big pie. So unfortunately, there’s actually, sometimes it takes three to four weeks to load a normal food container. In countries like Turkey, or in Hungary, we have a customer in Ukraine that he is shipping some, let’s say what was the name of the product, it’s some I don’t remember now, it took us like, you know, almost two, three weeks to confirm only one space. And most of the companies, they don’t even offer price, they say, okay, we’re just going to book the container if we can. And then if we accept the price, then you continue with that, if not, we’re not going to give you the space, and I’m like, Hey, we cannot just like close our eyes and get the price. And then you know, let us like, you know, let us basically like become a millionaire, you cannot do that, basically. So it’s like a black market, some of the parts. So still, like, at least China has, like, you know, faster shipping times, you know, we don’t need to wait two weeks, three weeks to find a container. And everybody’s like some of the product even now cheaper than the the container price itself, there are a lot of like marble products like limestones, like matros pumps are coming from, from Italy from Turkey, a full container cost like 10,000. And whatever they put inside, it costs seven $8,000. So basically in the container, the freight is like higher, and then it’s also a big risk, you know, for freight companies. Because let’s say you have a customer with like 20 30 container shipments per month. And it used to be only like, let’s say $6,000. Now, it’s only almost cost like $300,000. So a lot of freight companies now not offering anymore that much of generous payment term. So you know, improves example, we were thinking to asking the Chinese suppliers offers a longer payment term, 30 days 60 days, actually, most of the companies two years ago, they used to offer like they used to get the raw material in the local market with 30 60 days payment term. Now most of those suppliers, they have to pay cash for most of the products to take. One of our supplier is delivering one of my customers supplier delivering the goods and let’s say 180 days, and they say if you want us to deliver 120 days the price 30% higher. It’s an automotive part. You know, I’m sure you guys heard about the cheap shortage that a lot of car manufacturers, they have to stop production. And the cost of that to the market is $110 billion. They think that by the end of this year, so it’s a massive number that who knows where that money goes through. So when it comes to the question, still, like shipping from Asia, like from China to Europe, and us is better than actually shipping from South America and Europe, because those countries, they need to wait for the containers to arrive. And then they can find empty containers to ship it back. So it is a little bit messy right now. And it seems in the short term, those companies they don’t want things to get any better. So you know, so they can like charge really, really high price. And as you said like boats are not disappeared yet. So nobody knows why the price is increased 400% not like 20 to 30% increase, you’re talking about like last 12 months 300 to 400% which is insane.
David 23:31
Yeah, that is insane. And you know, as we talk about these price increases crazy high price increases. The one thing that does give me a little bit of hope is that this is not an event that’s only happening to us, right? It’s happening to everybody shipping is expensive for everybody. And so you know, I think like in, you know, most businesses, the more efficient you can be if you can be more efficient than your competitors, you’re gonna win. And so I want to talk about in your opinion, right now, what are the most efficient ways to ship to the US and I’ll share a brief little story. We have a really lightweight product that we usually airship and it’s no big deal. But when I called you You said it was 11 bucks a kilo. And the shipping on that would have been more than what we paid for the product. And so you recommended a strategy, and I’ll let you get in to that a little bit more. Sorry to interrupt the episode. You may have heard Ken and I talking recently about a new tool that we’re using for Amazon refunds. Now I have used other refund tools like this. However I can tell you in the first seven days, they scrubbed the back end of my Amazon account going back 18 months and found $5,000 of refunds. And the nice thing about this is it’s my money, Amazon made a mistake and they are just auditing my account. The other thing I really like about this tool is there is no monthly fee. They only charge a commission if they are successful in getting you your money. Go to getida.com GETIDA, and enter promo code FTM for firing the man FTM 400. This is an awesome tool. I can’t say enough good things about it. Now back to the episode. My question is what is the currently, as we sit here in the beginning of summer 2021? What’s the most efficient way to ship to the US?
Burak Yolga 25:26
David. Definitely, you know, some people, they still have the urgency, they still need the air freight, and it really hurts their margin. I know some of the people just in order to because they didn’t plan the inventory management well, that’s another thing with what he said is, I think the smarter companies who manage their inventory, I mean, if you talked about two years ago, probably you would be talking more about like the listing the pictures, a content, you know, the rating, the reviews, you will talk more about that most of the people now they’re talking about how to manage their inventory, how to say on, you know, on active stock, how to ship on time, what is the best way or where to store their products. So I think this is getting more and more crucial for companies like it’s more and more important. So if it is a large product, let’s say I have a customer like they have like three pounds, four pounds, and they try to ship by air. It’s costing them 20 to $25 to Amazon, which is ridiculous because their sales price like 35, but they had to do in order to stay in competition. When it comes to of course the the ocean freight, ocean freight, still the cheapest. So what we do for our customer, mostly, if they have this one thing that we did for you, for example, we basically collect different customers shipments and then put them in one full container and ship it directly to our warehouse that way people can really save money and save time when it comes to the now I think the biggest problem is there a lot of problem in connections. So most of the people they think that you just load the container, let’s say in Shanghai, and it comes to Los Angeles straight, but it normally doesn’t work out that way. If you especially ship your product in smaller port, let’s say give an example from China. DeLeon like Kobe or Qingdao, some of these cities, they don’t have a direct service. So basically shipping inland, those containers by truck from Shanghai to for example, chinda or from Shenzhen to Qingdao might take like three to four days and the cost of maybe $2,000. which is so expensive. So what we do is we load the container to a boat in a small port, it goes to international port unloads and loads again, so most of the people think that their direct service is correct but most of the I would say like 60 to 70% of the shipments they have connections or they have a stop over where they’re changing the routes, or the vessels, the boats have mechanic problems recently, we have couple of issues of congestion. So the schedule changed. So there are also a lot of delays now. So when it comes to offering the pricing, most of the people in the market, they hear slow C and fassi shipments DDP service, which is the best the most of time you’re using for a special vessel company that they have their own part of the port in North America, let’s say in Oakland or Los Angeles, and the customs clearance is also faster. And they have direct service, some of the shipments they have a connection in its recently there are a lot of connections in Korea from Korea, even if it’s shipped from China, it stops in Korea, and then comes together most people might think why my shipment goes to Korea first and then comes to us. It’s just the way of scheduling those boats. And unfortunately, there are a lot of delays happens. So when it comes to the most efficient way The ocean is the best option right now. Make sure that you book or you inform your freight forwarder in advance, I would say at least two weeks before your shipment gets ready, because the price has changed. space is maybe sold out even three weeks from today. So if you wait till the last minute, that’s the last thing you want to do. So the price going to be really more expensive if you want to, you know inform your freight forwarder the last day because they can’t find a space and they will try to get a space from the black market because most of the people wants to ship their product yesterday. So which is not really possible in our world right now. So inform your freight forwarder as early as possible, even when you have the production started. And then choose the best way and make sure you’re ready for some delays because almost we don’t see any shipments arrives on the timeline. And the biggest problem is that a lot of boats are waiting outside of the port for unloading. So, in theory the fast sea shipments expecting around arrival port to port and then customs ferries and then the Amazon warehouse or to our California warehouses say it used to be like 25 days. Now the time changes according to obviously, the boat schedule, and the slow sea around for 35 days. So if you want to save cost, use this slow sea, but make sure you add seven to 10 days, if something goes wrong for the fast sea the same way. So most of the people, once we offer the price, we tell them, Hey, there can be some delays, make sure you have your schedule, according to that. But some people say oh, I don’t understand why there’s a delay. So that’s very important to schedule your shipments in advance production in advance, especially before the last quarter. I mean, some people might think it’s just may 20 why are you talking about the last quarter, but trust me from the June July you’re gonna start seeing the effect of production time it’s gonna get like longer and longer. So if you don’t have good enough cash flow, try to negotiate with your supplier and try to discuss like 10 to 15% equals instead of 30 and if I were you I would maybe the last year’s number not the best but maybe look at the last numbers from last year what you guys sold or what’s the market average selling number and then try to manage your inventory according to that.
Ken 31:27
Yeah, so I kind of want to switch gears a little bit so as you know, Burak, David and I were taking our brands into Europe and you know, for anybody listening that’s selling in international and Europe or thinking about it, what are the best ways to ship from let’s say your suppliers from China to Europe.
Burak Yolga 31:46
We have some options now railway which I start to like it more because it doesn’t have the same amount of shipment as the ocean we’re talking about. Let’s separate it to UK and Europe first. Canada is quite long shipping time so it’s like 50 to 60 days almost. We had a conversation with David the other day sometimes shipping by sea to Canada if you have a small shipment it doesn’t really make sense because it takes like almost 60 days to get there. So if you have a small shipments to Canada because the Amazon has full capacity right now he cannot ship that much of a quantity we can also help with the Canada warehouse. But if you have a small shipments to Canada, maybe consider the airship and if you have the enough margin for Europe, the UK is you know you need to have the registration number with UK VAT number in our import, we can also help you to do that on behalf of if you don’t have it. So air price delay over $10 to UK the sea shipment is the only cheapest option which is more expensive than us let’s say per kilogram us is like 2.2 to 2.3 dollar for fast sea. For UK that price is almost close to $3 because there is not enough supply demand for UK so it’s more expensive takes around 35 to 40 days to ship the UK. If you want to start you know if you’re selling already in the US and Canada I think UK is one of the best place to start because it’s an English language you don’t really need to change too much about the packing you don’t need to do too much about your listing the customer service can be English so I think the UK is one of the best market and still like the shipping process is a little bit easier compared to the rest of Europe because of the different VAT number issue. So UK is a good market to start a sea shipment is 35 to 40 days, the price is still not as cheap as us but I think it’s still good enough when it comes to Europe as I mentioned now there’s a rail option which is almost 20 25 days to ship it to but this is of course the rail I’m talking about only from China and it’s about like almost 20 25 days to ship it by rail The price is close to $3 but there are less delays like you know they schedule pretty well now to train shipments I like it I know for most of my customer if they sell in Europe to use the railway you know obviously the sea shipments roughly around like 2.5 dollars price range shipping to like germany france, roughly around like 30 35 days. So if you do rail you’ll have like less problem with the delays and then the price is cheaper so most of the companies don’t offer this option yet but I start to like it because it’s kind of not discovered yet that well so the price are still more reasonable.
Ken 34:36
Okay awesome.
Burak Yolga 34:38
You know, I start hearing people are start asking around like Dubai like united Emirates. I don’t know if you guys are thinking that’s a good market or not. I think that’s going to become also something people are paying attention. And I heard that Amazon is trying to expand the market in the Middle East and Africa. And I don’t know when we’re going to see it so I’m sure there’s going to be an options also For those markets sometime.
Ken 35:02
Yeah, I’ve received some emails from Amazon. They’ve been pushing the Middle East, Dubai and UAE quite a bit. So David, you got any follow up questions or Burak Is there anything else you want to cover that we didn’t cover?
Burak Yolga 35:15
I think pretty much we talked about everything. I think that the final, I think if we sum up, just make sure you guys are planning on time, everything with your factory, make sure you know, there can be some delays about the freights, Amazon, you never know what happens, make sure you have a plan B for last quarter to have a warehouse service, wherever your main market is, I think that’s going to be very crucial for companies to have you know, that option. If you just you never know, I think I’m expecting something a little worse from Amazon for the last quarter. They can still play around, maybe I think the last year they had similar things like you know, if you’re a new seller, you can only ship it. So if you have some planning to order or launch a new product, I think you got to be like careful with that. Don’t play too big. If it’s a new SKU, you never know what’s going to happen with Amazon. I think that’s one thing that we can also add up.
David 36:11
Now one thing I want to comment on before we get into the fire round is just in my five years experience of selling on Amazon to be an expert in logistics, in my opinion, you need to be living in it every day, which is what you do, Burak and so you may want to plug your ears on this one because I don’t want you to get a big head. But I can tell you it has been from booking my own freight to working with an actual expert, which is forceget and you and your team. It makes life so much easier so I would say to our listeners, if you are self booking freight, give Burak a shot, give him one shot, see how it goes. But I can promise you, it’ll be easier, and you’ll get a better result in. So anyway, tip of the hat to you and your team.
Burak Yolga 36:58
Thank you, David.
Ken 36:59
All right. Ready for the fire round?
Burak Yolga 37:02
Absolutely.
Ken 37:03
All right, let’s do it. What is your favorite book?
Burak Yolga 37:06
Man right now I’m reading this millionaires of habits. We’re trying to you know, we’re expanding our business to new freight rebranding everything, and new warehouse services. We’re making better and better every day. And I think it’s all about like, you know, being you know, having your own habits work, making sure that you have the SOP. I think for Amazon sellers. I think that’s very important. delegate the job, and more importantly, stay positive. You know, everything we talked about last 40 minutes, most people think that wow, okay, you guys are not talking anything positive, we all talk about problems. But unfortunately, those are the things we are you know, facing like those are the problems that you know, storage limits, you know, the warehouse services, the freight increasing, everybody’s like thinking about, like, you know, how to cover all those costs and everything. So this is the fact but I think we’re trying to stay positive. That’s the most important thing to do act smart. And try to maybe we’re also trying to do that, like maybe dividing risk a little bit and then maybe expanding to new markets. I think for Amazon sellers, I think it’s a good idea. So I’m trying to develop more habits for myself and for my team. And most importantly, we launched last month we launch our digital freight platform. So that makes our life very easy and as well as our customers lives. So I think I agree with David like give us the shots and then I think you will not regret it.
Ken 38:32
Awesome. Just to wrap up the fire round. What are your hobbies?
Burak Yolga 38:35
Recently my hobbies are dealing with the freight. That’s pretty much everyday what’s happening with my life. Since I’m in Florida man going to the beach between work is kind of the best thing relaxing my mind and spending time with my dog. So that’s like the best thing actually trying to disconnect a little bit with the phone and you know, the screen time I’m trying to reduce that. So it’s a good thing I’ve been running and going to the beach with my dog. I think that’s the best thing so far.
Ken 39:03
Very cool. All right, last one. What do you think sets apart successful entrepreneurs from those who give up fail or never get started?
Burak Yolga 39:10
Man, I think the only way is, you can make things perfect. Only the more you repeat, the better it gets. So I know you know eventually if you make a mistake, you’re going to lose money. Most of the people that tried to enter Amazon or like e commerce drop shipping with some small amount of savings, especially after the top last year. But in my opinion, never stopped asking to people who know and listen as much as possible. But if you don’t act, you don’t learn from your mistakes. I mean, I made so many mistakes. I’m sure you guys did a lot of mistakes. Were talking before the podcast, even so I think the best thing is to do in some point start and see how it goes and then the more experience you have and try to get into a try to build up your social network. I think that’s the most important thing. I mean, you know, when I needed something about, you know, different things I asked you guys like, hey Ken what do you think about this? Even our marketing strategy? Guys? Do you like this? Or you don’t like this? Or David asking me Hey, Burak, what do you think? Should I do airship? And I’m like no David don’t do it this way. So I think never be shy about asking like, especially if you’re a beginner like I think there’s no stupid question. It’s just you know, so don’t worry about like you know what people will think about me just start doing start asking the right people and start because there are so many free domains outside and try to be part of it and I’m just acting. And then when you make a mistake, learn it and then keep going. and keep growing. I think that’s the best thing we can do, especially after last year.
Ken 40:44
Yeah, that’s great. Excellent advice. Burak, really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show today and share all of your logistic expertise. I’m sure the listeners are gonna get a lot out of it. Really appreciate it.
Burak Yolga 40:55
Thank you Ken for having me back and David also. And if you guys want to get some pricing questions, if you are new seller, you can find I think information, David’s gonna drop it off. So looking forward to hear back from your listeners, guys.
David 41:10
Absolutely. And if you get ahold of Burak and his team, make sure to tell him that firing the man sent you. Maybe Burak will hook us up with some forceget t shirts or something like that. So anyway, thanks, everyone for tuning in this week, and we’ll see you next week. Thanks. Thank you everyone for tuning in to today’s firing the man podcast. If you liked this episode, head on over to firingtheman.com and check out our resource library for exclusive firing the man discounts on popular e commerce subscription services that is firingtheman.com\resource. You can also find a comprehensive library of over 50 books that Ken and I have read in the last few years that have made a meaningful impact on our business, for that head on over to www.firingtheman.com/library. Lastly, check us out on social media at firing the man, and on YouTube at firing the man for exclusive content. This is David Schomer
Ken 42:05
and Ken Wilson. We’re out
David 42:22
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