The #1 Pricing Mistake That’s Killing Your Ecom Profits with Oz Merchant

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The #1 Pricing Mistake That’s Killing Your Ecom Profits with Oz Merchant

Oz Merchant is a leader and coach in the fields of sales and customer success for B2B SaaS and ecommerce companies. Oz is passionate about helping businesses grow and thrive. He is the former VP of Sales, Success, and Support at Viably. Currently he is the founder and CEO of Ecom Sellers HQ, a platform that could help you to start or scale your ecommerce business with the best software tools, service providers, and funding options.

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> Here’s a glimpse of what you would learn….
  • Current challenges of margin compression in e-commerce, particularly on Amazon.
  • Strategies for navigating cash flow challenges in the evolving e-commerce landscape.
  • The importance of adopting an omnichannel approach for e-commerce brands.
  • Insights on the transition from Viably to E-commerce Sellers HQ and its impact on sellers.
  • The significance of understanding FBA fees and optimizing supply chain operations.
  • The necessity of financial acumen and establishing clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
  • The disconnect between perception and reality in business performance metrics.
  • Managing overhead expenses and identifying major expense buckets for e-commerce businesses.
  • The implications of seeking external funding and understanding cash flow dynamics.
  • The role of technology and automation in the future of e-commerce.
In this episode of the Ecomm Breakthrough Podcast, host Josh Hadley interviews Oz Merchant, founder and CEO of E-commerce Sellers HQ. The discussion centers on the pressing challenges faced by e-commerce brands, particularly those selling on Amazon. Key topics include margin compression, cash flow management, and the importance of an omnichannel approach. Oz shares his transition from Viably to E-commerce Sellers HQ, emphasizing the need for financial acumen and strategic cost management. The episode also explores the future of e-commerce, highlighting the potential impact of AI and automation. This insightful conversation offers valuable strategies for scaling e-commerce businesses to eight figures and beyond.
Here are the 3 action items that Josh identified from this episode:
  1. Optimize Profitability to Combat Margin Compression
    1. Regularly audit your Total Advertising Cost of Sale (TACoS) and aim for 15% or lower.
    2. Negotiate with suppliers for better pricing on bulk orders to lower Cost of Goods Sold (COGS).
    3. Monitor FBA fees and optimize packaging to reduce unnecessary costs.
  2. Prioritize Financial and Operational Efficiency
    1. Conduct regular overhead expense audits to eliminate wasteful spending.
    2. Streamline operations using automation tools to reduce manual workload and improve efficiency.
    3. Set clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track financial health and operational performance.
  3. Leverage Technology and Community for Growth
    1. Invest in AI-driven tools for inventory management, customer service, and marketing automation.
    2. Engage in e-commerce communities, networking events, and industry conferences to stay ahead of trends.
    3. Follow industry leaders for insights on best practices and evolving e-commerce strategies.


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Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by eComm Breakthrough Consulting where I help seven-figure e-commerce owners grow to eight figures.
I started Hadley Designs in 2015 and grew it to an eight-figure brand in seven years.
I made mistakes along the way that made the path to eight figures longer. At times I doubted whether our business could even survive and become a real brand. I wish I would have had a guide to help me grow faster and avoid the stumbling blocks.
If you’ve hit a plateau and want to know the next steps to take your business to the next level, then go to www.EcommBreakthrough.com (that’s Ecomm with two M’s) to learn more.
Transcript Area
Josh Hadley 00:00:00  Welcome to the Ecomm Breakthrough podcast. I’m your host, Josh Hadley, where I interview the top business leaders in e-commerce. Past guests include Kevin King, Michael Gerber, author of The E-myth, and Matt Clark from ASM. Today I’m speaking with Oz Merchant, and we are going to be talking about how to prevent the margin compression happening right now on Amazon, navigating cash flow challenges, and the mindset that you need to have to win in e-commerce in 2025. This episode is brought to you by Ecomm Breakthrough Consulting, where I help take seven figure companies and grow them to eight figures and beyond. So if you’re an ambitious e-commerce entrepreneur looking for a coach or consultant to help grow your brand, bring hands on experience, strategic insights, and the resources needed to fuel your growth. So if you or someone you know is ready to scale or looking for an investment partner, then reach out to me directly at Ecomm Breakthrough. Com. That’s E-comm with two M’s and let’s turn your dreams into reality. Today I am excited to introduce you all to AWS merchant.
Josh Hadley 00:00:48  AWS is a leader and coach in the field of sales and customer success for B2B, SaaS companies and eCommerce brands. AWS is passionate about helping businesses grow and thrive. He is a former VP of Sales Success and support at Viably. And currently he is the founder and CEO of E-commerce sellers HQ, a platform that could help you start or scale your e-commerce business with the best software, tools, service providers and funding options. So with that introduction, welcome to the show AWS. Awesome.
Oz Merchant 00:01:13  Josh Crosby here. Appreciate you having me on.
Josh Hadley 00:01:15  super happy to have you on. You come from a world, a background of providing lending solutions to a lot of e-commerce sellers over the past few years. And I know over the last year you’ve transitioned into, you know, the e-commerce sellers HQ. Tell me more about your your transition from leaving Viably to why did you start, you know, Ecom Sellers HQ?
Oz Merchant 00:01:34  Yeah. Appreciate that. You know, when I was as we were building out, probably one of the things I was starting to notice is every everything’s kind of fragmented.
Oz Merchant 00:01:41  There’s like information sitting in a Facebook group, a subreddit, a discord group, somebody WhatsApp group that they created. It’s like scattered everywhere. It’s like I want, you know, coming into the space, it’s really hard to kind of get a handle of what events are happening. what tools and technologies just need to be used? Who are the kind of key people go to if I get my account suspended. So it’s like, okay, why is this all kind of fragmented when overall when I go to events and stuff, I see it’s a fairly tight community, but it’s still scattered. And at the same time, you know, only a small percentage of people are still at the end of the day, going to events. So there’s a lot of people out there selling that are just kind of disconnected from the overall ecosystem, and they’re trying to do this on their own. So it’s like if I can just basically build one platform, carve it up just for the e-commerce space, and make everything you need in one place for that journey, whether you’re launching, scaling or exiting so that you find all the different service providers you need all the software you need legal tax, M&A folks, agencies, everything kind of along that way so that, you know, you’re not just spending hours, looking for that stuff.
Oz Merchant 00:02:35  And the other part of it is being reviewed by other sellers. So you’re kind of getting to hear from what other people on that journey are thinking about these different service providers and tools and software.
Josh Hadley 00:02:43  Awesome. I can see a definite big use case for, you know, having all of the tools, software, everything right there at your fingertips with actual like legit reviews from sellers so that, you know, these are the agencies to avoid. These are the software tools to avoid or these are the ones to really focus on. So thanks for putting all of that together as definitely helpful for the community.
Oz Merchant 00:03:02  Absolutely. Yeah.
Josh Hadley 00:03:04  So yeah, for sure. I think what’s great is like you’ve been in the e-commerce space for a while now and you still do some coaching. You have brands that will come to you asking for advice. Overall, I know from what I’ve gathered in 2024, in early into 2025, what I hear overall is like there’s just a massive amount of margin compression, right? The amount of margin that I once had, obviously in 2019 is a far cry from the margin that I am seeing right now in my e-commerce brand in 2025.
Josh Hadley 00:03:33  are you hearing the same things, and what are some of the things that when people are coming to you for coaching, what issues pain points are they having?
Oz Merchant 00:03:40  Yeah, I’m hearing a lot of that. So I was actually surprised by the end of the year, I noticed two different things. One was how many people actually said, you know what, this is it. I’m done with Amazon. I might actually shut down their businesses on 1231. I was just surprised how many of those did that. Now, granted, going to probably on the smaller side, I remember like two years ago or so, I came across a statistic that said, every day there’s about 3200 new sellers on Amazon and about 93% of them are gone inside of six months. So the fact that, you know, that barrier to entry keeps getting it keeps increasing. So it’s just harder to come in and actually, you know, make something sustainable out of this. But from the overall kind of brands and stuff. Yeah, there’s a lot of brands that say, yeah, my top line sales were not that far off than what I expected, but at the end of the day, I didn’t make any money.
Oz Merchant 00:04:21  So it’s like, I feel like I’m just in business right now just to pay fees, and that’s just not a good feeling. So I think, you know, as we look at 2025, 2026 and people have already been eyeing Walmart a lot more, I think you’ll start seeing more of that. But as a brand, I think there’s just a bigger appetite to say, let me not really start thinking of Amazon as a channel and think beyond that, as a what is my actual e-commerce brand and business and what platforms do I need to be on and start looking at blended margins? whether that’s through TikTok, whether that’s through Walmart or whether that’s through my kind of Shopify store. That’s where I think what you’re going to start seeing as we go forward is you’re going to have the bigger brands, but the brands that are really kind of on their own standing, like Shopify stores that are now selling on Amazon as a channel that are going to still be in a good position. You’re going to see probably some resellers that have good exclusive contracts and those relationships representing brands still in place.
Oz Merchant 00:05:10  But I think for anybody that’s trying to do arbitrage, kind of quick reselling, I just don’t see the business being that sustainable unless you’ve got enough buying power to make that work.
Josh Hadley 00:05:18  Yeah. You know, I know that everybody’s been complaining about Amazon raising their fees and it’s getting harder and harder. It’s never been more hard and difficult than it is today to launch a new brand on Amazon. But here would be my words of encouragement to our seven figure listeners that are actively running and managing their brands and thinking about what does the future hold for my brand. I think this goes to a mindset shift, which is when it gets harder. You should say good. And the reason why is because those barriers to entry are only increasing. Right. And so Amazon’s going through and actually finally increasing the barriers to entry, which in my opinion should have been done earlier before. Like let’s take for example, like Amazon now actually cares about getting your child safety certificates right. They want you to make sure that you’re in compliance, that you’re actually selling something that’s not going to harm a child or anything like that.
Josh Hadley 00:06:04  Now Amazon’s doing it because they’re forced to by the government. Well guess what. It’s the same thing with supplements. Yeah. You could just ultimately hawk anything you wanted to a few years ago on Amazon and call it a supplement. And it may not actually be good for the human body, but Amazon wasn’t like, it’s not their bottom line, right? And so now finally, like with the FDA on Amazon’s back, like Amazon’s being like okay, we need to have certifications. We need to like be able to stand behind more of these supplements so that people can trust them. And so as you look at that, right, what once was I, I never had to have a formal UPC code. Right. Well, now I do have to actually have a GHS one UPC code. If I want to list something that’s going to cost money, I’m going to have to go get my product tested. That’s going to cost money. These are things that were not happening back in the day where it was, you know, the cost to entry was so extremely low that you could just throw something up.
Josh Hadley 00:06:53  If it sticks, it sticks and you just write it out. but these are all good benefits. So even with Amazon increasing their fees and the inbound placement fees and even the audit fees, and if you don’t have enough inventory, we’re going to charge you an extra fee. If you have too much, we’re charging you an extra fee. Like it’s got to be laser precision. I get excited by that because most of the competition is, frankly, lazy. And as you talked about, at odds with people like closing up shop last year, like I. That’s music to my ears because those are the type of brands that’s like, good. You’re probably stealing sales from me anyways. Like, you can you can cut it like, great, you’re on your way out. And so I do believe that like Amazon’s in its maturity phase or going through its maturity phase, that over the next five years, the brands that can stick it out and still find success on Amazon have a really bright future ahead of them now.
Josh Hadley 00:07:39  Margin compression is still going to happen, but it will get better. But you’ve got to take an omnichannel approach. What you talked about, would you agree with that overall mindset statement?
Oz Merchant 00:07:48  Absolutely. Because, you know, reminded me I was listening to a episode of, you know, Alex Ramos and he’s talking about during 2020. All these gyms started shutting down. And it’s like, if you can weather that storm. All your competitions just falling by the wayside. So you’re in such a prime position to really dominate in that space. Or if you’re at a particular brand, a particular category can really dominate. You just have to kind of get it, you know, stay on top of your own numbers, make sure that your to your point, like precision kind of forecasting so that you’re kind of minimizing that exposure and just thinking of it more holistically as a business as Amazon’s one channel. Am I looking at other channels to making sure that I’m getting kind of a blended margin so that I’m actually running a somewhat healthy business so that I can sustain, whether that’s door.
Josh Hadley 00:08:27  Yeah. So, Oz, on that note, what do you have maybe, maybe a few case studies or maybe examples of people that have reached out and that are having margin issues? What what issues were they facing and what kind of advice or recommendations did you provide to them to help them stay viable in the future? Yeah.
Oz Merchant 00:08:44  So first off, it’s always looking at, okay, understanding your numbers to say what how healthy of a business am I running? Am I in a in a good cash flow position? Because one of the key areas, you know, the market will always kind of dictate how much you can sell something for. So the real strength always in selling products is on the buying side. So if you can actually improve your your buying power, you can actually make money that way. And the better you can forecast your own kind of sales, the better it is that you can kind of go back to a factory or supplier and say, look, this is what I’m expecting to do because you have to think about everybody’s looking.
Oz Merchant 00:09:11  How do I how do I maintain and still make money if I’m a factory? I want to try to give you the best deal, but I can only do that if I can still make money. And for me to do that is if I know how much you can buy from me, that I can go source the raw materials in a way, at a time that I can actually get the best deals on those so that I can actually produce a product for you at a lower price, so that you can actually make some margins as well. So that forecasting is benefiting that factory to kind of further in the supply chain. So the if you know your numbers to know okay, this is what my kind of current buying power is. And if I start looking through and start analyzing okay, where am I. Are you making money. So so much of that is just kind of like, well, I was told that I need to be launching products. People just go after a couple years and got all these products and they really haven’t analyzed what am I really making money on? Which variations am I making money on, which ones are just? And some of it’s like, okay, I need to have it just to be part of that brand story, that, okay, we have this range or this many colors, this many options, but at some point you have to realize, okay, well, if I’m going to be losing money on this, how do I double down on maybe these two colors that really knock it out of the park, improve my buying power, get more of those so that you can start making some profits on these.
Oz Merchant 00:10:13  So we’ll start doing that kind of initial analysis to take a look at okay. Hey what’s your current kind of cash position? B what are the SKUs that you’re making money on. And then start looking at kind of the conversation with suppliers. How do you start forecasting how much you think you can do? Look at the competition, see which trends, which direction they’re going in. How much more can I get of that market share, and can I go make those kind of commitments to the factory and start even negotiating, you know, because of all the other storage fees and stuff? Can I have them potentially store some stuff and kind of help me with some of that storage cost and then have that stuff kind of drip over time to me so that I’m not incurring all those costs. So sometimes factories will be able to do that. If you Once again, think of them as a partner. I think that’s also a long term kind of brand building mindset, as I think of your suppliers as true partners and build that relationship rather than, you know, I’ve got this good this time, and then maybe next year I’ll find somebody else.
Oz Merchant 00:11:02  If you’re thinking long term strategically with them, then they’re going to work with you and they can kind of help you out in these different ways.
Josh Hadley 00:11:07  Yeah, I like that. So what you’re saying is overall, if you’re seeing a lot of margin compression happening, maybe use this opportunity as a chance to come back and renegotiate with your manufacturer or suppliers, especially if inflation is crept up or especially with the impact of new tariffs involved. Right. Yeah. You can go back and say, look, we’re seeing margin compression. Tariffs are only going to make that worse. So either I’m going to have I’m I’m being forced to either go pull my business and go move it elsewhere. Right. Whether it be to I’m going to Vietnam or going to Cambodia or whatever it is. Okay. You now is a good opportunity is all I would say to go renegotiate those and lowering those Cogs can be very influential. Now go ahead.
Oz Merchant 00:11:48  As I was saying. Keep in mind there’s costs associated to make a move like that.
Oz Merchant 00:11:51  You know you’re going to impact potential quality control. You know you don’t have those relationships. You don’t know what the output is going to be on the next production runs. So you’re adding more gamble and more risk into that whole process. The other thing, if you go back to last time, there’s tariffs, Chinese government subsidized a lot of that with the factories. So the actual hit wasn’t nearly as bad as what, you know, the surface level. Yes, it was considered to be this much tariff. But when the actual deals went through, if you had the right kind of buying power, you weren’t feeling it nearly as much.
Josh Hadley 00:12:16  Why? Why is that? How was the government subsidizing that on the China side?
Oz Merchant 00:12:20  From what I heard from one of the suppliers, like they would basically they were adjusting the price so that you were getting the tariff. There’s a minimal impact. And then the Chinese government was kind of supplementing the the factory. So they were kind of issuing that back to them saying, okay, this is kind of how we adjusted the pricing to help move more product through.
Josh Hadley 00:12:36  Oh, yeah. Okay.
Oz Merchant 00:12:37  That’s supposed to be openly discussed or not, but.
Josh Hadley 00:12:39  Well, I think but I think that is so key for you to understand too, because like if you don’t ask, here’s what I will say. If you don’t go to your manufacturer and ask and say, hey, by the way, with these new tariffs, like I think, is it easy to go move your manufacturing to Vietnam or to Cambodia? Heck no. Right. But you’ve got to throw out the threat to your manufacturer. You got to play poker, right? And you’ve got to have a good poker face and be like, I, I will, I will move. I know it’s painful, but I will move because I can’t afford everything with the new rates and tariffs etc.. So if you come back to them, it never hurts to ask, right? If you don’t ask, you don’t get those benefits. And and that there’s so much that can be done I think as you know, like if you just ask.
Oz Merchant 00:13:16  The other things sometimes you find out is though, China has been extending their reach into places like Vietnam. So you could basically be working with the same factory that’s operational. Everything is behaving operating like the Chinese factory. It’s just operating out of Vietnam. Yep. So there’s those type of things. If you start asking like, okay, well, yeah, sure, you can get out of Vietnam, just use this factory because we saw our victory.
Josh Hadley 00:13:34  Yep, yep. That happens more often than you’d think for sure. Okay. So that’s on the cost of goods side, right? I think there’s a chance to optimize cost of goods. And don’t just allow the new tariffs to just eat into your margin. Be creative. Negotiate with your manufacturers. That’s point number one. All right. Point number two I think to Oz is what about on the FDA side of things. Any advice, recommendations that you’re pointing people towards to say, hey, with the new fees you can’t I mean, you can’t avoid them, but, what are you recommending people do with all the new fees that have come out from Amazon?
Oz Merchant 00:14:05  I mean, once again, it’s like we’re talking about, like, the more precise you can be, the better your chance of kind of avoiding some of that.
Oz Merchant 00:14:11  So the more you know, the inbound fees, the long term storage fees, it’s like any of those that you can say, I think this is what’s moving. Hopefully you’re using kind of enough different technologies, software stuff that can help you make some of those assessments to say, okay, this is what I think I can move. And if you’re sometimes it helps to just start using people’s and move products in, you know, as needed. So you’re not incurring some of those costs. and once again, three pills is another place you can negotiate. Have those discussions, if they’re true kind of FBA price centers and stuff. They know what’s going on in the Amazon world. they’re aware of that. And they can potentially help you because they’re also looking to have long term relationships. Yeah. So so much of this is relationship, which is all business, right? So if you’re new to this and you don’t have like the business background to your point, what you’re saying earlier is like, it’s amazing what you can achieve just by asking.
Oz Merchant 00:14:54  If you think of everything as a relationship and that everyone’s in there to kind of, you know, run a business, make money and everyone’s, you know, if they’re willing to help out, they’re willing to help out to the degree they can. And everybody’s thinking of it as a partnership. So all of that starts with having those conversations, asking them, okay, look, I’m trying to scale. I want to be this kind of have this relationship long term. What can we do?
Josh Hadley 00:15:13  Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And I do think it comes down to relationships once again. Right. But as it relates to FBA fees, it’s you’ve got to set up your supply chain so that it is as efficient as possible. The supply chain I’m using now in my business is not the same supply chain that I was using in 2020. Yeah. And so if you’re just resting on your laurels and be like, well, this is the way we’ve always done things like you need to go in and optimize things, right? Right now we’ve transitioned more towards AWP to avoid the inbound placement fees and just to have a place, You know, there was the integrated rates that were better with aud.
Josh Hadley 00:15:47  so it’s a relationship.
Oz Merchant 00:15:49  Have you found AWB to be cost effective or is it kind of. Net net comes out.
Josh Hadley 00:15:54  I think with the removing the inbound placement fees, it could be more advantageous. Okay. But with their new fees, what the new fee structure is, it’s starting to tilt back towards like three plus being a stronger option because they also remove the integrated rate, or they made it so difficult for you to achieve that integrated rate. Initially it just used to be like, hey, as long as you use AGL to move your products over and ship it right into their AUD warehouse, you get a better rate. But now you don’t even get that. Like you’ve got to hit so many different thresholds in AUD. So I think the tide may be changing there. So all I would say is like run the numbers. Yeah, look at them and just know that you constantly need to be pivoting here as much as you can. So yeah.
Oz Merchant 00:16:33  You know, one of the things I would say just to kind of talk about numbers, it’s like I think when you start getting seven figures, if you haven’t got a fractional CFO, you’re not going to get you’re not going to scale with that one.
Oz Merchant 00:16:43  You need somebody really looking at numbers and helping you kind of plan long term. Because unless you find that yourself, you are that numbers person which you know often is not the case. You start bringing in a fractional CFO if you want to really scale.
Josh Hadley 00:16:55  Yeah, you’re you’re you’re spot on. There are far too many entrepreneurs that have that I’ve spoken to that don’t even know their numbers, which frightens me. It’s like, how are you running a business and you don’t know your numbers or you don’t know what you know. Accrual versus cash basis accounting is because that’s that’s the lifeblood of your business. not to say everybody needs to be an accounting expert, but like, you need to know enough to know whether, like, where are the opportunities in your business to gain additional net income percentage points. Right. How can you increase your EBITDA by 1 or 2%? You’ve got to be able to look at what’s my cogs at, what’s my FBA fees and know the little nuances within the supply chain there.
Josh Hadley 00:17:30  Like, actually, if we cut this out, that saves me an extra 2%. That goes straight to the bottom line.
Oz Merchant 00:17:34  Exactly.
Josh Hadley 00:17:35  Yeah, right.
Oz Merchant 00:17:36  And and you know, having underwritten probably thousands of sellers like it’s amazing to see the perception, a story that somebody has that they tell, okay, this is what my business is doing. And then when we get the data, the numbers, and then when we look at the underwriting, it’s like, okay, there’s such a gap between what they think is happening in the business and what the story, the numbers shows.
Josh Hadley 00:17:51  Okay. Well, why don’t you elaborate further on that? Because I think like that is not to be overlooked. You’ve looked at you just said thousands of sellers that formerly were coming to Viably, right. And looking for funding options for their business. So literally, like you’re pulling back the curtain and looking at their books to be like, do we want to give these people money? Do we think we’re actually going to get our money back? so.
Oz Merchant 00:18:11  That’s a key point right there, because giving money is easy. Getting it back is always the hard part.
Josh Hadley 00:18:15  So what were you seeing? Right. Like what were some of the scary hairy things that you were seeing versus what people were originally telling you until you looked at their books?
Oz Merchant 00:18:23  And it’s not it’s not malicious. It’s just the fact that there’s a disconnect that, you know, and like I said, Amazon does not make it easier. And, you know, not everybody’s even using a seller, border profit psychology or anything to kind of engage with their actual kind of numbers are in the bottom line is so or if they’re not using it well, I mean there’s, there’s a lot of that stuff you can put in manually? You’re really getting the Amazon data, but you have other stuff that you need to get the full picture. And the platform we built that lets you kind of get all that aggregate data. Since we had the banking information, the QuickBooks, we had all that aggregate data coming in.
Oz Merchant 00:18:49  So we’d get to see the full story. And it’s just it’s surprising how often there’s a disconnect thinking that from the top level, you know, whatever metrics they hold, which, you know, sometimes it’s I’m looking to say sales or how many units I’m moving, but they’re not looking at kind of the net net what the business is doing. Or sometimes I’ve had people that tell me, like, you know, we run it and it’s like, well, I think from a gut feel, I’m doing about 15 to 18% and they don’t have any numbers to back it up, but they were actually spot on. And that was always interesting to see that, you know, they had a kind of a gut feel for it, but they just didn’t know how to even kind of come up with the data and to do the analysis to figure out, am I actually, you know, on target or not. So it’s once again, because of Amazon, it makes it difficult to kind of gather the information, but it’s once you kind of pull back the layer, they sometimes they think, okay, yeah, my business is doing this.
Oz Merchant 00:19:34  Well, you know, I’ve been growing at this pace and they have missed the fact that there’s a downward trend that they’ve kind of missed because they’re not looking at the right data points and looking, you know, and you look at, okay, the the profit of the business has been trending down, even though sales may be steady or maybe even been going up, but they just haven’t looked at, the cost that they’re incurring. You know, the OpEx has maybe gotten out of whack or they’re overspending. I was working with somebody that he’s working with an agency. He didn’t, he didn’t he missed it for like one month. And on two of the SKUs they had over advertised. So basically he was losing 14% for every unit that was being sold.
Josh Hadley 00:20:09  Wow.
Oz Merchant 00:20:09  And luckily, it only happened like one month and it caught it. And he went back and kind of told him about it. But it’s like, okay, just because you outsource something, you still have to manage and measure and know what the right kind of parameters need to be at to better and effectively manage it and measure that, that whoever you work with, that outsource company.
Oz Merchant 00:20:25  So yeah, when you’re you know, that’s what it goes back to. I think we’re talking earlier before we started like the the CEO mindset, like at the end of the day, the buck stops with you and you, you were responsible for all those buckets and all those functions within the business. Even if you say, like I’ve turned that function over to an outsourced company. I have to know enough about that function to know am I actually getting value out of it? Am I getting the right ROI? Am I actually, you know, are they doing a good enough job that I want to keep paying them for it?
Josh Hadley 00:20:46  Yeah. Well, I think when you transition from you being the operator in your business to a manager, one of the things that you have to do is you have to create very clear KPIs, clear KPIs, key performance indicators that are black and white. They are not subjective. Okay. Which means our advertising spend as a total cost of sales needs to be below 16%.
Josh Hadley 00:21:09  Right. So whether it’s an agency managing your ad spend or it’s an internal person managing your ad spend on Amazon. Right. That number is either being achieved and it is below 16% or it’s not. It just can’t be. Hey, make sure that we are profitable with our ad spend or that we get the lowest cost. We’re paying the lowest CPCs possible. It’s like that is so subjective, right? It needs to be black and white. Like you either achieve this metric or not. And so that would be my challenge for anybody listening is like those of you that have team members. How are you measuring their performance? And is it black and white? Or is it very subjective? Because what you need to be able to do is have a scorecard in every team member needs to know when they are winning and when they are losing. Right? And it needs to be again, go back to cannot be subjective. Hey, I want you to grow our brand sales. Okay. Like, that’s that’s subjective.
Josh Hadley 00:21:58  Like I grew our sales. Well by how much right is is it $1? Hey, this year we made our revenue grew by $1. Well, is that technically. That’s right. But, like, I wouldn’t personally be happy if, like, we only grew by $1 and I wanted to see it double or something like that. So again, these are very basic analogies. And my biggest hack for this is like go to ChatGPT and say, hey, I’ve got an accounting controller, I’ve got a PPC manager, I’ve got a project manager. Give me 20 different KPIs that I could use to measure their success. They cannot be subjective. They need to be data driven and it needs to be measurable. Right? And then ChatGPT will throw out some stuff. You could then use it, modify it, massage it so that it works within your your business. So Yeah, absolutely. I think you hit the nail on the head there. I was like, you’ve got to measure performance.
Oz Merchant 00:22:39  And I love you said scorecard because, you know, one of my mentors was saying what is the data to the line three is a trend.
Oz Merchant 00:22:44  So if you have a scorecard, you get to start seeing the data over time. And when you kind of talk about KPIs, if you have KPIs that somebody else is kind of filling in. Great. But if you’re trying to manage it, if you don’t have the bandwidth to keep track of all those KPIs, find the 2 or 3 that you can do consistently. If you try to do ten, and you’re not going to be able to keep it up consistently, then you know it’s garbage in, garbage out. So if you if you’re not, if you don’t have the full data, then you’re missing kind of the value of it. So if it means that okay, I can stay on top of three, really well choose three. If it’s 510, great. At least this way you’ve got enough data to make a decision off of.
Josh Hadley 00:23:16  Yeah, agreed. We always target 3 to 5 KPIs for each team member, so. Words of wisdom there. now, Oz, I think maybe what our audience is probably questioning right now is maybe like, hey, how do I see the data? How do I visualize, like you talked about, hey, you’ve got ten different variations or skews.
Josh Hadley 00:23:33  Do you know which one’s actually making you money? Or maybe there’s a variation that’s technically losing you money with your knowledge. Like, what tools do you see people having the most success with and being able to, like, lean into the data and even finances and be able to find insights? Do you have any recommendations?
Oz Merchant 00:23:49  Different people use different tools. I my world is spreadsheet, so they get it to me in a spreadsheet and I will. Then we’re going to review it. So wherever they’re pulling the data from there’s a number of different tools out there for that. Just get it into kind of a spreadsheet that we can just see over time where that trend is going, and then we can say, okay, is there enough sales? Is there enough potential to make money off of this or not? Or should we basically say, okay, well, if we take all this, how much is it costing you apply it here and there’s other two SKUs. We can go back to the factories and be in a far better position.
Oz Merchant 00:24:18  at least it gives us more, you know, to play with, to say, okay, I can go a little lower on this price, I can get more aggressive. I also recommend to folks, if they’re not using any type of dynamic pricing tools, they may be leaving money on the table, to have something like that in place. So you can say, okay, well, you know, my initial hypothesis was I could sell this for 29.99, but in reality, you know, people are willing to pay 3232 for it. So, you know, if I can pick up an extra couple of bucks, that helps if I, you know, you’re kind of you pick a price based on your initial analysis, but the fact that you can have tools and technologies that can get you, you get a real world feedback loop and say, okay, well, there’s an appetite for this. If these you know, this, this often, then you can, you know, makes more money on that.
Oz Merchant 00:24:57  And that, once again is impacting your margins overall.
Josh Hadley 00:25:00  Yeah. No I think there’s there’s a lot of tools. Some of the tools that we’ve been using has been like hello profit. That’s the OG that I’ve been using since day one of Amazon. But there’s also a seller board. There’s also Gorilla ROI. There’s a lot of these tools that if you’re not getting the insights that you need, make sure that you’re you’re checking these, these tools out so that you can visually see, am I making money? Am I losing money? The one thing that again, you touched on, that people don’t necessarily include all the time is like, what are your overhead expenses? Which is what how much are you paying for software subscriptions. Your Vas. Any of your team members? your office space or internet? Electricity, all of that. Like, that’s that’s overhead in the business. So what is your recommendation in terms of like, what’s the correct percentage of sales? That should be an overhead? Do you see that being a problem with a lot of e-commerce brand owners?
Oz Merchant 00:25:50  Yeah.
Oz Merchant 00:25:51  When I look at kind of benchmark from kind of opex standpoint, I’m focusing on about 15%. So if anybody is doing much more than that, you know, 15 to 20%. if the Cogs allow for it, because it also comes back to, you know, what it’s saying, that, you know, some people are sitting at 30 to 40% cogs somewhere, sitting at 20, 25%. So you just want to that that range there can really gives you a lot more leeway either on the bottom line or you can have a little bit more bloated organization and still do okay. So if you’re keeping opex, if you’re north of 20%, okay, you’ve got a lot of inefficiencies. whether it’s in your processes, how you’re doing stuff, your overheads, your salaries, you’d be looking through all of that and say, okay, am I running a healthy business or am I just happy the fact that I’m getting a lot of sales. but it’s all being kind of stripped away as it makes its way down to the bottom line.
Oz Merchant 00:26:36  Yeah. so to your point, like, if you’re using seller bought any of these, if you’re not putting in the manual stuff, you’re not getting the clear picture. So you want to put that in so that you can say, okay, what am I really actually making at the end of all of this?
Josh Hadley 00:26:47  Yeah, I think I was my favorite, like way to kind of explain this in elementary terms to sellers is like there are four main places for buckets where you are going to lose money in your business, or for big expense items that you can look to optimize. Number one, we touched on at the beginning, which was Cogs, right? Your cost of goods sold. We talked about, you know, optimizing your Cogs, working with your manufacturers, seeing them as a partner. Reducing your tariffs as much as possible. That’s number one. Okay. Then the next bucket is anything related to fulfillment. So if you’re an Amazon only brand okay great. We can just focus on the FBA fee side of things right.
Josh Hadley 00:27:21  So what’s happening in your FBA fees. Can you maybe even repackage some of your products so that they fall from a large standard size to the small standard size, or can you shave off, you know, 0.2oz from a product that goes from a £1 plus product down to now? It’s in a normal standard size product, right? And like you’re saving an extra dollar for every unit that is sold. You can see how this can compound. So you’ve got the two buckets. Now we’ve talked about cogs. We’ve talked about FBA fulfillment, different things you can do to optimize that. The next big bucket where a lot of expenses are incurred, is going to be on the advertising side of things, right? That’s a huge one. And again, would you have any recommendations from like what that percentage tends to be both for good and bad for sellers?
Oz Merchant 00:28:05  so I’m not an AD guy, so I don’t get that’s one world I don’t touch because it’s such a massive, kind of world in its own. But from seeing just kind of the data, anything north of 25%, I think it’s out of whack.
Oz Merchant 00:28:18  so and that’s as a whole when you’re looking at the overall business. But if you look at just straight tacos, I would say under 20%, 15 to 20%, tops. Yeah, ideally under 15%.
Josh Hadley 00:28:29  Yeah. Yeah. You’re spot on. So I think like overall like a healthy tacos number is going to be like 15% or below. Okay. And then your final bucket is going to be what we just talked about which is going to be your overhead. This is going to be all your contractor team expenses your software tools, any subscriptions that you have, your own personal salary out of the business interest expense that you’re paying on loans, etc. that’s all going to fall under that kind of overhead, operating SG&A expense for the business. So those are your four big buckets. So all you have to do as a brand owner, as the CEO is just look at which one of these do I feel like I can impact the most. Is it can I shave off a couple percentage points from either tacos or cogs? Which one’s easier? Right.
Josh Hadley 00:29:09  Maybe tacos if you’re already above 15%, right? Or maybe tacos is already dialed in. Your ads are really good, but maybe you haven’t touched manufacturing for a while, so maybe there’s a couple percentage points you could steal there. Same thing with FBA fees, which is optimizing your product packaging and analyzing the weight. needless to say, make sure that Amazon is actually charging you the correct FBA fee because there’s oftentimes Amazon’s not even weighing your product correctly. So go reopen cases with Amazon. Be like hey, you’re actually charging me the incorrect fee. You’ll get a reimbursement over the past 90 days. Plus you’ve got the better fee moving forward. So like you can see like it’s just micro improvements for efficiency. And that’s that’s where the successful business owners live is in, focused on those optimizations that can be made to the overall business as a whole. And they’re less worried about the newest marketing hack or something like that that’s coming out.
Oz Merchant 00:29:59  Yeah. And, you know, it’s of course it sells better to have than you as heck.
Oz Merchant 00:30:02  But most people don’t realize as you scale. Business becomes boring and it’s only starts making money when it gets boring. Meaning like you’re just doing the simple things that make the difference. It’s not about the next, you know, something that’s glittering. It’s going to be capturing your attention. It’s really like, okay, just look at where is your point, like all of those four buckets and just make those kind of micro improvements. and it’s not glamorous, but at the end of the day, you’re going to have a nice exit if you don’t have an exit, because all that’s feeding back in your EBITDA.
Josh Hadley 00:30:32  Now, one final thing that I want to touch on with you here, Oz, is whether businesses, e-commerce brands, Amazon sellers should be taking external capital or not. Right. You were at Viably, you were helping underwrite thousands of different sellers. So you’ve seen a lot. There are other brands like myself that we’ve never took a dime of external funding. And so I’m against, you know, having having loans on the books or, or needing to because what ultimately happens is as soon as you start diving into debt, it gets really hard to pull yourself out of that kind of like cyclical spiral.
Josh Hadley 00:31:04  What ultimately happens like and I want entrepreneurs to understand this and go in with their eyes wide open. If you’re going to take one of those cash advances from those external financing partners that it’s like, oh, we’ll give you your Amazon money faster than Amazon’s going to give it to you. That may be good in the temporary side of things, but you’re going to if you’re using that to go fund a new product launch that new product launch needs to have a profit margin in and of itself that is higher than whatever that interest expense is that you are paying, which means you’re going to need to be above 20% in that net profit margin, if not 25%. In order for that to make sense, otherwise, you might as well sit on your hands and wait till the money actually comes back into the business. If you’re not going to be clearing a 2,025% profit margin on that particular product. So that’s like the perspective that I think people need to go into. Like before you take a dime of funding, you best be like doing some accounting, doing something so that you’re aware of the true impact of this loan into your business.
Josh Hadley 00:32:01  And the reason I say this is because Charlie Munger, right, that’s Warren Buffett’s business partner, was known to say there are only three things that are going to derail you in your life of growing wealth, ladies, liquor and leverage. Okay. Leverages that debt. Okay. That can upend you real quick. And it can be a downward spiral very, very quickly. So with that being said, Oz, you have the background of providing funding to a lot of e-commerce sellers. What should e-commerce sellers know so that they go into analyzing whether they do or don’t need funding?
Oz Merchant 00:32:32  So great question. So what I would say is first off, know your numbers because to your point, that’s how you get in trouble. The other is know what. So a couple of things. One is figure out what kind of business you’re in. So are you in a cash flow business or in equity business. If you’re building a brand you’re in equity business. You’re not in a cash flow business. Meaning like you’re it’s worth it for every dollar that’s coming at the bottom line to put back in the business, because you’re potentially going to get your increase, your EBITDA, you’re going to get a multiple on that.
Oz Merchant 00:32:55  If you were to cash a business, take it through, chips off the table and put that elsewhere. I still recommend folks to have kind of what I call a sleep bowl number, meaning like figure out that, you know, five, seven, eight, 10% that you’re taking out of the business so that you are look at the Amazon world. I mean, there’s going to be times where your account gets suspended, sometimes for months. Sometimes it’s a couple of months. You need to have that cash reserve to handle those type of downturns. Or, you know, there’s a what we called a couple of years ago with the whole shipping issues we had. so you need to be able to weather those storms, But when you with that aside, when you think about capital, what are the different types of capital. So you mentioned the cash advance stuff. If you’re a brand, you should not be taking cash advance. If you’re needing cash advance like that, there’s something kind of inherently wrong with the business because you should have you should understand your own cash conversion cycle, meaning that this is when my cash leads my business, and this is how many months it takes for me to get that money back in.
Oz Merchant 00:33:42  So typically a brand, say if it’s, you know, a one month, 1 or 2 month production time, let’s see, in three months I’ll have the goods and then I can sell through it. And I’m buying enough to sell through inside of 90 days. So that whole cycle is typically 5 to 6 months where cash is leaving. I’m getting it back in. So you have to understand what the money I’m getting. Hey, how much am I getting? How much am I own? Am I putting in, and when am I getting that back? If you’ve got the machine built out, that okay for every dollar I take, I can basically make this much back on that. Then it makes sense to say, okay, I can take that money some of my own. I can take a dollar from outside, and I can basically just increase it and grow faster so that if I were to take $100,000. And I can say I can make, you know, $400,000 in sales out of that, because I have that machine in place and I’ve got all these other things figured out.
Oz Merchant 00:34:28  The four buckets you mentioned, then I have a machine in place. Once you have the machine in place, then the math makes sense to say, okay, well, if I can do that with 100,000, can I do it with 100,000 of my own and 100,000 of borrowed money? Yes, I would be paying a little bit on that, but I know the machine works, and I’m basically increasing how much money I’m making in that period of time. If you don’t have the discipline, though, and you don’t have that awareness as to what’s happening in the business, yes, you can get yourself in trouble because either you factor in that things took a little bit longer, and now you’re having to pay money and you’re not making enough money on it. One of the things I see is people take money to spend on ads and rather than use it for inventory, basically making that machine work, if you’re taking a new product and doing that with outside money, you’re basically spending money on testing. We basically don’t have the machine in place.
Oz Merchant 00:35:10  So you’re taking that money and now you’re just guessing will be successful or not. So that’s not a good use of money. If you take the money to basically just put in ads, that’s probably not a good use of money. But if you’ve got that machine kind of figured out that, okay, I know how to take a dollar and make $4 out of it. Then it’s like, okay, how much capital can access to make that go faster?
Josh Hadley 00:35:28  Yeah, yeah. You’re right. I think that and everybody listening, if this is making your head spin, it should be because if you can’t figure this stuff out, if it’s not coming intuitively for you, you really need a question whether you should be taking out that loan or not. Here is maybe my advanced version 2.0 of a wicked smart strategy for how you become the bank yourself. All right, so as Oz mentioned, you should always be looking to take chips off the table. Okay. As you scale up your brand and as you’re taking chips off the table.
Josh Hadley 00:35:57  One of the things that we’ve done is a universal whole life policy. Okay. Then guess what I’m able to do as that policy continues to grow and it will compound tax free. I can loan against myself. I can go take out a loan against my policy. And guess what? My money continues to grow in that whole life policy. And then that interest that I’m paying back. Guess what? It’s going to. Myself anyways. So that’s the strategy, right? Now that doesn’t come overnight, right? That that takes a few years to build up to where you’re able to actually loan against yourself. But in the time where you’re like, hey, I need three months of cash or I need a couple months worth of cash. What a great opportunity to dip into this. Your money still grows at the market rate that’s within your life insurance policy, and then you’re just paying it back. If you’re going to be paying somebody else back. Right. Like Chase Bank or whatever it is. Why not pay yourself back? Instead of giving the interest to somebody else and allowing your money to continue to grow and compound? So like I said, that’s the next level 2.0 type level strategies.
Josh Hadley 00:36:55  But that’s what that’s what the smart entrepreneurs are doing. That’s how you can turn cash over and over and over again and be successful and not, you know, be caught holding a bunch of debt at the end of the day.
Oz Merchant 00:37:05  I love that. I call that the llama strategy. He does the same thing with the shares and stuff bars against it. and what’s usually good about that is because it’s kind of collateralized against the policy. Your rates are probably better than what you’re gonna get elsewhere, too. Yes.
Josh Hadley 00:37:20  Yep. Yeah. You’re getting a 5 or 6% rate, right? Or probably closer to, like, maybe eight right now.
Oz Merchant 00:37:25  Which is still not bad because whenever you go into outside capital. Otherwise the fact is there’s no collateralized assets against it. So why people are like, well, why is the rates ahead? Because it’s a gamble. I mean, you know, we think the sales are going to be there and we’re betting on that. Yes, we’re betting on you to be able to deliver those sales, your forecasts and keep growing that business.
Oz Merchant 00:37:43  But that’s it. There’s no personal guarantee. It’s literally based on your ability to execute.
Josh Hadley 00:37:48  Yeah.
Oz Merchant 00:37:48  So when you’re betting against that then you have to basically, you know, kind of adjust for those type of risks. When you have a policy like that, that’s fantastic strategy. I’m curious if from your standpoint, like how long do you have to wait before you tap into something like that? If you were to go start a policy like, say, March 1st, how long before you can start tapping into that?
Josh Hadley 00:38:07  So from what I’ve gathered, so different policies. I should be a life insurance salesman. different policies have different rules. Some of them are like, well, you can’t touch your money for like the first year. Others like, you’re like, yeah, as soon as you put this in, you could loan against your policy. but there’s going to be like a whole back amount. The policy that we got into is like, hey, it starts to make sense. Like, you can loan against it at any time, but you’re going to be paying a premium rate until you hit year five.
Josh Hadley 00:38:31  Then you’re at just like, what the rate, the regular fund rate from the government, right? You’re at that plus one one bit. Right. Or two. Okay. And so that’s that’s kind of how we’ve approached it. Because for me, this is like a long term strategy of like I become the bank myself so that if I ever need to take out a loan for whatever reason, and it’s a temporary loan within a 24 month payback period or so, I’m loaning against myself. I’m not paying that interest to somebody else. And it’s a higher interest rate as you talked about.
Oz Merchant 00:39:01  Yeah, I love it. It’s it’s a fantastic strategy. if it’s, you know, that easily accessible that quick. Yeah. I think more people should be doing that.
Josh Hadley 00:39:07  Yeah. But you’ve got to have money to start it. Right. So that’s another challenge. So but like I said, for any e-commerce business owner you’ve got to start small. Start small. Start finding the products that are going to provide you the highest ROI and the fastest turnaround time on that.
Josh Hadley 00:39:20  Right. How fast can I make that cash back on that cash conversion cycle that you just talked about? How fast am I getting that ROI back? Right? I might have a 500% ROI, but if I don’t get that money back for 18 months. Oh, yeah. I would rather go with a 100% ROI product or even a 50% ROI product if I get that cash back in three months or less. Absolutely. Right now I’m building and stacking really quickly, and that’s how you can grow. So I think it’s just like patience needs to be in there.
Oz Merchant 00:39:45  And the name of the game in e-commerce is the number of turns. The more turns you can do in a given year is that’s how you’re going to make money. So the better that can be, cash conversion cycle is, the better. You’re using the type of products you can sell that can get you faster, convert cash conversion cycles, maybe even your shorter production. Maybe that makes more sense because yes, I can turn it faster.
Oz Merchant 00:40:02  Yes, it goes lower my production. But if I get made in Mexico versus China, I can sell through so much more in a given year. And that makes sense.
Josh Hadley 00:40:09  Inventory turnover ratio becomes really, really important as this has been a very enlightening conversation. I hope our listeners have enjoyed it as well. I’d love to leave the audience with three actionable takeaways from every episode. Here are the three takeaways that I noted. You let me know if I’m missing something. Action item number one is in 2025. I hope you walk into this year with a mindset of optimism. And even though Amazon is going to be raising their fees and guess what? Next year, I don’t be surprised when 2026 we see more fees coming out from Amazon. Like lean into it and say, okay, this is good. When the going gets tough, like this is your opportunity to stand out. So that would be my first recommendation. Above all else, is having the mindset that there’s still money to be made on Amazon.
Josh Hadley 00:40:51  It’s not time to run away, but it is time to level up your skill set. I know that for sure. Action item number two is, if you are not intimately familiar with your financials in your business, and I would say this if you are not reviewing your your PNL statement in detail at least once a month, you have to be doing that. And if you’re just relying on a third party accounting firm to just send you numbers, and you’re thinking that they’re going to tell you when things start to go sideways. You’re sorely mistaken because they also they’re not in the weeds of your business. They don’t see the end from the beginning. And so do not rely upon whoever your accounting firm is. You need to be the one that’s driving those conversations and understanding what the insights are in within your financial statements. And then last but not least, my third and final action item is to take a look at the four major spending buckets in your business and in your strategy or strategic planning for 2025. Identify one of those buckets that you’re going to dive into with 100% focus, to shave off a couple percentage points.
Josh Hadley 00:41:52  and I think an easy one right now is like, do not take that extra 10% tariff if you’re sourcing your product from China. Don’t let that just eat into your margin. Now is the time to open up that conversation with your supplier. Say, hey, how can we meet in the middle here? Because we can’t afford this tariff on top of everything else. So have those conversations. Oz. Anything else I missed here?
Oz Merchant 00:42:10  I love it, I love it. That’s succinctly covers everything we just talked about, I love that.
Josh Hadley 00:42:14  Awesome. All right. The final three questions I’d love to ask every guest. Number one, what’s been the most influential book that you’ve read and why?
Oz Merchant 00:42:22  So I would say this if you’re a CEO or if you’re really stepping into that role, one of the most powerful, especially if you have teams, is a book called Leadership and Self-deception by the Arbiter Institute. It’s really helps you uncover your blind spots as a leader and make you aware of the fact you have blind spots.
Oz Merchant 00:42:38  And then how do you start looking and examining them so that you become just a more effective leader? So whether that’s leading yourself, whether it’s leading teams, that gives you just a lot of guidance and it’s written in a nice narrative way to in a story fashion that’s easy to consume and understand the kind of key principles.
Josh Hadley 00:42:52  Awesome. What a great recommendation. All right. Next question. What’s your favorite AI tool or ChatGPT prompt that you’ve been using?
Oz Merchant 00:42:59  So one that’s blown my mind lately is a company called replete. Now this is probably maybe could be used for commercial use. So basically is a chat based solution to build apps. So you want to. You probably want to solve. You can basically go to the plate, tell it. This is what I’m trying to do. Build me an app to solve it, and it will build you the app from scratch. And if there’s if you can test it out, if it doesn’t work, tell it. This is the error code I got. It will keep fixing it.
Oz Merchant 00:43:26  And I was able to build an app inside of about an hour and ten minutes for about 11 bucks.
Josh Hadley 00:43:32  That’s amazing.
Oz Merchant 00:43:34  It blew me away. Where we’re at with this type of technology, it literally will write code and you get to see it, and then you can use the app that they built for you.
Josh Hadley 00:43:41  I love that, I love that, what a good idea. And now I’ve got my juices flowing. I’m curious how we can use that in the e-commerce space.
Oz Merchant 00:43:47  Yeah, just think of any problem you have. Can I have an app that could just do that for me? Solve it for me? Can I plug in this thing and automate something for me and design the app? Not the I’m trying to automate the thing, but just as you tell it and it’ll build it for you and then it will solve it for you.
Josh Hadley 00:44:02  Yeah, I love that. It’s very cool. It’s going to be amazing to see what how AI changes our world in five years from now. I think it will be a far cry from what we’re doing now.
Oz Merchant 00:44:10  Absolutely.
Josh Hadley 00:44:11  All right. Final question. Who is somebody that you admire or respect the most in the e-commerce space that other people should be following and why?
Oz Merchant 00:44:17  I follow if, you know, Tomer. I follow him quite a bit. He’s been getting very active. He went quiet there for a while. He’s really re-engaged again. And, you know, I think he just has a great way of kind of telling what he’s been building and how he’s doing it and sharing that with folks. so if you’re not following him, I think it would be well worth it to just he’s on a lot of different social channels just to jump in and kind of follow and see how he’s sharing. He’s kind of almost like building public, which is kind of common in the tech space. So you’re kind of getting to see him kind of build on e-commerce in public.
Josh Hadley 00:44:43  I love that Tomer is great. Definitely recommend him as well. All right. Oz, this has been awesome. If people want to reach out to you, they want to learn more.
Josh Hadley 00:44:49  They want to check out Ecom Sellers HQ. Where can they find you?
Oz Merchant 00:44:53  I’m pretty much. You can find me through ecommerce HQ. Com is a website. if you’re finding me on LinkedIn, the handles Oz or Oz merchant or Twitter. That’s probably the two areas that I’m at personally the most. LinkedIn. Twitter.
Josh Hadley 00:45:05  Awesome. Oz, thanks again for joining the show today.
Oz Merchant 00:45:08  Josh, thanks so much. Appreciate you having me on.