In this episode, Josh interviews Amy Wees, CEO of Amazing at Home E-commerce Consulting. Amy shares her expertise in product development, sourcing, and sales, emphasizing the benefits of diversifying manufacturing—particularly sourcing from Mexico as an alternative to China. She discusses Mexico’s advantages in cost, quality, and logistics, and highlights common mistakes sellers make, such as not knowing their numbers or lacking supplier contracts. Amy stresses the importance of understanding unit economics, building strong supplier relationships, and differentiating products to succeed in today’s competitive e-commerce landscape.

Chapters:

Introduction to Amy Wees and Amazing at Home (00:00:00)
Amy Wees is introduced as CEO of Amazing at Home, specializing in private label product launches and e-commerce consulting.

Why Source from Mexico? (00:00:28)
Amy discusses the importance of diversifying manufacturing, highlighting Mexico’s advantages over China for sourcing and supply chain.

Mexico’s Manufacturing Capabilities (00:02:04)
Explains Mexico’s strengths in injection molding, electronics, labor costs, and free trade agreements compared to China.

Evolving Supply Chains and Workforce Trends (00:03:25)
Describes changes in China’s workforce, supply chain challenges, and the need for businesses to adapt and evolve.

Discovering and Building Trade Shows in Mexico (00:05:35)
Amy shares her journey in exploring Mexican factories and starting a multi-category trade show for sourcing.

Common Seller Mistakes: Not Knowing the Numbers (00:07:34)
Amy identifies the main mistake sellers make: not understanding their costs, margins, and unit economics.

Protecting Supply Chains and Supplier Relationships (00:10:12)
Emphasizes the importance of contracts, vetting suppliers, and protecting products from being copied.

Josh’s Key Takeaways for Sellers (00:12:16)
Josh summarizes three action items: know your numbers, build strong supplier relationships, and differentiate your products.

How to Connect with Amy Wees (00:16:35)
Amy offers a free listing review and shares how listeners can contact her for e-commerce advice.

Podcast Closing (00:17:05)
Josh thanks Amy for joining the podcast.

Links and Mentions:

Tools and Websites 
“Amazing at Home“: “00:00:00”
“Alibaba“: “00:08:59”
“Free Listing Review”: “00:16:35”

Books and Resources 
“Seller Accountant“: “00:12:16”

Key Takeaways 
“Understanding Your Numbers”: “00:12:16”
“Supplier Relationships”: “00:14:37”
“Market Evaluation”: “00:15:57”

Transcript:

Josh 00:00:00  Today I’m super excited to introduce you to Amy Wees. Amy is the CEO of Amazing at Home E-commerce consulting, a world renowned company that has helped thousands of brands launch private label products on Amazon and beyond. Amy’s knowledge in product development, sourcing, marketing and sales have enabled her to help countless entrepreneurs develop their own successful businesses. So welcome to the show, Amy.

Amy 00:00:25  Thank you for having me, Josh. I’m so excited to be here.

Josh 00:00:28  I love what you talked about in terms of, you know, diversifying your risk with manufacturing and supply chain, and you’ve been able to find a lot of that in Mexico. So why don’t you tell us more about Mexico? Why have you been so invested lately into, you know, sourcing from Mexico?

Amy 00:00:49  Well, you know, it’s really we used to go to China all the time. You can go twice a year during canton fair times. And and I still sourced from China. I, I love my manufacturers in China. They’re wonderful people. They’re very efficient.

Amy 00:01:04  Really great. So I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with China. But at the end of the day, one of the biggest things that all of us have to realize is that we have options and, and that, you know, we don’t ever whether it comes to only selling on Amazon, putting your eggs all in that one sales channel basket or only using FBA. What happened during the pandemic? Everybody who is only using FBA, their stuff got stranded. Meanwhile, we tripled our sales because we were able to merchant fulfill. so that’s that’s, you know, a huge learning thing. And so many people are learning that the restock limits, we talked about that, you know, like, hey, maybe we need to start digging more into these other sales channels so that we are able to drive more traffic to Amazon and have even greater restock limits now that things are changing. Right. so I think it’s important to never put all your eggs in one basket and to always know what your your options are.

Amy 00:02:04  And so Mexico was a natural, solution. Potential solution. If we look at injection molding and manufacturing around the world. Mexico’s number two in injection will be right behind China. So, you know, when we look at even electronics, Latin America is just as high in electronics manufacturing as China is. And a lot of people don’t realize that. One of our speakers on the Mexico trip, he’s he’s an engineer and he specializes in helping electronics companies move their supply chain from China to Mexico. big companies like Seagate have completely moved manufacturing to Mexico. Chinese factories, major factories in China are now reopening new facilities in Mexico. Why? It makes sense, right? It makes sense. You’ve got free trade. As long as your product is 70%, produced in Mexico. You’ve got the free trade. So that’s a wonderful opportunity there. You actually have lower labor costs in Mexico than you do in China. China labor costs have risen. and you have a highly educated and motivated workforce in Mexico, which that is also changing in China quite a bit.

Amy 00:03:25  We’re all finding with our factories and, you know, talking with my factory owners, every year after Chinese New Year, a lot of their employees do not return. It’s very hard for them because e-commerce has really taken off in China. And so a lot of these, you know, it used to be you can walk through a factory in China a few years ago, and they didn’t have, you know, they didn’t sell it in e-commerce. Nowadays, that’s nearly impossible to find a factory that doesn’t sell. And so the workforce is evolving in China, and it’s causing some, some issues in terms of supply chain, not only for labour. for quality control, you know, so there’s even the Chinese are looking for alternatives to different places to open up factories and things like that. So I think that all of us have to evolve. We look at any company that does not evolve with the times what we find. You know, we look at like the toys R us stories and we look at, you know, the top 50 retailers in the United States of America.

Amy 00:04:30  Also on the e-commerce websites. So it’s very important for us to pay attention and make sure that we’re looking at, okay, what’s next. And also when we look at, you know, how many. Issues did we have with, with, ports being backed up and with our. With our supply chain just being at a complete stoppage. and we were all talking about men. For Q4 this last year. You better get your stuff in by August, because there’s no way the October timeframe is dead. because there was so much, you know, caught back up and everything prior to this Q4. So this year it was a little bit better. We had some catch up, but we really need to be paying attention. And so for me, I’m right here in San Antonio, Texas. I traveled to Mexico a lot. I love Mexico, and I always see all these things, even here in San Antonio, made in Mexico, right on our grocery shelves and everything. And I’m like, where are these factories? You know, I’m just being a sourcing expert in all these other countries.

Amy 00:05:35  I’m like, how am I not understanding what’s going on in Mexico, the potential in Mexico. And so I thought to myself, there’s no you can’t really find these factories on Alabama. I don’t have a web presence. They haven’t needed to. So we thought, you know, my partner Tim Jordan and I, we were like, let’s just go, let’s go, let’s go. Let’s take people to Mexico. Let’s go. Let’s discover it ourselves. Let’s see what’s going on. Well, literally little do we know there aren’t any multi category CategoryTrade shows in Mexico. There’s no, you know, if you can find these huge automotive trade shows, plastics trade shows, gifts or toys, you can find that that’s great. But if you want multiple categories like global sauces or ASD or, Canton Fair, you’re not going to find that in Latin America. So we crazy entrepreneurs what did we do? We said let’s start. And it’s been a wild ride. It’s been a wild journey. Our first event was in June and we had over 700 sellers show up for that.

Amy 00:06:36  And just over 100 suppliers show up for the trade show, and it was so wonderful to learn of all the capabilities in Mexico and and the work of the people. And, to truly just start this journey of figuring out what sourcing in Mexico looks like.

Josh 00:06:57  That’s awesome. Well, it sounds like you found a problem and you’ve created that solution to that problem. And I’m excited to see how that New Mexico style canton fare grows over the next few years. So thanks for starting that, Amy, for all of us other sellers. The other thing I would love to dive into here, Amy, is as people come to you asking for help in their businesses, wanting to grow their brands, what are some of the mistakes that you are seeing and maybe some case studies that you can share? People that have come to you with problems. What type of problems are you seeing sellers making?

Amy 00:07:34  I would say the biggest issue that I see is that people do not know their numbers. you know, I think all of us were bright eyed and bushy tailed when we start a new business, and we are in love with the idea of making a lot of money and getting that freedom.

Amy 00:07:53  And there’s nothing wrong with that. Like that’s what’s going to drive you to keep going. It’s very scary to take a leap on your own. but a lot of the people, that’s one of the first things that I go over along with people. It’s like, what’s your landed cost? How much are you paying your supplier? Who is your supplier? Do you even know who they are? Or have you just had a chat conversation on Alibaba? So the thing is, we all know nowadays we really need to differentiate our products. We need to have a way of protecting them. We can’t just copy other people’s products. And it’s very tough to just white label anymore because sellers are smart and they’re now protecting their copyrights. They’re doing design patterns. They’re very they’re getting smarter. Right. and so not only do we need to take the time to differentiate and learn product development and learn negotiation, learn how to vet suppliers and really develop those partnerships. but also we need to understand how we’re going to become profitable and the costs that are involved.

Amy 00:08:59  So 90% of the mistakes that I see people make when they come to me is they don’t really know where the money is going. They know that they’re not making any right. Amazon holds on 50% of it anyway, right? It’s not research that doesn’t help us. But people don’t realize that this is a scale game and we need to know our numbers. You don’t have to be an accountant. I highly recommend you hire one, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t need to be aware of your numbers. You need to know what your costs are. You need to know how to run your numbers. in terms of understanding how much is this? How much for this unit? This is called unit economics. For this unit. For this you. How much is it costing me to acquire a customer through advertising? How much is how much profit am I making on average? How do I calculate that? You can actually calculate that very simply with some basic reports. So I usually run through that with new clients from the very beginning and say okay, what are what’s our landed cost? And do we have enough from cost to retail price to actually be profitable.

Amy 00:10:12  And what I like to see is a minimum seven x multiplier, for products. Now, unless you’re selling a ton of volume, right. If you’re you, if you’re playing, if you’re making your own Walmart on Amazon, you have a ton of SKUs and you, you, you know, you’ve got a narrower margin, but you’re making a lot of sales and your advertising cost is lower. That’s great. But if you’re a new brand with 1 or 2 products, you need to make sure that you’re number one differentiating in a way that matters to the customer so that you don’t get stuck in a pricing review. Or number two, making sure that you’re protecting your supply chain so you actually understand who your manufacturer is, that and you’re vetting them. You’re not having just an Alibaba chat conversation. You’re doing real negotiation. That supplier is your partner. You have contracts with that supplier so that you’re able to actually protect your supply chain. The amount of suppliers that are selling against their own clients is astounding.

Amy 00:11:16  it’s just insane. So if you don’t have those contracts, I’m actually in litigation in China right now with one of my suppliers. Oh, wow. And it is, it has been a long road, and I’m so grateful to have my attorney in China. I’m so grateful that I set up contracts from the very beginning. But a lot of the problems that I told sellers with stemmed from their supplier knocking them off stemmed from them having enough margin and not even understanding who their supplier is. You can’t have a contract with the trading company they’re sourcing from a factory. So even if if you’re just white labeling something and you could have protected through copyrights or whatever, then you can get away with the trading company. That’s okay. You can have a basic contract with them. That’s okay. But if you’re developing a product, you want to make sure you’re not sourcing that through training because you cannot protect it. yeah. So these kinds of lessons, these are the things that we need to learn from the beginning.

Josh 00:12:16  I love that. So here are the three takeaways that I noted. Action item number one would be understanding your numbers. And so I think that is so crucial for anybody. We’ve had a few accountants in the past on here. We’ve had Tyler Jeffcoat with seller accountant on here as a as a recent episode, I would go check out his episode because he lays out the guidelines, maybe some targets that you should be shooting for towards your, you know, what should your average cost of goods sold be based off of your retail price? What should your tacos or your ACOs be? Right. And then even what percentage of your total revenue should Amazon fees be? Right. And so he gives all of those examples along with what the aggregators or somebody that’s looking to acquire your business is looking for in those numbers. So if you have really good numbers that obviously an aggregator or somebody that wants to acquire your business finds interesting, then that means you’ve got a healthy business. And so I 100% echo what Amy talked about, with physical product brands.

Josh 00:13:29  Cash flow is king. It is so, so important. And if you are paying Amazon to sell your product and you’re not making a profit, you’re going to go out of business really quick. So if if that’s a concern and that’s on your mind and you don’t know exactly how much margin you’re making from every product, sell at a skew level basis. Start doing that today, because that will fundamentally change your business and allow you to scale to eight figures and beyond. Action item number two is talking about is really going back to the supplier, and making sure that you look at, you look at every component that’s going into the manufacturing for your products in evaluating whether you are truly getting the best price. Amy shared a lot of great examples. Make sure you’re not just working with, like, a trading company. That’s then the middleman between the manufacturer. And you can’t have contracts there. she talked about, you know, maybe even diversifying some of your manufacturing so that you don’t have all your eggs in one basket.

Josh 00:14:37  she talked about manufacturing in Mexico. So use those opportunities to try to get the best price possible. And it’s not just a a chat that you’re having. You know, whether it be on Alibaba or WeChat or something like that. Make sure you create relationships with your suppliers. I know for us, our suppliers that we have are our biggest partners in our business. We’ve been with our main manufacturer for seven years now and they are a partner in our business. I want them to succeed because when they succeed, it will allow us to continue to succeed and vice versa. They want us to succeed because that will drive new business for them, and we have a great relationship with them. So get to that level where you could call up, you know, the owner of your manufacturing partner and, and give them a call and talk, because that’s what we’re able to do with our brand and it makes a huge difference. Last but not least, would be evaluating the markets that you’re selling into. Amy, you did a good job of helping everybody answer this question of, you need to go in and say, why should somebody buy my product rather than what is currently out there on the market? There’s a lot of courses that taught.

Josh 00:15:57  I think the me Too method of, well, just go find a niche that’s selling really well and then go find somebody to private label that product for you. Slap your brand on it and bam, you’re just going to be printing these millions of dollars, and there’s so much more that goes into it. It’s not just, you know, slapping your brand on top of something. It’s truly bringing something unique and different to the marketplace. And as Amazon gets more and more competitive, that message is going to remain even more important because you’re going to need to continue to innovate. Amy, if people want to reach out to you, where should people be reaching out to you?

Amy 00:16:35  Yeah. So if you’d like me to look at your listing free of charge, no strings attached, it’s just me being a nerd and looking at different things. You can improve. I’ll share my screen and just give you a little overview. you can go to amazing@home.com. And underneath the services menu there’s a little thing that says free listing review.

Amy 00:16:56  So check that out. amazing@home.com. And just submit your listing so I can get nerdy. It makes me happy and hopefully it’ll give you some good tips too.

Josh 00:17:05  Well, Amy, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today.

Amy 00:17:09  Thank you. Josh.