Corey Apirian 3:35
Yeah, absolutely. Went to college 2000 2004, Syracuse University, majored in supply chain management. And at the time, it was one of four schools that offered it as a major, I fell in love with it. As soon as I read about it, I knew I didn’t want to be a finance executive, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do in the business space. And to me point of origin to point of consumption was just such an exciting topic and really getting to have a hand and how things are created and how they’re delivered essentially, to a consumer service, a business, whatever it may be, was just really cool. And it’s how everything’s connected, right? And I really believe everything’s connected. It’s one of the reasons I named my company DaVinci. And, you know, really, I cut my teeth in a wholesale distributor warehouse, my junior year of college for internship credits, at same distributor who carried many brands of home and garden, personal care electrics and outdoor living products was approached by Amazon’s team to start something called drop shipping to the end consumer thing. There are one of three companies that were invited into this program at the time for that specific category set. And my senior year, the owner of the company called me and said, you know, you want to come help us figure out this thing called dropship. And I said, Sure, I’ll give it a shot. I signed up and started a week after I graduated called one of my professors in and, you know, basically after a day of walking through the site and getting some ideas, I Googled how to wire a cat five cable and build a pick pack and ship operation. And shortly thereafter, we had a multimillion dollar business built in 2004, in the very early days, launching some of the biggest brands in the space and was given an award by Amazon. Back when they used to have vendor summits for being one of their top vendors. In the category. I took that model and copied it most major retailers I could find, who are starting to now introduce this technology of dropship, whether it’s through a commerce hub, or a direct connection, your Walmart, your targets, Macy’s, Lowe’s, Walgreens, etc, and became one of the first and helped brands pioneer fulfillment in that space for a long time. And not only was I building the pick and pack operations, but I was also overseeing and managing a lot of the integration work, all the front end merchandising stuff, your content, your contract negotiations, or portal management. In Amazon space, you’re buying programs, your HTML, a plus detail pages, kind of watch the marketplace get created, and had a really unique vantage point of 30 plus different subcategories of product in those categories. And those parent categories, and interoperating on all these different merchants and channels, right. So I learned so much about every Nick inside of the supply chain from origin to consumption. And it really gave me my MBA and experience. And I kind of learned very early what to do and what not to do and what the core fundamental principles, which many of those haven’t changed today, right? ship on time, have a great customer experience, build great content of great reviewed products and drive traffic to those pages, right, that’s your core block and tackling. And if you can do those things, you can be really successful, the consumer buying habit has evolved, consumers, depending on the category in the channel, want stuff in same day, one day or two day. And that’s the expectation that we have, I don’t think that’s Amazon’s fault for creating that they certainly, you know, created an effect by doing that, and they capitalize on it early on. By understanding that as well. All these other retailers, Amazon included, have capacity constraints of how they can manage that. And brands who are really the ones who are asked to do the heavy lifting need ways to be able to get their goods into consumers hands through either extended assortment or from their own buildings, or however it needs to get there in a safe way, being fully integrated with the appropriate channels and merchandise in an effective way. And in late 2019, I built the VINCI that give brands tools to be able to do that. And what we do is we enable our deployed inventory through our microfilament Center Network, which are smaller footprint, fulfillment centers, focused on Aegis and turns and fulfillment. So that goods can be delivered same day, one day two day. And how we do that is by optimizing the network and by understanding what goods are sold at what online channels through our front end merchandising strategies, and we enable AI around inventory control, and unique order management integration so that we can put the appropriate business rules in to get goods into the right facility from a physical location standpoint, and then route those orders against those real time inventories to the building closest to the end consumer, including all the business rules needed by those specific chapters.
Josh Hadley 8:16
I love it, you’ve got a wealth of experience, and what DaVinci offers is very unique. And I think you’re definitely serving a big need in the market. Now, of course, knowing that our audience, we have a lot of you know, seven figure sellers, they’re trying to grow their business to eight figures and beyond. And frankly speaking, I don’t think there’s been a time other than maybe when COVID first happened, that supply chain has been as difficult as it is right now, for e commerce sellers. Because you have Amazon that’s that slapping inventory limits and actually being very aggressive with those right. And Amazon’s now charging more than they ever have for their fulfillment service for their fulfillment services. And even long term storage fees have just risen exponentially. Removal fees have risen exponentially. They’re introducing aw D which is a whole new, you know, adventure or a three PL for Amazon. So my question to you, Corey, is if somebody wants to continue to grow their e commerce business, and they’ve started primarily on Amazon, but they want to take that business, to grow it to eight figures and beyond? What are some of the steps that they should be implementing now from a supply chain perspective that can set them up for success in the future?
Corey Apirian 9:37
It’s a great question. It’s really fundamentally why DaVinci exists to help brands solve exactly that problem. I very much believe that it’s Amazon and not Amazon verse. And understanding how you sell to Amazon starts with really smart approach on merchandising and assortment, as well as a strong domestic Intralogistics Strategy that you can utilize as well as making sure in my opinion that all of your eggs aren’t in that basket. So brands and merchants need the ability to be able to ship direct to store Direct to Consumer Direct to FC. And when you’re selling to Amazon, having an agile approach to that business, whether you’re in vendor Central or Seller Central, and I happen to believe that if you’re in vendor central to ship bulk in Amazon, and backup your inventories with direct fulfillment and create a longer tail of skews outside of the vendor central bulk network, where it’s still a wholesale relationship, and you’re creating a very similar intertwined halo effect with the right assortment. Conversely, if you’re on Seller Central, having quick replenishments and turns into FBA has never been more important. But not putting 100% of your catalog into Amazon and into FBA specifically, is also equally as important whether you’re you’re set up in FBA merchant fulfilled, or FBA, merchant fulfilled and seller fulfilled prime if you’re a legacy partner that has that. So it really starts with your servant, and making sure that you have the right item setup for each one of those agile channels. And then additionally, making sure you could be integrated with Amazon in that approach, you can deliver to the end consumer or the FC in the cadence needed. And the glue that binds all that together is this concept. That’s really the core fundamental of micro fulfillment. And DaVinci, specifically, is inventory control, getting your assortment and your inventory accuracy, right has never been more important. And it has been really hard to do that over the past few years. Well, you know, two years ago, and COVID, you had massive spikes in demand, you had a lot of growth and ecommerce that was forced into that way, because everybody was stuck at home and quarantining. And, you know, nobody bought more bread machines and gardening equipment than when we were all quarantined. I’m guilty of those those things myself. But then when you look at what that did to forecasting channels, and then raw material shortages and rates of containers rising super high, and then the bullwhip effect where consumer spending dropped like a rock and all this inventory landed late after peak season, all of those things put a lot of pressure on the data, it put a lot of pressure on global supply chains on capacity on brands on their p&l on the consumer experience. So I think looking backwards, now, we’ll have an opportunity, probably within the next eight months for things to start normalizing out. I think having a baseline of inventory right now, and getting a Strategy built, where you can operate in this direct FC, direct to consumer model, and have that infrastructure as a brand, right size your assortment, make sure that you have the ability to put the right items at the right online channels to succeed. And if you’re in brick and mortar, utilize your brick and mortar data to create differentiated assortments on an offline Amazon as well, the halo effect in my opinion is a real thing. And understanding how your Omni business affects your Amazon business and your DTC business is critically important as well. And there’s a lot of things that you can do to measure that. And part of its AV testing. Part of it is just understanding your consumer and, and each channel has a different way that you communicate with your end consumer, but not putting every item everywhere is really critical and having the right Intralogistics Strategy to back that that that Strategy up is equally as important.
Josh Hadley 13:31
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And I think that it for those businesses that do have an omni channel approach, right? They may be already in existing brick and mortar locations. They’re on target.com. They’re on walmart.com. And Amazon is just one of the channels. My next question for you, Corey, would be what is your advice for a a, let’s say it’s an Amazon seller, that primarily, let’s say 98% of all of their sales are happening on Amazon right now. Right there on Seller Central. Maybe they opened up Walmart just to test out the waters there. But what’s your advice and recommendation for somebody that’s primarily just focused on Amazon, but they do have ambitions for being able to grow and hopefully add more channels down the road? Is there still a role? You know that DaVinci plays in that?
Corey Apirian 14:25
Oh, noquestion. I mean, DaVinci offers real time data and that infrastructure in order to understand and help strategize, through market basket analysis through through technology, what you should be selling and what channels and then AI built around that inventory control so that we can measure that real time POS outbound and continue to help brands replenish and decentralized their inventories. So it can be delivered same day one day to day depending on the needs and categories of the channels and and consumers that are being service. What I would say though, you know, you got To start at some point, so just because you don’t have a Shopify site, or a DTC presence doesn’t mean you shouldn’t add one, that’s your chance as a brand to get close to the end consumer, and Rome wasn’t built in a day. So starting now, and having the right infrastructure to service that is really important. I talk to a lot of brands who say we want to start with this new, this new category, this new brand we just developed within our total portfolio. I mean, we just we just want to put that on fulfillment. And to me, that’s, that’s not the right approach, right? Because you’re, you’re wasting money. And you know, that data of what can service your enchanting consumer already. So by taking that crawl, walk, run, sprint approach is not a bad thing. But do it in a way where you’re limiting your assortment and SKU count and not the brand count, if you have multi brands. So that you can you can block and tackle different categories on different channels. And you can actually get meaningful data to test and learn. If you’re in dementias network, there is no integration and category that can’t be serviced. We’re not everything to everyone, we don’t fit for everyone. But when you’re looking at your AV items, your top movers across the network, if you can make and save the most money on your 8020 rule of SKUs, you’re making a huge impact, right? And there’s a merchandising cadence to putting the red and yellow and pink KitchenAid stand mixers next to the black, white and blue, right. And the whole line sells when you have all the color story there. So we understand that as well. But how you arrange those items across the US specifically, because that’s what we service today. It that’s the that’s the game that that kind of gets played. So my advice to brands, who have all their eggs in Amazon’s basket is start now to try to diversify that. And you need to take some risks, and you need to do it in the most calculated way. And there’s a lot of data today. And there’s a lot of knowledge that you likely have on your own customer base, where you can see things and you can start now to try to drive sales on those channels and start building your presence and creating those by wheels across your whole network.
Josh Hadley 16:59
Awesome. Another question I have for you, Corey is, you know, give me the use case of why you know, DaVinci might be able to help a seller with you know, merchant fulfillment for Amazon, heaven forbid, they go out of stock, right? Let’s say somebody’s slapped with inventory limits on their account, and they can’t ship any more items into Amazon’s warehouse. But they go out of stock of a particular SKU, obviously, being able to do multi or you know, merchant fulfillment is going to be important for them. But the Holy Grail of having seller fulfilled prime, you know, Amazon’s not giving that away anymore, right? Is that something that DaVinci could help with? I know you do service other clients that have that legacy seller fulfilled prime. Tell me more about that, and why, you know, an Amazon seller might be able to utilize those services as a backup for Amazon.
Corey Apirian 17:55
Yeah, I mean, there’s definitely a top line increase when you have a prime batch, we all know that, right? Is there a profitability and customer service difference and experience? arguable, right? It depends on the category and the time of the year and the item set. So by having a Strategy where you have your long calendar, short health, appropriately merchandise, and utilize the right forecasting tools to replenish inventory into Amazon. To me, that’s the most important thing. And you know, what I would say is that if you’re a brand that’s in vendor and Seller Central, I would immediately utilize direct fulfillment, because that way you can enable a prime edge through performance as long as you have the right physical location network, being able to manage the back end and the right capabilities on the integration side, which is something that’s really important for DaVinci. And what we do that makes us so unique comparatively to other order fulfillment companies out there and brands being able to manage that themselves is we give them that ability with our for deployed inventories, our ability to integrate our ability to replenish back to the right buildings, our ability to help them create those proper assortments between bulk and dropship. And then obviously getting goods into the consumers hands in one to two days. However, when you’re on Seller Central, by being able to create the right FBA and FBM Strategy you need, you need to have control and 1% of something is better zero than 0% of nothing. That’s something that I talked to my brands and I’ve lived through myself for a really long time. You know, you have to get your inventory metrics right at Amazon, by putting yourself in a position to succeed means continuing to create turns from an MFC or FC network into Amazon’s FBA facilities where Amazon can pick and choose wherever it’s going. But if you have the country surrounded like it doesn’t matter where they’re picking, you have the inventories in the right locations. So you can create create smaller frequent turns into FBA, and then back that up with a longer tail of goods that may not be impacted with or without a prime batch when you Have your core sellers, keep those goods always flowing into FBA and keep the inventory turns always at the highest level of metric you can with the lowest cubic foot. Easier said than done, of course, and there are always spikes in demand. But when you’re spending those big advertising dollars, and you’re also trying to like category blocked from a competitive perspective, like you want to make sure that you don’t go out of stock, because that’s, that’s a bad thing at Amazon. And we all know that right? And then being able to utilize some of those same inventory sets against different channels, allows you to then start to create more terms on those same inventory sets and your fulfillment network so that you can create that differentiated halo effect and not be so dependent on FBA and FBM. itself. And really, when you talk about Amazon, I mean, they’re a supply chain engine. And they always have been in you know, Walmart too, right? I mean, that’s what’s made those companies so successful. So from my perspective, coming at E commerce from a perspective of both supply chain and merchandising, it’s equally critical.
Josh Hadley 21:01
Yeah, completely agree. Would a seller be able to utilize DaVinci? Like, let’s say they import, you know, 1000 products, they’re not going to send them all to Amazon right now. Could they, you know, send them all to you. And have you drip stuff into FBA, while having you also be set up as you know, fulfillment by merchant for them, and maybe even servicing, whether it be Walmart orders, DTC orders, but then still being able to drop in shipments to FBA? Is that a potential solution away? You know, a seller might be able to utilize your services? Yeah, absolutely.
Corey Apirian 21:40
We have a lot of partners on the supply chain visibility and freight forwarding and translating side. And by being able to get goods in from overseas and mix them and deploy them in a decentralized way, using our data sets. So we know how to place inventory across the US is absolutely a really strong Strategy that differenti helps brands everyday do.
Josh Hadley 22:04
That’s awesome. Very cool. All right. Well, Corey, what I would love to do is maybe hear some case studies from you have specific use cases where a seller or a brand has approached you. And you know, what are the results that they’ve seen in their business? By utilizing DaVinci and your guys’s micro fulfillment network?
Corey Apirian 22:25
Yeah, absolutely. There’s a few really exciting ones, I would say one, one really cool story is a beverage company that had a very high freight allowance inbound to Amazon FCS, they dealt with a lot of ships known container fees, a lot of chargebacks, a lot of shortage claims, they ended up moving 100% of their volume to direct fulfillment. And because of our physical location network, we were able to enable a prime badge, they did not get any effect there. They still maintain 100% in stock through our network. With our network optimization, we were able to plan the right amount of inventories in the right locations. And over the past five months, their top line at Amazon has not only increased over 15%, they have not felt any chargebacks they have not felt any issues and Amazon weeks of cover on how they were ordering into vendor Central. And they have increased just by losing the freight allowance over six figures on a low seven-figure business back into their pocket of profit. And that was a huge win. So kind of like a really large example of profitability for this particular brand. But it’s a tremendous, a tremendous win for them. And then I would say another really exciting one is on marketplace, and target.com, where we had a brand who had came to us many years ago who had never operated online before. They did a lot of direct sourcing from all over the world, and did a lot of private label programs for the world’s largest retailer. So we launched them online and by taking different components of textiles and building towels, sets of bath towels, hand towels and wash boss. In this specific example. We were bringing that in and multiple master cartons overseas and getting them on floor loaded containers. And how the container utilization worked was there are only so many colors and sizes that could fit however, the business grew so fast by creating infinite permutations of these different pack sizes that we learned so quickly. And it was a really strong way of selling between marketplaces and other dropship channels specifically at Target for this particular SKU. And what ended up happening was we grew so fast online at target that we fed those inventories from the manufacturer into DaVinci is network in ships and oh container pre packed as a six piece set now, instead of individual components. So we lost just hundreds of dollars of corrugated expense. We were able to really increase sustainability practices. We max out the cube of their container we started turning was faster. And it was a much more profitable sale for the brand. And for the retailer themselves. And it was a win win win around. And that’s one of the beauties of why DaVinci has been created and why we connect merchandising to this network optimization to our physical location network, because those three components of the business, in my opinion, are three, three, you know, one parts three to the whole, right? They’re directly connected, and one part is not greater than the other. And there’s a famous Leonardo da Vinci mathematical principle called the Golden principle, that is, essentially our logo that talks about everything is connected. And if the math equation is that everything is connected out there, and my five year olds name is also Leo. That’s the other reason we’re DaVinci. But those are the four founding principles that I really believe in and has been proven to time and time again, help our clients went out there.
Josh Hadley 25:52
Yeah, I love that. I mean, I love that that case study with that, you know, towel, textile company, where essentially, what you’re saying is, they didn’t have a particular SKU like when they imported all of their goods, right? Maybe there were 1000 units of the blue towel, they had different sizes, right? You have the hand towel, you have a medium sized town, and you have the big body towel, right? Then you might have a set of brown and black, etc. What you were saying is, you know, you could create infinite permutations of ways to mix and match maybe those colors, and the sizes to the customer. So when they were publishing on Amazon, it’s like, hey, we just brought in these different containers, you uploaded probably hundreds of different skews. And then at that point, you’re able to see, all right, which of these, you know, skews, these new SKUs are actually going to start moving. And then for you guys, as soon as an order would come through, I would assume you’re just grabbing. Alright, so we got to have a brown towel here, we need the small blue hand towel. And then we need the big black body towel, right? Like that’s what this is packaged as for this particular SKU. And then what you were saying is, then, based on that, that was kind of their minimum viable product, right? That’s their MVP, to just test out the waters and see what would work, then they could actually start sourcing those individual actual skews from the manufacturer directly. Right. That’s where you said they were able to start saving on, you know, their corrugated costs and boxes and shipping across the board. Is that correct? Then like you, you know, we can seller could essentially come to you or a brand and say, Hey, I’ve got here’s a bunch of different products. I think some of these can be bundled really well together. I don’t know which ones which. But obviously, if you’re doing that on Amazon FBA, you have to kick them together first, and send them in before you can collect data. In your example. You don’t actually have to have them kitted, to actually create that SKU and at least merchandise on different sites. Is that correct? Yeah, that’s
Corey Apirian 27:58
exactly right. And like the the cool part about is that all the excess inventory was then utilized on your merchant fulfilled on your Walmart marketplace, so on so forth, so that you can create two backs, four packs, six packs of all the different core components. And really, you have no more waste, right? So you’re utilizing now you can’t force bundles onto consumers. I think we all know that. But by creating a different SKU said, a washcloth that sold in a, in a in a traditional merchant store, you know, might be $2, or $4. Right? But when you when you bundle that as a four pack of wash costs, you know, I have two young boys, I don’t just buy one wash cloth, like we buy a bunch of them at once, right? And, you know, by able to have that differentiated assortment that’s core to that demographic online. You know, it really gives a fresh look at assortment and profitability, and channel management. And those are really important things. And then, you know, the efficiency of manufacturing those sets now in ships known container reducing waste, creating efficiencies at the warehouse level, also profitability on freight and top line. I mean, those are all amazing things, and all great success stories. And, yeah, our tech allows that infinite permutation in a very targeted way, but also looking at the market baskets and suggesting what should be sold in a very targeted way. And that’s the piece that I think people are really missing out. There’s combining the FDM, that front end merchandising with this concept of network optimization and inventory control, and how do you place goods and merchandise them on differentiated channel sets, so that they’re available for same day One day fulfillment, one to two day fulfillment, you know, through a physical location network, and again, that’s exactly the problem that DaVinci is solving together.
Josh Hadley 29:42
That’s amazing. Tell me a little bit more about that market basket analysis, right, that DaVinci is, is doing some of the AI, you know, to determine how you’re going to merchandise different products or how to come up with the correct type of bundles. Yeah, I
Corey Apirian 29:59
mean, there’s a lot core principles of channel management and merchandising, you know, when you look at your club channels and having larger pack sizes, your mass channels having smaller, lower price point channels that interoperate also with what’s in store, you know, a beauty manufacturer might have a 6.9 ounce bottle of shampoo, that’s a proven bottle of shampoo and price point and cubic foot that has sat on a Walmart and Target shelf for the past 30 years and might have do updated packaging formula ingredients. You know, that’s the merchandising side of it. But like that cubic foot turns and creates X number of dollars with the amount of profitability and cash flow turns at that has on shelf all the time. But when you when you ship that to target, they’re going to merchandise that online and Target and Walmart Home Depot buy online pick up in store optionality to that and they may offer it to ship to the end consumer and in a myriad of different ways. But that same consumer might be adding two of those to their shopping cart, they might be adding a 33 point ounce of the shampoo, or at least you know, five different bottles of that shampoo, that adds up to a 33.8 ounce and a 16.9 of conditioner. Right? Maybe their ratio is different. So if you’re a brand that’s operating in that space, you now have the ability to directly merchandise something online at your brick and mortar partners websites, and completely drives your brick and mortar sale in a differentiated way that keeps driving people online and creates that halo effect online. Using that appropriate data set when you can see repeat purchases, market basket analysis, what people are buying with what that caters to those demographics, specifically, of those given channels and price points and be able to differentiate it in a way where you don’t have to have the Amazon algorithm or the Walmart Buy Box being matching everything across the board. And you could do it where you in you should do it where you price out your per ounce or your per unit, you know, in a way where everything’s an even playing field, but you’re differentiating based on the channel that you’re speaking to, and utilizing that Strategy to continue to drive really your flywheel your turn your your halo effect your customer experiences. And when you can do that, and you can integrate with those channels and that direct to consumer director store director FC mentality A is a brand. There’s no merchant or marketplace you can’t walk to and kind of control your own destiny, right, you have to do it the right way. But any buyer out there on the other side of the desk is going to take a smart look at any brands assortment that is going to deliver in one to two days whether it’s marketplace or dropship. And if it’s your own DTC channel, you certainly can go merchandise and test and learn and talk to your consumer and do a lot of really fun things as a as a brand and manufacturer. So if you have that physical location network that can deliver and same day, one day two day, you can optimize the integration optimize the carrier set between local and parcel carriers, where appropriate for costs for sustainability, you can create the order accuracy needed to create the customer experience and the right packaging opportunities. Like that’s when you start to fire on all cylinders. And you get to really experience the benefit of an E commerce ecosystem and have a partner like DaVinci selfishly I can say this as a growth engine that interoperate again, these three core factors of the business that are directly connected. I’ve seen it for the past 19 years.
Josh Hadley 33:25
That’s amazing. Carawan play devil’s advocate real quick for many of the experienced e commerce sellers that have been on Amazon and Amazon has always had multi channel fulfillment that they offer through their FBA centers. They have also just come out with by with Prime Now it’s definitely not the cheapest option. But we see Amazon trying to expand their footprint into all of E commerce they don’t want to just be in the Amazon, you know, sales of E commerce. They want to be involved with Shopify sales right from the DTC standpoint, and even as it relates to Walmart sells in a roundabout way. So Corey, why should somebody consider not just saying, hey, you know what, I’m just gonna put everything at Amazon FBA warehouses and Amazon aw D warehouses, and I’m gonna let Amazon be my entire ecosystem, as Amazon continues to roll out multi channel fulfillment. Yeah, it’s
Corey Apirian 34:26
great. I mean, I practically see most brands that we deal with walking away from Amazon, multichannel filmin and not going towards it. On paper. It’s an easy button, there’s a cost to it. There is a lack of control and visibility. There’s a data play to it, right. There’s a lack of agility as a brand. And where Amazon is supporting the shop buys into big commerce and other DTC stores. And maybe in a roundabout way Walmart, there’s this whole other ecosystem of channels, that it doesn’t serve us. So if you’re a brand and you need need to be on dropship DTC and marketplaces, which I tend to believe that most brands either will want or do operate on that trio of channels available, those are the only three channels available, right. And there’s not a whole lot of people out there that are truly agnostic in that space, and can manage that in the appropriate way, checking off all the boxes, I believe DaVinci was built from the ground up to be able to service those things very much because of the experience of myself, my team and seeing those landmines and pain points, but yet opportunities out there, and what was missing from the marketplace, as a growth engine and fulfillment operation, to get closer to consumers to hit those business rules and SLAs to give brands control over real time, data and agility and a chance at profitability in certain categories. If you’re a beverage supplier, as I alluded to earlier, you need some sort of micro fulfillment presence, if you want any chance at profitability, and safety of delivery. If you’re an item that’s a high value, low weight item, conversely, that’s a low that’s a low value, high weight item of beverage, a high value, low weight item or an external hard drive a laptop computer, Amazon FBA is probably going to be your cheapest game in town, but you can’t manage the entire ecosystem that way. And you do lose control over your product. And, you know, we talked about it before, right? Like the amount of units of metrics of inventory control put onto Amazon system and network is somewhat rigid now. And you have to be really careful about how you do that. And I do think buy with prime is expensive. And I do think it’s in its infancy. I think it’s a great thing for SMBs. Truthfully, I think Amazon multi channel domains a great thing for SMBs. I think the folks who listen to this podcast and enterprise size clients who are a little bit larger than that type of GMV, in my opinion, probably need something more at this point. And that’s direct integrations per channel with control and the right infrastructure to manage all the components of the domestic Intralogistics system that exists out there today. And for tomorrow. I don’t think Amazon multi channel fulfillment solves that problem.
Josh Hadley 37:09
Yeah, yeah. No great, great input and great insight. I mean, you’ve been around the block you started with Amazon, back in in 2004. So you know, everything that Amazon’s been doing and what they’re up to. So as we start to wrap things up here, Corey, my last question would be as it relates to the global supply chain, overall, what’s your advice and recommendation to existing ecommerce business owners? As it relates to, you know, supply chain sourcing their products overseas, getting it into the US, we’ve gone through a period of years with kind of a lot of struggles as it relates to supply chain. But what do you see happening in the future? And what action items do you would you recommend ecommerce business owners be making today to make sure their supply chain is set up for success?
Corey Apirian 38:01
Yeah, I think there’s a hybrid of like a just in time, and just in case inventory balance, I mean, obviously, multi sourcing capabilities of how you get products, there’s obviously a lot of geopolitical issues out there. You know, I, you’ve seen a lot of brands, try to diversify their sourcing from just in China, and diversifying that into other areas of the world, whether it’s Central America, you know, Canada, Mexico, Europe, I mean, it really depends on the product us domestically, Europe. You know it throughout Asia, Southeast Asia, as well outside of China. I particularly think that if you have the right tools and visibility, you can tend to lean to more of a just in time inventory Strategy. I think having your eggs just in an Amazon basket, and having that Strategy is a little bit of a dangerous thing to do. But if you can have multi channel fulfillment operations, and you’re in brick and mortar, and you can grow your ecosystem the right way, I think you can learn to do that. I would also say that, you know, continuously understanding that supply chain is a living, breathing thing. And there are always going to be unforeseen challenges and opportunities. They’re just impossible to plan for. But you have to plan in your projections and the way that you align your infrastructure in the channels and countries that you’re selling in to be agile, right? And you need to get closer to consumers from data and you need to get physically get closer to consumers. And that’s a really good way to create agility because the further downstream you get, the better data you can share with upstream. And you can plan a lot with that type of data set.
Josh Hadley 39:41
Yeah. Awesome, awesome insight in great advice. All right, Corey, as we wrap up today’s episode, I love to ask the guest a series of three questions. So here are the three questions Corey number one is what is the most influential book that you’ve read? And why
Corey Apirian 40:01
Jim Collins Good to Great. I tend to love that book. I know I only have to give one I tend to carry allowes who are at war round with me everywhere I go. It’s not as easy as a read but Jim Collins Good to Great is one of those just classic books for business leaders that I just think is chock full of like very timeless inputs of, of watching companies be successful, and really great nuggets of how to follow some of those footsteps. And, you know, it’s just, it’s a very well written book from one of the smartest, most like, theoretically approachable reads that I’ve had. I’ve never met the guy in person. But you know, that’s a whole nother thing.
Josh Hadley 40:40
Ya know that that is a great book, I highly recommend Good to Great as well. All right, Corey. Next question number two here is what is a new software tool or productivity tool that you’ve been using, that you think might be a game changer in that you’ve enjoyed using?
Corey Apirian 40:56
I mean, we’re definitely in a ChatGPT time right now. That’s what all the kids are using. I mean, it’s, it’s an amazing, amazing tool, I think we’re at the infancy of it. That’s a great question. I’m gonna go with Power BI. Power BI nerd, I really liked the Microsoft network. I think what you can do on Power BI is pretty amazing in dissecting information the right way and sharing that with internal teams and partners. And I think it’s just it’s become much more user friendly. There’s a lot of great tools with it. And it’s just it’s so purposeful for so many different reasons. And I think Microsoft’s continuing to build some really great functionality out of that person.
Josh Hadley 41:38
Yeah. And I would echo what you talked about with Power BI, we actually just started utilizing it to dissect and really get into our Amazon data more fully. And I think that it’s phenomenal. So passes any of the existing software that’s out there to like, get into data. analyzation, holy grail. Awesome. All right. Last question here is who is somebody that you admire or respect the most in the E commerce space that other sellers should be following? And why
Corey Apirian 42:07
there’s so many smart people in the industry right now? That’s a that’s an amazing question. I, I like Rick Watson, I think Rick’s a really smart guy, I think he’s got a really fresh perspective on things. He’s obviously very DTC focused, but he understands the ecosystem really, really well. And I think he has like, just a very unique point of view, and is probably one of the smartest guys around. And in my opinion, there’s a lot of people have been doing this for a while, he’s been really doing this for a long time and seen a lot of things. So I do like to listen to what he says. There’s a few other groups out there, I really liked the fulfillment IQ podcast, I think that group is really, really smart. I won’t keep going because I know I’m only supposed to pick one here. But there’s a lot of really great people out
Josh Hadley 42:56
there. Know that that is awesome. And I think our listeners appreciate hearing new names and new podcasts to listen to. So that’s great. Now, Corey, as we conclude things, I love to leave the audience with three actionable takeaways from each episode. So here are the three takeaways that I’ve noted. Corey, let me know if you think I’m missing something. Number one, we didn’t necessarily talk about this in the podcast today. But I think it’s become evident, because supply chain can be very complex. My number one takeaway would be if you do not have a existing supply chain manager on your team, you should do that today. And the reason why is because I think in the Amazon community, especially many people just hire, you know, a virtual assistant. And they say, Hey, make sure you use this software, and make sure that you you know, just click the Reorder button, when it comes time. And what you’re going to be missing out by not having a supply chain specialist or expert on your team is with the ever evolving needs of Amazon in the changing game of logistics on Amazon, you are going to be you know, at a disadvantage compared to other e commerce, business owners that are using utilizing services such as DaVinci. Or they’re finding out a way that they’re going to utilize aw D and how it goes to aw D into FBA so that all the eggs are not just sitting in Amazon’s basket. So that’s action item number one, action item number two is consider, you know, moving, moving away from having all of your eggs into Amazon’s basket. So just as Corey had talked about, you’re going to be less agile and less nimble. We shared he shared a great case study of how by utilizing his service, you know, a brand is going to be able to create an infinite number of skews hypothetically, with existing products by creating by moles, and allowing the data to first come in to determine if you should actually have the manufacturer kit those items to begin with. And just the ability to test new skews, you can’t do those things on Amazon. And so being able to incorporate other three pls into your network, or people just like you know, DaVinci, here, you are going to be able to set yourself up for success. And my last and final takeaway is an existing brand that wants to continue to grow their omni channel presents, and be more nimble, I would encourage you to go reach out to Corey here at DaVinci. What they have is something that, you know, many of the Amazon Seller community, we don’t have a lot of experience in. And what they have put together is is exceptional. So I think Corey comes with not only supply chain background and experience, but Corey has an experience of of the merchandising aspect of that supply chain, which I think is very, very unique in this market. And so he didn’t necessarily pay me to do this. This is not a sponsored message. But I highly recommend that you guys actually reach out to him and get his insight to your specific business and your needs. Because every single one of our businesses is going to be a little bit unique. So Corey, what are your thoughts? Is there anything I’m missing from those three takeaways?
Corey Apirian 46:30
No, that was spot on. That was spot on the underlying message is you can you can take some control over your business and play defense and offense at the same time. Those are two really important things by getting closer to the consumer and using data and technology to manage part of that with your with your your expertise and poor leaders of your own brands and merchants.
Josh Hadley 46:51
Trade. Yeah, well, Corey, where can people find you, contact you and learn more about what DaVinci does?
Corey Apirian 46:59
Yeah. DavinciMicroFulfillment.com. Or you can type in DaVincimfc.com. And there’s a Contact Us form but you could reach out to me directly at C O R E Y@ DaVincimfc.com as well.
Josh Hadley 47:15
Awesome! Well, Corey, thanks for coming on the podcast today and we look forward to chatting with you again soon. As a pleasure, Josh. Thanks for having me.
Outro 47:23
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