Amazon is implementing AI systems to proactively predict and prevent counterfeiting attacks before they occur, analyzing social media trends and product patterns to identify potential fake products, while simultaneously transitioning from reactive to predictive logistics by using AI to spot bottlenecks in real-time and reroute shipments before delays happen, which benefits legitimate sellers by creating a more trustworthy marketplace environment and improving inventory velocity forecasting.
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What's up, Amazon sellers? Welcome back to the Sunday edition of the weekly Amazon news and Q&A show. Uh we're going to share some e-commerce news, some stats, the occasional business maxim, answer your questions about selling on Amazon. So if you got a question about retail arbitrage, online arbitrage, wholesale, or akeepa quandry, drop it in the chat and uh I'll do my best to to get you the help that you're looking for. Uh if you're new here, my name is Chris Reik. Uh I am your solo host today. Uh Chris Grant is out uh this Sunday evening, so I will be flying solo with you, but I got plenty of news. Uh and uh bring some questions. I'll bring a ton of news and we can uh figure this whole thing out uh together. So, hope you're doing well.
>> Old vid. Yeah. Uh Ardum, there wasn't a studio set up for this. Uh so yeah, I didn't figure that part out. I I got here about 5 minutes early and and had to build the whole studio from scratch. So, I have no This may come as a shock to you, but I have no idea what I'm doing. So, so if things are things are messed up, um that's uh that's on me. Uh yet, should be no surprise uh to anyone. So, what's up, Nate?
Yeah, I was uh Yeah, if if you can throw the Looks like you're on YouTube. if you can throw the link in there, let them know that uh that I'm an idiot. Uh but I am live. Um that'd be that'd be much appreciated. Um got a handful of people here, so I it's in maybe a channel or two correctly. Uh at least at least we got that going. So, um all right. So, uh not familiar, this is how it works. I'm going to start with some news. I will check in between news segments, see if there are any questions. I'll get those answered. Uh we can talk about anything that you want to talk about. Um I've got I scoured the latest uh what I think is newsworthy or at least semiinteresting uh that I'll share with you here. Uh what's up Damon?
Good to see you. So uh first story that I wanted to talk about is uh it was actually released from Amazon. So um we we'll uh we'll keep that in mind as we go through this. But uh it has to do with Amazon's AI war on fakes and counterfeits. Uh it's getting pretty serious. Um so Amazon's first trustworthy shopping experience report uh reveals that AI systems that can predict predict counterfeiting attacks before they can happen. Uh and it explained what this means for legitimate sellers. Uh Amazon's AI predicted a bad actor attack on a viral product eight days before the brand owner even shared their IP with Amazon.
Um, that's uh proactive, not reactive, right? Uh, bit of fortelling there with from the AI. The AI watches social media trends. It analyzes product patterns and essentially games out which items will get ripped off. Uh, they said since 2020, Amazon's counterfeit crimes unit has pursued 32,000 bad actors across 14 countries. In 2025 alone, 15 million counterfeit products were disposed of.
Uh over a 100 websites were shut down, all for facilitating fake reviews and scams.
So, uh what does this have to do with us? Why is this newsworthy for sellers?
You know, if you're sourcing trending products from social media or monitoring those, uh Amazon's AI may flag legitimate inventory. Uh that's a risk that we run into if it matches these prediction patterns. Um as always, documentation uh is critical. Uh that really never never changes. Uh Amazon's not fighting counterfeits anymore.
They're they're trying to predict them.
They're going minority report on these counterfeits. So you need to make sure that you're you're on the right side of it. Um this is uh this is a positive. I I in my opinion uh you know the the more legitimate that Amazon can make their marketplace the the better off we are um because the customer is uh looking at Amazon products and Amazon inventory as as more trustworthy you know we certainly bad things would happen if Amazon became uh a marketplace known for counterfeits you know um I don't think we're going to be able to uh AI our way out of the disgruntled customer, you know, that that simply has some sort of uh idea on on what exactly the product should look like and and or lies about it because they want to return something. They want to get their money back and they're hoping that they don't have to return the item. Uh be get a refund anyway by saying that it's counterfeit in the comments, right? I mean, we can't it's tough to tough to eliminate all of the the bad actors. Um however, this is a this is a good step.
you know, this is um if if we can take it at face value, take it for what it's worth, take Amazon's word, which I know I I can hear some some chuckles in the background. I understand that. Um but at face value, this is pretty impressive uh as far as the numbers go. So, yes, they uh they're predicting it before it even makes it to the platform.
Yeah, they said uh the one example that they they said uh was uh eight days before the brand owner even shared uh their IP with Amazon. So yeah, that's uh that's pretty uh it's pretty good. So um so we we'll keep an eye on that uh uh good news on that front. Um, another topic uh that uh that we want to see Amazon successfully fight because Amazon getting this part right is good for us.
Uh not only counterfeits but also returns. Uh there's some some news on on returns uh as well. Um the story is logistics is shifting from reactive to predictive uh here as well, not just in the counterfeits. And it's about to make your inventory velocity a lot more reliable hopefully. Um so here's here's how I'll break it down. The old model was they monitor packages, they find problems when delays happen, they scramble to fix it, right? The new model uh that they're trying to uh to perfect is AI spots bottlenecks in real time and reroutes before customers know something went wrong. And I'll give you an example here. Regional station hits bottleneck.
Instead of delays, the system instantly reroutes incoming shipments to nearby facilities that have the capacity to take these shipments. Uh drivers will get updated routes and therefore the problem solved before it becomes a problem. Right? So again, this is this is the theme that we're doubling up on this theme, this predictive uh problem solving, right? Retailers can cut uh miss sorting by 70% using micro sectoring uh and advanced address correction. What's up, Luke?
The impact to us obviously more predictable inventory movement means better sales velocity forecasting uh fewer mystery BSR drops potentially uh and more accurate inventory planning.
You know predictable logistics uh a lot of times equal predictable sales velocity um and that can uh that can have a positive impact on uh inventory and the planning that goes with it.
It is future is future is getting uh getting very precise. Uh which has a certain creepiness to it. Arty, right?
All right. So, uh you want to you want to bring back up we want to rip the scab off of uh the fuel search charge. Um, I thought the the funny joke when they announced the temporary fuel fuel search charge, which is going to last all year, uh, they predicted. Um, I couldn't help but think about all of the electric trucks, uh, that they have. Uh, and my my sarcastic joke was, imagine what fuel searchcharge would have been if they weren't delivering in electric trucks. I understand there's there's uh, fossil fuel uh, vehicles being used in the supply chain. though, but I just thought it was a funny joke. Uh, but there are more electric trucks. Amazon uh has a partnership uh in place. Uh Amazon made a deal with a Swedish company uh called Eninide and uh it's electric trucks could be a big impact on the future of of freight economics. Um Amazon made a deal for 75 electric heavy duty trucks uh to join Amazon's relay network. Uh, bit of a twist. Amazon's not buying or operating them, though. Einride owns the trucks, manage them with manages them with AI, and Amazon Driver will book gigs through a relay app. Um, they're not obviously not normal trucks. Uh, these are cabless autonomous pods.
Einrides going public soon through a SPAC merger and the Amazon deal is um, it's a bit of validation for the tech approach. Um what does that mean for us?
Electric autonomous fleets could reduce shipping costs. Could they could um could make low margin if that happens low margin high velocity products become viable uh even more so or again if they've priced out uh products that weren't profitable to ship might return to profitability is is ultimately the uh uh the bottom line on this. Um, so but it's also interesting to see Amazon testing an asset light logistics flavor, right? So instead of owning the trucks, uh, they're accessing capacity through partners. Um, this could be a model that we could see more of. Um, I find it particularly interesting because, um, because of the leverage that that Amazon, the the volume that Amazon can can present. um you know there's there's a lot of space where Amazon can can basically say well th this is how we want it and you know if you don't like it then uh we can take our business elsewhere um lots of companies can say that but uh a company the size of Amazon uh doing the revenue that Amazon does uh that carries significant weight to it.
So, um it'll be interesting not only to watch this to see what how this model if it proliferates throughout Amazon uh their logistics network and uh to see if they start pushing people around.
So, let's see. Uh Luke, uh anytime AI is in one of Luke's comments, I I can't resist. When are they going to AI notice and proactively reship customer items instead of waiting till I notice three months later and have to open a chat? Valid question, Luke. That's um that's [laughter] that is a good question. What's up, Paulie BME? On track to do $2,000 in FBA this month. It's awesome. BME, uh I've grown by watching videos online, but ready to join a course or group to take me to the next level. Could you talk about what all is available in OAC plus? I certainly can. [laughter] Um yeah. Uh so OAC+ is um what's been not quite a year yet. I think it was I want to say it was July of last year that uh that it launched.
Um yeah, because I believe second to two OA challenges ago. uh finished up in July, I believe, or maybe three OA challenges ago, I don't remember. Uh but it was coordinated with the end of of the July OA challenge that that Chris Grant ran. Um and he launched uh the OAC plus uh at the end of it. It was a it was a way for um not exclusively, but it was a way for the the graduates of that OA challenge to uh continue uh spending time and and networking together and and putting their heads together to to continuously improve uh and basically take the knowledge that they had taken from the OA challenge, put it into practice and and kind of talk through and share uh their experiences and and and wins and challenges and and and whatnot. not so um so that was uh that was the coordinated launch. Um it was also available to other people that that you don't have to take the OA challenge to get access to it. Um anyone can uh can access the OA challenge. Um but uh but yeah, so it's a it's a community. It's housed on Discord. Um, I'm not sure how how basic you need the information, but uh uh we're housed on on Discord, right? And Discord offers us the opportunity to have different channels for different content um and different focus um depending on on what it is that that we're talking about. Um so there is uh uh there's a general chat. Um we've got u uh the the courses are housed in there. All right, like wholesale challenge, uh the credit card points challenge, uh replays of the OA challenge are in there. Um you get uh you get Source Lens for free as a member of OAC Plus. Uh that's the the newest benefit. Uh there is a dedicated channel uh that provides Amazon to Amazon flips.
You'll get price alerts when when prices drop. Uh there's one channel that that goes 247 uh providing Amazon to Amazon uh flips leads. Um there is um he does uh Chris Grant does a weekly coaching session. Every Thursday at noon he goes live. He usually has uh a nugget to share with everybody that he teaches and then the rest of the the coaching session is open to Q&A live with Chris Grant. exclusively in the OAC plus. Um, every Monday night, tomorrow night again at 900 PM Eastern, uh, I'm going to be going live for at least 90 minutes and I'll be doing live sourcing.
The live sourcing that I do is, uh, through my storefront stalker pro dashboard. Uh so it kind of doubles as storefront stalker pro training because also as part of OAC plus you get uh a free uh basic membership to storefront stalker pro um absolutely free. You can stock three stores uh as a complimentary benefit to your your membership. You also get a 40% discount if you want to upgrade your plan. Right. I have the uh the 40 store plan which is normally um $140 a month regular retail price. Uh with your OAC plus discount that comes down to $82 a month. And then there's two other plans in between. There's a 10 store plan, 20 store plan, and then 40 store plan. So you get three for free, upgrade to 1020 uh with a 40% discount uh on top of there. Um I am forgetting uh some of the stuff.
You get suspension support. There is a a ticketing program um in Discord to where if you're something goes sideways with your account, you get suspended. You need help um translating the Amazon email what you need to do, uh we can help you walk through that. uh if you need to. Most of the time they they require a plan of action or POA. Uh Chris Grant will help you write that. He's written hundreds upon hundreds of them over his Amazon career. Um so he is he's very good at it. If you get a section three, uh that support is there. You can open up a ticket and uh we will help translate uh uh what it is Amazon's asking for, help walk you through the process. um he he's been reviewing uh documentation submissions. Um he figured out a a a very smart way to organize the documentation in a section three. Um because the key is with Amazon, you know, a lot depends whether it be ungating or section 3 or whatnot. A lot of it comes down to the person on the other end that you've emailed that opens up your email that you send in. Uh, so Chris developed a very smart way to organize the information so that it's very easy to walk through.
Um, and it just goes one by one everything that they're asking for in a very clear format. Um, a very concise format um that has had a lot of success in in getting people um to successfully get through these section 3 suspensions.
Um, another part of the ticking process, if you have an AS um, that you're not sure about, you know, if you you think it looks good or maybe it's it's checking all the boxes except maybe one or two and you want somebody else, a seasoned seller to look at it, um, you can actually open up a ticket and um, specifically to request a review of an AS that you're looking at. Um, we will get back to you. often times, most of the time, uh, Chris even does a Loom video where he shares a screen and kind of walks through what he likes, what he doesn't like, what he would do, what he suggests you do with it. Um, so that is that's available to you as well. Um, gosh, if there are any OAC plus members, uh, I haven't given this this pitch in a while, so uh, if I forgot anything, let me know. Uh we run we run a monthly book club in there. Um we're coming we're just about finishing up the hard thing about hard things uh by Ben Horowitz. Uh in about less than a week we're going to get together and talk about that book and then we're also going to select uh the book for May. Um I have a lot of fun with that. Um there's a handful of uh voracious readers in the group. So we all get together and and uh try to better our business through knowledge and through reading. So we do that. There's uh you know podcasts are are posted in there.
There's special interviews. Um there's off-topic chats so we can talk about anything. There's even a there's a what we call a wellness cafe. Uh there's a handful of us that are are trying to be healthier. Uh sitting at a desk all day.
that sedentary lifestyle that that the the OA Amazon seller uh tends to lead.
Um you can jump in there and we could talk about being healthy, whether it be exercise, whether it be diet, um or or whatnot.
Um yeah, there's there's news, there's an AI dedicated channel uh to where we talk about use cases, what we're using, um both the AI model that we're using and use cases uh that are helping to improve our business. Um I don't remember if I mentioned it or not, but uh Zack Altmire has a dedicated channel for discontinued bolos. Uh we've had Zach on both the podcast and he's jumped in here um as a co-host on these shows a couple times.
Uh he specializes in discontinued products which uh uh the the mechanism that makes it so attractive with his discounted bolos or discontinued bolos is that they're out of production which tends to raise the price significantly oftentimes. Uh so he actually has he even has a paid newsletter um that he provides uh bolos in the paid newsletter and he's uh he's now housed in in Discord as well. So he has a dedicated channel um for the the discounted bolos.
We do stuff like a death pile challenge.
Uh you know, a lot of us have death piles, uh which is just capital that has been reduced to zero until we liquidate it on an alternate platform, whether it be a bad buy or whether it be a return. Um so we have a channel in there dedicated to try to to get us motivated to get some of that capital back uh a little bit faster um or get some of that capital back at all.
Right. So, uh, there's a wins channel.
Uh, if you have something good, we want to celebrate it. I think that's important. There's a lot of negative, uh, negative talk that goes around depending on what what circles that you run in, uh, via social media. So, it's important to balance that out, that, uh, that dopamine seessaw. Uh, we we do throw some positive wins in there and and, uh, um, we encourage everyone to to celebrate the good stuff that happens, too. Um, there's a Box Wars channel. Uh if you've got a shipment going out of your house, we encourage you to snap a picture of it and then post it in the Box Wars channel. Um it's it's not a war like there's not a winner, but uh you know, we just it we find it motivating to see some of these shipments going out, whether it be the velocity at which they go out or whether it be once a week these huge stacks of of FBM shipments waiting to get picked up or whatnot. Uh it's very motivating, you know, to see uh see the kind of volume and see uh the good work that's being done in the community. So um yeah, let's see.
What did I miss? Paulie says, "If you're considering OAC Plus, the community alone is worth the price. There are so many people in here willing to help you.
The shows with Chris and Chris are invaluable for live Q&A help along the way." Thank you very much, Polly.
Yep. We share our wins and encourage each person no matter what the revenue level. Yeah, it's a it's a judgment free zone, you know. Um I just saw somebody on Twitter. They were somebody said they had they were running 18 18 19% margins on RA and just 16% on their wholesale business, you know, and they said, well, it's u they're trying to make the case that retail arbitrage is still viable, right? and somebody had the nerve to comment and be like, "Oh, you're this is really a commercial for wholesale."
Meaning that the 18 19% margin wasn't impressive through retail arbitrage.
That's the kind of that's kind of snark that that you don't get in the OEC plus.
Um and and really that's ridiculous to downplay 19% margins, you know. um the margins on a retail business in general, you know, or compare them to the margins that you get investing in the stock market or something like that, you know, it's it lacks a little bit of perspective. You know, I think everybody is, you know, it's easy these keyboard warriors, it's easy for us to to scoff at anything under 20%, you know, and and and laugh try to laugh them out of the room as if they're an amateur.
uh when 19% margin uh doing a retail arbitrage uh is nothing to nothing to sneeze at. Um but that's what we try to avoid, right?
You know, um whether it be your first your first sale, you know, we want to celebrate that with you. Whether it be, you know, hitting $1,000 or or hitting adding a zero for the first time, whatever that number is, whether it's your first $100 in sales or your first $1,000 in sales or your first five figure month, um you know, you're not going to be you're not going to be looked down upon um simply because I I or somebody else, we haven't we've determined that isn't a big enough number. You know, it's um that's just a ridiculous attitude. So, we do avoid that in there.
So, if you're interested, go to uh oach challenge.com plus I believe. Uh somebody could verify that that URL. Um yeah, you can uh you can give it a shot. Um is there again I'm I'm off my game right now. I don't remember if there's a trial or or whatnot, but I I believe there is a trial. Um, you can check it out for a few days, see if it's something that that's uh that's worth your while.
Um, oh, co-working sessions. I didn't mention the the co-working sessions. We we uh we try to practice the Hawthorne effect, uh, which is one of my, um, I I run it because I like it so much. It keeps me on focus. The Hawthorne effect is basically how we use the Hawthorne effect in these co-working sessions is every Saturday, sometimes they pop up randomly, but we have a scheduled one every Saturday at 2 o'clock. I usually stay in there for at least two hours. Uh most times three hours, you turn your cameras on, turn your mics off, and you just get to work. It's just a silent work session, but we all have our cameras on. So the Hawthorne effect is uh was a study that was done uh many many years ago but they found that uh when they rearranged a factory the people the workers that were in view of the boss's office windows turned out to be more productive than the ones further away or out of sight of the boss's windows. So, it's there's this effect that that occurs where we we tend to get more stuff done if we think we're being watched. It's not nearly as creepy as it sounds, but it's it's a very it's a focused work session. Um, uh, I encourage anyone to try it out.
Um, you know, Chris and I started doing that on our own where we would just turn our cameras on, uh, mute our mics and and just work on camera. Um, and we found that it worked. You know, we got more done. It It kept us um from reaching for the phone and just getting a cheap dopamine hit because we got bored with a task or something like that. It keeps you on task. Uh, makes you more effective. So, uh, let me see.
Stacy, hi. I am only FBA and when creating listings the other day, I noticed that now the FBM option also says easy ship with Amazon. Do you know what that is? Uh still just Do you know if that is still just for international shipping or shipments? I am not sure. Um I don't pay attention to FBM at all. I I've I am I am and always have been 100% FBA. Um, I even turned the little columns off in Reveller for the FBM. Um, I pay zero attention to it. Um, so yeah, that one I am not sure. Um, if you're still curious, uh, Chris will be back for the Wednesday show if you want to ask then. Or if you're in the community, if you're in OAC plus or FBA today or something like that, uh, feel free to pop that question in there. Um, somebody's bound to know.
Uh, Yil, maybe we'll go with that. Hi Chris, I have an SSP uh storefront stalker pro and I want to know how do you choose the seller you want to follow and when do you decide to change them? Do you look how many items they added in seller lookup in Keepa?
Um, so your last that last question. Uh, sometimes I do. Yes, I will. Uh, every once in a while I will monitor um what's going on. uh via the seller lookup portion of Keepa. It's a smart thing to do. Um not only are you looking up uh total asens, you can see if their their catalog is expanding or contracting, um which is valuable information if you're trying to make a determination on the value of that storefront in storefront stock pro. Um however, there's also uh similar stores. Uh you can also if there's a store that you like and you're like this one is a winner. I also use seller lookup to try to find other stores like it. Um so yeah, seller lookup is is very valuable from a perspective of storefront stalker pro. Um the first question uh how do you choose the seller you want to follow and and when do you decide to change them?
So, I pretty much start out um I pick my storefronts while I'm sourcing primarily.
Um especially if there's there's a product that I really really like. Um, I figure, uh, if if there's a product that I like and there's a handful of sellers already on it, um, chances are I like how they source, right? Um, they found it before I did even. Um, so I want to know what else they've found, right? So I'll start opening up those storefronts. I'll look and see what they have. Um, I'll use uh uh both whether you're using Reveller or Seller Amp, they both have something similar. Um, I can look up or you can actually use Seller Lens or I'm sorry, Source Lens to do some storefront stalking too as well. Um, but I will use the I I personally use Reveller Storefront analysis uh where when you open up their storefront, you can see um the country that they're based in. You can see the total number of AS in their store, which is valuable information.
How many AS? Um, storefront Stalker Pro is going to cap you at 5,000. Um, but I find there's a range that I prefer. I want there to be enough asens that so that it's worth the slot uh in storefront stalker pro because I only get so many. Um, and then I want a certain amount of volume, you know, like if if you got at least 500, I'd say, is probably the minimum. Unless the actual inventory is something that I'm really really interested in. There may be somebody that has a bunch of great stuff and they only have 400 as total. I might still add it if if it's of interest to me. Um, but I'll look at the total AS, make sure they're in the US marketplace. Uh the middle section on the storefront analysis will give you the uh brands um in descending order. It'll give you the brands that they have the most of. Uh so I'm going to take a look at that and I'm going to see what kind of stuff that they do because I I have a general idea of whether I'm gated or not. It's like, okay, I like that brand. I like that one. Don't care about that one, you know. So I want to make sure they have some brands that I can sell and that I like selling. Uh and then the third column is the categories. Uh, I want to see what kind of categories that they're in.
You know, I know through sourcing in the dashboard of storefront stalker pro, I know the types of stuff that I buy. Um, I kind of always have an idea of things of categories that I want more exposure to uh that I really like selling in.
Like I'm always looking for more in the automotive category. I'm always looking for more in industrial and scientific.
And I'm always looking for more in tools and home improvement. Uh, those are big categories. um that I don't think have a lot of competition uh from an arbitrage perspective. So, so I'll get a feel for that and then you know I'll scroll down just start looking at some of the actual asens um and I'll click through you you know in in the storefront analysis on repeller you can actually click the categories and it'll pull all their asens in that category. Same thing with the brand. You can actually click on the brand and and it'll actually isolate just those um asens from that particular brand in that storefront in that view that I'm talking about. Um and then from there it's it's a yay or nay. And then if if I really really like it, I'll copy the the uh marketplace ID and I'll pop that into seller lookup. Then I can try to find other stores that have uh a similar profile and go from there. Um, when do you decide to change them? Um, that's something I don't do quite as often as I should. Um, but every so often I'll go in and just kind of copy the marketplace ID and open up their storefront and take a look. Uh, of course I use seller lookup as well because that'll tell me how uh how drastic the change is, whether it's up or down as far as total products in their catalog.
Um, sometimes you find I sometimes I found that uh stores have completely closed up shop. Um, you know, so it's a little bit interesting to to take a look at get an idea of when that happened and you know how long I've been wasting a slot in my storefront stalker pro. So, but that's that's the gist. Uh, hopefully that helps.
Damon. Yep. Um, access to uh a bunch of courses. There's thousands of dollars worth of courses that you get access to immediately um as part of your membership u uh to OAC plus GC just joined yesterday and the keep a training course is amazing. That's awesome. I'm glad you uh glad you jumped into that. Um yeah, it Chris's keeper stuff is incredible. Um, it's funny. They, uh, the OA challenge, he he originally had one day for Kea and then I think it just spilled over kind of just naturally into a second day because he didn't quite get through everything that he talked about.
Um, current iterations of the OA challenge, he now has three days. Like KA goes into a third day now. Um but originally he uh he was going to just abbreviate the keepa section because he had an entire keepa academy um that he had that he offered as well. Um so I think for purposes of redundancy you know he wasn't going to put uh too much in the OA challenge but there's there's so much KBA to talk about. So now he now he does three days and he has Kippa Academy which is a full-blown course on Kipa and even later uh he uh produced the the Kipa SOPs uh which I think is up into there's 70 or 80 different Keepa SOPs now um and Keepa SOPs you also get those free inside of Source Lens and you get Source Lens for free as part of your OAC plus membership. So, um, tons of different ways, uh, uh, to make your money back and and make it worth it.
I am allergic to to FBM.
Well, I even even I thought I would have ventured into it. Uh, at this point, you know, six years into to selling, I you know, I knew I didn't I didn't want to do much of it, you know, early on. And I wasn't doing it because of I was scared of reviews because I didn't have very many. Um, and I wanted to keep 100% and I told myself, well, I'll just wait to do any FBM until I get a base, a good base of reviews. So that one bad review didn't take me from 100% down to 80% or something like that.
Never happened. I just still never did any merchant fulfilled.
Deal hunter. I have some products that are between $5 and $12 more profitable as an FBM rather than FBA. Interesting.
Always pay attention which option works best for me. Smart way to do it. Deal hunter. Um I uh I am fully aware that I am leaving money on the table by not doing any merchant fulfilled.
Eden sings using source lens and loving it. Yeah, I uh he really he really nailed it uh with Source Lens. Um, it's amazing uh uh everything that that he packed in uh to that uh to that tool. I uh I'm still trying to remember um all the stuff that it does. You know, I even caught myself earlier today. I I I was sourcing and there was a site and I was like, I better run this through AI and make sure that they're legitimate because I, you know, first glance at the homepage and the product page, I I couldn't really tell. I wanted I wanted AI to to give me an analysis on it. Um, and I caught myself opening up a tab, going to Perplexity, and you know, I was going to type it in, and I was like, "Ah, no, wait. There's a little button, uh, a little floating button at the bottom of the supplier page that you can click on.
You can hit a dropown for whatever AI you want to use, and you have a pre-built prompt uh, which will tell you whether it's legitimate.
there's a prompt that'll go out and find uh if they have free shipping and it'll tell you what that threshold is to get free shipping. It's not always obvious on the supplier websites. Um a bunch of bunch of other options. Oh, if if there are tariffs and duties, you can have AI find that out. There's a a pre-written prompt for that. Uh you can get Trust Pilot reviews. Um there's a prompt for best coupons and cash back. Um, yeah, it's all just a little little button at the bottom just floats on all of the supplier pages when you have source lens installed. Um, yeah, he uh he nailed it.
[laughter] All right. Well, all right. No, to be fair, Luke, you didn't that wasn't an intentional hopping on camera. That was that was you on your phone without realizing that that uh last time you used your phone's camera, you apparently were taking selfies or something like that. So Jiren doesn't, you know, like [clears throat] if you just hop on in a co-work session, he's not he's not taking screenshots of you that way.
All right, so keep the questions coming.
Um we've got uh we got plenty of time.
I've got I've got a ton of news left. um want to talk more about returns. Um because this is I I am drawn to this news because um I think it's interesting. I think things are shifting. Um I think collectively retailers are going to um they're going to do something about how easy and how much uh how much abuse uh goes on with with returns uh in e-commerce. So uh this uh this article is calling it the returns revolution. Um and a little bit about store closures too. Um so essentially two trends are are colliding here. Um Uber Eats has launched retail returns um which uh which is pretty curious by itself. Uh, and then separately there was an article that said analysts predict 40,000 plus store closures over the next five years. 40,000 brickandmortar closures.
Um, so the the Uber Eats returns uh you can tap return an item, you can explain why you can choose return with CER uh and you can actually get instant refunds for orders of of $20 or more. Uh right now the partners with Uber Eats for this return thing are Best Buy, Dick Sporting Goods, uh Packson Sun, Petco, uh the refer return, there's a return fee. Uh it's based on the courier distance and time. Uh now couple that with separately UBS predicted that 40,000 retail store closures will occur over the next 5 years. uh e-commerce growth plus AI plus uh tariffs uh those policies could drive even more. You know, those aren't even factored in. Uh so department stores and especially retailers uh are definitely the most at risk. So uh the returns context, nearly $850 billion in returns are expected uh to be reported for the year 2025. Uh 9% of those are have been deemed fraudulent.
The National Retail Foundation says 85% of merchants use AI to detect fraud, but only 45% of those say it's effective.
Right? So, what does this mean for sellers? Uh, more store closures uh actually uh equals more liquidation opportunities. Um, but easier returns uh through courier networks could mean higher return rates uh that we have to plan for. So, it's going to push obviously the store closures are going to push e-commerce.
Um, so it's and actually it's pretty rare to see a pro- return.
I shouldn't say pro return. Um, Uber Eats doing this is that's a pivot for Uber Eats, right? They're they're trying to branch out. Um I think we we've kind of we've hit saturation level on these couriers and now they're trying to branch out enough and and maintain revenue streams by offering more services. Um I think that's the the main takeaway from that. But uh overall from from our perspective um not good to see uh returns have a little less friction right when when most of the information we're starting to see retailers announcing uh adding more friction to the returns process try to get them to slow down because they they become such an issue.
So um takeaway retail infrastructure uh it's being rebuilt around convenience obviously not physical presence.
E-commerce has has uh is on a a huge run of of gains. Um the problem with that, you know, you got to the point where uh you know, Amazon needed to in order to sway people to shop digitally instead of brick and mortar, you had to reduce that friction on the returns. Uh and and uh I think most of us here would agree that they they made it a little bit too easy.
Um so much so that we're at the point now where we need we need to reverse course and make it a little bit more a little bit more difficult uh because the uh the abuse is it can get crazy. I mean it it ticks us off. So it it obviously it's stickier uh you know when we get a switcheroo or something like that but uh um it is a a legitimate issue um that I hope I hope retailers in general start moving uh moving to a a a tougher process overall for it.
So, uh, let's see.
BME had quite a few times cash back didn't take. What's the best way to assure you get it to work?
Um yeah, it's just a matter of being intentional about it. Um you know, I uh um oftentimes I will uh kind of restart the transaction if I think something weird has happened. um you know, you got to be careful of coupon sites because a lot of the coupon sites will hijack the affiliate link um and actually take the cash back. That's part of that's that's how they generate their revenue is when you click on, you know, usually they'll they'll have it covered and you'll have to click for the code and that click is what initiates their cookie, their affiliate cookie. So, that'll actually uh hijack your cash back if you've clicked on your own cash back before that point. So, and then you just a lot of the deal sites, you know, like if you if you search uh like I get emails from um Brad's deals and and Slick Deals and stuff like that, you know, if you click on those, those are affiliate links. So, yeah. So, it's you want to make sure the last click before you check out is the cash back that that you're intending to use. Um, yeah, if there's anything wonky at all, you know, you want to make sure you go back through it. You can I'll even I've even emptied my cart if I'm not sure. Um, and then I'll actually rebuild the order um, after I've clicked the cash back that I'm looking for. Um, and just start the process all over again. So, yeah, there's behind the scenes there are a lot of uh, surprising sites sometimes even uh, that are trying to hijack that that affiliate cookie and and take that referral money for themselves instead of you getting it as cash back. So, Deal hunter talking about returns. Can we set an automatic restock fee like 20% while listing?
Um, yeah. I I there's some sort of function like that. I know there is uh the ability to to uh to mark a restock fee.
Um, don't know how to do it. [laughter] uh on you know obviously on the FBM side I I don't um that's something you want to you want to pop in the chat and uh get details on that but I know you do have the ability to um charge a restock fee. Um there's conditions um so you'll want to check those out.
Make sure uh that you're using it properly and you can you can apply it uh when you're allowed to. But yeah, that'll help offset some of these u some of these bad deals that we get stuck with.
Yeah, hard. I think there's zero chance of single Uber drivers making money with current gas prices. Um, it's got to be quite a challenge. Um, and it's kind of uh, you know, Uber is already uh well into the the inshitification process, you know, where they're they're cutting compensation and and, you know, now they've obviously they they hit their their peak, you know, around pandemic lockdowns, all that sort of stuff. Um, I I would assume um, that was probably the peak of their exposure and and and revenue most likely. Um, so I think they built up their their fleet and the workers and whatnot. They're also getting pounded uh from a legislation standpoint. Um, and I think some mismanagement stuff like that, lawsuits and all sorts of stuff. But uh, but yeah, uh, it's got to be tough out there for uh, for the drivers. I know there there are I I've known a few people that have dabbled in it and even years ago they would um they try to work multiple systems at the same time, you know, like they would have Uber Eats, Door Dash, sometimes even like Instacart going at the same time and and try to try to shorten the gap between orders to, you know, to maximize as uh the revenue that they were making. Um you're not supposed to I think that's against terms of service for each individual platform and obviously a high uh high probability that that you can get you can get stuck and and your delivery metrics and on time percentages and and all that sort of stuff if you get if you get orders from two different platforms at the same time before you have a chance to to deactivate yourself on them could get dicey. But that's that's apparently what they they're having to resort to. And that was that was years ago that I heard that Uber needs to lose money to Door Dash.
Yeah. I I don't I don't think any of them are doing great. Um you know, I think they they uh I think they ran with some thinner margins try for, you know, for the sake of growth. um and and try to uh try to become the number one in the space. Um lots of companies that that tends to be tends to be the model now. You know, you kind of sacrifice u [snorts] positive numbers with your revenue for the sake of growth and you kind of hope that profit comes later uh once you're positioned.
um which is usually when they start cutting compensation and and adding fees and whatnot, you know, to the the existing the existing uh uh people in in the fleet. So Paulie charging up the $168 in electric to charge up the EV. Nice.
Uh, let's see if there are questions.
Hey Jill.
All right, I do have some more news. I keep the questions coming if you have anything.
All right, you guys are you guys are talking EVs. So, um, we talked I talked a little bit about AI. Let's talk about a little more AI.
Uh, we can't have a show without, uh, talking about AI. Um, this one's this one's interesting. Um, there was a study that came out that actually, uh, had some some angles and some information on the actual numbers that AI traffic uh is is putting out. Um so the the way the story goes is after a year of uh what were disappointing results to be honest AI referred traffic is finally converting better than traditional sources. Uh the information comes from Adobe specifically their their March data set. Um AIdriven traffic converted 42% better than nonAI sources. uh which is a reversal from 2025 information when AI traffic converted at nearly half the rate of traditional traffic. Um AI visitors uh also 48% uh they spent more 48% more time on the sites. Uh they viewed 13% more pages on the websites.
They were 12% less likely to bounce. 37% higher revenue per visit. Um Adobe uh surveyed con surveyed consumers and 79% feel more confident in purchases after using AI assistance. Uh and they were 69% less likely to return AI assisted purchases.
More return information.
uh volume growth. Uh AI traffic was up 393% year-over-year in Q1 of 2026.
Um now that's actually down from what was a 673% increase in December of 2025.
I'm not sure if that's apples to apples, you know, um December traffic. uh uh there is something big that goes on in December that uh may may have more eyeballs and skew those numbers a little bit but it's still very fast growth right um if it is uh slowing a little bit on on that short sample size um AI traffic is small but engaged uh you know if you're uh if there are ways that you can optimize for AI uh discovery um it is becoming more valuable uh depending on what channels you have going on. Um but uh seems clear that AI traffic is is finding its footing. Um yeah, that's a it may be small volume, but it it is high intent uh and starting to convert better. So um the arbitrageer uh you know limited impact if you're exclusively arbitrage uh but if you do do have some other sales channels uh is definitely something to keep in mind. Um, and we know it's it's worth monitoring overall because we know that that Amazon is is investing quite a bit of money, you know, to integrate AI into their own shopping. So, um, Amazon's AI integration, I don't think that's going to hurt us. I think that has possibility to actually help us um, in certain ways, you know. Um I think if if the what the challenge is with with Amazon's AI roll out I think the challenge for us as as sellers um I think instock rates become even more important. You know I think it it becomes a more finely tuned um to inventory availability. you know, there may not be much that we can do as far as inventory placement u except pay our fees um like good boys and girls um get a digital tap on the head uh as we fork over those inventory placement fees. But we can control instock rates you know so if you have uh if you're doing high volumes on certain asens um you know as AI becomes more prevalent in the shopping experience um I think it's a pretty good bet I think instock rates become a very very important uh metric for us um doubling down on AI traffic uh there is more information um as far as specifically traffic, right? Just what AI is sending to the sites. Um article that I that I found said not everyone's seeing the same AI traffic performance that Adobe reported. Uh the data tells different stories depending on depending on who's measuring it. No surprise, right? Uh there was a German study Kaiser and Schultz um that said chat GPT accounted for less than 0.2% 2% of e-commerce traffic. Um, this it also said that it converted about twice as well as paid social but underperformed most other channels.
Organic search had 13% higher conversion than AI referrals. Uh, this is this is conflicting data, right? Adobe says AI visitors are 42% more likely to purchase and spend 48% longer on site. Uh the academic study found AI visitors less likely to bounce but implied fewer pages and less time on site. Um why why the difference? Why could we have two uh completely different uh outputs from from these uh these articles? Uh well it depends on measurement methods, right? Um and I'm talking about postclick versus lastclick attribution. Uh it also depends on geography. Uh Adobe was the US. Uh the German study was 49 countries total. Um depends on timing, right? One study was early 2025. Uh the Adobe information was was more recent data. Uh also depends on channel maturity and and different definitions. It also depends on how you define AI traffic. You know, they may not even have the same definition of uh what constitutes official AI traffic.
So, uh, AI traffic data sets are are they're tiny, easily skewed, right? Um, so if what I said before, you know, if I if I said optimizing for AI and you kind of went, uh, I can't do that. Um, this is this is the balance to that. um those numbers are easily skewed and and uh um at least right now you know it's it's not missionritical to chase that volume uh just yet. So but again important to see and understand how AI is is reshaping product discovery as a whole. You know, I think the uh zooming out to the general trends uh is is the part that that we really need to uh uh spend a little bit of energy monitoring.
So, uh it's early, it's uneven, um and uh and largely unclear still, but uh the information coming in is pretty interesting.
So, I've got a consumer confidence uh article as well. Um, all right. Yeah, this is uh this is the question that that I've I've asked as well. How long until we're drowning in ads and sponsored content?
Not only that, Ardum, but how far away are we from the price is going way way up, you know? Um, you can get uh you have free access right now. Obviously, limited usage. I think uh Anthropic and and Open AI, they have a $20 plan, both of them. You can upgrade to a max plan.
I think both of them have that $100 price point. And then there's even uh I know Claude has a or is it OpenAI?
Maybe both of them. I think there's a $200 a month option as well. And those are based on on usage.
So, how long until free access goes away?
And I I don't know what order this is going to go, right? But but eventually free access will go away. Right. Once once we hit saturation levels, once we have the users um once everybody gets familiar with it and starts moving towards becoming dependent on it, uh that's when the free free access probably goes away.
$20 for the for the entry plan. Um that's this is probably uh uh the cheapest it will ever be. Um I think that price will go up. Um, and I think eventually it goes way way up, right?
Uh, you know, I I could see, you know, once once these companies actually have to shift into revenue mode, like true revenue mode, like they they're borrowing more far more than they're bringing in right now, right? Because they're they're building infrastructure and everything like that.
Tell me if this sounds familiar of the, you know, the network effect.
You know, we see it with social media networks, right? Facebook uh uh is free for everybody, right? So, so they they roll out the red carpet to get as many users as possible and then once they have enough users, they start courting businesses like make a business page, make a group, right? uh jump on here with you have access to all of these users, you know, you can sell, you can make money uh for free, you know, or for low price, you know, and the ads are real cheap and and whatnot.
And then they shift things and they screw the users, right? So now you're going to start seeing ads as a user because now they're starting to to get ad revenue from the businesses that they courted. So they want to maximize that revenue. So the users see more ads.
They start thinking it sucks.
Then once you start building enough business via ads on the social network, the social network will jack up the price because you're dependent on it now. And it's like I where else am I going to go? I' I've got to pay to play, right? And you get kind of stuck in that infrastructure. So then they start then the businesses start saying, "Well, this sucks, right?" So yeah, the user saying, "Well, this kind of sucks now." And the businesses say, "This kind of sucks now.
because the social media network has revenue goals and shareholders you know that they have to report to and that's uh that's essentially the uh the initification so why wouldn't the same thing happen with AI right free plan everybody start using it articles and people gets coverage mass coverage of you know everything you can do with it and we're trying to normalize use cases and get everybody used to AI being a part of our lives, you know, whether it be planning a trip or or, you know, organizing your email inboxes and and thinking out questions and and you know, they'll eventually pull the rug out from under us. Um, I think it's just a matter of time, right?
Yeah. Whatever you do, be nice. Be nice to AI. Uh, say please and thank you if you can.
Yeah, once these data centers are in place, you know, they're going to have uh water bills, electric bills, uh there's going to be the costs are going to keep going up as the infrastructure is built out. That's logical. Um and eventually they're going to have to start paying for all that.
Dank Melon, how uh how long does it take to train a VA for sourcing and when should you get one?
It's a good question. Um so let let's tackle when to get one first. Um, my opinion uh on when a VA makes sense is once your store gets big enough uh to where uh you're forced to to do lower revenue tasks uh instead of your higher revenue tasks, right? and more specifically is you know if you have to do um reconciliations or you have to make shipments which I mean that's prep center is obviously the outsource for shipments or stuff but if you have to do admin work uh and it keeps you from sourcing you you're actually you're being forced to make less money uh because of what needs done in your store. So now you have to look at outsourcing some of your time. And I'm not necessarily saying that you should hire an admin VA first.
You know, it may be the type of thing where uh you get a sourcing VA so you can now source in less time but still maintain the inventory levels that you need to maintain and then have time for your admin work. Right? So, if you instead of just going sight by sight and it's like, okay, I want to do I need to do the Sunday night. I need to do the Walgreens sale this week. I need to see what uh what's buy 1 get one free.
What's buy 1 get one 50% off. I need to make sure I get to Walgreens. Um I need to see what the the new Macy's sale is this week. Or tonight's the last night for the Macy's sale. I need to make sure there's a bunch of stuff that I wanted to check on that I need to get to there, you know, and I So now I want to check Macy's. Uh, I've got uh, you know, Arbaource or Nepetto or TA, you know, I've got scans that are sitting there. I also need to get to those. The longer I wait, the more stale that information is going to get, which potentially is a bad thing, right? Um, there's I've got 10 stores that I want to manually storefront stock. I need to jump into storefront stalker pro and see what my dashboard, see what's new, right? And you've got all these tasks, right?
you're not going to be able to get to all of them depending on what window you have to get the sort of stuff done.
If you bring up, you know, now you can consider bringing on a VA like, "Okay, my VA can can go through my TA scans and make sure those are capitalized on. Um, I can give a VA Macy's and Walgreens, you know, so now I can do the storefront stocking, check my refunds, whatever." Right? So now you're running in parallel. You've got a VA and yourself both working on that sourcing, right? So you're you're spending the same time or maybe even more time now, but you've freed up your own schedule for the admin work. That's the kind of scenario where a VA makes sense. Um how long does it take to train a VA? Um I hate this answer. I mean, it's going to depend, right? Um, it's going to depend on the VA that you hire, right? There, uh, there are different, um, experience levels for VAS. Um, you know, we're we're it's early Q2 right now. Um, I've always found, uh, that my my best VAS, my favorite VAS are usually hired uh, Q1, sometimes early Q2. Uh there are people that uh kind of hired VAS on a temporary basic basis to get through Q4 uh and get through the returns process and stuff like that. Um maybe I'm just looking for it. Maybe it's the you know the beter minehoff effect. Um where I'm looking for VAS so I find them in Q1. It's possible. I don't know. Um but it also makes sense that that there would be some turnover uh this time time of year. Um, so I've had sourcing VAS that uh they they they lost their job not through any fault of their own, not because of a skill issue. Uh, there are simply sellers that are scaling back.
Um, for whatever reason. Um, and you've got to kind of uh uh far that information out. Um, you'll probably be told that they're good. that I just I just need to cut costs or something like that more often than it's really that case. You know, I nobody's going to be like, "Yeah, I've got a VA, but um they're pretty bad, so I'm letting them go." You know, like we usually want to if if we have to let them go reluctantly, you know, we want to set them up with another job, you know, so that they can uh they can keep their uh keep the lights on, you know, and keep an income stream. So uh you know there is a bit of diligence uh to be done in the hiring process and and it's always a good idea to put them on a trial basis you know uh whether it be 30 days or you know 90 days paid trials you know like just say hey we're going to reassess it or 30 and 90 you know heck why not um just say hey we'll we'll we'll go back over it after 30 days we'll see where we stand uh and then we'll revisit again 90 days and and we'll see if this is a a good fit.
Um, so, um, training perspective, you know, I mean, I've I've had VAS hit the ground running, um, you know, where it's basically, um, they start on their Monday morning, and we kind of go over some things. They want to know basic metrics, you know, and I tell them what I need. you know, I need at least $5 profit per item. Uh 30% ROI.
Uh and actually my my newest hire was like that. Um she's very good. Uh and and she's had minimal uh minimal training. You know, she she's doing manual sourcing. Um I think she's primarily storefront stocking. Um rabbit trailing a little bit off of uh some manual sourcing as well. Um, she's been great. I mean, her her batting average is is very very high. Um, and it's just kind of been tweaks here and there, you know, just say, "Hey, you know, make sure make sure you don't use any uh welcome codes. You know, any code that says welcome 10, welcome 15." You know, just basically I assume that I've shoed there before. every store. It doesn't matter where you are. You know, don't give me any buy costs that have that are based on uh you know, a 15% off welcome code. Um you know, I don't I don't want them to add any of those. So, just little tweaks like that. You know, there's certain sites they're like, "No, you know, I don't source um Corell, you know, it's like they cancel all my orders, so you know, let's not put that site on there at all." and and uh or you know too many jelly leads like you know I've had to like let's pump the brakes you know I don't want any more than two jelly leads per week uh you know I just I can't order enough um or whatnot. So um or the flip side is you can I know some people very much prefer VAS that don't have any experience at all. uh there's a thought process that they don't want to take on somebody else's VA because they're going to take on that VA and by connection that seller's bad habits.
Um that's valid, too. Obviously, that's going to take longer. Um so, it kind of depends. You know, I would I would give them um give them some sort of trial.
you know, if you have uh you know, say you have a a a keep a product finder search, you know, you've got a real tight window that that uh you know, with like a hundred results or something like that, and you you just you really narrow down a field. uh source those 100 products yourself, see what you come up with, put it on a sheet, hand that same search, those same hundred results to the VA as a as a test, you know, a trial and and see what they're able to come up with. See how much overlap there is. See how many of the the same deals that you found uh that the VA was able to find, too. Um you know, that's one way to do it. And then you you can also you know of course you can control it by uh narrowing the scope of their duties you know those that can always be expanded later on you know if you're like hey like this is this is what I want you to do um you know and and you can kind of just train piece by piece and and expand the role which is going to expand the value of the VA as you go. So, um, sorry that's not a not a real definitive answer, but, um, you know, as far as how long it takes that, uh, it's a difficult question to, uh, has a bunch of different correct answers, I think.
So, likewise, still wins. Very curious. uh for the earnings call.
Sleakius, when to jump from OA to wholesale.
Um, all right.
I don't know if you intended it to sound like this, uh, but the way you phrase that makes it sound like it's a foregone conclusion. Um, and if that's the case, I disagree. Um, maybe never. [laughter] Um, you know, I I know the the people that teach wholesale um or the andor the people that have soured on arbitrage and um sick of the feed disgruntled uh OA arbitrage sellers. Um we get looked down upon um most because they have a c a wholesale course to sell, you know, most of the time.
Private labels the same way. uh you know they tend to crap on on arbitrage uh as some uh basic stuff like a novice way to do it.
um you don't ever have to transition out of OA um in general, right? Just um now if it's the type of thing where it's like, okay, I've got OA going, great. I want to add wholesale um because that's an easier way to run more units. Um then you know I mean the basic the basic question uh when to jump to wholesale is you know the things you want to do with OA um you want to make sure you have a a long period of time. You know you want to make sure you have experience um selling on Amazon, right?
Um, and I'm not saying it's not necessarily a dollar figure, right? You you just you want to have your reps in selling just in general because there's there's there's a whole bunch of scenarios that can't be written down. You know, nobody can can write a a book on on all the weird stuff that's going to happen.
You know, I mean, we're in we're in OAC plus, you know, the chats something weird pops up all the time.
you know there you know the the questions that start with has anybody ever had this happen and then just something completely bizarre will be written and it's like well you know and then we try to you know sometimes somebody did um sometimes a handful of us are like I've never had that happen you know so you want to you want to kind of uh build a base of you know the the troubleshooting uh that's required to sell on Amazon in general Uh because if you add wholesale or you you you know you you trans uh transfer a convert over to to wholesale uh the stakes are higher, right? Because now you have more relationships. you've got more valuable relationships that you're dealing with, you know, and if you go in and you're you're knocking on doors and, you know, you're cold calling uh distributors and and and brands and and whatnot, depending on how you go about it, you know, there there's multiple asens um that are on the line with this relationship. Um there's a lot of time, you know, um something goes wrong. If I order 10 units from Target and uh there's some sort of issue, you know, that I, you know, I have to recall it or, you know, they all of a sudden I get caught in the middle of uh the conversion to transparency codes and my my units go stranded and I've got to prove transparency codes.
My relationship with Target is irrelevant, right? No matter what happens with this inventory, I can go back to Target and order something else later on, you know, until I get banned, you know, but then I could start another account, right? But, you know what I mean? The the relationship with Target, not that it I mean, it almost doesn't matter, you know? It's like I'm it's, you know, 10 units, 20 units, whatever.
You know, you place some orders, try not to get banned. That's about the extent of it. Um, wholesale relationships are whole they're different, you know.
Um, they could take a lot of work to establish. Um, they could take a lot of maintenance uh to get them to the point where you're making the kind of money that you want from that wholesale account.
um takes now I mean it takes a lot more reps you know I we one of our early podcast interviews we we had uh one guy would go around in industrial parks and he'd physically knock on doors you know and try to talk to each of these warehouses in this district um that's going to have a lower batting average you know you can you can pretty much place an order do an OA anywhere um and you know and then the other thing with wholesale is um the amount of money that you're going to invest. Uh you know, it depends on very much depends on the types of of wholesale accounts that you're going after. Um but certain wholesale connections are going to have minimum order uh what what do they call it? Mo minimum order.
I forget what it's called. There's there's another letter. There's there's an acronym for it. Um, but you know, you may call people and they're like, "Yeah, you know, you can yeah, you can uh uh set up a wholesale account. Minimum order is $5,000."
Depends on what $5,000 means to you. You know, um the time to jump to to wholesale is if you can hear a minimum order threshold of $5,000 or $10,000 or 200 units minimum of whatever it is.
You want to make sure that whatever number you're told, you know, doesn't make you choke. You know, that's that's one easy uh one easy uh um marker, you know. Um you want to make sure you have uh and not and you can get set up. Yes, there are wholesale accounts you can order 500 bucks or even lower than that, you know, that you can find lower minimums, you know, but uh I would assume you want to do wholesale because the volume, you know, is in the hundreds, you know, now I can get a hundred units, you know, without having to place 10 10 unit orders because their website limits me, you know, on certain stuff, you know. So, um, so yeah, so you want to make sure that that, uh, you know, you got the capital.
You got to make sure that you got the, uh, a thick enough skin, uh, to to hear no a handful of times, uh, before you get a yes. Um, make sure you have a base of, you know, a good understanding of of how selling on Amazon works.
You know, outside of that, it's uh, Yeah, it's from there. I I would think anything outside of that is probably a, you know, feel basis. Go by feel. Um, you know, something that you want to do.
Don't think you have to do it, though.
That's kind of what I was getting at in the beginning. Um, I don't know if that's what you meant, but I know there are certain people that'll that'll frame it that way, you know, that we're just we're just look, we're just playing games doing arbitrage. you know, when you once you once you want to go to the adult table, you know, people think it's people will make it sound like wholesale is the adult table, but uh it's not always true.
Exactly. Why not both?
Do I document sales cycles? Um some.
Yeah, I um I think more than than actual I I think mostly what I do is is mental documentation just by ending up on sites over and over again and kind of getting getting a feel for it. I have I have more sales cycles in in my memory than I do on paper, put it that way.
I use um I use mil.com, you know, if if I see some potential uh with a site or if a certain site keeps popping up or a product an as from a site pops up again after a period of time, um I'll remember it and it's like, okay, I need to dig a little bit deeper into that. Um, I'll go to uh yeah, it's mil m i l d.com.
Uh, they basically uh it's an archive of sales emails.
They have a whole database. Um, and you can actually look and and see when big events come, you know, and and you you try to time it out like, okay, well, I know, okay, it's um this makeup place usually runs a big spring sale, you know, so you can kind of prep yourself uh that way. I do a lot of that as well.
But yeah, I I probably don't invest enough energy into sales cycles because u I think the ROI on it is uh significant if done well.
Thanks for hanging out. Paulie Still wins. Have you implemented source lens into your regular sourcing routine?
If so, any specific features that seem to work best out of all the amazing ones? Um yeah, I uh I mean I always have it running. Um you know, I have it installed. I have it running. Um like I said earlier, I'm still trying to remember that, you know, it does that it has a function that'll make whatever I'm doing easier.
Um kind of still building familiarity with it. Um, but I um when I remember uh I do really like the legitimacy checker, the free shipping threshold. Um, I like the fact that you can just one click and it'll automatically open up Perplexity with a a prompt built in. Um, I think you did a really good job with the prompt uh as far as uh telling AI to where to go, what to look at to establish the legitimacy of a site. I I love that he added a score um into the prompt uh that it'll give me a score out of 10 on on what the AI determines it's the legitimacy of the site is. I find that very useful.
Um yeah, I I mean obviously the colors on on keep a product finder um that's very nice. uh it it's simple, you know, he he kind of uh he kind of downplays that part of it. Um but, you know, sometimes the the basic features are are uh often the most appreciated ones. Um so I think that saves some time. Uh you know, I can isolate the ones that are already approved or if I'm I'm actually finding auto ungates to be a little bit more frequent lately. Um, so there there's two different approaches that I'm using with source lens, you know, if it's a straight I need to buy inventory session, you know, I can I can isolate and just focus on the green ones. I could sort those out and and uh set up my search and and set my corridors and and you know, only deal with stuff that I can sell.
Take that out of the equation. You know, obviously that's going to make it more efficient, the sourcing session. Um, I've also now, you know, I played with it a little bit. I, uh, only about 20 minutes earlier today where I wanted to see how much stuff I could get ungated, you know, once I had about three of them in a row that auto ungated. So, I'm like, okay, this might be a trend, you know. Um, so then I went in spent about um, by the time I set it up, I think I spent about 10 or 15 minutes just digging into the yellow ones that that I needed to request approval for to see what kind of returns I could get. So, but there's more, you know. I I mean, the I'm well aware that that the the most used use cases are probably still still ahead of me. Um there's just so much, you know, I can't even remember uh all the stuff it that it does.
Just funny because and if you listen to the webinars, it's like it takes us forever just to get through everything.
I think he's over 30 features now on Source Lens. So, um doesn't doesn't make doesn't make for short commercials when when you try to to sell it.
BME, how do you make sense of all the thirdparty softwares? Nepetto, Repeller, Tactical Arbitrage, Arbource, etc. There are dozens and it can seem overwhelming judging between them and which ones are necessary or not.
That is uh that is 100% true. Um it definitely can seem overwhelming. Um and it's daunting to, you know, to sit there and be like, "Okay, I I need to trial."
um calculators, you know, um it can take up uh take up a lot of your your mental bandwidth trying to to figure that out.
Um you know, I I would uh I'd lean on your your network um at least a little bit. Uh kind of get some some recommendations. Uh you know, here's the thing. Um, somebody asked me the other day in the chat if uh I forget how it was worded, but it was it was basically they were using seller amp. I use Rebeller and they asked me if I thought it was worth switching and that with those two tools in my opin just my opinion right um I think there's so much overlap between the two tools right now um I think ultimately it boils down to um what you're comfortable with you know and and which UI you prefer looking at um because they do almost it's almost identical the functions right I mean they do you know if it was a ven diagram it it's would basically just be one circle you know there wouldn't even be two circles intersecting that's how much they overlap um you know these tools have have they've added so many features and there's such um aggressive improvements being made uh and it seems like the improvements made to these tools are are directly inspired by the competition.
You know, a lot of these tools um they don't necessarily have proprietary features, you know, so it's like, well, this does this and I like that and but this one does this and and I kind of like that. So, now I need to figure out which one I like more.
They're basically figuring out their own way to do the same thing, you know, which makes it difficult to try to pick one or the other.
Um, so I, you know, I I and be careful what recommendations that you get. you know, there there are a lot of people out here that um you know, they have big groups and and you know, and and they're they they have courses and stuff like that and they yet a lot of these people they're if you ask them what you should use like, hey, should I use Reveller or Seller Amp?
A lot of people you run into and ask that question of are going to tell you the one that they have an affiliate link for, right? and and they're they're only telling you to use a certain tool because they're going to make money if you sign up.
It's the it's the way it is. And and they won't admit it either, right? You know, I mean, there there's massive groups out there that sing [snorts] the praises of all these tools. And if you knew on the back end, it's all based on how much how much juice they're getting on the back end by referring the stuff. And they'll only refer stuff that they get an affiliate commission for. You know, it's like that's that you won't even if another tool is just as good or even better, they won't even they'll dismiss it like ah shouldn't even shouldn't even think about using that one, you know? Use this one, you know. So you got to you got to be really careful.
Um it's kind of just nature of the beast, you know. I mean, if you had software, you know, I mean, why wouldn't you approach the person with, you know, thousands upon thousands of of people in their their group and offer them a commission, right? You know, I mean, that's it's a smart way to to grow your user base. I get it. Um it all comes down to the integrity of the person given the recommendation, right? Um so that said um you know like the example that I gave you with Reveller and seller amp um I think a lot of the tools I think that's a similar dynamic that that happens with a lot of this stuff you know now I don't I don't I've never used the pedto um I've never used Arbaource um I've I've used TA for for six years um so I am familiar with TA. Um, it's fine, does what I want it to do. Um, you know, they it's it's rolled in with Inventory Lab and they have that whole seller 365 suite. Um, so at I was paying for Tactical Arbitrage and Inventory Lab. So, when they rolled everything into the seller 365 bundle, um, my expenses were, I think, basically cut in half for my existing tool. Nothing changed with my tools, but they were just half as half as expensive uh, when the seller 365 bundle came out.
That's enough to keep me loyal for a while, you know, kind of. And I and I naturally I'm finding being in chats and being in these networks and stuff like that apparently I look to switch softwares less often than the average person. Yeah. I just kind of it works.
It's still, you know, affordable for for the value that it gives me back.
I'm not looking for a new shiny object, you know. I don't I don't need to go try Nepetto, you know, or or Arbaource, you know. I I know how TA works. I I've put in the time for the learning curve, you know, and it it does it functions how I expect it to function and and how pretty much how it's always functioned.
There have been bumps in the road, don't get me wrong. like there's a lot of people have have some sour things to say um about uh several of the tools in that 365 bundle. I get it.
But uh I also haven't heard of an alternative or a competitor that is miles better than than what uh than what I've got, you know. So, I think they are I think a lot of this stuff is just kind of it's a lot of overlap is what I'm getting at. And this is this is far too long of an answer for this question. I apologize, BME. But, um, you know, I I check around, ask some questions, get some feedback from people that you respect, people that you trust.
Uh, find out what they use. Um, and and make sure you you give it a fair shake.
Give it a fair trial. Uh, don't jump from one to another, you know, because you heard one extra feature, you know, that that sounded interesting, you know, you I wouldn't jump. Make sure you become proficient to make sure that that u you can accurately assess the value that you're going to get from the tool.
If that helps Uh, Dank Melon, what is the realistic ceiling of OA? Um, the realistic ceiling so far it is about a hundred hundred million dollars a year.
Um, that's that's the highest that I've seen the ceiling. That was that was Jassum.
Uh we interviewed him.
Um yeah, from a balls to the wall, uh you know, I'd say at least 100 million.
Um I don't know if you're asking one person operation, that's a obviously a different he has he has a bunch of people that that work with him, you know, that that's a whole operation. Um, yeah. I mean, technically, oh, it pattern filed an IPO, like they're a publicly traded company now. Um, and they were you could well, they were I mean, wholesale is is eventually where they ended up, but I mean, they're essentially arbitrageers.
Um, that might even be I don't even know their numbers, but uh, you know, depends on depends on the definition. What what flavor, you know, or or to what extent are we talking about OA? But I mean, yeah, I've been on a video call with a person doing OA with $100 million in sales. So, that's that's my answer for the ceiling.
Thank you, Artum.
minimum order quantity, right? Yep. Uh, deal hunter, isn't adding the dot to the Gmail email when ordering a workar around to getting the 10% welcome discount? Can be. Yep. Um, yeah, that'll work. Um, I think for a couple big sites, uh, I've got, uh, I've got my email and then I added plus and then like three letters designating the store, you know, and and I know you can do that with Vitoost. Um because they I don't think it was always like that. They were they were a little more liberal with their their code usage. Um but they kind of tightened up a little bit and uh you know, if you're signed into your account, you know, you can only use certain coupon codes so many times and then it it'll start going invalid.
And I found that if you sign out of your account and just do run your checkout as a guest, but you can actually use your email add plus plus vitocost atgmail.com, right? So that'll still get delivered to your email address, but Vitoost recognizes it as a different email. So then you get another set of uses with the same coupon code and I don't believe those are logged because I I've been using that 20 SMS code for months and months and months. So I don't think they record that. I think they just it's not in the database. They go, "Well, okay."
I something like that. But uh yeah, that's a that's a workound for a couple different things. coupon codes, welcome bonuses. I don't do the the welcome codes. I don't I don't play that game too often. Um, mostly because I haven't needed to or haven't thought to do it. I don't I don't know. There are a couple sites now I'm thinking about. There are a couple sites that I would love to be able to get a discount.
There's certain codes that just or certain sites that they only have like two or three codes and they're onetime use and there's never a discount, but I really need a discount if I want to order, you know, like like three or four as from one store in particular that if I could just get even 10% off, it would make sense and I would absolutely place that order.
very super cool guy. Why do OA sellers transition to wholesale? Um well, part of the reason is because they're they're told that's the natural transition. Um they uh uh the people usually and usually the people telling them sell a wholesale course.
Um so they uh the the people selling the course uh they they they fib to these people and say you know arbitrage it's just uh it's just temporary. It's just a stepping stone to to the real business that is wholesale, you know, and you can one supplier and you can if you're you're spending $10,000 in in OA inventory, you know, you could spend $25,000 through one relationship with one distributor instead. How much easier is that? You know, and that's the sales pitch, right? Get higher volumes. don't deal with clearance and and limit your competition and and lower your buy cost and it's an easy sell. Um plus wholesale takes more money to start typically.
Um so these people selling these courses uh they uh they can charge more for the course as well. uh you know because you know they've positioned wholesale as uh the stakes being higher the barrier of entry and and cost of entry is is a higher amount which in turn raises the tuition for the courses that teach it.
Um yeah, you know, and I mean there there are advantages, you know, I mean I have nothing against wholesale, you know, I'm talking all the smack about the, you know, the the people teaching the courses that's isolated to um the the the course, you know, the teachers, the the unscrupulous ones specifically, right? I don't have anything against wholesale. Wholesale works. All the models work, you know, if we do, that's the key. Everything works as long as we work. Um, you know, PL works, too. I I talk a bunch of smack about private label as well. Uh, but it it works sometimes if you get it right.
But, uh, yeah. So it's I mean it's it's a it's a way to expand um you know it's similar to it has a a similar sales pitch to replens right the replens you know because repens can be pitch like um here's the most common sales tactic right and it's it's the PAS uh tactic right you have a problem the P is problem A is agitate S's solution. P A S, right? So, that's how you sell something. You you pitch a problem, you know, and with with OA, they're like, "Oh, are you sick and tired of sitting down at your computer for 3 hours just to find absolutely nothing to buy that's profitable?"
That's the problem, right? And then as I've told you about the problem, I've agitated it, too. Like, aren't you sick of wasting time? You know, and you sit there and you go, "Yeah."
And then the S, they offer the solution.
Well, what if I could teach you how you could find one item that you could buy over and over and over again without having to to spend hours searching for other products. Wouldn't that sound great? And you're sitting there and you go, "Yeah, it would."
And then they sell you a reflund's course, but they or they can sell you a wholesale course. Like wouldn't it be nice to just call one person, one contact and be able to order hundreds of units of dozens of asens just in one single phone call? Yeah, it would. And then they pitch you a wholesale course, right? So it doesn't matter refunds course, wholesale course, but it's a sales tactic, right? They're just they're agitating your your pain point and they go, I I got a solution. They sell you the solution, right?
So that's a lot of it.
Some some some transition to wholesale because they want to expand the cataloges. That's of course legitimate.
Um so I don't know. Depends on what you what you want to do, you know. Um I don't mind OA. I don't mind RA. Uh you know, I kind of still feels like a treasure hunt, you know. I I still get a a dopamine hit, you know, when I find a a really good product with low competition and good sales. It's like, yeah, I still like that, you know, and I don't mind spending hours looking for products, you know.
So, but yeah, wholesale, it's a good model, too.
I that didn't answer your question. And you know, if there's a different angle to the question that uh that you were asking, let me know. I can expand on it.
I I got into my uh my uh anti-guru uh rant a little bit. Apologies.
Uh are you I assume you're talking about mil.com. Is that like the wayback machine? Um similar. Not exactly like the wayback machine are that's websites and and you can actually look at what the website looked like at in the past. MIL is copies of like sales circulars and and sales emails. they'll actually show you what was on sale and you can actually brow you could browse um the the sale from uh April 26th of 2022 at Walgreens and see what was on sale and compare that to April 26 of 2023 and 2024 and you can actually see what the those emails look like to try to you know predict and and learn the sales cycle with mil.com.
any websites that track the sales cycles of non-clo items? Um, yeah, Mil has has non-clo that that's uh that's the first place I would go to.
Mr. Jab Yasine, for items that might not have a monthly sold and we're going based off a sales rank, what's the best way to identify how much or how many times an item sells if drops aren't considered sales?
Um, yeah, I mean, you kind of go you just you got to do the the oldfashioned way, right?
um you look at you're looking for, you know, um an EKG style shape on the sales rank, right?
You want to see it moving up and down and and bouncing uh between the sales rank. Um that's part of the evidence that it's selling. Uh you want to also see seller count movement, right? You want to see sellers both coming on and selling out. Uh you want to see movement there. Um, that's another indication of sales.
Um, you know, you say drops aren't considered sales. You know, drops were drops are a measurement of bestseller rank. You know, like like bestseller rank is it's still a valuable metric to figure out if something's selling, right?
Because we can we can look up on Keepa, you know, if you want to take take the u the beauty category um you know you can actually look up the total amount of asens in the beauty category um on Keepa and then you can look at the current rank of whatever product that you're looking at and you can actually see and and most calculators I know Reveller will actually give you the percentage of what that current rank is compared compared to the total amount of products.
You know, like if something's ranked 50,000 in beauty and beauty has three or four million, you know, Reveller will tell you that it ranks in the top 0.5% of that category. You know, it's pretty pretty clear indication, you know. I mean, I find that I don't need to know the number of sales per month, you know? I I mean, I've kind of I've kind of figured out how to determine a yes or no, like, oh, this is moving. This is really moving, you know, and versus this doesn't really sell too much. That's about all I figure out, [clears throat] you know, and and so the the monthly sold and and even the monthly sold is a bit deceiving, right? Because that doesn't even factor in multiple units, right? You could have a a 50 plus sold over the last 30 days.
Um, number one, that's a trailing metric, right? So that's almost 30 days old, that information.
current information could be different, you know, so we can't even take that as gospel. And then it actually the the 50 plus sold is is actually the number of visits, not the actual units, right? So you could have something with a 50 plus sold over the last 30-day badge on it that has actually sold 110 units over the last 30 days. It's distinct possibility you know but again that's why like I don't need to know the exact number you know like I know about based on what I think the velocity is I know about how much uh competition I can tolerate and I can I can go from there you know um I don't need that level of precision in order to make smart buying decisions put it that way and it's it's a little bit here's how I look at it.
Um I've I've never been to Europe, right? Um however, I I could drive a car in Europe if I ever make uh if I ever get to go visit it, right? Um I am 100% I've never known anything except miles per hour as my speed gauge.
If I went to Europe, they use kilometers, right? They do whatever, right? They don't use freedom units like we do.
However, so I could I could be in a car in Europe on one of the roads driving and I could be going 50 kilometers per per hour.
I have no idea how fast I'm going, but I can see how what the kilometers per hour that my vehicle that I'm driving is going. And I can read the sign that tells me what the speed limit is, what the maximum kilometers per hour are. So I can figure out how what speed I can go without getting a ticket, you know, and what I [clears throat] can do safely, all while not knowing, not having any idea how fast I'm actually going. You know what I mean?
like that's kind of how I approach evaluating velocity uh for products on Amazon.
So Jill, boy, do I relate on being overwhelmed with software options. I just realized I needed to stop looking at all of the SSW and just learn Kea backwards and for Yeah, KA is uh what is S SW? I'm drawing a blank on on S SW. Um, yeah. I, you know, I find it inspiring, you know, the that the the people that really have stripped down tool stacks, uh, that do serious volume, you know.
Um, sometimes it's easy to get lost. You know, you hear about some cool feature and it's like, oh, you know, you talk to somebody and it's like, ah, they're they're doing really well with that and that sounds really cool. You know, and we kind of sometimes we get caught up in the hype instead of um actually evaluating the need for the tool, you know. Um, shiny object object syndrome is uh it's tough.
BME, how many extra tools are you using all together and at what cost?
Geez. Uh, extra tools like I I I'm not sure what extra tools would would would be qualified for, but uh uh I pay for Keepa.
I pay multiple Keepas because uh my VAS have access to it too. Um but I pay for Keepa, pay for a reperic, pay for seller 365. So that gives me inventory labs. That's my inventory management. Gives me tactical arbitrage um which a couple of my VAS um use that every shift.
Um, what else do I have? I I've stripped down a little bit. Um, it was only a onetime fee, but I have tackle expander.
Um, I got Source Lens for free with my OAC Plus membership. Um, I pay for Storefront Stalker Pro, the the super super top top shelf uh addition to that. Um, h what else do I pay for? Uh, let's see. I did the onetime fee for OA Buddy. Um, I just bought the lifetime for that.
Uh, I like that a lot.
I don't know. I I'm definitely forgetting something, but I don't know. I I've been really I don't add it. I have a sheet that I just kind of I just hand off to my CPA. Um, so I I don't know what the actual dollar figure is. It's a little bit lower than it has been over the last couple years. Um because I dropped uh I dropped Tactical Bucket.
Um because I wasn't I wasn't doing X paths through through TA or anything like that. Um I was paying for Reveller and Seller Amp at one point. Um but that's that's been a while. I just had to trim seller amp off.
Yeah, Jim is a great guy. That was uh hopefully we have him. Love to have him on again and get an update on what the the business is.
Still wins. I don't know what text now is, so I can't give you an alternative.
Sorry.
Yep. There's always bigger fish in wholesale and the investment is is high.
Yeah, stakes are higher. Um potentially bigger payoff or you know more consolidated sourcing. Um but yeah, it's tougher to tougher to get into the investment.
a lot more to lose if uh bad buys are much more expensive with wholesale most of the time.
Dank Melon, is PL worth it?
Asking the wrong person. Um I honestly I I can't answer that. Um, I my opinion of private label has been so tainted by all of the that sell private label courses. Um, there's a there's a collection of private label gurus that pounce uh at any and every opportunity to say that arbitrage is dead.
Um, and I resent that. Um, because it's not true, number one, and they're just doing it. They need to say arbitrage is dead so that arbitrageers think that they're in a business model with a dead end, which is going to make them more likely to buy their private label course.
Um, so I don't know. Um, it's made me more reluctant to even think about trying PL.
Um, because I don't I'm not a big fan of of the sample the sample of the people who do that kind of thing. Um, yeah, I I don't know. you know, I mean, hit ratios are are much lower uh than than the propl people are going to tell you, you know, like that there is a very good possibility that you're going to spend a whole bunch of money on a product that will not sell. Um, or it will get hijacked. Um, or it will uh have dozens of competitors that look exactly like your product in a short period of time.
um and you'll be screwed and and not be able to make your investment back or you may not your idea may not be as good as you think it is or you hope it is and your product doesn't sell, right? It's a lower batting average. They're not going to tell you that. Uh they're only going to tell you the highlights, the greatest hits. Um say it's great and say that I'm stupid, right? Like he's promoting arbitrage. Like that's what a what a noob, you know? Um, but they got to say that, you know, their motivation is is pretty transparent.
Uh, if it interests you, try it. It works. It can work, right? I'll be honest about that. Um, you got to have the money um and the a thick enough skin to to go for it, you know, and and realize that it it may take a couple tries, if not more.
very super cool guy. I always thought the definition of replen was a product bought at retail price or with an evergreen code versus sourcing deals, clearance.
There's probably a bunch of different definitions. Um, or you know, caveats to what a true replend is. Here's here's what replens are.
Replunds is just a marketing term, okay? It's just it's it's a madeup term um used to sell replens courses, right?
It's the same thing like I told you with with wholesale, right? You have to pas problem agitate solution, right? They're they're preying on sellers who get frustrated most of the time, new sellers, right? Because new sellers, not only are they not experienced with sourcing, they're also gated in more stuff than a more seasoned seller, right? So, there's built-in frustration, right? So, they go, "What if what if you could find something at regular retail price, right? Because they they want to differentiate themselves. They want to make they want to make their technique sound like there's more skill involved than in reality, right? It's it's just they're just puffing up their product, you know, when they say that. So, but yeah, like just off the shelf, like I mean, how that's that makes the the course sound more attractive, right?
Like get out of the clearance aisle.
Everybody's in the clearance aisle. What if you could go go into the go into the aisle with the least amount of people?
What if I told you I could show you something doesn't even have to be on sale that you can sell for a profit over and over and over again. Just sit back and collect your money.
Sounds great, right? Um that's intentional. It sounds great on purpose. Um I don't know my definition of replen as far as I'm concerned. My replens are short for replenishables, right? and and my inventory. Whatever is a replen, whatever is replenishable is anything that I've bought for a second time or more.
Congratulations. You you you are now a replen. You know, it was me talking to the as because I bought you again, [snorts] you know. And that's the thing, you know, replens re you can't they teach you like how they make it sound like they're going to teach you to go into a store. like there's an actual method to go and and find the replay, you know, like it's like it's some sort of game show or something and, you know, there's there's some board like a Jeopardy board or something and it's like, "All right, the you know, pick uh how to steal your money for $600, you know, and that's your plan, you know? I mean, it's not it's not like that.
Replab.
They're the stuff that you tested and it tested successfully.
It was profitable. It moves at the velocity that is acceptable to you. Um the profit is acceptable to you and you can go buy it again.
Congratulations. You've now got a replant. That's that's my definition of replant. somebody wants to try to take some, you know, cockami definition that that, you know, is attached to their course, you know, that that's u more pump than it is substance. You know what I mean?
Mention EKG. Um, elaborate on EKG is is up and down squigglies versus flatlining, right? An EKG is a a I don't know what it stands for, but it's the heart monitor, right? It it it monitors heart activity, and you want you want your heart to be doing something, right?
You know, and then dead is flatline.
Like that's, you know, EKG is, you know, zigzag up and down, lots of activity, you know, increasing, decreasing, moving around. That's all activity is what we mean by EKG.
>> [laughter] >> If I if I get behind the wheel in Europe, something I'm going to do something wrong for sure. No doubt about it.
Karen, um I use Profit Protector Pro. Uh that's my my reperic. Um and the number one reason I still you I've used it for years and years and years. And the number one reason that I use it is because I started using it many years ago and I'm grandfathered in to a stupid cheap price. Um, and it's fine. It I've never I've never had a reason Profit Protector Pro has never given me a reason to explore alternatives. I've been tempted, right?
Like we've had Dylan on with or I'd love to try Aura. Um, I'd love to try seller snap. Sounds awesome, right?
But I don't uh I it's it's stupid. Like stupid cheap.
Trust me, [clears throat] the yellow line doesn't get enough respect.
Um, yeah. Um maybe um I I do worry that it's going to be too revered. Um but I don't I don't have evidence that that's the case.
You know, that that's what I worry about moving forward is people take it as as gospel and um or people don't realize that so little of the catalog has the yellow line, right? Um there's something like less than I think it's less than four million products um have the yellow line which means there are hundreds there tens of millions of products if not hundreds of millions of products that could have a yellow line.
they they fit the metric of what the yellow line represents, but Amazon just hasn't rolled out that yellow line for all of the catalog or even half of it, even a just a very small fraction of it. So, I I worry that people are going to only source stuff that has the yellow line without realizing that there are products without a yellow line that sell even better than the stuff you're you're choosing to to only look at. You know what I mean? But it is fantastic. I I to take nothing away from it, it's the closest thing to actual sales data that Amazon has ever given us.
But as a representation of, you know, the catalog, the amount of items that that have the yellow line, it's very very very small. I mean, it's it's basically the equivalent of something being released in Dallas, Texas, you know, like it's fantastic, but it's only Dallas, you know, like there's New York and LA and the rest of the country, you know, like that's how small um the exposure is for the yellow line.
Inventory lab versus sellerboard. Uh, I have zero experience with sellerboard.
Um, I cannot answer that question. Um, I'm not sure it's a X versus X. Um, because I know I know there are people that that pay for both.
So, I don't I don't think they're true replacements for each other. I think uh, the way I understand it, there is a lot of overlap. Um, but there are things that Inventory Lab does that sellerboard can't. And there are things that Cellboard does that Inventory Lab can't.
So, I'm not sure it's quite apples to apples.
Thank you, Bill. Appreciate it.
And God, it's been over two hours.
What the hell have I been talking about for all this time? My god, I must be having fun or something. I do got to wrap it up. I gotta I only got a few minutes to to give my daughter a kiss good night before uh before bedtime. So, we're gonna wrap this up. Uh what about partnering with local mom and pop retailers and placing large orders?
Would that be um OA wholesale hybrid?
Heck yeah. Uh I think that's a great idea. Um did you know that uh you could actually do that with Walmart if you wanted to?
Um Chris Gran's done it. He just told the story again um recently. Um he said he uh he got to know I think yeah I know I think he did it at Walmart. Um but he you know he tells stories about um you know going into to Walmart and talking to the store manager and you know bringing donuts and coffee and and you know just uh building a relationship you know and and sometimes he tells the story um as uh u as a story a way to get access to like clearance stuff you know be like hey look this is you know you glad hand and you try to build a relationship and then you say but when you get down to it you go this this is what I do. I sell on Amazon. I would love to help you clear out some of your clearance items, you know, and free up that shelf space for the the better selling stuff and the new stuff that you want to get in there. I'd be willing to, you know, spend so much at whatever interval or, you know, and then ultimately what what you'd love to do is get backroom access to the clearance stuff before it even goes out onto the floor and then take a bunch of that off their hands as long as it's profitable, right? Win-win. You know, a win-win scenario would be, you know, you get a bunch of stuff before it even hits the floor. They clear it out. They don't even have to put it in the clearance aisle, right? So you've saved them time and labor uh by not having to do that and and right you you get that situation. But another thing you can do is he was actually having the store manager at Walmart order cases of stuff just for him cuz the the Walmart manager, they would just put their orders in and he got to the point where he had a relationship where he could just tell them like, "Hey, I'm looking for x number of cases of this product, this product, blah blah blah." and the manager would just add to their order.
Like they're ordering the stuff anyway.
So the manager would just order extra cases of stuff for Chris and then he'd just he'd get a call like, "Hey, truck came in, good to go." and you, you know, go around back or something, load up his extra cases, pay for him, and uh, you know, just a little bit extra extra revenue for the store manager and and, um, minimal hassle, you know. So, you could actually do that uh, with big box stores, too. But, yeah, it's great great option with mom and pop retailers. um anybody that you know, you know, like I my stepmom runs um a hair shop, hair salon. So, you know, she has access to uh certain sites in in that uh industry on the wholesale side. You know, there are certain sites, there are a lot of really good sites that have great pricing on u hair stuff, hair related products, uh that only you have to have license. You have to enter your license to even shop at those sites, you know.
So the relationships like that that works.
Yeah. Bribe your local manager. Dude, donuts and coffee, man. It it they're cheap, but uh but they work. So So holy crap, I should stop talking. You guys got to be sick of listening to me.
Um, thanks for hanging out. Um, we will, um, we're going to do this all over again on Wednesday.
Um, this show, right, we do twice a week, Monday or uh, Wednesdays and Sundays, 7 o'clock both times. Um, if you're in OAC Plus, tomorrow night, 8:30, I'm doing the uh, the Discord tutorial and then nine o'clock, I jump into the other studio and we're going to do live sourcing.
um every Monday night. So, look for that if you're in the OAC plus. And uh one way or another, I hope to see you hope to see you there. See you soon. Worst case scenario, be back here Wednesday.
We'll have a fresh batch of news and answers to your questions.
Have a good night.
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