Chris Skilton

#everything-marketing - April 23, 2025 at 12:48 PM

@Andres Alla we do not allow our wholesale customers to sell below our MAP, except for limited seasonal promotions.

For BFCM we normally agree our promotions with wholesale customers in September. Most wholesale customers expect us to issue credit notes such that their gross margin percentage is preserved.

The only other holiday where we extend financial support to retailers is Father's Day and again, we find it's best to prep those deals in late March/early April.

#wholesale-tariffs - April 19, 2025 at 07:00 AM

@Kris Watts I will be fascinated to know what happens with your shipments after May 2nd. I would be delighted if it is possible to use country of shipment for application of de minimis rules. That said, like those in the other thread, I have always understood that country of origin means country of manufacture.

Are you planning on trying to ship packages with Aus Post to take advantage of the de minimis rules?

#wholesale-tariffs - April 19, 2025 at 06:53 AM

@Minh Pham I've been working on moving at least some production out of China since last year. Although I am optimistic that in the long-term tariffs on Chinese goods will be a lot lower than they are today (our effective rate is now 157.4%!), I think diversifying away from China is still important for our long-term stability. We have focussed on alterative sourcing in Mexico as the US is our main market.

I am not aware of any tools that exist to help reliably estimate costs in different countries (although I would love to use them if they existed). I think the costs of sourcing in different countries will depend so much on the specifics of what you are manufacturing. I also think that without doing deeper investigation into a specific local context, it may be difficult to interpret headline figures about the relative costs of doing manufacturing in different countries.

For example, we make a lot of injection moulded products. In China there is a huge (and heavily subsidised) domestic plastic resin industry. This means factories can source even small quantities of raw plastic at low prices. By contrast, in Mexico the plastic resin industry is less developed and a lot of raw plastic gets imported from the USA. If you are only importing small quantities of a plastic to Mexico, it will be very expensive.

We were able to knock 30% off an initial quote from a factory in Mexico by switching the grades of plastic we used to match what that factory was already ordering in high volume for other customers.

The point I'm making is sourcing in other countries might require changing how you make your products in order to get the best possible price. It may be difficult to understand what it will cost to make your products in a given country without doing deep investigation.

One tool that might be useful is Import Genius (importgenius.com). This allows you to see where different companies who are importing to the USA are sourcing their products. You could use Import Genius to see where your competitors are manufacturing. If you see they are sourcing from countries other than China, it implies there may also be a good opportunity for you to source in those countries. This could help you to work out which countries are worth of more serious investigation.

#uk - April 17, 2025 at 09:43 PM

@Mark Rushmore thank you so much for hosting us all today! It was a great time.

#logistics-operations - April 04, 2025 at 01:21 PM

@Ben Hedlund I can recommend Farrow : https://farrow.com/

#wholesale-tariffs - April 04, 2025 at 01:20 PM

<@U07UXLNTEMA> by no means an authority but have imported a lot of products to the USA, including products where inputs purchased from many different suppliers make up the imported finished product. Commercial invoices should reflect the full value of the goods being imported, including any materials provided free of charge by the buyer to a supplier. As such, I don't think you can make a faithful declaration to CBP if you omit raw materials purchased in a different country and supplied FOC to the supplier making the fininshed product. Whether some people would still make declarations on that basis is another matter!

#finance - March 24, 2025 at 07:10 PM

@Jim Phillips We have also used Numeral and been relatively unimpressed. Support is not that responsive and we found that close supervision is required to avoid errors.

#uk - March 04, 2025 at 11:28 PM

I will be in Japan but hope you all have a great time!

#uk - February 18, 2025 at 07:41 PM

Yes!

#wholesale-tariffs - February 18, 2025 at 03:57 PM

Hi David, I think this model can absolutely work and indeed it's a model that I currently operate in some markets. I am in the golf industry and so I don't think any of the distributors I know would be a good fit. However, here are a few key considerations:

• While this varies by sector, I would say that typically distributors are looking to buy at a price that is a 60% (or more) discount on your RRP/MSRP. Will your margins support this?
• Typically a distributor in a foreign market will want payment terms of at least 60 days. You might be able to take a deposit for something like 30% of the value of goods, but at least the majority of the cash flow is likely to be delayed. You should consider carefully how that will affect your own cash flow needs.
• If you are going to take on distributors, I would recommend looking into trade credit insurance. This allows you to insure against the risk a distributor (or any B2B customer) does not pay you. Perhaps not relevant if you are starting small, but once you start sending out large amounts of stock on credit, it will make it a lot easier to sleep!
• You will probably not struggle to find 'a' distributor but the key to making this model work is finding the right distributor. What that means will depend on your goals and circumstances. For me, it means finding a distributor who can invest in building the brand in their market and who is willing to do more than add our range to a big catalog of SKUs they represent. I also want to know they have the capital to buy inventory when demand takes off.
• Quality distributors will want support to build your brand. You should consider what you can offer distributors to help them do their job. At minimum, this likely means a steady supply of high quality assets, but they might also expect financial support to attend trade shows or run local marketing campaigns. What kind and quantity of support is reasonable is very context dependent. In any case, you should be ready to answer questions about how you will support their marketing efforts.
I could go on, but those are some initial thoughts. I am also UK based and happy to speak if you think it would be useful.

Now I want to offer a different thought. Have you considered DTC in the USA? There is an extensive tax treaty between the US and UK, which makes it relatively painless for a UK company to do business in the US. The USA is the world's biggest consumer market and if you already operate DTC in the UK, you already know how to do most of the associated legwork.

Plus, if you build DTC operations in the USA, it could lead to sales to US retailers as well. This is how we have built our US business.

Our model is to operate DTC in the UK, USA, Canada and EU but sell via distributors in other major markets like Japan and Korea.

TL;DR - you can absolutely make this model work but take great care when choosing a distributor and ensure any deal still makes good commercial sense once discounts and payments terms are factored in.

#finance - November 14, 2024 at 03:29 PM

Haven't used Shopify Capital but have had a great experience with Wayflyer

#the-welcome-mat - November 14, 2024 at 03:01 PM

<@U080G5Z5A4U> I've just sent you an overview of what this routing process looks like in our business

#the-welcome-mat - November 12, 2024 at 04:55 PM

I think a lot of outbound logistics to big retailers - EDI etc. would be a good for for this. For example, most large retailers have a bespoke process for routing inbound shipments. This is a repetitive process that could be automated but will need human eyes at various points to ensure accuracy. Many retailers impose significant penalties if you don't precisely meet their requirements

#amazon - November 11, 2024 at 06:13 PM

@Fred McKinnon We currently have an account manager who works at the UK HQ in London. He said it was the review. Also, the suspension within about 12 hours of the review being posted, with no other really obvious red flags on the ASIN.

@Jeremy Ciolli We will be monitoring things a lot more closely, although this one did seem to come out of nowhere.

#amazon - November 11, 2024 at 10:48 AM

@Jeremy Ciolli @Fred McKinnon thank you both for your input. We were eventually able to get the ASIN back online but had to make some minor changes to the product page in order to get the product listed again. The removal seemed to be triggered by a single, very negative, 1-star review. The review literally included the words "Amazon should not allow this product to be sold on their platform", which is something I have not seen before! Ultimately, we expaned the FAQ in the A+ content a bit and got the listing reinstated. I know that selling on Amazon means accepting that you are not really in control but I am still amazed that a single negative review can trigger listing removal for a product with hundreds of 5-star reviews! Happily this is the first time we have had a listing removed and hopefully, it won't happen again soon. Thank you both again for your insights.

#amazon - July 26, 2024 at 05:27 PM

@Curtis Rummel thank you - that's useful feedback. We're going to see if thr program manager from Amazon UK can help us get anything done. If not the Transparency program seems like it will be the only option.

#amazon - July 24, 2024 at 10:19 PM

@Shin Takeda not yet but as it happens yesterday we were contacted by someone from Amazon UK. They asked if we wanted to join a program for UK brands who are growing their business in the USA on Amazon.com (where we do a decent amount of volume via FBA). We get an Amazon program manager for 3 months and it is someone based in the London office who allegedly can help us escalate issues at Amazon.com. So we are going to ask that person to help us with brand gating our SKU. Maybe if the program manager can help us get the request escalated to the right level it will it easier to get something done.

#amazon - July 22, 2024 at 08:28 PM

@Fred McKinnon thanks for your reply, it is genuinely useful to know that it is just going to be a difficult process. We have good evidence of the fakes. A couple of people even posted reviews with pictures of the fakes that they received. I will look seriously at the Transparency program. Interestingly it's only this one SKU we have issues with because it was both successul and relatively cheap to tool. Thanks again for your input.

#amazon - July 21, 2024 at 10:57 AM

Hello all! Does anyone have experience with getting a product brand gated on Amazon? We have an old SKU that has been discontinued and replaced with a newer version. The old SKU is an original product, protected by a design patent and has over 6,800 reviews with a 4.6 review score. The product features our trdemark and we are enrolled in Brand Registry. There is a history of people selling unbranded copies (i.e. identical except that they don't feature the trademark) of the product on the Amazon listing (there are even some customer reviews that reference these copies). We have been out of stock of the genuine product for several months and given what happened in the past, it's probably only a matter of time before someone tries to sell copies on the listing again.

I've looked up how to request brand gating but in general the advice I've read online boils down to "send Amazon your reasons and evidence for why you think your product needs brand gating and hope for the best". I'm not averse to trying that, but was curious if anyone here has direct experience of this process and could share what it was like?

#general-chat - July 21, 2024 at 10:40 AM

Hi Courtney, I'm afraid I can't help on the third-party quality control but I am currently working on finding factories in Mexico (currently sourcing in China but looking to move supply chain to Mexico). We found it very hard to get factories in Mexico to engage with us and have hired a consultant to help. I will let you know what we find! When you say you need injection moulding specialising in stainless steel, do you mean metal injection moulding?

#logistics-operations - June 03, 2024 at 05:53 PM

@Stewart for reference we just booked a 40' container to Miami and saw rates quotes from $6k to $15k, which underscores the value of having multiple forwarders available to give quotes

#limited-supply - May 15, 2024 at 03:09 PM

Hi Pietro, the honest answer is that I'm not sure why UTMs from Meta Ads are commonly associated with CAC rathe than CPA. However, Met'a Ads Manager provides a 'cost per result' value. Depending on the tpye of camaign you are running 'result' will mean different things. For example, you can run campaigns where the goal is just to get link clicks, in which case the cost per result is measuring the cost per link clink.

I think the focus on CAC vs. CPA is probably due to a difference between the meaning if the two terms. My understanding (which might be wrong!) is that CAC specifically refers to acquiring a paying customer, while CPA could refer to acquiring a non-paying user (e.g. getting someone to sign up to a mailing list or open a free account. In this context, CAC is arguably the more important measure as it relates specifically to acquiring paying customers (which is what a D2C business needs to grow) rather than CPA, which might relate non-revenue generating acquisitions.

If I'm wildly wrong about the above hopefully someone else will weigh in.

#limited-supply - May 15, 2024 at 09:17 AM

Hi Pietro, I haven't listened to this episode since it was released but I think I know what Moiz was referring to re: UTMs.

Meta provides cost per result data in Ads Manager but due to all the privacy oriented changes to devices/browsers in the last few years, this data is no longer that accurate. Indeed, Meta states on Ads Manager that the data they show for the number of results (and by extension cost per result) may be based in part on statistical modelling. This means you can't be sure if your CPA in Ads Manager is your real CPA.

However, you can give your Meta ads a UTM that shopping platforms like Shopify can identify in the URL when customers land on your website. If customers convert from a session that began with a UTM in the URL, this will be included in conversion data in Shopify (we actually have Shopify tag all orders with the relevant UTM) and this allows you to identify orders that almost certainly came from ads.

In this way, you can calculate your Meta CPA (ad spend / UTM tracked orders) based on sales that are almost certainly attributable to specific Meta ads.

It's likely that there are other sales that are genuinely attributable to your Meta ads that cannot be traced to a UTM, but these days it's difficult to know how many of those other sales really happened (Meta clearly have incentives to be 'optimistic' about that).

In short, calculating CPA based on UTM attributable conversions is a more conservative and reliable metric. Sorry if that got long winded!

#the-welcome-mat - May 15, 2024 at 08:54 AM

@Fergal Dinan I'm based in London and thank you - we are very excited about AirBreak.

@Shin Takeda always great to meet a fellow golfer! We are actually trying to move our production to Mexico so give me a shout if you know any factories that do good injection moulding or who work with plastic foams.

#the-welcome-mat - May 14, 2024 at 12:03 PM

Hello everyone! Chris here. based in the UK and run golf training equipment business PuttOUT: https://puttout.golf

Long time Limited Supply listener and looking forward to getting to know you all.

#logistics-operations - May 14, 2024 at 12:01 PM

It of course depends on where you are sending the container to, but I would say that in general, container prices are about to go way up. The issues in the Red Sea are creating a shortageof supply and it seems a lot of companies are moving up their Q4 inventory movements. At the moment we can't even get spot rates for June container shipments from Shenzhen to LA.

#general-chat - May 14, 2024 at 11:42 AM

I run a business based in the UK but North America is our largest market. It's absolutely possible to run a business from country/region and generate most of your revenue in another country/region.

In addition to what you've mentioned above, tax is also an important consideration. For example, If you are importing goods into the USA to warehouse them prior to sale, you will need to be registered for sales tax in each state where you store inventory and dispatch it to customers after sale. You may eventually be required to register for sales tax in other US states if you sell enough products to those states. You may well need to file federal tax turns for corporation tax and depending on the nature of your operations in the USA, you might also be liable for state level corporation tax (though this is less likely if you have no permanent presence in the USA other than inventory stored at a 3PL).

You should also look into how the profits you make on sales in the Europe and USA will be taxed. It's possible that you will face taxes on your profits both in the USA/Europe and in your home country in Asia (disclaimer: I know nothing about tax in Asia!). In some cases, setting up a US subsidiary can save a lot of money.

In short - the tax side of things can be complicated and it's probably a good idea to get some legal advice. I would recommend finding a lawyer with expertise in both in the USA and your home country.

However, depending on your AOV and the type of goods you sell, there is also an opportunity to exploit the USA's high de minimis threshold. This means shipments under $800 in value are exempt from tax. You may find it is cheaper to send your products to customers from abroad. That said, I think there is a good chance the USA's high de minimis threshold will be reduced dramatically within the next few years.