#654 - Sourcing & Tariff Tips for Amazon Sellers
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For a record-breaking sixth time, we've got the world's foremost expert on product sourcing and development, Kian, back on the show. And we're going to talk about a wide variety of topics from how he's personally been delivering custom iPhones to Real Madrid soccer superstars to what you can do to help offset tariffs in 2025.

We're going to talk about the Canton Fair. And make sure to listen all the way through because we're going to have somewhere in this episode a way for you to be able to get my personal sourcing agent in China and also a one-on-one call with Kian for free. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's a completely BS-free, unscripted, and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And back for a record time. Hold on. I'm going to check my notes. Mel left me some notes here. If you guys want to get more of Kian's backstory, you can actually go back to the very first episode he was in, which was 61. Like, we're in, like, the...

600 or something now uh he was also on episode 179 309 412 and now five and 524 and now another one two three four five yeah six time because this episode this podcast has been around for six years and he's uh the only order one of the first ones is the first one to be on here uh six times so welcome back to the show kian

Thanks very much. That's quite an intro. I feel like, you know, like when they introduce like a football player, it's like six times Super Bowl champion or like six time WWE champion holder. You know what I mean? I was like, that's an honor. Thank you. Awesome. Awesome. So speaking of football, you know, Europeans, what they call football, I'm wearing my LA Galaxy jersey.

I might have to change my allegiance soon. I'm really excited about this new professional team that's in San Diego and Galaxy haven't done much for me. But, you know, anybody who's been watching your show

Instagram lately. It's been seeing you backstage with Real Madrid and stuff. So first of all, let's just talk about that before we get into business. How are you hanging out with global superstars in the locker room of Real Madrid and taking private jets to see them? What's going on there? That was really, really interesting. It's kind of similar, like the same way doing a lot of...

expertise in product development and supply chain got me to work for the NBA and meet a lot of players and go to the games and stuff like that. I kind of applied similar principles to do the same with football players. You guys say soccer, I say football. I can't help it, I'm from the UK. But obviously, I love Real Madrid, Barcelona. Arsenal's my favorite team. But a friend of mine here in Dubai has a company called IDG, which stands for iDesign Gold. And they make customized gold accessories.

iPhones not just like a case it's actually a gold iPhone you buy a brand new iPhone from the store remove the back cover laser engrave the player's name number a club etc and then um

they would sell it like individual one-off pieces to the players but what we decided to do was gift it to the entire team and what we would do is we would get a sponsor on board and the sponsor's logo would go on the phone so Real Madrid and Barcelona had games in Saudi against each other in the Spanish Cup so then we arranged the delivery we got a sponsor on board contacted the

club contacted the captains arranged the delivery of all the phone and if you go on Instagram account IDG you can see like all the gold phones that have done for a lot of other like teams and players and stuff like that as well so the players were very much excited about it so I just helped coordinate that arrange the delivery but

that gets you in the door. And as all entrepreneurs know, like once you get in the door somewhere that can lead to a lot of other things as well. So I started to meet for the players, meet with the agents, meet with their managers. Then they requested like more products. And I went to Madrid and Barcelona, met with the head of partnerships there, met with the vice president, met with the agents again, went to more games. And then, you know, they all represent different players and they say, you know, my player's interested in this and we'd like this. So it's opened up a lot of doors and it's kept me very, very busy. Uh,

over the start of 2025. It's just very, very exciting in there. Yeah, blessed to be a part of it. Awesome, awesome. And then another thing that is not new to your Instagram, but I think always people can see you who's been following is you're into a lot of, I don't know what the word is, but like self-care kind of things like, you know, health, you know, things like you're always jumping into cold baths and things like that. But hey, like, you know, you're working out always. You're very fit.

So, you know, that's something that, you know, for the last couple of years, I've been trying to thematically talk about here and there about, you know, entrepreneurs sometimes don't really take care of themselves, mind and body. I know that's important to you. So, you know, we could probably have a whole episode just talking about those kind of things. But if we were to talk about like the highlights of what you do or what you would suggest that other entrepreneurs, you know, maybe, you know, some things to pick up and what kind of effects it's had on you, what would the main things be?

Yeah, you know, I'm so glad you brought this up. It's such an important point. And as entrepreneurs, which are so focused on our business, it's often something that we like really, really neglect, right? Because the most important thing is like growing and scaling and building our business. And that comes with all sorts of stresses. And those stresses make us sleep terrible, eat bad foods. But the healthier you are, the stronger you are, the more longevity you have in the game and the more focused that you are when you're playing the game. And that's

I feel the first and most important thing that any entrepreneur can focus on is your sleep. Like you can't cheat sleep, you can't hack sleep, you can't do four hours a night and think that everything's going to be okay. So I would suggest like the first thing you do is get a whoop band and that really monitors your sleep. And then you can start to see like how much you're getting and where you need to improve and things like that.

And then on top of that, it's just eating very, very healthy foods. And there's all sorts of people who talk about diet, right? But the one tip I would say is just eat like whole foods, meaning like one ingredient. So just have a steak, don't have it processed with all this other stuff as well. And the energy that you get from that is incredible. And it works like for so many different people, like whether you fast or whatever. So I would just say stay on top of your sleep, stay on top of your diet and have like one exercise that you really, really enjoy.

For me, I do a wide variety of different things. I'm training for an event called High Rocks. It's hit the States. I don't know how popular it is on your side yet, but that's H-Y-R-O-X. And it's very like functional strength endurance training. And I just find it like so much fun. So yeah, I would say it was very, very important to find something that you really, really enjoy just to stay in shape so you can play the game better and you can play the game longer.

The cold baths, that thing scares me. Like I can barely even have a shower that's cold for like a few seconds. How long does that take to get used to? Like is it pretty jolting the first time, but then gradually you get a little bit more used to it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. That is more so being in control of your breathing, right? Because...

when you first get into an ice bath it's like a shock to the system and you're just like you can't breathe you panic you start doing like deep deep breaths but once you can control your breathing meaning like four seconds in through the nose and eight seconds out through the mouth then you're in a very very calm state so you can deal with that sort of like panic mode and that

helps you in all walks of life so for example if you ever get into a stressful situation in your relationship in your business or whatever and as long as you can control your breathing then you're not going to react in a bad way you're going to react in a calm way and fix everything so ice baths really just control your breathing and control your mental focus and then that helps in a lot of other aspects of life awesome awesome all right last thing before non-work thing but um

I think hobbies are important for all and trying to enjoy yourself. And one of mine is travel. And that's why for those who watch this podcast on YouTube, you'll see every episode I open with a video of me in a different country. Actually, a lot of it is for work. But even if I'm traveling for work, I try and travel for pleasure. And I had the pleasure of going for the first time to Wales recently. This year on my bucket list or next year at the very...

I plan on going to Scotland for the first time, which is where you're from. So first of all, let's say I only have like a four or five day itinerary in Scotland. Like, like,

I was five days in Wales, but I couldn't go to all the whales. I stayed in the more in the southern part, partly because it was cold. It was too cold in the northern part. There's just a lot of things to see. Not now that I've been watching. Welcome to Wrexham. Now I'm like, oh, man, I wish I would have gone to Wrexham. But but let's say I had a similar four or five day itinerary in Scotland. First of all, what's the best time of year to go?

Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. So best time of year is definitely August because in August we have like daylight savings. So because Scotland's very, very far North, we actually, it stays light until about maybe 1130 at night and then it gets, then it goes dark and then it gets light again about four o'clock in the morning. So you get about 20 hours of daylight, which is just insane because like, if you go to like a nightclub, you come outside and it's like light and you're like, oh, this is insane. But

We also have what's called the Edinburgh Festival, which is like the largest arts and comedy festival in the world. And that's for the entire month of August. And they also have something called the Military Tattoo, where they invite a lot of military armies from around the world. And then it's in Edinburgh Castle. And we have like marches from every single military. It's got bagpipes, it's got fireworks. It's something like really, really special that you should definitely see. But Edinburgh is also very, very, it's a very historic city, right? J.K. Rowling's from there. Harry Potter stories were sort of began from there.

But there's so much to see at that time. But then if you want to venture out as well, like Glasgow, it's a bigger city than Edinburgh, but it's not a capital. And that's worth seeing. It's very like hipster vibe. You would love it actually. It's all like where the trendsetters are and that's really cool. But I'd also suggest going up to the Highlands if you want to get some good like hikes in as well, like some of the freshest air and some of the most beautiful scenery there.

you'll ever witness is up there. And if you're into whiskey, you've got all your whiskey distilleries there. There's a lot of golf lovers which love going to Scotland because you've got the old course where golf originated from in St. Andrews. But because Scotland's so small, you can probably do all of that in like one car drive. I can definitely help set up a little itinerary for you, but there's loads of cool things to do in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and then up north as well. And depending on when you go, I might join you as well because I'm planning to go back to Edinburgh for the summer because it gets a little bit hot in Dubai. So I'll hopefully see you there. All right, we'll make plans. Now,

On to work-related things here. I think 2025, one of the biggest things people are worried about is tariffs. Some are new. Some have been around already for years and just now are coming kind of like to the forefront. Now other countries are being tariffed, not just China. So for entrepreneurs...

companies that are selling products online in America, whether it's on Amazon or other places. I'm sure you are hit up more than anybody else, you know, either on your YouTube channel or with your own network. What are some of the hot topics, misconceptions, if any, and things that people need to worry about? Because, you know, now some people who might not have started

They're just hearing these horror stories and like, oh my goodness, I can't sell online anymore because these tariffs are making it impossible. That's not necessarily, you know, the case. So let's just talk about what's going on in the tariff world these days. Want to keep up to date with trending topics in the e-commerce world? Make sure to subscribe to our blog. We regularly release articles that talk about things such as shipping and logistics, e-commerce in other countries.

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Sure. Yeah. I think you addressed it very, very well because there have been a lot of misconceptions. A lot of people assume, oh, tariffs on my goods, the price has gone up, therefore it's not really workable to do it anymore. But first of all, if we zoom out, a tariff is basically a tax on a good that comes from another country, right? And it's basically a percentage of the value. And Trump is using it as negotiation tactics. So he first put tariffs on in 2018 in July on China, and that was around 25%. And that was to protect

against Chinese companies infringing on American IP. Then the Biden administration kept that in and then when Trump came back in, then he initially proposed an additional 10% tariffs and that was to tackle the issue of like fentanyl coming into the US from China. And then he moved it up to 20% as well. So the tariffs are just used as a negotiation tool for him to get what he wants, you know, within government, right?

But then how that affects us is that, first of all, I would say in the long term, these tariffs aren't sustainable. Because if a tariff goes on your product, then the price goes up. Then you pass that cost onto your customer. And then you sell less products. And then as a result, selling it

less products, you're less profitable, you let some employees go, unemployment rate goes up. So it really impacts the wider economy as well, not just like your goods becoming more expensive, right? And they know that. And China also needs lower tariffs to export more goods, which really fuels their economy as well. So this is hurting both sides, which is why I feel like an agreement or a deal will be reached quite soon. But everyone's first instinct is, right, let me move outside of China, let me go to another country. Maybe I'll try Mexico, maybe I'll try Turkey, maybe I'll try India.

The first thing I would say, and we can look at that, but the first thing I would say is don't burn bridges with your current factory, right? Try to resolve it with your current factory first, because your factory is also seeing all of this information in the news, right? So they know your cost of goods growing up, and then they know you're going to get less sales, and then you're going to place less orders to them as a result. So the first thing I would do is you can say to the suppliers, look, as you know what's going on with tariffs, our import costs are becoming more expensive. Therefore,

Can you reduce the cost of goods by 5%, 10%, whatever it is, right? And if you've never negotiated your product's cost before, chances are you'll get something off. And then maybe, okay, now that's workable. The second thing you should do is actually know exactly how profitable you are and what your margins are, because you might be able to absorb that tariff, right? Because there will be a lot of competitors which will drop off. But if you can absorb that and stay in the game in the short to medium term, and then when the tariffs go down, then at least you've stayed in the game so you can benefit from everyone else which dropped off, right?

The other thing you can do as well is to work with your manufacturer to see that, can I reduce the cost of my goods without jeopardizing the quality of the goods? So your product's got lots of different materials. If you don't know exactly what the materials are in your products, ask your manufacturer for a BOM, what's called a bill of materials. And that will sort of break down all the materials and fabrics and accessories that you've got in your product. And you might see that on your product, if you've got like an outdoor camping chair or

that you've been using aluminium but you could use steel, steel would maybe be a 20% cost saving or you might see the fabric of a backpack you've been using nylon but you could be using polyester which is about a 30% saving. So I would now start to really analyse all the components of your product and see can I make any changes to the product without jeopardising the quality and work with your manufacturer on that, right?

Then the next thing is that every time I go to the Canton Fair or I talk to suppliers, they're always working. They know that China is becoming more expensive, not because of the tariffs, but because of like the growing middle class there and the labor costs and the raw material costs. So Chinese factories have been actively working to set up production in other countries, right?

and i don't know if you can see my video right but i've got a conversation which i had with like one supplier and i was having a meeting with him and then he he asked to reschedule the meeting i was like yeah no problem of course yeah we can do it later i was like what's up and he was like oh i'm just going to vietnam i was like oh cool have a nice holiday and he's like no no this is not for holiday i'm setting up a factory there i was like oh amazing so like a lot of your factories are working with other countries and they are setting up production in other cities and other countries to avoid the tariffs right and what they're doing is they're setting up

production lines, I was looking through the messages to try and find it, but I couldn't find it. Anyway, what they are doing is they're

taking their production line managers from China, setting up production lines in other countries, in Vietnam, in Cambodia, in Bangladesh, and then they're importing all the materials themselves and they're running the production themselves. So you could actually export from other countries which have a lot less tariffs, but still run by your own manufacturer. So you can ask the manufacturer, are you setting up in any other countries? So to summarize, let's work with our existing suppliers first. Let's see if we can get a discount on the cost of goods. Let's see if we can do some alterations to the product to get the costs down.

And let's see if they're setting up production in any other countries as well because they're actively working on it as well, right? Then next, now let's look outside of China. And I always say it's important, regardless of the tariffs or not, it's important to have a China plus one strategy. And that's meaning like for 90% of the people, probably China is the best place to manufacture your products. But if we're not going to China, what is the next best country, right? And a lot of people don't really know like, okay, where do I go next? They just pick a random country and start looking. But

Where you should be sourcing your products from is dependent on the raw materials that go into your product. And whichever country is abundant in that raw material is where you should be going. So for example...

India is very very strong for cotton, canvas, woods, handcraft, leather. So if it's any of those components you know to go there but if you're doing like Bluetooth headphones you probably shouldn't be going to India right. And a way for you to find this out is multiple methods but you can go to alibaba.com you can search for a product on the left if you search by products on the left hand side of the page it brings up all the results per country and you can actually see which country brings up the most results right. That's one method. The one that I prefer most is that you can go to a website called importyeti.com which is totally free.

And you can type in the market leader. So you can type in Skims, you can type in the North Face, you can type in Nike, you can type in all these different brands, right? And it will bring up the suppliers which make for that particular brand because any bill of lading document, which is basically what's in a container, is public information in the US. So it just Skims that information from customs and puts it on this website totally free. And from there, you can see not only who the suppliers are, but from which country and which HS codes that they're using as well.

And that was another thing as well that you can do is that you can go on the HTS code website to see that could I be importing this product under another code, which is slightly better for me as well. So now we're able to see other countries and then we're able to compare it to China. But this is where the critical decision making is done, right? Because let's say you get a similar price or let's say you get slightly cheaper price now because you aren't hit with the tariffs from another country. But

Don't just look at the price, right? It's very important to analyze, okay, China's got a fantastic infrastructure. It's got a very large workforce, but that large workforce is also a really skilled workforce, right? So another country like Bangladesh might actually have like cheaper labor, but the labor isn't skilled. So the quality of your goods could deteriorate, right? China's also got a massive ability to scale production, right? So if you're starting with an MOQ of 300 pieces, well,

If you need to go to 5,000 pieces, 10,000 pieces very quickly, well, they can still do that. But can this new country also match that output as well? And bear in mind that China's also got like 24-7 customer service where you can send them a message on WeChat on a Sunday night and they'll reply to you or like,

18 hours of the day they're online right whereas if you work for factory in the u.s sometimes we don't get a reply to your email for a few days you know um not only that as well so you get payment protection from china you know if you do it through alibaba trade assurance and there's all sort of payment protection things you can set up whereas if you find a factory let's say in like latin america south america and you know they say okay wire it to this account like now you start to get nervous so what happens if i just you know send this money and then i don't hear from them so

Whichever country you decide to go to or whichever country you decide to trial, don't just look at the price, but get a sample for your product, right? And then compare the sample to the sample you got from China. Make sure you're happy with the quality. Compare the price to what you got from China. Make sure you're happy with that. And then let's say everything works out and you find it from another country and the price is good, the quality is good.

start with a trial order first just do a few hundred pieces and assess not only the production but assess the supplier make sure they deliver on time make sure that it gets the passes appreciate an inspection okay make sure the goods clear through customs okay make sure you don't get hit with any additional tariffs from them analyze to see if you get many returns from your customers if they do where was a supplier like willing to work with you so

There's a lot of things to analyze and consider there, but definitely have a China plus one strategy and then analyze those factors as well. But yeah, to summarize, tariffs are always going to go up and down regardless of who's in power. So it's always important to stick to the fundamentals and know exactly how profitable you are, what margins you have, have suppliers in other countries, sample it up and then yeah, look very, very carefully at the HTS code as well.

I think one thing that, you know, people might not realize is that when they're negotiating directly or have a better relationship with the factory, sometimes they'll be able to negotiate savings that could even, you know,

offset some of these tariffs. And one thing that you mentioned is coming up that allows people to meet suppliers or maybe even meet new ones would be the Canton Fair. So can you give a quick overview for somebody who's never been to the Canton Fair? How do they get there? How long is it? What's some best tips and practices? But this is another way to kind of like

beat tariffs in 2025 is to negotiate pricing or maybe even have new suppliers that offset whatever increase in tariffs that people are having to pay. Yeah, absolutely. I think if you have any issues with your supply chain, the number one secret weapon you can do is go to the Canton Fair. And for anyone who doesn't know it, it's the largest import export exhibition in the world. It happens twice a year in April and October. It's over three phases. It's got over 26,000 exhibitors in there.

And these are the top factories in China, not like sort of Alibaba middlemen. It's very hard to get into the Canton Fair. They're very, very like...

they're checked very carefully in terms of their documents or certification how long they've been established for and things like that but take any category of product whether it's pets home kitchen medical sport travel outdoor footwear fashion uh machinery electronics like every category of product you can imagine there is over three phases but for most e-commerce guys uh guys and gals uh phase two and phase three uh it's the it's the most important one

Yeah, phase two and phase three is the most important. And you can go to cantonfair.org.cn and that basically showcases like all the categories of product which are there. But I would say that there's like three levels to sourcing from China. Number one is online, you know, your Alibaba, your global sources and all that. Number two is Canton Fair. And number three is visiting the factory directly. And, you know, to your point in terms of, you know, being able to get better pricing and stuff like that,

It's almost like a respect thing that they take you very, very seriously as a serious buyer. If you go to China, it's like when you talk to someone online, you don't know if it's like a 16 year old in a basement doing a side hustle. But when you come to the Canton Fair and you come with your samples and you're like, look, here's the samples of our competition and here's our new product, here's our ideas. And you talk to, not only like you talk directly to the best factories, but you talk to the decision maker in the factory as well, because the bosses of the companies tend to go to the Canton Fair as well, right? So,

When I go, I have all my meetings. I have it with like the decision makers, the general managers, the production line managers, the CEOs of the companies, whatever. But if I message a company on Alibaba, I'm getting sally19 at shanghaiprofit.com, which is like, you know, a new sales assistant. So like they're going to check with their people and like it just basically takes a long time to reach any sort of conclusion. But you can really fast track people.

your product development, because when you go to the Canton fair, while we develop new products, so do the suppliers as well. So you're going to see all the new products that they've been working on and they'll have it for you. If, you know, if they realize that you're a serious buyer, then they'll share that information with you. Plus it's the best place to negotiate prices because you can, if you're, if you're looking at like a,

an outdoor camping furniture chair, right? You'll see a hall full of those suppliers. So you can go to one supplier, get the price, go to the next supplier, get the price, go to the next supplier, get the price. So it's not like online. If the real price is $5 and they quote you, you know, $7,

that they know you can just go next door and find out the real price. So you're getting much better pricing and you're able to then negotiate from a place of knowledge and a place of leverage because you've got access to so many different suppliers at the show as well. So we can get a lot of new product ideas, we can get better prices, we can get better credit terms

and just really really fast track our supply chain as well and walk away from that show with samples ready to launch and launch new products which have been worked on that the rest of the world won't get to see until it's on your listing so i would highly highly recommend i do have a bunch of videos on the canton fair on my youtube channel sourcing of kian so if anyone wants to find out more about the canton fair just check that out and there's a whole bunch of videos there and yeah it's so much fun i'll be there as well

And then, yeah, if you want to meet up there, say hello, say what's up. Just send me a DM on Instagram, kian underscore jg. Just say, hey, thinking about a Canton fair. And I'll organize a meetup over there. Obviously, if somebody speaks Chinese, they're going to have the easiest time. It's a no-brainer. I'd be telling them, hey, why haven't you gone? Why haven't you gone yet? Yeah.

And then also, obviously, I would say is like if they don't speak Chinese, you know, one of the easier ways to to be able to get benefit out of it is to go with like a group, you know, like I know you've organized and been part of some groups in the past where where the itinerary set and they got translators and stuff. But let's say I'm balling on a budget over here and I don't speak Chinese. I can't afford to do one of those groups.

Probably not the best just to say, hey, let me go get my China visa. Let me go over there and have no idea how to communicate or do anything. So if I have a limited budget, what is the best way to...

to be able to to go there and still get some value without being completely lost and like you know stranded in the middle of a foreign country i don't know how to speak the language that's a great question yeah the first thing i wouldn't worry about like translators anything like that like everyone over there like you know speaks good english or if the bosses don't speak english they've brought people from their company which do speak good english um the next thing is like as i said about the youtube channel like there's a lot of like

things to do before you go in terms of like, you know, what apps to get like VPNs and like, you know, your business cards and have your, have your face on it, you know, wear comfy shoes and all that sort of stuff. But in terms of like, okay, I've never been to China before. And like, I want to make sure that I succeed on a low budget on this trip. Right. Um,

It's really interesting because I've gone to Canton Fair so many times, it's just natural, it's normal for me. But sometimes I can see the fear in people's faces. What if I said the wrong thing? Or what if I fool myself? Or what if the supplier doesn't take me seriously? And it's like, well, first of all, just by you being there, the supplier is going to take you seriously. But if you're a little bit nervous or if you're a little bit shy or if you don't know what to say, I would always start in another category of product, which is not yours, to do your warm-up. So let's say, for example, if you're into fashion products,

I would just go to pets right and just look at a product you'd be like oh this is really cool you know what's the cost of this product oh you know it's five dollars oh interesting um what's the breakdown of that how much of it is the material cost and how much of it is the labor cost they're like well you know we've got this this and this like oh interesting and how many years have you been in business oh about 20 oh cool so you must have like certification then you know on this product like what are the legal standards that you have to comply with oh we have the CE certificate all this sort of stuff uh interesting and

what is the main market you supply? It's like 70% US, 20% Europe. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I'm also in the US market. Who's your biggest customer in the US? Oh, we work with Costco, Walmart, all these guys. Oh, very cool. So now I feel comfortable. I can get a feel for what type of questions to ask and stuff like that.

And then now I'm going to go to the category of product, which I am interested in. And I'm going to ask those questions. Right. So that's one thing. And then when you're walking through the halls, you might see, okay, like there's the three suppliers that I really want to work with. They're the ones that I really, really like. But then I would go to three that may be disqualified. You're like, I don't want to work with them for whatever reason. Maybe like, you know,

they don't have the right certification or their products don't look too nice or this guy's asleep in the booth he's not taking this too seriously which happens right so I would go to them and I would say that you know what's the material of this product like oh this is like polyester but we could also do it in nylon oh what's the difference between polyester and nylon well nylon's a little bit more expensive but it's also more lightweight and more durable and we can add the waterproof coating oh look

how many layers of waterproof coating do you put on it? Well, you know, three if it's really tough climate, but two if you want it to be lightweight. Oh, interesting. So I've just asked those questions to a supplier I'm not going to work with to learn more about the product. And then when I go to the suppliers I do want to work with, I would say, hey, I need that nylon material and I need the two times coating. And then that supplier is going to be like, oh, okay, this guy really knows about the product.

And then now they're not going to mess you around because they know that they're not educating you on the product, if you know what I mean. So it's just putting the reps in, right? The same way, like you don't get strong by reading how to do pushups. You get strong by doing pushups, right? So it's the same in the Canton Fair. Go to a category which you're not interested in and then go to suppliers that you don't want to work with and just build up your confidence, build up your knowledge, and then go to the ones that you want to work with from a place of leverage. I love it. I love it. All right. Yeah. Very important, very important points. Um,

Real quick, actually, it might not be quick, but let's just see. I think the other topic in 2025 that a lot of people are talking about is AI in pretty much every aspect of business. But then one aspect of it is something that you're very familiar with. Obviously, if you have an AI agent, sometimes that might be okay for sourcing or negotiating, sometimes not.

But the more active thing that I hear out there is like people using AI to help develop products, to think of new product lines, to think of new products that they haven't made before, new avenues from sourcing, from product development.

What should and shouldn't people do AI?

So conversely, like in other aspects of Amazon selling, if you're not putting in the right inputs, maybe even on the product development or product sourcing side, it's not going to be necessarily giving you the best output. So what are some things that people should and should not be doing as far as sourcing and development with AI? Yeah, it's a great question. And just as a disclaimer, I don't use AI for anything within product development or supply chain.

But if I was to do it, the way I would do it is, as you said, in product development. So, you know, using AI to scrape, you know, negative and positive reviews of, you know, your markets and your competition to see, like, you know, how can I improve on this product? Maybe helping with a sort of design aspect to the product as well. But where, like, AI isn't really suitable in supply chain is I've seen some tools to try and, like, pair you and match you with the right supplier. But, like, you can't, like, this is, like, um...

a relationship with a supplier is a relationship right you don't work with a certain supplier because of like um the number of years you've been in business or how many workers they have it's the relationship that you develop with that supplier and suppliers change so much over time month to month year to year sometimes it can be a very good supplier sometimes it can be very bad suppliers depending on how busy that they are so it's almost like an art you get a feel for who believes in your values like let's say for example you're a brand all about you know sustainability and you know recycled products and eco-friendly packaging and stuff like that well you're

you have to figure that out and talk to the people in the company that they're also capable of doing those things. And they also believe in your vision as well. And then they're going to be a very, very good fit for you. So I would say with supply chain, it's not like keyword research where it can give you like a very analytical, um,

analysis of the category as a whole and now you know sort of which sort of keywords to target um pairing yourself with a supplier it might be able to do the ground level work but you should be based you should be making your decisions like narrowing your suppliers down from a top 10 to a top five to a top three to your chosen one uh based on the quality of their communication their samples you know who they've worked with like their speed and their ability to scale and there's so many different like

like criteria that we need to arrange there. But I believe that AI can be really useful in the product development aspect of things and for launching new products quickly. Because at the end of the day, the best products in the world are the ones that solve problems. And if you can use AI, it can solve a problem for your customer. So like if you say that, you know, I want to develop the next best like tripod for cameras, what are the top five, um,

issues that people have when using tripods, you know, they might say, well, you know, the telescopic thing doesn't click into place sometimes, or it's like easy to get damaged. Okay. Well, what materials can help enhance that? Okay. We use carbon fiber rather than aluminum. Okay, cool. So like that's something that you could use to like improve products, but not with like choosing your suppliers.

So yeah, that's the way I would look at it. And that might change, but for now, that's the way it is. Yeah, I'm kind of in your boat. There's definitely some things I use AI for, like this podcast is saving hours of work.

And there are some things even in Helium 10 that use Helium 10's AIs for. But I don't know if I want to say I'm behind the curve, but I'm kind of like waiting until some things are perfected before fully going all in. I'm not just doing it just because it's the next cool thing to do. All right, well, back to personal things. What's exciting things on the horizon for you? Like I know you're working more with Founder and different things. Talk a little bit about that. And it's funny, like I got...

you need to tell or get me connected with, is it Nate from founder? Yeah. Nathan. Yeah. Like very small, Nate, Doug, Nathan. Yeah. Small, small world stories. Like, you know, I, people have heard about my, my first ever Amazon conference. I went to that, that kind of like changed my trajectory where I was so poor. I, I could only go sleep in a rental car. I couldn't even do in a hotels in Chicago. And it was, it was like in 2016, I think, um, in, and it was called the, what was it called? Uh, Zahn Zahn squad live, uh,

And Nathan, before he was super, super big, he was already pretty big. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been at the conference. But he was one of the only speakers I remember from that very first conference I went to. And then I saw, I was like, wait a minute, this guy looks familiar. And I talked to him there. I forgot what we talked about, but the whole conference kind of just changed my whole

trajectory now he's a he's a giant in the in the industry but what kind of things you're doing with them and what's going on there yeah he's a really really nice guy he's become one of my really good friends so i'll definitely connect you and we went on holiday together recently we went to uh japan went to tokyo osaka kyoto which is a lot of fun he also comes to dubai quite a bit so we hang out out here but it was interesting because in 2020 i think when i started my youtube channel founder hit me up and they were like can you come in and do a product development and supply chain course for us so i did that quite a number of years ago and then went to melbourne went to the studio did a couple of

podcast episodes with founder with Nathan and I interviewed him for my channel and then from there we just kind of like uh hit it off became cool and um I had this idea to put on a sourcing and supply chain product development summit which I felt like I've not seen in the industry yet and I want to tackle a lot of different topics in terms of like how to get the best price how to find the right suppliers you know trump tariffs AI you know a lot of things that we talked about and he was like okay cool we'll founder put on summits all the time so

why don't founder like host it well let's co-host it like you you do the content and you help the speakers and all that sort of stuff and then we've got the big email list we've got the the instagram handle and all that sort of stuff so we'll like promote it on our side and we'll collaborate it's like cool so we just put it on um about a month ago or a few weeks ago just as like a test and we're gonna do another one and we're gonna make it bigger and better so yeah founder really really cool

They're a very, very, very credible organization. The Founder Podcast is incredible. They've interviewed everyone from Tony Robbins to Gary Vee to Hor Mosey to Ray Dalio, all the big names. And they're very, very selective of who they invite on in the podcast as well. I think Nathan has interviewed over 100 billionaires. So it's all like they only interview founders. You have to be a founder of a company to get on the podcast.

and the value on there is incredible. So yeah, it's such a cool company to, to, to be a part of and also to, to be friends with Nathan as well. Love it. Love it. How can, how can people find you on the interwebs out there? Like you mentioned your YouTube channel. So I'll mention it again and, and, and your email. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So Instagram is probably the best place to,

get to me if you want to just write me a dm it's kian underscore jg uh also got a youtube channel uh sourcing with kian there's a lot of really cool videos on there and i'm going to record a lot more at this upcoming channel trip i'm going back out to the canton fair soon and i'm developing a lot of resources i'm also doing something that i've never done before which i haven't announced yet for this upcoming canton fair which is going to involve helping a lot of sellers out there so if you're interested in that just hit me up um and i'll explain in more detail what i've got planned uh

on there. But it's really just to improve a lot of people's results in their supply chain. So hopefully I'll see you out there in the Canton Fair. Awesome, man. And I'm going to go ahead and do something right now that's kind of like incentivize bribe. You know, somebody's funny for Amazon sellers. We can't incentivize reviews, but I'm trying to do a big push for getting reviews on the podcast. So if you guys might be watching this on YouTube, great. You know, make sure to subscribe and like and things. But if you're not or you are, go to the Apple podcast player, go to the Spotify and

and find the place where you leave a review. Just look up Serious Sellers Podcast, and this has to do with sourcing, all right? So, guys, find, leave a review, take a screenshot, and then DM it to me on Instagram, Serious Sellers Podcast. Say, hey, I left a review, like you said, and I will DM you my China sourcing agent. You know, she might be able to help organize, you know, things with Canton Fair, but here, that's...

Right now, that's illegal to do on Amazon. You can't be incentivizing reviews. But on Apple and Spotify, that should be fine. I'm not trying to pay you. But hey, I'll just connect you with somebody who can help you in sourcing. But you got to show me you love to review because I want to do this experiment to see what happens when we increase the reviews on the podcast. Bradley, I'll help you out there as well, right? So I think anyone who's got value from this episode...

like like bradley said if you go to spotify hit five star if you screenshot that and if you've listened to this episode if you dm me on instagram and say like what you thought of the episode for everyone that dms me i'll pick one person at random i'll give you a free one-on-one one-on-one 30 minute console and go over your supply chain as well so make sure you leave a five star review for the podcast and then dm me what you thought of this episode and we'll do a one-on-one call

Oh, that's awesome. Thank you so much, Kian, for that. And let's definitely connect. And hopefully maybe when I go to Scotland this year, next year, we can hang out there and you can show me the best pubs out there. Can't wait. Can't wait. Awesome.