I had a great talk with Ryan Cramer, fellow-of-all trades at PingPong. PingPong offers solutions for ecommerce businesses that are operating internationally. Ryan’s knowledge and expertise allowed us to cover a wide range of topics related to international expansion on Amazon, and made for a delightful back-and-forth with the participants as they asked questions. I encourage you to watch the replay below – we eschewed slides to just have a nice talk about international expansion and to go with the flow of participant questions. There were so many! Here’s an overview of what we discussed:
When Is It Time To Expand Your Amazon Business To International Markets?
In a word, now. If not already, do it now, according to Ryan. He says, “If you’re not looking at international marketplaces, you’re selling yourself short in terms of being first-to-market and and dominating that category or that product section that you’re selling on Amazon.com.” Ryan says there’s no threshold you should reach – just do it. He says that .com is first, of course, but if you’re selling on .com, it’s time to expand! Canada is a reasonable choice if you’re solely selling on .com, even though it’s a smaller marketplace. He says that Canada will catch up soon, and other marketplaces are going to catch up. Ryan cautions you to be strategic about your inventory, listings and finances when expanding to different international marketplaces. Ryan talks about different strategies for different marketplaces, so make sure you watch the replay or read the transcript to get all the tips.
Should My Category Dictate the Marketplaces I Choose?
Home & Kitchen is the clear leading category across most marketplaces (not Turkey, however), but what categories are best for which marketplaces? Ryan says that you want to do your research off of Amazon.com – you don’t want to bring a product to market that’s already saturated with it. He says, “More often than not, your bestsellers will translate across cultures.” But, you should think about the culture predominant in different marketplaces. Americans tend to own more televisions, but some other countries don’t have multiple televisions. So if you’re selling a TV wall mount, it might not make sense for a marketplace that serves people who don’t need it. Use common sense, and do your research. Ryan says that Toys & Games are pretty universal, Home, Gift, Garden, and Kitchen are popular everywhere too, though Electronics are tricky.
How Can I Get On International Marketplaces?
It depends, Ryan says. For some, you can just sign up in Seller Central. For some, you need a business address in the country in question in order to operate sales there. There are also bank account requirements. For the full scoop, read Amazon’s Global Selling Guide. Ryan says, “Now that Brexit happened, you hav to actually replicate and have different compliance requirements for EU, separate from UK, which can be somewhat difficult, but making sure that you’re VAT compliant, making sure your packaging and manufacturer is compliant with EU regulations as well as UK regulations, will help.” Read this article from the PingPong blog to learn more about the impact of Brexit on cross-border ecommerce.
How PingPong Works
Ryan breaks it down by saying that sellers and brand owners on Amazon get paid every two weeks, and Amazon takes out the FBA fees and other fees, but that if you’re selling on an international marketplace, Amazon doesn’t line itemize your earnings. They convert the funds through their own program, so if you’ve got a US-based bank account, they know to convert your earnings into USD. And to do that, they charge a convenience fee. PingPong has partnerships with tier one banks, and they open up a digital bank account on your behalf that can accept different currencies. They never charge more than 1% for converting fees.
In a nutshell, PingPong can help you conduct business internationally, for less.
I encourage you to watch the replay below, and here are some helpful links mentioned during the webinar:
The Replay
The Transcript
Liz Downing (00:01):
Hi, everybody. Welcome to our webinar today. I’m Liz Downing with Teikametrics. I’m the ecommerce marketing manager here, and I’ve got my friend Ryan Cramer from PingPong Payments. Say hi, Ryan.
Ryan Cramer (00:11):
What’s up, everyone.
Liz Downing (00:12):
We’re so glad you were able to attend today. We don’t have slides, we’re just going to talk today about international expansion, is it the right time for you, what are the differences between marketplaces, and what do you need to know about selling internationally, making payments internationally, which is Ryan and PingPong’s specialty, but Ryan has a bunch of other specialties too.
Liz Downing (00:31):
A couple little housekeeping things. We are recording this session so it will be emailed to you and all other registrants, probably tomorrow because I like to write the recap too and get everything up on YouTube and get everything all neat and tidy, and if we mentioned any links or [inaudible 00:00:47]. Also, if you’ve got questions, there’s a question section in the GoToWebinar panel. Please feel free to pop your questions there. This is going to be an open, very casual conversation, so we will take questions as we go. Raised hands don’t really work all that well with GoToWebinar for some reason, and also, the chat makes things super confusing for me. So, if you’ll just use the questions, actually, that would simple things up a whole lot.
Liz Downing (01:13):
I’m going to tell you a little bit about Teikametrics, and then Ryan’s going to tell you a little bit about PingPong, and then we’re going to get into the content today. So, buckle up, and here we go.
Liz Downing (01:24):
Teikametrics has traditionally been involved with your advertising on Amazon, so optimizing your advertising, making sure that your budget is staying in place, making sure that you’re as successful as possible, we also have Walmart advertising, but we’re now with our Flywheel 2.0 platform, introducing all kinds of cool stuff, market intelligence, and access to capital financing, inventory insights, and all kinds of stuff like that. So, I will be including a link to sign up for early access to Flywheel 2.0. I think that’s about enough about us. If you’ve got questions, just pop them in the questions and I’ll be happy to answer, because I love talking about this company. But Ryan, why don’t you tell everybody about PingPong?
Ryan Cramer (02:07):
Yeah. What’s up, everyone? My name is Ryan Cramer. I’m the partnership/influencer/affiliate manager over at PingPong. I’m a little jack of all trades, but my job is to actually educate and bring brand awareness to our company. Very basically, we are a cross-border payment solution, so competitor of ours would be like a Payoneer, an OFX, or a TransferWise. You guys have probably heard about that depending on where you are in your Amazon or ecommerce journey.
Ryan Cramer (02:37):
But basically, we help marketplace sellers and entrepreneurs provide them global solutions for controlling domestic and international funds. When you sign up on an account with us, it’s free to sign up, your company can actually significantly reduce your costs when receiving or making international payments, so that’s either sending to a supplier, a manufacturer, a freelancer, employees around the world, so on and so forth, like a VA.
Ryan Cramer (03:06):
If you’re sending money, you can actually save by sending all those funds service and stuff like a PayPal or a bank transfer, or if you’re receiving on international marketplaces, like you’re in the United States selling in the UK, Germany, Japan, Australia, no matter what Amazon Marketplace, you can use us to receive those international funds and you can actually repatriate that money over to your local currency, most often, United States dollar, and you can save money by using us. We’re a participant in the Amazon’s payment service provider network, so that recently just came to light about three or four weeks ago in terms of if you’re a third party participant in this program, you have to have all these checkmarks to make sure that money is safe, secure, and reliable for Amazon sellers, so we’re a participant in that and verified to be used moving forward.
Ryan Cramer (04:03):
With that being said, we help people obviously repatriate those funds, and that’s when money converts from one currency to another. The traditional sense is if you use a bank account or use Amazon services, they charge anywhere from two to 4%. At the end of the day, that’s money that’s being left on the table, we just help you get more of it back, put it towards your inventory, your advertising, and really take that savings and put it towards other parts of your business. I can go into more details about that, but that’s what we are as a holistic company standpoint.
Liz Downing (04:37):
Awesome. Thanks for that, Ryan. I think that probably the first place we should start is, how does a brand or a seller know when it’s time to expand to a new marketplace, and specifically, let’s just talk about Amazon? So, you’re selling in the US and you’re thinking about Canada, or you’re thinking about Germany, or you’re selling in the UK and you’re thinking about selling in the US. When is it time to hit the switch and what do you need to do to lead up to hitting the switch?
Ryan Cramer (05:12):
Yeah. First and foremost, you should be selling internationally now. I would say now is better than ever, and the reason I say this is twofold. There’s not a specific threshold that you as a seller could say, “Once I hit this threshold, I need to go international.” That can quantify, depending on who you are. This is what I tell people, is that if you’re not looking at international marketplaces, you’re selling yourself short in terms of being first to market or dominating that category or product section of what you’re selling in .com. .com, start there. 100%, 10 out of 10, never start anywhere else besides .com. But from there, once you start getting the ball rolling, a little bit here is launching your products, no matter what strategy you’re using, the easiest solution to grow your brand and start generating multiple sources of income is to start looking at those international Amazon marketplaces.
Ryan Cramer (06:05):
Easy ones if you’re in the United States, Canada. Simple, straightforward, don’t have to translate listings. Even in Quebec, translating into French, not necessarily needed all the time because people have Chrome extensions, they just translate it for them. There’s not many products that would actually need a listing, that’d be translated into French, so it’s pretty easy to jump into Canada. It’s not as big of a marketplace, and this is the caveats. They’re not as big as .com, but they will catch up. And I say will because it’s different for each culture. And the reason why I say that is because all the money, the resources aren’t needed to be in those marketplaces are growing internationally. That’s not true. They’re just behind or they are just not as advanced in terms of buyers in the United States. We’re just using Amazon, right?
Ryan Cramer (06:54):
Amazon’s been around for 10 plus years here, it’s just opening up in certain marketplaces around the world. They have been there for about two, three, four years. So, it’s really just a baby in those marketplaces, but as amazon.com grew in the United States, it’s going to grow internationally as well. Because there’s seven, eight billion people in the world, the United States only has 300 million plus, so if you think about just in terms of volume of people, you got to go where people are too, because everyone needs products, they need the same products here in the United States, around the world, they just need to catch up in terms of how to purchase those things. Because there’s other marketplaces like Rakuten, Mercado Libre in South America, there’s Wish, WooCommerce. All these other marketplaces that are popular in different countries, Amazon’s just slowly creeping up and will surpass those eventually.
Ryan Cramer (07:46):
That being said… Yeah, go ahead.
Liz Downing (07:47):
And Ryan, isn’t it true that the majority of Amazon FBA sellers are actually from the US.
Ryan Cramer (07:57):
Majority were. It was that way. So, majority of FBA sellers used to be from the United States. New sellers entering the market are actually coming majority from China. This is new sellers entering the market, starting their own business, most of them are coming from China, and I think that the number is pretty crazy. It’s like 75% of new sellers are coming from China. It’s consistent in the United States that there are lots of new US sellers entering the marketplace, but that is across the board, just in the United States, but new sellers are in entering the markets in Singapore, in Australia, in Britain, in Germany. I think there’s 18 marketplaces right now Amazon technically has. I think the most recent one is Poland, I think is what they announced a few weeks ago.
Ryan Cramer (08:47):
But that being said, that doesn’t represent all the different countries around the world that will start to allow outside sellers to sell into like India, for example. If I’m in the United States, I can’t sell into India unless I’m a very big seller. And there’s been a bunch of stuff in the news like that. But once they open it up to either Southeast Asia or just in general in India, or it’s easier to sell in China, then you’ll start to get right that way, basically, if there’s so many people that are going to be able to tap into these marketplaces that you won’t know what to do. It’ll just be like this onslaught of customers that are potentially ready to purchase for you.
Ryan Cramer (09:26):
That being said, what I’m not telling people is take what you’re doing in .com and replicate it and do exactly what you’re doing internationally, inventory levels, anything like that. It doesn’t happen because you’re probably not going to need that same level of focus on international marketplaces that you would in .com. What I do tell people is, “Hey, you should test things out, try what’s going to be successful in these marketplaces and then go from there.” For example, in Canada, instead of using the same order quantity amount that you’re doing for .com, take maybe five or 10% and put it into .ca. Test it out. Take your bestsellers, put them in there, replicate those listings.
Ryan Cramer (10:09):
The only difference between .ca and .com is they have VAT and GST, which is like sales tax, those are the only differences, but fulfillment-wise, there’s a couple of different ways you can fulfill, either from your FBA warehouses in the United States through the North American Remote Fulfillment Program, or you can even throw in some inventory in Canada and let it fulfill in a very popular place like Toronto. Quebec is a little bit one of those weird territories. They have very stringent just rules and regulations in terms of finance and whatnot, but Toronto is a big place to put your goods into. So, Canada is easy to get into, but once you start going down the list of big marketplaces for Amazon, next is UK and Germany. Those two represents 70%, probably more actually, of the buying power in Europe. So, being in just one or the other is going to do you very well.
Ryan Cramer (11:10):
Germany, I think is traditionally number… it was UK, number two before Brexit, and I think Germany surpassed them, but both of them are important because of the buying power, they represent the second and third largest viewers in terms of marketplace in amazon.com. And then third would be Japan. Japan’s the third largest marketplace in the Amazon ecosystem. It’s just a very difficult… I won’t say difficult, it’s very unique in terms of trends and whatnot, but doing stuff like PPC, you have to replicate it over four different… their cadences, essentially, but it’s four different… I’m trying to think of the word. It’s not different languages, but it’s four different ways to speak to the customer, so you’re just replicating it in four different ways. I guess in my podcast, we talked and went over all this kind of stuff, and it’s just fascinating to see how trends are done, how when one thing catches on, everyone buys it.
Ryan Cramer (12:08):
So, it’s easy to catch on to trends quicker over there, and then also, just listings in terms of images are a little bit different. They just pack them full of information. It’s not just simple, straightforward, it’s like, on your product listing, the images are so packed full of information so that people can graphically look at it and like, “Yep, that’s what I need,” and buy it. So, those are the three marketplaces that in terms of volume, and eyeballs, those are the… I say 1A and 1B are UK and Germany, and then after that’s easy, Japan, but hot marketplaces are Australia in terms of people catching on. Most sellers are actually based and selling on eBay there. This is very popular in terms of a marketplace, but eBay is slowly starting to lose out to Amazon, so you’ll start seeing more people buying on Amazon, thus the market growing there.
Ryan Cramer (13:05):
And then of course, you have the rest of EU, which would be like Italy, Spain, France, those are pretty strong in terms of sales. And then not in terms of eyeballs, but in terms of buying power is UAE, or the United Emirates. It’s a smaller marketplace in terms of eyeballs, but everyone over there… this is true, they have all the money that you can possibly imagine. So, the buying power of there is insane. So, if you’re leading the way and you have goods over there, could fulfill in the Middle East there, again, another marketplace to really take advantage of, not a lot of competition, not a lot of places where you can test and see what’s going to grow for you., but then obviously, as markets pop, you’ll get more competition but you would rather be first than follow suit than someone else.
Liz Downing (14:01):
Is there a certain strategy that a brand or a seller should look at in terms of their category and what marketplace they might choose next? I mean, obviously, yeah, great, Germany gets lots of traffic, .co.uk gets lots of traffic, Japan gets lots of traffic. I mean, I guess home and kitchen across most most marketplaces is the leading category, but in Turkey, for instance, it’s not. Beauty and personal care is up there with… So, based on your category, or if you’ve got a luxury category, should you be looking at UAE first? You know what I mean? What kind of strategy should people be thinking in terms of the types of products that they sell?
Ryan Cramer (14:45):
Yeah, exactly. So, you want to do your research off of .com, right? This is how you launch products, right? You’re finding a niche. If I think my pen is going to be dominant over in UK, there might be 1,000 pens, right? I don’t want to bring a pen to a market when it’s so saturated. You want to find what people are searching for in those marketplaces and how your product can actually help them and benefit them. If you want to replicate your bestsellers… More often than not your bestsellers will translate across cultures, most typically, because everyone has the same either issues or problems in their day to day lives. It would just be if it’s a license good, that’s where you have to start doing research. If it’s a very kitschy, very unique to a culture, again, very one-off stuff, that’s where you have to start doing your research in terms of, is it culturally appropriate? Does the marketplace need that kind of thing?
Ryan Cramer (15:42):
Here in the United States, we buy like five of everything, but in a house in India, for example, they might just need one. We have a TV for every single room and our flipping houses, I don’t, but some people do, but that might not be true across different countries, so maybe I don’t need to throw in or sell my TV wall mounts in India, or in Australia, or things like that, because it’s just not appropriate culturally or they don’t use them, in terms of scalability and whatnot.
Ryan Cramer (16:14):
So, the traditional ones are going to win. Probably across the channels are toys and games. I think that’s a pretty easy one that culturally… besides if you need to translate, obviously, your directions and whatnot, toys, pretty easy to translate across different marketplaces, home, gift, garden, kitchen. And then I would say… What was the third one I was thinking about. Electronics is very touch and go. Electronics is so hit and miss with different marketplaces just because of different functionalities of different units, and each country doesn’t have… they don’t work, obviously, with plugs and things like that, translations and everything along those lines. So, I’d stay away from any sort of electronics specifically. But any sort of soft good that is pretty easy and small enough, it will probably translate pretty easily across the board. But home and kitchen I would say is the easiest one to translate into every marketplace.
Liz Downing (17:19):
We have a couple of questions.
Ryan Cramer (17:21):
Oh, man, I don’t see any of those. Where are those? Or do you just get to see them?
Liz Downing (17:26):
Only I can-
Ryan Cramer (17:27):
Is this like a hidden thing?
Liz Downing (17:28):
Yeah.
Ryan Cramer (17:28):
That’s all good. Everyone, send in the questions. I love questions. Hit me up.
Liz Downing (17:32):
People [crosstalk 00:17:33] trip them up. Well, plus, Ryan’s the kind of guy that does webinars so often that he’ll just start typing the answer to the question and I’ll be like, “Dude, talk to me.”
Ryan Cramer (17:41):
Yeah. I have a podcast that I go live every single day on our PingPong Payments’ YouTube channel, and today I did an AMA, so I literally talked an hour to nobody, like to my computer like this on my thoughts on ecommerce right before that. So, I’m good to go. Give me the questions. Hit me up.
Liz Downing (17:56):
How much coffee have you had?
Ryan Cramer (17:57):
This is my second cup. I only do two about today. All right, it’s 1:30, so it is two. Yeah, it’s not bad.
Liz Downing (18:02):
That’s good. So, we’ve got someone asking, they’ve sold in Germany, and they’ve had lots of issues with tax and VAT there. They also sell in the UK with no issues. They’ve tried to replicate but it didn’t work so well. So, any recommendations on how to get things straightened out in Germany?
Ryan Cramer (18:26):
I actually talked about this and we did a blog post recently. With Brexit, there are now differences in terms of compliance that you have to be very much aware of, so hopefully, you got these sorted out. In terms of packaging, in terms of tax compliance, you have to register separately within these marketplaces. So, VAT compliance, you have to register separate in UK. I’m not sure if the person started in UK and then moved to Germany, or where was that progression, but let’s assume that they went from UK to Germany.
Ryan Cramer (19:00):
Now that Brexit happened, you have to actually replicate and have different compliance reasons for EU separately than UK. So, everything that you do for the EU, now you have to do separately with the different entity in the UK, which can be somewhat difficult, but making sure that you’re VAT compliant, making sure your packaging and your actual manufacturer is compliant with the EU regulations as well as the UK regulations. Because if your supplier isn’t actually regulated and they don’t check all the boxes with those regulated company or with those entities, they won’t let your product into the marketplace. So, making sure that you follow up with those marketplaces, and I can send the link to what’s the difference between EU and Brexit as well.
Liz Downing (19:50):
Well, and she said that she did start in the UK and she has separate setups for the UK and Germany. It used to be you could just be set up in the UK and sell all over.
Ryan Cramer (19:59):
Right, and then fulfill. So, now, you can’t do that. What we tell people, you have to send them into or to UK and then send it separately to the Netherlands, actually. The Netherlands actually took over as the number one port in all of Europe because people aren’t just sending their products to UK now to fulfill to the rest of Europe, it’s actually going directly into Netherlands, which ties into the rest of EU. Based on locations and where it is, that’s the number one port now in all of Europe. So, sending your goods to Netherlands to get checked in, then you can fulfill to Germany and the rest of EU as well.
Ryan Cramer (20:32):
That being said, if it’s trouble with listings or translations, you always have to make sure that you’re localizing correctly with your products and whatnot. Assuming you did that, and make sure that the listing is not like something didn’t translate well, or if it’s a product, that didn’t translate well, not everything culturally is going to hit in one versus the other. Start with bestsellers and kind of innovate in there. I’d be curious to see what topic or what category they’re in and if it’s saturated or not, because, again, German culture is different than what UK culture is technically. I mean, they speak a different language, but their buyers are more tech savvy, so there might just be a different marketplace that more people are going for that one good versus another. So, I would check and make sure that you’re localized correctly, your listing is translated appropriately. Everything else lines up. But if you’re having trouble, I’d be curious, is it customer service related or if it’s more just the product isn’t selling as much, because-
Liz Downing (21:37):
Well, she said that it was tax and VAT in particular.
Ryan Cramer (21:43):
So, if this happened recently, it might be troubling to get verified in EU when your products are not EU certified, whether it’s packaging, or you’re GST or VAT compliant with EU regulators. Because even though that you might have done it just through UK, you still have to make sure that your listings have those sort of verifications in each marketplace now. You almost have to split them up and redo them and re-implement them separately, even after Brexit. Now we’re almost through two months now, people are starting to figure that out like, “Oh crap, I didn’t do this for one marketplace or the other.” So, you might have been UK certified but not EU certified in terms of product listing or your supplier might not have been EU certified. So, that would be my initial instance and guess. But if it’s tax regulation, make sure you’re verified and you’re regulated with the proper EU authorities in Germany.
Liz Downing (22:43):
That’s great advice. We have another question. If selling to Canada from the US, are you required to set up a different legal entity?
Ryan Cramer (22:51):
No. Say the question one more time. Let me make sure.
Liz Downing (23:01):
If you’re selling into Canada from the US, are you required to set up a different legal entity?
Ryan Cramer (23:08):
I don’t believe so. As long as you have an LLC in the United States and then you can verify… So, if you’re selling into Canada, you can either fulfill from the United States into Canada, and you don’t have to do anything, and that’s the North American Remote Fulfillment Program, you just sign up with your LLC that you’re using or your business entity in the United States and then you can verify all that with them. You just set up your storefront and then fulfill from the United States. But if you fulfill from the United States into FBA, I don’t believe you still have to, because most seller accounts are just with… you can have your business one here in the United States and apply it there.
Liz Downing (23:51):
And do you have resources on the PingPong blog about the North American Remote Fulfillment Program that we can share in the recap?
Ryan Cramer (24:02):
Yeah. I have to look it up too because a lot of people ask about that. So, there’s the same program that happens actually in all of EU too. I’m blanking on the name, but there’s a couple of cool programs I always like to talk with people in terms of if they’re expanding on different marketplaces or fulfilling from Amazon. One is the North American Remote Fulfillment Program. The other one is the… I have it down here in my notes, if you give me a sec. I think it’s… I just talked about recently. The Multi-Channel Fulfillment Program. If you sell on Shopify, you can actually fulfill your inventory from FBA warehousing. So, that was another program that we always tell, or I tell, I should say… not we. I speak on myself and my expertise.
Ryan Cramer (24:54):
The Multi-Channel Fulfillment Program, and then there’s the Pan-European Networking Program or Pan-European Fulfillment Program. It’s a really long stringent mouthful of words. But you can fulfill in different marketplaces, again, from a Germany or from Netherlands and fulfill to like France or Italy and whatnot just because of the EU connections there. UK used to be a part of it, now they don’t, so it’s its own kind of like little stepchild of Europe. But in terms of the marketplaces, yeah, the Brexit Influence on Cross-Border Ecommerce, I’ll put that in the chat, actually, to everyone so you can take a look, and all the different verifications. We list out all the entities that you have to be compliant with. So, let me go ahead and put that in the chat.
Liz Downing (25:40):
And while you’re doing that, in the same question about whether or not you need a different legal entity to sell in Canada, this person asked, does Amazon take care of capturing appropriate taxes?
Ryan Cramer (25:54):
No.
Liz Downing (25:56):
Just like when you sell state to state, a country to another country-
Ryan Cramer (26:01):
No, that’s on you as a seller.
Liz Downing (26:01):
… you’re in charge of your own taxes.
Ryan Cramer (26:04):
Yeah. So, through PingPong, you can actually pay those authorities. It’s free to do through our program, you just need to know which ones to pay. And that’s easy to find out once you fill out the paperwork and they give you all the like, “This is the pay, how often you pay.” It could be quarterly or can actually be per transaction. I’ve even seen sellers get credits. They’ll give you credits, and then when you file your taxes, they reimburse you the amount. It’s almost like doing your taxes but every quarter. It sounds disgusting, but it’s pretty easy when you have the right tax accountant. AVASK are fantastic at it. I’m sure… How do we say this? Teikametrics.
Liz Downing (26:42):
Teikametrics.
Ryan Cramer (26:43):
Yeah. See, I said it right. We talked about this before, what I meant.
Liz Downing (26:46):
We did.
Ryan Cramer (26:47):
Teikametrics. Yeah, and this is what I get. It was in my head and I hesitated. Check out their partnership program first, and obviously… But AVASK is really good in terms of-
Liz Downing (27:00):
AVASK is really good. I’m working with a company called LedgerGurus. They’re really good. AVASK sort of really gets the whole international back and forth. LedgerGurus is good too, though.
Ryan Cramer (27:15):
I’m trying to put it in the text box, I’m trying to make sure I get this right. Where’s the chat box for our webinar?
Liz Downing (27:20):
It’s at the very bottom.
Ryan Cramer (27:23):
Oh, there it is. It wasn’t open. It was hidden.
Liz Downing (27:25):
You found it.
Ryan Cramer (27:25):
Sorry, everyone.
Liz Downing (27:27):
And then whatever he puts in the chat I’ll also put in the recap email, so if you guys don’t get a chance to propagate down, don’t worry. I’ll make sure it comes to you in the email.
Liz Downing (27:34):
We do have a couple more questions, though, so I think we should roll with those.
Ryan Cramer (27:37):
Yeah, let’s roll.
Liz Downing (27:38):
We have a seller central account and are based in the US. What business regulations do we need to sell in other countries? Do we need business numbers? And I think that varies marketplace to marketplace, right?
Ryan Cramer (27:48):
It does.
Liz Downing (27:49):
With a lot of them, you can just go into your seller central account and navigate to the sell internationally and just sign up for a marketplace and you’re good to go, but then in other ones, you’ve got to have a physical address and all that kind of stuff.
Ryan Cramer (28:05):
Yeah, exactly. This is important too. Localization in finding a company or a group that you trust with the ability to localize is also important, because you have those entities that represent you in that country on your behalf, it’s basically like a representative if something “goes wrong” that you establish your business entity there as well. Different marketplaces have different regulations, so it’s important to know which ones you’re going into, and you can break that down as well.
Ryan Cramer (28:33):
Amazon does a really great job. All these questions are definitely ones that they’ve answered before, and if you go into getting into those marketplaces, they will tell you a step-by-step guide like, making sure you have these numbers, these business requirements of whatnot. You don’t typically have to open an LLC in a different country every single time, you can use your US or business operations. It’s the same thing with your bank account too. You could use your own US one to receive funds internationally and around the world, Amazon, what they’ll do, is they’ll convert those funds for you so that it gets put into your bank account, but that’s why, again, you get charged fees for convenience’s sake, right? You could do the work and make it cost effective for you, but if you’re… no one’s lazy, but if they want to just get up and running quickly…
Ryan Cramer (29:21):
My friend, Gary Huang, who’s in charge of the 7 Figure Seller Summit, he was like, “I just want to get up and grinding and sell internationally, and didn’t know what I was paying, and then my accountant came to me and goes, ‘Gary, do you realize how many fees that you’re paying just in receiving around the world?'” And he had no idea. And now we’re saving him tens of thousands of dollars just on receiving fees from different marketplaces. So, it’s important to look at what requirements are on every single marketplace, and that’s going to depend on where you actually have your LLC or where you have other business entities as well. It doesn’t really answer your question, but always check. Amazon will help and walk you through all the things you need. It’s pretty easy to get up and going.
Ryan Cramer (30:05):
I’ve even heard some certain sellers, they get backlogged with different marketplaces depending on where they’re at because they need certain verification documents. Like in Canada, they are trying to sell in the US, a seller just didn’t get there. They were supposed to launch in a month or two and it took him seven months to get launching because they didn’t… Canada shut down for pandemic reasons, they couldn’t go to the bank, couldn’t get these verification forms to establish themselves as a legitimate entity, and so it kind of delayed their process. So, make sure you start now if you’re thinking about going internationally, know which documents, requirements you need to start growing. And then Amazon will do the initial setup for you and then you can start subbing out different entities, different banking account, service providers and whatnot, localization experts helping you with translations and stuff like that. That’s where it comes next.
Liz Downing (31:02):
So, the same would work. We had somebody say that they’re currently operating in the North American marketplace and are looking to expand there… they’ve got an underwear brand and they want to go into Japan. So, if they just go into Seller Central, and go into this all internationally, and sign up for Japan, Amazon’s going to walk them through everything they need to know. What Amazon won’t walk you through, what can you tell them? Do you have any insights into the Japanese marketplace that you can share with our friend?
Ryan Cramer (31:30):
Yeah. I mean, literally all the fees, all the things like how to make it easy for you. They’ll go through the easy stuff like this is how you get your goods to… their FBA warehousing in Japan and stuff like that. I know there’s certain aspects that Amazon tries to assist you on, like they’ll go to their verified partners and whatnot and say like, “These are solutions if you need help with this.” You guys are located on there, if I’m not mistaken, Liz, as a verified advertising partner and whatnot.
Liz Downing (32:03):
Oh, yeah.
Ryan Cramer (32:05):
Yeah. Each marketplace has their own set of partners, like ad partners, depending on the marketplace, so they will refer you to those to help with advertising, help you with localization, logistics, the gauntlet there, that’s why they help you with that. But they’ll tell you how to do it, they won’t do it for you. Does that make sense? That’s the step where they’re like, “Hey, these are best practices, but we won’t do it for you.”
Ryan Cramer (32:30):
So, things like this webinar are key to obviously understand international growth. I’m trying to think of different people. There’s a partner of ours, specifically for UK and Europe, we have one that’s really fantastic in the education and help you guys are help sellers, I should say, get set up. I just know them by their acronym so I want to make sure I say it correctly. My Gmail is really slow today. But each country has easy ones to like get listed in. When you take that next level, like when you start doing PPC work, the gauntlet becomes a lot different in terms of culture, and how do you do it, and how do you stand out? For Japan specifically, I would reach out to PPC Ninja for helping you out with Amazon Marketplace, because Ritu Java, if you look for her on LinkedIn and you tell her I sent you, just reach out to her because she lived in Japan and understands the cultural impact of what buyers are looking for and she’s helped connect people with ways to get up and running on the Japanese marketplace.
Ryan Cramer (33:39):
It’s a really cool and very different culture like I said, but people are used to buying on their phones, they’re used to Rakuten, they’re used to all these other marketplaces. But as Amazon’s growing in popularity, so will sellers understand like, “Hey, I have to stand out somehow in these cities. That’s an easy win for me in my market.” So, underwear, hey, they were underwear in Japan, so I’m assuming they’ll be successful. That’s awesome.
Liz Downing (34:06):
We also do ad optimization in Japan too, so [crosstalk 00:34:10] about that.
Ryan Cramer (34:10):
Or anyone, like I said, yeah. I don’t know all the marketplaces you guys work in.
Liz Downing (34:15):
That’s fine.
Ryan Cramer (34:15):
I didn’t do my research before this. Some people don’t even operate in ones I think they would operate, like Australia, for example, and that’s new to certain places. But I never assume. I always just assume no one does it. And then, everyone, if you’re going into Japan, use Teikametrics.
Liz Downing (34:33):
Teikametrics.
Ryan Cramer (34:35):
Goddammit. Why am I doing this? Excuse my language.
Liz Downing (34:37):
Don’t cuss on my webinar, Ryan. So, this is a hot topic question and I’m just going to throw it out there, and we’re not going to spend a lot of time on it, but to the person who asked it, I’ve got a ton of resources for you. Once you’ve built a successful Amazon Marketplace, does Amazon provide any services to assist in the selling of the business?
Ryan Cramer (35:00):
I’ll take [crosstalk 00:35:01] you take that one.
Liz Downing (35:02):
I think Ryan would agree with me that Amazon will tell you what you need to know about your seller health and your metrics, but if you’re thinking about selling your business, you need to consult with some people who know what they’re talking about. Amazon knows what they’re talking about, but to keep your best interest, to keep your profitability and make sure you get paid the way you need to, I’ve got some resources for that. Reach out to me. I’m Ldowning@teikametrics,com. I’ll put that in the chat, and I’ll introduce you to some people that you need to know if you’re thinking about selling your ecommerce business. So, ldowning@te-
Ryan Cramer (35:38):
I didn’t hear they’re selling ecommerce business, but yeah. So, this is a hot topic for sure right now. 2020 kind of shed light on the golden child is Thrasio, but there’s a lot of… I’ve been talking with brokers, I’ve been talking with other people who have sold their Amazon businesses to seven and eight figures, yesterday, I had a seller who’s like, “I could have sold for like 1.5 million dollars but I just didn’t. I know I can optimize it and I know my multiple will continue to rise.” And it’s just things like that that are… The number was weird and crazy in my mind, but there’s like 100 “aggregators” out there, not all are just gonna buy Amazon businesses, they’re like investments, so they can either buy or sell your business, or they can invest in your business like a growth capital, or they’re a brokerage that will help you navigate and sell for you.
Ryan Cramer (36:34):
I’ve had people do both ways, talk directly with aggregators and then use brokers. I think it depends on you as a seller how you’d rather negotiate that exit. Start now, start thinking how you’re going to eventually exit if that’s your plan. Some people are like, “I’m just going to crush this and continue to build this out.” But 90% of people, I would say, are in it to eventually exit their business now that they know it’s an option. You’re building a brand on Amazon, or online in general, and depending on how you’re doing that, again, part one to make yourself more valuable is save money where you can. That’s with PingPong. You pile your bottom line, you instantly start to… if you’re saving $15,000 a year and your multiple is three, that’s 75 grand that you can instantly add to the value of your company just by saving money, which everyone wants to do. So, that’s an example there.
Ryan Cramer (37:26):
International growth, they’re going to see you as a viable, as a consistent, and as a stable brand that can grow. The number one place where every… And this is what a lot of aggregators won’t tell you. The first place that they will throw you on to become profitable, international marketplaces. Hands down, 100% of time, if you’re just selling in US, instantly, they’ll throw you into UK, they’ll sell you into Germany, and they’ll put you in Australia, 10 out of 10. That’s how they instantly become profitable, that’s how they show you growth, that’s how they show their investors growth. No matter what, they’ll start internationally, they also optimize your logistics chain. So, look there.
Ryan Cramer (38:03):
If you’re working with pretty expensive partners, that’s fantastic, or if you’re not optimized entirely, that can be money left on the table, but they’ll look at that, and if they can optimize it, that’s also how they grow quicker. That being said, make sure you have clean books, make sure you pay down your taxes that we talked about earlier, and make sure you’re caught up and pay those authorities if you’re selling internationally, and then also have a plan a year, year and a half out, because it’s a rolling 12 month window that they look at, sometimes even 18 months that they’ll look at, but most times it’ll be the 12 month window. If they can be profitable, they’ll give you that multiple, anywhere from two to 4% of your business, both inventory as well as your revenue year over year.
Liz Downing (38:51):
Awesome advice. Do you recommend DDP versus DDU prepaid duties, and is one preferred by customers over the other?
Ryan Cramer (39:00):
So, the first part was, do I prefer one versus the other? What were the-
Liz Downing (39:05):
No. Do you recommend DDP versus DDU, prepaid duties? So, delivery duty paid or delivery duty unpaid.
Ryan Cramer (39:20):
I’ve heard the pros and cons of both. So, what that is, is do you pay your duties of your goods upfront or do you pay it when they’re sold, or when it’s up front versus when it’s delivered import? Best practice would be upon delivery, in my mind, just because if there’s discrepancies at the port or if your goods are delayed… it depends on how cash fluid you are, if that makes sense, to the person who asked, just because as a person, you don’t want your money to be out if you’re allowed to pay it upon delivery, and that way, you pay upfront in the expectation when they do arrive, not the right goods are there or you have problems at port, that’s just money out of your pocket that you can use later on. So, it depends on how cash fluid you are. I would probably say upon delivery, that would be my thoughts.
Liz Downing (40:19):
Okay. My brand started selling in Canada but didn’t collect taxes for the last year and a half. Do I need to figure out the amount owed and write a big check?
Ryan Cramer (40:28):
Yes, you will.
Liz Downing (40:29):
Sorry, Andy.
Ryan Cramer (40:33):
Yeah. So, this is the troubling thing, and it’s not your fault. A lot of people just don’t understand the tax and regulations in Canada, GST. You can retroactively go pay this back. It’s like the IRS. If you don’t pay your taxes for so many years, they will eventually find you, or they will shut down your listing, or they will ask you for a big check, but you do owe for selling goods in Canada, you do owe a tax, so you do owe that.
Ryan Cramer (41:06):
This is what we found as good advice. If you work with a tax professional, a quality one, even the highest end one, they’re going to make sure that you’re up to date, and if it’s $1,000 a year as an Amazon seller, making sure that you’re compliant in all these different regulated marketplaces versus you trying to figure it out yourself, you not paying your taxes for a year and a half, and maybe you get shut down, the revenue loss versus that $1,000 that you’re working with an AVASK or an entity like that when you start growing your brand internationally, that savings, by far and away, it’s easier to work with an accountant versus you trying to figure it out, your time, money, effort.
Ryan Cramer (41:45):
Again, when one outweighs the other significantly, go with the one that’s going to save you those three core things; time, money, and effort. So, I would reach out to them, tell them what’s up, say, “This is where I’m struggling with. Help me. How do I figure this out? How do you guys get me compliant again?”
Liz Downing (42:03):
Awesome. So, if you’re based in the USA with an LLC and want to send goods to an FBA warehouse in Canada, you should use the North American Remote Fulfillment Program, right?
Ryan Cramer (42:17):
That is a program that you can dip your toe. This is like the halfway point. Dip your toes into it. It still has to be accepted by Amazon. It’s a program that’s kind of hidden in between the sheets of their program.
Liz Downing (42:29):
But do we have to enabled to do Mexico too?
Ryan Cramer (42:30):
Yes. North America, you would have to fulfill to Mexico as well. It’s not like one or the other.
Liz Downing (42:36):
You need to be able to do Mexico and Canada, so have a .mx account and a .ca account.
Ryan Cramer (42:42):
Yeah.
Liz Downing (42:43):
And is NARF invite only program or can anybody-
Ryan Cramer (42:50):
It was invite only and they said that they’re going to start opening up. What I’ll do… let me find the resources.
Liz Downing (42:56):
Well, I’ve got the Seller Central page up, and you can-
Ryan Cramer (43:00):
You can apply for it.
Liz Downing (43:01):
Yeah. So, let me pop this link in. This is the help page on the North American Remote Fulfillment Program.
Ryan Cramer (43:09):
And also put in the link, if you’re growing in the UK and the EU, I have fantastic… The global ecommerce experts there that we are partners with, they are helping United States sellers grow in the UK and EU separately, but they know regulations and whatnot. They will help you and align with you make sure that you guys are aligned, and it can go over all the regulations and whatnot easily and effectively. That’s what they’re great at, so go ahead and check them out as well.
Liz Downing (43:41):
I’m having trouble setting it to Seller Central, but if you go to that last page I sent you and you scroll about halfway down to the page, it says how to enroll, and it’ll take you to the page where you can enroll. I don’t know why I can’t get into Seller Central right now.
Ryan Cramer (43:55):
Yeah. So, it’s really cool. The cool thing about that program, guys, is you will still get the same prime fulfilled badges, your goods just will get to Canada in seven days. That’s Amazon’s thing, that’s not your thing. So, that’s the one thing you maybe want to look out for, is Amazon does a good job to say this is expectations, but depending on where the goods are located and when they will get delivered, but it still gives you the prime badge, which is fantastic. It’s just delivered it will be delayed like seven days or so. It depends on the part of Canada or Mexico that they’re being shipped to and where in the United States it’s fulfilling from, so more often than not, though, it allows you to dip your toes into those international markets, use your FBA inventory, so it’s all talking to the same warehouse, same solutions on the back end. You’re not fulfilling from your own warehouse, you don’t have to put in manual numbers. But allows you to dip your toes into growing internationally.
Ryan Cramer (44:50):
So, instead, if you say like, “Hey, Canada is pretty popping for me right now, I’m going to start throwing 1,000 units directly to FBA warehousing in Canada.” Boom, done. Instead of taking your inventory from North America and fulfilling it to different locations, now it has its own dedicated inventory. But it’s like the halfway point of dipping your toes internationally and see if it’s a good opportunity. The only difference would be, again, the shipping times, if customers are like, “I haven’t received my widget yet,” that would be the only potential thing, but Amazon’s really good at getting you your goods instantaneously and they tell you, on the user end, I should say, pretty good on terms of expectations when you should expect it.
Liz Downing (45:34):
I love this question. Is it better to register for multiple marketplaces at once or focus on one marketplace at a time to make sure each one is getting registered correctly and that you’re getting your listings right and all that kind of stuff?
Ryan Cramer (45:44):
If you plan on going into those marketplaces, sign up now. Click Sign up now.
Liz Downing (45:49):
So, just do it across the board, do everything all at the same time?
Ryan Cramer (45:52):
Well, this is the thing. Amazon’s continuing to innovate and grow. It depends on actually where you want to grow. Don’t just go register in the UAE if you’re never going to sell in the UAE. Well, again, with different requirements for different countries with brand registrations, you being first to market, if you have the bandwidth and you’re looking to grow internationally, absolutely. Start in those top marketplaces and start looking how you can start diversifying yourself and standing out in those marketplaces. You can go right now into amazon.au, you can search for that right now, and you can actually go and search your brands, just one-off. If you have tools like Helium 10 or other tools, you can look at those marketplaces and see how you’d fare in terms of just competition in general.
Ryan Cramer (46:47):
I’m familiar with Viral Launch, so my background is obviously market intelligence, data and analytics. Use tools to help verify products and whatnot to make sure that if you are selling there and there’s competition not happening in Australia, of course, I’m going to start laying that up there. So, then once you start building up all these different marketplaces, you can start looking individually like which ones are easy wins for me right now? Australia, perfect. A little more competition in Germany. Maybe I’ll put that in the back of the line until I really figure out how to localize, how to really stand out, build out my brand and whatnot, and then really kind of take it from there. The low hanging fruit, go after those first. Does that make sense?
Liz Downing (47:35):
That makes sense. So, we’ve got some people freaking out about taxes.
Ryan Cramer (47:41):
Hey, it’s tax season. We’re all freaking out about this. I’m not a tax professional, so again-
Liz Downing (47:46):
Nor am I.
Ryan Cramer (47:48):
… for all the advice I give you, this is what I understand as an ecommerce business service and also from what I understand from other sellers as well. But I will answer your questions to the best of my capability, and if I don’t know, I’m going to refer you to a tax professional. Just take [crosstalk 00:48:08].
Liz Downing (48:07):
But you do know that Amazon does not collect and remit all duties and taxes for you?
Ryan Cramer (48:13):
Yeah. If they do, they will give you a voucher program. It’s like a voucher program in how it’s set up, and you can distinguish that, however you want to pay. Again, that’s all cash fluidity in terms of if you pay then or if you pay every time a good is sold. Again, go to your AVASK, go to a tax professional and say what’s the best way for you to get signed up for taxing purposes in those entities, in those marketplaces, and they will tell you the pros and cons to both. That’s how I understand. And again, with Brexit, it’s changed a little bit in what they require you to do, what’s subject to VAT, because they lower the threshold, it’s like 15 pounds. Every good that’s sold about 15 pounds is subject to VAT. And then, obviously, logistics in terms of inbound goods are subject to regulations and whatnot to each marketplace.
Ryan Cramer (49:08):
So, again, just ask the questions, I would say, to an AVASK. They have resources on their websites that are fantastic. Again, the money that you spend with a tax professional… You don’t have to educate the waters is above and beyond what you can do by going on webinars like this. But doing those, there are different ways to pay out your authorities.
Liz Downing (49:31):
I’m going to put a link to AVASK in here for you folks, and you can tell them that we sent you.
Ryan Cramer (49:38):
Do it.
Liz Downing (49:39):
Yeah, totally.
Ryan Cramer (49:39):
Say Liz and Ryan sent you, and if it’s from a partnership perspective, they should have a nice signup program or a coupon or something like that for you guys through Liz and her team.
Liz Downing (49:58):
And I can tell you people to talk to too. So, Ryan, what is PingPong-ing?
Ryan Cramer (50:06):
What’s PingPong-ing?
Liz Downing (50:07):
Yeah, somebody asked.
Ryan Cramer (50:08):
Is that a bird?
Liz Downing (50:09):
Yeah, I guess. I think they want to know why your company is named PingPong?
Ryan Cramer (50:15):
Yeah, good question. We are not a table tennis company, we did not start selling table tennis online. So, if you think about the table tennis game, you have a net just like tennis in general, you have the back and forth. Because we’re a cross-border payment solution, you’re sending and receiving money back and forth across different country lines, in theory, quickly and effectively, thus the name ping pong. That’s very simple. I would change the name if I could. I wouldn’t have said PingPong is our company name, but I’m just an employee. I joined five years later. In theory, it’s across the net, across the borders, payment across. It’s nothing too sexy or anything. We didn’t steal like Amazon’s name and put it into our company service or anything like that, so I’d give us points for creativity in some capacity, it just doesn’t translate all the time.
Liz Downing (51:11):
AVASK supports international marketplaces, it’s not just the UK.
Ryan Cramer (51:15):
100%, yes.
Liz Downing (51:16):
They’re based in the UK but they support all international.
Ryan Cramer (51:19):
100%. Yeah, they’re fantastic.
Liz Downing (51:21):
That was a question there. So, in the last nine minutes here, in case anybody else has questions, and you guys can just pop them right in there, we will answer them, but let’s talk a little bit about specific challenges and the main questions and objections you get in terms of… What should people look out for? So, they’re launching, they’re optimizing their listings, they’re translating their listings, royalty translations, by the way, but now it’s time to actually get paid, right? So, how does it work when you work with PingPong?
Ryan Cramer (52:08):
Yeah, good question. So, Amazon’s on a very tight ship in terms of paying out their employees, right? Every two weeks, every Friday, it’s payday if you’re an employee, you get paid out your profits. At the end of the day, you can go into Seller Central account, like, “Oh, Amazon took out a referral fee, they took out my FBA free, they took out all these other fees and stuff like that,” but at the end of the day, you do make money.
Ryan Cramer (52:35):
So, what they would do, if you’re selling in the international marketplace, you have onboarded and put in your bank account information, of course, that makes sense, but what Amazon will do, they won’t line item it, they will convert the funds for you through their own program and they will convert those funds to your local bank account. And they know this because the information you put in is where they’ll know what currency to convert it back to.
Ryan Cramer (53:00):
So, if I give them a US bank account, they’re going to know, “Oh, convert it to USD.” But they do that is because Amazon’s so big and for non bank or a bank in general, any financial company, they hate making small transact- no offense to the seller, they hate making small transfers and conversions for a couple of reasons. No offense to you. You’re not big enough for them to care for them to make transactions, and for them to spend their time to convert that funds over and put it into another bank account, a small value like that… again, this could be like hundreds of thousands of dollars, not big in the eyes of a bank, trust me.
Ryan Cramer (53:38):
To convert it and spend the time, and money, and effort, they will charge you a fee just for the convenience of it. And that’s what first to market always is, right? For the convenience of our services, for us to innovate for you and do this for you, we will charge you whatever we want. But that’s where we come up and kind of clean up and help other people save more monies, because instead of them paying out like your bank… And you can’t go to a bank and say like, “Oh, you aren’t my only option.” They say they’re the only option to help you out, you kind of have to go with them and you have to pay those fees. Now you have options. So, that’s where we come in.
Ryan Cramer (54:11):
We actually have partnerships with tier one banks where you open an account with us, you’re actually getting a digital bank account with PingPong through Citi, Chase, Wells Fargo, HSBC. You say one of the top 10 banks in the world, we’re probably working with them, more often than not. But we actually are opening up a digital bank account on your behalf instead of you going in person to open that up. What’s different with us, and if you’re selling on international marketplaces, you just put in that receiving account. Again, you can have up to 10 different currencies with us. The USD, the Canadian Dollar, Mexican peso, the pound, the Euro, the AED, which is the United Emirates dollar, the Australian dollar, the Japanese yen, Hong Kong dollar, Singapore dollar. I think I hit all of them.
Liz Downing (55:01):
Good job.
Ryan Cramer (55:02):
So, top 10 currencies in the world. [crosstalk 00:55:05] see off the top my head. I do this for a living. So, those 10, you can actually receive funds in and hold onto it instead of like, for example, if I get 10,000 pounds. Anytime money converts, no matter if it’s a bank or an ecosystem, anytime it converts from one currency to another, you get charged a fee. And that’s the same thing with us, but banks do it on a three to 5% up charge essentially, when you convert it from one to the other, on top of whatever rate they’re giving you. Our rates are real-time, so you can see what the value of the transaction is going to be with the currency rate is.
Ryan Cramer (55:38):
And then also, we never charge you more than 1% for converting your fees in our ecosystem. So, you can receive as much money as you want in a UK bank account that we set up for you, you can receive as much as you want, and you will never get charged until you convert that over to a different currency. So, once you do charge it over, it depends on how much you actually do, but that fee, basically, we charge you for conversion goes down drastically.
Ryan Cramer (56:04):
So, if you do $10,000 a month in receiving or sending, it goes down to 0.85%, and that goes down even further if you’re doing more money. So, the more you work with us, the more money you actually do save, so it’s actually a benefit. The reason why we have such a low rate is because we have these direct partnerships and we do so much transactions internationally. We only help ecommerce sellers. You can’t use us to pay out your buddy or your friend for pizza. That’s impossible. We don’t do that. We help businesses and ecommerce businesses, not just on Amazon, but you can use us for your accounts on Shopify, you can use us if you’re in Rakuten, or WooCommerce or wherever around the world, you can have it all in one local hub, and you can see all the comings and goings of your funds.
Ryan Cramer (56:47):
That being said, it allows people to save more money holistically. You just put in that bank account that we open for you instead of your natural bank account. We have tips that allow you to do it without getting flagged by Amazon and shutting down your marketplace. So, that’s what we specialize in, is ecommerce and helping businesses save more money.
Liz Downing (57:11):
Awesome. We have a question for me, so I’m going to do that real quick.
Ryan Cramer (57:14):
Yeah, do it.
Liz Downing (57:16):
So, Eric asks, we are currently fulfilling in multiple markets, USA, UK, EU, Australia. I’ve noticed that there are not as many advertising options that I have in the US. Do y’all have any idea of when advertising platforms will mature in the other markets?
Liz Downing (57:31):
So, I asked David Hassler, who’s a team member here, and he says that the US is really a blueprint for every other marketplace, so if it’s released on beta here, there’s a good chance it will make its way to any of the marketplaces soon. So, the answer is soon. Ads will mature soon, but an ad product will roll out based on market size. So, those top ones that Ryan was talking about obviously are going to move faster than the smaller marketplaces. But he also said that the fast movers in any of these marketplaces are able to capitalize on relatively low CPCs, so the lack of maturity shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as a negative, because there’s plenty of upside, even with basic forms of advertising, because you have an advantage over the competition. So, soon, they will be more mature, there’ll be more ad options in other marketplaces, but for now, the ones that you have should perform for you relatively or spectacularly well, depending on how you’re managing your advertising, and we can help with that if you want.
Ryan Cramer (58:41):
Of course, absolutely. That’s why we’re here.
Liz Downing (58:45):
Well, Ryan, we are right at the top of the hour. It’s one minute till. Thank you to a super engaged, super intelligent, very inquisitive audience. If you’ve got additional questions for us, I will supply a way to get ahold of Ryan in the email that will come from me with the recording, with the recap. So, that’s all coming out to you guys tomorrow. Thanks for joining us, and we’ll see you next time, and big thanks to Ryan Cramer from PingPong.
Ryan Cramer (59:11):
Thanks, guys.
