Panicking about tariffs on Chinese imports? Think twice before abandoning your suppliers. In this eye-opening conversation with sourcing expert Omer Sasson, Matt Edmundson cuts through the noise surrounding the recent tariff announcements that have sent many eCommerce businesses into crisis mode. Drawing on a decade of experience across Asian markets, Omer reveals why hasty decisions often cause more damage than the tariffs themselves, which countries truly offer viable alternatives, and when China still makes financial sense—even with added costs. You'll discover practical strategies for building a tariff-resistant business, why product uniqueness trumps cheap sourcing, and how to avoid the costly mistakes other brands made during similar disruptions. Whether you're doing £20k or £2M in revenue, this no-nonsense guide offers the clarity you need to navigate these challenging waters.

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What You'll Learn:

• Why rushing away from Chinese suppliers often backfires (and what COVID taught us about panic-driven decisions)
• The surprising math behind tariffs and when China remains your best option despite the costs
• Alternative Asian markets worth exploring (Japan, Korea, Vietnam, India) and their unique strengths
• How to develop products that stand apart from competition, creating what Omer calls "heaven time"
• The cultural misunderstandings that sabotage Western-Asian business relationships

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Links

Episode with Norm Farrar:

• Can you massively increase perceived value or is it just American Hype? with Norm

Omer Sasson:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/om...
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/omer...
• Website: https://thesassoncompany.com/

Matt Edmundson:

• Instagram: Matt Edmundson (@mattedmundson)
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mattedmundson

eCommerce Podcast:

• Homepage - Ecommerce Podcast

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If this episode of the eCommerce Podcast piqued your interest make sure to check out everything that gets done over here on the eCommerce Podcast, a space dedicated to eCommerce Wow!

Well, hello, I'm Matt Edmundson and you are listening to

the E commerce podcast. You know what? Since 2002, really long

time, I've been building, selling and yes, occasionally failing

at online business. I love creating unique equity partnerships

with e commerce brands and helping them grow from where they

are to where they want to be. That's what I do now on a day to

day basis. So I want to learn about e commerce as much as you and

to do that every week I get to chat with great guests just like

Omer. I'm a to have you on the show, man. Tell us a little bit about

yourself, where you're from, what you do and all that good stuff.

Thank you for having me. My name is Omer, originally from Israel,

and for the past decade I'm in Asia. I cannot believe I'm saying

a decade. I sound so old.

You sound old. I've been doing e Commerce since 2002. That makes

me feel really old.

Yeah, it's older, I have to say.

Brilliant. So yeah, for the past decade you've been living in

Asia.

So it started by traveling and long story short, I help brands to

source profitable products from Asia, China, Vietnam, India,

Japan and many other countries. We help in all the process

of supplier finding, sourcing, quality control. Yeah.

Wow, that sounds like fun. I mean, how, if I can ask, how old

were you when you started traveling to Asia? Did you sort of

have the travel bug, sort of fresh out of uni and then you just

kind of got caught in it?

So I've never been in university beside learning Chinese

in the university in China, but I was, I think I was 23 years

old, I'm not sure. And I've been backpacking in Asia and actually

when I came back to Israel to prepare for university, I decided

I want to go to China to learn Chinese. And after a year in China,

before I, before I was supposed to come back to Israel to

university, I've. I've been thinking, wait, if I'm already in

China and I know to speak Chinese, do I really need to go back

to university? Or maybe I can just start, you know, grinding and.

Yeah.

Wow, fantastic. I don't come across many people who deliberately

and intentionally learn to speak Chinese. That's quite a unique

form of grit. I have a very good friend of mine, she's like my

adopted sister. She's lovely, she's British, but she's also Chinese

and she tries to teach me Chinese and I fail miserably. So

the fact that you have done that, I think is remarkable. Good

on you for doing that.

Yeah, well, the reason I studied Chinese, so I was thinking,

should I go to learn Chinese or Japanese? And Japan sounds very

expensive. So eventually I decided to go with China. Yeah. And

by the way, I was one of the worst student in the class back then.

Right.

But I think I'm the only one in from my class back then that's

still actually doing business in China. I guess it's all about

practicing.

Yeah, I guess it is. I guess it is, because I. And this is where

I think, you know, when it comes to sourcing products from China

Freecom businesses, I know a few people that seem to have cracked

it in whatever business they're in. But I know that it still

scares a whole bunch of people because it's not just the language,

it's the culture barrier that exist between obviously the west

and the east, between Asia and between, you know, the sort of America's,

Britain's, Australia's type. I mean, Australia and New Zealand are

a little bit unique, aren't they? Because I suppose they're quite

close to Asia. So I think they've understood the culture of

dealing with Asia a lot more. What are some of the things that

you find are quite consistently bad from Western companies

when it comes to understanding Asian culture and get in our heads

around a few key principles before we start trying to source

products from there.

So I guess the worst thing that Western people do is thinking

like Western, you know, so they approach to a Chinese person

or Japanese or whatever. And, and they think that whatever they

will say, the Chinese person will understand it as they would

understand it not not only in like the language, I mean, the meaning,

the subtext. And so this is, I guess the biggest mistake. And, and

because I don't think I can teach someone in one hour or even

one year how to think like a Chinese or Japanese or whatever.

Probably the biggest tip I can give is assume they don't understand

you and you don't understand them. And if this will be your assumption,

you will probably avoid most of the misunderstanding.

Okay, yeah, it sounds remarkably straightforward, Omer,

but I get why you would say that, because I think certainly in

Britain, you know, if we, a general response is if you don't

understand, we'll say the same thing slower and louder because surely

then you'll understand. If I say the same thing slower and louder,

you will understand, which is obviously not the true. And I think

there's, there's a lot to be said for this cross cultural understanding,

which I think you, you miss a lot of the subtleties of how is,

how is it at the moment in terms of trading with Asia? I'm kind

of curious about this because at the time of recording we've had,

you know, the announcement from the Trump administration about

tariffs and we can, you know, political politics aside, I, you

know, there's obviously some issue with international trading

in the States. What's the sort of thinking there, you know, in Asia

with the, with the tariffs And I guess more importantly, if I can

ask you, what are the opportunities there for us as e commerce

entrepreneurs to be thinking about?

Right. So like you said, politics aside, it's going to affect

a lot of businesses and you say Asia but like to be honest, it's

mostly going to impact people that source from China. Not in Asia,

not from Asia in general. And I've been lucky because during COVID

few years back when China, you know, like in one day everything

got locked, locked down like the factories and everything. And

back then I, I remember I got a little bit scared because my old

business was based on China. And back then I decided I'm going

to start learning how to do sourcing from outside of China. Though

it's little bit complex because before this I was living

in China for a few years. I was speaking Chinese and new countries

is totally new things. But back then I decided I'm going to

do this. And now when this whole tariff thing came up for me,

it's actually a big opportunity because I'm, for the

past few years I'm traveling around Japan, Vietnam and other countries

and I know how to source from all of these kind of countries. So

for me it's a big opportunity because all of the customers that

source from China and suddenly got scared and they're looking for

suppliers outside. I can provide it. So for me it's a good

opportunity and I guess that anyone that, that is ready to explore

new country might find some good opportunities in there. But

it's also important not to, you know how to say it, not to do

your next step out of panic because during COVID many, many companies

try to find quickly suppliers outside of China. And then when Vietnam

got locked down China, the Chinese factories were opening. So

we also need to remember that in many cases China are still going

to be the best option. Okay. So like don't force yourself to find

suppliers outside of China, but you do need to explore maybe

the product I'm making in China, I can make it outside of China

better or cheaper or more unique. And if so, you definitely

have to go and look for this opportunity because you can Save

money and you can be the competition. It's really interesting

just to understand like if now menu making the same product in China

and selling it in the USA and I was quick enough to find a supplier

in India that can make the same product in a, in a cheaper price

and we both sent to the USA and I don't have the tariff, I'm

going to earn and make more money than you on the same product.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's interesting you say that because

years ago, I'm going back 2000, 2006, we had a business that

sold from a place called Jersey. Now, Jersey to the Brits

is a small island off the north coast of France. Okay. It's

kind of, it's independently British is the best way. Now, how

to describe Jersey? So Jersey wasn't necessarily subject to the

tax rules that the UK was. And at the time, it's different now,

but at the time there was a VATS advantage. So VAT is sales tax.

So when you shipped products from Jersey with a value, I think

it was less than £20 from memory. If you shipped goods less

than £20 from Jersey to the UK, you didn't have to charge the

customer VAT. Okay. Now, bearing in mind our sales tax is

20%. So still more than the tariffs. Well, maybe about the same

as the tariffs Trump will put on Chinese products. But we had this

tax that we didn't have to pay shipping from Jersey that somebody

from the UK did have, if that makes sense. So we could be 20% cheaper

than our competitors and still make the same profit. And so for,

I think it was probably for about three or four years, maybe

not that long. Maybe, maybe about three or four years, we took

a, we were able to take advantage of this tax differential

and it helped us become much more profitable than our competitors

because we either sold at the same price, made more profit, or

we sold at a cheaper price, still probably made more profit,

but was still cheaper than our competitors. I mean, ethics aside

about, you know, is that a good thing or a bad thing? It's just

a thing in the free market economy. And I kind of feel now with

the tariff situation that Trump is introducing, there is what

I would call a Jersey moment, whereby if, like you say, if you

can source products, the same product, the same quality, etcetera,

but somehow ship that in effect tariff free, you can take

advantage of that. And we created a business of rapid growth

during those years that I don't think we would have been able

to do had we have not had that advantage.

Right. So it's definitely an opportunity. But like I said before

and they want to say again, I don't tell people don't buy from

China now because of the tariff. There are many products.

I think most of the products China probably is still going to

be the most attractive in term of variety and pricing and how quickly

they can make the product. So just to understand, right now I'm

making products in Japan. I'm in Japan at the moment. The lead

time to make product is six months. In China, it would be probably

45 days. So it's not like go away from China. No, it's nothing

like this. And I think if, if you still need to look at the numbers.

Okay. And again, in many cases you will find out China is more attractive

even with the tariff. Even if the, if Trump will increase the tariff

again, China will still be attractive. But I do think it's a

good opportunity for brands to explore countries beside China. Again,

not just because of the tariffs. The tariff should be the

opportunity. There are different qualities, more unique

products, maybe customization you can do. So I do think everyone

should explore it, assuming you see yourself in the game for

long term, you know, just for a few months. Because it's a process

that take time.

Yeah, that's true. That's. It's very sage advice, isn't it?

Because, and I love what you said here about learning from COVID

You know, everybody panicked during COVID and you know, so they

went to Vietnam. Vietnam then shut down. And I can see a similar

sort of thing going on here whereby everyone leaves China to

go to Vietnam and then Trump interposes par tariffs on from Vietnam.

You know, he'll just sort of goes from one place. You just don't

know what's going to happen, do you? And so I like that. I mean,

we, the fact that we have that whole thing in quite recent living

memory with COVID means that we should definitely, you know, remember

that and learn from that. Which, which, which makes a lot of

sense. Makes a lot of sense. Omerr. Before we carry on, let me

just take a brief second, everybody listening to the show to

talk to you about something that is happening in both Australia

and New Zealand right now. We have, we have something called Cohort.

You may have heard me talk about this on the show before. Cohort

used to be a paid membership program. It's now, we don't charge

for it. It's just a, it's not even a membership. It's just like

a community, a group. And we are launching Cohort in Australia.

So if you're in the Australia, New Zealand part of the world and

would like to come and meet fellow e commerce entrepreneurs.

We just connect once a month online via Zoom and just chat. How

is it going? How's E commerce, what we all learned and share some

insights and stories. We would love to welcome you to that. Just

reach out to me@ecommercepodcast.net or just reach

out to me on LinkedIn. Go find me on LinkedIn @edmondson and I will

share with you the details. We would love to see you in that. So

yeah, do come and join us in that. Do you get to Australia much

Omerr? New Zealand or is it just you stay Japan, China, that

sort of belt.

So yeah, I've been in the past because I have some customers in

there. Actually I'm going to the UK once in a while. I have customers

in there also but for the past I think it's almost 15 months, 16

months, I'm not sure. I've been only in Asia, like I didn't

have time to go anywhere else.

Oh wow. Wow. Beautiful, beautiful people, beautiful food

in a beautiful part of the world.

Beautiful food, yeah, good food. This is the important part.

This is why I do this business, you know. Well, one long

time ago I had a friend that told me the reason you do business

in China is to finance your trips to Japan. And it's true. So

now, now I, I've been upgraded and now I also do business in Japan.

So I can food in Japan.

Fantastic. On that topic, you know, of the multiple different countries

in Asia and Japan is still on my bucket list. I'm not going to

lie. I've not managed to make it yet. But I, I've been to Malaysia,

I've been to Singapore, I've done a whole bunch of them. I've

not actually made it as far as Japan, but I will be there at some

point. The default thinking is still, I think for a lot of e commerce

entrepreneurs I need a product, I need it cheaper. So therefore

I need to source it from China. And like you said, most of

the time that makes a lot of sense. What are some of the countries

that people aren't thinking about that maybe we should, you know,

should we be thinking about say Thailand or Vietnam? If it's

clothing, should. Where are some of the other sort of the good

places to go to in Asia that we're perhaps not thinking about?

So I'll give a quick brief for some of the main countries. Okay,

so I will start with Japan and Japan is not going to be cheap at

any Rate. But in Japan, you might be able to make unique products

that no other country can make. And to me, with my experience,

I think that making a unique and good product can be sometimes

much more valuable than making cheaper product. So this is for Japan.

Korea is a cosmetics empire. So if you want to make a good cosmetic

brand, it's the right place. Yeah. Vietnam textile, plastic, some

metals and wood and bamboo. But Vietnam is a place for mass production.

So many products in China you need MOQ of 1,000 pieces minimum.

Other quantity in Vietnam, you're gonna need 5,000 pieces.

Okay.

Thailand, I have to say, and I've been in many factories in Thailand,

they can do some textile and stuff. But I still couldn't find

any, like, actual advantage in making products in Thailand because

every time when I compared it in China, China was better.

Right.

And India, it's definitely something people should look at a

wood product, electronics and other products. But again, each country

like this come with a whole lot of business culture and things

that are different from China. So just for example, production time

in India, it's kind of like they are giving you the time and

you hope it's going to be anywhere around this time. This is

just for example. So each country have some advantages and

opportunities and unique products. But I know I'm repeating

because I think it's the most important part. Eventually people

need to look for the best supplier that can provide the best

product in the best price. I don't think you should be looking

into a country, you should be looking into a supplier. And if you

find a supplier in China or Vietnam or India, go for it.

Yeah, yeah. No, again, sage advice. It's. It makes a lot of sense,

doesn't it? But. And I can see why businesses like yours, I might

do well, because I would look at that and I would go, I have no

idea. I have no idea about the culture. I have no idea about the

language. I don't know if I'm going to get ripped off. Like, am

I just pouring money into a black hole? Will the quality of the

product be good? I suppose one thing that I would, a big question

I would have in my head about dealing with China and we do deal

with Asia. I have to be honest with you. One of the big questions

always in the back of my head is to do rightly or wrongly is the

connection with child slave labor. Like, is there openness? Is

there transparent? How do I know what's going on in that factory?

How do I know they're not going to take my idea and copy it?

So there's a lot of, there's a lot of hurdles I have to overcome

before I think about getting manufacturing in China. Am I weird

or is that true for a lot of people? Are they sort of similar

barriers?

I think everybody think about these things now. I guess for child

abuse and slavery and stuff, it's very easy to check this stuff.

Like you can do factory audit and very quickly you can know who

is working in the factory, how many hours. And so there is a very

quick and easy solution for this, for copying your ideas. I have

to tell you that I think I stopped thinking about this long

ago because I do sourcing. But many times I also develop the products

and then suggest to my customers, which are companies and

brands. And I have to tell you that this is something I learned

actually from some big companies in the uk, very big ones,

I cannot say their name, but they don't spend a moment about thinking

if the Chinese supplier will copy them. They just keep innovating

and thinking about the next product. And yes, sometimes the Chinese

copy them. Yeah, it's happened. But you know, also your

competitor can copy you. Right. So I don't think it's the

right thing to spend time on will he copy me? And if it's really

important for you, do the patent or trademark or whatever.

But I believe that it's much better to, if you have an idea, find

the best supplier, push the product to the market as fast as

possible and hope that you will do good enough job, that even

if somebody will copy you, everyone will feel he is the copy

and you are the original.

Yeah, well, again, wise advice. I think that's true for I

think whether you order from China or whether you don't. Right.

Your competitors in fact are going to be copying you and you've

always got to think, push and innovate and so on and so forth.

It makes a lot of sense to do that. And if you're not doing that,

I think you've got some fundamental problems. Anyway, what

products do you see working well at the moment? What products

are coming out of Asia that actually starting to sell well online?

Because I know fidget spinners don't have the kudos that they, they

once had, for example. But what are some of the things that

are working.

Well? To me, I feel that because there are much more competition

now compared to before. Like every year you have more and more

E commerce sellers. Right. It doesn't matter on Amazon, Shopify,

whatever platform it is, I feel you have to be. It's not about

like what specific Products, you just have to be much more unique

these days to succeed. Like unless you have a lot of money, you

know, and you can really spend a lot on ads and then you don't have

to be unique because you have eyeballs on your product, but you

have, but if not, you need much better quality products or much

cheaper or much cheaper price on the product. And both things are

hard to get. Like if you, if every, if everybody got this, a certain

price and you want to be able to sell it in much cheaper price

and still to make money, it's going to be really hard to find the

right supplier. And if you want to be able to make much more

unique or special quality compared to other, it's also going

to be very hard. So I feel the time you need to spend today on finding

the right supplier and making the product in the right way, because

it's not only finding the supplier. Like you can find many

good supplier and they're going to make shitty quality. You

need to know how to do the quality control and stuff. I think

this is the way, I know it's not exactly what you asked, but this

is the way to be different and succeed. Because I don't think I

can point on a specific product and tell you, oh, now there

is this kind of textile or this kind of watch that. Because

every product that come out now with tick tock and everything,

after three months you're gonna see it everywhere.

Yep. Yeah, yeah. I love, I love this comment about, you know,

make it unique. That really resonates in the sense that I, for

a while, I don't see as much now, but for a while you came across

people who would try and sell the same product everybody else was

trying to sell out of China. Usually you go to some site like

Temu or Aliexpress or something like that and you would

buy a product, pick any random product, I don't know the plastic

widgets, and you would go, well, they cost 10 cents to make

and I can sell them for three bucks. Well, why would I not try

and sell those? But there was nothing unique about the, either

the product or the way that they were trying to sell it. And

everything was bland. It was like they just gone and got the same

template from Shopify and copied it like 10,000 other people

did and just use the same text that 10,000 other people did. And

there was nothing about them, there was nothing about their brand,

their voice, you know, their uniqueness, like that type of thing.

And it's interesting you say that because I think and it's not

just with products from, from Asia. I think it's just with e commerce

sites, full stop. There has to be something really unique about

that that differentiates you from Amazon, that differentiates

you from all the other commodities out there in, in the

world. And that enables you to really stand out in the consumer's

mind. And so it's interesting that you've, you've noticed that

as well, you know, with products coming over from China.

So it's not a definitive. Well, the fidget spinner has now

been replaced by the spinning fidget. I don't know. But it's, it's

more a case of actually whatever you do do something unique

and I, I really like that. How can you make and I'm assuming on,

on that then Omer that actually the factories in China,

in Vietnam or wherever, they are quite keen to work with you to

help you put your unique flavor and taste on it.

So it depends because the Chinese, the Chinese, they just want

to sell, they just want the cash and many times they will just

put you oh, these products sell very good buy this. They just

want the cash. Many times they don't think long term. This is specifically

for the Chinese. So I think it's actually, I really think you

need to understand it's your responsibility as a buyer to try

to come up with the unique thing. Don't ask the supplier how

can I make this more unique? And there are many people who ask

this. I will even say more. If you go to one of the trade shows

in China for example, and you will go to, you will ask the Chinese

supplier, why should I buy from you? Most of them will give

you the same answer because of our quality and price. Now most of

them going to say the same thing. So you just understand all

the pricing are the same, all the quality are the same. There is

nothing unique about this. Like for me, for the brands I'm working

with, our way to make it unique is really to take a product

and existing product and develop a much better, better product.

And when this is what you do and it takes a lot of time, it takes

a lot of time. It takes time to find the right supplier. You need

to make sample and again and again. But when you do it, you are

really unique. And by the way, you don't need to be worried about

somebody copy you because when you actually develop a product it's

really hard to copy you. And even if somebody succeed to copy

you, it's gonna take him about six months or one year just to get

to the same quality or the same design. So for me, I think trying

to invest more in product development is the right way to be

unique these days. Of course there are more ways. Sometimes you

can be unique just by giving a great customer service. But I think

I assume that most of the listener here are not huge companies,

huge corporation that have the money to invest in great customer

service or a lot of paid ads and stuff. So sometime if you're

going to take the extra two or three months to develop the product,

little bit more to make it to be more unique, once you launch it,

you're going to have much more heaven time. I think there is a phrase

like this in Amazon that they promote you. So it's the same like

you're going to develop a product and you're going to have

longer time that nobody can compete with you and you're probably

going to be able to sell your price in your product in higher price

because it's the only product in the market. Is it have this specific

design or feature or whatever?

Yeah, no, I love it. Love that. I love that phrase, heaven

time. I think that's a great phrase. So it's your responsibility

then as the founder, the owner of the business to make sure that

the product development is done right and done well. A quick

shout out to the episode I did with Norm Farrar. He talks about

how he does this for his process, how he improves a product,

actually he takes a standard product and how he makes it better.

If you want to go check that out, just go onto the website ecommercepodcast.net

search for the episode with Norm, who is a great guy. And you'll

enjoy that episode. I have no doubt whatsoever. I'm curious, right?

There's people going to be listening to the show that is getting

started in E. Com. There are people like me that have been around

a little while. You know, you've got a wide range of listeners.

One of the questions I can hear, you know, the people asking,

I try and think about the questions that maybe listeners would

ask if they were sat here. What are the advantages maybe of

giving you a call and using you to help me with this problem

versus trying to do it myself versus the costs. I mean, everyone's

always, you know, concerned about money and costs and things

like that. So there's going to be a. What we like to call in economic

terms, a cost benefit analysis is the official term. I think so

I'm curious, how would you answer that question?

Right. So I would say that my average customer makes at least 1

million annually and at least this is really the minimum. And I

say this because maybe in some cases it's not the best decision

to work with somebody like this. Like if you're a beginner and

you know you have a very small budget, do it yourself. I try to

post some content on YouTube and Instagram and LinkedIn. You can

watch, you can learn. Do it yourself. I think you should work

with company like me and with a person like me when, number one,

you have time constraint, like you're a big company and time is

more important than money and I can save you a lot of time. Or

when you're trying to make something unique that you probably

don't have the skill to make by yourself, I think you should work

with me if you need the results. And it's not just about

the budget. I do think, and I really say this, that if you're in

the phase where, in the phase in your business, that budget is

the most important thing. There are many things you can do

by yourself. You don't have to pay for everything. Right. Most of

the business owners in the, in the beginning, they probably going

to do the marketing by themselves. It's all good. Later

when they will grow, they will probably pay to a company to do it.

So I think it's kind of the same here.

Yeah, yeah, very, very, very sensible, sensible approach. So really

the cutoff then is about a million turnover. So if you're doing

a million a year as a bare minimum, then you can think like

you say, if time is important to you, then, you know, give Omerr

a ring. I think it's a big. You say you've put out content to

help someone who's just starting out to do it themselves

on your YouTube channel and so on and so forth. We will of course

have the links to that, hopefully. Omerr in the show notes,

if we've done our job correctly and you can obviously go

and watch those to your heart's content, which, which would

be great. So let me sort of bring this, bring this background

a little bit. We're talking to you. We've got a unique product.

We're sourcing it from somewhere in Asia to sell in our

country, obviously keeping an eye on things like tariffs and so

on stuff. I mean, to be fair, you know, the tariffs effect that

the U.S. they don't. We. It doesn't really affect me in the uk,

you know, we, we have our trade agreements with China. I don't

see Keir Starman changing those at any point in the near future.

So it's. I think I, I appreciate that. It's more a US issue.

Where do you think it's all going Omerr, over the next five years,

what's your sort of prediction for the west dealing with the east

in terms of supply of these types of products? Are we still going

to be doing it because it's cheaper or better or higher quality?

Do you, do you see the roadmap of development in Asia and think

actually it's still a pretty safe bet? I'm kind of curious where

you see it all going.

Well, I need to be honest because I'm not. I am like keeping

an eye on the future but I try not to make assumptions that based

on nothing basically because so I do try to look at processes

that already happening and I can only assume probably going to

keep happen. So for example, the distance between the end user

to the factory going to get shorter and this is a process that

already happening. Like in the past six years ago, a customer in

the USA end user in the USA would be buying from the shop, that

would be buy from the distributor, that will be buying

from the importer, buy from a trading company in China that would

buy from a factory and this distance already got shortened shorter.

Okay. So I guess this process is going to keep going and I see

more and more factories starting to sell to the end user,

which is a bad news for probably most of the businesses because

if you are an Amazon seller or an E Commerce seller and right now

you buy from a factory and you sell to the end user and the factory

going to start sell directly to the end user, you might have a

problem. So this is something that's already happening and I can

only assume it's going to keep happening. And so I think this is

one thing people really should focus on and just I'm getting back

to what I said before. Make a unique product, develop a product.

Because if you are, if you make your own product, it doesn't

matter if a factory going to sell directly to the end user, it's

your product. But if you just buy and sell, you know, like regular

stock, the normal items that everybody can buy, you're going to

have a problem. I think.

Yeah, that's fascinating and I get it and I why would factories

not sell direct to consumer? Right. We see it all the time over

here in this country, so why would they not? I think there's still

going to be an opportunity for people like me to bridge the culture

gap, if you see what I mean in the sense that going back to what

we said at the start of the show, I think a few Companies like

banggood and TEMU have managed to make it so that I actually feel

kind of confident buying a product off their website. But I

think there's always going to be that uncertainty where if I could

get the same product from a local website, would I be more likely

to buy. It's an interesting question, isn't it, about sort of

world economics and where it's all going. But I'm intrigued by that.

I'm a listen. This is the part of the show, good sir, where I ask

you for a question for me. So this is where I've been doing this

for a little while. If you're new to the show, welcome, by the

way, it's great to have you. But for a while I've been saying

to my guests, can you please give me a question which I will then

go and answer on LinkedIn? I will put the answer to this question

on LinkedIn. But Omer, what's your question for me?

So you've been probably dealing with suppliers in Asia and

China specifically for a while, because you do it for many

years. Tell me, what was your biggest disaster, if there was any.

Working with a Chinese supplier.

Biggest disaster working with a Chinese supplier. Very good, very

good. Well, I will answer that question on LinkedIn and if I remember,

I'll also tell you my biggest disaster working with an American

supplier. That was much more. That was much bigger, actually, which

is ironic. But yeah, I will. I will be posting the answer to that

question on LinkedIn, if you don't follow me already. Come follow

me. LinkedIn Madmanson. But I'm a listen. Really appreciate you

man. Appreciate you coming on and sharing the insights and thoughts

that you have and your expertise about the whole thing.

If people do want to reach out to you, if they've got maybe more

questions, looking for a little bit more advice. Maybe I've

not asked the question that they wanted answering, but they're

burning to ask it anyway. Or maybe they want to work with you.

What's the best way to reach out? What's the best way to connect?

Can DM me on Instagram or LinkedIn and we can schedule a quick

call.

Fantastic. And of course, we will put those links to your Instagram

and to your LinkedIn in the show notes, which you can get along

for free. Get along for free, along with the transcripts, the show

notes and all that sort of stuff for free on the website ecommercepodcast.net

of course, you can just scroll down in your podcast player and the

links will be in there. We'll put the links in the YouTube description

if you're watching this on YouTube as well. But do reach out

to Omerr. I'm sure sure he would love to hear from you. I'm

a listen man, really, like I say, really appreciate it. It genuinely

great. Loved every minute on it of it. Thank you for coming on

and share. I've learned a lot actually. I've got some notes here.

I've got some questions for our team as well, which is always

good. But thanks for coming on man. Genuinely really appreciate

it.

Thank you for having me. Thank you for your time.