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How Importers From Asia Can Build Better Systems & Processes

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How Importers From Asia Can Build Better Systems & Processes

E-commerce expert and host of the popular ‘The Seller Process’ podcast, Gianmarco Meli, shares his advice for SMEs who import products from Asia about building better systems and processes for your company if you’re selling online via e-commerce and want to improve supplier relationships and increase your company’s success.

 

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Listen to the audio here.

 

When an importer starts up with e-commerce, what to work on (and optimize/systematize) first?

You need to systematize your business so SOPs that may only exist in your mind get transferred into tangible documents (including videos and graphics) so you have an order of doing things and a reference point for the rest of your team about how things should be done.

Follow these steps in order to systematize your business:

Become aware of how you spend your time – use a time and task-tracking tool where you put your daily activities into a table over a week or more and you will see how well or badly you use your time.

Start categorizing the tasks into eliminate, delegate, automate, or optimize lists and you’ll have more control. Some tasks may not be necessary, so eliminate those to save time and effort. If certain tasks can be automated using tools, this is the way to go in many cases for a new e-commerce seller. Tasks that can’t be automated may be able to be delegated to a team member like a PA. Other tasks that can’t be passed to a team member can be optimized to make it faster and easier for you.

The more you iterate this process, the more smoothly your business will run, so adopt a continuous improvement mindset. (04:19)

 

Tips for systematizing and improving processes.

Create a matrix which has frequency and average time on either end, so you can organize how often you do tasks and how much time they take. Regular time-consuming tasks are the priorities to tackle by optimizing, delegating, or automating.

Simple repetitive tasks are good candidates to delegate, maybe to a virtual PA in a low-cost area, as you can pass on your knowledge to them and claim back time that you can spend on more critical tasks that create value in the company.

Pinpoint tasks that you dislike or are not good at doing as you will find these draining. These are also high-priority for delegating, otherwise, you will not enjoy doing business. (15:52)

 

When importing products and selling them in e-commerce, what are the biggest risks to watch out for? And what are the processes that really make a difference in reaching business objectives?

When orders of products can run into the tens of thousands of dollars problems with a shipment can be disastrous for your company, but there are ways for importers to manage the risks involved when sending your products from Asia to the West to sell online.

Build a good relationship with your factory and you can negotiate free storage for your products at source, say in China, and then do small shipments on a weekly or bi-weekly basis directly to the US Amazon FBA. This removes the need to generally use an expensive middleman in the USA for storage, although keeping about 1 month’s worth of buffer stock in a US 3PL will provide protection against running out of products if orders spike.

This minimizes problems that might happen when sending individual huge shipments of products, because if this one shipment runs into issues like being stopped at customs or lost, your business will be in real trouble. Whereas if one small regular order runs into trouble, you know another will be there soon as you’re sending regular orders to cover one or two weeks of inventory in a constant flow.

Another risk is if a large shipment reaches the States and then you find that there are quality issues, for example. The problem is, it’s already far away from the manufacturer so reworking or repairing may be time-consuming and costly to send them back, or just impossible. Drip-feeding small orders makes this risk a lot less damaging. (21:11)

 

The number 1 risk to be wary of when selling products online.

If your product has problems, for example, poor reliability or quality, you may start selling it and get bad reviews on Amazon, Shopify, etc, straight away. Then you’re stuck with inventory that you can’t sell and you may even be penalized by Amazon who might, for instance, remove your listing.

To avoid this:

  • Do quality inspections before products are shipped to avoid customers receiving products they will complain about later.
  • Familiarize yourself with your target market’s rules and regulations so you don’t end up importing a non-compliant product which would be blocked from sale.
  • Follow the proper NPI process when designing and developing your product in order to reduce risks of all kinds of problems occurring once the product is mass-produced. (27:09)

 

How to build good relationships with suppliers?

If you come up with a spontaneous strategy to improve your relationships it can later be documented and replicated when sourcing and working with new suppliers.

Some tips to build ‘Guanxi’ / relationships with your supplier (especially for China):

  • Celebrate Chinese holidays with your suppliers by sending them a gift, such as a red package with a little cash.
  • Learn some Chinese as they will appreciate that you make an effort to communicate with them in their own language.
  • Be interested in their personal life, because respecting that they are human beings will go a long way to making them like you in return.
  • Travel to China and meet the suppliers in person and also go to dinner with them or accept their invitation to eat meals.
  • Invite the new supplier to check your Alibaba account (if you use it) so you can prove that you have spent a lot of money in the past with Chinese suppliers and are a legitimate business partner.
  • Share your wins with the supplier so they feel like they’re part of your team. Share positive data to demonstrate that your business is growing.
  • Place regular smaller orders rather than one single large order per year, for example, and then you’re more at the top of the supplier’s mind and they know you’re in business.
  • Share your forecast for orders with the supplier at least 3 months ahead as it helps them plan ahead and manage their capacity and shows that you see them as a part of the team. (30:02)

 

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