Marketing Experts Reveal Top Strategies To

Arlen:
Welcome to the e-commerce marketing podcast, everyone. My name is Arlen Robinson and I am your host. And today we have a very special guest, Sebastian Herz, who is really excited to talk to you today because he’s an exceptional guest. Sebastian is an accomplished Amazon seller since 2014, Sebastian has not only built two successful brands but also managed to bring his own products to thousands of offline retail stores, including the largest national retail chains in Germany. Currently, Sebastian is the co-founder of Zignify Global Product Sourcing, a company that has sourced over 2,000 products, saved their clients a staggering $300 million in sourcing costs, and catered to a diverse clientele ranging from Amazon newcomers to Fortune 500 companies. Zignify specializes in product sourcing not only from China, but also from various locations around the globe. Welcome to the podcast, Sebastian.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Arlen, hello and thank you very much for welcoming me. It’s such a, what an introduction. And yes, like you said, I’m super, super hyped, super stoked to be on your podcast. What an honor.

Arlen:
No.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Like I asked you before, I didn’t even know how this whole thing happened. So what an honor.

Arlen:
Yeah, not a problem. Thank you. Yeah, we really appreciate you coming on. I mean, definitely, as I mentioned in the intro, yeah, you’ve got quite a background, you know, with Amazon and what you’ve done now with, you know, the product sourcing aspect of your business, which is, which is a big stuff there. I know you guys are busy because these days, you know, product sourcing is, you know, it’s a very important thing. And that’s really going to be the subject of our discussion today. You know, the purchasing aspect of, you know, lowering your cost as well as increasing your sales. You know, a lot of times with e-commerce businesses, you know, the purchasing aspect when they’re sourcing their products or the components of their products is sometimes kind of an afterthought. They’re always shooting for acquiring new customers, marketing, and a lot of times product sourcing is kind of an afterthought. But as you’ll, you know, part to us today, it’s really important. that you focus on that. And so, yeah, we’re gonna be diving deep into that product sourcing and how to save money doing that. But before we do get into all of that, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about your background and how you got into what you do today.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I’m good. I’ll try my best to keep that, of course, short. What happened actually originally is I did go to university. I studied electrical engineering. I’ve been with the world market leader in industrial automation for 12 years. And that is like everybody knows Siemens or GE or whoever else, Amazon Rockwell. Not many people know ABB, but it’s a Swiss company, world market leader again in industrial automation. And that actually back then… Took me from Germany after seven years being with the company in Germany, also to China.

Arlen:
Mm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I lived three years in China, then another promotion to Singapore. We’ve been another, I think, two and a half years or so in there, a total of six years in Asia. Well, I got to know my better half in China. She’s not Chinese, but she’s Russian. Actually, just before we left China to move on to Singapore, I had so much spare time because I’ve I think in two and a half years, I’ve done seven months worth of overtime 

Arlen:
Wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
and I got six weeks off. 

Arlen:
Okay.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
That was a lot of work in China.

Arlen:
Right. I can imagine.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Just today, she told actually, we’re right now in Greece at the moment at another, it’s called Top Dog Summit 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):

by a quite famous guy in the Amazon scene, Tomer Rabinovich. And we’re here,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
one of the sponsors and she just said it today. in the presentation to say that Sebastian bothered her so much back then, what to do with all the free time because I’m also back then wasn’t really used to like six weeks off. So she listened in and learned something or found, you know, a podcast that was back then in 2013, 2014, about Amazon FBA fulfillment by Amazon. And she said, Sebastian, listen to that. I think this is something you could do. And all of a sudden I listened to it, Scott Volker, like I

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
still did not meet him, but I want to meet him. Of course, he kind of shaped the future life. Listened

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
to his podcast, the amazing seller. And well, we were at the source in China, sourcing

Arlen:
Wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
products, branding them and getting started with it. And

Arlen:
Okay.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
this is then how everything since end of 2013, 2014 started taking place.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
We got into the e-commerce business, still kept the job for two, two and a half years. until the side income overgrew the main income and then you know, snap, a fuse burns through in your head and all of a sudden you say, come on, let’s live the dream, go on a world travel, take your motorcycle and drive from Singapore all the way back home in 242

Arlen:
Run.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
days back home

Arlen:
Wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
to Germany after six years in Asia, work full time and build your first Amazon business or your first brand business. Amazon itself. should probably not necessarily be the only thing you do.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, that’s quite a story for sure. Yeah, it seems like the past several years or I guess at least 10 years or so, it’s kind of been a whirlwind for you, I can imagine.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Yes. I mean, in the very beginning, I was again, 12 years with a company. Everybody believed, uh, I would always stay at a company aimed for even higher levels, even my higher management position at a, at a very strong, very quick career. And I also

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
never believed I would do that. But then I noticed after 12 years being with the same company, things like, huh, more years and you may become

Arlen:
Mm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
less interesting also for the competitors. And

Arlen:
Right?

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):

on the other hand, you say, come on. Back then I was like, 30 years old or 31 years old, why not start living a dream and do something

Arlen:
Mm?

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
outrageous?

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And I think it turned into a super exciting, several businesses by now, besides the Amazon business, the retail business, the sourcing business, the consulting business, we have our own event company with others together. We help others grow into retail as well. There’s so many opportunities all around the, I think I don’t need to tell you. the

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
experts in e-commerce and marketing, there’s so many possibilities out there. 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And if your heart beats for it, if you have fun, you’ll love what you do. It’s like what people say, you never work a day in your life again. 

Arlen:
Yeah,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Sure you do,

Arlen:
that’s right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
but majority of course, I mean, you follow whatever you develop your own passion for.

Arlen:
Yeah, exactly. That is so true. And yeah, quite the story there. And I definitely applaud your entrepreneurial spirit and to be able to kind of jump out, like you said, you kind of never thought you would see yourself, you know, running your own company and kind of being on your own. But yeah, I mean, that’s just kind of a testament to the fact that you, you know, you kind of took that leap of faith and then kind of followed your gut instinct and jumped right into it. So yeah, definitely kudos to you for sure. Well, Sebastian, well, thank you for sharing that. Definitely appreciate that. And where I really wanted to start today’s discussion really is just wanted to see, can you share some, what do you think are some of the most significant strategies for just reducing purchasing costs while maintaining product quality? Because I think that’s a big question when companies are thinking of, okay, all right, if we. reduce costs, how do you really ultimately still maintain that high quality? I would imagine a juggling act.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And for once, whether directly connected to sourcing or not, but is, you know, learning from others, building yourself also a network, work with others, work with experts,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
and for sure, maybe not necessarily for, for sourcing, but in general, for building your business. What I see a lot is reading

Arlen:
Mm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
and I’m, I, right now the, the picture is so pixel-y. I’m sorry, Greece doesn’t have the best internet or the hotel, wherever. I actually went to the hotel reception because the rest of the crew right now sitting outside and having dinner at the beach.

Arlen:
Oh,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And I

Arlen:
okay,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
said,

Arlen:
wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
guys, I need a silent room somewhere. There was all plans like 75 or 80 people here, all

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
seven and eight figure sellers, all in the Amazon niche, some nine figure sellers.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And I said, I need to run somewhere, get a silent room because I can’t sit out there with 70 people around the whole podcast.

Arlen:
Right, right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And I spotted back there in, I don’t remember if I can see it, but I think I’ve seen 1 million followers in there. There is Atomic Habits, I think, standing there. Seth Golden, this is marketing.

Arlen:
Yep.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Profit, I think, and the fifth book, I could not see, Pixley, maybe I didn’t know of them. But reading, whether for sourcing or anything, you learn so much. And I don’t know how many books I’ve read in the last years. It’s

Arlen:
Mm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
just, it’s mind blowing if you, you know,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
if you dig into topics that help build your business. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And a lot of that for sales and marketing.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Coming back to your question, sorry for taking such a long route around it. 

Arlen:
No problem.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
But for sourcing, I mean, one of the most important things is, I mean, in the very basics, most of the people, they do not get enough proposals.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
You do not talk to enough suppliers to say that you really know the prices. 

Arlen:
Alright

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
One of the secrets

Arlen:
guys.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
really is, don’t only get two or three proposals. When we go source for our customers, whether in China or outside of China, we usually look for about 30, 30. to about 60 potential producers.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
We search for them, we reach out to them, we get as many proposals or quotes as reasonably possible, compare all of them, kick of course the ones out that don’t match or kick out trading companies. We always wanna go to the source, to the real manufacturer.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And then you also have the leverage and the power of negotiation because you don’t have like just one product proposal. on a backup, 

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
but you have the full confidence as well to say, you know what, I have 14 other proposals.

Arlen:
Yeah, exactly.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I do want your quality. I know your quality is higher. I know you also should charge more money.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
But at the same time, I have 13 others or 12 others, or let’s say eight others who have the similar quality but are much lower priced. 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I’m not even talking about the ones with a super, super low price,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
because certainly they have a very different quality. But the stamina, the power, the self-confidence of going out there and saying, you know what, I have other options as well. And leaving the break, I pause in there and

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
they will see, okay, so if you then paint me a picture of what good cooperation could we have in the future, I’ll give you probably a better price.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And a second thing may also be, yes, we do a lot of sourcing in China, but I assume of course a lot of listeners will be in the US. a lot of listeners or they are selling in the US. And thank you, Donald Trump. Thank you, anybody else who is putting anti-dumping tariffs onto China. Many of the products, I think the record I’ve seen was an import tax of 47 or 48%. So if you place an order of $100,000 when your business kickstarts and it works well, and it’s quite likely you will make an order or 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
at least over a year of $100,000 to China, You’re paying another 47,000 or 48,000 just to import it into the US.

Arlen:
Wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Now the opportunity here could be look into other countries

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
because of the same product you may in Vietnam have 0% import tax or in Mexico or in the US as well, obviously because you don’t need to import it

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
or in any other country where there are no anti-dumping tariffs. They’re not against the products. They’re against products from a specific country.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And if you’re then lucky enough, you may even still find cheaper suppliers, because you get so many proposals.

Arlen:
Wow. Yeah. So, I mean, it just sounds like the key thing there is you just, you can never have enough proposals. This is the bottom line. If you think you have enough, get more. Because that ultimately is just, you know, it gives you more leverage. You really know the market then in that case, if you, like you said, you’ve got 13, you’ve gotten 14 proposals for your products.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Yes.

Arlen:
You know, you have China, of course, then you have from the other countries. And then that’s when you really know, okay, what we really should be paying and then you’re just going to use those other proposals as leverage to the one company that you really want to go with. And yeah, that totally makes makes

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And

Arlen:
a

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
if

Arlen:
lot

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
you want to,

Arlen:
of sense.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
 I can or later probably give you also some extreme examples what that could mean

Arlen:
Okay.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
in terms of savings. But we’ll probably get to this later. I don’t want to take anything in the front.

Arlen:
Yeah, no problem. No problem. I would love those examples for sure. Now, when we’re thinking about all of this product sourcing, going out, getting these proposals, when you’re going through that process as an e-commerce business, what do you think are some common pitfalls that a business encounters when they’re trying to save money on this purchasing process? And how do they avoid these pitfalls?

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
That’s a really good question. Because yes, you may get better prices, but the quality doesn’t necessarily need to be the same. So for us, the target is when we’re improving existing product prices, the definition is same or better quality. That’s

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
like the minimum requirement.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
So how do you do that? Well, you don’t only check the samples that they do, but you do full quality control. You go into the companies or send somebody, like us, for example, or anybody else. to go into the factories in each country wherever you’re producing it, whether it’s in Vietnam or in China or in Mexico. And of course, make sure that you’re a sourcing company, sourcing agent, or anybody you’re sending there for quality inspection has the team locally there on the ground to go into the factories. And that’s one of the things, a second pitfall could usually be when you do a quality control, that you do check what the producers are giving you, 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
like setting you on the table or you’re welcome there, you know, you’re being picked up in the… in a 7 Series Beamer car, just picked up, drove there, and they put three boxes in front of you.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
The first thing you do is you take those three boxes and you very elegantly

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
step over them and

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
tell them, you know what, screw those three boxes that you gave me, I want

Arlen:
Yeah,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
this one over there,

Arlen:
right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
seventh row, third from the top, and the one over there. Oh,

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
and by the way, I’m going to take this one as well. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
You choose

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
what you want to check. 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Because of course, if they send you samples, say, oh, you’re mass production. quality control or welcome here, here are the boxes we put everything there. Please check the quality for sure they will make sure that

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
those are good examples.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Doesn’t mean that the rest of it is the same, right?

Arlen:
Yeah, for sure, for sure. I mean, that makes sense. You can’t go with just what they put in front of you, because obviously those products are, you know, they’ve gone out of their way to make sure those are the top of the top. You got to see

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Correct.

Arlen:
what are the average products that are on shelves, you know, further, you know, in the back of the warehouse. What are those things looking like? You know, what’s the quality

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And most

Arlen:
of the packaging?

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
of the time when

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
you have the savings like it’s too good to be true,

Arlen:
Yep,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
it’s

Arlen:
it usually is. Exactly.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
most likely is too good to be true.

Arlen:
Very,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
It may

Arlen:
very

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
still

Arlen:
true.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
on the other hand, I mean, if we sum it up or what we have done in savings, I think we have more than by now more than $500 million, half a billion dollar in savings for our customers.

Arlen:
Wow,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
That’s

Arlen:
that’s huge.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
you can do massive amounts of savings.

Arlen:

Yeah, that’s huge. And then, you know, when you’re thinking of those savings, I mean, you almost have to think of it as like, the savings is really just putting money in these companies’ pockets. So I think it’s, you just kind of have to have a mind shift. You’re not, yeah, okay, you may not be getting any additional sales, but that amount can really equate to as if you had additional sales. It’s just about how you look at it in your books.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
You probably heard the saying, the real money is made in purchasing, not in sales.

Arlen:
Exactly,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I’m

Arlen:
exactly.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
saying the real money is made in purchasing, not only in sales. Of course,

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
sales brings money as well. But when you buy

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
cheaper, this is bottom line profit margin.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And here comes the next pitfall. What I see with more and more also experienced sellers is

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
that they very often think, all right, I want to get my next new products

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
and make sure that I get them for a really good price.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
A much better strategy could be, for example, I’ll cut this a little bit short for later. We have one who sells 500,000 units of one product in a year. German sellers selling in the US, not even on Amazon, just in Shopify. Insane. I mean, selling this with one product. Now we kind of convinced them in the beginning to say, you know what, before you invest additional money, it may make sense to look in your current production because you’re ordering all the time.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
You’re having products that are running 10,000, 100,000, or in his case, 500,000 times a year.

Arlen:
Wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
So why not look currently into the existing products that you have? Again, main target is same or better quality

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
and find it, for example, in another country. He used to source it in China.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
He had 27% import tax. Product originally was $6.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
500,000 units times $6, that’s $3 million annual spendings just in this one product.

Arlen:
Oh wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
We found him the same product. Now, test me. What time is it over here? It’s at 9 PM. Still sober. We don’t drink. How

Arlen:
Mm. Hehehehe.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
my brain works in calculating. But the $3 million that he spent on the first product

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
in one year, 27% import tax, there we had 270, then we get to $7,000. Am I correct if I’m going for $810,000, 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I think. 27% out of the 3 million should be roughly around there.

Arlen:
That

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Maybe

Arlen:
sounds

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I’m wrong.

Arlen:
about right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Sounds about right. So we saved them because we found the product in Vietnam

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
and saved them 810,000 should be 810,000 dollars because there was no import tax, no import tariffs in

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
the U.S. Plus we were lucky enough, same or better quality found the product $1 cheaper.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
that saved them another $500,000. And then we’re at 1.3, yeah, 1.3, $1 million saved every year.

Arlen:
Wow, that’s.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
That was a super lucky shot. It will never, never, never happen again because

Arlen:
Okay.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
you know what it took us? Three hours of work.

Arlen:
Okay, wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):

Back then, we

Arlen:
Yep.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
only charged an hourly rate. We learned our lesson. Ha ha ha.

Arlen:
Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah, I see. I can imagine after that. Well, you brought

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
He is

Arlen:
up some,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
very happy.

Arlen:
yeah, you brought up some very interesting points though. Of course, at the beginning, we talked about, you know, the fact that you have to get all these proposals, you got to, you know, see where you’re going to go. You know, how you can leverage these proposals to get the costs for your goods. But then, you know, once you get into the business, you start sourcing products from wherever you do, you know, you may be sourcing products from, let’s say Vietnam, some from China, some other countries. Moving forward, like really, I mean, how important is it because, you know, you obviously want the best cost, but how important is it, you know, the role of establishing, you know, strong relationships with these suppliers and, you know, over time and like, what advice would you give in building and maintaining these types of products? relationships.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I mean, in the very beginning, for sure, everyone is cold, you know, nobody knows really one another. But the longer you are in business, and I mean, if you imagine this, it doesn’t need to be the three million dollars in the first product, by the

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
way, he has eight additional or seven or eight additional products, similar thing.

Arlen:
Hmm?

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
But of course, the closer you know your supplier, the better you know them. Like, for example, our second brand is fully made in Germany. And for the first brand, I also went over to the factories. I mean, we used to live in China. But as we flew back and forth, you know, meet with them and you build relationships. And guess what happens? You don’t only get to know the salesperson, you get to know the head of the company to produce it, the owner of the factory. He never, you know, never really thought of really talking to you because he has 50 other customers as well.

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Now, when you’re building relationships with them, it’s not only that you have a much closer, much more familiar talk with them, you can negotiate better topics and say, you know what, let’s, let’s sit down and in eight hours. For example, one of our customers, he said, I just went over there, and Sebastian’s were like the eight best hours spent with him. First of all, we built a very nice connection. Secondly,

Arlen:
Mm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
we discussed the 10 next products to produce with him, because

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
he may bring other ones as well. Now then, they see you put your effort in there. They see you really want to work together with them. They don’t only necessarily give you better prices and show you more products, but also completely different payment terms.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
So if you in the beginning did 100% upfront or 50-50, it may come then later on after a longer time, you may have whatever 15% down payment and the rest of the 85 with whatever 98, 90 days, what is it, what was the English word deferred or

Arlen:
Yep,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
delayed

Arlen:
defer it.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
payment then for example, after receival.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I mean, imagine what this does for your cashflow.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
If you at the same time then, the next level then could be just because besides the e-commerce sales is once you have successful online products,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I like to bring them into big box retail stores.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
So those big box retail stores on the other hand, and I brought my first brand in a bit more than a thousand stores or a few thousand stores in Germany, they on the other hand also have their own payment terms and say you first deliver after and get the payment later on.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Now imagine you have 100% upfront, you get the production cycle and there it may take four or five, six weeks or when you were unlucky in earlier days, when there was a China delivery of another 12, 13 weeks in sea shipping, then you deliver to the customer and then you have a 90 day or 60 day or in worst case, 120 day payment term. Imagine that you’re almost stretching like four or five, six months of the money from investment until getting it.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And those will be much bigger numbers than what you probably sell. in a week or a month on your Shopify store.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, really

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
So it’s

Arlen:
for sure.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
super, super important to build relationships, especially when your business runs better.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Yet at the same time, always have also an alternative. So I’m sorry, no mean to interrupt. I think it’s a little bit the internet delay here.

Arlen:
Oh yeah, no problem, no problem. Yeah, I mean, what you said is totally right. And I think, you know, I think a lot of times these days, everyone in businesses are always looking for the, you know, the best cost, you know, a lot of times the whole concept of loyalty to a particular company, you know, it’s kind of gone out of the window, but I think when you’re talking about product sourcing, those relationships are, it’s a little bit different then, because I think it’s really more significant to, you know, not only, you know, shy away from somebody just because they can’t give you the lowest cost, but you do have to look at in the long run, what is that relationship going to do for your business? You know, if you of course are going to continue to purchase from them, like you said, they’re going to give open up a lot more options for you. Like he mentioned, the deferred payment, maybe be a little bit more flexible about payment terms. You know,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Of

Arlen:
the

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
course.

Arlen:
shipping, they may be able to work with you in other ways that you may not necessarily be able to put an upfront dollar amount on, but that because you have that relationship, it’s going to go a long way. Yeah. So I

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
The

Arlen:
think

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
same

Arlen:
you’re

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
is as well also for the very beginning when you start reaching out to them for the very first times because when you come around the corner and say, you know, why MOQ is 50, I

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
think it’s like, why should I get up for like 50 units?

Arlen:
Right,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
But

Arlen:
right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
if you start building with them a relationship already and saying it’s like, look, I’ve built a business before, I have two brands, I have access to big box retail, I’m working with the same influencers and previously it was a different niche,

Arlen:
Hmm?

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
but we’ve built an Amazon business of whatever, six, seven, eight figures. And you show them, I always say, please paint them a positive, but realistic outlook, let’s say for the next three, six and 12 months.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Because then he understands, hey, we’re not talking about an MOQ of 50. That’s just like an initial trial run or 100 or 200. I want to see I take the product, I throw it against the wall, I see if it sticks, if it sticks, if it sells well, I’ll come back. And if things run well, plus we have partners around us, we have influencers, we have all the access. and

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
we know how to build an online business. I’ll probably come back in three months with about 2,000, six months 5,000, and maybe in 12 months I’ll come back with 20,000 units, recurring orders. And all of a sudden they’ll be like, oh, okay, he’s

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
not bullshit to me. He doesn’t just want to have a few samples that he wants to spread on his wedding for his guests for free,

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
but he means serious business.

Arlen:
Yeah,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And when

Arlen:
yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
you paint them a positive but realistic, please,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
picture. The suppliers themselves, of course, they may get the interest.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Otherwise, they just don’t even answer or say, hey, leave me alone with your 50 units.

Arlen:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It’s definitely a two way street. You gotta you know, you gotta bend a little bit. You gotta give them a little bit for them to be able to give you those opportunities, those discounts, and those are the type of incentives, you know, makes a lot of sense. You know, of course, we talked earlier a little bit about the whole negotiating using other Proposals that you get as a negotiating factor. I wanted to see, can you discuss, you know, the overall role of negotiating in purchasing And, you know, what are some other successful negotiating tips that you’ve seen with sellers other than, you know, leveraging other proposals that you’ve gotten?

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Let me give you a little bit of a brain challenge maybe before that. When I dive in there, you know, we think that we’re going in there and that we’re buying something from potential

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
producers. You are buying but you know what you’re actually doing? You’re selling them something.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
You’re selling them the future of a corporation. You’re selling them the idea of let’s do some business together. You’re selling them the idea that you can be a good business partner for them who will bring a lot of orders.

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
So there are many, many different negotiation techniques, but again, you always need to think they don’t need to sell to you. They usually

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
have tons of other suppliers as well as tons of other customers or just pick their customers. Especially

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
when you source from outside of China, whether

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
it’s other Asian countries or especially European or Mexican or US producers,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
they might, we usually say, sit on a quite high horse. It’s like… I have my two, three suppliers, my two, three big customers. You know, I have my

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Beamer, I have my second car, I have my house, I have my house at the lake and in five

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
years I want to retire anyhow. And by the way, right now, summer vacation. And my colleagues,

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
they have Corona, we don’t follow it up. So, well, you know,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
sell me the idea. And if you can convince them, of course, to build a good business, a good future together, this is the first step, of course, in negotiation.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
The next other steps then will of course be, I mean, Payment terms, like we said, imagine you’re selling one day to big box retail, and that may also be in much smaller terms like when you sell online. You don’t get the cash immediately. You get the cash when the customer buys.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And if you order 20,000 units, it doesn’t mean that from the first order you get the cash back. No, you get the cash back when you sold the 20,000 units.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Good negotiation, the good practice, the longer relationship can happen even when you have like a deferred payment by the big box retail of 90 days. That

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
this may then in the end overlap almost exactly. with your production final payments. So you would pay the 85% nearly when you get the money from your big box retail.

Arlen:
Yeah,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
So

Arlen:
yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
cashflow also very, very super important. The bigger you go, the bigger you notice like, hey, I need the cashflow because I may not have the money to invest.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
You may then get whatever additional help. All of that will help as well. Yet at the same time with a negotiation, especially the Chinese or

Arlen:
Mm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Turkish or- Arabic or so they are very much used to haggling to negotiations

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
part of the culture.

Arlen:
Right,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
It’s like you,

Arlen:
right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
you know, you go you go buy something in China,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
you never say yes, you just you directly bring them and they want to do that. It’s the same in the Arabic world. Of course,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
they want to have the feeling, hey, this is our normal business, we negotiate.

Arlen:
Right,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And

Arlen:
right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
you also learn terms that when it comes to negotiation, a few further tricks, I think it’s common knowledge.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
But You just turn around and you walk away.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And if they come running after you, say, hey sir, hey sir, hey sir, you know exactly, they

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
have more to offer. They

Arlen:
Yeah,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
go lower prices.

Arlen:
exactly. Great. Great tips. Yeah. You’re right. That last

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Wait.

Arlen:
tip walking away, you can never be afraid to walk away. So, you know, at that

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
especially

Arlen:
point,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):if

Arlen:
if

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
you

Arlen:
they

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
only

Arlen:
come.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
have 15 other proposals.

Arlen:
Yeah, exactly. When you know you have the backup there, you walk away. And then if they’re really serious and they have more to offer, they’ll come running back to you for sure. Well, Sebastian, as we get ready to wrap things up, I wanted to see you kind of alluded to the fact of different companies that you worked with. But I wanted to see, could you? share some inspiring success stories from either your own brands or Zignify’s clients that demonstrate the effective use of cost saving approaches and things that essentially have boosted their sales.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I mean, for example, the one Shopify seller that I talked about, you know, just he was brave enough or smart enough to say, come on, I’m really sick of those import tariffs from my best sellers. I would like to reduce them. Is it possible? So thinking of whether there is a possibility, don’t take your existing business as a fact. You

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
can also question that and say, if I’m buying from China, I mean, again, there’s nothing against sourcing from China. It’s about still about 40% of our sourcing projects are still inside China. But

Arlen:
Hmm?

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
think a little bit further outside the box. Or when you notice like with Corona, the lockdowns in the factories, the 12, 13, 14 weeks shipping per container, massive, like the highest container costs, I think I’ve heard were like 28,000 for a container.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Well, later on, okay, some of them to the US, they were like 20 foot, they dropped down to 1.6, 40 foot high cube, the lowest one we’ve then later seen was like 2.2 from China to the US. So there you can of course save a lot of money with the ones who sell. online at the Shopify store, it allowed them, of course, to bring out, I mean, imagine those 1.3, 1 million or so,

Arlen:
Yeah,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
or 1.3.2,

Arlen:
yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
they just launch complete new products with it.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Or when you have the money you’re saving, just imagine also much smaller ones when you have, for example, on a $100,000 order or even on a $10,000 order. Let’s just say for the ease of calculation, another one, if you have $100,000 and you save 12%, That’s about $12,000 that you just save on the product, not even talking about the shipping,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
not even talking about the faster times, but then that means you have $1,000 more per month.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
What can you do with $1,000 per month? You can do quite some nice, if you know how it works,

Arlen:
Yeah,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
advertising.

Arlen:
sure.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
You can start some new products. You can invest into additional things. You can maybe build another business.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
The cosmetics company of our cosmetics producer or a brand in Germany, They were, I didn’t calculate what the percentage of it is, but maybe we can do that. Whatever quickly they, before he exited the business, um, made about $26 million a year annual revenue

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
and in the first eight months, by just rethinking the sourcing, how they’ve done that we’ve saved them 1.4 million euros. It actually was so somewhat equal to dollar by now. But in the first

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
eight months, we saved them $1.4 million. This on the other hand helped him completely scale another line, bring more products in, he exited the product, you get a very nice multiple

Arlen:
Hmm?

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
and he is now building additional businesses. But

Arlen:
Wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
also for the much, much smaller ones. If I look at my own first brand, just today we had a very good example,

Arlen:
Hmm?

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
even if it’s just about packaging reduction, when you’re selling on FBA or thinking of optimizing your product cost, sorry, the packaging size and the product cost, you may… get into a smaller shipping fee. Not only the shipping fee, you know, if it’s like in a smaller size box, you can reduce the product, the cost there. And

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
or even though I have small and light products on Amazon already, which are like about this size, I was lucky

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
enough in a master carton of this one, I fit 250 products in there, where most of

Arlen:
Oh

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
the

Arlen:
wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
people are jealous. We went in and said, we take this box and we lowered it down because it was possible to this one.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And now in the same box where we had 250 units in there, I now fit 3,200 units into a small box,

Arlen:
Oh wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
ship it in and be done for it for next quarter.

Arlen:
Yeah. Okay.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
You save shipping costs, you save storage space, you save so much cost handling, wait time, and imagine what you can do with all of the help of the e-commerce marketing podcasts with all of the other great people that were. What can you do with the backlinks that I look at them? You’re the targeted ads that you had before, the storytelling,

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
the order bumps and all of those things, whatever you can do. Or spend it, of course, for example, in OSI affiliate. I mean, get affiliates out there, spend this money on your influencers, give

Arlen:
It’s

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
them

Arlen:
true.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
some money, make them happy and they start selling your product. Imagine what

Arlen:
Right,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
they have

Arlen:
right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
to make of it.

Arlen:
Well, thank you for the plugs. I really appreciate that, Sebastian. That’s

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
It’s…

Arlen:
awesome. But

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
come on,

Arlen:
yeah,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
there’s

Arlen:
you’re

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
a reason

Arlen:
I mean, you’re

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
why

Arlen:
totally

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I’m doing

Arlen:
right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
this.

Arlen:
I mean, I thank you for sharing those, you know, those testimonies of things that you can do. I mean, that is amazing. Like you say, you’re reducing the size of a packaging and getting more units in. I mean, there’s a ton of things you do. You have to do it. I mean, you kind of have to think, no pun intended outside of the box, you got to be creative a lot of times.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Inside the box.

Arlen:
Yeah, exactly. And this time inside of the box, how much can

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Inset

Arlen:
you get

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
MasterCard.

Arlen:
inside of it? Yeah. And, you know, one other thing that I’ll point out is you definitely want to look at what the big guys are doing. I mean, just look at Amazon. When you’re talking about packaging, you know, I’m a huge Amazon prime purchaser. I’ve got boxes coming to my front door every day. And so I’m always noticing the different types of packaging that they’re using. You know, they’re you cannot study what they’re doing. What are they doing to save money? what types of packaging, what type of materials are they using, what’s in it. So yeah, I mean, just keep an eye out on some of the big guys and you can learn from that as well. Well, Sebastian,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Yes.

Arlen:
it’s been awesome talking to you. I’ve definitely learned a lot. I know our listeners and viewers have as well about saving money on your product sourcing, which is your bread and butter. And then you’re doing big things in this space. So really appreciate your time and appreciate you coming on. But lastly, before we let you go, I always

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Thank

Arlen:
like

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
you

Arlen:
to

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
so much.

Arlen:
switch gears just so our audience can get to know you a little bit better. If you don’t mind sharing one closing fun fact that you think we’d be interested to know.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Fun fact, what’s the closest connected? I mean, I do love riding motorcycles. And I think I

Arlen:
Okay.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
shared earlier that we

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
rode from Singapore to, or after leaving six years of Asia, we left Singapore on the motorcycle and we drove home in 242 days, all

Arlen:
Wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):

over land through

Arlen:

Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Southeast Asia, Asia, Russia, over to Europe, back home to me,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
to Germany. We moved actually. We

Arlen:
Wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
sold everything we owned in Singapore. We donated all the rest. We had

Arlen:
Okay.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
nothing but one motorcycle,

Arlen:
Oh wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
gasoline in the tank, a spare set of tires, some spare parts. And we’ve been working full-time during our travel. My wife, she was still full-time employed.

Arlen:
Okay?

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I was full-time building a business, traveling 242 days on one horse.

Arlen:
Wow

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):

And well, not a horse, but more a steel horse.

Arlen:
All right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And it’s possible. So anybody who is aspiring there, who wants to say, you know what, I want to build a business or I want to do this on the side, I think if we can show that we’ve been full time traveling, full time riding a motorcycle, 38,322 kilometers in 242 days, having

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
better internet in the desert of Gobi in the middle of Mongolia compared to Germany,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
if we can do that, then anybody can do that. And you don’t need to

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
go those hard core ways.

Arlen:
Yeah, for sure. For sure. Well, that’s that’s awesome. Fun fact, for sure. Thank you for sharing that again and giving us the detail. I mean, your hats off to you. I mean, that’s I don’t know if I could have rode from China all the way back to your to your hometown. And I mean, that’s almost a year’s time span, you know, going and traveling on a motorcycle. So I’m sure you guys saw quite a bit during that time. And I’m pretty sure it was an exciting trip.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
The fun fact there maybe on the other hand is even though I’m riding bikes for 20 years, just last November I got finally a full brain free vacation or

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
work free vacation.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Target was to do well an off-road motorbike through the Sahara Desert in Morocco and the Atlas Mountains.

Arlen:
Okay.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
First day I blamed the coffee, I had one coffee too much, small accident, open fracture of the lower leg.

Arlen:
Oh

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I’m

Arlen:
wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
in the middle of Morocco and have no steel nail of like this length from my knee all the way down to my foot

Arlen:
Oh, oh

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
hammered

Arlen:
wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
through the bone.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
So I think the lesson in there is like, don’t, you know, don’t drink too much coffee, don’t be overexcited

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
and believe that also after 20 years of experience, also stuff like that can happen, but get up, keep going.

Arlen:
Yeah, that is very true. Yeah, it kind of comes with the game.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
It does.

Arlen:
Some things can happen. Well, that’s awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that. Glad you were able to survive that for sure. It sounds painful.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Thank

Arlen:
But,

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
you.

Arlen:
you know, lastly, before we do let you go, Sebastian, why don’t you let us know and our listeners and our viewers the best way for them to can contact you, can contact with you if they want to pick your brain anymore about product sourcing.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Fantastic. I mean, I’m so happy, Arlen. Thank you so much for really, really having me for giving us all the chance, you know, sharing some stories.

Arlen:
Sure.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I think the easiest, of course, for us, if you want to book a call, and I think this is what we want to offer to anybody who is out here and wants to have a look at their sourcing,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
we give like a roughly whatever, like a 30 minute free of charge consulting to look into your sourcing. And the only thing that you have to do is go to signify.net.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
top after a few seconds that would be like book a call. And when you write it in there, write in that you come from e-commerce marketing podcasts or from Ireland. And then we want to offer to say, Hey, you know what? We’ll take some time. Let’s just look into your sourcing. Zignify.net. Z in the beginning, Z-I-G-N-I-F-Y.net. And if you want to connect to me with me directly, I’m usually active on LinkedIn. I’m on Facebook and you find Sebastian, the connector hurts. They started calling me the connector because I kind of have a solution for everything after running the e-commerce business now for what, nine years.

Arlen:
Wow.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Um, and, uh, happy to do so again,

Arlen:
Okay.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
LinkedIn, Facebook, Sebastian, the connector hurts a few Chinese characters behind there.

Arlen:
Okay.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I think that will be the way to go, but please

Arlen:
Okay.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
also don’t forget affiliate. I’ve done this with myself as well. I used other platforms before as well. It doesn’t necessarily matter which platform, as long as you have a good strategy.

Arlen:
Great.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
And I think Arlen there with OSI affiliate, you for sure will have a good way of helping others, bringing, you know, connecting brands with influencers. And I just want to say, no, I’m not paid for saying that. This is why they call me the connector. I fully believe in that. This is a way to work and

Arlen:
Right.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
getting other people to speak about you and your products, getting…

Arlen:
new

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Others, like this is how we grew as well. Others

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
speak about us. We don’t even have a salesperson.

Arlen:
Okay.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Something is good and somebody talks about you. Like affiliates talk about your brand.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
It’s not you selling it, it’s others that

Arlen:
Exactly.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
gives a lot of trust and that works.

Arlen:
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And thank you for sharing that. We appreciate that, Sebastian. And you’re giving us the plug again. Yeah. It’s definitely the way to go. And we appreciate you sharing your contact. We definitely encourage anyone interested that wants to connect with you guys and your team to take a look at the website and book that call. We’ll have the link in our show notes so people can reach out to you and connect with you there or via your LinkedIn. Well, thanks again, Sebastian, for joining us. I mean, it’s been an awesome conversation.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
Thank you so much.

Arlen:
We just really appreciate you coming on today. The e-commerce marketing podcast.

Sebastian Herz (Zignify Global Product Sourcing):
I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Podcast Guest Info

Sebastian Herz
Co-founder of Zignify Global Product Sourcing