#458 - Beyond China: Smart Sourcing Strategies with Vietnam Insider Jim Kennemer

Welcome to episode 458 of the AM PM podcast. You know, the last since Trump took office earlier this year, it's just been all the talking has been trade wars and tariffs going up and down. And it's hard to discuss those because you don't know what's going to be happening in the next day. But one thing that's better discussed is what are the different options out there that you should be looking at, trade war or not trade war. And that's our discussion today with with Jim from Cosmos Sourcing. He specializes in Vietnam. He started off in China and then has been in Vietnam for about the last 12 13 years. Uh before it was cool to actually source in Vietnam. So he's super well connected about the ins and outs of what's happening in Vietnam, what's appropriate for Vietnam, what you should maybe not do in Vietnam. And so that's what we're going to talk about today is as the options of Vietnam as a possible sourcing destination for you and your ecom business. Enjoy this episode with Jim. Welcome to the AM PM podcast. Welcome to the AM PM podcast where we explore opportunities in e-commerce covered. We dream big and we discover what's working right now. Plus, plus this is the podcast for money never sleeps. Working around the clock in the A.M. and PM. Are you ready for today's episode? I said, are you you ready? Ready. Let's do this. Let's do this. Here's your host. Here's your host, Kevin King. Kevin King. I got Jim Kinnmer on the podcast. This guy goes back. I know a lot of you probably haven't heard of him in the Amazon space, but he's been around for a day or two uh doing this sourcing. How you doing, Jim? Glad to have you here. Doing great. Doing real good. How about yourself? I'm alive and kicking as my buddy Mark Dawn would say. Um so, it's all good. I met you. You were speaking at an event uh that I went to in Florida back in May and uh you're you're talking about, you know, this hot topic right now. I think there's like 26 of you out of the 27 speakers that were speaking about tariffs. Yeah. Talking about tariffs. It was a it was a hot thing at this uh back in May when at that at the time of the of your talk. I think were we at 145 and then I think it was like shortly after that it went to to the 30% um with yeah I gave the speech on Mon or on a Wednesday at that time it was 145% tariffs on Chinese goods and then by that Monday they announced a 90-day pause so it's down to 30% for goods from China to United States so constantly changing feel like pretty much what I said exact it's hard to like what do you I mean it's been all over the place first it goes from nothing to Then Trump put on a 25% was it 2018 or 2017 somewhere back in there. 2018 and 2019 and then everybody thought Biden would take it away when he got took over president. He he kept it on and added a few to it. Then Trump comes in starts every day it was like what was it went to 40 then 60 then 90 then I 45 84 whatever number he rolled in the dice. Some very random numbers I feel like and it's very difficult to actually do any any like what do we do? We got stuff on the water. should I put in orders or whatever? And everybody's freaking out, but part of but some of the big boys weren't freaking out. They were like they were ahead of this because they were they had their pulse on the on the wind and see which way it's directed uh it's going and they were had already placed some bigger orders already got some stuff in but and some of them had already been mitigating their risk by looking at other countries which is what you specialize in. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we I'm Jim. I don't know we really got a proper introduction, but yeah, I run a product sourcing company. Um, we've been operating in Vietnam since 2014 and expanding globally. But yeah, we've have a lot of clients that were um, yeah, already sourcing for Vietnam just anticipation of more trade chaos. Um, and then other people who kind of worked with us to find alternative suppliers and never really placed an order up until April um, when the 145% tariffs went in effect. And so they a lot of people were really prepared and ready to move. But we also throughout last month all or throughout April um several months ago, we yeah, we talked to several clients who big sellers too, seven to eight figure sellers who had no backup plan on China and just were quite frankly scrambling. So we I've seen sellers that had all different types of preparations. some that had very well-detailed plans of where alternate sourcing locations, alternate inventory strategies, other ones who just had their company running on autopilot and did not expect to have experienced turbulence like they did. I think what what caused a lot of people to freak out is they kind of expected Trump to do something crazy. Maybe not to that extent, but what they did not expect is when he la when he rolled out this uh this long uh scroll of like all theund and something other countries and Vietnam was on that at 46%. And then everybody's like, "Oh, that that I thought I was going to bypass this. I'll go to Vietnam. Now I'm at 40." Now, he put that on hold and that's that's being negotiated at the time of this recording. That's that's being uh negotiated. But so that freaked a bunch of people out, too. Absolutely. So, how let's back up a couple steps here. So, this sourcing in Vietnam has not is not new. Not at all. you people are talking about it more now and it gets mentioned a lot of times in there with India and Indonesia and Mexico. It seems to be the the common ones that people have at the tip of the tongue. There's plenty of other options but that's the ones that people seem to be focused the most on but you originally was when you started sourcing you were based in what Shanghai or somewhere right you were doing you saw like the writing on the wall 13 years ago. Yeah. So yeah in 2012 I started Cosmo Sourcing in 2012 in Shanghai. So yeah, it was like every other company I feel like was product sourcing from China. But yeah, in 2014, actually 2013 is when the first time I visited Vietnam, but I just fell in love with the country. No one's really saw Vietnam as an opportunity then. And so yeah, I had a chance in 2014 to move to Vietnam. I at that point I already quit my job, was working on Cosmo Sourcing full-time. So 2014, August 2014, I decided to move to Vietnam and primarily focus on sourcing from Vietnam. And at the time, no one was really even had on the radar. maybe a few companies. Um, and we got a few clients like right off the bat. But yeah, it was definitely something you really had to convince people, hey, Vietnam is also can make stuff cuz everybody at the time was just looking only at China, exclusively at China. Like they made everything for everybody at that time. And no one else was really even close to competing. And what we can do in Vietnam is pretty limited in 2014. Like to see the changes in growth in 10 plus years is quite frankly insane. Like we were doing really basic industrial wooden goods, some clothing lacquer, lacquer stuff and a little bit of lacquer. The most the big things we were doing like the very first project I did was actually I don't know if you seen wire like on big trucks, the big like like electric wire on the big spools. We did the big wooden spools. That was our first project we did in Vietnam. And the second one we did was uh wooden wheelbarrow handles and shovel handles. Um so we kind of was industrial wood was kind of what our first niche was in Vietnam. And then we started expanding up a lot of apparel and textile and then a lot of backpacks and luggage after that. But yeah, since then we started last few years we started doing more electronic manufacturing services which was even something I thought Vietnam could do five plus years ago. Yeah, I have a buddy that uh Vietnamese guy his name is Ziwin and it's pronounced win if if you see it's not nen. People always say n g y n and it's pronounced win like w i n. He he was a coder for me and did a lot of my coding on some old old sites that I had before I was doing the whole e-commerce. I had some other businesses and he developed this uh uh sprinkler system and this was like I don't know 15 years ago or something he or 12 years ago he's developed a sprinkler system uh to to control kind of like a you'll control all the sprinklers in your house and had a little electrical device and he was electrical engineer but he was manufacturing in Vietnam and at the time I was like dude why don't you just go to China he's like no Vietnam's better it's cheaper I I can speak the language it's my people uh I want to help them out and but he was kind of early to it. But when did the Chinese a lot of people don't realize that yes, Vietnam has their own infra infrastructure of of manufacturing. But a lot of what's happened and a lot of reason for the boom is the Chinese have gone there and set up factories and brought in some Chinese people to actually run those and even some of the labor is Chinese. So can you tell can you walk us about tell us how when when about did that really start happening and what you're seeing going on in that? Yeah, that that was really the first trade war back in 2019, the first 25% tariffs Trump did. Um, and yeah, I mean, so Vietnam is different from China in that they're pretty they allow foreign ownership of factories. Um, so there are a lot of foreignowned factories and by our estimation, it's probably about 20 maybe up to 25 now% of factories in Vietnam are owned Chinese. But yeah, after that first boom, a lot of Chinese companies were setting up pretty much clones of their factories in Vietnam. literally same machinery, same management. And actually kind of a funny story about that. In 2019, yeah, probably 2019, maybe 21, I had a client who wanted to move his factory from Vietnam to or from China to Vietnam. And we took him on a couple of tours. He makes he makes political signs. Um, so he had like corrugated plastic, chromoplast, chromop printing, and a few other specific requirements for these factories. But yeah, we went to like three or four factories that could do it. one of these factories. As soon as he walked in, he was like, "Oh, this factory can do it." Cuz he saw the machinery is the exact same machinery that his factory in China had. So we tour it, get to meet the management. Um, so he was like, "Yeah, this is like really weird. It's like same machinery, a lot of same things." So at the end of the tour, we just like, you know, as a plant man floor manager kind of walking us around, but we get at the end of the tour, we get to meet the management. Turns out the exact same factory um that he was working with in China. Same owners. Yeah. It was it's a Vietnamese name, so all Vietnamese structure. So when he looked it up, it was like, you know, bend printing sign printing company or something along that lines. But yeah, it was the exact same owner ended up like setting up a clone pretty much exactly as factory in China was. And he didn't know that like he never talked to he didn't want to talk to his Chinese factory cuz he didn't want to get on the radar that was looking at moving to Vietnam, which is why he never asked. But yeah, it turns out it's the exact same factory that they own. So, did they did they catch on to that before they gave him a price or did he get a price before they caught on to that? Well, he got a price. It's the same factory. So, I mean, he's doing business with same people now. So, yeah. So, yeah, it was the same factory. Yeah. I' I've been to Vietnam. I've been uh to the north and to the south uh of Vietnam and so I'm familiar with it, but a lot of people are not. They really love Americans there. They love the West. I mean, a lot of people think, well, there was this war 50 years ago and uh they they hate us. They actually don't. They they are very never been an issue. I've lived there for years. No, the West. But are there regions of Vietnam that are industrial like you know China has pockets and regions? Does that exist in Vietnam too? Um or or how does it work? Yeah, there's definitely big clusters of factory. I mean our office we say Ho Min City but it's actually in Bendong Province which about an hour outside of Ho Chi Min City and that's the largest single industrial area in Vietnam. But even around Ho Chi Min there's Longan Dong Nai. So within about a 1 to 2 hour radius is all the factories and there's definitely clusters and then up in Hanoi has a bunch of several clusters like around Hanoi. I mean Apple has their own and Samsung have their own clusters where they make Galaxy phones and a bunch of Apple products. So yeah it's definitely clustered um predominantly in those two areas. Ho Chi Min has about about 55% of the industrial production in the country in the about a 2 three hour radius of the city. There's not much in the city center itself, but it's all more or less a circle around the city of manufacturers. So, are the parts being made? Is everything being made from scratch in Vietnam or is a lot of the raw materials still coming from China into Vietnam where the labor is being done? A lot of raw materials, a lot of components are still coming from China. But yeah, the final products made in Vietnam and the actual production's done in Vietnam. like where backpacks like the zippers, the buckles, some fabrics like nylons, certain nylons will come from China, but the actual production will be done in Vietnam. Um, and when you get molds like talking doing one luggage product project, um, and it's kind of hard cuz all the molds for just ABS hard shell luggage all come from China. Um, so we're trying to find mold manufacturers outside of China and that's kind of hard to do. There's some in Taiwan, so we might go with Taiwanese manufacturer for the molds. But yeah, I mean a lot of stuff like that still comes from China and it helps because the proximity pretty close to China and it's relatively easy to move stuff from China to Vietnam. So Vietnam basically is where China was maybe 20 years ago where the labor is if China if the average person in the US I think maybe is you or somebody showed this uh is 30 bucks in China it's 18 bucks and in Vietnam it's six bucks an hour or something like that. It's they're still at that. Yeah. And so that's the main advantage is is is the labor cost, right? Yeah, labor cost is definitely getting higher and higher every year. Um, before 2019, it was significantly cheaper than China, but after 2019, I feel like it started labor cost, which is good for the workers, has been going up and starting kind of relatively reach near the same level. Well, I would still say it's cheaper, but I mean it's going to be cheaper than a tier one city in China, but also potentially even more expensive than tier four, tier five city in China, China. So, it's but yeah, it's generally cheaper. So is the labor pool I mean the people doing the menial work are pro are most likely Vietnamese but what about like the design engineer system the engineers and stuff are those having to come from China or is there a lot of education that's really ramped up in Vietnam where they're producing their universities the it's a mix um honestly and like we said it's like they do allow foreign ownership of factories the countries actually own the most foreign factories tend to actually be Japan, Korea, Taiwan more than even China. So we actually work with Yeah. in Vietnam. So like when we do like Yeah. when we do like screws and whatnot like we work with Japanese factory owned factories. There's like two or three of them um that just do screws and fasteners and yeah all the management there would be in that case Japanese um engineers as well Japanese. Um we work with some EMS manufacturers and there's a mixed some Chinese some but the biggest one are actually Taiwanese owned and um so it's the same deal like Taiwanese manufacturers and engineers. So it's definitely kind of will be a mix. So yeah, it tends when there's foreign investment in the factory, they tend to have their management from the respective country. We even do like Danish owned factories like we do a lot of work where um uh for instance like some work outer wear um and that's a Danish owned company and they again have Danish engineers and managers, Danish designers, whatnot. How how are the factories in China still mostly I'm sorry in Vietnam still mostly u human labor or are they getting robotics like uh you know I see stuff all the time on Tik Tok and on on online how China is just ramping up the robot I mean Amazon and people doing it here in the west too but they're ramping up crazy robotics is that happening in China or is it still more the the the manual manual type of stuff more I mean still mostly manual but there's definitely been some advancements And it's like when we do even like fabric cut on sew project projects like in the old days I mean to get like literally a paper patterns for the fabrics draw it out on a a piece of chalk and then have a a bandsaw basically cut it. And even now like I'm seeing like they just put the fabric in a big pile and then it's actually a lot of it's even laser cut now. Um, so that's getting more advanced. Like a lot of furniture factories have more CNC machining and we're seeing some 3D printing and more CNC um machining, but overwhelmingly it's still majority. It's um people focus. Yeah, I know in China I've seen like videos of the dark factories and it's crazy and we don't know what dark factories are. They're literally the factories where they don't have lights or they turn off the lights cuz there's no people on the floor so they save electricity just turn off lights. So yeah, they call them dark factory and yeah, I really want to see some. I know some of the car factories over there are basically very few people, almost entirely robots in China now, which is just insane. What What about the infrastructure? I mean, in China, the the the wheels are well greased to get raw materials to the factory. If another factory down the street needs something, they're all in the same area. They can get things easily. And then once it's ready to get to the ship, the transport and the packaging and the getting everything out, it just works. It works like a clockwork. Is is does the same happen in Vietnam or do we have some stumbling blocks where it's like ooh uh there's a little bit more issues, a little bit more trouble, uh some things can go wrong, a little bit more not quite as well greased or what what are you seeing there on logistics side? Uh it's gotten much better in the last few years. everything is kind of clustered so that similar industries tend to be in the same area but yeah I mean the last several years the ports have expanded massively like pre209 pre2020 like a lot of the ports were just overcrowded like literally trucks will wait days outside the ports just to load on um containers and I have not seen that issue as much anymore brown outs were occasional but again last few years it's not been an issue at all so they're definitely getting more and more advanced investments into infrastructure Vietnam's definitely spinning big to make sure everything goes smoothly, but it's still not at the par with China cuz China I mean infrastructure is just insane. Yeah, it is to be honest, but it's getting better and still pretty good. And yeah, with clusters like anytime we do wooden goods, you'll find that everything from the raw logs to processing from the raw logs all the way into the finished furniture, no matter if it's like high-end or low-end MDF furniture, all those factories are like clustered within the same industrial park. Like basically there's a raw log processor who takes the logs, make the boards and then they sell it off to the next person and then so on and so on until you get the finished furniture or product. So yeah, you definitely see that cluster and same with fabric like there's a couple fabric mills and they get clustered together. Um but yeah, I mean yeah definitely wooden goods is extremely clustered. They just really kind of figure out where the port is because it comes down the river a lot of times from plantations up in the Meon River Delta and then right where they unload it, they pretty much process it right next to the port and then it's all within a mile radius or so. Five or six different factories working one after the other, take it all the way from lock to the finished furniture product. It's quite impressive to see cuz we were talking about like one client just at a furniture factory talking about cuz he wanted seven layer plywood for his product and factory was like, "Yeah, we just buy our plywood from the factory next door. Let's go check them out." So he called up the factory manager, went next door to the factory next door where they made the plywood and so we started talking about with that factory about their plywood standards and how they could do seven layer plywood and he had like specific thicknesses and all that. And so yeah, it was basically just extra 30-minute mini with a different factory had it on cuz it's literally next door and you guys plywood how he wanted it. What are the big ports in Vietnam? Where are most things ship it out of? Yeah, I mean we ship out of Bunga. Saigon has their own port. Up in Hanoi is Kata. Um and a couple others. Daen is pretty decent sized port. Um so yeah, I mean it's yeah the ports tend to be pretty close by. Yeah, we tend to mostly do Saigon port or Bongta when we do um from Ho Chi Min City. Our team's based in Ho Chi Min City. So I feel like most of our projects in that area. Ho Chi Min City is what used to be called Saigon. Yeah. Up until a little over 50 years ago on April 30th of this year was the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War. That's true. Yeah. My my father my father served in Vietnam. Uh he was on uh yeah I don't know if you ever saw the movie Apocalypse Now movie from like the 70s but uh little river boats uh I don't know six guys or something on these little river boats and he would he was in the Navy so he was in charge of a fleet of six of those and their job was to take seals up the river up the Mikong Delta and drop them off at cover of darkness under the bushes and they go in they do their mission and usually come running back uh under fire being chased and they have to evacu So I went back with him. I went to Vietnam in 2009. So it's been been a 16 years, but I went back with him. It's his first time back. And so um we we toured around where some of the bases used to be and one of them is now a hotel. And it was kind of weird for him, but he wouldn't go to the north. He's like, "No, that's enemy. I'm not going to Hanoi. I'm not going up there to Halong Bay or any of that stuff." So we skipped that part. I went there by myself later. But I was impressed with Vietnam wasn't what I expected. You know, I think a lot of people have this they've never been to China. They have this mental picture in their head of like bunch of rice fields and uh you know something you saw in the movie the Bruce Lee movies 30 years ago. That's China. China in particular is more modern than it's tier one cities are way more modern than any any city in the United States. Any city. living in Shanghai, just explaining to people how like advanced their metro system and all the electric buses and everything. People just didn't believe me or have a concept to even understand what it was like. Yeah. No, it's it's because it's all new. I mean, it's all been built with the latest technology, but they're way advanced. Vietnam is not at that level yet, but it's uh it it's more than rice fields. Uh and% cart pulled ox is pulling carts. Um, so I mean it's it the thing that always sticks out to me is um the freaking motor mopeds everywhere. I mean you play Frogger. You play Frogger in Ho Chi Min City to cross the street. Um, just walk at consistent pace and look make eye contact and that's Is that what it is? Is that make eye contact? Well, just look at the way so you actually see them coming and make sure they go around and walk at the same pace. If you like stop cuz they're anticipating you moving so they're going to go where you were. If you like freak out and stop, that's when accidents happen. If you just move consistently, that's the trick. Yeah, that that that was crazy to me. But I Yeah, I got some really nice artwork hanging in my house and I bought a couple uh marble statues in Daang had those shipped back. Hoyen, Marble Mountain, I mean, Hoyenne is one of my if I had my ex-wife, I told her um at one point we were going to go have a bunch of custom uh clothes made and I said, "Oh, we got to go to Hoyenne." Uh she's like, "Why Hoya?" I said, "Because you can take any any picture from any magazine, anything that's been on the red carpet, go there and say, "I want this." And in two two or three days, you get a hotel and you go tour the city and enjoy the food, the fur, and all that kind of stuff. It's not faux, everybody that's listening, it's phen fox. When you go order that locally, it's called fu. Pronounce it right, you you'll get a better tasting fur. uh um anyway uh so we I was like we'll go to go to Hoyan because the garment stuff there city's cool number one and then just all the garment I had a complete out like five outfits made suit head to toe custom fit like in a day or two I mean it was and it was it was cheap I mean it would this would have cost me 5,000 bucks or something here it cost me like $300 or I don't know I don't remember the exact numbers but it was crazy cheap yeah I got suit that I got married in made in Hoyen. It was a nice royal blue Kashmir suit and yeah, I think it was 160 bucks, but I spent extra get the silk line of Kashmir. Well, mine my cost because I'm a bigger guy. I need more fabric so you know, but no, I mean, so there's a lot of really cool cool stuff there. Um, so how do you speak uh Vietnamese? No, I've tried and I'm all about learning languages. I when I lived in Shanghai, I lived in Shanghai for two years. I took Chinese lessons the whole time. And beyond ordering food and getting around taxi cabs, I just I don't have that proc that ability to learn languages at all. I just I I it's like my weakness is learning languages. I know the basic I can get around. I go over food items, say hello, goodbye, and all that. Yeah. Always surprised when I get I go to some of these um massage places sometimes, get a massage, and uh it's usually run by Chinese here in the States, like the foot massage places. Yeah. No, not those kind of massage places you're all thinking about. These are legit massage places. No, don't get get your mind out of the gutter. Um, but I go and I I I go into them and and at the end, you know, I'll I'll I'll say shishi, which is thank you in Chinese. I'm probably butchering it, but they will always look at me like, oh, they're like all surprised. I know like, you know, thank you in Chinese. The same people always love that when you know a few things. Same thing in Vietnam. Does Vietnam have all these holidays? It's like China seems like they don't work half the year because there's a holiday as many but there are several big holidays cuz yeah I mean T is the same as Chinese New Year same dates um and effectively same holiday and yeah we had two big ones back to back we had the reunification day which is what they call the end of the Vietnam War cuz it's when North and South were reunited and then Mayday recently Ching Ming festival April had like three April May yeah Mayday was May 1st but yeah it's not as many but there definitely are few holidays And you kind of got people kind of get tripped out from it. Yeah. No one expects TT to be such a big holiday. They were like, "Oh, we got Chinese New Year, so we want to move to Vietnam cuz we want to get the work done." Like, it's actually going to be the same in China or same in Vietnam. Do you have the same problem with turnover in the factories they have in like during in Vietnam? I mean, sorry, in China during Chinese New Year, a lot of those workers go out of the tier one cities back into the countryside and they never they never come back. And you got a fresh group of people that come in after a big holiday. And that's where a lot of problems start happening with manufacturing. No, is the same thing happen in Vietnam or No. Yeah, it's pretty much the same in Vietnam cuz Yeah, a lot of the workers are signed to year-long contracts and they begin and end at that. So, yeah, same deal cuz people leave early from their contracts right before and then right after. Same deal. They have to hire new workers to replace the old ones or renegotiate old contracts. So yeah, even though it's a two week holiday, it's really a month cause one week of them having labor shortages and a week of them trying to rehire more people for the next year. Are the workers staying in dorms and stuff at the uh factories like they do in uh China or not as much but it does exist. Yeah. So there are dorms but yeah most of them tended to live pretty locally relatively to the factories and kind of commute in. So if I was looking now, is anything being done across the border in Cambodia? Are you doing anything there or just strictly uh we do some in Cambodia, but the working conditions in Cambodia are a bit worse? I'm I prefer not to do Cambodia if I have the choice to be perfectly honest. But yeah, we do do some in Cambodia. There are a lot of factories, a lot of Vietnamese owned factories even will have a secondary factory in Cambodia to do extra labor or whatnot cuz it is cheaper labor cost even in Cambodia than in Vietnam. So we're occasionally but don't do too much. What are the good things to do in Viet make in Vietnam? What is Vietnam like? Okay, stay away from this. Don't don't ever do I don't know what it is, but don't ever do this in Vietnam. Stick that leave that in China or somewhere else. But if you got this, this and this definitely take a look at Vietnam. Yeah. apparel, textile, anything made of fabric. Backpacks, luggage, purses, stuff of that nature, duffel bags, anything made bed sheets, anything made from fabric is great in Vietnam. It's their largest single industry by our estimation. Textile industry has about 6,000 factories and 2 million people work there. So, it's the largest industry by far. Then second that, we do a lot of shoes. Um, Vietnam's the largest exporter of shoes in the world. Um, so we do everything from Nike or not Nikes, um, to sports shoes, tennis shoes, pickle ball shoes, work boots, um, leather shoes and everything in between. Even like leather shoes with like custom orthotics and insoles. So we can do some good customizations. Um, second that a lot of wooden goods and furniture. Um, Vietnam is a tropical country, so they have excellent tropical hardwoods, access tropical hardwoods. Um, so like bamboo and stuff like that. Well, even like Accashia antique and um rosewood and rubber wood. Um so they have Yeah, it's really good because they're part of Asan, so there's plantations all throughout Southeast Asia for everything. Um so we can get wood transported pretty easily, but most of it's even grown grown pretty locally. Like we do probably number one wood we work with is isacia. And then we do a lot of rubber wood, which is pretty identical to oak. In fact, a lot of times oak is or rubber wood is called oak um because it's so similar in density and color. But yeah, we do yeah, a lot of furniture mainly in HomeGoods um out of wood. And then beyond that, we're starting to do more and more plastic and silicone injection molding. That's kind of the more one of the quicker growing industries, but yeah, there's lot electronics. What about electronics? Electronics is hit and miss. It's like we said, it's growing. We do some electronic projects in Vietnam. I'm starting to do more. Like we just did a rice cooker project. Um but it's very hit and miss on what they can do. We did one project recently that I was quite proud about. We did a is a remote or remote control stand up paddle board fin. So it had a remote in your hand and Bluetooth connection. We actually managed to do majority of that in Vietnam. Um which is I know that project. I have that product. It's a Kickstarter. Yeah, it might be. I don't know. It looks like it looks like it's white and has like it's like a little They have a white one and a black one. It has like a little fin. Yeah, that's our client. Yeah, it's called um uh I have it uh I just saw it yesterday in my garage. I was cleaning some stuff up. It's Yeah, it goes on the bottom of a of a surfboard and then you have a little like watch. They had massive delays on that uh in getting that out cuz the guys that made that not that's not your fault. The guys that made that had never done manufacturing before so they didn't understand the process and then they had did some testing and had to go back to the drawing board and fix a few things on Yeah. Yeah. So I I know that exact. That's funny you say that. I know the exact product. Nice. Um, yeah. So, what what should I absolutely not do? Man, I was we're do we get a lot of requests for LED lights. Um, and LED lights are almost exclusively made in China. Um, so that's kind of one of the hardest ones to find. And kind of some more complex items. Like this is a simple one. We were looking at keychains, but they had like three different materials and kind of various molds, but the price they were getting was super super cheap in China. And we just could not even come close to reaching those prices. Usually like the touristy key chains you see in gift shops of like Yeah. every tourist place they were supplying them and they were making exclusively in China. Got hit with 145% tariffs. But it was just the mix of the materials they were using cuz they had rubber key chains, metal keychains, all that. It was just impossible to find at that such low price. Like we couldn't even come close to their price. That was a little frustrating um to get. Um but I mean there's definitely kind of more and more coming to Vietnam. What about IP? I mean how intellectual production intellectual property the Chinese don't respect it. You can have an NN agreement in China and it doesn't mean anything. Yeah. Um what what what how's the situation in Vietnam with counterfeiting and knockoffs and factories stuff going outside door and sharing uh better cuz knock on wood we haven't really had a big problem with it in Vietnam but yeah you definitely have to protect yourself Vietnam is nice that you can actually enforce English language contracts um but yeah but we still always try to get everything dual written in Vietnamese and Chinese um and it's not been as big an issue but it's definitely I would say easier to enforce in Vietnam, but not easy at all. Yeah. I mean, there's law lawyers that can handle IP if you're really concerned. And like we said, kind of mentioned luggage client we had recently. He's very adamant about IP protection from China to the point doesn't he want his molds made in China cuz he's convinced that the Chinese factory is just going to sell them. So, he's doing everything in Vietnam that he can or not in China. What about other regions? I mean there's some other sourcing people are saying hey uh Mexico is hot right now and you see someone and doing a you know webinar to the Amazon crowd hey you should source in Mexico then someone else like no no no forget Mexico uh it's Indonesia Indonesia is the hot spot you look at then the next guy comes oh we're doing leading a trip to Vietnam sourcing trip to Vietnam no next one comes says no no no you all you all got it wrong India is where the hot where it's it's at let's come to a show in India what what's going on where are all those valid? Are you doing anything in any of those or is there one that you really think is like a heads and shoulders above the rest after China? I mean I personally Vietnam like we started expanding to Southeast Asia and Mexico since last year but just in terms of what they can do is very limited. Like we're looking a lot of Mexico and they can do like industrial metal aftermarket car parts, some workware projects, denim, stuff like that. But it's very limited and the amount of people we get request products from Mexico versus what Mexico can actually do is um yeah I mean it's the demand for Mexico manufactur is much higher than what they can make cuz most of what the factories there are they're set up by like GM has their own factories for car parts and sand metals and other big American brands have their factories but they only make exclusively for that brand. So there's not much contract manufacturing that people like you and Chinese set up these industrial zones along the border which Chinese built you know managed factories right also. Yeah for sure definitely yeah and when I was there I noticed there was a lot of Chinese just everywhere um with factories. Probably should have walked up and asked him hey what's your factory what you make more than I did. Yeah, I always tell the story uh you regular listeners of the podcast probably heard me tell this about those of you that haven't I always remember uh what drove this home to me is the the impact of Chinese manufacturing around the world is during CO you remember in 2020 when CO first broke out there was a region of uh Italy that really got hit really hard. It was all over the news and like people were dying left and right uh like like crazy. And there's even a documentary I think on Netflix or or Hulu or one of those that kind of chronicled some of the doctors dealing with this. And I was like, man, why is this one little area that bad? And then somewhere another news story came out and it showed that they didn't tie the two together. I tied in my head, but that area is a huge industrial area where all your made in Italy sunglasses and made in Italy handbags are actually made in Italy. True statement. right by Chinese um and that a lot of the factories uh the biggest trade route was Wuhan. So people coming from Wuhan where where CO originated and broke out from were they before we knew that this was a thing they were going back and forth. So that's why it spread so much. So that's like ah okay that makes sense now. Man I had no idea that at the time that China had such a presence in Italy even to actually make stuff. I mean the thing about China is they're really they're not great at innovation, but they're at first generation innovation, but they're there's they're masters at second generation innovation. So someone else, you know, creates the the brains and that's not to say that the Chinese don't have smart people and they they do innovate some things. Yeah. Yeah, but and just generally speaking, they're not they're behind in innovation in first generation innovation. But once someone from the west particularly figures out, hey, we need to make this iPhone, this is what it's going to do, they can take that and like beat the crap out of it to figure out what's the best way to manufacture and most costefficient way to manufacture this and to put this together and how can we tweak it here and there to actually make it even better. They're masters at that. Yeah. What about the Vietnamese? What are they what are they masters at? I mean, in terms of like high level, I mean, they're definitely getting there. Um, I mean, that's a good question cuz I mean, we do a lot of like Yeah. I mean, in terms of like iPhone level stuff, they're not really quite at that level at all cuz a lot of what I mean, what we said we do in Vietnam tends to be like peril and textile manufacturing, but they're definitely good at like figure out ways to get fabric stitching products down. like when we do plush toys, they really get the fabrics or the patterns down just from basic images. But yeah, it's definitely not at the level of Chinese when it comes like recreating something like the iPhone and figuring out how to do that efficiently. Haven't gotten there yet cuz yeah, I mean when I know the Apple factory in Vietnam is more or less ran by Apple more directly than even the Foxcon plants in in Donguan and Guong province. Um, so I mean, yeah, I mean that's that's kind of a good question. Well, robotics is going to take away a lot of the human side on a lot of stuff, but it's where robotics is going to have a hard time catching up is in hand hand stuff like you're doing little toy so little toy soldiers or miniatures and you got to paint, you know, the boots on this little miniature or something. That's where it's it's hot. It's going to be hard to automate a lot of that out. And right now, you know, that's gone from predominantly China to move in towards other countries like Vietnam. Um, but I think a lot of people are saying Africa is where it's going next. As as you just said earlier, Vietnam's wages are starting to go up. The next place for this kind of stuff is is Africa. Yeah. And are are you are you dabbling in that? Are you seeing any Not in Africa specifically, but I yeah, I do know there's definitely going to be some lot of investment, especially from the Chinese for setting up factories. I know like some textile factories and whatnot are getting set up there, but I personally don't have too much experience sourcing from Africa. What that's going to be definitely worth something checking into cuz is yeah 2030 is probably when that big shift will probably happen cuz v I know China they want to move up higher and higher in the supply chain. what they make in terms of in country, you know, their cars, airplanes, microchips, iPhones, and they're kind of more or less from my experience seem to be fine and actually almost encouraging the lower value production to move outside the country, which is why a lot of it's moving to Vietnam and why China's not being that active and stopping it. But yeah, I mean, if China owns the factories in Africa or Vietnam, that's I mean, ultimately good for China and that China definitely sees that. So, how do people find Cosmo find Cosmo sourcing? I mean, how Yeah. When when you said when your first products were back when Vietnam, you said those first two products were the big metal things that they wrapped the wires around. Yeah. The wooden wooden spools. How did they How did they find you at that time? I just Are you on Alibaba or are you on uh No, I'm not on Alibaba. How did they find you? Uh I mean, I have a website, cosmosourcing.com, and so I SEO seems to be the number one way. And then yeah, I've been around for 10 years. So majority of my clients come from word of mouth. So clients referring other clients, which has been great. Um but yeah, in those early days, I had just cold calling friends and say, "Hey, do you know anybody looking for products in Vietnam?" And that's how I got started. One of my college classmates worked for the company. Um they're kind of industrial packaging company. He just worked for him and just knew the contact. So he put me in touch with their head of procurement and that's how that first two projects I started. And then I had a mentor in Shanghai who worked for a trooper which is actually a Mexican basically a Mexican home depot. He was their head of sourcing. So when I moved to Vietnam, he just got in touch with me like, "Hey, we don't have anything in Vietnam. Do you want to help us with that project?" And that was the wheelbarrow handles um and shovels and whatnot cuz they just didn't have anybody in Vietnam or just find us a factory. We'll work with you. And so that's how I got started there. But yeah, after doing that for a few years, you build a website, you build a team, and then word of mouth gets out, people start finding you online. So, what what brought you back to the states? You so you went you graduated from uh from Alabama, then you head over there. You're working for another company, did, right? You start in China, and then you ended up doing the sourcing uh moonlighting on the side, and it became full-time. Yeah. and then over to Vietnam for quite a few years and then now you're back in the States. What what's what brought you back? Well, originally co brought me back. Um so yeah, then me and my wife basically yeah in 2021 we had our first kid and ended up settling down and having a family. So just staying states side for the time being and traveling as needed. But yeah, kind of starting a family really kind of brought me back to the States. Have you been back to Vietnam since 2021? Oh yeah, I was there last year. Okay. Yeah. But not as much as I would like to go. Your wife Vietnamese? No, she's American from Wisconsin, which is why I went Wisconsin, not Alabama. Oh, okay. Okay. Um, Alabama. Yeah, that's I think I was telling you the story when we uh we met about uh Alabama&M game a couple years ago. Um, this game was uh it was Alabama was number one in the country. I think we were like we at the beginning of the year we were ranked pretty high. We had fallen out at the time. Yeah. We had fallen out of the out of the rankings and I I'm a big huge college football fan as are you. And I was always that's like religion Saturday religion for me. And I was going to watch that game and my wife saying no Kevin AC Austin City Limits Festival is going on and Billy Isish is playing tonight. I wanna I want to go to Billy Isish. I'm like, so I did the good husband thing. I set the DVR to tape taped the game. I turned off my phone. Literally turned off my phone. I didn't want anybody messaging me. Avoided all radio, avoided everything. Made it through the night. We come back. I sit down 11:00 at night, 11:30, like, "All right, I'm going to watch the game." I turn on the DVR and the damn thing was like still showing the post game cuz the game had gone over or something. I'm like, "Oh, no, no, I can't see it. I can't see it. I can't see it. Don't don't turn the sound off. Turn the sound off." and I could not get the dang thing to rewind. So, just naturally, I go onto my phone, turn it on, and like start to Google um you know, how to fix this issue. And all of a sudden, texts are coming in left and right about how we kicked a field goal in the last few seconds and won the game. And I was like, "This is a game we're supposed to be like annihilated and like Alabama's going to destroy us." And I'm like, "Ah, never again. Uh wife, you're divorced. Bye." No, I'm just kidding. I ended up divorcing her, but not for that reason. Um, but so yeah. So, uh, um, so you're a huge follower of Alabama football, right? Oh, yeah. Went to every home game, even when Mike Schuler was coach when I was in college. And traveled to as many as I could, too. Yeah. I loved Alabama football since I was a kid. My parents went there, my grandparents, three of my friends. So, you've been to every SEC stadium? Not every. I've been pretty much everyone, but Missouri, Florida. I've actually never been to Florida. in South Carolina. Have you been to college? San Texas. No, I haven't. I've been to Austin, though. Oh, I'm sorry. They invite me. No, I live I live in Austin. I live in Austin. I love Austin as a city, but always people always like, "What's it like as an Aggie living in Austin?" I said, "It's like living behind the orange curtain." Uh, but one of my or Tennessee. One of my Yeah, exactly. Like one of my favorite things to do though is when Texas sucks, especially for a few about a decade they're bad, is to listen to talk radio here and just listen to them and complain. That was one one of my favorite things to do, but you probably the same with Auburn. Oh, absolutely. In Tennessee, too. Oh, in Yeah, in Tennessee. Yeah, the whole Nico thing was quite nice and all their head coaching searches that they've gone through all that drama. So, the season starts next month. I mean, at the end of August, what what is what do you think is going to happen this year? What what's going on? Is Georgia going to rain? Is Texas going to say, "Hey, just came in. Now we got Matt, we got we're going to be uh crushing it or you guys going to be back?" Alabama's back. We second year coach. We have a second year coach. So, yeah, it's true. I think we're back. I don't know. It's hard to say. I really hope we're back. We at least got to make the playoffs and do well because Yeah. Missing the playoffs last year was just brutal. I don't think I can handle another sub 10 loss year. I take every loss way too personally and my wife would tell like Jim I used to do that. I used to take them I take used to take them personally but I have to remind myself now it's just a game but still it's it's still I still it's it's my blood runs maroon. Uh I mean your run it's hard to do it's hard hard to do that. Yeah, it really is. Like I just can't separate myself. And yeah, my wife only thinks I'm a fan of Alabama because they're good. But I mean, I grew up an Alabama fan. So even our three and eight years, I was still watching every game through the dark age of three. Mike Schula, Mike Deose, all the mics we had. So yeah, it's definitely Yeah, I mean, saving was excellent though. You gota Jim, you got to fix this pro problem because here's the problem with Alabama football. Y'all don't got no alumni money. You need to fix this. You need Cosmo Cosmos sourcing to blow up. You need to be the billionaire. You can have the Cosmos sourcing stadium or the Cosmos sourcing athletic athletic facilities. So, Cosmo Athletics that there it is. Cosmo athletics. Um, y'all need some money to pay these guys now that college football players going to get paid. Um, that's your problem is you don't have rich oil money like we have here in Texas. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, we don't have a single billionaire alumni. You don't have a single billionaire alumni? No. Yeah, we're like one of the few fan bases. I mean, we got like broad amount of people that donate, but yeah, it's definitely we're losing money getting bad. Oh, man. It's going to be from us. It's going to be interesting. It's going to be interesting year. So, how did you do that when you were in Vietnam? Did you watch the games like Oh, yeah. VP 3 a.m. Yeah, VPN or some sketchy pirate sites. Well, say I was ever breaking the law, but definitely found some ways to find it. But yeah, I literally woke up at like 3:00 a.m. watch every single game. I don't care what time it was, I was up watching it. And was your wife with you in Vietnam at the time? Uh, yeah, I met my wife. She was an English teacher in Vietnam. So, we actually met in Vietnam. Oh, so we were at the time dating. Cool. Yeah. Same in Shanghai. There was one bar in Shanghai that showed every college game, the Camel, which was excellent because it was there was no one big fan base there. So like every single fan of college sports just went to this one bar. They were open 24/7. And you had Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Michigan, wherever, all in this one bar watching games. And yeah, that place is great. Oh, that would be fun. Yeah, we were up at the like whatever time like I remember Yeah, Kick Six. Probably should have mentioned that bad one, but yeah, the Kick Six game. I remember it was like the perfect fall day. That game ended those those listing that I'm I'm going to put a little dagger in Jim's aside right now. Pick six the pick six game was like 10 2012 2013 somewhere running there maybe. Yeah, 2013 the game was over. Alabama goes down, they score, the game's over. I forget two or three seconds left in the game. uh a very short amount of time and so you have to kick off and the chances of running a kickoff all it wasn't a kickoff it was a field goal it was a field goal that was called field go kicking a field goal even more unusual yeah yeah that's right it was a field goal 53 yard field goal I can tell you all the details if you want a 53 yard field goal that fell short and so uh Auburn had someone back there to field it and usually you know doesn't hurt to do that but they fielded it in the end zone near the back of the end zone and they ran ran it 100 plus yards all the way to the other side and won the game. And and that's that's one of the most classic college football games of all time. Yeah. For the record, I was also there during the Alabama Notre Dame game where he won the national championship 4210. Oh yeah, that was funny because Notre Dame had a much Yeah, Notre Dame the whole time we were there that year. They had a pretty large or Chinese alumni base. So probably 20 people at every game were Notre Dame fans and like three Alabama fans all season and they were just so arrogant and that game was just so cathartic because every Notame fan was there and then just basically me I was belligerently drunk on it finally just letting out that frustration of them thinking they're and just beating them before you do that. So, I'll talk about that game instead. In Yeah, in Shanghai. That's That's Yeah, I was in Shanghai. I was at the Camel Bar. And yeah, that was another game like woke up super early. Yeah. Like drunk by like 8 a.m. So, what do you see what else is going on in sourcing? I mean, what what what do you see? I know we we can we can speculate right now that what's happening with terrorists, but tomorrow everything can change. So, yeah. Where do you see this? What do you see? how you see this whole thing, not just with China and Vietnam, but globally, what's your opinion on how this whole thing shakes out? Is there going to just be some 30% just going to stick uh even though they may have changed it by the time this comes out because something can change tomorrow? Uh but what what do you see long term? What what's the hedges and what should people be doing? Yeah, I mean 30% right now I think is going to be the base cuz I don't think it's going to go any lower than that unless something major happens for China. I mean, it's 25% before, it's only 5% increase. And it's been 25% for what, six, seven years now. Um, so I mean, honestly, I don't see that one going any lower. But yeah, I mean, it's going to be a lot more deals with other countries. It's really hard to say cuz um this is recorded in May and probably be in July. So everything we say now with tariffs, like what it is now, is going to be outdated. Who knows? I expect a trade deal will be announced in sometime in the future. There's been two rounds of talks at the high level with Vietnamese and US officials. But what that trade deal is, I'm hoping I'm anticipating less than 20% um tariffs on any deal announced with the Vietnam and probably less than 10. Um but yeah, it's really hard to say. I think yeah, a lot more countries going to negotiate and more trade deals are going to be announced sooner than later, but it's going to be a slow trickle of trade deals. So, if I want to work with a sourcing company, I'm selling on Amazon. I got our Kickstarter, Walmart, or I I just have a Tik Tok shop. I'm going to try to push pitch some stuff. What do I need to know? What's what aggravates you? Like people come to you like, "Ah, god dang amateur." Other people come to you with all their ducks in a row and like specific, you know? So, what what are some tips that you would give people that whether it's your whether it's customer sourcing or somebody else when they when they start to look for sourcing? What are some expectations a that they should have and what are some tips to help them actually make sure that you can do your job to help them? Yeah, for sure. I think the biggest one is private label is just not really a thing outside of China. And by private label, I mean talking to factory, having their catalogs of goods they already make and just putting your logo on it and having them sell it. Pretty much all manufacturers outside of China are going to be contract manufacturers, which means they expect the client to have a fully detailed product spec sheets and bill of materials and their products and they'll work with you to tweak it for manufacturing, but they really expect the client to provide that for them. Um, so yeah, a lot of clients, they have very vague ideas of a product um or prospective clients, I guess. Um, we'll have vague ideas of a product, but not like actually detailed down to the drawings. And we work with some clients who like have take a broad product and really kind of narrow it down and kind of find some designers for them to actually make the tech packs and whatnot. But you really have to have the tech packs, the millaterials, the what the product's going to be to really kind of ex succeed outside of China sourcing cuz the factories by and large there's are obviously exceptions to this but by and large they don't have designers on staff. They'll maybe have some production engineers that can do the tweaking and programming for the machinery, but or make the patterns for cut and sew items, but they really do expect the client to provide the actual tech packs and product specs for the products. Um, so how do I how do I get those? Do I go on Upwork and find somebody? Do I use a company like Gima or is that something you guys provide? Yeah, it's worth looking at. I'm talking to one of my buddies who just got laid off from a from a kind of a tech company. um possibly adding that service. But yeah, I mean by and large we kind of work with we have a network of designers we kind of put them in touch with and once we have trust contacts but yeah you can go on Upwork or Fiverr and find designers that do a pretty decent job and make a pretty decent tech packs and specs from there. So what's a tech pack? Explain that to people listening that like what what's he talking about tech pack? What's that down? Yeah, it varies by product by product but for the most part it's more or less instructions on how the product's going to be made. Um, for a lot of basic things like we wear a lot of clothing and textiles. Um, so you'll just have the pattern files. We basic ones with scrubs where it'll just be the measurements of like the t-shirt you just want with a size large and any specific cuts you want. Maybe athletic cuts drawn out. Other ones are more detailed where they have the actual fabric each piece of fabric that's gone into a shirt detailed out of those designs. Um, and then yeah, same thing with like even time we do down to the buttons too, right? where the buttons are and what material the buttons are made of and how the hole should be and like whether the collar should turn in or turn this way or or have a button like every little detail is in the in the in the tech pack and then down to this fabric and this material and it's plastic number 2713 and it's uh PMS color the black it's not just I need a black t-shirt it's PMS uh whatever um yeah very specific things Yeah, I mean we work with some basic ones like we'll do active wear and then they don't know the exact material they want. So we'll get the fabric send them swatches of materials like a dozen different ones and then they'll feel the stretchiness and fill which ones have the right thickness and then there's some back and forth with that. But it's definitely take more time and you really got to kind of refine that project. But yeah, other ones have the like you said the exact material specified, exact colors, exact blends like it's 89% polyester, 11% elastylene or spandex or whatever. And then same thing with like anytime we do anything silicon injection molded or whatnot, you got to have the 3D design files for that um prior to it. The STL files and everything. Yeah, the STL and step files and whatnot to actually get it made. Um and yeah, just Yeah, I mean that can be done. I mean, just to those listening, STL and step files are basically like the CAD they're not CAD drawings. You can have when I did my dog bowls uh and my my Apple Watch charging, those were designs. I literally sketched them on a piece of paper, sent those to somebody. They did the 3D renderings of it and we got it uh to where I approved it and then they they created what's called STL um uh and step files, which is then what you give to the actual manufacturer to actually make the mold and the process and everything too. And that wasn't I I found a guy on Upwork to do this for my dog bowls for like $400. Um and and it's not it can be expensive. You go to some big design firms in the United States, it can start adding up to thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. Yeah, you get electronic manufacturing get quite a bit because they have do testing and standards and all that. But yeah, for basic stuff like dog bowl, yeah, 400 bucks is pretty standard. So you need something to do that when I want to do a slow feed dog bowl. I'm not I shouldn't be coming to you, hey Jim, I got a slow feed dog bowl. Help me find some factories. It should be let me visualize how I want this dog bowl. Sketch it out the best I can. Get someone to render it up. find someone on Upwork or if I don't know anybody and to actually do some renderings and then create the step file because for you to actually get a proper to find the right factory to actually do this and to actually be able to find um you know the right process and everything you need that I mean so me just coming to you I want a slow feed dog I want to be round and have this and this and this groove and this groove that's doesn't really help you um from a sourcing point of view. So the more data you have and if I can do a 3D print of send you a 3D print of it or several copies so you can send them out uh for proposals to the right factories all those kind of things help right is there anything else missing in in that that would help uh when people are going to source I mean yeah billing materials 3D files tech packs yeah those are pretty much all you need sometimes you need some standards but that's about it like so a lot of these factories that you guys work with these are not ones that people are going to find on Alibaba.com or on the internet. These are like they're they're like even some of the bigger ones they're like you if you don't know you don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I mean you kind of Yeah. Not everyone has a website which is kind of crazy to me. I feel like that's the basic that you need. But I mean yeah we our team we have a team based in Vietnam and they're constantly going trade shows. They're constantly going to trade events. There's trade organizations like Bendong Province has kind of maintains a directory of um factories and whatnot. So we're based there. So we constantly kind of check up on new factories, who's building what, and then something that might we have interest in clients, we'll definitely reach out to them and get them that way. But yeah, it's not like there's not like Alibaba for outside of China. Obviously, Alibaba does have that filter. We can do Vietnamese factories, but honestly, a small percentage like 10%ish of factories are on Alibaba in Vietnam. Otherwise, you have to like use multiple different resources, find their contact information, actually like chase them and follow up with them, like find their phone number, and then really chase after them. They don't come to you. And a lot of people kind of get frustrated with that. And that's kind of the value that we as a sourcing company provide is we know the factories. We know which ones can do low cues and do this and that. And we can definitely kind of figure that out for our clients. And that's kind of what the value that we really add is. So the the Vietnamese factories are that's one of the problems of people. They try to come to the United States the source and you call somebody up. Hey, I need a I want to make a thousand of my slow feed dog bowls just to kind of prove concept. They don't even return my call. They're like that's not worth my time. In China they'll do that. They'll do even smaller runs. Is the same in Vietnam? They'll do very lowQS or low. Yeah. And actually since the since April when the 145% tariffs on China a lot of factories just stopped doing low like we do a lot of like before this we had a directory of clothing factories and a few other factories that we knew did low like it was specific low maku factory list that we have and yeah reaching out to those since April a lot of them just say hey we're not taking on low mak projects anymore but yeah for the most part like clothing textiles dog bowl I would anticipate 1,000 units would be the minimal order to get really get a factory interested um anything less like they just aren't quite frankly don't view it as worth their time unfortunately. It's kind of frustrating cuz I mean most of people that reach out to us they want low moes and it's just not suitable. Yeah. How's the negotiation with the enemies factories in China? You know that the negotiation you got to go show up and have dinner with them and eat some weird stuff and then you you can kind of get moved up in the queue production queue. um or you you get a little bit better price or if you sit down with a Chinese factory and you say, "Hey, work with us. Uh yeah, I know you got uh you know the government will ensure uh through Sinoure, you know, so you can work with us a little bit. Here's our plan. We're going to sell 30,000 this year, but I don't have the money to cash flow this, but if you help me, you know, give me a better price and all this negotiation stuff where you can try to work your way in." Does that happen in Vietnam or is the Vietnam very strict or is it just like okay we'll reduce it a penny or something or or what's how's it negotiating with the Vietnamese factories? No, it definitely helps. Yeah, being in person negotiating. But yeah, I mean I always find the true price in Vietnam um or not the true price, the initial price they give is closer to the true price and what I say by true price is the low price that you actually go. Um cuz yeah, in China they'll initially quote like almost double and you really negotiate down and down and down and down. Um, and in Vietnam you can negotiate down a little bit, but it's like I said closer to the true price where they get like 5%. But yeah, if you visit in person and get to meet the people and actually get to know them and like you said, go out and eat some weird stuff which I think is delicious a lot of times. Whatever. I even had bouach, which is the worst thing I've ever eaten. Um, yeah, that's Filipino. Yeah, that's Filipino. But they actually have it in Vietnam, too, with little eggs in the middle of table. I'm just like gh I don't think I I don't think I can do that. No, I've done it once. I that was enough for me. But yeah, if you visit a person, you're definitely get better price and move it up in the queue and get better terms. So yeah, I always always always recommend. Yeah, at least get face to face, get to have an actual relationship, not a working relationship, but actual relationship with your factories and yeah, if possible visit and yeah, the people that visit consistently get moved out in queue, get preferential treatment if they need, like you said, better pricing terms cause, you know, cash flow or low marquee on a order for whatever reason, they're definitely going to be more keen to give it to the people that visit and they know and actually have a relationship with versus someone they only know because they emailed them half dozen times. So, if you work for the tourism board of Vietnam, give me a slogan or give me a couple sentences of why I should be looking at Vietnam to do sourcing. That's I I find it easier and more straightforward to do sourcing in Vietnam. Um cuz, you know, in China, they had the whole corner chowo the corner cutting philosophy. It's not that prevalent relevant in Vietnam. They're much more straightforward and to the point and more or less honest um doing business in Vietnam than China. And I just find them more reliable. Like they will tell you no um that they can't do something which is great. Um they're not going to BS you as much as other places. Um but yeah, it's just I mean what they make they do a really good job at. So I definitely think if it's suitable I'm trying to think of a slogan and quick little tagline for it. It's great place to do business Vietnam. Uh and and uh what's what's a great place to do sourcing? And if I want to look at Vietnam, where should I go to actually do sourcing? Was it Cosmos Sourcing? Yeah, Cosmos Sourcing. I've heard good things about Cosmos Sourcing. So, I've heard I've heard something about them. I I I've heard that they can they they know a lot of people in Vietnam. So, it's right. Yeah. Cosmosourcing.com. Info@cosmosourcing.com if you want my email or Jim at Cosmosourcing, my direct email. Yeah. And just reach out to us. We're on all those socials as well. Awesome. Well, Jim, I really appreciate you coming on and uh sharing with us. It's been this has been cool. Appreciate it, man. Absolutely. You know, all this talk about Vietnam has gotten me hungry. I think it's maybe time to go eat some uh chicken fur. It's one of my favorite soups. I get get a really good uh chicken fur. Put some of the little uh bamboo sticks and everything in there and it's uh it's always good. I think all this Vietnam talk I think that's what I'm going to do. It's a little messy though sometimes. But uh anyway, Vietnam is someplace that I think you should take a look at. I didn't mention it in the call with Jim there, but I actually did uh some of my PPE in Vietnam. We did hand sanitizer in Vietnam. We had a factory in Singapore. They had a factory in Singapore firing it off in a factory in Vietnam and it was really good. The quality came out really good and uh better. Uh we had done it in China before that and it was like you said, they were cutting corners and uh we took it to Vietnam and had much better results. So, Vietnam is definitely an option that you can look at depending on what you're what you're selling. It can be a great uh great great place to uh actually do some sourcing. We'll be back again next week with another episode. That's next Thursday. Another brand new episode of the AM PM podcast. I hope you have a great rest of your day, a great weekend, and we will talk to you soon.