#472 - Go Global Without the Headache: Compliance, Cash Flow & Cross-Border Wins

Welcome to episode 472 of the AMM podcast. Well, if you've ever been looking to expand outside the United States, or maybe you're in Europe and you want to expand to the United States, if you're ever looking to get outside the country that you live in and sell, whether it's on Amazon or one of the other platforms, today's episode is for you. I've got Demet Kale from Vat Thai on the show today and we're talking about VAT and imports and all the processes and it's not quite as complicated as you might think. We're going to go deep and explain it all. I think you'll really enjoy this episode of the AM podcast. Welcome to the AM podcast. Welcome to the AM podcast where we explore opportunities in e-commerce. 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 AM and the 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, Kevin. Kevin. Welcome back to another episode of the AM PM podcast. This week I've got Demet Kale from Vatai. I hope I said that right. Vatai or Vetai AI at the it's got that AI at the end. So it's like everything has AI at the end of it. Even though you're not really an AI company, but it's it's still there. How you doing today? I'm very good. Thank you so much. and I'm very happy meeting you and being here and um yeah, look forward for a journey here at the podcast. Yeah, exactly. So, um now a lot of people watching this they there's they may have never heard of of uh your company. What exactly um do you guys do? So, what we exactly do? We are we call ourselves the one-stop shop for e-commerce compliance. So we basically cover everything what a e-commerce uh seller would need in order to expand globally not only the European countries or UK. It's like we have a really global setting and we have everything they would need in order to sell in Germany or France or the UK. So um what we do is VAT registrations, we do product compliance, we do trademarks, we do company registrations which is like setting up a physical company in certain uh countries. So the the good thing is just you have everything in once and this is what makes us a bit different because usually many of the compliance companies they um provide VAT and then you have to go and find another one to complement and then all of a sudden you sit there and have like four account managers in different companies who you have to reach out for um any of the compliance cases, right? So the good thing is having everything in once makes it easier um for the seller, one point of contact and um that's that's what they need because they have so much other things in their minds to take care of. Firstly, you know, growing their business and um doing the sales which is mandatory and in that case we um make it much more comfortable for them. Uh they don't need to, you know, think of the compliance part because we take care of it. So this is basically long story short but we're going to get in detail of course uh about the different topics for the sellers. So talk to me about one thing I've been doing I've been in this business a long time 10 plus years on Amazon alone and 20 plus 25 years in e-commerce. What I see a lot is you have companies like yourself and there's a few others out there that are always like hey you need to expand. You need to expand. You need to expand. But so many people are so gunshy to do it. Whether they're a US seller, they're they're afraid to expand to Europe. Or if they're a European seller, like I'm just I'm happy I'm selling here in Germany. I'm just going to stay in Germany. I don't want to go to the US. It's too competitive. Or or or they get confused with VAT. And we'll talk about the difference between VAT and sales tax here in a minute to explain that to people. But I saw a stat somewhere recently like only 2% or one or two% of sellers in the US are selling in Europe. of of Amazon sellers are selling in Europe. I guess A is why do you think that is and and B is why do they need not to need to not be so scared to do it? Yeah, that that's the biggest problem. So, um I recently moved to the US from Europe, by the way. So, I have a pretty good understanding. So, I'm in Seattle at the moment. I lived in Florida before, but it's really great here and I'm really enjoying it because uh I'm working from the office again, which is totally different after working remotely, but it's really fun. So, I have a I have a um both sides. I can I can because I have sellers who are in the in the European countries, I have sellers here in US. Um the problem is you have the real good sellers who make like millions okay in the US and they're like ah you know what I make a lot of money why would I have the admin work or all the hustles and get to know all the rules and regulations sort of and then you have the midsize and the smaller ones so most of them US perspective is I don't know it okay how should I just do it I don't know the regulations. And usually if you go like um online and check out, you know, groups or people talking to each other, it's like a horror story for them, okay? And they're just scared because the money they make here is totally enough. However, if we look at at the global perspective, we see that um many manufactured companies in Asia are starting to come over and sell. They have seller accounts, they sell on Amazon. So, I think the um it's growing, you know, the the competition is growing. And I think it's not only what you make as a money in the US. You have to be sustainable at the end of the day because all of the US sellers of course there are manufacturers here as well but most of them they buy from Asia and they sell it here. So what happens when this manufacturer in Asia says oh you know what I'm going to sell now this products in the US. So then you have a competition because this is the manufacturer you're already buying from and he's just moving and starting selling in the US. So what's happened in the future? So there is more competition. So I think now is the right time to see what opportunities are in Europe or in UK or any other country. So I think that's that's the point they have to really think of. it's not only about the money, it's the sustainability of their brand in the future. Okay? Because the the competition is really big. So I think that's the point and that's what we are trying to uh aim at the moment. We wanted to enlighten all the sellers about this aspect and that's very very important but not all products translate right. I mean in in Germany for example walking sticks are a huge thing uh you know to go hiking little sticks but you come to the US and only people that use those might be you know the older people or someone with a handicap and in Germany. So how how do you guys help your clients like that hey there's actually a product market fit or you know you going to Japan stuff has to be tiny and small to get you know fit into the kitchens and all that kind of stuff. Do you help with that aspect of things as well and guide people or do you just like help them just with the legal side of of everything? No, we do help them. We have um I didn't mention that but we have a very global presence. So we can say that we are the number one compliance company in Asia and everything started off from there. We have 200,000 businesses we're helping at the moment. And that was like the kickoff by saying okay why why don't we just do it wise words and uh you know help the sellers in US and in and all over Europe and other countries as well and so we started and since then we have a pretty big um team and we have also the knowledge on guiding them on what needs to be on a label. Okay. What language has to be? Because most of the um bigger problems with sellers is, oh, what am I going to do with my labels? Oh, in Germany, it has to be in German. Yes, it has to be in German. So, what I particularly do when I have those sellers, I always like, okay, so you're new. Let's go this way. Why don't you expand first into UK? Because you're not going to change any language, okay? Everything is going to stay the same. You will start off with a lower budget with your expansion um journey and then you will be much more confident and you're going to hit the second road, which would be the second biggest market. It's Germany in Europe and then France and then Spain, whatever. So I that's that's a good way to start because you don't do much. Everything is asis. You just have to make sure that your product is um compliant. Okay. In terms of um UK authorized representation, you would need someone who is acting on your behalf in certain criteria. It's also depending on your product category. Of course, uh not everyone needs a UK authorized representation. It's just for particular CE markings on products like toys for example, etc. There are several uh categories. So in that in with this expansion, you have the first glimpse, you know, oh wow, now I'm in Europe, but I didn't do much to just translate all my labels. And then when everything goes well, then they start planning to okay, let's do Germany. And what we do and what separates us from I I say that with a lot of confidence because um I don't like the the the title of sales executive or sales manager. Okay? Because we don't want the the customer to feel like, oh, okay, the sales is done and now I'm on my own. So we we are we're having account managers who are starting the journey with the customer and they guide them through everything. So this means we also um tell them what the next steps are. Okay, now we started with UK. So how is it going? How is your sales? And what do you think about Germany now? Are you ready? Do you need any other assistance? because we do have a lot of partners we work with and we can guide them uh through the process very easily. So um this is how it looks. I mean short story for a journey to expand into UK and um the regulations of course they change in each country but VAT processes is pretty much straightforward. Um the documentation is usually um very similar. Okay. The processes are very similar and the waiting timelines as well. So um but if you have the right partner, it's really easier. Well, I think a lot of people don't do it too because it's a whole another um financing thing. So a lot of people that may be in one country, they're like they're they're they're barely maintaining cash flow uh for what they're doing. And then when they expand it's like I got to I got a whole manage a whole another set of cash flow oftent times in a whole another u currency. So I think that's something that scares uh or makes people pause to actually expand as well. But most of I mean you look at the movie business and you know a lot of movies unless it's a a comedy or something very niche they do better outside the United States than they do inside the United States. It's the same with product. I didn't know that. Yeah. That's that's funny. Yeah, a lot of, you know, a Mission Impossible is going to make more money internationally than it will in the United States. And a lot of times if you have the right product, um, you can do the same thing, but you also have to be able to cash flow that. So assuming they can cash flow that, I'm assuming you guys do you work with any partners that help cash flow that or is that something completely separate that y'all don't really mess with? Yeah. No, we don't go into Yeah. not not of the cash flow or what bank they have to use etc. But but um usually um let me talk about um an Amazon seller perspective. Okay. Um starting off let's say you're you're selling on your own website. Okay. And you're pretty good in the US and you sell to Canada and everything is fine. We always recommend and I'm sure they have also Amazon here as well. It's always good to expand with Amazon to Europe. Okay, it's for the start is really much more convenient than trying to handle um let's say you're you're selling on your own website and you want to get registered for VAT and everything. You need a 3PL partner. You have to find the right one. You don't know the country. So there are a lot of aspects. So if you really want to go and expand, I would always highly recommend going through Amazon because you have you already know this. You already know the systems and how it works. Basically, it's easier and yeah, you have the account managers, they guide you and they help you on how to set up. We have a pretty good knowledge on Amazon um site as well because we have, you know, partner meetings with Amazon. They enlighten us. We we're also an SPN service provider of of Amazon and uh we have a very close relation since we're like um the building across at the moment. So we're pretty close to Amazon. So we also um had Amazon sellers um they had really um struggle in getting touch with someone at Amazon and we were able to connect them to the right people. That's also very important because usually the the the thing is with sellers, ah it takes ages to get an answer from Amazon. Yes, that's true. Maybe a week later you have to just ping them all the time. So we help with that too due to our very close connections uh with Amazon. So back to the um to the questions um about why with Amazon because it's just easier. They have the warehousing. They have the FBA program. The only thing you have to do is having a custom clearance agent at the end of the destination which Amazon also started one. They have a partner um they can recommend working with. So it's a very good partner in Europe. So everything lands in the uh main uh storage of Amazon in Europe and then it's going to be distributed to FBA uh which country you're going to start off. So the process is um much easier. Okay. uh the only thing you have to think about is getting your product from US to uh the Amazon warehouse or if you import from China or anywhere in in Asia, you just make sure that you get the goods from there instead of the US to the European uh storage of Amazon. So, it's basically not too much admin work and it's a good start. Amazon also has some incentives, right? they will help do some extra promotions. And a lot of times when you expand, right, they if you get, like you said, y'all can put them in touch with a with a person that can actually move the needle and help them get some special promotions and special deals and stuff like that to kind of get them going because Amazon wants you to actually go into other marketplaces because they know everybody's in the US, but they're still have they still have gaps in some of these other other places. So places like you I remember when I was selling in the UK I had to set up a U a UK bank account in UK UK entity to actually sell in the UK. In some countries you have to do that some you can you can do remotely. Uh and then I remember something like Japan like you had to have an agent uh that took full responsibility for importing into Japan. Like if something goes wrong it's on them not uh you know the government wants someone to go and and uh p punish basically. Do y'all do you do that kind of stuff as well on behalf of the clients? Uh this is more of uh customs, right? Yeah. Customs agency. Um to be honest, I never had any requests like that. But we pride ourselves in um if we don't have the service on our website, we if there is a demand, we find a way. So we are always open to any request and um usually I go ahead and you know uh ask the team and I get a really you know positive feedback because we make it happen due to the fact that we are a big team and we have offices in each European country where we're providing the service. We have also the connections. So um I never say no I always say let me ask. So that's that's how we uh you know uh do the work here and uh yeah so let's explain what VAT is for a lot of people listening they may not quite understand they know sales tax in the United States where sales tax is added to the price. So if you see a price of something it's $20 well depending on which state you're in you're actually going to pay $2080 or $20.70 or whatever it's a percentage added on versus that is baked in. So if it's if it's €20, it's €20 and then you back out the VAT. But then when you when you import, there's certain rules in Europe where you actually have to pay basically some VAT when you import and then you can claim some of that back. Can you walk me through how that process works? Explain that in layman's terms for a brand new person, how that process works. So yeah, I mean for a person who comes to the US for vacation, it's first is very shocking to like, oh my god, that's so nice. Oh, $5. That's cool. Let me get all of it. And then you end up with double the price at the cashier. So that's that's just, you know, special for the US. So uh in Europe and uh all other countries as well, it's just um value added tax. Uh you have uh when you see the price in the grocery shop grocery store, it's just the price. Okay? And then you will see the breakdown on your receipt. Okay? you see the VAT uh which is already included in that amount and then you see the breakdown and that's it. Okay. So that's the that's pretty much the difference and this is also this is the way you would sell on Amazon as well. Okay. Um so um what was the other question you said about be like I think what's it E I or something where or whatever it is where you have to actually when you import into let's say I'm selling my product into Germany I have to at the time of import not only am I paying any duties or customs or whatever but I also have to pay a percentage of the the VAT tax at that time. Can you explain that? Yes. So yeah, when you import to let's say you have a German VAT and um you got registered, you're ready to go. You have set up your Amazon account in Germany. Everything is great and then you're at the point you will import your goods from let's say US to uh Germany. You would have a number. Okay, the ir number is just a number which is all your VAT number in Germany and then four zeros at the end. Okay, that's your RRA number. You have to get registered for that. It's a pretty straightforward um process and it's just to um it's not VAT purposes, it's more importation purposes. Without the number, you can't even import. And um so when the goods arrive like a tax ID in the US, you have to have an EIN or something. It's kind of similar to that. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Similar. So when the goods arrive, you have a custom clearance agency who's going to take care of that. And then you have to pay the uh import VAT, which is for Germany 19%. Okay? You have to pay it physically. There is no way around. But you can reclaim it back. based on the wholesale cost of your the manufactured cost of your Yes, the manufacturer cost plus the logistic cost calculated down to each uh item um manufacturer cost. So manufactured cost plus import uh plus logistic cost is your total price uh to put in for each item and then um multiply by the amount of goods you're importing to that country. Okay. And uh yeah, so you pay the VAT, the import VAT, and then with this ERI number and your VAT, which you already have in Germany, you can reclaim that back. Even your even if you haven't started sales, you can um reclaim it back by, you know, um um declaring zero VAT in sales because you didn't have any sales for that month. But you would just deduct that amount and which is which is going to occur as a um a plus balance for you. You can either get that back paid to your um uh bank account which you're going to um provide to the tax authorities uh when you do your registration or you can just keep it there and when you start selling they will just automatically deduct that from your payable VAT. Now, a lot of people they import into for the EU, they import into somewhere like Poland or something and then ship across. Uh that's for VAT reasons, right? That's because it's cheaper uh to store tax reasons around that. Yeah, I heard that uh that uh uh I think logistics and then warehousing or you know only the import warehousing costs are lower. Yes, you can do that. So I will just connect that with um how Amazon sellers usually expend is you I'm sure you heard about the panu program of Amazon. So the panu program is you have to get registered in two European countries at least which would be let's say they have a lot of importation and they want to save on cost. They would be importing to Germany uh to Poland in that case. Okay. and then to Germany and transfer it to the Germany. So this would be two countries and when you participate in that program, Amazon has a lot of benefits which one is um the shipping cost uh from their FBA uh to the end customer and so on very lower costs like I think half of the uh costs are are uh like reduced for them. So this is a good way and with that you have the possibility to store in this two countries with Amazon and you can sell your products in any European country without having a VAT registration for Italy, Spain. You can just sell from Germany or Poland directly to the end customer. So that's that's another story 26 26 European countries or something like that. Yeah, I know there's like five or six that are there's more now because you have the Netherlands and you have US, but what seven, eight, whatever that actually have a physical Amazon, but some of those Amazon ship into some of the other smaller countries that don't have an Amazon. So, where where is VAT the cheapest and where is it the most expensive in Europe? You said 19% for Germany. Where is it the cheapest and where's it the most expensive? Yeah, it's I mean Germany is 19%. That's the lowest. uh you have um uh I think Poland is high you have 23% in Poland okay and uh France was 20% so it's it's around between 19 and uh 23 you know but Germany as I said Germany is um is a good country to expand it's a good market because it is the biggest market for Amazon and also in Europe not only for Amazon you know um marketplace also for other marketplaces Germany is the first country to go and start. So a few years ago the I I believe correct me if I'm wrong sellers had to actually track their VAT for everywhere it went and actually file reports and now isn't Amazon doing a lot of that now they're actually filing and paying the VAT. Three or four or five years ago, you would have to actually like have someone you your company would have to figure out France, have to figure out Spain, have to figure out Portugal, you have to figure out everything. And then me as a seller, I would remit that. But now, just like in the US where Amazon is now collecting the sales tax and paying it, Amazon in Europe is collecting the VAT and paying it. So I So that makes it a little bit easier to expand now because you don't have to quite do as much spend as much money on all this paperwork. Is that correct? Uh, yes, that's correct. So, here's the thing. Even if Amazon does that for you, you have to have a VAT registration and you have to do your filings with zero. Okay? Because um here sales tax I have to file. I'm in the state of Texas, so I have to file every quarter that shows zero even though I had a bunch of sales come in because Amazon's paying for it. Yeah. Yeah. The reason why this changed because um of course there are you know good intentions and not so good intentions. You never know people right some of them paid their VAT on time some of them skipped it and then they skipped it skipped it and all of a sudden they disappeared. So what is going to do? What is the European Union going to do about that? Then they said you Amazon this is all on you. those are your sellers and now you're going to just pay and we have a peace of mind and they make sure that they're going to declare a zero and done deal. This is I think to prevent all of that and it's easier to track for uh you know all the European countries as of before. Um let's talk about non- Amazon sellers. Let's talk about Shopify sellers. Okay. So if they would be selling in different countries, they could participate in the OSS scheme. It's a one-stop shop. Um how they can set it up? Let's say they have a VAT in Germany because that's a requirement. You have to have a European VAT number in order to sell in other European countries. So with the OSS, you are filing every quarter and you declare the filing for all the transactions you made from Germany to any other uh country you have been selling in in the European Union. And everything is combined in one report in a quarterly one. And this is submitted to the German tax authorities and the German tax authorities make sure to pay the VAT to the respective countries Italy, Spain, France, Netherlands because with this scheme you can charge the end customer with their uh home country VAT rate. That's a great thing. and you just have one storage in the in Europe and you just sell to any other countries with peace of mind, one report to one country and they make sure to pay the other countries. So, how does it work? If I order, if I order something on Amazon, let's back to the Amazon for a second. If I order something on Amazon Germany, which is 19% VAT, but I have Amazon Germany ship it to Austria, which is, I don't know, maybe 20 or 21% VAT. Yeah. Yeah. Does Amazon adjust the price and collect that two 2% difference to the Australian person or am I responsible for that? Yeah. So, here's the thing. The customer um there is a when you set your account on Amazon and you're panu, right? You have two VATS and you work panu, you open the countries you would like to sell in. So, when I'm from Austria, it shows a slightly different price. Yes. It shows the currency or it's not the currency but the price is going to be different set. So it's the setup of Amazon account and it you decide where you would like to uh sell to. Okay. Yeah. So what what are some in in Europe besides Amazon makes sense like you said that should be your first place because you already kind of know how Amazon works. Yeah. But if I want to look beyond that in some of the some of these areas there's really big marketplaces that are bigger than Amazon. What are a few of the others? You know, like in Australia, for example, eBay is, I think, still bigger than Amazon, uh, for example. And then you said you have presence in China. I don't know if you're helping people go into China or not, but there's a lot of There's no Amazon in China. There's a lot of bigger Yeah. stuff stuff in China. Uh, what are some of the bigger ones around the, you know, you go to uh Japan, there's there's another one besides uh Amazon that's that's really big. What are some other big marketplaces out there that a lot of people aren't paying attention to? Maybe it's Micardo Libre in Latin America or something. What are some that people sellers should, you know, they're like, "Okay, I've got this. I'm going to do Amazon, but I'm also looking to get off Amazon where it's maybe a little bit different type of competition. What should they be looking at?" Yeah. I mean, um, so there is Yeah. For example, in Poland you have Algro. Allegro is the biggest and Amazon can't beat them over there. They're so loyal. It's been it started earlier than Amazon. Okay. So, I've been in contact with the people from Allegro. They said it's like really long time. I think it's like 25 years or 30 years since they have been starting. So, it's a big market. So they can't sell over there. Again, if they want any connection and someone's, you know, watching this and they're like, "Oh, wow. I want to go there." Um, yeah, just contact me and I'll find the right contact for you with this marketplace. That's we're able to do that because we work closely with all these marketplaces. For example, you have in France C discount bigger. Okay. So, and then you have uh in the Netherlands you have ball.com also a nice marketplace which covers Netherlands and then Belgium mostly. Um you have um Zalando. Have you heard of that? It's Germany. Yeah. And then you have Otto. Otto is is that's like a little story. I was born and raised in Germany. Okay. and my grandmother back in the day they had the catalog of Otto. So I'm speaking about 40 years ago. Okay, very long time. So this catalog was basically an Amazon in paper version. Okay. It's like the like the Sears catalog in the United States. Yes. I mean it was really fun shopping like the same but you just change the pages and since then and they're quite older than that. Um, so that's another big market in Germany. But to to explore these marketplaces, you need to um what I always recommend is as I said, start off with Amazon, experience that and then look for the other marketplaces and meanwhile you can find good 3PL solutions because you need that. But Amazon is also now in the logistics of um preparing your orders for eBay for example or if you say hey um I want to partner up please um I want to store here for this marketplace. Amazon does that too. That's that's a new thing and they're are promoting that really a lot. So if you start with Amazon and you go with Amazon, you could basically uh cover a lot of marketplaces and you could just grow your your business and brand. What's what's I've heard something when you expand something EPR or something. What what's what's EPR? Extended uh product responsibility. So this is basically uh a recycle process. Okay. Waste management sort of. So when you sell to uh Germany um you sell like um glasses, okay, and you have the the the pouch of the glasses, everything is fine and then you have the Amazon paper cover and the bubble wrap in it or whatever. So Germany and all the other European countries they want to make sure that your waste you bring in the country is also recycled and the fees are paid for. This is for packaging, you have that for batteries, you have that for electronic devices. So, and this is a mandatory thing. You have to do that. Even Amazon does not let you start selling. Even if you have your VAT number, if you don't have the packaging registration, you can't start selling. So, the first thing you have to do is get registered for packaging uh in Germany or the other European countries. Does that mean sending my samples of my packaging or is that just a form I fill out online or what what does that entail? Yes, Amazon when you um list your products, you will Amazon asks you for the weight of your um packaging. Okay, you put that in. It's in the database and then um when we do the filing for the packaging because we have to pay obviously a fee to the authorities for the recycle process. Uh we get the reports and we know exactly how much waste you produced, okay? how much uh paper and how much plastic and then we do the calculation and according to this filing the fees are going to be paid to the authorities and the same basic is for batteries uh except lithium uh and uh electronic products depends on your category. This is something that when someone's expanding, they got to put this into their their their their cost because they're going to have a is it typically like 1 or 2% of the items cost or what is a I know it can vary depending on a lot of things, but what what's just a ballpark number that if if my landing cost uh for my walking sticks in Germany is five bucks. Okay. I'm going to have to pay a 19% VAT on that five bucks. So, I'm going to have to pay another almost dollar when I import it, plus whatever duties or tariffs there may there may be on top of that. Mhm. And then I got to go get registered for my packaging and I got to pay I just brought in a,000 walking sticks. So, and it's you've done the calculation. It's this much this much kilos of uh of paper and this much kilos of plastic. So, I got to pay another fee uh to recycle for the recycling of that. What could that fee be? Is it like 1 or 2% or is it what? Um, no that's that's no it's it's because since plastic and paper is not weighing that much. So usually it's not really something you would even put in your uh calculations because of course if you are like really big and you have like really big packaging that's a different story but usually the fees are changing between let's say it's 100 kilogram I go with kilograms because it is in Europe. Yeah. So, it's 100 kg of paper and 10 kg of plastic. It's between 20 to 30. Okay. Not bad. Okay. No, that's just like nothing because the way the paperwork hassle thing. You got to register and and go in. Okay. Exactly. Yeah. But you don't deal with it just so we do it. You don't have to even pay the authorities. We do everything because we will be the fiscal representative for this that specific service. And what about compliance? I mean, you help with like and you see sometimes when I buy something, it's got the manuals in five different languages or the packagings in five different language. Like if you sell into Canada, for example, and you're going into uh Quebec, you have to have French and English on it. Do you do y'all help and with with that kind of stuff too? Um and get, you know, get the underwriting, if it's electronics, get the CE or point them to the right direction or what's your involvement on those on compliance type of stuff? Yeah, we have a label tool where the customer can um add the logos he needs um for his product because every seller they know what kind of u marks they have CE or any other you know they know that. So they can basically create this label with our tool uh which also includes the EU authorized representation. I mentioned that before. So this is also a mandatory um uh requirement in the European unions that you have an authorized representation in any European country in case the end customer tries to contact you and they can't. Okay, which is not always the case, but worst case, let's say. And it's it's it's basically a protection mechanism from uh uh the European Union um to have someone for non-EU sellers, okay, uh to act for them in case there is a disconnection. So yeah, we help with that, but we do not help with the translation of the labels, which nowadays it's not a big problem because you have really good translation tools and and I think it's just um you know translating and then putting it in a design and I think many of the sellers they I ask that too how they manage that. This is the way they manage. they have their own printing company and then they just translate and put the right labels um or marks on it and in that case they can always come back to us if they have specific questions about testings and uh as I said um sometimes they need specific testings we can help them with the testings as well it depends on the request of the seller I don't have an particular example at the moment but yeah it depends on the request. What about when it comes to like IP protection uh like trademarks or patents or copyrights or stuff? Do you you guys assist in anything of of making sure that I'm not in violation if someone has my mark and I'm importing and someone already has it there or if I need to get protection uh do you guys help in that way those ways too? Yes. Yes, we do that too. And this is something we had a partner submit with submit with Amazon that was like couple of months earlier in Seattle and now um there is a there is a whole team who is engaging with a lot of sellers who are uh just selling some products. They're not a brand because they want them they encourage them to be a brand on Amazon because how you going to just protect your products. Okay, this is very very important and what we always do, our team always asks the sellers, do you have a trademark in the US? Tell us what countries are included. Usually they just cover US and then we make them aware that they have to the first thing they have to have is before they list their products to have a trademark because as I said at the beginning there's so much global sellers around. Okay, you can just start and you're happy. Yay. Oh, nice. I'm making a lot of sales. And then all of a sudden, Amazon just shuts down your seller account because someone just opened up a case and say, "Hey, this is this belongs to me." So, we do the research, we register them for a trademark, and we make sure they're compliant in that way, too. So, we enlighten the sellers before they even take the step to um expand into any other country. That's a very important aspect. nowadays. So, are you guys primarily focused on Europe or are you also doing like UA the UAE or some of the smaller Amazon look like Australia, Brazil or some of the smaller places you're doing? You're doing anywhere Amazon is you basically you got their back. Yes. Yes, we we do. Yes. Anywhere where Amazon is. Brazil, we don't do Brazil. We do Mexico and um uh we do Yes. United Arab Emirates. We do Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia. I mean there is always um since we're growing there is, you know, every time another country coming adding on top and um so we have a a really wide scope uh to provide services to e-commerce sellers. What's a big mistake you see a lot of people make uh when it comes to expanding international? a lot of sellers are like or a misconception that a lot of them have. Yeah. I mean my sellers I never had someone who regretted it up until now. Um I don't know maybe um like yeah there is one particular thing uh I had a client the other day. they just opened they were just oh okay let me establish a company in uh in UK because it's uh you know £80,000 it's I don't need to file for taxes and so set let me set that up um but then it's it's really hard yes you are exam yes maybe you are a little a small seller it's fine but then there is a risk of um you have an agent there, but it's a one-man show, right? He has an office and he's doing the work for you, you know, bookkeeping or whatever, but you don't have control over that person. Okay? So I always tell them look even if you have a need to pay taxes you can always you know deduct your importations and everything and your aim is to have a good business to have good revenue and you have to work towards that. So when you set up a company in a country, you have more hustle to get out of that country later on if you want to. But if you apply from your home country, which is maybe US or any other country, it's easier to dregister a VAT than cancelling a whole established company in that country. So this is something I had couple of times and um at the end of the day they it wasn't successful and then they had so much hustle uh getting in touch with the agent again you know making sure that they're dregistered there. So it was a lot of paperwork and admin afterwards. So I would always recommend just getting to get registered with their company in the US in UK. That's that's a easier process. You have a compliance partner. you have a software where you use and you see all the processes for your declarations because if you have if you work with a one man you don't know what he declared you gave him the reports but you don't know what happened at the end of the day you have no control over your declarations but with a SAS system you have control because you have an account where you can check everything so this is what I always recommend sellers go with the software. It's much safer. So, if I if I'm looking to I'm I'm sitting here in the US and I'm I'm doing pretty good and I'm like, "All right, you know what? I'm up for the challenge. I'm going to I'm going to expand." You're saying that I should first go maybe to the UK because it's the same language and then from the UK go to Germany, uh, which basically can help me cover the rest of Europe. Where do I go next after that? after I go to those if I I want to be I want to be global. I want to be global. I want to be Mr. International, Mr. James Bond. What What are the next like two or three I should go to? Is it Japan? Is it what are the after after Europe? I think it's always depending on your revenue and your success and but what I know um we have really there are really great account managers for um at Amazon. Okay. They usually what is their approach? they approach uh sellers who at least make a million in the US and then they go and say hey look this is like your um category and in Germany France Italy Spain or whatever this is your market share what do you think about it let's start that and then they have a consultation call and they tell them um what what the scenario would be and I think um after having a good success in Europe then they can just uh you know conquer start conquering step by step you know uh moving into Asia and all other countries uh but I can't say okay this is not yeah just do this and I think it's just case by case and uh product by product but what I recommend is being a brand makes you different and makes you stay sustainable because sometimes there are sellers. Oh, they sell like all sorts of products, you know, but at the end of the day, this is my personal opinion, they're going to disappear because there is there is the the idea of being a brand. Even if you sell like different products, you make a brand out of it because you have been selling so much and now you're XY brand. And then when you appear like that, your storefront at Amazon changes beautiful. You know, people see something professional. So this is this is like the future. This is what I see. And um I think um many sellers, midsize sellers or you know who just sell random different products, they should really think of um you know being a brand on Amazon and in general. So you just help people get into these go to like say an American seller go to Europe or do you help Europeans come to America too? Oh yeah, there is there is a demand too. Yeah, we do company um you know registration and stuff like that uh in detail. We provide the the uh the company um setup for them. Okay. Yeah. For 15 states at the moment. Yeah. Okay. Mhm. Cool. Well, if someone wanted to reach out and uh show us more how how this sounds good to someone listening, they're like, "This sounds pretty cool. I want to know more and see if this might be a good fit for me." How would they go about reaching out to you or the company? So the good thing is we will have a link uh which we're going to have in this video and I will give it to you. So they have a special 10% if they want to go with us. Uh they will have a code for this particular podcast and then I will of course share um uh my informations and they can reach out to me. Um, maybe I will share a QR code or anything else, a link so they code right behind you there on on the video. They can use that too. We're all We're really good prepared, right, Kevin? Well, or they can just go to v uh vati.com, right? Vai vetai. Yeah, they can go there uh and then uh but I'm happy to share my my link uh my email uh with them uh and my LinkedIn profile if they want to just contact me. So yeah, they can reach out uh somehow and use the code and and I'm be I'm happy to help them uh to expand even if they don't have the idea after this video they're going to be maybe oh wow that sounds really easy and um they can help me just a consultation you know no pressure uh I'm happy to enlighten them even if they want to just expand 6 months later or one year we're here for them. Yeah. Well Data I really appreciate you coming on and sharing today. This has uh been educational for I think uh most of the audience. So uh uh check it out. If you're looking to expand international, these are some people you should check out. And thanks again for uh for coming on. Thank you so much. Pleasure. And I hope to see you soon in person somewhere. All right, take care. Thank you. Bye. See, international expansion is not quite so scary, especially if you have someone that can help guide you through the process like Demet. So, take a look at that. It could really, if you can cash flow it, it can uh really grow your business and in some cases double or even triple your business if done properly. We'll be back again next Thursday with another edition of the AM PM podcast. Until then, happy selling. Heat. Heat. N.