#744 - The Truth About Competing With Chinese Sellers

#744 - The Truth About Competing With Chinese Sellers Speaker 2: Today we take a trip to China and get a peek behind the curtain at how Chinese sellers operate with two very unique stories. One is a seven-figure seller who's also a Helium 10 employee and got his start on Amazon selling bondage products and the other seller from China used to be a farmer in Africa. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's a completely BS-free, organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. We've got a two-for-one special in this episode. We are going to be talking with two sellers Based in China, half of this episode actually recorded when I was in China. Right now, I'm back in United States and our guest right now is actually in China and so we are going to be learning about the other side of the world and what's the same, what's different and everything in between. So here today, we actually have somebody who is also a Helium 10 employee. Helium 10 was started by Amazon sellers. And we've always had a number of Amazon sellers who are also employees at different departments. And so we've got Freeman here who's been at Helium 10 for a while. We'll find out exactly how long. But Freeman, how's it going? Speaker 1: Yeah, we're good. Thanks. Hi, everybody. I'm Freeman. Speaker 2: You're right now in Shenzhen? Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm in Shenzhen. Speaker 2: Where were you born and raised in China? Speaker 1: Actually, I'm born from a mid-China province called Anhui. There was a beautiful mountain, yellow mountain, one of the best in China. You want to visit the beautiful mountain. Speaker 2: Nice. When did you move to Shenzhen? Speaker 1: Yeah, actually, when I, you know, great from my, from my college. So I go to Hong Kong for my postgraduate study in 2011. And then I stayed in Hong Kong for six years and then moved to Shenzhen. Speaker 2: Okay, what did you study in university? Speaker 1: Advertising. Yeah, for both undergraduate and postgraduate. Speaker 2: Okay, and then when you when you graduated, what did you start working in? Speaker 1: Yeah, actually, it's you know, very coincidence. So I just after my graduation, I go to a company that is a company, you know, making, you know, women dress or something. And they started e commerce, you know, branch. So back to them, I was working as the Google I'm an ads specialist, actually a marketing specialist. I also work on the e-commerce side. So back to the no Amazon or anything. So we just work on, you know, D2C website. Speaker 2: Okay, and so what was your first exposure to Amazon? Speaker 1: Yeah, for Amazon is when I back to Shenzhen in 2018. So I work for, you know, manufacturer in Shenzhen that actually making very interesting product is bondage products. Yeah, one of the You know, very famous brand like Fifty Shades of Grey products, all manufactured. Speaker 2: I was like, wait, did he just say bondage products? I was like, maybe I'm not hearing that right. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, back to that. I was working as the, you know, I'm a sales director of the B2B department, but actually, we also set up a new B2C department. Even though I'm not directly responsible for that, but I joined the meeting from the B2C department, and I'm seeing that B2C growth in Amazon is just growing so quickly. Back to then, some of the new products when we launched in a month, one month, two months or something, they can grow their sales to Six figures. So I was so impressed by the growth potential of Amazon. Speaker 2: Okay. At what point did you start your own Amazon brand? What year and why? Speaker 1: It was when 2020, you know, the COVID comes. So everybody just, you know, get nervous about the future. And I went, as I also already, you know, witnessed the growth of the Amazon. So in the, I remember it's July 2020, I started my own company, yeah, to sell online. On Amazon, actually. Speaker 2: What was your very first product you sold yourself? Not bondage, I assume. Speaker 1: Actually, it's a very interesting product. It's something that you also maybe don't want to hear. I sell it as a heavy duty trainer metal bar, but actually that's not the main purpose for that. It's actually also a bondage product. Speaker 2: When did you start working for Helium 10? Speaker 1: For Helium 10, it's 2022. As I remember, it's in March, so now it's actually four years into Helium 10. What is your position now at Helium 10? In Helium 10, now I'm working as the GoToAM leader in China, so the team is responsible for all the marketing, sales, customers, everything in the China region. Speaker 2: What about the market in China for sellers? This is something I talk to anybody when I find out they're from China. There's a stereotype that US and European sellers have that in China, all sellers using black hat strategy and they're all like They don't care about the profit and they can just beat American sellers on this and that. What part is true and what's not true about how Chinese sellers operate compared to U.S.? Speaker 1: I think they are actually right. In China, a large proportion of the sellers are not doing fair practices. I also actually went to an event that was hosted by somebody who is doing all of the black hat Strategies. Yeah. But, but, but, but a story is that, that, that a guy, he's not doing it anymore. So I think the black hat practices is not working anymore. So yeah, we're seeing that maybe half of the sellers are doing such practices, but more and more are just, you know, trying to be compliant. Yeah. Speaker 2: Okay. Tell me about a couple things that have negatively affected Chinese sellers because you know a few years ago I know there was like a crackdown where many accounts got got shut down due to black hat and and like in the old days Okay, you just get one account shut down and just you know doesn't matter because you start a new one But I heard that was more impactful and then in recent months actually just in the last year. I heard there's also crackdowns on In China, from the government as far as tax reporting, that has also affected how some Chinese sellers operate. Can you talk about those two things? Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. To the end of last year, the most hot topic for Chinese sellers is the tax issues. So everybody is just looking back to their Previous, you know, all the records with the revenue they generated, some of them maybe have to pay the government. If everything is by the law, they have to pay the government like millions of millions of U.S. dollars. So the thing is that actually the government haven't made a very clear policy for how all those accounting works. This is some tricky issue because for some of the course, like the platform course, the FBA fee, the advertising fees, those course, you know, they don't have the invoice the government like it to have. So they'll still have some, you know, details have to be worked out. But yeah, for sellers, they have to get prepared. As I know, some of the sellers are just trying to, you know, combine all of their business into a one and have that one register in Hong Kong or some sort of party, you know, places, and then they can But yeah, they can have everything to be compliant in tax as well. Speaker 2: So where are Chinese sellers selling outside of US Amazon USA? Like, are a lot of Chinese sellers selling on Walmart USA? Are a lot selling on TikTok USA? Is the number is the next marketplace to go Japan? Like, where is the diversification? And where are you? What marketplaces are you selling on? Speaker 1: Yeah, for me, I'm always a consecutive seller. So now I went to Walmart already and I also trying to go to Etsy and also TikTok shop. I got the account open but I haven't sell anything yet. Speaker 2: What's your overall sales that you ended last year across all your different platforms and brands? Speaker 1: Yeah, I look at the numbers. Yeah, yesterday is now finally, you know, over the 1 million US dollar. Yeah, for last 12 months. Speaker 2: Now, what has helped you to make that success? You're only doing this by yourself. Your main job is Helium 10, so you don't even have that much time to work on it. What are some of the strategies that you think you're doing that's a little bit unique compared to others that has allowed you to have this kind of success even though you have a day job? Speaker 1: Yeah, for the past six years or so, I think the success to get the milestone is because, first, we have been doing multiple categories, including jewelry and outdoors pads. Speaker 2: So not just the bondage stuff? Unknown Speaker: No, no, no. Speaker 1: That's not my major products anymore. It's just at the beginning. Speaker 2: Okay, that's good to know. Speaker 1: Yeah, at the beginning. Yeah, just at the beginning. Speaker 2: Okay, so diversification, I think that's good. Don't try to just do everything in one category and then maybe something starts going down, your whole business isn't affected. What's your current launch strategy? You have a new product you're going to launch on one of your brands. You started selling on Amazon right around the time Where some older strategies became against the law, like search, find, buy, and two-step URLs. Right around 2020 now, we had to stop that and people had to mainly focus on advertising. But how are you getting to page one for your main keywords when you launch a new product? Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is also a one that I want to mention about Helium 10. I think Helium 10 is very useful. They can give us a full picture of the whole structure of the competitor products or some of the competing products in that category. So in that whole picture, like 9,000 or something keywords, I can actually find the You know, the right one that I will going to compete in phase one. I'm not doing the category keywords or the top keywords. Maybe I just want to find those, you know. Keywords in the middle, just bid for them aggressively and also with Helium 10 providing so many metrics for us to measure like CPR or something. So yeah, we can spend our budgets wisely. So I think that still matters a lot. It's still the core of our strategy. So find the right keywords and bid for them. Speaker 2: So why do sellers like you and other bigger sellers still use Helium 10 despite the higher cost? Speaker 1: Actually, every seller in China knows the data accuracy and also, like I said, the full picture of the keywords. When you search a competitor's ASIN, For example, the competitor tools can provide only like 1,000 keywords, but in turn will give you a full picture like 9,000 or something. This is the real numbers provided by sellers. It's not just, it's the difference of 1,000 to 9,000. I think it's more matters now because as Rufus and the Cosmo algorithm, you have to be I'm more aware of the long-term keywords because in the long-term keywords, we'll give you the real attention, the real user cases of the products or something. I think that even matters now. Speaker 2: What's the future for you and your brand on Amazon? How do you view your business and the future of it? Speaker 1: The Amazon business is an important part of my life, my business. Also, in the past years, it still keeps growing, even though not much, like 20% or 30% year-over-year, but I still see great potential from the e-commerce. 2026 or 2027, I want my business is growing. Yeah, even more, maybe from 30 to 50% year over year. So yeah, there's still an important part of my life. Speaker 2: Okay. What would be your advice to like US and European sellers who are worried about competing with Chinese sellers? Like what are Chinese sellers Scared of US sellers, you know, I think everybody always just thinks all know it's only the US sellers they're scared of Chinese sellers because oh man, how can we compete on the price and They're black hat strategies but does it go the other way too and then what is your advice for sellers when they're thinking about competing with Chinese sellers? Speaker 1: For Chinese sellers, sometimes we get together and just mention about, talk about, decide about what advantage the US and European sellers have. I think everybody will agree. You know, ability to build a brand to tell a successful brand story. I think that's something, you know, Chinese sellers just realized that that's become even more important in the current You know, Amazon ecosystem and the e-commerce ecosystem. For US and European sellers, I think they don't necessarily need to worry about the black hat strategy. Even for Chinese, for me and another group of sellers, we are doing, you know, just the compliant activities. We also used to be, you know, very, very worried about those black hat ones. But now what we are saying is that Those strategies are just not working anymore. And they are also trying to, you know, you know, transfer the strategy or change the strategy to doing the compliant ways. So yeah, just don't worry about Amazon and every, you know, Also, the buyers will finally know about that, not just looking at the signals from the previous ones like the revenues and the reviews from the platform provided. Maybe, yeah, in the future with AI or something, we can identify the real good ones. Yeah. Speaker 2: Awesome. All right. Well, Freeman, thank you so much for coming on here. And every time I go to the China office, you're always the one who is helping me get on the right train and tell me where to walk and getting my tickets for the trains and taking me to our different offices that we have in China. And we appreciate all the work you do for Helium 10 in China and also wish you the best of success on your Amazon business. Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. You're always welcome. Yeah. Speaker 2: So here we are in Shenzhen, China, actually. Go ahead and introduce yourself to the audience. Yeah. Hello. My name is Yohan and I work in Africa as a farmer before I came back to China. All right. I started my Amazon career. I'm going to have to get a little bit more into this backstory because that sounds interesting. In China, Amazon seller came from Africa as a farmer. So first of all, where in China were you born? Unknown Speaker: I was born in Hubei province. Speaker 2: What area is that? Unknown Speaker: You know Wudang Mountain? Very close to Wudang Mountain. It's my hometown. Speaker 2: How old were you when you moved to Africa? What did you study in university? Unknown Speaker: I studied business English. Speaker 2: Now, your whole family moved to Africa or just you? No, only me. Why did you want to move to Africa? Unknown Speaker: Because, personally speaking, freedom is important to me. I like to travel around, so when I get the chance, I think, It's mysterious for me. There are interesting places for me, so I must go there, so I just go without hesitation. You know Namibia? Oh, Namibia, okay. Speaker 2: Yeah, Namibia. When you got to Africa, you already had a job you were going to do or you just got there and you didn't know what you're going to do? Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I got a job already. Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah. And it was in farming? Unknown Speaker: Yes, it was farming. And the first job I do is translator because most of the people in China, they don't, they cannot speak English and must be fluent in English. I'm an English major, so I can. So the first job is a translator then. After three years, My boss, he want me to stay there and work for him long time. Then he give me a piece of land and say, you can operate this land yourself. Get something, grow something for yourself and then you also work for me. At the same time, I started my own small farm. Speaker 2: Now, when or why did you go back to China? Speaker 1: Because my permit expired and I have to come back to renew it. Speaker 2: Okay. And what year was this when you went back to America or to China? It's 2020. Okay, 2020. So now you are a farmer for a few years. Now you come back to China. What did you do for work? Unknown Speaker: When I first came back, most of my colleagues, they are in the field of e-commerce. And most of them, they are doing very well. It attracts me. And, you know, freedom is important to me. E-commerce allows you to work wherever and whenever you like. Not like farming. Farming, you must work there. You cannot travel around anywhere you like. But e-commerce is different. This business, this work is attractive to me. Speaker 2: So as soon as you got back, did you start an Amazon business? No, only after half a year, six months. Okay. What was your very first product you launched on Amazon? Speaker 1: The very first product I was selling, because I like selling very much. Speaker 2: I cycled a long distance when I was still in New York University, like around one month for 2,000 kilometers. Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, the first product that came to my mind was outdoor products, something around cycling. Now, fast forward to the current. Which year was your best year in sales? Was it last year, 2025? Unknown Speaker: It's this year. Speaker 2: How much are you doing per month so far in 2026? It's around $200,000. Okay. All one brand or how many brands? Unknown Speaker: Mainly one brand. Speaker 2: Mainly one brand. And is this all still about bicycles or what is the brand that you're selling now? How do you spell the brand so people can search for it? B-O-N-T. Like James Bond? No, no. T. Oh, T. V-O-N-T. Yeah. Okay. I like it. And so now you help this brand get on Amazon. And so which product is the number one seller for this brand? Speaker 1: For this brand, the number one product is roller skates. Speaker 2: Right. So that's interesting. So now is your main marketplace USA or where, which Amazon marketplaces are you selling on? USA. Do you sell on any other marketplace like TikTok or Amazon Europe or anywhere else? Not yet. Speaker 1: We are still expanding. Speaker 2: Amazon Australia, Amazon Europe, Amazon Japan. Speaker 1: And also, the brand also has distributors offline. Speaker 2: Okay. All around, even in China. Okay. When did you first discover Helium 10? It's at the beginning of my Amazon career from classes. Okay, so from 2020, you were already using Helium 10. Yes. Okay. Yes. Which one is your favorite tool in Helium 10? Keyword Tracker. Okay, Keyword Tracker. If there was no Keyword Tracker you could use, and you had to hire some people to track the keywords, how many hours would it take to track all of your keywords and tell them, all right, check every day and like this? Speaker 1: It's around, if we track keywords in that way, we would only track some keywords with large search volume. Speaker 2: You would have no time to track? Yeah, we would do, but I think it would take around one hour per day. Okay. Even just a little bit of keywords. Okay. When you were first starting to sell, you know, launching the Bond brand on Amazon, how were you using Helium 10 in those days? Well, first, I would use I use the Hamilton to search for the keyword to collect the keywords for the to make the listings. Yeah, using Cerebro or which tool? Yes, Cerebro. Okay, to make the listings and for for advertising. Okay. Okay. Now in America, there's like a stereotype When people think of sellers from China, they think, oh, all the sellers from China, they're doing illegal methods. And probably it's true. Some people might. You have a big community of Amazon sellers. Is that really true? Every single seller in China is doing the illegal methods? Unknown Speaker: Not every. Some people, they have long-term views. They don't look at what you make, what you earn at the moment. They would look at the future. If you look at the future, you want to build a brand that can Exist for 10 or 20 or 50 years, 100 years, then you must, you must make a strategy for long term. Speaker 2: Now, thinking back to when you're making this brand get successful and launching new products. In 2020, there was a lot of changes for product launching and things before people would do are now illegal. 2024, 2025, 2026, what is your method of launching a new product for the brand? Unknown Speaker: The first is that I will not launch only on Amazon, both Amazon and the website. That's in terms of marketing. I would not only I would have aggressive advertising strategies, but also marked on social media account. Speaker 2: Yeah. So there's a bond social media account. Yes. So when you launch a product on Amazon, you do some marketing on social media, which social media? Unknown Speaker: But yes, and Facebook. Speaker 2: What do you do on Instagram and Facebook talk? Many images and videos and in those videos and images, are you sending people to the website to see the new product or sending people to Amazon? Unknown Speaker: More to website. Speaker 2: Okay. And but but still, even though they're going to the website, do you notice that there's still some bump on Amazon because maybe some people don't want to buy on the website or everybody's buying on the website? Unknown Speaker: Some people will buy on website and some people will buy from Amazon. Speaker 2: What about Amazon itself? Like you said, you use Helium 10 to do some keyword research. How do you make sure you get on page one for your important keyword? What's your method in launching a new product to, hey, let me get to page one? I would mainly reply to advertising. Okay. What exactly? Talk about your strategy there. I would occupy the share of the importance of the main keywords day by day through advertising. I can see if I got the most market share of this keyword or not, whether there's still spaces or not. Okay. Interesting. Now, You are on which plan of Helium 10? Diamond. Okay, diamond. What made you upgrade to the diamond plan? Like, which feature were you looking for? Unknown Speaker: Because, you know, what I like in Helium 10 is that its data is exact. There is no mistake. It's reliable enough. So I want to make the best of it. I want all the features of it. Speaker 2: What is the future for your brands that you sell on Amazon? You're already a seven-figure seller. Do you want to grow this brand so they can sell it eventually? Are you going to expand to the international marketplaces? 2027, 2028, what's your goals? Unknown Speaker: Expand to other marketplaces like Europe, Australia, and Japan. Speaker 2: Do you want to start other brands yourself on Amazon? You're happy just working on this brand? Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I would also start them. I already have my own private label. Speaker 2: Do you ever visit America? Not yet. Not yet. All right. Well, you'll have to come meet some sellers there. Is your product manufactured here in China? Unknown Speaker: Yes, manufactured here in China. Speaker 2: Obviously, you're Chinese, so you can control the factory a little bit more and you know the factory is not going to sell products to other places. But what about people from Europe and America? They're manufacturing in China and they're worried, oh, how can I make sure the factory is not selling my product to somebody else? Do you have any advice for that? Unknown Speaker: If you, because you cannot control your factory, if they want to sell your product to someone else, it's beyond your control, is it? But you cannot control here. But e-commerce, the difference is that if you are already in this position, you already got this market share, then it's difficult for someone to enter and push you out. Speaker 2: So it's like, hey, you can't really control the factories, but you can make it so that they're not going to take your market share on Amazon. Unknown Speaker: Yes, the market share on Amazon is yours. You people, the users, you have already in that market. You already get an occupier share of that market. Then your users, they will remember your brand. Not that new sellers. Not someone else. Speaker 2: In America, you know, at Amazon conferences, a lot of people You know, sometimes are afraid of Chinese sellers. They think Chinese sellers have the advantage. Oh, they can get the cheaper price and they're close to the factories and things. What about here in China? When you go to the Amazon conferences, are Chinese sellers talking about American sellers? What are Chinese sellers afraid of American sellers? Brand building. Speaker 1: Yes, brand building and American sellers, they know their users better. Speaker 2: So that's the advantage that the American sellers need to take advantage of is, hey, they know the sellers, understand the culture more and things like that. I think the third one is marketing. Marketing. Yes. Cool. The Helium 10 is not free. You're paying, I don't know, $300 or more for a diamond plant every month, but You wouldn't be paying that if you didn't get the money back. So, how much of your revenue do you think you can attribute to Helium 10? You know, like, hey, you're already doing more than 1 million, you know, 2 million a year. How much of that is because of Helium 10? Obviously, it's not all. It's probably not even 50%. But like, if Helium 10 went away, how much would your sales go down? I think around 10. 10%? Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 2: So six figures. So definitely worth $300 a month to get six figures of sales. All right. Well, it was very great to meet you. Perhaps the only seller from China who was a farmer in Africa. So very unique story. And maybe we'll bring you back in a year or two and be interesting to see how you how you're doing in your in your Amazon journey. Yes. Thank you.