Cracking the Canadian Amazon Market: Scaling Strategies & Hidden Profits with Mike Sieben

Cracking the Canadian Amazon Market: Scaling Strategies & Hidden Profits with Mike Sieben Speaker 1: Lots of people traditionally have got into, like myself included with the eBay thing, got into selling wholesale from some other mechanism, whether it's Retail arbitrage, online arbitrage, drop shipping, whatever, like flipping books, garage sales, whatever it is, and they kind of escalate or grow up to wholesale. And so I kind of see this just like as the next evolution where it's like you can go in, you could do wholesale, learn the ropes, learn about buying and selling, FBA, logistics, repricing, all of those things. And this is something that you can add on to your business as the next level. Unknown Speaker: Welcome, fellow entrepreneurs, to the Amazon Sellers School podcast, where we talk about Amazon and how you can use it to build an e-commerce empire, a side hustle, and anything in between. And now, your host, Todd Welch. Speaker 2: What's going on, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Amazon Seller School. I've got Mike Sieben on today, and we're gonna be diving into scaling and selling in Amazon Canada, which is gonna be an awesome topic that we haven't really talked about recently in the past. So I'm looking forward to this quite a bit, but just a little bit about Mike. He's the CEO of Rocky Mountain Co. and the program lead of Marketplace Superheroes. Where he excels in helping brands scale on Amazon. With a proven track record of selling multiple seven figures online, Mike's expertise in e-commerce is well established. With five years in the industry, he has consistently demonstrated his prowess in online sales. As the program lead of Marketplace Superheroes, Mike oversees a thriving community of over 3,000 students. He guides them through the complexities of Amazon selling and helps them build successful businesses. His leadership and strategic insights play a crucial role in their achievement. Mike's accomplishments in online sales are notable, including winning the Two Comma Club award and generating over $5 million on Amazon. So very impressive, Mike, and I appreciate you coming on the show. Speaker 1: Amazing. I'm super excited to be here. Let me just say, as I've said offline here, I've been watching your content for a long time and so it's a privilege to be here and share my story and talk a little bit about what I do and dive in a little more specifically to Amazon Canada today. Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. It's always fun to connect with people that have been following the podcast and the content for a while and see the success that they have. It always makes me feel good a little bit that the content that I'm putting out there is actually helping people. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Speaker 2: So Mike, why don't we start just a little bit. Tell us about your background. Like, you know, where are you from? Where'd you grow up? And how'd you work your way into doing e-commerce? Speaker 1: Yeah, so my background. So first off, I'm in Canada. I'm from a city called Edmonton. Our greatest claim to fame is we have a pretty good hockey team. And Wayne Gretzky used to play here for a long time in his dynasty. That's our claim to fame. Born and raised here and we decided to stay here with our roots, my wife and I. We're 14 months old now and they're absolutely my life. We've stayed nice and close, got our own house a number of years ago now and stayed close to friends and family. Discovering Amazon almost six years ago now was incredible because it meant that I could stay here with the family and still run a successful business in an area where a lot of people aren't really the same mindset as some of like maybe more metropolitan US cities and things like that, where you kind of find the congregations of more successful businesses. So getting into the background a little bit, I have a bit of a traditional background. So I actually trained to be a mechanical engineer. And so I was apprenticing as an engineer whenever I first started the Amazon business. Had a host of other businesses that I tried before this, but that's a whole episode for another time. So just working in mechanical engineering, designing HVAC for buildings. So think hospitals and schools and things like that. And I really had an epiphany, like a turning point where one day I did this thing where I looked around and I just assessed who my co-workers were, the people I was working with. And I really had a wake up call as to what my future was going to be. And at that point, you know, I'm, I'm 25 years old, 24, 25 years old looking around and it's like, I'm doing a lot of the same work that people that are, you know, 30 years, 35 years my senior are doing. Yeah, they're getting paid, you know, marginally more than I am because they have years on me and things like that. But I just, I saw myself 30, 40 years from now sitting in the office right next to mine I saw the limits that were placed on them, the lucky if you're going to get three or four weeks of vacation per year, there's an absolute ceiling in that industry of how much money you can make. I got scared like I'd never been before. It hit me like a wall. That I would be sitting here for the next 30 years or, you know, an office like it doing the same thing day in and day out. And that lit a fire under me like nothing else. And I went from, in probably three to six months, went from not thinking about business and really not being traditionally entrepreneurial. Like I don't have the classic story of the lemonade stand and selling, you know, snacks to my classmates and always trying to flip like, you know, Gary V or other people out there. I would never thinking about entrepreneurship, but I made a realization later In my life, I suppose, I was still early 20s that I needed this. It was a necessity. It was born out of necessity to be successful because I knew I wanted the time freedom more than anything, but I also wanted the financial freedom. I wanted to be able to provide for my family and do things like I retire my parents and have it optional that my wife work and live life on our own terms. For me, this was the best way. I discovered from social media, it was initially actually eBay to Amazon dropshipping. That was my humble beginnings. I was selling pregnancy pillows that I would post on Amazon, FBM. And I would wait for it to sell. Then I would go to eBay, buy it, ship it out to the seller. And so it was, it was probably like getting to the end of like the traditional shop or drop shipping era on Amazon where people were like really seeing success with it. But I got to the point where I was probably doing, I don't know, 10 to 15 grand a month in like pregnancy pillows and then these odd other items. And I just thought to myself, like, man, this is time consuming, just sitting there and doing the orders even, let alone running the rest of the business to do 30, 40, 50 orders a day. I'm like, there has got to be a better way. Speaker 2: So I'm curious real quick, before you dive into that, how pregnancy pillows, how did that come about? Speaker 1: Yeah, I, to be honest, I actually ended up with a course. I was on social media, on Instagram, someone selling a course, how to drop ship on Amazon. And so I went on there, the tools that they were showing, I went and utilized the tools at the time. And that was the first thing that I stumbled with. Across that had profit, had decent volume. And it was like literally, you know, traditional RA or wholesale style, jump on the listing, listed FBM, found some profit. There is a delta between what eBay sold it for and what Amazon was selling it for. And so I found my niche. I stumbled upon my niche. Speaker 2: Nice. Yeah. That's a good one. Cause you know, most people are not going to think of that niche. Speaker 1: I got to a point like I'm working a full-time job. You have everything else in life going on and I'm doing this business as well. And I'm like, there's gotta be a more efficient way to do this. And so I actually ended up with another seller's program, Shout out to Larry Lebarski if you know who that is. That was the first I would say like real course or program that I got involved with and that changed my world. Like understanding what Amazon FBA is, understanding wholesale and the thing that I loved about it at the time and I still love about wholesale is just the scalability of it. Your ability to go out, find distributors, wholesalers, brands, do your research, but then that one single supplier could be responsible for millions of dollars worth of revenue down the line. We've had suppliers that we've had relationships with now for literally four or five years. We almost started with them that we're still working with. We've done millions with them in revenue. Very scalable, like I saw the way forward. I saw it as not being a business that was just a grind all the time and so I got hooked. I did that for probably about two to three years, somewhere in there, part-time while in my engineering job and then I cut it loose and I said like, look, this is the way. I'm going all in with this and that is really how I got my kind of full-time start into Amazon and as they say, the rest is history. Speaker 2: Yeah, very nice. Yeah, that's an awesome path with the pregnancy pillows and flipping from eBay to Amazon. I'm sure there's people that still do that. I think that has pretty well been worn out at this point. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that there was like an era where that was really big and then it shifted to like Walmart to Amazon. I still like hear whispers of people doing it, but you got to have like a pretty large oversee operation to do. This is Real Volume with it and you just got to be so careful. Speaker 2: Yeah, so you moved into wholesale from there. So is that the primary part of your business currently as well? Speaker 1: Yeah, so a mix between wholesale and at that point when I really went all in, it was all wholesale at that point. So your traditional working with wholesalers, working with kind of the big authorized distributors. And over the last two years, we've actually really dived in or dove in deep into working with brands. And so we do non-exclusive relationships, exclusive relationships where we're the exclusive seller kind of brand accelerator, if you've heard the term before. And now we actually have a suite of brands that we manage their accounts as well, agency style. So we do full account management for them. Speaker 2: Brand partnerships for sure are the future. Wholesale I think is going to have a place for a long time, but the margins are going to get squeezed on that more and more where with the brand partnerships it's more You're more providing a benefit to the world, I guess, if you wanna say it that way, where with regular wholesale, you're just flipping, you don't care much about the products. But the brand partnerships, I definitely think is the future. Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that it's it's a great stepping stone. Like lots of people traditionally have got into like myself included with the eBay thing, got into selling wholesale from some other mechanism, whether it's Retail arbitrage, online arbitrage, drop shipping, whatever, like flipping books, garage sales, whatever it is, and they kind of escalate or grow up to wholesale. And so I kind of see this just like as the next evolution where it's like you can go in, you could do wholesale, learn the ropes, learn about buying and selling, FBA, logistics, repricing, all of those things. And this is something that you can add on to your business as the next level. And a lot of what we're talking about, we just launched a new program actually at Marketplace Superheroes. It's called Amplify. And this is what we're talking about, how we can amplify brands, how you can start to bring brands into your portfolio of suppliers. And you can start on a non-exclusive basis, just open up an account with them, work your way in, doing some light SEO, graphics, running some easy ads, and then you graduate. To things like exclusive brand partnerships through your account, maybe even getting agency style accounts down the road as well. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And it's going to become more and more of a needed thing because there are a ton of brands out there that their products are being sold on Amazon, but not very well. You know, their listings are horrible and all that. Amazon has gotten extremely complicated to manage and it's only going to get harder and harder to manage. They're either going to have to jump on there and figure it all out themselves or pay someone 75 to 100,000 plus to run it for them. We're gonna have to hire an agency and pay them 2, 3, 4, 5 thousand or more a month to do a lot of it but still not all of it. There's gonna be a lot they're gonna have to do themselves or they can partner with someone like yourself or myself with a brand partnership. And basically make Amazon about as easy as you can possibly make it. Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And that's where we've really found ourselves. Like that's a lot of our growth over the last two years has really been in there. And so we're still opening up new distributor accounts, new wholesaler accounts, testing new products on the wholesale side. And it still does represent probably 60 to 70% of our profit and more of our revenue. But right now, I think that transition to brands is such a huge opportunity because as you said, it's a no brainer for brands. And right before we go into the Amazon Canada topic, one thing I will share is just this trend that I've seen ever since the dreaded C word happened a few years back. We've seen this real transition with brands and I try to go to as many trade shows, get out in the industry kind of as much as possible. And I love what you said where, you know, these are their options and we're at a point where a lot of brands, they've actually tried it. Like Amazon is no longer a nice to have or an interesting concept or idea. Like it needs to be part of your strategy if you're a consumer packaged good brand. Speaker 2: And they recognize that now. Before 2020, it wasn't really the case. But after, the one benefit that came out of that is that it really expedited the transition from traditional retail to e-commerce and opened the eyes of a lot of people to that world. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And further to that point, a lot of them now realize that they need the strategy and they've tried it as well. They've done Vendor Central where they sell to Amazon. They've either tried it internally or hired an Amazon guy on their team that's going to do it. They've worked with a crappy brand partnership that had no idea what they were doing. So, we're at this little pocket. In 2024, we saw a lot of it and I think 2025 is going to be rampant with it where brands are just getting desperate for good help. And so being that agency that can help, being that brand partner, whatever you want to call it, whatever service that you're going to provide there, and also being good at it is going to be, I think, more in demand than it ever has been before. Speaker 2: Yep, I agree 100%. Anybody out there listening who's thinking about getting into this, I would start in wholesale, learn all the ropes, and as quickly as possible, move into brand partnerships, making those exclusive agreements, running people's accounts for them, things like that. Because then again, you're not only selling products at that point, You're really trying to help a business grow and improve their sales, improve their products and make a difference for them. Speaker 1: Exactly. And these are partnerships that you're creating with these brands. You can form real relationships so that when they launch new products, that goes directly to you. When a lot of these brands, whether you realize it or not, they either know other brands and referrals. We've had multiple brand referrals at this point. Incredible. Grow your business for you. Or they'll go on to create other brands as well in other verticals. And guess what? If you're a great partner, you're going along for the ride as well. And so it's like laying the seeds with all these different brands for these partnerships. And exactly like you said, Todd, get in, learn wholesale, learn how it goes, right? Learn from somebody who knows the back end of Amazon is doing this. And then you can put yourself in a situation where as your brands are growing, you benefit heavily from that. Speaker 2: Yep, absolutely. Now, you're up there in Canada. So how much of your sales is actually coming from Canada versus the USA? Speaker 1: Yeah, so I would say right now in the last three months, it actually swung by quite a bit closer towards Canada. So I would have said if you talked to me three to four months ago, probably about 90% of our sales US. But now it's probably more about 70% US and 30% Canada. And so we were traditionally up until early 2024, late 2023, almost 100% US. And so that shifted quite a lot in the last little bit. And a huge part of that, we actually only have one I'm a supplier that's not a brand in Canada that we work with right now. The rest are all brands. And so that's been hugely attributed to working with Canadian brands and selling on Amazon.ca marketplace. Speaker 2: 30% is very good. I would say for other people who sell in Canada, that is probably three to six times larger of a percentage than what most people achieve when they're selling in Canada. Most people you talk to is about 5%, maybe 10% on a good day that they're doing in Canada versus the US. Why don't we dive into that a little bit. I guess first we can start out with why would somebody want to sell in Canada or maybe why would someone maybe want to start in Canada versus the US or is that something you would recommend? Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. I think it depends on where you're at in your business journey, right? I always give the advice for anyone who asks is like start in the U.S. If you know nothing about Amazon, start in the U.S. just because there's so much more opportunity, right? There's so many more brands. There's so many more wholesalers, distributors, like it's nowhere near saturated. There's opportunity everywhere. But then the expansion into Amazon Canada, I think is a really key thing. Specifically, when I talk about that, I'm talking about the opportunity to work with either really, really large distributors that have a huge offering of brands or working with brands directly and selling their product on Amazon.ca, whether they're US brands and you're helping them expand to Amazon.ca or they're Canadian brands and you're helping them sell on their native marketplace. Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Okay, very good. So start in the US and then expand over to Canada. So what exactly does it entail for expanding into Canada if you're already selling in the US? Let's say so you're in Canada, I live in the US. So I guess Is there a difference between me starting to sell in Canada versus you starting to sell in Canada? Hey, Amazon sellers. Tired of losing money on storage and shipping fees? Well, Amazon Storage Pros is here to take the headache out of logistics. We manage everything from inventory and creating efficient shipping plans to working with 3PLs and Amazon's AWD so that you can focus on growing your business. Start with a free storage cost audit and discover exactly where you're overspending and how to fix it. Don't let logistics eat into your profits. Visit AmazonStoragePros.com. That's AmazonStoragePros.com to get your free storage cost audit and start saving today. And now back to the show. Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think so. The way things are now, it's so, so interconnected. Even if you look at things like the actual ASIN level on Amazon, you can use the same ASIN across the board. And you can retain your reviews as well, right? They become global reviews. So, I mean, that's a huge leg up right there. If you're selling listings in the US, whether you're working with brands or you just want to try wholesale listings in Canada and you're actually going to bring Inventory Across the Border. Just know that you can use that ASIN and the reviews are gonna come over. So if a brand's amassed 1,000 reviews, well you're starting quote unquote fresh, but with 1,000 reviews. So you've got that social proof that you can bring over. You've got that immediate trust from the customers that are gonna be viewing these listings. Speaker 2: Yep, yep, for sure. Yeah, so I currently sell probably about 5%. I'm the CEO of my sales in Canada. So I was just curious how your flow goes since you live in Canada, because for myself, I had to register for, I can't even remember what it's called now, but a business registration number up there in Canada, and then like a tax ID number, which goes on all my paperwork. And when I ship product up there, I have all the customs paperwork, the commercial invoice, you got the BOL, and then there's one other one as well that I'm drawing a blank on. Do you remember what it's called? Speaker 1: Depending on the product, you might have to do something like a prior notice. If it's anything that's consumable, that'll always be something that's a huge part of it. But yeah, BOL would be for your shipping and then your commercial invoice is just like a standard customs document. Speaker 2: Yep. I found here the certificate of origin is the other one. That's for getting the exemption on the duties for the agreement that the US and Canada and Mexico have. So I send that paperwork as well and then I have the information from my customs broker on there and it goes into Canada and then it's kind of a black hole from there. They take care of the rest and get it into Amazon for me. I don't know anything about that part unless there's a problem. But is it the same kind of process for you living in Canada, bringing products from the US into Canada? Speaker 1: Yeah, the exact same process that you would go through, all that paperwork. And then depending on who you're dealing with too, in terms of brands, wholesalers, distributors, they can help with that as well. I've literally had distributors help us with the brokerage side of things. If there's any sort of specialties with the products, if you need, you know, a Health Canada registration, you need like a cosmetics number. We have pretty stringent if it's anything around cosmetics, food, Anything that's going to go on the body, supplements, those types of things. So oftentimes even distributors, not even the brands can help with that paperwork and give that to you. And then of course, if you're dealing with brands, you know, they'll help to supplement all of that. And then those forms that you have, you know, kind of the exact same thing. And so I would call those like kind of the initial small hurdles. And then once you have that system, it's set up, as you know, it's the same thing every single time, same paperwork that you're dealing with. And then it's I think once you get onto the platform that things really get exciting for Amazon.ca because if you're in a situation where you're working with brands, whether exclusively, non-exclusively, managing their accounts doesn't matter. But if you're looking at things like ranking through your SEO strategies, right? You're looking at things like the cost on your advertising campaigns. Like we have some of the brands that we work with on both marketplaces and the data from marketplace to marketplace is totally different. There's so many keywords that people are just not touching that you can rank for in a month or in a few weeks. You could be top three, right? Speaker 2: I think that's a huge opportunity. I'll let you keep going on that, but yeah, I think that's a huge opportunity because most people, I think, just let it copy over from the US and never do actual research up in Canada. Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean, they are two different marketplaces, like you do need to treat them differently. But that's actually such a good thing. Because yes, you get a lot of the pros where it's sharing reviews and all of the graphics, for example, will come over like your listings will. Be the same on the most important areas, but then you have that whole SEO and advertising opportunity because there are different keywords in Canada, right? People maybe care about different things. We have slightly different climate depending on where you live in the US as well. And so there's all these niches, as you would say, In Canada that are just slightly different from the U.S. It's a different customer base. And because of that, there's a huge opportunity. And even looking at the both the competition, which relates directly to like your cost per clicks when you're advertising. It's astonishing. We're launching a brand right now. And I kid you not, the cost per click is probably five to eight times less expensive on average Canada to the US. So like our ad budget literally needs to be like five times as much in the US as it does in Canada. And so like you're never going to have the volume, you know, a SKU is probably not going to do a million dollars a month in Canada. Like most SKUs aren't, maybe really, really, really large brands, but it's so much easier and less expensive to actually get those sales on the platform. I've also seen lots of people to do on a big scale. We do a bit of this taking products that are only available in the US but are super popular brands. And bring them over to Canada wholesale style from distributors and the products just start selling because they're just so big and so well known. And then you get away with being a single seller on a listing just because you've brought it forward. And any efforts that you have in terms of advertising, SEO that you're going to do, getting keywords ranked, like you're the sole beneficiary of that. Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, one tactic that I think is pretty good is looking for products in Canada that are selling well in the U.S., but the price in Canada is abnormally high compared to the U.S. price. I find they must be drop shippers. A lot of people drop shipping from the U.S.A. because you'll see a product for $10 in the U.S. and then it'll be like $50 up in Canada or something like that. And so the only thing I can figure is that those people must be buying from the US and delivering it to their customers in Canada. Speaker 1: Yeah, we definitely do see a lot of that. And we've actually hopped on a few of those listings and just said like, hey, I wonder. And it's like either we have that product available here in Canada, which is usually the case, We find that, look at the U.S. side, it's like, yeah, great. It sells 5,000 units a month in the U.S. It's selling 50 units a month here in Canada. Let's hop in, give it a reasonable price. I love that you brought that up and that's been a channel for us to come on and sell a few thousand bucks a month or more on a listing, zero work required. Speaker 2: For sure, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, the eBay to Amazon dropshipping I think is not so much of a thing anymore, but there seems to be a lot of people doing that US to Canada dropshipping quite a lot. Speaker 1: Yeah, it's huge. And Amazon in the back end on their infrastructure is investing heavily into Amazon Canada right now. And we can see that in multiple different ways. So as most of you are probably aware, the beta programs that come out, they always test it in the US first, and then it gets propagated to other countries afterwards. We're actually seeing some of those features that stick come to Canada first. And so we're looking at, you know, our brand accounts, our accounts and like the UK, Japan, Australia, they aren't getting some of these features. And Canada is, right? So that's one thing. Another one is we recently just joined Amazon's SPN service provider network because of our agency side of things. And just being onboarded into that program, they actually have a team of over 70 people at Amazon throughout, like from Seattle to Toronto up in Canada. And their sole job is to help brands go from the US to Canada. And so they have special programs. For example, they have a program in the U.S. really closely related to the Launchpad program. But if you're a new aspiring brand and you apply to the program, you can get an Amazon rep for whatever calendar year that you're in for a new brand launch. They're now offering that in Canada as well. And so same thing, whether you are taking a brand or an account from US to Canada, so pro tip, if you even have a reseller account and you're working with some brands or even just some big distributors and you want to start selling in the US and you have the ability to get like brand registry and things like that, you could potentially get a rep for the entire calendar year. We have two clients that we just did that with and we have a rep for both of these accounts. These reps can do anything on the back end. They're helping us fix parentage issues. We've had some UPC issues we've gotten fixed. They've helped us set up strategy for advertising campaigns. One of the biggest things really only applicable if you're working with brands directly, but they're actually getting us access to deals and events that other people can't get through their platforms. So they have like New Year's resolution events. Oprah Winfrey has her own event that she does based on her book recommendations. She'll recommend these products. You can take advantage of that. All that to say, they're investing heavily, heavily into Amazon Canada right now. I see it as a really I slept on opportunity across the board to be able to bring some of the things that you're doing in the US over to Canada. And the beautiful thing about it is that everything is the same, right? Other than the currency and the way you pay taxes, everything else is the exact same. Functionality, reviews come over, like it's a beautiful thing. Well established in that you're making sales, you have some repeatable processes, whether you're bringing inventory over from the U.S. to Canada or you even just want to start to explore Canadian brands, Canadian wholesalers, Canadian distributors, Canadian trade shows. We have a lot of it now and I always look at it as Amazon Canada is kind of like Amazon U.S. right now in like 2013, 2014. Things are really starting to get figured out, but the competition is just not there yet. The opportunity is so ripe right now. Speaker 2: I'm curious because most of the brands that we sell in Canada we're bringing from the United States into Canada. I've got a couple where I'm bringing them from Canada to the US. Is that the same for you or are you finding a lot of brands that are founded in Canada from Canada and you're helping them sell in Canada? Speaker 1: Yeah, so just personally in our brand, we're after the Canadian brands. And we're doing them in Canada and then also helping them to the US. One of the biggest driving factors for us is just the dollar, right? It's so much more efficient for us to go from Canada to US because your dollar is just that much stronger. So financially, that tends to make the most sense, but we are also talking to brands because we've mostly done US to Canada wholesaler distributors. We are talking to our US brands right now about branching into Canada and moving that way just because over the last year, we've seen such good results. Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I just pulled up the stats over the last year. We've got 9.83% of our listeners are in Canada. So for the people in Canada, That's probably a big opportunity for them to dive into because you being from Canada, you have a leg up over myself in the USA because you guys are from the same country as these brands. You're going to speak the language, so to speak, better and just have a faster connection than someone who's from another country. Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, probably very similar to the same way you are in the U.S., but like if you find a supplier that you live down the road from and you can talk about where you grew up, you can talk about your favorite coffee shop or whatever the case may be, like your relationship right off the bat is just going to be so much stronger. So I'll give two tips on where you can find great brands, wholesalers and distributors. Number one, if you are a Canadian, Google your city, right? Just Google distributors and wholesalers specifically in your target city, especially the big cities like looking at Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, kind of the major cities that we have here. If you're near them, look up wholesalers, distributors. If not, trade shows. Those are huge as well. If you can make the journey to trade shows, a lot of them are in Vancouver, Toronto. They are plump full of Canadian and U.S. brands. And the great thing about the U.S. brands at the Canadian trade shows is they're there to do business in Canada. So, if you can come in, whether you're from the US or Canada, as a partner and say, hey, I see what you're doing on Amazon.com. You're crushing it. Well, let me help you with Amazon.ca. Let's see what success we can have here. That's a huge opportunity. And these are where a lot of the conversations that we're having, where we're successful with working with brands and distributors. We are at these trade shows and that's where we're also hearing a lot of the information of we went through the last few years. We've tried it on Amazon. We failed miserably. We need the help. Speaker 2: I personally love trade shows. I enjoy going to them, looking at all the products and talking with people. It's so much easier to make a connection when you're going to the booth and talking to them in person. If you're going and talking with smaller brands, a lot of times the owner is going to be there, so you're able to talk to the owner face to face. And build that trust a lot faster and easier than on the phone or by an email. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Myself this year, I have five trade shows planned, flights booked, ready to go, and I'll probably end up at seven or eight of them this year because between referrals and trade shows, those are the two biggest ways that we're finding new opportunities right now. I just look at it like it's there, it's ready for the taking. Speaker 2: Yeah, same thing here. The days of People getting together and connecting and handshake deals and stuff like that. It's kind of old school, right? You know, most younger people, they just want to sit behind the computer or on the phone and text and email and things like that. And so if you can be the person who's getting out there and shaking hands and talking to people, meeting people, It's going to go very far and able to get those connections and build the trust that the brands need to work with you because it takes a lot of trust. These brands, unlike distributors, which are just transactional, brands are usually very emotional about their products. You know, a lot of times they made these products out of a personal need. It's their baby. They want it treated right. They want to work with someone that they can trust. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that extends to like a good distributor as well, because they recognize the needs of their brands. And they're in a position where they know their brands need help with online strategy. And so we've even had it that some of our distributors have introduced us to brands. Hey, these guys are great. Why don't you make a connection? You can sell products. We're great at logistics and distribution. Sell the products to us. We'll get them to them, but you guys work on actual brand strategy. You work on the ads, the SEO, everything to do with Amazon. And then we'll just handle the product. And so we've had some great opportunities there. And that's like the distribution aspect. If you can find an incredible distributor or a wholesaler that will advocate for you and go to bat for you to these brands, You just multiplied yourself in reality and so I think it's just creating a few of those great relationships exactly like you said. Nobody wants to leave the computer anymore. Go shake a hand. Go have dinner or lunch or coffee with somebody. It goes so much further than an email ever will. Absolutely. Speaker 2: Yeah, and it really solidifies those relationships too. So once you open that account with the supplier and you start that relationship, If you've met in person and gotten to know each other, know, like and trust each other, maybe you've got things in common that you enjoy, hobbies and stuff like that, it makes it much less likely or harder for them to just cut ties with you and not work with you anymore because you're no longer just someone selling their products. A friend almost, you're a fellow fisherman or a fellow tennis player, whatever the case may be, whatever connection you made with that person, you know, it makes them feel bad if they are to cut off that relationship down the road. So it really makes those relationships last a lot longer. Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And then the inverse of that is when you're doing a great job for them, you're top of mind all the time. They're seeing those products get bought. They're seeing the revenue growing. They're going to be looking for ways to bring you more opportunity because it's an incredible relationship. So not only do you build in the longevity of they're going to keep you around because you have a great relationship, but it's just like a multiplication effect over time as well. Speaker 2: Yep, yep, absolutely. Relationships are the name of the game. That's one thing that a lot of people don't think about when they're thinking about selling on Amazon, especially in brand partnerships, wholesale and that kind of thing. It's all about relationships if you're gonna be successful. Speaker 1: And I think it's almost like if anyone's listening to content, to podcasts and looking for hacks or quick ways, it's like go out and meet people because that's going to take you so much further than this hack to find new suppliers and brands or this click-through rate hack or this advertising hack or whatever you're looking for. Go touch grass. Go talk to people. Get out in the real world and create real relationships. Be a person that people want to do business with. The rest will take care of itself over time. Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's only uncomfortable for a little while. After a while, you get used to it and it just becomes normal. So, what kind of things are you doing in Canada to really scale your sales up there? Because you said you're up to about 30% in sales back from, what'd you say, a few years ago at about 5 or 10%. You've grown it. So, what kind of things are you doing to really scale your sales in Canada? Speaker 1: Yeah, so right now we're building out the team inside of our business because we've got to a point where We hit it a few months back. We were at capacity. The team was maxed out with as much work as we could handle. They raised their hand and they're like, please, no more brands. Please, no more work. And so we said, right, okay, we need to scale. We need to bring more people in. And so for us, it's about building team right now. And then it's going back out and building brands, or sorry, building more relationships with more brands is what it is. And the beautiful thing about this business model that we're talking about, not all businesses get this, but you have growth on both sides, whether you're going to go and grab more brands and add them to your portfolio, more distributors, more wholesalers, but also the growth of revenue on the backend. And then if you also have those direct relationships, as the brand grows, your account is growing. And so, it has this multiplication effect, this exponential effect when you put the two together. So, I mean, it really is a combination, right? We've had a brand that we've been working with for just about a year and a half. I think next month is a year and a half. And we took them from two and a half thousand the first month we worked with them. They were a bigger retail brand. We saw the opportunity there. This month, we should do 175,000 with them. And so we've seen good growth just with the brands we have and we're propagating the same efforts there across multiple brands. But then this year, yeah, we want to go from about 10 brands that we work with right now to probably in the neighborhood of 20 to 22 brands is going to be the goal. Speaker 2: Nice, nice. Yeah, that's a good thing you mentioned there that a lot of people may not have picked up on. Everybody's always talking about finding more brands, finding more brands, opening more accounts. Sometimes it's more beneficial just to Stop for a minute. Look at what you already have. How can you sell more from those suppliers that you already got? How can you increase the sales of the products that you're already selling? A lot of times that can be a lot easier than trying to start fresh. We're the brand new brand or a new supplier or something like that. Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I love that concept and I'm always looking for opportunities and pushing my team the same vein, right? What are we doing right now and how can we either be doing that better or be doing more of that? So we've went back to distributors catalogs time and time again. And found golden opportunities that weren't selling six months ago, but are now selling great. And we're going to jump on that. We've went back to brands. We've been working with them for six months and in retail they've launched six new products. And we haven't talked about it with them. We launched new products with them and we get additional sales there. So absolutely like take a microscope to everything that's working already and see how you can amplify that. And then once you're doing a great job, also talk about that to other people, right? Case studies, testimonials, having conversations with the brand, like I'll straight up ask a brand, How would you rate our services? How are we doing? We have a survey that we distribute on a quarterly basis to our brands where they'll come back with feedback, right? And then I'll ask, I'm not afraid at this point, do you know anyone else that would benefit from our services? Brands know brands, distributors know distributors, and if you're honestly doing a great job, they're happy to go to bat. They're happy to push you out to the network because it means that their friends are getting taken care of really well as well. Speaker 2: 100%. Definitely ask for referrals because you already have a good relationship with them. If you're just asking them, hey, anybody else that could use our services? If they know someone, they're typically going to be happy to share it, assuming they're happy with your services. There's a lot of people out there that don't do great work, so you got to be someone who does excellent work and not slacking on things. But if you do excellent work, they're happy with it, then yeah, they'll definitely give you referrals if they have them. Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And don't be afraid to ask what they think of you as well because sometimes there will be some small disagreements, some gap in communication that they're not happy with and you can fix it with one report or one extra piece of communication or booking a monthly or a quarterly meeting with them. Meeting their expectations. So never be afraid to ask for feedback. I think somebody would respect you more if you outright asked how they were doing and they could give you honest feedback rather than just moving forward and assuming it's good or it's bad. Speaker 2: Yep. Yeah. 100%. Communication is very important. A lot of times just Communicating better can solve a ton of problems that you may not even know existed, and you can fix them very easily. But to the supplier, it's a big deal. To you, it might be like, oh yeah, it's an easy fix. We can change that right now. Speaker 1: Exactly. And that's what my wife says all the time. Communication is key. Speaker 2: Yep. 100%. Alright, very good. So let's see. Scaling in Canada, so you're mainly just trying to find more brands and bring more products. You're into Amazon in Canada and you're mainly focused on products that are already selling at least some in Canada or are you launching brand new products? Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's been our biggest focus is seeing where opportunity already lies and then amplifying that. We've been through in the early days the issues of launching brand new ASINs, brand new brands with no recognition. It goes so much better if you're focused on brands that have traction. So maybe they're crushing it in the US, you bring them to Canada, they're crushing it at retail, brick and mortar, and then you're bringing them onto Amazon. Maybe their sales aren't great, but then you can go and see reasons why. They have one photo, they have You know, seven words in their title and it's not a great description of the product. They have no bullet points. We see that stuff all the time. So if it's selling 50 units a month, you clean all of those things up and give it inventory at the right price, you're probably going to double, triple, quadruple that without even having to advertise. So that is what I look at right now as the golden opportunity when looking at new brands. But then also looking at our distributor catalogs and the brands that we already work with, additional opportunity in those catalogs to amplify things further. Speaker 2: Yep, for sure. Let's say you find a brand that is selling good in the United States, not doing much in Canada. What's your pitch to them to get them interested to allow you to sell in Canada? Are you already selling them in the United States and then you're just saying, okay, we might as well sell in Canada or are you coming to them And saying, hey, let us sell in Canada. Maybe you're not even selling in the US, but you're just focused on the Canada forum. Speaker 1: Yeah, so for us personally, it's mostly been Hey, you're selling on Amazon.co already, whether you're aware of it or not, let's take you to the next level. Because oftentimes, they'll be big U.S. brands. They have no idea because people are doing things like dropshipping it from the U.S. or, you know, just a small one man show is bringing a product in and just selling it on whatever listing they can find or cobbling together listings. We've seen all types of things. Sellers taking Like photos that they took on their couch with their iPhone of products and slapping up whatever title they think is relevant or literally just reading off of the bottle of the product and throwing it up there. It's like, hey, you're selling on Amazon Canada. We can see that. There's research that shows it. Let's take you to the next level. Speaker 2: Yep. And you're not typically selling their products already in the U.S. or you are? Speaker 1: Sometimes we are. We have done that, but it's definitely not the majority of our business. And our focus is generally products that we haven't sold quite yet. And we're looking for those new opportunities. But equally in the same vein, We're looking at both, right? I think both are large and equal opportunity. Speaker 2: Okay, very good. Yeah, I like it. I haven't put a ton of focus on Canada, but I think in 2025 that's gonna be, Canada's gonna be one of my focuses and Walmart, using Walmart Fulfillment Services and pushing there as well, diversifying a little bit On Amazon is kind of the name of the game for me this year, I think. Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that a lot. If you have good Walmart resources, I'm absolutely all ears because that's that's definitely what we're looking at is our new thing in 2025 as well. Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's a lot of opportunity there. You know, Amazon is getting harder and more expensive. And there's a now more than ever, people are thinking How can I sell more off of Amazon than they ever have before just because of all the rules and fees and everything that Amazon is stacking on top of each other? I'm really going to push into Walmart. We've been selling on Walmart for a while but just kind of drop shipping from Amazon which they don't really like and actually they shut down our account for a little while until we promised we wouldn't do that anymore. So therefore, Walmart Fulfillment Services is going to be the future. So I haven't done a ton on there. I'm still learning on Walmart, but I'm looking forward to really making a push this year. Speaker 1: How great would it be to go to a brand, even a distributor, and say, look, we can help you in the U.S. on Amazon, but why don't we also get you onto Walmart? Why don't we also push you into Canada on Amazon? Here's these additional opportunities that you never even saw coming. We can do that for you. Now you're so much more attractive than the next person in line that's just about to talk to them. Speaker 2: Yep, for sure. All right, Mike, any other things that we haven't touched on that would be helpful for someone scaling in Canada or just getting started? Speaker 1: Yeah, I would give a quick tip when selling on Amazon. You can sell your products for more than you think you can. We see on average from US to Canada, even taking into account the conversion, probably about 15 to 20% price increase or overall increase in your selling price. And our margins in Canada are probably about 3 to 5% higher than anything we sell in the US, which is another reason why there's a huge push. Canadians, man, we're getting beat up here. Hyperinflation, we're used to paying a little more for things. And our selection and competition isn't as great. So when we see things that are available, we're going to jump on it and we're willing to pay a premium. So take advantage of us, I guess. Speaker 2: Well, you know, Trump offered to make you guys a state if you want, so more than welcome. You'll get a better dollar. Speaker 1: Yeah, we're not 100% sold yet, so we'll just have to see what happens there. Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that was funny. He's joking, obviously, but it was pretty funny. When he said that, but yeah, that's an important point though. The margins are definitely better in Canada and don't forget about the currency difference, right? If you're selling your product for $20 in the US, don't make the mistake of selling it for $20 in Canada. It's not the same. You got to break out your currency conversion calculator. It's not a lot. Thankfully it's relatively stable compared to a lot of countries. So it's not something you gotta be tracking daily or anything like that, but you definitely wanna pay attention to it because it does fluctuate a little bit. Speaker 1: Yep, absolutely. Absolutely, with those changes. And you're able to really take advantage the other way as well. So for all my Canadians listening or people that are gonna go start approaching Canadian brands and distributors, sending it the other way is the opposite effect. You're gonna be, you know, sell it for the same price and you're gonna be much better off. So that's a huge one too. Speaker 2: Yep, for sure. Awesome, Mike. So where can people connect with you if they want to? Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm most active on Instagram. I also do post to YouTube, but if you're looking to connect, you want to reach out, connect with me, talk Amazon, I'm all ears. You can put it down in the show notes, but it's just M-M-Sieben, like my last name, S-I-E-B-E-N, and that is where you'll see the majority of my content. Speaker 2: All right, awesome. Yeah, and we'll put those notes in the show notes as well, or those links, I should say. But yeah, I appreciate you, Mike, coming on the show. It's been a lot of fun talking Canada. It's a great place to sell, and I look forward to selling more, so I appreciate it. Speaker 1: Very much appreciated. It was an absolute pleasure, and thanks so much for having me, Todd. Speaker 2: Absolutely. Have a great one. Unknown Speaker: This has been another episode of the Amazon Seller School podcast. Thanks for listening, fellow Amazon seller. And always remember, success is yours if you take it. Speaker 2: Hey, if you made it this far in the show, I really hope you enjoyed it and I'd like to ask you a favor. Could you head on over to Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this and leave us a review? It would be greatly appreciated and would help us continue to grow the show and offer more episodes for you. Thank you. God bless and have an awesome day.