How to Survive The Trump Tariffs & Supply Chain Chaos

How to Survive The Trump Tariffs & Supply Chain Chaos Speaker 1: One of the most difficult challenges in supply chain is when people get too comfortable, especially with their existing supplier. That can lead to major disruptions when and if there's a problem, they've got all their eggs in one basket. So regardless of tariffs or otherwise, you should always be shopping. You should always be looking for some kind of backup plans, plan A, B, C, D for your supply chain. And that could be less costly suppliers who are very excited to take on your business. Speaker 2: The global supply chain is in chaos. Costs are rising, delays are unpredictable, and new tariffs could change everything. But here's the real problem. Most sellers aren't adapting fast enough. Today, we're diving into how nearshoring, artificial intelligence, and smart sourcing can protect your business and keep your profits growing. All right, for the past two decades, our guest has served as president and CEO of the Atlas Network, where he specializes in comprehensive end-to-end supply chain services. He's the author of Supply Chain Ups and Downs and the founder of the Supply and Demand Show on YouTube. He holds certifications in artificial intelligence and business strategy from MIT, And he's dedicated to continuous learning in business and culture. Our guest, we'll get to him shortly, is Kerim Kfuri. And we'll get to him in just a second. Tired of negative reviews dragging down your star rating in sales? TraceFuse has your back. TraceFuse specializes in removing non-compliant Amazon reviews the right way. I'm talking 100% compliant with Amazon Terms of Service. And with over 11,000 reviews removed for 400 plus brands, they know what it takes to protect your reputation and boost conversions. And here's the best part. You only pay for performance. That means you only pay for reviews they successfully remove. No contracts, no monthly fees, just results. Plus, as a Lunch with Norm listener, you get two reviews removed for free. Ready to clean up your reviews? Visit TraceFuse.ai. That's TraceFuse, T-R-A-C-E-F-U-S-E dot A-I. And now sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee, and welcome Karim. Speaker 1: Hey there, Norm. How are you? Speaker 2: I am doing great. How are you? Speaker 1: Doing great. Doing great. Good to see you again and can't thank you enough for having me on your great show and I'm looking forward to seeing you today and then obviously on the next show as well. Speaker 2: You know, when we talked, I thought it was really interesting. I didn't even know MIT had this course, but going in and taking that AI course for business strategies, That's crazy. I mean, it must have been so incredibly Not only beneficial, but just to see where things are going nowadays, it's changing on a dime. So I guess a question I have about that is you've taken that course, you've graduated. Well, how long did that last before you had to take a makeup course? Speaker 1: Like a week? Something like that. I mean, you know, the reality of it is, is that, you know, knowledge is power, right? That's how we grow. We thrive. We're able to just build ourselves up. Help ourselves and help others, you know, and I'm in a business in global supply chain solutions where we have to be on the cutting edge of what's available and what's unique and what can make processes more efficient. And honestly, the realm of AI and strategy is impacting all industries and most definitely the realm of Supply chain, transit, logistics, and so forth. And so, you know, I just felt as though at one point or another, you have to get some kind of a good level of a background and an education in this, a formal education. So MIT, right? You know, excellent place to pick up some information and some knowledge. So I decided to get back to the classroom after being away from the classroom for many decades and just kind of, you know, learn as much as I could. The realm of education today is so convenient. I mean, you can do it at any time. You can do it remote. You can do whatever you like to do, but Regardless of that, I still went and visited MIT. I participated in a couple of their large-scale supply chain and logistics events called Crossroads and some other things to really be able to just see the faces behind the teachings and what was happening. And we just all need to know about AI, whether you're using it or not. You just need to be aware of it. And that also starts to alleviate, I guess, some of the fears. There's a lot of fear around what it is, what it isn't. And so I think education helps with that. Speaker 2: You know, a couple of years back my partner and I came up with this app called Tariff Terminator. Now, we realized fairly quickly that we had a problem. Nobody knew what a tariff was, you know? So all of a sudden, all we did was take their HTS code or their HS code and try to see if it matched with something here in North America. And 70, 70% of Amazon sellers had the wrong code. But still, nobody knew what a tariff was. So now, all of a sudden, what's the trend today? What's the keyword of the day? I mean, it's tariff and understanding how to control that. So I guess I want to start off by talking about these Trump, the Trump era tariffs, and how are they going to impact Amazon sellers? Check out our Amazon ad strategies that you'll need to know to scale your business fast. Watch our newest episode right here with Elizabeth Green. Don't forget to subscribe and we add new episodes every Monday. Speaker 1: Well, I mean, just for your listeners and kind of bringing it back for a minute about tariffs, I mean, you know, this is not the first time in history that the United States is using economic sanctions. to curb behavior between nations and for the benefit in some ways of the country. Up until 1930, it was used as a primary source of revenue driving in the United States federal revenue. And encouraged and spurred sort of economic prosperity within the United States. And then obviously after 1930s, we got more into kind of the free trade era and we needed to eliminate these or reduce them to really be able to move towards areas of globalization and opening ourselves up to the global economy and the opportunities that that provides. And that's kind of continued for decades now. So here we are again, you know, under, you know, Trump. And, you know, his vision, I believe, you know, has a lot of facets to it. You know, on one side, it's definitely going to generate some levels of additional revenues for sure, because what he is banking on and what the administration is banking on is that people aren't going to really disrupt too much their supply chains. So if they don't do that, then obviously there are these higher levels of tariffs, but where the misnomer and the miseducation kind of comes in here a little bit is who's paying for it, right? Who ends up paying for those tariffs? You know, we talk about or I believe what's been presented is the idea that the suppliers are going to do this. And that in that way, it's going to be beneficial to, let's say, US businesses, because costs will be reduced, because suppliers will eat the tariff differential, that will be cost savings will be passed off to the consumers at large, and so forth. And that would be Okay, if we had as much leverage in the global economy as, let's say, the administration currently is stating we do. And in some industries we do, and in many industries we don't. You know, we represent the United States, you know, less than 20% of the global exports of Asia. You know, that's not, you know, 50, 60, 70%, that's less than 20%. I think it's like 16%, something of that nature. But at the same time, look at something like Amazon, the second largest company in the United States, 70% of the products that are bought and sold on Amazon come from China. So our reliance is heavily skewed towards the consumerism that we need from these different parts of the world that we secure goods from. But at the other way around, you know, let's say somewhere like Asia is the world's factory. It's not just, you know, the United States' factory. So the leverage isn't as much as you would assume it to be. So ultimately, when it comes down to Amazon buyers and sellers and this entire sort of economic landscape, If you let me talk about it a little bit, you know, I believe that there's some steps that are gonna be taken and in some ways it's gonna be beneficial and other ways it's not. So first and foremost, if you have leverage with your suppliers and you're a really, really big customer, you may be able to get them to pay for those tariffs by reducing the costs and then there isn't too much of an economic impact to let's say the United States consumer. In other industries where maybe like luxury goods, for example, maybe your supplier is not going to be willing to absorb tariffs and you're going to absorb them because you're already selling $100 product. So, you know, if it's $101, your consumer may not care that much if it's passed along to them, or if you end up reducing your profit margin from, let's say, a 200% margin to a 199% margin or a 195% margin, you're still in business. You're a luxury good. It's not that big of a deal. So you absorb it or maybe your customer is willing to pay for it. But it's really with these very, very slim margin products that it becomes difficult. And if a supplier is not going to be willing to absorb it and a business can't pass it off to its consumer, then you really have a challenge where businesses may end up going out of business or have to completely pivot or shift into new product categories. Or maybe they have to do a scenario of sellout instead of just churn when it comes to their business. There are many businesses that survive on just kind of putting out a new SKU every two or three months. Now they have to, let's say, extend that period of time for six months or nine months to really sell out of something and then move ahead. So sales cycles extend, get longer, and the way that the business operates may be a little bit different. Going back to what you said previously about harmonized tariff codes, you know, that's an interesting area because it is very gray. People aren't using the right codes. There may be the ability within the governance of the law, hopefully, to be able to reclassify your goods to a more favorable HHS code that may have lesser of a duty or a tariff on it, but still be an acceptable product category. And then really where it can get a little bit kind of nefarious is businesses may start really reducing their declared values. And that is a little bit of a slippery slope because it has to be a value that's reasonable for the goods, but at the same time something that shouldn't be undercut so much that it undervalues basically the value of products that are coming cross-border. Speaker 2: And you don't want to get caught with that. Speaker 1: And you don't want to get caught with that either. So that's really a challenge. Then ultimately the final idea which this is the kind of the pro-Trump ideology is that people will shift their supply chain. But, you know, we stopped being a manufacturing nation so long ago that those opportunities are years away in some industries. There's no infrastructure for it. There's no education, labor, resources, technology, any of the things that you would need to have a particular supply chain. In some industries it may be where it's very automated or mechanized, but in others where there's labor components and knowledge and so on, you know, We may be so far away from that and even those opportunities that were being discussed previously about nearshoring, so maybe going to a Canada or a Mexico, well, how are we going to do that when we're at Odds with those folks too. So like it's really, really a complicated scenario where it's very product by product, industry by industry to determine what really is going to be the best sort of course of action to navigate these tariffs. Speaker 2: In the US, we were talking to somebody on the Marketing Misfits podcast last week that was an M&A guy and he specifically targeted manufacturing. And one of the problems that eCom sellers are having in the U.S. is the FU factor when it comes to U.S. manufacturing where they won't take the smaller orders. Where China set up to do, oh, we need to have a thousand orders to get going or 2,500 or 500. It doesn't happen. It's very hard to find a manufacturer that's going to accept and grow with you in North America. So I think that mindset is going to probably have to change to bring back, at least for the smaller sellers in the U.S. Except if you're talking about supplements or something like that, you can have small runs. Can you negotiate your way out of tariff troubles? Check out Kerim as he shares practical strategies to reduce your supplier costs. What are some of your thoughts on what sellers can do to minimize these challenges? And what I mean by that is, do they change their country? Do they change their material? What can they do if they have small margins and they feel threatened by the tariffs? Speaker 1: You know, obvious solution here is that they have a communication with your supplier, right? I mean, we know that specifically, let's talk in China, that the concept of guanxi, which is the relationship matters above all else to at least the Chinese. And, you know, you may be surprised that you may have a supplier that'll say, hey, you know what? We've been doing business with you for a long time. We do a lot of, you know, business together. We know that this may be a temporary thing or otherwise. How about we both share this? Or how about we take on part of it for six months or whatever? There's always a negotiation to be had and the beautiful thing in kind of the global economy is, is there's always a lot of options. There's always a lot of solutions. You may want to look for a different supplier. I think one of the most difficult challenges in supply chain is when people get too comfortable, especially with their existing supplier. That can lead to major disruptions when and if there's a problem, they've got all their eggs in one basket. So regardless of tariffs or otherwise, you should always be shopping. You should always be looking for, you know, some kind of backup plans, plan A, B, C, D for your supply chain. And that could be less costly suppliers who are very excited to take on your business and say, hey, you know what? My other supplier, they really weren't willing to help me with the tariffs. They weren't willing to reduce the pricing. The quality was great. Why don't I try this one, that one and otherwise? So you may have to get a little bit more involved in the factory selection process and possibly come up with some additional alternatives of other factories that are literally entering the market knowing that that's an opportunity. They are entering the market saying, hey, I know that there's going to be a scenario where we can undercut some of the other factories because we're going to be willing to do things that others may not be willing to do. And so there could be a business opportunity there. Outside of that, it is definitely what you said. There is some cost engineering components to this, where you may look at your product itself or have a discussion with your supplier and say, okay, how do we make this 20% cheaper? How do we do that so we can mitigate these tariffs, still keep the business together? Maybe you don't feel as much of a cost impact. Our customers don't really feel as much. How do we just basically make this mousetrap better? So definitely on the cost engineering side is something that I think Can be done. And then as I said before, depending upon the product and depending upon the way your business operates, If you have the choice to basically make, let's say, a 50% margin or make a 40% margin and keep all your business consistent and keep your customers happy, maybe you just make less and you make less for a period of time for some SKUs and then maybe you introduce some new SKUs where you make more. And so you start to offset. You may have some losses on some existing product lines and then pick up some additional profitability in some new product lines so that the net impact to your business You know, really stays the same or maybe even do even a little bit better. You know, it's amazing just like when we're put in the corner how creative we can get. You know, you got to box your way out of the corner when there are challenges and obstacles. And oftentimes it presents new opportunities you never even thought of. So I think that those are definitely areas where supplier conversations, new suppliers, cost engineering, introduction of new SKUs, different things of that nature that I think sellers really have to look at. They're definitely gonna have to be more active in the process. That's for sure. Speaker 2: Yeah. And one that we have to talk about is negotiating new terms. So right now in China, and we've done that, we just recently did this with a manufacturer, a nice manufacturer, where, you know, he was paying the old traditional 20 and then 80% upon leaving the factory. It was, you know, once the order is complete, pay 80%. We've got it now where it's 20% 90-day terms. And that's not the norm. It might be 30 days, but they are open. They're wide open. A lot of these manufacturers right now are wide open to just talking terms. So that's something to talk about. And talking about Guangzhou, my brother and I, my father, we've been in manufacturing My dad's always been in manufacturing. So we started going to Taiwan years ago back in the 90s. And so my brother and I went over and we were sitting there with a translator at the time who ended up being our general manager. But we went to this one EVA manufacturer and Every other manufacturer was like dying for our business. This person said nothing. He was not rude, but we'd go in, we'd have some tea, we'd talk, and exactly like you said, they wanted to know about your family. A lot of the times way back then, you never talked to any business that first meeting. It was about your family. And it was pretty cool, because it's a different culture altogether. This guy was just silent. And our translator was trying to get out of him what was going on. So she ended up talking to him later and get this my brother's named Steve. Okay, so the manufacturer was Was worried that my brother whose name is Steve He heard that there was an American that was named whose name was Steve and That had stiffed a couple of manufacturers. Speaker 1: So he didn't know if it was the same Steve? Speaker 2: No. So once we got that, once we got that out of the way, he became one of our favorite suppliers. His name was Mr. Cow and he was awesome. Yeah, that's what it was like. And it's still, I don't know about you, but I think the best thing that anybody can do is go and meet Face-to-face their manufacturer. Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I'll be there in April. We have three offices in Asia, and you know, we're always, I used to go once every three, four months. You know, I used to go and the reasons why in the early days was to do exactly what we're talking about here. Build up the relationship, build up the friendships. I mean, and really work on things like terms. I mean, I would go and sit down with some of my suppliers and And in a one or a two hour meeting, be able to save 20, 30, even 40% on some productions just because you're there. Because you're there, you're talking, you're discussing the overall relationship. We haven't seen each other in a year or so on. And everybody's sort of respectful. Do us a solid on this. We'll bring you more business in this way. And just things get done. Things get done in person. And some of it is very intentional. And some of it ends up being very situational. A nice drink with someone, the conversation is flowing, and then everybody's kind of happy to bend over to assist you and to do a better job. And those things just really happen when you're face-to-face. And talking about those experiences, I mean, and the relationship, I mean, I'm sure you probably had this. I've had those scenarios where you go to the supplier and your name is on the big billboard out front of the building. Welcome, you know, Mr. Kerim, and welcome to the Atlas Network. It's this red carpet rolling out situation that so many people just overlook and don't really understand because they haven't met their supplier. They haven't been there. They haven't broken bread together. They haven't done those basic human interactions that really make, you know, kind of the world turn. That's why I think we're successful because we're on the ground there. We have our people there and we basically work in that kind of way. Speaker 2: Check this out. If you subscribe and leave a comment saying, I subscribed, I'll personally reply to your comment. We had the general manager. It was a husband and wife team that ended up working with us and we turned their life around. He was an engineer over at Nissan. He quit. He came over to work with us. We opened up two factories over there with mostly arts and crafts and cosmetic containers. And I guess they made so much money the way that we positioned their position in the company. Get this, you want to have billboard? The guy that was the engineer over at Nissan built us a Maxima limo. So when my brother and I came in, they would pick us up with this custom limo that they manufactured. Speaker 1: Amazing. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you know, that's, that's the beauty of it too. I mean, we have the ability to change some people's lives. And that's one thing that I consistently look at regarding our company as well, that, you know, we have People and their families and their children that are all invested in the Atlas Network and the business that we do on behalf of our clients and what we do every single day and that extends well beyond just profitability, that extends beyond just doing good work and business. That's, you know, when you're really impacting people's lives and the lives of their families and their children and so on. It becomes generational, especially when you're working in a business for a few decades now, like we have been or you have been. And so, you know, with all this in mind, I'm consistently looking at how we can be good global citizens, regardless of anything that's happening in our world and economically. And I think that that's the missing message I find today. With what's happening in our country. I'm not a political person, even though I grew up in the D.C. area. But I believe that if we have too insular of a thought process, that we absolutely do this at the disadvantage of our own nation, because we are a global society. Technology has brought us together, multilingual, multicultural and so on and so forth. I mean, for God's sakes, the United States is the melting pot. So for us to just try to dismiss that or the importance of the globalization and having that global mindset, I think is only going to work to our detriment. So it's not bad to obviously put our country first and look at our borders and protections and so on and so forth. But at the same time, we can't dismiss the fact that we're part of a planet here. So that's just my thoughts around that a bit. Speaker 2: All right. We are at the bottom of the hour. So anybody who's new to the podcast, we do something a little bit different at the top, and that's called the Wheel of Kelsey. So today, and that's a prize, by the way, and to enter it, it's hashtag WheelOfKelsey, take two people, you get two entries or a second entry. Today, We are doing two things. We are putting a link for Kerim's new book, or I don't know how long it's been out there, but we're doing it where anybody can get a free copy. Is that correct? Speaker 1: Correct. And happy to have any of your listeners pick up a copy of it. It's about six, seven months old. It was, you know, an Amazon bestseller and I think it's a great approach to the supply chain industry. I mean, people keep hearing about the supply chain every single day, especially since post-COVID. And a lot of people still don't even understand what it is or why it's important. So I wrote this very approachable book. It's about 150 pages with the idea of explaining it and best practices. And I even get into some things like sustainability and AI and nearshoring and some of these other general industry topics. So yeah, very excited to have your listeners have the chance to get a copy of this book. Speaker 2: If you like it, make sure you leave a review. Reviews are always, you know, and by the way, I got to check this out too. So I promise you I will leave you a review. Just letting you know. So that's one thing. And then the other thing is I'm going to do something a little bit unusual today. I don't know if anybody be interested, but if they want to have a 30 minute to one hour consult with me, I'd be happy to talk to you about anything Amazon, retail, Walmart, it's up to you. Let's go over to a sponsor. Hey, Amazon sellers. Are you leaving money on the table with Amazon? Well, TrueOps is here to help you reclaim every last cent you're owed. Over 1,400 brands have already recouped millions with TrueOps cutting-edge technology. Finding reimbursements others may have missed. And guess what? You only pay 10% commission. No more overpaying the industry standard of 25%. Plus the first $1,000 in reimbursements is free to you. Here's the best part. TrueOps doesn't get paid unless you do. If Amazon ever reverses a claim, TrueOps automatically credits your fees back to you. Now that's peace of mind. Remember, $1,000 free reimbursements to start than just 10% of successfully recovered funds. You have nothing to lose but the three minutes it takes to sign up for a free audit and so much more to gain. Sign up with the link in the description and start reclaiming what's rightfully yours. All right, so I just want to address one question that came in about presence. Should people bring presence when they're talking to their suppliers? Speaker 1: Yes, I would. It's always good to know a little bit about your supplier or their family if you've gotten to know it. For example, if I know that a supplier has some younger children or some things of that nature, or if they're interested in, you know, spirits, a certain kind of spirit that they like or whatever it may be, I'll bring a gift such as that for either their children or for, you know, whoever I'm dealing with, depending upon their levels of interest and the things that they like. It shows that you care about what we talked about before, the guanxi, that relationship. And that starts with knowing people's interests that are outside of just the work and the projects at hand. So yes, if you know, and you have the ability to have some insight, definitely do that. It goes a long way. Speaker 2: Learn why cost-cutting could destroy your business and how sellers can avoid sacrificing quality while keeping their profits intact. So let's also talk about the pain points. So what are some of the most critical supply chain pain points that you're seeing right now? Speaker 1: Absolutely levels of timeliness and levels of quality. These are two things that are very important. I think that what's going to end up happening is in order to mitigate some level of these additional tariffs, people may take the cost engineering approach a little bit too far. And what they end up doing is they end up creating products that are inferior and the quality starts to go by the wayside. And then you end up having a high level of rejections and refunds and customer issues and things of that nature. So that's the trickle-down side of trying to get a little too aggressive with some of the cost engineering, where you actually can disrupt the product itself and that can end up backfiring in a million different ways. So you may save 10 or 20 cents, but you may cost yourself dollars and dollars of headaches or potential massive liabilities as you put out products that, you know, you were trying to save a penny and cost yourself, you know, dollars of issues. On the timeliness, same kind of thing where, you know, in the attempts to either cost engineer something or to push too hard on your supplier for the sake of saving some small percentages or different percentages, you may get pushed to the bottom of the line. I mean, unless if you actually own that factory, You're basically operating in contract manufacturing or in sourcing. And who is going to have the most favor with those suppliers? The ones that are making them the most money, unfortunately. You know, we know in manufacturing, you know, corners are cut and people are pushed to the bottom of the line based upon the dollars and cents of it. So you have to be a little bit careful on that negotiation to understand that you need to have a solution that's both beneficial for them and for you. That's a very, very important tactic and process to this supply chain that you have to know what makes that supplier tick, what keeps them interested in doing business with you, what keeps them wanting to grow and thrive with you. And that can't just be cutting down all their margins, taking everything out of their pockets and still expecting to have the same levels of service and timeliness and so on and so forth. So I think that the matters of sort of timeliness and your levels of priority with the supplier as well as how far we take some of the cost engineering and how it may impact quality control related scenarios are very important as we move forward from here. Speaker 2: Yeah, completely just logical. What would you do in that situation? You know, somebody that's going to treat you with respect and let you make a profit or that takes you for every penny that you have and you just get scraps. But the other thing I think we should look at is that There's always competition but all of a sudden there might be a tariff or there's issues. You are tightening up on your profit. There is one other way to expand and sometimes a lot of newer sellers especially fall into product cannibalization. They automatically take these increases. They think that their customer won't pay for that and then they fall into the bottom tier and they're all just eating each other's profit. They're going for the lowest common denominator thinking that It's price where that's not necessarily the case at all. What I found on Amazon is there's three tiers. You've got the bottom eaters, the bottom dwellers, you got the average price and then you've got the tier one, which are you could pay five times more and it could cost the same thing, but the imagery is better, the copies better, and it comes down to perceived value. And I think like you showed me something the other day when we were talking about the website, showing some of your products that you've sourced and in there, one thing you had something in common was they were all incredibly, well, they were incredibly high perceived value. So that's just another outlet that people can use, rather than, you know, keeping the same prices. Increase the quality of the listing. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. The value proposition has got to be first and foremost, especially as there's increased competition and challenges in the market, you know, because oftentimes, you know, you may really have a great product and you're underselling it. You're not even representing the true value of what it is. We're not even talking about trying to inflate the value, but there are so many businesses that are just good at producing the product, but they're not good at marketing. So, you know, definitely having sellers invest in some high-quality photography, some high-quality product videos, demonstrations, testimonials, all of these different things that can really be able to prop up the product listings that they've had historically is going to be extremely important as you need to justify either keeping your prices the same or having them be more expensive. So there may be some investment by sellers to basically be able to accommodate and sort of play in those ways. I think it's a great point. Speaker 2: So now let's talk a little bit about nearshoring. And, you know, we know that there's a reduced tariff with nearshoring, but is it a viable strategy? Speaker 1: Not today. Speaker 2: Viable strategy. Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, not really today. I mean, who are we going to do nearshoring with? Canada? Who are we going to do nearshoring with? Mexico? I mean, you know, who are we doing it with? It's a real challenge. I mean, I would say that there are obviously some other opportunities in places like the Caribbean that could be interesting. I do think that, you know, South America, which isn't necessarily near, but at least closer, is a real opportunity as well. And then there are other large-scale manufacturing nations that have technology and resources and manpower, such as like Africa, that I think are like untapped markets that are really developing. But what's happening when it comes to nearshoring, and this is what I find the most fascinating side of it is, is that most of the nearshoring opportunities are being created by the Chinese. Meaning the Chinese are going into Africa, the Chinese are going into South America, into Mexico, into Canada, building manufacturing plants, bringing their know-how, their technology, their capabilities to make a can closer be better type of a solution. So the reality of it is, is that Nearshoring does not necessarily mean that you may not be working with nations that have been discluded from the nearshoring opportunity. As a matter of fact, they may be the ones creating the nearshoring opportunity. And we know that to be the case definitely in places such as Mexico, where so many new factories that have been coming online and the development in the Mexican economy has been done via Asia. So, you know, I do think that we should always keep our eyes peeled for closer opportunities. But in the end, if you can't get access to the materials that you need for your particular production, If you can't get the output that you need out of the equation, if the resources in that nearshoring equation are not there, you don't have trained people that know how to do this. If the technology isn't there, and then ultimately if the costs can't support that nearer equation, sometimes you may be better off to not even be considering it. Just to say that it's closer doesn't necessarily mean that it's better. Speaker 2: Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing sourcing. Learn how Amazon sellers can leverage AI tools to find suppliers, prototype products, and streamline their logistics. Now, how are you utilizing your AI right now? Speaker 1: So the way that we're using it is definitely with regards to the development and the design process and cutting that down significantly. So historically, if you wanted to do some product development, you'd have to hire an engineer, you'd have to hire some designers, you'd go back and forth for a couple of months to try to get at what's in your mind and what's in the design firm's mind and so forth before you even get to like a prototyping or, you know, Welcome back to another rapid prototyping stage. Now this can be done in minutes. It can be done in days. We have so many mid-journey and Adobe tools, so many different mechanisms where you can be able to really get down in sort of 3D modeled versions very quickly, what it is that you want to produce, transmit that over to a supplier or to a 3D printer, and you're actually dealing with some physical, tangible, three-dimensional prototypes I do focus groups on that you can look at, things of that nature. And then from there, be able to then quickly go into some level of rapid level of manufacturing because the CAD drawings have already been done, you know, the heavy lifting is sort of in place. So I really think the ideation phase, if you want to call it, has really been narrowed. And I think that's very, very important because it saves a significant amount of time. Also on the sourcing side, you know, we're the first US-based verified supplier of Alibaba. So we have access to all of Alibaba platforms, technologies and tools. And they have some amazing tools such as like image search. Where you take a picture of something and it scours the database of Alibaba hundreds of thousands and comes back with their top rated suppliers who make that thing. So you don't even have to look anymore. Looking around to try to see who makes that anymore for hours and hours and what pictures and keywords are sort of like what you want to know. You take a picture and then in seconds you have like solutions. You have options. So this is really very, very, you know, positive in that way. And then taking a step further that Alibaba has created something called Acacio, which is their new AI sourcing tool, which essentially will do a significant amount of the sourcing process for you and even help you with some levels of like the business management and the inventory management. I've been selected to be an ambassador for Alibaba in this year, in 2025. And so I'll probably be talking a lot more about some of these opportunities and tools through a great platform like that, which obviously goes hand in hand with Amazon sellers and resellers who probably do a significant amount of their sourcing through a platform like Alibaba. Speaker 2: A lot of people started to try to do this direct and kind of cut Alibaba out And especially for Amazon, there was not a lot of good things that were being said about Alibaba for quite some time. And then over the last few years, it just kind of made a comeback. And if you know, and I guess this is, we put out a video on this, but how to properly source on Alibaba, know where the manufacturers are, get rid of the brokers, you know, and this, I mean, there's just certain little filters that you have to look for and it could drill down to get you a really great supplier. So did I understand you correctly? You said you were the only or the first? Speaker 1: We are the first US-based verified supplier of Alibaba. So Alibaba, in its attempts to basically do more of the nearshoring approach, decided to start working to build up networks that weren't just, you know, suppliers that were primarily in Asia or other parts of the world, but also within the United States. A very large office here in New York And because of the fact that we basically supply products and services to so many clients, especially those in the United States, and there are many companies in the United States that want to work with a U.S.-based supplier or agent in some ways, we became a really strong opportunity in that way. And there are many of those. It's not just ourselves. We just were the first one to hold that title as the first U.S.-based verified supplier. But I think what's very interesting is that, you know, and if it would be beneficial to you, to the show, to your users, is we may be able to get some executives from Alibaba or some staff that could actually give some education or tutorials on how to best use Alibaba. Speaker 2: That would be fantastic. Speaker 1: If you need it, and I have that at our discretion to do that. Speaker 2: Well, that would be fantastic. I would love that. That would just be a huge help for our listeners. I want to go back to another point you were talking about when you were talking about how easy it is to use AI to come up with prototypes or 3D printing, but another way to improve your MeToo product is to take all your competitors' reviews. The good, the bad, the ugly, and see what you're missing, and then implement what people are talking about, what they'd like to see or what it doesn't have, and then you could implement that. It might be an extra handle on a coffee mug. Who knows? But at least you'll get a little bit of insight, and also, you could just easily prompt And put a couple of ASINs in there. The ASINs are the product SKUs for Amazon. And just to see what it comes up with. It's so easy and it can't hurt and it's free to do. Well, you know, 20 bucks a month or free just if you utilize it. So Kevin and I are huge into utilizing AI to not only improve your product, but your brand, just your channels, like what do people want to see on Walmart or on Shopify, external traffic, all of this stuff, your email sequences. We utilize it as much as we can nowadays and we're We're finding that, just to give you an example, we did a webinar the other day. Well, actually I'll do one better. Kevin did a webinar with Amy Wies. They segmented their list about AI training. They got 1,200 people to register, 80% turned up and 80% bought the workshop. Speaker 1: Great. Speaker 2: It was completely segmented. And why I'm saying that is if you can segment a list and understand who your customers are and you start targeting them outside of that first sale, you're just leaving money on the table if you're not doing that. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And the reason why that is, is because we've never had more data. We've never had more data. We've never had more quality data and segmented data. And the beauty of AI is that it knows how to partition it and it knows how to You know, give it to us in a way that can allow us to make decisions. For us to not use those tools is only to our detriment, you know, and to our business's detriment and technically to the economy as well. So we definitely have to use it in the best ways possible and segmented information and data is that way. Speaker 2: I want to talk about something a little bit different before we get into this. You've got a very interesting partner. One of the sharks, right? Speaker 1: Oh, right. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So that's correct. I'm basically in partnership with Daymond John from Shark Tank. He has a group which is called the Shark Group. And he has a program that he's developed, which is called the CEO Access Program. And so essentially, he'll take on a CEO And we'll work with them and hand in hand and sort of develop them and bring them up into the light over a period of like two years. And so I have signed on to be one of those, you know, specially chosen CEOs by Daymond John and his team. And the reality of it is, is that we're doing it for mutual benefit because the supply chain is very, very critical and important. And there's never been a time where it's been more relevant than today and has been kind of more in the common vernacular. But there isn't really a relatable voice in this space and there really isn't a lot of good relatable information still in this realm. So I've kind of in the past year and a half and moving towards this thought leadership based role. Thus, why we're doing podcasts like this and I'm writing on, you know, for different publications and showing up on news and working with a person like Daymond to really be able to just get the word out to people to understand the importance of the supply chain and what it is. So yeah, I have this great partnership with Daymond. We see each other probably once or twice a month. We're going to talk about how to interact, talk about business, talk about work, talk about the ways to continue to develop the realm of the supply chain industry. And, you know, obviously he has significant experience in this space, you know, running and operating FUBU, a huge apparel multi-billion dollar apparel company, and then all of the different businesses that he's consistently involved with. and invests in. So it's exciting and it's a nice partnership and he's a great man too. We really enjoy conversation and we learn a lot from each other. Speaker 2: Can you tell us a little bit about your company and then your contact information? Speaker 1: Sure, absolutely. So my company is called The Atlas Network, which is theatlasnetwork.com. It's a global supply chain solutions company. So businesses of all sizes, small, medium, large, that want to either do sourcing or need help with their existing supply chains, you know, the factory selection process, manufacturing, quality control, import, logistics. Delivery, we assist in the entire process. It's basically third-party supply chain management for businesses that don't have those capabilities. That's what we do at theatlasnetwork.com. And for any information about myself and more of the thought leadership side of things that I do, that's just at my first and last name. So kerimkfuri.com is my website for all of my stuff and my book and everything else. Speaker 2: All right, fantastic. Let's go to a sponsor. Unknown Speaker: Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat. I'm Colin C. Campbell, and I've started over a dozen multi-million dollar companies in the last 30 years. I spent the last 10 years writing the book, Start, Scale, Exit, Repeat, to figure out what it is that these serial entrepreneurs do over and over again. We interviewed over 200 people. We created 58 chapters Over 30 illustrations, 180 call-outs, and we quite frankly made this book for the ADHD entrepreneur. It's been number one on Amazon in 15 categories and has won 12 awards globally. Get your book today either on eBook, paperback, hardcover, or Audible on Amazon or your favorite bookstore. Speaker 2: All right, we are back. Unknown Speaker: Here we go. I'm going to shuffle these up. Speaker 2: Marina. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I'd like to say that you made supply chain sexy again. Speaker 1: Thanks. Speaker 2: But no, this was fantastic. Again, check out the Atlas Network and give Kerim some support. All right. That's it. Thank you. And we hopefully we'll see, well, we will see you next week. Yeah. Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Norm. What a great show and look forward to seeing you next week. Speaker 2: All right, everybody. Thanks a lot for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday. Unknown Speaker: Lunch With Norm.