467: Vietnam: The Untold Gold Mine For Sourcing You’ve Been Ignoring With Jim Kennemer

You're listening to the MyWipeKitterDob podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrap business owners and delve deeply into the strategies they use to grow their businesses. Today I have my friend Jim Kennermer on the show, and Jim runs a sourcing agency called Cosmo Sourcing, where he helps others source products from Vietnam. Now, as China is getting more and more expensive, especially with tariffs, Vietnam can be a great alternative. So in this episode, Jim tells us how to find suppliers over there and what to expect. But before we begin, I want to thank Jeff Oxford of 180marking.com for sponsoring this episode. 180marking.com is an agency that specializes in helping e-commerce stores boost their SEO traffic. Now in the past, I used Jeff and his firm managed to grow my search traffic by 4x in just six months. In fact, 180marketing is one of the few SEO agencies that I trust 100%. For more information, go to 180marketing.com or just email Jeff at 180marketing.com. 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And unlike this one, where I interview successful entrepreneurs and e-commerce, the profitable audience podcast covers all things related to content creation and building an audience. No topic is off the table, and we tell it like how it is in a raw and entertaining way. So be sure to check out the profitable audience podcast on your favorite podcast app, now on to the show. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Welcome to the MyWifeCutterjob podcast. Today, I'm thrilled to have Jim Kennermer on the show. Now, Jim and I met randomly when we were on the same panel run by GlobalSources. And when we met, I knew I had to have him on the show. He's the founder of CosmoSourcing and sourcinghub.io. He's helped hundreds of clients source more than $100 million worth of products from both China and Vietnam. And products that he has sourced have ended up in almost every major retailer for clients from over 30 countries. And the reason I wanted to have Jim on the show is because production and sourcing is slowly shifting away from China to places like Vietnam. And Jim just happens to be a sourcing expert for Vietnam. And with that, welcome to show Jim. How are you doing? I was a pleasure. Thanks for having me. I'm doing great. Yeah, I love going on these panels with different companies because I always end up meeting someone interesting. Yeah, same, I love them. I really do meet a lot of cool people on those panels. Tell me a little bit about your background. And how did you get into sourcing specifically from Vietnam? Yeah, so actually, yeah, I started in China, like most people. So in 2011, I moved to China, got my MBA from a university in Shanghai, Hope International Business School. So that for a year and then afterwards, I was actually working as a project manager for ID company. So unrelated, actually. But just the whole being in China, being in Shanghai, I had contacts and friends and really anybody kind of reached out to me just out of blue a lot of times. Just asked me, hey, I'm looking for this product. Do you know a factory or I have a factory? I'm trying, I found this product on Alibaba. Can you check it out factory for me? So I started just doing that on the side kind of little side hustle. And after doing that for about a year, I decided to quit my job and actually focus on sourcing because I enjoyed sourcing more than sitting at a desk all day. So yeah, I started sourcing in China then 2014. I decided to move to Vietnam. Actually, I visited on vacation earlier, fell in love with the country. I was like, this is where I want to be. So I moved to Vietnam. I started sourcing for Vietnam full time. At the time, Trans-Pacific Partnership was in the works, which ended up getting canceled. It would have been the largest free trade agreement in history with 14 countries with Vietnam being one of them. And the US being another. Even though I got canceled, I was still in Vietnam. I still had a lot of projects, still a lot of interest from clients. So I started kind of focusing on both Vietnam and China. Yeah, then 2017 trade war happened. And trade war happened. So business kind of boomed and kind of was in the right place at the right time and pretty much from mostly sourcing for Vietnam since. Does that mean you speak fluent Chinese? No. Okay, so you can go to school in Shanghai for however many years. Yeah, it was an international business school. So it was English-language classes. Ah, okay. Yeah. And when you were in China, you didn't speak the language yet, you could just go into the factory and communicate, okay? Basic Chinese, but it's very bad and out of practice. I'm terrible at learning languages. I've actually, I've taken probably equivalent about four semesters' worth of Chinese classes throughout my time, all the way from undergrad up until, and it just doesn't stick. I've done the same with Spanish and I'm just not, okay, it's clearly not necessary at all to do what you do. I mean, yeah, I mean, I often hire assistants to translate a lot of times. And like my staff in Vietnam is entirely bilingual. So we have staff on the ground. I know basics of Chinese and Vietnamese like go around town and order food and whatnot. So I'm not like, so it's quite the same level as mine then. Yeah, probably. I am curious since you mentioned it, what was this free trade treaty? Can you just give me like a little bit of detail on that? Like, what was supposed to happen? Yeah, so it was the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It would have covered 14 countries in full. That would have had a free trade agreement. Vietnam, United States, Canada, trying to think of the others. I know Chile was one of them, Mexico, Australia. So what are the implications of that though? Yeah, well, I mean, it got canceled unfortunately because it never could get ratified, but the implications would have been that all 14 countries along the Pacific Rim, I know China was excluded. It was a simply design. Oh, against China, okay. Yeah, I guess China. So kind of leverage help boost these developing economies. Yeah, and it would have been the largest free trade agreement in history. Kind of portions of it are still in effect, and Vietnam's always been pretty proactive about getting free trade agreements. So they have one with EU that just kind of got recently. But how does that benefit like a buyer? Oh, from a buyer's perspective, you don't have to pay tariffs or high taxes. So you get a much lower rate, too. Okay, got it. Okay, yeah, the free trade agreement was in effect. You would have basically paid no tax, or very minimal taxes to get your products imported from Vietnam to United States or whatever countries were in the free trade agreement. I see. I mean, there's already tariffs from China and they haven't gone away. So I mean, it's already cheaper, right? Absolutely. Okay, all right. Yeah, I think we'll stay because they're actually pretty politically popular. Oh, the tariffs are? Yeah, I mean, Biden has made no effort to take him away, even though he has fully has that power. And you know, I think it's, I think it's politically popular. You just have a tough stance on China at the moment. So I think I don't anticipate tariffs going away in my opinion, my professional opinion, and I don't know on that. So which is kind of unfortunate in all these other activities against China, too, related to computer chips and semiconductor is also. Yeah, so why would someone source from Vietnam over China? Generally, it's cheaper. I kind of want to say more politically stable, but it's less hands on from the government. I wouldn't say that. Just in terms of things like COVID, you know, they had total lockdowns in China and then back to nothing. And that's caused tons of disruptions. Vietnam is pretty smart with how they manage COVID lockdowns. They had one of the lowest rates of COVIDs. They actually had one of the highest, or not that I had one of the highest and fastest vaccination programs in the country in the world. They had something, I wouldn't say they had 80% of their, once the vaccines were released, they had someone like 80% of their population vaccinated within two months, I believe. Wow. Yeah, okay. Which is great. There are no major lockdowns for that. Just in terms of experience, I find them pretty easy to work with. I do find China easy to work with for the record. Yeah, generally cheaper, labor, different skills. How much cheaper are we talking about here? It used to be a lot cheaper. When I first started sourcing in 2014, I was getting sometimes 30, 40% of the savings, but yeah, I mean demand for Vietnam is going up a lot. So it's, a lot of China is probably comparable pre-tariffs in terms of pricing. Just cause labor costs have going up in the last several years and demand for Vietnamese products has going up. So it's pretty comparable now. But without the same price, you mean? Oh, without that. Yeah, I would say about, same price to 10% cheaper is what you probably should expect. Okay. So it's not huge anymore, I guess. So where the savings are really is, if you're on like a tariff list from China, then Vietnam is your best bet. Yeah, and there's free trade agreements too with Europe too. So you get savings there, even though they don't have tariffs against Chinese goods. Right. Yeah. And with Vietnam, you kind of have to focus on specific products too, cause you know, China get everything in any quantities and any style. Vietnam, they specialize in a handful of products, such as they do what it does really well, uploading really well. Sorry, we'll go to the two things. So you said clothing and what else? Wooden goods, anything made wood. Wooden goods. Okay. Yeah, we do a lot of furniture from Vietnam, a lot of right time, a lot of bamboo, right on it's like wicker. It's like retorn baskets. I can't see if I have one. Cause I know from China, like tariffs on wooden pencils, for example, it's like 25% or I can't remember what it was. Something ridiculously high. Yeah. But that's not the case in Vietnam, right? No, it's not the case. And one, I mean, Vietnam is a tropical country, so there's tons of forest and plantations. So they actually get the wood, the raw material is pretty cheap, and it's very high quality woods too. A lot of words we work with are kashia, tea, bamboo. Bamboo is probably the most sustainable material you're going to work with. Maybe you're into sustainability. A kashia grows super fast, so it's pretty sustainable when it is used. Rubberwood, which looks a lot like oak, and then they import some woods, like we get some virgin spruce, and if the other woods import it from Canada. So let me just kind of rephrase that question then. So, if what products would you definitely source from Vietnam over China? Materials? I would do clothing. I would do wedding goods. I would do a lot of furniture. I want to say all furniture, but we do tons of furniture in Vietnam. I would do bags from Vietnam, backpacks, personally. Backpacks like leather or canvas, or what, every time back? Yeah, leather bags, canvas bags. We do, some shoes are kind of tricky at that moment, but we do a lot of shoes still trying to think of what else. So why bags over China? I'm just curious. Is it just the pricing or what? Yeah, it's the pricing, and the factories, they have huge factories that do, I mean, kind of so is just a broad category of cutting fabric, sewing it. Correct, yeah. So bags, clothing, off end of that. So they have just huge factories and relatively cheap labor to make it. And yeah, from our experience, bags have been pretty consistently cheaper. I mean, it's kind of like kind of owns textiles, I feel. I know. I think Vietnam has a very good competitive edge with textiles over China. And is it mainly price or is it skill or the... By the pricing quality too. Pricing quality. There's a lot of skill. Yeah, because I mean, there's a lot of the old factories, I mean, they have like thousands of people working at a massive factory, cutting sewing constantly, but even new, they're getting new technology that makes it a lot more efficient too. Okay, look at your bags like Patagonia, North Face, all those big companies make their backpacks in Vietnam. I know some luxury brands like Tori Birch or Michelle Cours and whatnot, make their purses in Vietnam. Lululemon makes all their clothing, or more a lot of their clothing in Vietnam. So it's... Okay. All right, Lululemon. I've got to always miss... Lululemon. Yeah. I have the first red-ass Lululemon that's been in my head since... Are a lot of these companies in Vietnam, Chinese companies that kind of moved factors over there? Because I know that in my experience, that's happened to some of ours. Yeah, it exists. It's not every company. I would say at least 50% are still Vietnamese-owned. Okay. Vietnam, unlike China, foreigners, foreign companies and foreigners can own factories. So there are a lot more foreign-owned companies. They tend to have Vietnamese men, often have Vietnamese men. But kind of going back to free trade agreement, part of the free trade agreement allows... You know, there's no tariffs, but on the other hand, it allows foreign companies to own the factories and actually own not at least. So like a lot of factories are Japanese-owned, a lot are South Korean-owned, and we work with tons of South Korean-Japanese-owned factories. One of the biggest furniture factories is Indonesian-owned, as huge, like, comically huge. Like literally one of the most factories I've ever visited. And yeah, I mean, there's a few days. We worked like Danish and French-owned furniture companies. Like we do a lot of metal goods. Like we do, like, fasteners, like bolts, nuts, screws, all that type of stuff. We work with the Japanese-owned factory that's, you know, they have Japanese management. So they get the whole efficiency and lace technology, but the cheaper labor costs. So get a good balance of that in a lot of cases. So I get some million dollar question here is, how do you find a supplier in Vietnam? And I'm gonna ask this question in two parts. So number one, like in China, you can pretty much find a factory that caters to every type of customer, whether they be small or large. Yeah. Is that the case in Vietnam? No, no, it's really not. And I mentioned shoes earlier. There's not really good shoe factories that do small orders anymore that we've found. It used to be a case like a few years ago, but, you know, COVID supply chain disruptions or whatever, just the shoe quality of shoes that you need to get to make shoes is bigger, like several thousand units now. Several thousand units per order? Yeah, for this order, just to make the first order. Like we try to do some projects with like one or 500 shoes to start off, you know, first one startups, but it's not doable. But I mean, with a lot of products you can, but yeah, you kind of do need to be more selective because the factories, it's a smaller country. It's about one-fifteenth the size of China. So there's limited factories. And if the factory doesn't exist, I'm fortunately, it doesn't exist. Right. But I mean, we do tend to have a lot of luck with small orders too for products. It can just define what a small order is to you. I would say small is less than 500 units. Oh, okay. So there are places that accept small orders like that. Yeah, a lot of times though, what small orders are going to be handmade items. Like we've done luxury purses that were handmade. For instance, and then some leather briefcases that were handmade. But if you kind of want to have a production run, like actual line, like a assembly line, you know, you got to have the M.O.Q. It takes time to set up those lines. What would you say like an M.O.Q. for would be to set up like a line for like a bag or something? Yeah, for a bag, I would probably say that 500. Oh, 500 units? Yeah. Okay, that's not that at all. Okay. Yeah. I mean, back is pretty simple items. There are more complex items where they're going to be higher. And a lot of times it fins on the value too. Like we've done like kind of high in hiking backpacks and those, we had a really low M.O.Q. I think 200 units. But those were also going for almost 1000 bucks actually. Really? Yeah, they were very high in backpacks. To sell them to produce. To sell. Produced it was still about 200 bucks. Wow. A lot of. Yeah, it was. It was a very specific niche, ultra light way backpack. So, yeah, it was some mass materials. I had an import from Taiwan and South Korea too. What about clothing? Like if you wanted to make like women's clothing, what are the M.O.Qs there look like? I would probably say about a thousand units. That's units per style, per size. Yeah, I would say per style. You can make some extra colors. But, yeah, about a thousand, much to the thousand. I'd probably say two thousand even have a decent mix of styles. But 1000 for SKU would probably be typical. Okay, wow. So, there's no like Alibaba for Vietnam. So, how do you actually find a supplier? Well, one good thing is Google is abandoned Vietnam. So, I can actually Google factories. Oh. A lot of times yellow pages is actually a decent resource. So, you said the yellow pages? Yeah, the yellow pages. Classic yellow pages. Like yellowpages.com. You mean, they have a Vietnamese website, but yes. Really? Okay. Yeah. I mean, they have to call that name in a while. Yeah. I mean, with that, I mean, there's going to be, they list a lot of factories and it's not the best updated. But if you're willing, like, reach out in cold content, 50 factories or whatever, you probably get a response from 10 to 15, but you could response and then narrow down. But I mean, for us, like, too, we have, we go a lot of trade shows. We have access to trade database, custom status, public knowledge, but you, it's not a first service like imported genius or a panjima. We personally use imported genius to get contacts or just names and then we look it up. And then our team is actually based in Binduang Province, which is just outside of Ho Chi Minh City, which is main industrial area. So a lot, we just from kind of going to Vincent our team, just being on the ground there, we get a lot of contacts locally, too, that way. And how would just someone who's listening to this podcast without using a sourcing agent find a supplier and be an um, I mean, and for the most part, you'd probably have to use like the kind of resource I mentioned and just be active. And I'm just be where you got to make a lot of cold calls and emails because we, when we contact, we do emails, WhatsApp calling, um, Zala, which, the yellow, which is a local kind of WhatsApp, ask service, kind of like we check, just be prepared to contact a lot of factories and do a lot of research. But they're our factories out there. Can you try to listen to what you, yeah, just walk me through what you would say. What would you ask first means at the same time or, yeah, I mean, we create, I would say just create a basic, simple prompt like, hey, I'm so and so, we're, um, American based buyer. We're looking, I'm just going to say one of the dresses, we're looking to make X amount of woman dresses and, um, we have the design files, you, before we contact factories, you need to have the design files or product spec sheets to, because if you just contact them and say, oh, we're going to develop them later, there's, not going to take you seriously. So if you had the product spec sheets and sign files ready to go, you don't have to touch on the first email, just say, got them. And tell them, hey, we got the product spec sheets, design files and we're prepared to make an order of 1000 units, um, if suitable, can you give us a quote and just kind of solicit a quote, it's called a RFU request for quote anytime you kind of first connect with contact to factory, um, just because you want to get them to quote you for your products and so. Right. Um, we have a guide on our website. If you want to Google request for quote, cause my sourcing, I'll definitely put that in the show notes. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Is the process the same as China? Like, they'll create a sample for you and that sort of thing and yeah, it's pretty similar. Yeah, that's all pretty soon or die. So yeah, once you contact factory, you know, you want to negotiate prices, get a firm quote first. And then when you kind of negotiate and again, negotiate sample cost, um, just so you know what the cost are and lead time or samples and then, yeah, when you're ready and happy with factory, once you kind of vetted them, kind of want to check them out, make sure they're legit and everything. Yeah, pay for sample and go sample made. How does one verify that a factory is legit? Um, I would check third party resources. Like for us, there's, we have kind of, I'm trying to think of like a per regular person. If you want to really kind of do it right, I would say hire an inspection company. Um, there are tons of infection companies like, um, Tesco, you know, inspection service, Chima, that spoke QIMA, um, that will go to the factory for like three, four hundred bucks, um, as worth paying because you're about to send the factory thousands dollars presumably. Um, go with factory, check their business licenses, um, check their restoration, check their equipment, make sure, um, maybe doing pre-production inspection, which you should, um, don't check to make sure they've done similar items. So if you're making a woman's dress, they'll see that they made a woman dress as before. And yeah, check out the factory and send you a pretty detailed inspection report with Pastel grading on everything. My first book, the family first entrepreneur just debuted as a Wall Street Journal business bestseller. And not only that, but my book was also featured on a billboard in Times Square during the launch. I'm literally in awe right now. 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Instant access to my three-day print-on-demand workshop. And in this workshop, I teach exactly how to get started running a print-on-demand e-commerce store and provide you with a free website theme as well. You also get access to my two-day passive income workshop where I'll teach you how to make money with blogging, podcasting, and YouTube. Go to mywifecutterjob.com slashbook and are sending the bonuses, invitations to book parties that are be throwing all over the country and special offers. Once again, that's mywifecutterjob.com slashbook. Now back to the show. Here would one check to see the licensing and everything for a Vietnam company. And is language a problem? Yeah, okay. So first question, they should have copy on hand and if they're legit, they'll be able to share it with you. Okay. And there's some government websites that you can kind of cross verify it. They'll give a registration number or whatnot. We often use Vietnam credit, which is a government-rand, this government-rand kind of service that you can just check the creditworthiness. It pretty much just says, yes, they're in good standing, but they're not. When all that will mean from iron, it's a little bit complex. I don't know if this is a beginner tip. But yeah, it would go through and kind of check that they have a business license registered with the government and that the banking, that they have bank accounts and that the bank accounts are in good standing. It doesn't tell you the exact credit score. It just says, yes, they're in good standing. No, they're not. And if they don't exist in database and they'll just say, they don't exist. And what's the second one? Oh, English? Yeah, so for English, they'll have somebody on staff, but it really varies. It's sometimes there'll be somebody fluent. Sometimes it'll be fairly broken English. It really depends on the factory. One thing, too, with Vietnam, more than China, is a lot of times they don't have dedicated cell staff. So they'll often have an engineer who, as kind of like once a week, I guess, or whatever, checks the emails, but his main job is engineer. So he'll go through and kind of talk that, kind of answer the emails. And when you get in contact with the engineers and those people, they can be pretty direct. And a lot of people are kind of used to sell people kind of wooing them off. Hello, super friendly. Yeah, yeah. You know, friendly really. Grumb up and the sells birds are like, yeah, we can do it. Great. And then ask how much. And it'll give you the cost and then pretty straight to the point. Which, I don't know, I kind of like just cause you get in, get out with the meetings. You've got exact pricing. Time you want to make a modification, they can, they have the authority to actually, you know, actually tell you the price because a lot of times with sells people, they're like, oh, I'll let you know what it's ended over and they extend it to somebody and then a few days later. Right. But engineers, they can do a lot of times pretty quickly. What's the export infrastructure like? I can't imagine it being as mature as China, or China, are they all used to exporting? Yeah, they're used to exporting. Yeah, that's another tip is when you talk to factories, you need to ask if they've exported to, if you're American buyer, for instance, you need to ask them, have you exported America? Cause there are standards that, you know, they need to know. It really varies by product too. Anytime you work with a freight forward, they'll clear the standards and make sure everything is legit before they ship or they should. Okay. But yeah, in terms of export infrastructure, yeah, a lot of factories are set up for export exporting, which is great. You can ask oftentimes clients or whatnot, like they'll have certifications, you know, ASDM or ISO certifications, you can check. I guess what I'm getting at is what's the list of questions you would ask when you're vetting a vendor? Yeah, I would ask, first and foremost, do you have experience exporting to United States or whatever your country is? And then kind of quiz them on their certifications. Most factories, the basic certifications ISO in 2001, and then like, if you do wouldn't get good, for instance, you got to comply with the LAC Act, which, you know, you got to defumigate the woods, you got to have a certificate origin for the woods, you got to, you know, certify that is, you know, legally or legally harvested from a, you can be from plantation or you can actually do forests. But there's also forests to Stanley B. Council, if you want to go even further, FSC, which will make sure that everything was, for instance, there's like some carcinogens you can't use in fabrics or in materials, for instance, from out of hide. So China's used to this already, Vietnam, do you actually have to ask these questions? I would advise to, yes. Okay. All right. If you don't ask them, I mean, you can have an inspection, if you don't know what to ask, I would hire an inspection service and they'll make sure everything's in line. Okay. Yeah. Those inspection service definitely, that's your job is to know what the certifications are and make sure everything's in compliance. Is everything conducted in US dollars as well? Yeah. We do almost everything in US dollars. And Vietnamese bank accounts, you can hold for foreign currencies and Vietnamese bank accounts. Okay. And with just the darn being worse inflation in America right now is they, they love the UST. Yeah. Yeah. So what did you say are like the major trade-offs if you're choosing between China and Vietnam? Yeah. It's a good question. Yeah. Like I said, you kind of need to be selective about your product categories. With China, you can just go to China, go to Alibaba, spend a few days on there or not even days, get tons of contextual factories, reach out to them. It's super simple. Vietnam's still a little bit undeveloped in terms of networks and, you know, like internet kind of sourcing or whatnot. So you kind of do need to be much more proactive and reach out to the factories. Like there's not really a way to just post your quest on a website and then factories come and you don't have to go to the factories, which I know frustrates a lot of people, but if I can give a plug to that Cosmos sourcing, you can just go to us and we can do all that for you. Yeah. Well, I want to get into how much you charge in that stuff at the end, yeah. So yeah, it's much more proactive, kind of had to follow up with them. They do want your business, but they're not as, they just don't come across as eager. I don't know, even though they do want it as much. But it really, like I said, if you have specific products, that be nice specializes in. It's pretty good, but it's like not for every product. All right. Well, assuming that what you want to source is something that Vietnam specializes in. What are some cases where I want to go to China over Vietnam? I mean, it's not something Vietnam specializes in then. It, I mean, you still can get everything in equities. Like if you have a lot of low and low cues for a lot of items, I find trying to be better. If you do electronic items, China is still better, especially for the stuff that Vietnam is specializing. Like you mentioned wooden products that textiles. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like you should go to Vietnam. But um, well, I mean, it doesn't, it sounds like it's like a part of it for example. Yeah. I would say it's, it's easier to deal with China a lot of times, especially the first time starting off just to find the factories. So I mean, if you have a address or something, you can actually, you can get more quotes, you can actually get more factories from China regardless, just cause they're just for the sheer fact that there's more factories that do it. Yeah. They're generally easier to deal with. Like I said, not every factory in Vietnam has a salesperson. So you know, get somebody who's really kind of walks you through the process. So does that mean that just not as responsive? Is that? Yeah, I would say, yeah, I would say that's a way to say it. Yeah. Because I actually would prefer to talk to an engineer to be honest with you, right? Yeah. You get all the facts and you're in and out. Yeah, exactly. No, I'm saying the meetings we have, it turns some clients off because we have people who visit factories in Vietnam, you know, they fly all the way from United States, come to factory and they'll sit down with an engineer and they're pretty much in and out. You can do a meeting like 20 minutes and it's just, oh, how much would this cost, great? We make this very rich, how much would it cost? Oh, that much. What's the lead time? We can do a start production in three weeks and be done one, two months, you know, trade to the point. You know, like China, when you go to China, like the factories take you to lunch or dinner, karaoke, give you drinks. It's an experience. I love that. I mean, a few factories in Vietnam will do it, but it's not over top like China. So, yeah, I mean, well, casual meetings and like, you know, drink tea and whatnot, just at the office, but it's not like the whole process. What do you use to communicate with your vendors over there? Are they on WhatsApp or? Yeah, WhatsApp's Zalo. I say Zalo probably is the most common one. Zalo and emails, mostly emails. Okay. Yeah, we'll set up kind of just kind of what they're working on. So, is emails still the best initial contact method? Like you look for them on like the yellow pages, for example, or Google and whatnot and you send them an email? Yeah. Well, we usually do email first. Like when we research factories, like our team, when we research factories, you know, we can just tell which ones are good factories and worth falling up with. So, we tend to email them first and the ones that respond by email will keep that conversation email. But a lot of times they don't. So, we'll then kind of reach out by phone and kind of follow up with email or they're on Zalo. We can get the context of the person on Zalo. I see. We usually tend to sometimes, um, actually quite a bit, um, to kind of reach out to them that way. So, we'll kind of do a full court press of just whatever method gets a response. And we kind of press them at least to help out probably three or four times each factory that we want to get a quotes from, um, just quote us until we get a response and, you know, not every factory quotes. So a lot of times they say, we have capacity or we don't think it's suitable, but we at least try to get a response of some sort. I know it's hard to generalize an entire country, but from what I'm gathering, it seems like you have to be a lot more persistent with a Vietnam factory because they're not necessary. They don't have salespeople. They're not necessarily trying to solicit new business. You really have to approach them. Yeah. Know what you want to get and be direct. Yeah. And a lot of times they, yeah, you kind of do have to be a little bit more direct with them. Um, I mean, there's exceptions to that factories. Like there's a lot of factories that are pretty proactive about getting sales, but it's just something that a lot of people, when they first kind of get in touch with Vietnam, they kind of dismiss factories that, you know, don't seem super responsive even though they're pretty good. So I would just say be persistent if you think this is a good factory, but don't be too persistent, but you can definitely follow up multiple times with the factory to get a response. But I mean, once you're in contact with them, and they, you know, once you're in contact, like say 1,000 dress to their dress factory, they need the business, they'll definitely respond more and kind of give quotes. Okay. Yeah. So back to the question on trade offs, um, outside of price, why would I go to Vietnam over China? Yeah, I would say a lot of products, they're pretty good quality as well. I think the textiles, they make our very high quality. They work like a high in brands, like I said, um, same with furniture, um, furniture and wooden goods, like the wood is very high quality, tropical hardwood. So it's much denser than your basic pine. Um, so I, and then in general, the labor force in Vietnam is pretty young, so they're pretty skilled in terms of like what they can make. And yeah, I mean, it's kind of, it's easier to work with through sometimes, like there's not as much bureaucracy or headaches or anything like I never, I feel like I never really deal with the government or any government issues in Vietnam. Okay. Like I did with China. Um, which is always nice. It seems like the major trade off is just getting that initial contact that is that accurate? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. There were factories for years and they're really, a lot of factories easy to work with. It's true the point, but it just takes an order and it's because it's an order and they're responsive and everything. I know for me, just in my experience, and this is only one data point is, uh, every year this happens, like after Chinese New Year, like half the workforce doesn't want to come back to work. Yeah. And then sometimes we have to scramble to find, you know, a new vendor or, or, um, like the materials in the same way, do textiles. Yeah. It's generally more consistent in Vietnam or just the same thing kind of happen. And then we'll generalize the entire country. Yeah. Just in your experience. Yeah. Pretty similar. Chinese New Year, or Chinese New Year Tet is Tet holidays to ET in Vietnam, uh, so Lunar New Year. It's the same day. Same general concept. But yes, the way the contracts work to, um, both Vietnam and China is they tend to work or stand to sign on one year contracts to begin and end at, um, Tet or Chinese New Year. And so, yeah, right before Tet holidays, a lot of, well, all the workers just quit early and know to have extra long holiday. And then after the Tet holidays, um, it's same deal. They got, you know, hire new workers and sign new contracts. So this, a slow upstart a lot of times, um, to get the workers in. So yeah, it's definitely the same issues. Same issues, okay. It's not, I don't know. I'm going to say it's that bad. But yeah, it's something. Keep in mind. It's, it just seems like maybe for someone just starting out, like, like, someone's listening. They're just starting out. It seems like China is still the easier way to go. Probably. It was easier for first time buyers and especially if you kind of have, um, a smaller, kind of have, you have limited capital and you kind of want to start small and kind of work your way up. What would you say? It would be like the minimum capital that you would need to just have something made text tall wise over and be an, um, I'd probably say about 20,000 bucks. 20,000. Okay. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And what about actually visiting the factories? Is it the same or? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, there's no issues of visiting factories and being on, um, yeah, you can fly in a range of visits. We have people visiting all the time. We have several guests coming in over the next month or so to visit. So it's, yeah, you go in, visit factories, um, if you want to do production, you just see what they're doing, what they make, get it started that way. And if you have samples made, like we have a client who has probably thought to visit, I think three times because he's making, making golf bags, um, it's pretty complex, um, because he has very, everything's customized. But he's, you know, visited before, made it initial, then when the samples made, he's visiting it for samples. And now we're starting production, or we'll start production on April, so we're planning to visit for him during the production around it. He wants to be there, you know, just see the bags be made. Um, so for something like a golf bag, there's a whole bunch of different parts, zippers, pockets, materials, everything. Do they handle all the different materials or, okay. Most factories have their back, what we call the back end supply chain, um, back end sourcing. So yeah, we, we expect in most cases, unless you have really unique fabrics or really unique needs for the factory to, um, to get the products to procure the, the, the wrong materials. And so that's pretty expected. Like we work with Codora and we have a source that separately and some special material. Like I mentioned, the high and high thing bag one time, we have sourced the material separately. Because it was very ultra lightweight material, um, that was only made by one factory in, um, Taiwan. So it was, what about, um, packaging? The most factories can do basic packaging in the house. So if you have like, what we call kind of brown packaging, just the cardboard or, um, plastic bags, um, they can do all that. And we often call retail ready packaging, which means it's ready to go into retail. Yeah. You know, you need a barcode on the outside. I think most factories can do all that and we can bet them beforehand. Okay. Make sure they do that. Okay. So it seems like, okay, if you have the money and let's say we just go through someone like you for, uh, for sourcing, Vietnam will tend to be cheaper and the quality is good mainly because there's no tariffs. And the heart, the hurdle really is just finding the factory and kind of developing that relationship. Correct. And as far as you can tell, like, once you're kind of in production, there's really no major disadvantage of going with Vietnam over a Chinese factory. Um, no, there's not really that what, I mean, if they, if they're, if they're meat or qualifications, once you kind of battle them everything, then there's not really any specific disadvantages. I mean, is it harder to vet because like on Alaybaba, they actually vet them all for you now. Yeah. Yeah, that's great assurance. So, so basically you have to do the, your own legwork. Is there anything like trade assurance over with the Vietnam factory? Probably not, right? Not really, no. Yeah. And yeah, we got a lot of people saying, Hey, I'm trying to find the factory of Alaybaba trade assurance to Vietnam. I'm like, go with that. Yeah. Okay. There's, yeah. And just in general, Vietnamese just don't trust the Chinese to be honest. Um, I don't get too deep into that, but, but yeah, in general, they, they don't trust Alaybaba, they don't trust using Chinese based platforms. So they don't. I can see that. Yeah. I can see that. Let's talk about Cosmo real quick. Yeah. How much do you charge? What are your services? Yeah, our basic services. We, so we do different pricing model than most other sourcing companies. We charge a flat rate instead of commission. And so the reason we charge a flat rate is you'll get full contact details of very factory work with. What do you direct an introduction to when you have factories and you can work directly with the factories? But our basic sourcing, our simple sourcing starts in 1500 USD and then we have kind of a pro tier. So a lot of times you need certification, um, certain certifications, why not? And that kind of starts at 2000 USD, but our basic packages at 1500 USD. So 1500, that's to find just, uh, that's per project I would, I would gather right? We do it by product category. So we generally find a product category is of one factory and make it. So if you're doing clothing, for instance, and you got like, let's just say 10 different woman's dresses or 10 woman garments, but they're, effectively the same one factory and make all 10 styles. And that would be one product category. Okay. And that actually ends up being cheaper because a lot of times the sourcing companies will take like 5% or something like that off production run, right? Yeah. Which, yeah, for 1500 USD. Okay. Yeah. And another thing too, like why we do a fly rate and be a nom is that China, because when I first started sourcing, I was doing commission like everybody else, um, work fine and then I moved to be a nom. I was trying to do commission. They just don't trust middlemen and be a nom like they do in China. And so there's just kind of expectation to that the Vietnamese factories work with the incline. So I set my services up so that, yeah, if you reach out with us, you'll be talking directly to the factory, you can work directly with the factory. We can assist. We have additional services to help out and make sure everything's going smoothly and, um, nothing's got you going on. But yeah, you'll be. Okay. Do you guys provide, I guess just referrals to freight forwarders and, yeah, what do you refer us to freight forwarders and same with inspections? Well, we visit factories all the time, just with our team, but it's, um, they're basic visits, to be honest, um, the more detailed inspections, uh, I think are better served by an inspection company because they'll go and get full test of every product. But we get samples in all the time from fact or clients who just have the sample shipped to us and we can do check them out and do basic checks. But let me ask you this. What other countries are kind of up and coming? Did you guys have a good one? Yeah. Um, we're actually looking at expanding Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan right now, but I haven't done anything there yet. So I would say all of those countries. I think Taiwan's pretty up already, um, but they, in terms of Taiwan, they've been a lot of, um, high-end precision stuff like with the projects we'd like to do in there, we're, um, automobile and airplane parts, actually, but you're not, okay. Um, yeah, LED casings for airplanes, um, specifically. So they do a lot of high-end precision stuff. You probably know that Taiwan, um, TMSC, yeah, the biggest microchip factory in the world is based there. So they do super advanced stuff in Taiwan. It's very high-end, very precision stuff. In terms of low-cost Thailand, we're looking at doing some clothing, um, Indonesia actually does a lot of shoes. So we're looking at doing shoes there. I've looked at Bangladesh, but I don't trust Bangladesh, be honest. Interesting. Okay. What about Pakistan? Yeah, I would say probably Southeast Asia in general. I would say most countries in Southeast Asia are pretty up and coming. I think those are the next Vietnam. I think that's the next boom. Next area, yeah, I really have a massive growth. Right. Yeah. Well, hey, Jim. Cool. Thanks a lot for coming on. We're, um, we're grateful. We'll find you in your company. Where should they go? Yeah. Cosmosourcing.com. Is there a website? Um, just Google Cosmosourcing. We come up. If you want to get, get in touch with me directly, you can shoot me an email at info at Cosmosourcing.com. Um, in our response, um, I'm also, you know, on Facebook or on LinkedIn or on Instagram. So if you want to follow us there, all on your Cosmosourcing, you can. But I think probably email and just going to our website is probably the best. Nice. Cool. Hey, well, Jim. Hey, thanks a lot for coming on, man. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. I hope you enjoyed that episode. Now, John is a great person to speak with about sourcing from Vietnam and diversifying your suppliers is a great idea. More information about this episode, go to mywifecutorjob.com slash episode 467. And once again, I want to thank Celerboard, which is the Amazon profit software that I recommend for Amazon sellers. By going to mywifecutorjob.com slash Celerboard, you can get 30 days for free. Once again, that's mywifecutorjob.com slash SELERBOARD. I also want to thank 180marking.com for sponsoring this episode. 180 marketing is the agency that I use to grow my search traffic by 4X in just six months. More information, email Jeff at 180marking.com. Now, I talk about how I use these tools on my blog. And if you are interested in starting your own e-commerce store, head on over to mywifecutorjob.com and sign up for my free six-day mini-course. Just type in your email and send me the course right away. Thanks for listening.