How to Sell Personalised Products through Dropshipping

Oh well hello there and welcome to another
curious DD curiosity ecommerce show podcast with me your host made misen
that's not a good start is it when you don't pronounce it right right at the beginning but welcome welcome to the show hopefully we're broadcasting live
if you can see us or hear us do give us a wave just to let you know we are just
about to record an interview with brian o'donnell and we are broadcasting this
interview live on facebook and youtube possibly LinkedIn I've no idea where it
goes but we're broadcast in this interview life as we record it so if you're watching a big howdy hey we're
going to get into my conversation with Brian women talk about dropshipping and personalization of products and all
kinds of great stuff it's gonna be a great interview Brian top bloke you are going to enjoy
this I have no doubts so just want to give you that heads up you're more than welcome to comment you're more than
welcome to join in and that's just my quick intro if you don't know me my name is madman sand by the way and like say
this is a curiosity curiosity ecommerce podcast I need to find a better name
in fact we're coming to the end of season and in season it's going to change its name little heads up there so
I am just about to start the recording for the actual podcast so this is just a
little preamble thanks for watching this little preamble and you'll be back in
again in just a minute just let's see how this goes [Music]
well hello and welcome to the curiosity ecommerce podcast with me your host Matt
Edmondson it is great to see you it is great that you're here all my fellow
ecommerce entrepreneurs I hope you're having a good day wherever you are and for you like me
I hope the sun is shining because it has actually started to be a sunny day here on the rainy day but it's great to be
with you I hope you're enjoying sunshine as well how are you finding ecommerce how are you finding running your online
businesses at the moment these are interesting times that is for sure and as at the time of recording which is
definitely at the time of publication but at the time of recording we are still in the midst of lockdown here in
the UK and business for me and for our
ecommerce a fellow a country he come has entrepreneurs is growing quite insanely
and today's guest is no exception we're going to get into a conversation with Brian and Brian O'Donnell who's the MD
of map marketing here now I going to get into a conversation about drop shipping
and personalization of products and all that kind of stuff I had a really really great preponderance call for we ever let
a guest live on the show we talked to them first for obvious reasons just to make sure it's going to work and I did that with
Brian which was great really enjoyed he's a great guy really looking forward to this interview looking forward to
getting his stuff that we've not really talked about a whole great deal on this show before and we're going to get into that today
but before we do as I always like to do I just like to say a couple of things
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[Music]
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agency okay thanks to the sponsors it's always good to do that get that out of
the way but without further ado let me talk to you about Brian now Brian is the
MD of map marketing and you're gonna hear a little bit about his story and
I'm not gonna introduce the company too much because he's going to tell you a little bit about that and some of the stuff that they do which i think is just
simple but genius I like simple but genius and they do some really great
stuff so I think I've begged him up enough let me get him onto the show here
we go Brian it's great to have you thanks for being on the show thanks for being here whereabouts in the UK are you I moved
down to Devon in and just to change of lifestyle and started working for
Sutton seeds which was gardening and I moved on to Matt marketing and that's
been a blast since day one which is about five years ago wow you've you sort
of found your way to where you are now and you played around with websites in the early years which I find fascinating
if you didn't hear it because the sound was off telling the story about how you had a
website that was that you'd turn off at night initially for the gardening company yeah it's more advanced than
that it turned itself off Oh someone didn't actually shut it down delete or
whatever it was yeah okay that's amazing so so you've how did you end up where
you're at then with with the map company so this came about Leslie true recommendation I had been made redundant
by my last company I was looking for a job and one of the guys now Franco Rob's
mendler was a customer of ours in effect he managed our outsource warehouse and
he thought I was quite good and he recommended me to Matt marketing which he had previously been a shareholder of
about or years ago and so it was it was one of those serendipity things
where I was looking for a job and they were looking for a marketing director okay oh well so how long have you been
with the map marketing fight five years I saw the other thing that was a little unusual is at my previous art and crafts
business we had a jigsaw puzzle website and map marketing do jigsaw puzzles so
it's not many people in the UK actually understand much about the rather jigsaw puzzles in our I happen to be one of
them Wow okay it's funny how these things all come around isn't it like
that just yeah circumstances yes Hannah thank you for letting me know
I'm Hannah as now said we can hear you loud and clear which is good so we're back on track whew there's always a
technical glitch somewhere Brian just Claire always listen so fortunately we didn't get like all the way through and
found out that actually was crazy and so
map marketing makes maps which is which actually at first and I mean this with
all due respect at first glance it can just sound like ice maps it's a little bit boring in it but actually it's not
for you guys you guys killing it you guys are doing super well yeah well it
started as Maps I mean in the beginning way before my time there you would literally if somebody wanted a map of
their house they would literally get paper maps and cut them together to make a map of your house because if they were
on different Ordnance Survey pages and stuff like that so somewhere in the s
someone digitized a lot of this where you could pre-google maps you know a lot
of what they back in the day was pretty good math and they could create a personalized map of your house so the
the history the business is that it was founded by a guy called Joe Hall in the in the late s early not only s early
s and he was doing was creating maps
for a press inserts and for reader offers from American Express and
companies like that okay he came up with the idea of a strap line we just see the world for pounds and the product
was a map of the world but it was the strap line that basically sold it so
they sort of stumbled into Maps then started to laminate them and somewhere along the line Joe then said well if you
can do a map of your house couldn't you make a jigsaw puzzle of your house of a
map of your house and literally I can see the steps in his brain working he's
no longer with us but that product we are still doing and is still at this best selling product and we have sold a
million units the years of that so you basically the way your website works
which is map marketing.com for those of you who want to go visit it you go on there you putting your details like your
postcode or your address it creates a map around your house and where you live and you now take that map and also turn
that into a jigsaw yes is that right that's correct yeah that's correct yeah
so we have data from Ordnance Survey from collinsport on Lemieux in the UK we
have USGS United stove a notice that notice States Geological Society Maps
for the USA we've got aerial mapping and satellite mapping of almost the entire world
so we can yeah we take that in some ways google maps have made it
look easier than it is because everybody's now used to going on a computer and seeing a map of their house sure but the resolution on a Google map
is rubbish you couldn't print that on a map and put new wall never mind put it on it on a jigsaw and
then piece it back together so we have the high level or high-res data behind that okay and so fast-forward to the
modern day era where you got these high-res maps than they tell them in jigsaws and you obviously have a website
where people now go in order this from you directly put their details in an
order the product from you how's your I mean this is an e-commerce show so let's talk a little bit about e-commerce has
has that going for you great again growing growing nicely and healthily we
we use the shop the Shopify platform that yeah good yeah find it good find it
reliable having lived in the Magento days and things like that I never really
want to go there with small company I don't want a team of web technicians and
web developers and I don't want to have to worry about this this is a little rabbit trail and so you've had you've
ran websites with both Magento platform and currently with a Shopify platform and you much prefer the Shopify platform
yeah but for me and our stage of business and our size of business
Shopify updating the
don't worry about payment gateways which I remember being a nightmare on on the gender I don't have to worry about the
Magento index running slow that's really which it always seems to do I seem to do
I don't know what the Magento is better now than it was five years ago but Shopify yeah they did release euro so
we're going okay supposed to make everything better but I I have to be honest with you you're not the first
person that I've spoken to that has gone Magento yeah we weren't on it I'm never doing that again I find it I find it
fascinating actually how many people have in that conversation now I've never I personally have never put a website on
Magento for a whole bunch of reasons which I won't bore you with right now but I've never done that for my own yeah
a boy that's one of the reasons but also whenever I've done coaching or
consulting and I do that with a lot of with a bunch of people all over the world all over the world is the same
complaints about Magento just about every client you go and see this I'd say
probably about % of them are happy with it % of them want to get off it and it's it's bizarre I just throw that
in there yeah say you in there when we had a pre podcast call one of the things
that we got into then and you sort of mentioned I think it was kind of off the cuff but I wrote it down in my notes I
thought this would be a really interesting topic to get into is this whole idea of the maps and the
personalization thing you made a comment where you said that you didn't want to get into a business selling other
people's branded products or you know the products from other brands yeah could you explain that a little bit more
and how that ties in with the map idea yeah we're sure what why the map product
works is that it's unique so literally every jigsaw that we send out is different to to the next one and
therefore it's got an added value and therefore it's a unique product and when you get it you feel it's brilliant and
it's yours I have worked and we continue to sell other people's products so if
you want to buy a jumbo branded jigsaw or a Gibson's branded jigsaw we buy
those in and we put them on the shelves and we sell them and we like selling it because customers like to buy them but that's not where my heart is we're a
manufacturer we make jigsaws I mean we want to sell things we make that's what
sort of my passion is it's easy in some ways to buy and sell things get some
calls right get some calls wrong get some pricing right and some some pricing wrong but there's nothing unique in it
so if you're I know you've just launched your own branded product mmm
I presume some of that is because otherwise you're you're you're selling similar products to other people and
you're just trying to differentiate yourself on servers yeah so in fact um you can be the world's first person see
this there's a skier brand of products which were gonna be launched in sync called pseudo RIA which one of our
e-commerce websites his beauty products as you can tell it's the same old joke
right every time and we're gonna do our own skin serum
and this is in fact if I can show you here the it's not focusing because I
need to take out the way there we go bring it back a bit there we go secret
advanced sue Daria okay this is a prototype of the bottle that
the products coming in that's what I'm sure this is the new bowl for it and it's our own branded skincare products
that's going to be coming out which I'll be telling people about more as we go through I'm sure but yes like you and we
sell are the products from other brands and I I've come to realize in the beauty
industry that a few of those brands not all of them I have to be honest with you the smaller brands are brilliant to work
with mm-hmm but some of the bigger brands and again not all of them but some of them who shall remain nameless
are completing our nightmares yeah and one company in particular I think has
coasters I worked it out the other day and for a course that we were doing I think it was probably in the excess of
million we've lost in sales as one of the Wow as a result one of the bigger brands and just being
unusual let's just put it that way I have to prepare for what to say and so
this is what piqued my interest right because one of my websites we sell other brands of beauty products and here you
are saying yeah I don't I don't really want to do that my heart's not in it don't forget we've got a production
facility we've got a factory we've got machines we make things so really as a business the most sensible thing for us
is to sell things we make whether it's to wholesalers or to retailers I want to
sell things we make so in effect you could start a jigsaw website and buy
them from everybody and it's no different to what I'm doing yeah and therefore I think words are going to be in five years time how am I going to
grow that business whereas when I'm making kik source I'm selling myself I've got designers who are designing them I've got artists who are creating
stuff and I'm creating unique products and therefore I set the price yeah
whereas when I buy in from other people they're setting the price yeah and some
idiot will sell them on Amazon from a penny cheaper yeah and that's and that's the fundamental problem you have isn't it when you sell
the same brand as everybody else how do you differentiate and this the the way
that most people differentiate because they don't have the creativity to differentiate in any other way is to
discount the price yes absolutely Yasuda mean and so we had you know and
I've been guilty of this in the past so they're penny more expensive than errs let's discount ours by P so we're a
penny cheap yeah and all of a sudden you're racing to the bottom yeah and and
no one really wins whereas your idea about about personalizing I think it's
quite fascinating cuz you have that you had like you sell what was some of the brands you mentioned Gibson jigsaw jumbo
roethlisberger so we buy in because we one of the businesses we own is called object suppose we bought it about five
years ago and it only sold third-party products and to greatness I call it the
UK's number one jigsaw website in honesty it's probably number two but but
it's it's a great site in it so it works really well but to differentiate it from our competitors and well we have a
jigsaw machine why are we making standard jig saws we are ready to personalize so now we
then created our own range of standard stock jigsaws own personalized there are
lower margin and the personalized stuff because the standard in their stock but with our jigsaw publisher we now compete
on a lower level but with Rabin's Berger and Gibson's and jumbo and we now sell
those also and to to give stores and to to website yeah so it's it's time that
business into something that it wasn't before and about half our sales now our stuff we make and half our stuff this
stuff we buy in so so ok that's interesting so half is stuff that you
buy in half the stuff is you turn over stuff that you make yeah and that
actually protects you quite well from you know the wholesaler Gibson selling
direct to Amazon and just under keeping everybody in price and going you know what I'm now wanting all this traffic right so yeah yeah it gives your
business that kind of protection doesn't it yes which I find quite fascinating and and you've been doing that did you
say five years you've been five years I've been there we've probably remember commissioning my first chick so I get to
that stage in life we're commissioning it takes I was really exciting and they're really interesting things upon your CV yeah not many takers but not a
transferable skill but it's um yeah we lost count that's a no man ease as a
team we've got hundreds of our enticements now and they can they they do really well but it added to our so we
have a lot of personalized stuff which is high ticket high value and I suppose this is is probably high volume low
margin yeah yeah that's and I think that's a good balance for a business you need you need boats yeah yeah no it's
really really interesting so if you because there's people are gonna be listening to the show you they're gonna be going oh that's great you're a
manufacturer right yeah I'm just starting out selling you know somebody
else's yeah hold it right I'm just that's what I'm doing we all start somewhere what what advice would you
give them or what tips could they maybe think about going forward about how to
how to take advantage of your thinking in wasn't this the simplest way is to take
in a product that somebody else does and add value to it so a lot of people will add you can add your name to a box or
something so you can definitely do that and then I can't think of a great
example because it's basically done isn't it I mean it the guys on Etsy abase they take a standard product like
a leather journal and they'll emboss your name in it and sell it to you for twice the price right exactly that exactly that so there and that's not a
bad business and and if if you're starting off and you don't have overheads and you're just trying to pay
yourself a wage you can you can actually make a good business out of that and I suspect a lot of the people on Etsy are
making very nice pocket money deed if you're trying to go and you know take a
bigger step and have a warehouse and a factory and machines you just got to learn how these things work how much as
an embosser costs how much does a laser engraver cost how much do these things
cost and do you think you can make enough money back from it yeah but I think the key thing the other thing then
is actually creating a product like you've done so you have to go to either go to China go to India go to the
Philippines go abroad and get some I'll find a nice UK manufacturer and there are some and there's still quite some
good be fair this productivity does an asterick product is all UK manufacture ok everything's Fenton folks at the bot
was everything in the UK see great and there are some really good people say there's no manufacturing in the UK
anymore and ensure this has got a find them you just gotta find it and people don't know about us so many times I meet
people they go I don't believe you're you are there where you is probably why I'm doing things like this to try and
get the name out there but there are other businesses like us that make great
products great quality products in the UK and that means less leader I mean our competitors are at the moment if you
want to buy jigsaws to launch your new brand of makeup of skin serum
generally you would go to China and it would be cheaper it will take six weeks
to three months the quality might be not great well you can get made in the UK by us it will cost you more but you know
it's get it's going to there and you can pop down and see it being made and it's made in Britain and
it's made a brick fan of by local yes oh yeah and it's no disrespect to the Chinese market I'm just a big fan of by
local if you can get it right so yeah it's a poor local business why would you not and do you I just out of curiosity
then when you manufacture do you do minimum order quantities do you so if I came to you and said I want a jigsaw for
example for Sue dory do you have minimum orders or is it ya know we don't just do
one offs yeah because we because our business originally was personalized it was one we actually are almost the
opposite is it were best at small runs if you want five thousand you're actually probably as well-off to go to
China but we were best as small runs short runs hundreds and thousands concepts and
all that sort of stuff roofer quantity exactly yeah no it's great I find it fascinating actually
because um because you're right it it's it I think it's important if you are
British to to go to Britain first it's a bit is a personal thing in a personal
belief of mine and I love the fact that you guys are in Britain just down in
Devon nearly fall off in the in the in the the most favorite part of the
country um and I think I think it's really interested in the business model
you've built because you you you have had to find a way to create a map around
someone's house so almost every product is individualized yeah yeah which enables you to do personalization at
them at a really interesting level right yeah and so I remember I remember a few
years ago when coke do you remember when they started putting your names on the coke bottles and how notes that went
just for having my brother went out figured out a way to get everybody and his family get their name this they're
all still on a shelf like a roofie yeah yeah it's extraordinary and all coke dip
was put your name on a on the bottle yeah and it's that it's that idea that
understanded that actually personalization makes something twice as valuable yeah yeah it does I mean again
you imagine at a minute look his is great jigsaw puzzle time because
you're at but if you instead of buying a jigsaw of a country cottage which is the
big selling product or something like that you can get a photo of your family get a jigsaw made of it and then photo
you can then piece that together at home yeah that's about as personalized as you
can get no it's really good it's really good and then actually you can get one Oh sort of d foams glue it into it and
then become an interesting piece of art right I see I don't know I've never done it lots of people yeah we so glue lots
of people will frame them because I mean it's funny because they're framed jigsaw is not as good as the original print
because it's been printed got into a thousand pieces and then stuck back together but they it's the accomplishment of having done it yeah it
is it is you can actually juice and you see them you know take one or two pieces out scatter them about and it just looks
a bit more interesting than a family photo yeah no I get that and so so going
back to your your tips and if I'm just sort of starting out one of the things that you just said they'll just want to sort of come back to is how can you add
value to a product which I thought was a really interesting question so it may be you write somebody's name on a box you
know you may be not manufacturing but what can you do to that product that no one else is doing that personalizes it
yeah I think is for me is one of those fundamental questions of e-commerce that
I didn't want to just brush over I think it's such an important thing to come back to you yeah not sure I've got a
better answer beyond adding things no I think that I think that is the answer yeah yeah I think that genuinely is the
answer you know when people say we do a product course you know how to find products that people want us you know
buy I didn't call them high demand high converting products so you know the big problems a lot of guys have when they
start now in e-commerce is what do I sell online so they'll just go and get any other rubbish usually from Aliexpress and shove it on a website no
one wants to buy it no one cares yeah and so finding a product that somebody wants to buy is quite important and for me one of the
things that you do and one of the steps that you go through is you take a standard product like a face serum and
you go how can I make this better yes I mean how can I add value to this or if you sell another
example we use all the time as I'm a big fan of notepads and fountain pens Brian
yes fashioned but true and so I use this a pen all the time as an example this is
a Lamy Safari fountain pen and very high demands you know reasonably good product
and but what can you do to that product that I know it's value could you put it in a nice presentation box could you put
somebody's name on that box and so it becomes a little bit it's something that nobody else is yeah yeah you get it
engraved can you personalize it and I just think it's such a top tip could you
even take a step back and buy the components of a founder pen and put your
own casing outside and then make your own brand so not necessarily make it from scratch but take some components
and make a make into a slightly different product oh yeah well why don't whatever and your own touch to it and
then you're creating something that nobody else can sell and that comes back to this value point where no one can
then undercut you on the price of that exactly yeah you're controlling the market that's what you want and you're
not being crazy with the prices but you're not worrying about somebody doing something cheaper than you dad that's it
exactly yeah I mean you can always but if you want to cheap fountain pen they will be cheap fountain pens yeah but
you're just not in that market you somebody else is there for me if somebody else is doing that market that's not where I would be you never
actually I I'm careful how I say this because in fact to sell my business got
started but more times more times than not you don't win by going in a market
and trying to be the cheapest if there
are exceptions but absolutely I mean we are one and I and I say this lightly because when Jersey Beach company started in we actually started it
in Jersey and there was a vet advantage at this point a vadvantage to do and so yeah which meant we could be %
cheaper but still make the same profit margin and you were like oh my goodness this was you know this was a real big
advantage wasn't sure on any product it was only on some products but enabled us to quickly capture a market segment you
can't do that now that opportunity does not exist in any way shape or form so I see people coming in and trying to
do the Amazon thing and just buying customers and building their database but people that buy from you because
you're cheap won't buy from you all of a sudden when you put your prices up they buy because it's cheap and they're after
the login so you build in the wrong kind of database anyway yeah yep good so yeah
it's an interesting one so um okay so I
we've got this whole idea of personalization and why I think you you you add value you make it unique you
make it your own and if you and you can do that on a small scale and you can do that on a large scale and but you you
really should try and find some way of doing it and so you're not entering them price wars because I imagine I can go
get in jigsaw for three or four quid off Amazon absolutely yeah yeah and you're
you're selling personalized jigsaw scan Icefall sort of price do they stop that's forty deuce is $so it's
quid says it's five six times more than what you'd buy standard yeah Chinese jigsaw for exactly but like you say
you've got the demand and people are wanting to pay that and actually yeah yeah it's highly reviewed product very
you know I'm star reviews it's a great product and it's yeah you do we don't
get complained about it again aside let me do a quick promo for you while we're here not that you asked me to do this
but if you do want a personalized jigsaw or your family head to map marketing
calm because they actually are the guys that manufactured them probably everybody else's website you go to get
them done they come to you to get them done that I imagine they're just selling your product something I think there's
probably only two companies in the UK that make photo six of them any of those
tiny so okay we'll get them on next week
and have a conversation so so well that's interesting because the the
another part of the conversation I wanted to touch on with you Brian because again this was something that came up in a pre call was this whole
idea of drop shipping so you you have
you have a product which is the jigsaws MP we'll buy that from they sell it on
their websites and back from you and you send it out that's you know one of the things that happens and if I if if I
wanted if I was thinking to myself you know what I like this idea of the personalized unique product I just don't
have the ability capacity resource time to do my manufacturing facility but what
I think I could do is I could market your jigsaws very well to a specific segment I could create and actually set
an account up with you and sell the product on your behalf which in effect is drop shipping right if you then send
it out for me and I don't have to worry about stock I just literally market the site and you ship it out exactly so
we've sort of going to drop shipping by necessity really so we have to reduce it
apparently yeah because each one is unique we have to make it and so if
someone again before my time but when when the guys went to the big American companies back in the early s and
said we can do a map chick so and we can put your brand on the box either were
very dubious and and B they said where's it made and we said in the UK whence
they got the head over the fact that we were making American jigsaws one by one in Devon and shipping them back to Texas
and all the states in America every single supplier week we started with and
is still with us because nobody else can do can do that so suppose the fact that
we dropship is it's just a fact isn't it's necessitated by the fact that it's
personalized and in fact many UK is just geography so we then had to find ways
around getting the good to from the UK to America quickly we had to find a way to deal with peaks of Christmas and
holiday but yet every every branded jig
so you see in America we don't really trade in America as bat marketing with just the manufacturer behind the trading
company so if you go on the National Geographic website and try to by National Geographic matrix map jigsaw
it's made by us in devon and shipped down the National Geographic box back to
America yeah which is fascinating so so those of the the listeners that don't
understand may be fully the difference between wholesale and dropship can you
just explain that so dropship is the simple the simple way said if you take the order on your website take the payment then send us
the details instead of sending it your own ways to pick and pack send it to us to pick and pack in our case we have to make it pick it and pack it and then you
don't have to touch it so normally if you're trying to sell our stock jigsaws you'd buy of them you put them on a
rack in a warehouse waiting there you pay us and then wait to sell it to the
customer in this case you take the money upfront from the customer we ship it and
then you pay us so your your your we're sort of subsidizing your cash flow
because you're you've taken the money first and we will pay you after shipment
and you never touch it so you can feature items on your website that you
you don't have to write a check from hmm and that I mean that's one thing that
massively appeals isn't it because if you're wanting to start an e-commerce business you want to start something
online one of the first questions you're plagued with or should be plagued with is what product do I sell and once you
figure that out you then go well well how many of those do I have to buy where
do I store them how in the heck am I get those to my customer once they've purchased them right yeah and so you
have a warehouse I have a warehouse and that's just the nature of our businesses and the way they've been built but if you're starting out well that's a big
investment to go rent the warehouse and buy enough stock to fill it so and this is where dropship and I think is has
appealed to a lot of people out years because like you say I don't need to do I just need to be good at marketing
exactly if I can if I can reach a segment of the market that you're not connecting with well then I've got a
business have a night exactly the downside is you're outsourcing your fulfillment reputation to me so you have
to trust me so which is which is a bit of a risk for you if that makes sense you've a website
it's your customer they've paid you and then you say Brian where are my goods so
there are there are dropshippers out there who who will let you down and they
have there are people who will try the best and promise the earth and not quite deliver so that's the risk with drop
shipping I mean I've worked with someone prior to Matt marketing I've worked with a couple of really good ones where it
makes sense for a company generally is to dropship high ticket items so when I
was in gardening we didn't want to have a greenhouse in our warehouse that would sell one a
year but I wanted to sell greenhouses on my website yeah and today we sell greenhouses so we would outsourcer and
they send them when the order came through we tell the customers days for delivery and then we'd contact the
greenhouse manufacture similarly when is our Arts and Crafts sewing machines
high-ticket I would have had thousands of pounds tied up in inventory on the shelf instead took the order and the
sewing machine was drop shipped so it's like not a core of a business I don't think I don't think it would be good
idea to have your entire business dropship but it can be a nice add-on to
your to your product range it can be I think it's a good way to start and for a lot of people but I don't think it's a
good place to end up because like you say you one of the key things that
you're judged on by your customers is how quickly you get that parcel to me once i purchased it yeah what stated
arrives in right so when you get your reviews from your customers on your website on Trustpilot
or on google reviews or wherever they write their reviews a big chunk of that review like you said from my point of
view will be dependent on you and what you do with that delivery if I'm using you for drop shipping so I just have to
bear that in mind yeah yeah okay I know sir sorry there's also a bit which can
add value is where cost is if somebody buys a stock item and a drop ship item
you're probably only charging the customer once for shipping but you have to pay twice so you have to
factor that in that's one of the downsides to not having the inventory I think it's just part of the model you
have to accept cheap shipping costs on that on that order yeah I've seen that a lot actually and with a lot of companies
and they and you and the customers curious and a lot of customer service inquiries and like well hang on you've
only sent me half my order wares because they would arrive at different times and it's yes so it does lead to a different
set of problems yeah you will be like when you when you do a drop shipping and certainly when you do a mixture of drop shipping and
inventory or inventory if you're from the states and you're right
that's that's quite an interesting thing so you've obviously one of the things I put down in my notes here that I thought
was quite unique about you Brian was actually you have done drop shipping yourself in other words you have gone to
other companies and made arrangements where they send products out that you have sold yes your company is currently
a drop shipping company I you feel fulfill orders for other people so I
guess you more than most people have seen what good drop shipping is and what bad drop shipping is would that be fair
to say yeah yeah exactly I haven't we've had occasion events and drop bad drop ship experiences in the past and where
it can go wrong we're lucky in that we personalize everything so in fact we can't run out of stock so if you give me
five thousand orders tomorrow I can make five thousand jigsaws if previously I
used a greenhouse example I went to the greenhouse supplier and they said oh yeah we've got none of those left and
when you okay I've just taken eight hundred quid from a customer yeah how am I gonna deal with that now thanks for
how I've got to deal with that now thank you very much because they maybe drop shipping from multiple suppliers
multiple customers and they unless they're giving you their inventory feed every day you may well sell things that
you don't have because the typical way you manage this on a system is you put stock in of a dropship item and and
let it run down so you assume this unlimited dropship stock mmm the only advice I would give there
is make sure Europe your supplier is giving you regular updates of stock and
oats early when they're about to run out rather than two days after they have run
out yeah I've seen this actually recently with a client there were a pretty good drop shipper that they were
using and what they did was they went and got an updated stock feed literally every minutes okay modern technology
and api's and feeds yeah we're just like right so I constantly know whether it's in stock or out of stock because I do and it and you
and this is where drop shipping can be you've got to have the technology which enables you to do that right so yeah
it's yeah it's it's not as straightforward because you're you you
although you're I'm not managing the inventory you are I've still got to get
that data from you from my own website yeah yeah absolutely yeah okay so that's that's that's quite
an important point then you're right I have seen that a lot and if you were if you were thinking then of selling it
like my son I think I mentioned this to you last time my son's off to university right hopefully who knows with you know
the coronavirus and what's happening but he's off to university managed to get out of doing his a level exams this year
lucky little git um both my sons actually one of them got out of doing
their a-levels one of them got out doing the GCSEs but that's another story sorry um but josh is off to uni and being the
dead that I am I'm like well how are we going to finance this so you don't walk out of university with you know a
million quids worth of debt yeah so he
comes to you Josh and he goes Brian have you got any tips on how to do dropshipping well what kind of advice
would you give in that scenario well I'm taking notes by the way well you need to
decide what you want to sell so so that probably goes back to your course on on choosing products and choosing them well
I suppose with a drop shipper it's as much about the supply you need to find someone who
either experience in dropshipping whoo-hoo you know won't let you down so you're not dealing with a the angry
customer so choosing your dropship partners is key and it doesn't necessarily mean the bigger is better
and no not sometimes the opposite it may
even be if you're creative you can find somebody who isn't doing it but should
be doing it until you but why the hell yeah why aren't you doing that I'm honest that's what he's done right okay
see genes from the other side of the family I take it
but yeah you find someone and create that dropshipping for them so they're
pleased you're bringing them extra business you do the clever marketing and and you're both winners yeah that's a
really good point and so so research research your drop shipping company make
sure that they all good yeah obviously know about the product choose a product well yeah yeah don't just because again
I see this if there's one thing that annoys me more than anything else when
it comes to e-commerce business and I use a word annoy in a very loose a sense of the term because it's the thing that I see the most right now people come to
me and if if someone if they paid me a tenner every time they did this I'd be a
happy man because the standard thing is Matt listen you need to look at my website because I've got traffic I've
just not got any sales and before I go on to the website now I know exactly what the problem is and you can predict
what's happened I've gone let me tell you what you've done and I've not seen it right number one you went to Shopify and you got a website this is no
disrespect to Shopify this is just the process they take you down you went shopping I got a website because you
heard the doing online was good and you've got a theme which maybe you spent a hundred bucks on or bucks and you
went through the Shopify course on Facebook ads on how to do Facebook ads
and you spent four or five hundred bucks sending maybe a hundred people to your website thinking that a hundred people
are going to buy something from you let's let's think about the product what I think you've done there is just gone
to Aliexpress the product which you think is pretty cheap you think you're going to sell a
lot of and you're buying it for six books and you're selling it for thirty books on your website and and you've
probably put a little tab on there saying you know hurry stock selling out and have that little thing flash you
know Fred in swaziland Erza's bought one and you know all these lies basically
try and convince me to buy they pop up on your website you've you've got roulette wheels and all sorts of stuff going on you're wondering why no one's
buy them from your website really yeah and it cuz the product is the last thing on your mind never mind there's yeah and
fundamentally it comes down to where you've got a product on your website that no one gives a flying flip about
you've just gone to Aliexpress and gone that's cheap I think I could make it profit margins on that that's going to
work for me and that's their version of dropship in and then they'll have Aliexpress ship it and it takes five
weeks and they think customers going to be happy to stick around to do that yeah not good right clever it's bizarre isn't
it and it actually it's it worked for three or four people about four years ago but it doesn't it doesn't work for
anybody these days yeah and so I find it I find it fascinating so how do you so
basically what you would do then and Brian I'm guessing is all the way you've done it in the past so take your sewing machines or your greenhouses you went I
need this green house and I need this sewing machine and you called the manufacturer and said yes exactly so in
the case of sewing machine come we've never actually done it and I imagine I'm Muse out of now but I imagine now
they're probably selling off their website because that's they should have been doing I'm happy to be the middleman
so for example that just thinking one of our best selling products at the minute there's a conceptual artist called cold
war Steve and a few qualms on Twitter is a really cool artists brilliant so he
creates jigsaw puzzles of his art and we
dropship those so everything on his website you can basically buy his images that's really clever and so that has
their uniqueness that's the unification content in that case I'm just a manufacturer but very
happy to be he selling his unique art and we'll make a jigsaw you can do that there are lots of
companies who will do that for prints and frames if you if you have art but you know how many people are going to
come out without degrees from college and wondering what do I do at my art do you know you can create your audience on
Twitter or Instagram or whatever they what who are the other names are and do
social media do you find somebody to make the products for you yeah if you're
clever like that and you have a design gene and you can create great design you
do that bit and get someone else to make the products you don't want to have to make a jigsaw now it's very true and
actually it's not just dig sodas it's like what could have this put on a t-shirt I could have it be flag and all that sort of Stephanies it's finding
someone that can create those products for you along the way where you don't have to do them all and there are some
very good companies who will do that mug companies and you know you make a quitter to in every mug and but you
you're selling and you're creating your brand and selling that out so that that's not a bad way to do that harder no it's very good because like you say
again it's that well no one else is selling this Jiggs like you're sick no one else is doing the maps no one else
is doing his artwork because he can cause his artwork right so yeah exactly that's really interesting so um
think about the people that buy from you
as dropshippers right so yeah you you've obviously have a bunch of people that use you for dropshipping what are some
of the common traits you see amongst them that makes them more successful so if you see somebody doing something you
kind of go it's just not gonna work well for you but because I've seen this before there's the jus the two categories that
put our main drop dropship plans in are either former cataloguers so people who
you know you should always mail catalogs and our product fits really well in a
catalog it's a great gift so therefore what do I get someone for Christmas I get a jigsaw a map of their house all of those companies are still
doing well and still okay but they're generally declining because catalogs just don't work in the way they did at
yeah yeah but the clever one but yeah and the clever ones who have moved
online and done it well and kept their brand and uniqueness are still doing just as well as they always have
yeah and the other type that works with us is is the companies like one of our
big UK clients happy positive company who are in puzzles they sell all sorts of puzzles and they want a unique range
of jigsaws we make the jig sauce for them so if you're in that market it would it would make sense so that's how
to either niche people who love puzzles or people who are looking for gifts that's our two niches and so the ones
well that I guess I guess I'm just gonna dig a little bit are there some things that they're doing online that you
either you think actually you're because you're doing that I think that's one of the key reasons why you're you're doing
well the ones that the ones that do well are not the ones who depend on paid search now it's people it's okay we'll
come back to that let's just put a pin in that one okay they're not doing paid search what else we're not depending on
Peter oh sorry yeah let me get my yeah I think everybody does paid search but people
who I went to a client last year and are going I'll Google did an algorithm
update and our business is basically gone collapsed by about percent or
something because everything was based on their paid ads and it's you cannot run a business on paid ads you can top
up a business on paid ads you can launch your business on paid ads but it's not a sustainable way to to run a business so
that what are other people doing well I think it's it's it's adapting what what
we do so we have a core product the clever people will say can I do a different design can I do a different
can I brand it differently can you do something because they all want their point point of uniqueness so if we do a
po they'll come and say can I do this BC so go to a thousand piece jigsaw what else can I do to your core
product and can I do an overlay on the design how can I make myself stand out from this
product from other people selling that cipro so what what this is your core product what can I get that's unique
that maybe just I have yes exactly yes it came back to your uniqueness proposition earlier on Titan that in
actually you can there's no reason why you couldn't go to the if I was drop shipping your product there's no reason
why I can't come to you and say I need to make something which is really unique to me yes exactly ston what you do what
what little things can we doing you're becoming a second personally I have been with that person I said wouldn't supply
last year we we put a put the jigsaw in a wooden box and the cover of the box
was personalized personalized box personalized cheek so it's three times
the price yep much nicer product but that's what they wanted so they needed to stand out from their competitors sure very very good
Wow and that that well that dystopian Sawada possibilities then and this again
comes back to working with a drug good drop shipping companies actually can
they can they do all of this for you can you work with them and can they help you
how flexible are they yeah we had we had with Jersey we had there
are certain products I'm not allowed to wholesale restrictive terms and conditions and certain products we can and we had a couple of guys last year
who approached us and said listen I want to sell some of the products on your website and I can't they didn't have the
money to buy the initial quantity of stock which that I mean there was a real high minimum order right in moq minimum
order quantity from the manufacturer and we sold a lot of it so we didn't mind and they came to us and said can we just
drop ship and we had never done dropship him before for another company you're
right for were for anybody else we just we sent products out for ourselves and we solved them we shipped them in our
own branded boxes and it it meant that we had to get some plain boxes because
obviously he didn't want me to ship it out in Jersey boxes you just wouldn't and we had to change
the way that packing slips were printed yeah which we you know this but these
are relatively minor problems to solve for they have to be solved yet they have
to have to be thought through right yeah yeah but I guess I'm just using this as an example because he was like I want to
sell this product I really like this particular product I think I could do some great content around this product and they did that well and they got
their own customers um and we noticed what he was doing when we were looking
at the orders for that particular product this is how we found out we saw this one guy buying over and over from his again same same billing address but
shipping it to it all kinds of different so we called him said dude what are you doing he said our I hope you don't mind I'm dropship in the products I'm like
don't mind at all you should have called me because I'm shipping this out in Jersey branded stuff they're going to get the invoice and go what I didn't
order this from Jersey I ordered it from you and so we made those arrangements for me you know it's been great
yeah and ship you know you kind of build those relationships oh and I guess my my
story here is you know my go and talk to the supplies of the products that you
know and love and think can I get some kind of dropship and agreement and go and find someone that's going to help you yeah why not have a go I mean I used
it again the example of the Lambie pen the safari fountain pen without personal isn't it here lemme won't give me an
account because I don't have a bricks and mortar store because I have tried actually I've all their bigger products
so and they've gone no mana cos I'm you don't have a shot and so I was like okay so I could thank all I need to then do
is go around a bunch of supplies and say listen I'll sell the point you ship them from your store I'll sell them on your behalf and we'll have some common
agreement or arrangement yeah and I think following on our last it was following on from our prequel actually
so not only if people contacted me to do drop shipping from my own businesses but following on from our prequel
conversation I said to my son Anjali there's one guy who we know who's local tours is a good friend of mine I'm like
go and have a conversation with him you put the site together you sell the stuff and get him to drop shipping for you
from his shop because he didn't have a presence online but he had a great product and he's like this is a win-win
so everyone everyone wins right and so I think I think that's that's one some of this just some of the Nuggets
Brian I've got from you today go and talk to the suppliers have conversations dropship where you need to
but do it well and and do something is personalized and unique to you and that
makes it sort of your way of doing things exactly yep one of our best clients actually one of our one of our
better customers here we we do all kinds of stuff for we have every six months we
have a conversation in kind of which kind of goes along the lines of how can we make this better for you in terms of the product that we're shipping out we
ship it out in unique boxes we ship it out and unique packaging what else can we do for how can we have gentlemen make
this more you and better for you and so on and so forth you know I think there are really good conversations to have
period conversations have listen Brian it's been amazing I've really really
enjoyed it um how do how do people get ahold of you if they want to reach out and connect to you so our website marketing calm as you
mentioned we also have all jigsaw puzzles calm and Dakota at UK which is
jigsaw puzzle specialist I'm on LinkedIn Twitter either at Brian O'Donnell or bot
I'm one or the other every Englishman remembers well that's
when I was born I was I was born that's a reason why they remember it I mean I was born the day the World Cup was
stolen no that's true yeah that's quite
handy the police were just about to come round for me no it's been great and so
if people can get help want to get hold of you you're on Twitter you're on LinkedIn yeah and obviously your company
website map mark CENTCOM are you if people have been kind of intrigued by
your products are you after more dropshipping people and those relationships so yeah yeah whether it's
personalized map jigsaws whether it's stock jigsaws always after more
customers we we love making things in the UK and we want to do that and shift them around the world
fantastic listen Brian really really appreciate your time thanks for joining
us it's been so so good I'm looking forward to seeing the next phase of your
journey but that was so appreciated thank you so much kiss it so there you go that was my interview
with Brian wasn't he a top chap as they say a top chap it was really good I've
really enjoyed that really got some good information about dropshipping and how to personalize products and all that
sort of stuff it was just fantastic and how to make your products unique and why
that's important and why you don't do the race to the bottom so I hope you got something out of it as well do obviously
connect with Brian violent in or via Twitter if you want to get hold of him all through his website and if you are
looking for some dropship and opportunities and you think jigsaws could be a way to do that he'll be happy
to talk to you I have no doubt so get in touch with him and see how those guys are doing and have a look and obviously
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YouTube live listen it's been great to do this episode of the podcast it's been great to chat with you make sure you
join us next time as I think on Monday evening I'd what was the date on Monday
it's the first Monday of May so I made a bank holiday I think I am doing a recording with Joann Steele
who was the head of she was a head of customer generated content
user-generated content has now morphed into customer generated content and so
she was the head of that full August and so she's going to be showing all her tips and insights and how to get reviews
and how to get people to give you all those amazing piece of content you need to make your website totally sink so do
join us for that do join us on facebook if you're around or listen now for the podcast it'll be out very very soon I've
no doubt but wherever you are whatever you're doing god bless I hope business is going well for you if you've got any
questions reach out all the show notes are on my website Matt Edmondson comm I think that's it for now
Taral for now and I will see you next time have a great day bye for now