#391 – Romance and RVs: Inside The Inspiring $5 million E-commerce Story Of Fernando and Mariana
Fernando Spindler and Mariana Oberherr’s story is the stuff of Amazon entrepreneur’s dreams; a vivid chronicle of a couple who dared to swap the vibrant shores of Brazil for the rugged landscapes of Australia, all in the pursuit of success. Their adventure into the world of e-commerce and Amazon selling is a masterstroke of resilience and innovation, and their story unfolds in our latest episode. From the thrills of an early eBay side hustle to the complexities of navigating the RV and outdoors market down under, these two not only crafted a booming brand but also curated a life where work and romance intertwine with remarkable harmony.
Venture with us into the intricate web of challenges and triumphs that define a successful online e-commerce business. Fernando and Mariana meticulously peel back layers of their journey, revealing how they dodged pitfalls such as intellectual property theft and turned customer engagement into their secret sauce for product development. Scaling up wasn’t just about numbers for this dynamic duo; it was about strategic sales across eBay Australia, Shopify, and Amazon, about riding the wave of market fluctuations, and about fostering a tight-knit community that’s as invested in their products as they are.
At the end of our conversation, the spotlight shines on the art of diversification and the power of “customer-centric” design. Listen intently as our guests lay bare their strategy for expanding from a single hit product to a diversified line that caters to the evolving needs of their customers, including the unexpected rise in car living essentials. With a narrative that seamlessly weaves from tales of business acumen to heartwarming moments of mentorship, Fernando and Mariana’s story is an invaluable playbook for any aspiring Amazon entrepreneur with a partner in both life and business.
In episode 391 of the AM/PM Podcast, Kevin, Fernando, and Mariana discuss:
- 00:00 – Couple’s Journey From Brazil to Australia
- 05:35 – Couples in Business: How To Make It Work?
- 10:28 – Mix of Accents From Multicultural Backgrounds
- 11:47 – Entrepreneurial Journey Through Different Ventures
- 14:14 – eBay Dominance in Australian E-Commerce
- 16:33 – From Camping to Successful Amazon Business
- 17:48 – Unique RV Accessory Sourced From Japan
- 22:04 – Expanding Product Range for International Markets
- 28:22 – Product Quality and Competition Challenges
- 29:15 – Challenges of Financing and Scaling Up
- 33:37 – Shopify Expansion Strategies and Challenges
- 34:41 – Diversifying Sales Strategy for E-Commerce
- 39:12 – Business Operations and Growth Expansion
- 40:28 – Product Diversification and Customer Engagement
- 48:45 – Customer Feedback Drives Product Success
- 52:12 – Encounter at Helium 10 Summit
- 55:00 – Kevin King’s Words Of Wisdom
Transcript
Kevin King:
Welcome to episode 391 of the AM/PM Podcast. My guest today is a couple from Australia by way of Brazil, actually originally Brazilians now living in Australia. It’s Fernando and Mariana. Together they’ve built a pretty amazing business in the outdoor RV space. Their stories are very interesting in the way they actually got started, the way they proved the concept of their product and how they’re keeping in touch with their customers and what they’re doing to actually maintain their momentum, and they’re on track to hit about $5 million in sales this year. It’s a fascinating story. There’s a lot to learn from this couple, so I hope you enjoy this episode of the AM/PM Podcast with Fernando and Mariana.
Kevin King:
Rookie here we got a two for one today. On this episode of the AM/PM Podcast, I have Fernando and Mariana coming to us from down under in Australia. How are you guys and well, guy and gal, I have to say that right these days doing?
Mariana:
We are doing great.
Kevin King:
Cool. So what’s your story? I mean, you guys are a couple or partners, or what’s the story there?
Fernando:
Both. We are a couple for about 10 years, but since the beginning we always had some side gigs, something going on. It’s been about 12 years together. We started on e-commerce back in Brazil. We are actually Brazilians.
Mariana:
But we’ve been living in Australia for 10 years and since the very beginning we always partner in life and in business. So, even in the very beginning, we’re always trying to find, you know, side gigs and things to do together, uh, but yeah, it’s been a long journey, uh, but it’s good to get someone very close to you to be able to share the stories and also, you know, share the hustles that you have in your life and your business. So, yeah, we’ve been in this journey together for a long time, and especially doing this full time. I think it’s been what, three years.
Fernando:
Three years now, yeah doing business full time.
Mariana:
So, yeah, it’s a journey, but it’s good, it’s very rewarding.
Kevin King:
Now I don’t know if I could actually do business with my ex. I mean, how do you keep the? How do you keep it separate? I mean, you have your business relationship and you have a personal relationship. How do you keep those from crossing over? When, when you’re mad at him, Mariana, and how do you keep that he did something in the business and spent some money wrong or messed up on the PPC or does something, how do you keep that from stretching over and you’re holding a grudge when you’re trying to watch a movie one night together or something, or you’re at dinner and you’re like I still can’t believe you did that. How do you separate those two?
Fernando:
Uh, we don’t I think yeah, it’s been for so long that we just got used to it. We work in other companies together too, and I think we have a good relationship these days. Um, it’s just a matter of knowing how to separate parts of the business on each other’s skills and trust on each other. Of course, it’s always important. There’s that little tip on are you sure about this and are you sure about that? But we have the business very well separated and each one of us, we are in charge of one part of the business and we do trust each other. So it’s been going good. We don’t have big issues. There’s always that one day here and there, that we look at each other very cranky, but it’s just one day. You know, it’s just part of the business. You just got to have a deep breath and realize that it’s actually one of the best partners you could have, because the two of us, whenever we are talking, she can complete my sentence, so it’s very quick when we are having a brainstorming. So there’s the pros and the cons and we are looking toward more the pros for now.
Mariana:
And one thing that we realize is that we have completely set up different skills right. So when we set up the business and the team, so we have people working with me and people working with Fernando and we have a completely separate area of the business where we work. So at the end of the day, we even have some times to book meetings between ourselves to go and discuss things like a real call.
Kevin King:
Zoom calls from room to room with each other.
Mariana:
Yeah, so then we have a meeting now. So then we go and we have a chat and we try to, you know, shut the office door and try to forget about things and then have our life. But you know, sometimes it’s hard to leave the products inside of the office room and not bring them to the kitchen and to the living room. So it’s a challenge, but at the end of the day, I think we just got used to it. It’s been a long time.
Kevin King:
I think probably part of one of the big advantages is, you know, with my ex-wife and a lot of people that are spouse of someone doing this, they get tired of hearing it. They’re like you’re at dinner and you’re talking and you’re talking about you know what you’re going to do for the weekend and all of a sudden something e-commerce or Amazon comes like oh guess what? And like enough Amazon talk. I’m tired of this Amazon talk. No more Amazon talk. You probably don’t have that problem, right? It’s probably it doesn’t you? You’re because you’re on that level. And another thing is since I think, as a couple working together, I think it’s as more advantageous than two partners. You know if you’re working with one of your girlfriends, or Fernando is working with one of his buddies, you know they have a good relationship and they’re friends and whatever. But there’s something different about the connection between a couple and, like you said, you can complete each other’s thoughts and you know each other. So I think actually when couples work together, as long as they can work together, I think it can be more powerful as a partnership than two buddies or friends or strangers working together.
Fernando:
Yeah, 100%.
Mariana:
And I think also like we both love this subject, we like this life and we like everything related to e-commerce, right? So for us it’s more like talking about a hobby. It’s hard to get us to stop talking about it. It’s the other way around, you know.
Fernando:
Yeah, yeah, our friends they think we are weird because we just keep talking about business and e-commerce and everything related to it. It’s sometimes you just gotta go like guys, please stop, let’s have a normal life and talk about travel or something else, because you guys don’t stop.
Kevin King:
What brought you from Brazil to Australia?
Mariana:
So it’s going to be 10 years in the next two months. It’s going to be a big celebration, right. But back in the day, when we were in Brazil, we felt that Brazil did not have enough opportunity for us and we really want to try something different. And then, as a Brazilian, you cannot just choose whatever country you want to go with a Brazilian passport and being able to live and work in the country. We only had three options. We had Canada, Ireland and Australia at that time. These kind of things change from time to time, right, it’s about like the government agreements between countries, and Australia was the place that was in terms of weather, it was very similar to Brazil. So we thought like, okay, Canada, it’s cold, Ireland’s cold and we like the beaches. So we decided, okay, Australia is the best place for us. But you know, migrating to another country, we could not speak English at all. So coming here and then, for about like five years, fighting for sponsorships which is like the visa that you get through an employer and then you know, learning the language, working as a cleaner, as a waitress.
Fernando:
Working as anything- you just got to do what you got to do. That builds up so much resilience that once we got back into business it was just like flowing.
Mariana:
Yeah, it did help us to have a very thick skin. So for five years we are just hustling, but hustling without speaking the language, and it was just tough working 70 hours a week on your feet and then having to even go to school and then learn at nighttime because you couldn’t communicate right. So it was everything using gestures, trying to read people’s mind, trying to read people’s face, because this is how you communicate when you can’t speak. Yeah, so it was a tough journey. So five years to get our residency. We were in Sydney at that time and then we decided to move to the Gold Coast, which is warmer, warmer temperature, just right at the beach, and that’s when we put our 100% focus into our business, because then we did not depend on any employee for visa and anything else. So it was the time, it was ready, for us to now have the time to set up our own business. So this is what we did and it’s been great
Kevin King:
So do you have Australian citizenship now or are you still want to be on it? Yeah, yeah, so you’re able to do that by starting a business. Was that one of the ways? So you’re trying to get sponsorship, or did that actually end up getting to getting you a citizenship? Or do you have to start a business and hire some people to actually get the citizenship?
Mariana:
No. So what you do when you first come, you come on a student visa right, and then on your student visa visa, you get some jobs and then you have to get a sponsorship through the jobs that you were getting. So we work. Fernando got a sponsorship first with a company. Um, it did not end up very well. The company was just like a bit too working too many hours in a very bad environment. So then we decided to get a sponsorship with another company. So then it was my time to go to my employee and ask for sponsorship and then we did the application. Once you get the sponsorship, you have to stay with that company for two years and then you have to apply for your residency. So then it takes another one year. So in total, you stay in the same company for three years at least. So this is what I did with the company that I was working on, and once I got the residency, then we left that company and then that’s when we could start. We could start a business when you are on a student visa. It’s not a problem in Australia, everybody can start a business here, but to get the visa you have to go through an employer, which was not our company, it was working for someone else, so I can.
Kevin King:
Your English is really good for just not speaking it 10 years ago and I can hear it’s got like a. It’s kind of interesting. It’s got like a little Australian twang but a Portuguese, slant Portuguese accent to. It’s interesting. So very good job.
Fernando:
It’s a mixture of a lot of accents here.
Mariana:
Yeah, and if I can add one more thing, we are from Brazil, but we are from a German background family, so we’ve been raised by German families, right. And then we moved to Australia, and then Brazilians moved to Australia doing business in America and with this mixture of accents.
Kevin King:
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So what? When did you first start doing e-commerce? So you’re working these different jobs and you moved over and what, what? Actually, how did you find out about this whole e-commerce thing and what led you down that path?
Mariana:
So first thing was 2010. I bought an Amazon course in Portuguese.
Kevin King:
In 2010? Yes, when you were still in Brazil.
Mariana:
I was in Brazil, I bought this Amazon PDF course in Portuguese which now, looking back, I think it was very rare for that time right, especially in Portuguese. Someone translating that to Portuguese? But of course, I bought that. I did not even open or touch it right. So eight years later, this is now 2018. That’s when we decided to. Now we need to find some sort of business that we can do, but we want to start a business with a lifestyle. So then we start to research and it came up with some dropshipping, and at that time, dropshipping was a big thing here in Australia, but it was done via eBay. So people would buy on AliExpress and then dropshipping on eBay. So we did that course and we started selling. And you know Kev, the first time you make a sale online, you literally make $5.
Fernando:
You get the bug.
Mariana:
And you are just the happiest person ever. So we were in the job, we were working together. So I was working in the company that I got the sponsorship and as soon as we had a position, Fernando joined the company. So I was the office manager and Fernando was the warehouse manager. So he was dealing with China, importing things we were going to China to see the Canton Fair and things like that but working with a different company, right. So at that time we were just setting up our dropshipping on eBay and we started making the sales, selling literally shit from China on AliExpress.
Kevin King:
What was it called? Sheet? I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding, go ahead.
Mariana:
So basically, yeah, just buy on AliExpress and send it to Australia and just making $5 and just like super, happy.
Fernando:
Super happy.
Mariana:
As soon as we saw that happening, we decided, okay, let’s hire VAs because we are at work, and then these VAs can be like listing things from AliExpress on eBay and we can be making $5, $5, $5, and $5, right. Every sale we get at work we’re like celebrating as it was like the final, like a championship, right. That’s when. But we didn’t realize that we started that I think it was around October, but we didn’t realize that things is slow down because of Christmas, right. And so we had so many bad feedback of really upset people not getting their presents for Christmas, and we got some messages like during our Christmas day, saying I have now a sad child here that does not have a Christmas gift because of you guys or because of your business. And I felt like so bad and I decided this is not the way that I want to go.
Fernando:
That’s not the business we want to have.
Mariana:
So because it has so many other things that you could not control right. So we decided, okay, this is not the business, let’s start over again. So we found um, another dropshipping supplier in Australia, and this is the dropshipping supplier that we made a shopify and we start driving traffic and we had that dropshipping shop selling pretty well. I think it was selling 30 or 40 grand a month.
Kevin King:
This was in Australia, yeah, in Australia, only in Australia. The other thing that you were doing on eBay was in Australia too.
Mariana:
Yeah.
Kevin King:
A lot of people don’t realize. Just to clarify, eBay is still the number one platform in Australia, not Amazon, that’s correct. So just in the US eBay is an afterthought for a lot of people, but in Australia it’s still pretty big. Just to clarify that for you guys.
Mariana:
Yeah, and I would say in terms of number, just for your audience. Have an idea eBay can be up to 10 times bigger than Amazon here, because people are still using
Fernando:
Now Amazon is catching up, but in 2018, there was.. Amazon wasn’t even in Australia. I guess they opened their first fulfillment center in 2018. But it was super slow. There was no traffic at all, yeah.
Mariana:
So, basically, eBay was the place to go for us at that time. So we had this dropshipping and then we decided the next step was we need to build a brand. So that’s when we got into another brand and we set up a brand on the hemp industry. So we were selling hemp accessories. We found suppliers here in Australia, so everything was organic, handmade. Um, then we started selling selling pretty well, uh, cannabis and hemp was a big thing in America at that time. So we thought, like, let’s bring that idea to Australia and be one of the first ones here. But then we encountered problems with supply in Australia, right? So that’s when we decided, okay, this is again not the way for us to go. We’re going to have to find something else. And that’s when our latest business and brand came up. Is that it just happened when we decided to drop all of the other things? But it happened in a way that I’m going to tell the story now. But it happened in a way that was very unexpected. Right, you always try, like, when you are in e-commerce and you are starting, you always try to find your winning product, right, and once you get the feel of like, okay, I found a winner, and you see the sales happening, you see the velocity and you see how much you can achieve with just one product, because you see what’s going on.
Mariana:
We used to be campers, right? People that go and camp on the weekend. Some people use tents when they go and camp and some people camp in their cars, which is called, not everybody knows, but it’s called RVs, which stands for recreational vehicles, right? So we used to have one of these recreational vehicles, which you have a bed inside. Some people have those super cool, nice ones and some people just have one with, like, a wooden panel and a mattress on the top and that’s it. So we were camping with one of these vehicles that we made ourselves. Very simple setup, nothing major, and this was back in Sydney, right? So once we moved to the Gold Coast, we sold the van, so we didn’t have the van anymore, but we had all the accessories that we had with the van. So one night I decided to put the accessories to sell on Marketplace.
Fernando:
Facebook Marketplace.
Mariana:
Just because I didn’t have a need for that anymore. Right the next morning, I had more than a thousand views and I had more than 40 messages.
Fernando:
For one product.
Mariana:
For one specific product.
Kevin King:
So you had an accessory and you were like I don’t need it anymore. I’m gonna put it on Facebook marketplace and you’re like holy cow, look at the demand for this.
Fernando:
That’s exactly it.
Mariana:
And just when we bought that accessories, we saw the need, but we could not find that accessories anywhere in the world.
Kevin King:
A very unique thing, or not?
Mariana:
Very unique, it did not exist at that time. So we found a similar one in Japan and we bought that in Japan.
Kevin King:
Where did you get it originally?
Mariana:
Via eBay in Japan. Yeah, it was a similar one, not necessarily the same, but very, very similar right.
Kevin King:
You bought it for yourself from eBay in Japan. Yeah, you were looking for this type of thing. Actually, we found it very unique.
Fernando:
We got a guy who could speak Japanese. He bought from us from Japan. And that was just it wasn’t properly the accessory we need but we adapt for our usage
Mariana:
And yeah, so this is the accessory that was trying to sell on marketplace later on. So once we saw that many people were interested and we saw the need and we knew that there was nothing like that in the market, because we were the ones to try to find and we couldn’t find. So that’s when we decided, ok, now we have a winner and now we are going to China and we’re going to make this product.
Fernando:
We have the knowledge because I was working in the other company that Mari caused the sponsorship from as a logistics manager, so I was going to China getting all the supplies. We knew how to do it. We said why don’t we try to do that by ourselves, rather than doing drop shipping? Let’s do our private label and, uh,
Kevin King:
So you did you end up selling it to the somebody on marketplace or do you end up keeping that as like your prototype to take to the factory?
Fernando:
We saw that one.
Mariana:
Yeah but we knew how to make it.
Fernando:
Mari is actually a product designer by trade.
Mariana:
Yeah, so it was just a matter of like okay, let’s make this happen, let’s go to China and get a manufacturer to make. So we made the first lot brought to Australia. We sold.
Fernando:
It was sold before it was here.
Mariana:
Yeah, it was just sold out before it was here. We had so many people on pre-order. So as soon as I got all of those people interested on marketplace, I started a pre-order list. I didn’t even have the product and I didn’t even contact the factory, right, but we started a pre-order and put all of these people on our waiting list. So we sold the entire first lot just before it got here, and then.
Kevin King:
How many units was the first lot?
Fernando:
Just a hundred.
Mariana:
Yeah and we still have that. We have a wall here with all of our achievements. We still have the copy of that first PO with that 100. And for us it was a big deal to press the button to pay.
Fernando:
Yeah, at a time it was a lot of money for us. We were just immigrants coming out of our long journey of getting our citizenship. It was tough. We didn’t have any money at all.
Mariana:
And I remember Fernando did all the paperwork. It was everything ready and he just came to me in the kitchen and said I just need you to go to the computer and press pay, because I just.
Kevin King:
That’s what partnerships are for, right, that’s what partnerships are for.
Mariana:
I was like fuck it, just going to press pay. For me it wasn’t a big deal the actual payment, but for him he was freezing. So all of the analysis paralysis that happen to you when you have to make big decisions and especially when you don’t have money, and then you put your money into something that you know you know it’s going to happen. It can be a good thing, but you also have the risk behind right um.
Kevin King:
What does this thing sell for? How much does it sell for what’s a rough rain?
Fernando:
About two hundred dollars today.
Kevin King:
Yeah so it’s about 200, and what? What are you able to make it for landed?
Fernando:
Um, we, we have a margin of about 30 percent of that.
Kevin King:
Okay, so that’s after 140 is your fulfillment cost? Your landing cost.
Fernando:
Yeah, all together.
Kevin King:
You see that’s your bottom line is about $60 a unit after all your costs.
Fernando:
Yeah, exactly.
Kevin King:
Okay, that’s good, that’s good.
Fernando:
That’s in our Shopify because most of 50% of our customers and sales they come from Shopify. Amazon is a bit less because there’s also Amazon fees and all those things. But yeah.
Kevin King:
Is it a big bulky thing or is it lightweight?
Fernando:
No, it’s not bulky, it’s just about this, this, this big, it’s um, it’s a box just a little box.
Kevin King:
Size of a shoe box?
Mariana:
Yeah, basically a shoe box and it weighs about, I think, two kilos roughly two kilos.
Fernando:
Yeah, that was first product. Now we have a bigger range.
Mariana:
We’re now running what? 35 SKUs 35 SKUs.
Fernando:
yeah, yeah, 35 SKUs.
Mariana:
We tend to have high price point products. We don’t want to work with $50 and below products. Most of our products, I would say that our average product price is about $140, $150. And we try to stick with that range of price point because that gives us a good margin to work with marketing, because we do a lot of things off Amazon right. So you need to have margin to run those paid traffic and all of the incentives that you can run on your own website or on your socials, for example.
Kevin King:
So you started on, so you had these 100 come in and they’re basically gone by the time they arrived, and then that was in Australia. So when did you make? I’m assuming you ordered some more, and this time you didn’t order 100, you ordered 500 or 1,000 or some higher number.
Mariana:
So then it was everything going in Australia for a long time. Everything’s fine here, so doing eBay, Amazon and Shopify in Australia, right? So that’s when we decided to take the plunge and go to America. But again there’s this fear of not knowing, the fear about, like money-wise, this scarcity mindset that something can go wrong and you’re going to lose everything and all of those thoughts that come up to your mind. So what we did? Because our product has this like high cost, we decided let’s try Amazon US, but with a very cheap product first and see if works. So that’s when we got into Helium 10. We saw all of your videos
Fernando:
Project x freedom ticket, all the courses, all the information that was online.
Mariana:
And then we decided to get a product which was like nothing related to our brand. It was a commodity, just to see if Amazon works. So it was basically a..
Kevin King:
Plan and learning the system. What’s it take to ship to America? How big is America? You’re just kind of testing the waters, not really trying. You’re trying to figure it out with a product you could care less about just before you brought your winner over.
Mariana:
And if you lose, we will lose. Maybe you know five grand, not if I do that with my product and then I lose. We’re talking about 10, 15, 20 grand, right? So we decided to take the plunge and try with something cheap. But yeah, you know, Amazon, once you put something there, it was just like you can see, the next day you have 30 sales, 20 sales 50 sales and it was just like because it was a commodity and it was cheap. You get those high volumes of sales, so you get like 100 sales a day. And that’s when we were like, whoa, this thing really really works. And that’s when we decided okay, now we can send our stock, but of course we send again, we send. I think it was 100 of each size that we had at that time sold out in like 20 days. And then we had to learn about the restocking and the time frames.
Fernando:
Our product is seasonal too. It’s a summer product, so we had those three months in a year we could make sales. Other than that, the stock just sits in Amazon. So it took us about one year and a half till we got to understanding the seasonality how much products we need to carry on with Amazon. Yeah, it was a tough period but now we got everything sorted, we know how our industry goes, our sub-niche goes, and it’s much easier to deal with Amazon these days.
Mariana:
Yeah, but learning about season, but learning,
Kevin King:
I don’t know about that. Now, seasonal products are one of the products that’s uh going to be a pain in the ass with the new rules. Yeah, the low with a new low inventory, because you don’t want to have a lot of stuff in a warehouse paying storage fees.
Fernando:
That’s exactly that.
Kevin King:
There’s a Amazon’s not accounting for seasonality in this low storage thing. So it maybe they’ll change that hope and hopefully they do, because I spoke with someone uh yesterday from a shipping software company and she wa they were saying, yeah, it’s a challenge right now to actually deal with that issue because you’re gonna get penalized for keeping low stock when it’s low season, when you come back into season, exactly. But so what? So on, just to put it in perspective, what was a good day? A good average day on Amazon Australia Five units, ten units.
Fernando:
Amazon Australia is still very, very slow.
Kevin King:
What’s a good day?
Mariana:
Four units. It’s a good day.
Kevin King:
And in the United States. What’s a good day?
Fernando:
Fifty. It’s ten times bigger, at least, at least.
Kevin King:
So when you saw those sales of that test product, you started seeing dollar signs in your eyes. You’re like can’t take it down.
Fernando:
Before that was just a side gig. We were still working part time to fund the business. And when we went to Amazon America we said we need to leave our jobs and put some more effort here, because there’s a gold mine here.
Mariana:
Yeah, and because we were the first in the market. I don’t know if you had that feeling before, but it’s only you, only you, and then you get all of the sales. There’s no competition, you don’t pay PPC, it’s just like whoa. Now, of course, it’s much harder, it’s different.
Fernando:
There’s all the copycats and everything.
Mariana:
In the beginning It’s just like a blue ocean and you’re just sailing on your own.
Kevin King:
So how long did you have to sail on your own before stuff started coming in and kind of taking a piece of your butt?
Fernando:
The first high season was only us. The second high season we had a strong competitor, so we lost about 30 of our market share and it kept keeps the same now. But the first year, first high season, first year, to be honest, it was just perfect. Just us in the market, all the sales for us, no ppc, nothing. It was just shipping to Amazon and selling happy days.
Kevin King:
So what did you do to protect? did you have some agreements with your factory that, hey, you can’t make this for anybody else? Or did you when that, when the person came and they took 30 of your sales away, what have you done to like keep them from taking 50 or 70? What? What changes have you made? or, if any.
Fernando:
As our product is not a high volume product, we, we are still the ones who sell the most. We have more reviews. We have better products, better pictures, better um copy, because the thing is we need to take photos with each of the vehicles we sell products for and the Chinese they don’t have the vehicles. So we have the photos we have.
Kevin King:
They can photoshop it. Right?
Fernando:
No, it doesn’t look the same.
Mariana:
That’s the thing like when you work with fabric or with textile. It’s not that easy to photoshop something, yeah, um. So in our case, because we work with vehicles, our product, they must be compatible with the vehicle make.
Fernando:
They are made to fit for a certain vehicle. And what happens?
Mariana:
is, vehicles are different in each country. So sometimes I’m going to like, if I’m launching a product in the US and I don’t have that vehicle here in Australia to take photos or to test, I have to hire someone in the US to do the product testing and whatever I need in the US. And what happens in China, for example? They don’t have the vehicles that we have and even if they Photoshop because it’s textile and it’s a see-through most of the products they have like a see-through product. You cannot Photoshop that. It looks completely fake and even if you are the best, the best graphic designer, you’re going to have trouble with that. So we had the photos. But of course now if you go to AliExpress, you’re going to see all of our photos everywhere Alibaba, all of those Chinese websites just because we are the ones that have the database of the photos.
Fernando:
They use our photos. We have to put them down all the time because they keep using our photos. They cannot beat us the product, our quality, is a lot better than theirs they’re trying to. As our product is expensive, they try to make it very cheap with a bad quality and people in our industry, our sub-niche. They want to have a quality product because it’s something they buy only once. It’s a bad thing for us as a business because they don’t come back to buy a second of the same. They come to buy another from our range, but that one product they want to buy to have for a long time. So it needs to be a good quality and if you go and look at our competition, it’s just like one, two stars and our rating is 4.8.
Kevin King:
How did you finance this? I mean, if your landing cost is $100, $140, and you’re ordering just 100 of them, that’s $10,000. Yeah, and now you said, when you came to America, the sales are as much as 10x.
Fernando:
Yeah.
Kevin King:
And you figured out well, we can’t run out of stock. You’re talking about some serious money. Yeah, I mean you’re talking about if you’re selling. You said a good day was 50. Let’s say an average day is even 20 or 30. That’s three to four grand a day in cost.
Fernando:
Yeah.
Kevin King:
And you got to get ahead of it. So you’re talking about inventory buys of hundreds of thousands of dollars, that’s it, and your immigrants coming over and you’re working, you said, as an office and a janitor, and different cleaning and different things. Exactly how did you finance this whole scale out?
Fernando:
There’s the other thing. I come from finance. My background is finance back in Brazil, so I know a lot about finance. In the beginning we needed to make money, so we kept our margins very high. We’re making 50 cents on each dollar we were selling in the beginning, so that made us create a good cash flow.
And again, as we have these high and low season in America and in Australia, we have a lot of stock in Australia during November, December and January and then we don’t have anything in Australia and everything goes to America. So basically, one marketplace is financing the other high season for the other marketplace. It’s not easy. I can tell you that we ran out of stock for so many times and like for even a month. Sometimes we couldn’t. We couldn’t pay for stock.
Mariana:
But everything was bootstrapping.
Fernando:
Yeah everything was bootstrapped took us a long time, I guess the last year we’re fine in terms of stock in all the marketplaces, but up to then we were just trying to do our best.
Mariana:
Yeah, and the other thing that does help us, Kevin, is because we have our own website and we have a big audience here in Australia. We work with a lot of pre-orders, so sometimes if we’re launching a product or if we are out of stock, people will still buy and pay for that. Even if the product’s not here or it’s going to take like 60 days 90 days they are still happy to pay. So this is this is the big thing about I think our brand is that we build a very strong community around um, we get people to help us to product test. We get people to even like if I tell you now, two weeks ago, um, we sold a product to a customer. She came back and said it doesn’t fit my vehicle, but I’m not going to return because I will. I’m good with the sewing machine, I’m gonna adjust it. And then she adjusted, sent us a video and she said like, if you have any other customer with the same vehicle as me, they can do this, this and that. And we’re like oh, that’s nice, can I send you another product? Can you do it for me and then send it back to me and she said yeah, no problem, I can do that. I just received that. It works perfectly. I sent to my manufacturing China. Now I have a new model, a new product that was designed by my customer right and we get people contacting us every week just asking like it’s funny, yesterday I had a guy I want to, I want to be your guinea pig for your new range for this specific vehicle. So if I don’t have access to the vehicle, I just get these people to help us, and they love to do that because it’s the sense of they’re part of something they are helping. They’re not just helping the business itself, but they are helping the entire community to have access to better products, so they feel part of it. And this makes a whole new difference.
Fernando:
Once the product comes to market, they go. I helped them to build that, so they are actually advertising our products too.
Mariana:
Yeah.
Kevin King:
So what made you make the pivot to actually do? You said you’re doing about half your business on Shopify. Is that Shopify US and Australia? Yeah, both. So that’s a whole different animal, Like driving the traffic to that and getting the sales. And so what? What made you decide to do that and how are you balancing this, those two?
Fernando:
We actually started with Shopify. Our store started on Shopify, then we grew to eBay and then Amazon.
Mariana:
So we did the opposite that everybody does right. So everybody goes to Amazon and then we expand to their own website. We actually did the opposite. So for us we had more knowledge on Shopify and driving traffic than on Amazon.
Kevin King:
So, after the marketplace, when you’re like, oh my gosh, everybody wants this, then your next step was before eBay in Australia, you opened a Shopify site. Yeah, straight away, okay, okay, and your next step was before eBay in Australia. You opened a Shopify site. Yeah, straight away, okay, okay.
Mariana:
So that’s when we start to get familiar with driving traffic with social media as well. Facebook ads, google ads.
Fernando:
Instagram. We have a good following in our Instagram account too. Our Facebook group, too, has many thousands of people. It was a huge work in the beginning till we built up our community.
Mariana:
And for a long time we asked ourselves like, are we doing right? Because we just hear everybody saying, go on Amazon and then they expand out of Amazon. We were doing the opposite. So for like I think for like two years, we’re asking ourselves are we doing this right? What are we doing? Because we’re just doing exactly the opposite as everybody else, right. But now, because the situation and everything that is going on, we see that this game of going a little bit off Amazon to diversify it pays off. Yeah, but it’s a long-term game. It’s a lot of effort,
Fernando:
A lot more workload than Amazon too.
Mariana:
Yeah, it’s a completely different game, right, but I think in terms of the risk, it helps you to diversify and not just to be on Amazon. And if something goes wrong everybody here probably had a problem with that, like a suspended leasing or something like that, and you know the feeling, right, it’s just the worst feeling you can ever have. So if you have your Shopify at least now I have 50% of my sales on Shopify If something goes wrong with my Amazon, I can still be afloat with my other 50% of my business running on Shopify, right. So that reduces my risk because I’m not a very high risk tolerant compared to other people. So in this case it does help a lot for our peace of mind, I think, to have this diversification of eggs not just in one basket.
Kevin King:
What’s up, Kevin King here? have you heard about Helium 10 Elite? That’s right. Helium 10 Elite is open to everybody right now. For just an extra 99 a month, you can get access to me, get access to the monthly trainings that we do, where I bring in guest speakers and we do the most cutting edge and advanced stuff for advanced sellers. Plus, I do seven ninja hacks every single month where I’m showing you the latest tips and tricks on how to save money, sell more. It’s just awesome. Plus, we also do every single week we do, a live mastermind call where a bunch of us get on a call, on a Zoom call. Sometimes it’s led by a member of the Helium 10 team and once a month I come on those calls for a couple hours and we just talk about whatever may be troubling you in your business, how we can help each other, what the latest things are that are going on in the industry. It’s a really great mastermind. You get access to that. Plus, you also get to go to the live events that happen four times a year. Every single quarter there’s one in like Irvine or Las Vegas or New York or sometimes in Europe, and you get to come to all those frees and you get additional features with the Helium 10 software. Helium 10 Elite is something you should take a look at. Just $99 a month to add on. Go to h10.me forward slash elite. H10.me forward slash elite. I hope to see you there.
Kevin King:
So you must be somewhere. What are you doing between $5 and $10 million right now?
Fernando:
No, we are coming to $5 million. Close, yeah, close to $5 million.
Kevin King:
Between the two combined.
Fernando:
Everything together, yeah.
Kevin King:
Okay, that’s really good. So is the goal to keep building this and adding? You said you have 35 SKUs. Keep adding more. Or is the goal to build it and sell it?
Fernando:
I think we are in a sweet spot. We like what we do, we have the business very well organized, we have our team of people, so for now we’re having fun. Mari is developing her product. She’s a product designer. She’s doing what she likes. I’m managing the business on the financial side, so I’m doing what I like. And we have a great team of people that we built and they’ve been working with us. They’ve been carrying the business very well. We’re happy with what we’re doing. Business is going well. So why not keep pushing for a little more, you know.
Mariana:
And in terms of the operation, I think we’re just at 10 or 20% of the operation right now.
Fernando:
The two of us.
Mariana:
Yeah, the two of us and then the team took over everything. So we are in the spot now where we are actually doing what we like and what we think we can really add value to the business and to the market. So it’s not just like two years ago where you were doing everything and it’s overwhelming and you have to call Amazon seller central and then you have to put a post on Instagram and then you have to pack up all these downstairs and put in a australian post. Right now it’s a different. It’s a different level where we are and it’s very enjoyable, I think.
Kevin King:
How big is your team?
Fernando:
We have a team of four people overseas, plus the two of us and a few contractors for yeah graphic design developers and stuff.
Mariana:
So six full-time and then other freelancers.
Kevin King:
So how are you deciding what SKUs to add? So you had this one winner that you just kind of stumbled on by accident in a way, and is that still like your number one seller and is it carrying like 60, 70% of your sales and the others are the rest? Or have you got a good balance where you get a good mix of stuff? So your risk is more diversified within your portfolio?
Mariana:
So I think we’re now very balanced. In the beginning, of course, those type of products they were like 70% or 80% of our range. Now I would say that that range of product is about 60%, no more than 60%, which balances out everything. So we are working with 35 SKUs now and we’re going to be adding this year. How many SKUs are we adding? 30.
Fernando:
Another 30 this year.
Mariana:
So this year the product launching is going to be very strong. So it’s going to be like a product machine, because it took us a long time to set up the systems, have the team in place and everything. Now we know that we can grow and add more and more and more products. In the beginning you know, the more you add you have a bigger load and it gets hard on you. Now that we have the things in place, we can just add more and more products. So at the end we diversified with products and we diversified with marketplaces and we diversified with seasonality between countries. So the business itself does not have like one good month and then a low month and things like that. It goes smooth the whole year, just because of the hemisphere, because of the type of product. So now we have a range of products that is better, that is sold in winter. We have a product that is sold in summer. So this helps the business to be very stable and then it helps us to plan and grow the business quicker.
Fernando:
Yeah, and what happens is as again, we make products for vehicles. Whenever a customer comes and we have a database of people asking for products, we don’t just launch, but once we have a certain amount of people asking for that vehicle, we go and make it, and every vehicle we do it’s about five SKUs, so it diversifies a lot in terms of the balance on each vehicle, each product, and now it’s very, very balanced out.
Kevin King:
So these 30 SKUs you’re going to launch this year, those are like variations for different vehicles. So that’s really like, or is it some brand new product that you didn’t have before?
Fernando:
We have three new products that we want to launch and five new variations for the ones we have already.
Mariana:
Yeah.
Kevin King:
What happened during COVID? What happened during COVID? So did you get a big bump? Because people, if you’re in the RV outdoor, let’s go be by myself space, get some fresh air. A lot of people started doing that during COVID. So did you see a huge COVID bump, and is it maintained or does it go back down?
Mariana:
So I think one of the main things about this brand is that it started during COVID. Before that, recreational vehicles, of course they exist for a very, very long time, but it was not fancy. It was not something that people would explore and have specific products for that. Right. Because of COVID, we could not travel overseas, so we had to just travel inside of each country. So people were traveling a lot with their vehicles. So COVID helped us to build this brand from the ground and we really thought like, oh, this is something, this is happening because of COVID and it will drop because people will be able to travel overseas and then they are not going to be travel in their cars anymore. Right, but it was wrong. What happened after COVID, especially that this is a very important point. Like when we first started, we thought, like the avatar of our product was people like us that work nine to five and then on the weekend they go away and they need some products for going camping. Right After one year we realized that our avatar is actually the boomers, so 60, 65, 70 years old, and these people, even if after COVID, they keep traveling and they now have more money than before, so they are actually spending more money on the accessories and we have like a high ticket accessory. So they are the ones spending the money and buying these accessories and they are not stopping after COVID right
Fernando:
Again why I mentioned to you we are not afraid of our competition because we have a high level of product quality and they want that.
Mariana:
So we communicate very well with our avatar and we know their needs. And then what happened after COVID is that they are still traveling and nothing happened. But one thing that we also saw, just like as I think it’s an information to add to the market one thing that we also saw, happening in the last high season in the US we added more accessories, that they are more for cars, right, and we saw a big jump on people buying accessories for car because they’re actually living in the car. Yeah, so one of the keywords that became in our niche, that became
Fernando:
Accessories for living in cars.
Mariana:
Yeah, that increased a lot was accessories for living in cars or living car essentials.
Fernando:
Yeah it’s sad from one side, because we know it’s the poor people, that they need to live in their cars.
Mariana:
So people that are really struggling with the financial situation now they are living in their cars.
Kevin King:
I had an uncle that did that for like five years. He lived in his car yeah, take a shower. He bought a gym membership at a gym.
Mariana:
That’s it. You sleep in a Walmart car park, yeah.
Kevin King:
And when you tell Amazon it’s like deliver it to the third car in parking spot seven. No, I’m just kidding. No, they probably didn’t have it delivered to one of those Amazon boxes, those delivery boxes or something. Yeah, that’s a good point. So you just made a lot of points. You know your avatar. You follow these little oddball trends, like people living in cars, that most people are not even going to think about. How did you actually figure out your avatar? How did you figure out that these are the 65-year-old and up boomers? Did you ask them? Did you take your data and overlay it with something? Or did you just start people responding to you Like, oh, these people, obviously they’re asking the kind of questions that old people ask on the Internet. How did you figure out who your avatar was?
Mariana:
This type of avatar. They communicate a lot right. So, whatever you launch, if you have a website, they’re going to send you an email, and it’s not just one.
Fernando:
They want to call, actually it’s not even email.
Mariana:
Guys, where’s your phone number? Yeah, so I got on the phone a lot because then I could have this connection with them and understand what they want.
Kevin King:
Right, that’s good, that’s important. That’s important. A lot of people don’t do that. Just by talking to your customers. Good, that’s important, that’s important. A lot of people don’t do that. Just by talking to your customers. Oh, it’s so important. You can you, you get inside their head and you get inside, you know.
Mariana:
Yeah exactly and they tell you what they want and what is missing in the market, you know, so you can find these gaps and you can talk to them. So we have a very close relationship, even like we are redoing our entire website now to have bigger buttons because older people they have problems in clicking right on the bigger, bigger font, bigger letters too, yeah, so bigger font. Everything is much bigger because we’re adapting everything so they, they can have a better experience. In the very beginning it was about like talking to them. Even we had a guy one day here. He picked up um one product from us because we used to have that in a garage in the very beginning and he loved so much. He went camping. And then he, he, he sent me some photos. He printed every single page of our website and he stick on his vehicle around his vehicle because he was showing off the product and the website to the people when he was camping. So he was out there it’s like a promoter yeah that’s not.
Kevin King:
Have you met? Have you been to America? Have you met any of your customers face to face like, yeah, we want to take you to dinner. If you’re coming, Fernando, Mariana, we have to take you to the olive garden, our favorite restaurant, or something? As has that happened?
Mariana:
Yeah, so, like here and in America, when we go we always meet people, because we go camping, right, we are the campers, so that’s where we meet, we wear the shirt with the company logo and people come.
Fernando:
Are you guys from that company?
Mariana:
and then they come, they sit, they sit next to us, they want to talk, they want to have a beer, so it’s, it’s fun. And on the weekend we were in a Petri station that we drove like five hours down and we were camping. And then we were in a Petri station and he was wearing a church a shirt and then the girl came to him and say oh, are you guys from this company? My parents love this brand.
Kevin King:
Can I take a picture with? You’re not gonna believe it yeah, you guys are here.
Mariana:
So, yeah, knowing the avatar and having this very close contact. So every time we go, before we launch a product, we know the people that bought from us more than four, five, six times, right, so we have these people in a different um, in a different list. So we send the new products, we open up everything, every detail just before we launch the product we open up for them, or even when I’m designing the product. I send them the like, the first mock-up, and I say, what do you guys think, how much you guys would pay? And I get the reply on the spot. I get exactly how much I should charge. I get sometimes it’s a they write a bible just say change this at the top. You should not do this. I think you should put this, this and that I get like a full report from what they are thinking about the product. So for me as a product designer, it is such a dream to have this connection and be able to get the information that sometimes you’re going to take a long time or years to learn. I get it straight away.
Kevin King:
That’s awesome. You guys are doing it right. I mean, you kind of lucked into it in a way, but the way you’re doing it and identifying and really getting in there with your customers and interacting with them so many people treat their customers as like, oh, I don’t want to deal with them, I don’t want to deal with that customer service, I don’t want to. I don’t just give me your money, don’t don’t talk to me. And the way you guys you’re, you’re integrated, you’re fully integrated into the lifestyle. And then to, even though you’re not over 65, but you’re still fully integrated into the lifestyle and you’re out there meeting the customers. You’re on the ground, your boots on the ground as the owners, not your boots on the ground as the owners, not a rep or somebody that’s reporting back to you. They’re only reporting what they want to report. You’re seeing it firsthand and having this interaction, like you just said, is super, super valuable. It’s super, super valuable.
Mariana:
There is like, as entrepreneurs, there is a lot of money in having that contact, but we most of the time ignore that because we are focused on you know all the metrics. But there is an enormous amount of money that you can make just talking to these people directly and know what they want and just making what they want, not what you think and not you know what you see that someone else is doing. Just ask your people and just go and make what they’re saying, because it’s a high opportunity for you in terms of product development.
Kevin King:
Yeah, you give people. What’s that saying? I think it was Steve Jobs. I can’t remember the exact saying, but he said you don’t make cool things or innovative things. You make things that people want, or something. I got that butchered, but there’s a really good quote around that. I think it was Steve Jobs that said that If you want to sell things, you give people what they actually want to buy, not what you think they want to buy or what is cool and innovative or flashy. Are you guys doing any retail at all or is it still just all online e-commerce?
Mariana:
We are working on a retail project right now. We believe beginning of next year we should be in some retailers. We’re just working on a retail project right now, so we believe, uh, beginning of next year we should be in some retailer. So we were just working on that project.
Fernando:
We do have a few small ones here in Australia, but we wanted to expand because, again, the boomers they want to see, they want to touch, they want to talk to someone. So being in a store will be a good thing for us. We believe so. So that’s another project for the year.
Kevin King:
This has been great. This has been an awesome story. I’m so happy to have you guys on here and even Helium 10 played a small little role. You know, the Freedom Ticket and Project X and stuff played a little role in helping you guys out. That’s awesome.
Mariana:
And we watched you for so long that when we went to the Helium 10 Summit in Vegas it was two years ago, right, you were the first person that we met in the elevator. You, of course, we was I okay that we met you, but of course you didn’t meet us. We got to Vegas, we got into the lift, we open the doors and the Kevin King is there. Like when you watch someone for longer, you have a feeling that you know that person you know so we’re like, oh, best friend, he’s here yep, yeah, you do.
Kevin King:
You know all my mannerisms, you know my speech habits, you know everything. Yeah, uh, that that’s true, that that’s great. Well, congratulations on your success and everything, if, if is there, I know you’re. You don’t want to give away the name of the product, but if someone wanted to learn more about you or find out, is there a way, or do you just want to keep that on the down low?
Fernando:
They can look us up on Instagram. It’s Fernando Spindler or Mari Oberher. And yeah, they will see us over there. You can have a chat and discuss about products.
Kevin King:
Or if they want to call you and talk to you. You have a phone number, right? No, just kidding.
Mariana:
We are the phone number people landline, exactly, yeah, but the other way that people can find if someone is down under. In Australia we have one of the recreational vehicles that we have. It has an office inside, so we drive around and we stop by the beach or we stop by the lake and then we work from there. So we get a lot of people interacting with us because we have the real mobile office and every day we find a different view and you know how it is in Australia, like nice beaches, right. Sso every day we find a nice, a nice beach to set up our office and we work from there that’s awesome.
Kevin King:
That’s that’s awesome. Well, good job. Good job, guys. This is really cool. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing this story.
Mariana:
Thank you very much for having us.
Fernando:
Yeah it’s incredible.
Kevin King:
Awesome story there from Fernando and Mariana on how they’ve built their company, how they’re building a moat around it, how they’re staying in touch with their customers and what they’re doing on all levels. Really really cool stuff. Glad the Freedom Ticket could help them out a little bit in Project X in the beginning, but they’ve been doing this all on their own, so congrats to them. Good job, guys, and a great story. Don’t forget, the Billion Dollar Seller Summit is coming up very, very soon, at the end of May in Hawaii. You can find out information at BillionDollarSellerSummitcom, and also I have my newsletter, billiondollarsellerscom totally free. Every Monday and Thursday, a brand new edition coming out, so make sure you subscribe to that as well. We’ll be back next week with another awesome couple that’s also selling together and their story is a little bit different but also very inspiring as well, so be sure to tune in for that. Before I let you go this week, I’ve got some words of wisdom for you. You know, your identity is your story and your minimum standards. Your identity is your story and your minimum standards. Have a great week. We’ll see you next week.
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