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#468 – Stop Competing on Price & Start Building a Brand That Belongs in Retail Stores

What if the key to transforming your e-commerce brand into a retail powerhouse lies in understanding the nuances of today’s retail landscape? Join us for an insightful conversation with Yohan Jacob from Retail Bound as we challenge common misconceptions Amazon sellers hold about retail. Discover how the post-COVID-19 era has created opportunities for online brands to thrive in physical spaces, with retailers integrating enhanced online experiences and buy online, pick up in-store models. We’ll uncover the strategies behind pricing consistency across platforms and how a strong online presence can serve as a stepping stone to retail success.

Ready to master the marathon that is retail success? We dive deep into the transition from crowdfunding to the big leagues of traditional retail, revealing the strategic planning needed for product packaging, pricing, and marketing in environments like Best Buy, Walmart, and Costco. Through Yohan’s expert lens, learn about the importance of understanding margins, price points, and product derivatives, and how these factors can be leveraged to thrive amidst fierce competition. Hear real-world examples of how brands have navigated these challenges, ensuring their place on the shelves of major retailers.

But the path to retail success isn’t just about getting onto the shelves; it’s about staying there. We tackle the financial intricacies of working with large retailers, from managing extended payment terms to financing purchase orders. Yohan shares valuable insights into the unique world of platforms like QVC and HSN, where product demonstrations are key. Plus, discover practical advice on breaking into the market through smaller channels, honing your craft before taking on the giants. Whether you’re an e-commerce seller ready to expand or an Amazon aficionado eager for new opportunities, this episode is packed with actionable strategies and expert advice to elevate your retail game. 

In episode 468 of the AM/PM Podcast, Kevin and Yohan discuss:

  • 00:00 – Navigating Retail for E-Commerce Sellers
  • 04:37 – Changing Attitudes Towards Online Retailers
  • 07:57 – Challenges of Crowdsourced Product Manufacturing
  • 09:42 – Navigating Retail Margins and Strategies
  • 13:45 – Retail Pricing Strategies and Brand Derivatives
  • 18:01 – Preparing for Retail Success
  • 24:05 – Understanding Retail Economics and Margins
  • 27:46 – Consumer Electronics Profit Margins and Costs
  • 30:23 – Retailers’ Margin and Product Strategy
  • 37:50 – Handling Retail Transitions and Liquidation
  • 42:03 – Exit Strategy for Seasonal Products
  • 42:32 – Navigating Retail Payment Terms and Strategies
  • 48:31 – Retail Financing and Distribution Strategies
  • 54:51 – Exploring Trade Shows for Business Growth
  • 58:11 – Utilizing Brand Exposure for Retail Expansion
  • 1:02:09 – Retail Growth Strategies for E-Commerce

Transcript

Kevin King:

This is episode 468 of the AM/PM podcast. This week, we’re talking to Yohan Jacob from Retail Bound. That’s right, more about getting into retail. I think this is a major thing that a lot of e-commerce sellers need to be paying attention to diversify and to put up a little bit more remote and to become a real brand. As Yohan says, real brands get into retail. Anybody can go to Alibaba and get into Amazon online, but real brands get into retail. We’re going to be talking about that, with a lot of different stuff that you might have heard in some of the other podcasts I’ve covered, so enjoy this podcast about getting into retail with Yohan Jacob. Welcome to the AM/PM podcast, Yohan Jacob. How are you doing, man?

Yohan:

I’m doing great, Kev. How are you yourself?

Kevin King:

Good, I’m really good. Now you’re just up the road from me in Chicago, straight ahead. I mean, I’m in Austin, so I think it’s just a straight line almost up to Chicago, right?

Yohan:

Just about, yep, just about. We’re actually getting your weather today. It’s going to be in the 90s today here in Chicago.

Kevin King:

Oh, that’s our spring weather. Summer weather and fall weather. I mean into September, it’s in the hundreds here in Austin. Yeah, it’s crazy. I got a buddy that’s actually trying to move here or thinking about moving here right now from Seattle and he’s like I came this summer just to see if I could stand the heat of August and September and I don’t know. We’ll see the judgment, I think, is still out if he can stand this Texas heat. But hey, it’s good to meet you. So one of the big pushes I’ve been making here on the AM/PM podcast is for Amazon sellers to start thinking about retail-

Yohan:

Yep.

Kevin King:

A lot more than they have. Some of them have dabbled in it, but I think a lot of them are scared of it. They’re afraid of the unknown, and that’s what I wanted to bring you on-

Yohan:

Sure.

Kevin King:

To help clarify some of that. I’ve had a few other guests on the show that we’ve talked about retail, but one of the things that really struck home to me as a recent guest I had, she’s a Chinese-based seller-

Yohan:

Yeah.

Kevin King:

And she’s like, look us Chinese you know we can compete when it comes to online on Amazon because we got price competitive advantages in a lot of cases. We’re willing to dig deep into the numbers and play the game, but we don’t understand American culture and the biggest thing is we don’t understand American retail. And so that’s all. That’s a huge moat when a lot of sellers on e-commerce are just struggling. It’s a race to the bottom, especially on things that are just commoditized, and one of the ways to establish a little bit of a moat against a lot of the advantage a lot of these Chinese sellers have is to actually get into retail. So how have you seen retail? It’s not dead. A lot of people think it’s dead. It’s still like 80% of all sales, but how have you seen it evolve and change over the last 10 years or so?

Yohan:

I would say a couple of things here, Kevin. So, retail has definitely evolved, especially during COVID, maybe probably accelerated some of these retailers and how they work with consumers like you and I right. So, from better online experiences, from enhanced brand content, better reviews, videos, things like that, to be able to buy online and pick up in store, a lot of retailers have really improved both their web technology as well as their mobile technologies, right, but nevertheless, retailers rely on the web for people for more information. So, especially if it’s a product that takes a little more time to understand, the web is great. Today’s sales associate is very, very busy but knowledgeable, right. A lot of times people check online, do the research, read the review before they actually go in store to pick it up. By the way, retail has definitely evolved the last few years, especially since COVID, by the way.

Kevin King:

It used to be that if you were online, the retailer didn’t want to touch you, um, because they, uh, I remember Best Buy at one point years ago was complaining like all we are is a showroom for people to go buy it on Amazon. And I remember going to a pet expo and trying to get some of my products in some distributors, some pet distributors. I had a line of dog bowls and some other stuff and they’re like are you on? The first question out of their mouth is is this sold on Amazon? And when I said yes, they said, uh, not interested in talking to you. Uh, and, but that’s, that’s changed.

Yohan:

It has changed. You know, honestly, if you’re a 1P um, I would say many retailers like a Home Depot or Best Buy, I would say now, probably interest. If you’re a 3P, a controllable inventory and the promotional price, uh, there’s interest. We’ve had discussions with our retailers and how our clients approach Amazon and their philosophies. As long as retailers and Amazon are on the same little playing field, we’re all good right. If Amazon is lower than a BestBuy.com or Best Buy in-store, best Buy is going to say to the brand well, why are you on my platform? You basically can peek at yourself right on a different platform, right? So as long as it was on the same level playing field, you know, as a 3P vendor, Best Buy, Home Depot, Walmart are fine. You know today on eBay and Amazon.

Kevin King:

So a lot of retailers then what you’re saying is they’re using e-com almost as a benchmark, as a testing ground where they’re like prove yourself with your reviews and some sales volume and ability to stay in stock and that kind of thing, and they’re using that now more as like a testing ground to see if they want to bring this in the store. Is that? Is that correct?

Yohan:

So there’s many paths into retail, right. I would say about a small bunch of our clients come from crowdfunding, kickstarting. You go, go and raise capital and then you go on to maybe DC like Shopify, slash Amazon and then retail. So that’s the typical path for many of our brands crowdfunding, DC, slash Amazon and then retail. We’ve seen brands skip maybe Amazon temporary and go right to retail and then go back to Amazon later on and use Amazon as a bargaining chip. Hey, Best Buy will get a few more opportunities. In-store, online will delay going on Amazon for three months, four months. We’ve seen that work once in a while. But for most product brands we say go on Amazon because Amazon is a giant search engine right. I use and you’ll use Amazon probably on a daily basis. A lot of retailers don’t want to be a guinea pig for unknown brand. So you go on Amazon, right, they can see your sales, they can see your reviews, they can see your A-plus content, things like that, and then it’s okay, you’re a 3.9 or a 4.3 rated brand. I see your content, I can check your pricing right. Yeah, let’s you have a better opportunity to get into retail based on your success on Amazon. Many of our clients who’ve done well on Amazon have seen some of our success in the retail space by the way.

Kevin King:

Now you said a lot of your clients at Retail Bound come in from Kickstarter, and there’s Kickstarter and Indiegogo, the two big crowdsourcing platforms that a lot of people use-

Yohan:

Yep.

Kevin King:

And those platforms. What I’ve found in my experience is there are some professional people on there, but the vast majority of those people have no clue what the heck they’re doing.

Yohan:

Correct.

Kevin King:

And they have a good idea and they create a prototype and they go through that. But they have no idea about the manufacturing side or logistical side of things. And I had a product that I waited seven years for off of Kickstarter literally seven years.

Yohan:

Really. Wow. Really long time.

Kevin King:

Seven years and I think my I probably ordered four or five off of there and typically I don’t think any of them have ever met their dates. Usually it’s six months to a year delay, because they just don’t understand. And then I’m in the business. This one that was a seven year. They were sending updates over the course of. I mean, it’s an interesting story I could tell sometime. I don’t want to take up all the time here, but it they would send updates periodically, every year almost, and like, show me pictures of here it is on the manufacturing line and oh, COVID’s causing a delay, and all these excuses. I’m from that world. I know they’re just BSing. Um, but they ended up changing their entire business model and the product that I paid for about 500 bucks for in total on Kickstarter became a ten thousand dollar product.

Yohan:

Wow.

Kevin King:

So I ended up getting it, you know, at the five hundred bucks, but I had to fight. But yeah, so what do you find when someone’s coming from that world? The challenges are and helping them actually get into retail. What do you have to educate them on? Typically?

Yohan:

So a couple things. So you know, retail is a totally different beast, different from Amazon, different from Shopify, different from Crowdfunding. I tell brands that come from Crowdfunding where they sold, you know, 200 units or 20,000 units. It’s just a number, right. It’s like my daughter who’s 17, she’s applying for colleges in the fall. Um, the ACT SATs. Just a number right. So many things. How does used to accept students or not, right? Same for large retails like a Best Buy part Walmart, that if you’re on Crowdfunding or Amazon or Shopify the sale of our KPIs, like returns and reviews, are just things they consider as part of the overall decision-making process where you get into retail or not, right. But I tell young brands on Crowdfunding that getting into retail it’s a marathon, not a sprint, right, and there’s certain things you need to have in place before you talk. And really like pricing, unlike Amazon or Kickstarter, where you’re paying a commission for success. In retail, as you know, Kevin, it’s a buy sell relationship. Best Buy or PetSmart or Walmart, Target, buy for a cost of X, sell for Y and the difference is what they take to the bank, right. That’s one of the biggest things I think we have to console or console sellers to say it’s margin they take to the bank, they don’t take commissions to the bank right.

Yohan:

Packaging very important, right. You can have a white box on Kickstarter or on Amazon, but on retail, your box has to tell the story right. Poor color, it can’t be just a hero shot. You got to tell the story right. That’s another thing that a lot of sellers, whether it’s crowdfunding or Amazon, are unaware of right. And the last thing, that biggest thing, a lot of young brands, whether on Amazon or crowdfunding, tend to kind of forget as well. Getting a retail like a Best Buy, it’s great, but getting your product in the door is just half the battle. The other half is actually driving traffic and billing to a retailer. Right, you got a product listed on BestBuy.com great. But what do you do as a vendor to build a wearing and dry track to a Best Buy? So in turn, you get those repeat PO. Those are the three things we have to talk to brands about. Hey, it’s your product packaging, it’s your pricing and it’s your marketing strategy that’s going to help you be successful long-term in the retail space.

Kevin King:

So in retail space typically it’s keystones. It’s double. I mean it varies from retailer to retailer.

Yohan:

It also varies from category right, so for example, in headphones, right, margins are typically keystone right, that’s a category. But in TVs, right, margins are usually single digits. Right, it depends on the category, it depends on the retailer. So, for example, we have a client that make a really cool, let’s say, smart ring. Right, smart rings are very, very popular. Right, but one retailer is a Kellogger very popular, right, but one retailer, the Kellogger, the margin is in that you can believe it is in that 50 to 60 point range. Right, where at a big box club retailer like Costco Sand Club, that same ring is around that 15 point margin. So, same product category, right, but different margin. But on the retailer, based on the size and the category. And it’s in-store, online, in-print or on-air. So it varies. But Keystone I use as a good first step, but margin ratio is low as single digit, up to 80%, 90%, 100%, by the way.

Kevin King:

It’s interesting you say that because Costco advertise or they’re one of the things is like we only we mark everything up. I forget it’s very small, like three percent or five percent or whatever the small number is that they claim um, but I think that’s total bs, because a lot of times, uh, Costco’s prices are really not that much more competitive than what you find online.

Yohan:

It depends on the category. I see for um-

Kevin King:

Yeah, it depends on the category. There’s bulk and stuff, but I’m taking a hard driving example or a television. But part of that’s probably because, like you said, the margins aren’t that high-

Yohan:

Or the derivative right because sometimes when it comes to mattresses and TVs uh, they’re on the brand like a Simmons or a Sony. They have a lot of derivatives, right. So the product you may see at a Sam’s club you’re probably gonna see at a Best Buy uh versus a in-and-pick consumer truck retailer because they are beginning to run the retailer, the brand like a Sony or a Samsung may have a derivative for the club channel versus the impact channel versus the specialty channel, like a Best Buy right-

Kevin King:

When you say derivative, that means, like a, a different brand name, uh, but it’s made by Sony, but it’s a different brand name or a different model number, basically right?

Yohan:

Uh, they may change their features. For example, I have in my house I bought maybe 10 years ago it was a we’re coming bike, right, we call it Life Fitness. That same bike was like $2,000 and I went direct to lifefitness.com, right. Costco of the same bike, different color, you know, and instead of having 10 programs they had five. I paid maybe $1,200. All I really need is manual. I don’t care about hills and random right and yeah I saved $800 by going to Costco on literally the same bike. Just a few of those features that I didn’t really need, right, and it was happy. But typically for Costco and Sam Club they want the manufacturer to provide a discount to a member, if your paying membership, to around 20% off the MSRP. And then Martin, usually in that 15, 18-point range. Many, many brands we work with have a map program. So to go around that map program with a Costco or a Sand Club we’ll do a bundle right. So maybe it’s that smart watch with an extra band. So it’s the same price you see at Best Buy, but there’s an extra two or three watch bands to offset that additional, that same price you buy at Best Buy, I guess.

Kevin King:

So that’s an important thing that a lot of people probably don’t realize is that if you’re selling something, let’s say on Amazon it’s I don’t know, it’s six units in I don’t know, say it’s glassware, and they come as a set of six. Sometimes because people don’t these retailers don’t necessarily want people using their phone scanning and doing price comparisons, so you do a derivative, like you said, where it might be only five glasses in there instead of six, or it might be the glasses are an inch taller no, I’m sorry, two ounces more or something, and so that’s something you’ve got to take into consideration where you may have to adjust your molding or your product specs for some of these retailers.

Yohan:

If you can afford it. Some brands are too small to offer a derivative. Have multiple SKUs and match and inventory right. But we tell brands that we want you to come from more D to C. The majority of the business is on the website. They do a lot of Facebook and Google ads, right. And all these promotions right, you know in retail right, you know they can’t even promote every single day, right, it doesn’t make sense financially, right? So what are the key times? So some of our clients, to avoid competing as with themselves with their retail partners, they offer derivative so these three SKUs are for retail only and Amazon, and these five SKUs are for our website, where we can promote and drive traffic, and there’s no common interest between our partners and our website by the way.

Kevin King:

Yes, amazon actually punishes you for actually selling the same product cheaper somewhere else. They take the buy box away, so that helps avoid some of those issues as well. So what does it mean to be retail ready?

Yohan:

So retail ready is a couple different things we talked about earlier. That A, you need product packaging right. That’s really important because your packaging is your best sell. As you said earlier in the podcast, Kevin, 80% in the US is around it’s in the 70s. In Canada it’s a little higher, like in the 80s that people buy in store. I had to go on Costco to go buy those pair of headphones. I saw a great deal on a hard drive. I bought them right. I wasn’t expecting to buy a hard drive, but in the store and saw this great display from Seagate digital and I bought it right. So power packing is probably one of the first things in getting ready for retail. Second thing is pricing right. Uh, again, unlike Amazon or other marketplaces, retailer is a buy seller relationship where it’s, you know, 50 margin or 80 margin. Having the pricing ready to go, um, having logistics figured out, you can’t ship. We said some brands, well, can we ship our products? Uh, from Amazon to Best Buy? Can’t do that right. So, you need a 3PL right to ship, you know, to a Best Buy, a Target or a Walmart or use a distributor in between. But you can’t ship stuff from FBA right to a Best Buy or a Target. I totally could confuse them. And then, finally, the other thing, again ready for retail, is having a marketing plan to build, where it will drive traffic to that retail part of where it’s home people best part. Those are the things that we ask our clients to look at. We help them with before they start knock on door. But a Best Buy, a Target or Home people for example.

Kevin King:

So when you say that the seller or the brand has to drive traffic, what does that really mean? Does that mean, if you’re in a test stores in, say, I don’t know, the Carolinas, South and North Carolina-

Yohan:

Sure.

Kevin King:

And you’re in 100 different stores as a test, that you should be buying social media ads in that area and say hey now available and available at Target, or running little TV ads that you can run on, like Roku and stuff like that, or going out to your list. What does that mean to help support it?

Yohan:

It can be a bunch of different things. Some of them are very expensive for a store test, right? So let’s say you were in a 200-store test with CVS on the East Coast, right? So, honestly, if you’re on the end cap, as it says, maybe you’re doing a promotion at key times, right? So it’s only in the store. Oh, it’s $19.99 on sale for $9.99, save half off. Okay, so you’re running promotions at key times by the most basic that we tell brands to do. Second-

Kevin King:

So that promotion, though just to clarify that promotion that you run in it, that’s you doing co-op advertising with them and giving them credits or paying advertising dollars.

Yohan:

On the back end. A whole margin, yeah. So they’re at $19.99 and you put it on sale for $9.99 for that particular week, right? You give a credit on the back end to hold their margin at whatever percentage you negotiate. So they’re at 40 points of margin at $19.99. They give you a 40 points of margin at $9.99 and you give them a credit, so at $10, maybe you give them like a $4 credit or a $6 credit to hold their margin, but it’s only on net sales, right? Not returns right, net sales. We only sold 10 pieces and he said I’m going to give you $4 each. You give him $40. It’s a pretty simple math. That’s the basic. The second thing is add a dealer locator on your website. Hey, we’re at CVS. A lot of people try and try their website. Hey, where to buy page. That’s another thing I call blowing your fruit. Those are probably the two basic things. Third thing could be training, right, training a sales associate If your product is a little more complex than an iPhone case or a water bottle, right. See if you can participate in some training with a sales associate, right, whether it’s online or in person. Online and then some kind of spiff or self-honest to motivate the sales to push your product that during that time frame. Other things, which is social media that helps. Uh, we’re doing posts and then if you have a peer agency, try and get involved in any and like, we’re seeing that tech, TechCrunch, you know ABC News, right, well, those are the things that our clients buying TV spots it’s very expensive. I would say definitely social. You know, promotions, training are probably the three things our clients do to try to do that 10-week or 12-week test by the way.

Kevin King:

What percentage of the product would you recommend people set aside as a budget for that? Does it 10%, 20% of a year or does it just depend?

Yohan:

Great question, so when we do where our clients, before we even start talking retail, we do what we call price modeling to make sure, hey, that there’s enough money in the till, both retailers, distributors and, of course, the manufacturer. So, when it comes to marketing simply for the category and the retailer, we start on 20%. That’s the number we use for year one and it includes promotions, marketing leverage that retail might include, right, like paid ads, email blasts, paid reviews, things like that, um, sales training, right, about 20%, uh, in year one in year two-

Kevin King:

20% of my wholesale price right?

Yohan:

Yes, yes.

Kevin King:

Okay.

Yohan:

You kind of budget that in there, right. And then as your product is more favorable to customers and sales associates, that 20% becomes less right, because now you’re more well-known with the customer. They know they expect to buy your product at this retailer. Sales associates have slower product, have not a lot of added voice in the customer. So, in year two and beyond that percentage grows. The number may be bigger at your current business but the percentage of sales or cost is much less. So, for example, Samsung. They were a vendor of mine back in the late 90s. Samsung back then was what I call a red-ass child to LG right. It wasn’t the first brand you would choose when buying an electronic product. It’d be like your third or fourth product after a Sony or a Panasonic. Samsung spent a lot of money in marketing in the late 90s, early 2000s and build their brand, building their product right. Today, um, Samsung was a large number. The percentage of sales they contribute to retail is in the low single digits where almost three years ago it was probably 25% to 30% of their cost towards marketing.

Kevin King:

Hmm. So let’s talk a little bit more about how to price the product. So, I think that may you know, in online we say you need a 5 to 7x your landed cost, basically. So if you land something for two bucks you need to be selling it for 10 to 14 at a minimum. When it comes to retail, what, let’s back that up in some numbers. If I got a product that’s on the retail shelves for $29.95, how do I back that down? What am I probably? Let’s just say it’s a pair of let’s just use headphones. Let’s go $49.95, pair of a $49.95 headphones. What am I probably? What is the store probably buying that from? What are they buying that from the distributor from? What do I need to factor in for logistics and advertising, like the 20% advertising, and so where do I need to be on my landing cost to actually make a, say, a 20% contribution margin at the end of the day?

Yohan:

So, you’re at $49.99. Typically, in headphones. Let’s say, using Best Buy as an example, they want at least 50 points. So keystone, right, give or take, do it on the brand right and the price point. So, let’s say they want so their cost would be around $25, right? Let’s say that would be the raw cost, that’s negotiable. But let’s say you’re using keystone, so $25. That including backend rebates. There’s two ways that retailers buy your net-net or cost-plus. Walmart is a net-net house. It’s $25, nothing more, nothing less. Great. Where Best Buy, their cost might maybe be $27, $28, right. But you can ask for some rebates on the back end. They may be. You mentioned co-op I heard earlier, right. Or we call MDF, marketing development funds. It could be a defective allowance. There could be a freight allowance, right. So, you’re on the retailer. There’s different ways. Where it’s net-net or cost plus, let’s say at the end of the day it’s $25 net-net for Best Buy, all the programs on the back end are taken out.

Yohan:

Most likely if you’re a small brand, Best Buy might use a distributor to use because, again, to set up a one-skewed, two-skewed brand online takes a lot of time. In some events it has two-skewed three hours skewed right, so at $25 is the cost the Best Buy would buy from a distributor. You’re looking at probably around $21, give or take for a distributor to get hold of it. So you would sell it to a distributor for around $21. They would sell it to a Best Buy for $25, give or take, right, as it makes less margin. They’re usually between a eight to 15. In consumer electronics, 12 being the average, obviously, I guess a lot of units to make some money, right, because $4 growth profit grows net-net, yes, a lot of units make. So then you gotta look at, yeah, then you gotta look at uh other costs. So you gotta look at. You know, maybe you had a rep, because maybe you didn’t go direct, you had a rep. Reps charge around five percent, commission. Uh, uh, typically for this category electronics, right, so it’s so and I say it’s Best Buy, right, so they bought for $25, right? So you’re looking at a cost of about a you know about a buck and a quarter, right? Uh, commission, every year that’s sold at Best Buy, you’re paying about a buck and a quarter-

Kevin King:

You pay that on the Best Buy price, not on the distributor price?

Yohan:

Yeah, yes, unless you use it. I always use a rep, uh, by a distributor, but typically you know using a rope to hopefully hunt for a retailer, right, they could have a relationship. So around 5%, so about a buck and a quarter. Talk about the marketing fees, right, 15%, 20%, right, and that’s really accrued right. Another fee you got to look at as well, Kevin, is returns right. Typically, we see our client have higher returns on Amazon than just on retail. With Amazon they have a very liberal return policy. Some of them do a Costco or a Norsha, but typically retailers have a 30 policy or less among the category. We’ve seen our clients returns less on read because they have more educated staff. You know walking people through, they can test and take a product headphones. Typically, we see returns ideally it should be that one 2% in the category but we see returns in the low double digits, which is on Amazon right. So you got to factor that in as well. And then you got to look at fixed costs such as logistics, as well as product liability insurance. That’s a requirement. Any retailer, large or small, need product liability insurance. Typically, the minimum is usually $1 million coverage. Max is usually around $10 million, average being around $3 to $5 million. That costs you probably $400 a month in insurance. After you add all that in there, your land costs, you’re probably looking at that $5 to $6 range to kind of affect all the other fees to give you that 30 percent, 25 percent, um gross profit. So example I have a client that makes a very thin wallet. You might see on Amazon, right. Uh, they have a wallet itself like $6.99, right, we had all the fees I just talked about. Uh, their landing cost in the US is around $7, by the way, $7, $8.

Kevin King:

Yeah, so you need, for retail you need an 8 to 10x pretty much to cover your, to make sure you have enough margin left over at the end of the day after you cover all of your expenses basically.

Yohan:

And some of our clients-

Kevin King:

Maybe not for a big TV.

Yohan:

And some of our clients are okay with single digit margins versus, because maybe they have a called the range. Maybe they sell a product, the hardware. There’s a back end, like an Arlo camera. I need a subscription to keep it going. So, depending on the category right, they may accept lower margin but they offer a back in. You know they sell a subscription or you buy accessories like a razor blade to use the razor itself.

Kevin King:

Yeah, so they take a slower, a lower margin on that and then make the money up on the uh, the consumable part of it. Um, just like laser printers do.

Yohan:

Yeah, you got ink and toner, that’s correct.

Kevin King:

Yes. So, what is it that retailers are looking for? Are they looking for something that’s got a proven record? Are they looking for unique that’s like unique to them or unique to something that’s really not in retail? Or are they looking for stuff that has a proven track record when I’m approaching them?

Yohan:

All of the above on the buyer and the category, right. I think a lot of times, if you’re another, another headphone that sounds like $49.99, well, the best way to see it headphones. Why would they pick you up when they have already literally 16 feet of headphones and then online, probably 3,000, right? So if you’re in a commoditized category like headphones, is there a feature that you can different? That is well, that’s kind of cool. So I’ll give you an example using headphones. We actually had a client in 2018 that was in headphones. It was in that when we first started 199, which is kind of tough because now you’re with a Sony and a Bose and an Apple at 199, right but they had a feature that was kind of cool in their first gen and beyond, that basically did a hearing test of your left ear and your right ear, their personalized technology. That’s why that was kind of cool. Honestly. Eventually, by the time we got to the second gen, it was at 149, right, it was cool. Guys had loved it. They actually put it in about 320 stores as a test and did very well because, again, while it’s a headphone very saturated, there’s something different, something unique.

Yohan:

So a lot of our clients at Retail Bound, Kevin, are your first to market, or they’ve taken a category like a wallet, been around for a long time, add a feature that no one else has. Right and again, retail are looking for something that’s different, unique and try to try their stores. Really, if you’re the lowest price headphone, you may get an appointment, but a retail buyer looking for a product that has some sales, good reviews, has some cool, unique features that a retailer can boast and brag about and find that there’s a campaign to build awareness to drive traffic to that retailer like a Best Buyer or Home People.

Kevin King:

So, walk me through the process of actually talking to one of these buyers with your company, or if I’m doing it directly, so I’m knocking on the door. Are you guys on behalf of your clients are knocking on the door? And what is that door knock? Is that a phone call? Is that a? Here’s a one sheet, here’s a one sheet and a sample, here’s a little gift package. And then, once the buyer says, okay, I’m interested, tell me more. What happens next? Is it a phone call? Is it go to Bentonville with Walmart and sit down and make a presentation? And what do I need to have prepared for this whole process?

Yohan:

So for us, typically it’s a phone call or an email to the buyer or using our rep to open a door, right. It’s typically a phone call or an email, maybe with a sell sheet and some information like, hey, they’re on Kickstarter, they’re on Amazon, they’re reviewed, they’re featured on Good Morning America today, right, they kind of what the buyer’s appetite. Okay, kind of cool, right. Once there’s interest, we have the view, the demo, where maybe it’s a first date via Zoom call. COVID has definitely changed. In old days you would go in person, maybe with Walmart Benneville in the first date, maybe it’s a Zoom call, and then maybe the second date, maybe you’re in person in Benneville or you’re shipping a physical sample to the minimum Walmart’s office to review and test, right. But it’s definitely changed since COVID. But, yeah, typically a phone call or email, a little sell sheet and some other stuff to kind of whet the buyer’s appetite. Then you get the goal is to get a phone, do a demo of your product. The second goal of that is to actually get someone out the buyer to play and test with and hopefully between the buyer and how and his or her decision-making process. Hopefully you get an opportunity to get an online or in-store test before weird things roll down the road. But typically it’s a phone call or email with a sell sheet and some tidbits. Next thing is they get a product in front of the buyer to play and test. Hopefully if it’s in-track, then you do the negotiation, the song and dance.

Kevin King:

This means if I’m a Kickstarter or I’m a new product. If I don’t have the product yet, I’m either using prototypes to actually try to get in the door-

Yohan:

I wouldn’t do that, I wouldn’t. If you’re a kickstarter-

Kevin King:

Or I’ve already done my first production run of stuff and I’m taking it from there.

Yohan:

And that’s why many brands, you know you mentioned earlier Crowdfunding first, DC, Amazon, second every because, again, you know, while we want to touch this corporate brand until a, you’ve already shipped the backers. You got some feedback right. Uh, you’ve made some adjustments right. And then, I talked about earlier, you have some pricing, you have packaging, you have logistics, you have marketing figured out. So, typically, when it comes to crowdfunding, it’s a little longer of a timeframe before they start talking to retailers.

Kevin King:

Now, that’s for newer people, but if you’re an established brand, they may take your next product or something without you having to have to go through this whole process, right? I mean, Nintendo is not sending samples of the switch-

Yohan:

Let’s say you’ve been selling in Amazon for 10 years, right. Dog bowls you mentioned, right, or dog product, right you guys a little Petco and Pet Smart, right? Um, you have a sales history, right, uh, and you want launching products where you can be with Walmart or Sam’s Club, with the pet team, and kind of show them your products, show them your track record, show them reviews, right, show them your community right, with the whole goal of getting online in-store in the near future by the way. And in each retailer, by the way, each buying category has different buying cycles. So, in categories like dog bowls, we’re not allowed to do tech every year. It might be every few years when a buyer wants to switch out new product or new vendors. In electronics, where the tech changes on a weekly or day basis, you’ll see a lot more transitions, depending on the category and the retailer. You might see one or many transitions. Does that make sense, David uh, Kevin?

Kevin King:

Yeah, yes, that’s interesting. So, depending on your product, you may be waiting a while before they do-

Yohan:

Yeah so let’s say-

Kevin King:

A line review, or what do they call that?

Yohan:

Yeah, line review. Line review or category review.

Kevin King:

Yeah for that. And so then, basically, uh, usually for you to get in, someone else has got to go.

Yohan:

Uh well, it depends. It depends on the category again, there’s a lot of what ifs. So let’s say, it’s a camera that’s growing, right, they want to add suppliers, right. So if it’s category that’s a client or flat, you know, you have to do a really good job of convincing the buyer why they need to replace brand A with your brand. It takes a lot of work. Online is one thing, but in-store it takes a lot of work to replace a vendor, right. Online is a vendor that’s doing a bad job, right. So you’ve got to tell the story why. So maybe your product has a better margin, maybe you can replace two or three vendors with your assortment, maybe a better marketing program, better social following right, if you’re going to try to replace an incumbent that’s already there on the floor.

Kevin King:

You said earlier to leave like a 2% to 3% allowance it depends on the category but a 2% to 3% allowance for returns when you’re running your numbers.

Yohan:

In the category Kevin, some products you want back. Maybe you say when you negotiate with a retailer, if they’re returned, they’re always returned. Do you want it sent back to you when you’re paying the return freight, or do you want to offer a defective allowance or destroy it in field right? So I’ll again. There’s a lot of what ifs when developing your pricing model for with, like, a Walmart or card by the way.

Kevin King:

Yeah, that’s what I was going to say is, a lot of times I think a lot of people don’t realize that returns actually aren’t sent back to you. Um, that a lot of times it’s like and uh, I, I sell calendars at retail. Uh, wall calendars and stuff, and it’s just, uh, used to be in the old days. It’s like they tear off the cover and just send you the covers back on instead of the whole thing, just to reduce the weight. And uh.

Yohan:

Sure.

Kevin King:

But now it’s just trust. Uh, it’s like, yep, we didn’t sell this many. We’re like, eh, you sure about that, but that’s, it’s a trust thing. Or I just recently had a. I bought a humidor, cigar humidor it’s like 700 bucks and they don’t want to mess with getting that thing back. So they just said take a picture of the serial number, peel off the sticker and cut the cord is what they told me to do. Cut the power cord in half and show them a picture of that and that’s considered the return. It’s up to me to dispose it. But the manufacturer, they’re just eating whatever their cost is and it’s just not worth getting it back. But what if I get into stores and I just tank, so they end up pulling me. What’s the best way to do liquidation when it comes to retail?

Yohan:

So if, by chance, you get into retail, it would say let’s do the store test, it’s easier. It says 200 stores. It didn’t really hit the KPIs that you and the buyer kind of agreed upon, right? What do you do? Yeah, you can send it back, but the problem with that is that the only way to get rich is the truck drivers right. The product you do get back may not be sellable, right. May not be your product, might be, you know, a competitive product or something. That’s a totally different category. But typically, we tell our clients, if you’re in a situation where you did a store test or you’re a referral and didn’t hit the going at it either, you know need to get rid of it. Typically, we call it markdown money or, if you have a promotion, to try to sell through versus trying to take it back. Once you try to send it back, you won’t get it all back and it’d be not sellable. So typically you have a budget set aside to either mark down the product or just sell through and that way it’s a clean transition between you and the retailer.

Kevin King:

What about seasonal products? A lot of times seasonal products have you know, after the season the retailer ends up discounting them and just get rid of them, whether that be Christmas products or Easter products or whatever, and a lot of people don’t realize that. Oftentimes it depends on your contract, but oftentimes you have shared markdowns. So, if the original price was $20 and they lower it to $10 just to get it out the door, they’re not paying you the original wholesale agreement price. They’re paying you now half of what they were paying before.

Yohan:

Yeah, so when you’re working with a retailer a lot of our clients 40% of a cost to a Walmart or Target, we also got to plan what the exit strategy may be. Where it’s a seasonal product or probably be there in store for two, three years, right, what is your exit strategy? Right? But yeah, in some situations it’s a tier or a volume like gates. So you know, $10 off, $20 off and so forth. So that’s the ghost bowl. Um, but it’s also budget. Before we actually present to the retailer our first cost, try to get into store, by the way.

Kevin King:

Yeah, and then there’s a lot of other fees. If you put a label in the wrong place, there’s a hundred dollar fee. If you put a, if you do this, they can nickel and dime you some of these, uh, these places.

Yohan:

It’s very important if you’re getting a retail, especially the larger retailers that you or someone who’s in charge of logistics reads the vendor manual. We call it the routing guide, so how you process orders, how do you prepare orders, how do you invoice and things like that. So it’s very important when you get that vendor routing guide or vendor manual that you were in charge of logistics reads from cover to cover, by the way, not to like. You’re right, because you made a few ish mistakes those telling charges, each into your product margin. Simply, if you’re a brand new vendor at a retailer um, like a Walmart or a Target they’ll give you a first pass, fine, first mistake. Kevin, don’t do it again. Do it again. I will definitely take a mirror. But with paying charges, you know the buyer doesn’t get it. It goes into the vendor compliance department. If you’re going to give away money, I, the buyer, want that money for marketing and give it to a different department at my company for vendor compliance. So I’ll see the buyer will try to help you and work with you. But it’s really important you read the vendor manual and make sure you know how to process and prepare orders to ship to a retailer.

Kevin King:

Do you got? Now you’re. We’re talking, we’ve been talking about retail Target, Best Buy, Walmart and so on. What about? Well, it used to be QVC and HSN, now they’re one. But what about QVC? Do you help people get into platforms like QVC?

Yohan:

Yeah, ASN is actually starting to die off. As you remember, you just said the parent company of QVC called Curate. They actually bought ASN a few years ago. It was shared QVC and ASN. Over the last few months they’ve seen the teams being slowly phased out. I don’t know if they’ll still run ASN as is, but QVC is definitely the big brother. QVC is a little different. Their metrics are more how many dollars per minute on air you can produce where in retail it’s dollars per square foot. On air and in-store. Different KPIs with QVC and typically it’s not a guaranteed sale. We think we’re going to sell based on the goal that 5-minute airing on QVC on air we are going to sell $25,000. Based on your cost and sell we need 2000 products, 2000 units, right? So you got to have 2000 units in in your in QVC warehouse or at or a distributor that can drop ship on behalf of QVC.

Yohan:

Let’s say, only sell 500 units. Okay, it was a success, right? You have to buy back the inventory from QVC Warehouse or if you’re a distributor, you sell the remaining 500 units to other retailers like a Target, Best Buy. The only cost we like QVC for products that need to be demonstrated, like a headphone, right, it’s a little more complex versus an iPhone case. We like that. We have a video, a commercial that we can show other retailers. Right? And the cost, while the margin is a little high, the really only cost up front, including the inventory, is paying for the on-air talent, the TV host, and typically the cost for a TV host is between $500 to $800 for someone to be a professional spokesperson before you’re at five or eight-minute airing on QVC.

Kevin King:

And they get a commission too off of that too right?

Yohan:

No, no.

Kevin King:

Or is it just a flat fee? No, just flat fee.

Yohan:

They’re your TV host, they’re out there, they’re professional, they’ve been trained right and they’re out there. But they don’t get a commission. The margin would go to QVC and they do have a small, very small back-end rebate, but typically the upfront cost, uh other than the inventory you got set aside, uh is the on-air host. Uh to you know publicize your product on air.

Kevin King:

Let’s talk about money um, talk about getting paid first and then how to actually finance uh, some PO. So a lot, a lot of these retailers pay on a net 60, net 90 term sometimes and some seasonal products I mean, like Calendar Club, for example, is someone I sell to. I just, literally in June of this year, got paid my final payment for a shipment I made in August of last year. So it’s almost a full year cycle before I’m completely whole on a purchase order. And now they make a initial payment in December based on a certain percentage of sell through. And then your cleanup. I call it the cleanup payment. It’s supposed to come at the end of April, April 30th per their contract, but they never pay on April 30th. They drag their feet and pay whenever they feel like it. Um, and that’s typical for a lot of retailers. I mean, some are very, very good and very, very on time, but you got to be prepared to like, be, uh be, waiting for your money for a while and-

Yohan:

It depends the region we work with like the Best Buys, the Apples, the Costco’s, the QVCs we really have to chase them down for a payment. Obviously the profit on selling well, yeah, maybe a little slower, but typically payment terms range from net 30 to net 90, 60 being the average. Some retailers offer payment discounts like 1% 10 net 30, meaning they pay your invoice in 10 days or less. They get some 1% off. Or it’s 2% 10 net 60 or 2% 30 net 60. I apologize, the only retail we work with that have net 90 terms is QVC. They just basically change, but the bigger retail are usually CIGI days and the more the regional retail or the smaller retail are usually 30-day terms by the way.

Kevin King:

What about with distributors? If I sell to a distributor, I’m selling to them. They’re paying me, or up the chain is paying me.

Yohan:

They’re paying you. Typically, the distributor terms are usually 60 to 75 days because obviously they’re waiting to get payment from their retail. Again, they’re pretty good at managing their money. Typically, your term for a distributor is usually wrong. It wouldn’t be upside, that would be hey, it’s 30 terms as a distributor and 60 for the retailer. That’s upside down. Typically distributors are usually 60 days. Some distributors and retailers, by the way, use consignment as a term. Consignment people don’t know what it is. You basically get paid what gets sold through. Payment terms are a little less. Let’s say Staples. They’re known for in-store for smaller brands to do consignment. If you’re a stock vendor, it was 60 days. If you’re a consigned vendor, it’s usually 30 days. So that means let’s say they bought $10,000 of inventory at Staples and you’re a consigned vendor, I only sold like a hundred hours month of June. You’ll get paid a hundred dollars in 30 days from now, versus you’re a stock vendor. You paid the that $10,000 in six days from now.

Kevin King:

Whether they sold it all or not yeah.

Yohan:

Correct.

Kevin King:

So what about? I mean there’s. What about how? How am I funding my POs? Do I need to have a rich uncle, or a good bank.

Yohan:

If you let me know.

Kevin King:

Because if it’s a, if it’s a two months, say, manufacturing process, I’m one month on the water process, some other logistics, and then I’m getting. I’m not getting paid for 60 to 90 days in most cases. I’m floating a bunch of money. I mean it comes in strong tranches, but I’m floating a bunch of money for potentially nine months to a year.

Yohan:

Could be yeah, demand the category and the volume. So many of our clients you know, uh, we only we start small, right. We treat our clients like our money, so typically it’d be more smaller regional retailers, online, in print, even on air. Let’s make sure things are happening before you get a bigger opportunity. So one you’re sales are consistent, not up and down, your supply chain is bulletproof and you get paid on time. Once those things are happening, Kevin, that makes sense to scale up. For many brands we work with, it’s all domestic. We don’t import. So that reach, like Home Depot, Lowe’s, Walmart, Target, the buying from the client’s warehouse here in the US Maybe it’s a case pack, maybe it’s a pallet. Not buying a 20-foot or 4-foot container. So these are small, manageable. But you need that inventory right. That’s in your warehouse, right.

Yohan:

If you got a large PO that you could be in store in fall 2025 or winter 2026, and it’s you know, a quarter million dollars or money you might have in a piggy bank. There are ways you can get finance. But many large banks will help finance. If it’s a well-known read, like a Walmart or a Target, uh, there are companies that can factor your first order for a percentage right there’s. Or if you’re a rich uncle or his grandma, I mean, they can also. But there’s ways you can. You can factor, you can get financing for that PO if it’s a well-known retailer. If it’s a small retailer, it’s like $2,000, you can reach on your own. But if it’s a well-known retailer, like Target, and it’s a $100,000 RPO or it’s a million RPO, there are ways to get financing for that person. You owe the bill for six to nine months, by the way.

Kevin King:

So, besides the big distributors and going direct to these big boys, what about all the mom and pop stores, all the little gift shops, and then the tourist areas and stuff and websites like Fair and other things like that? What are some other options to get into those type of things? Or do you need a sales force and a sales team to go out there?

Yohan:

No, it’s a lot of work. I mean, you’re not going to get a rep interested in selling to a small ma and pa on commission. Typically, your best bet on those smaller retailers is you mentioned fair is one site. Maybe it’s a trade show that you exhibit at. That you can find some more small-mouthed pies, or it’s a distributor. Typically it’s the A20 row, right? So a lot of our clients are the bigger retailers. They’re working direct with our help, right? Because those larger retailers provide 80% of the buying right. So, a small amount of shops isn’t worth the time to offer kind of service, credit terms and things like that as well as set up and managing a small amount of pie. But you may buy a couple of dog bowls per year, right? So those smaller accounts should be handled through a distributor, right? Those bigger accounts, hopefully, you’re handling direct, like a Pet Co, PetSmart or a cart, for example.

Kevin King:

What about exhibiting at trade shows to actually find potential buyers? I mean, is that a good method? I mean where you just find your industry trade show, where the buyers go for your type of product, and are those good ways to actually build relationships and to get out there versus?

Yohan:

If you don’t have a read to bow in your corner. Trades are a great way. It’s expensive, but it’s a great way to find potential partners to work with right. Retailers to work with. Obviously, that may not stop by a booth, but you might find a regional retailer that may stop by a booth right to say, hey, let me see what you got and to see if we can work together right and again around the trade show right. Could be a way of just networking and building relationships, right, but trade shows are a nice way and since 2020, they’re slowly coming back. They’re not fully back before COVID, right, but trade shows are slowly coming back. Since the COVID days, we’ve seen our clients who use trade shows not just to find new retail partners, but also help launch new products, get media attention, find new partner versions, PR, product sourcing, things like that as well as being reliant on existing retailers who happen to be at the show things like that right. But traditions are a good way of trying to find new retailers to work with, depending on the category.

Kevin King:

So what are some of the biggest do’s and don’ts that you see, that you can leave us with here if you want to get into retail.

Yohan:

So don’t send samples. I can’t tell you that as a buyer. How many samples I got I didn’t ask for. If you do meet with a buyer, don’t over-promise on the deliverer. I always tell our clients the secret of success in retail is making the buyer’s job easier. The buyer calls you, emails you because he’s bored and because he needs something to get his job done. I would say we talked earlier about our big mistake a lot of Amazon brands do when trying to get into retail is be lower on almost a daily basis than retail. Kind of stupid, you’re telling it yourself. So, make sure that your pricing strategy, your marketing strategy, is somewhere between Amazon and retail. And then, finally, the last thing, I think the biggest mistake a lot of brands do is once they get into retail, like fast buyer or depot, they go, oh, my job is done, it’s not done, Kevin, it’s just begun. And how? What do you do? You need to work with a land show yeah, it’s not just 100 product and say, okay, I’m done off the next retailer. It’s like a marriage, right, it’s about building a relationship with that retail partner. And what can you do together with partners to be successful? Uh, in your stores.

Kevin King:

Do you find that oftentimes maybe that first retailer is the hardest one to crack and to get in? And once you’ve got into one, then the other buyers start paying attention, like oh, he’s in a, he’s in Walmart, so maybe we should get them in Target too.

Yohan:

Yeah, I would say it’s funny. So a lot of buyers. They don’t want to be the first retailer to say yes, but they don’t want to be the last. It’d be the fear of missing out. Once you get the first name retail on your resume, it does help open doors. For example, we had a client that did very well at QVC on air back in late 2023. We used that to open doors. Today they’re in over 4,000 stores in about a year and a half where it’s the military specialty mass right. But yeah, QVC got it on air, did very well, used the KPIs and, of course, the video, and showcased our bar like a Best Buy, a Verizon, Walmart, Dick’s Sporting Goods. It started to snowball. Once you get your first retailer, it does help discussions with other retailers down the road.  

Kevin King:

Do you have any examples of just someone listening that maybe they’re sitting here? They’ve been selling Amazon for the last five years. They’re doing all right. They’re doing a couple million, let’s say a year on Amazon. If they go into retail and they have success, what do you think they could do to the numbers? Is it fair for them to say I might be able to double my sales to $4 million a year because I’m in retail, to $6 million, to just add a little bit? I know it varies by category.

Yohan:

It’s hard to say because it depends on you know. Do you have a team like Retail Bound that’s managing the relationship with the retailer? Are you doing promotion at a key time? Are you being aware what are the competition doing? So, it’s hard to say. If you get into retail, it’d be two times, ten times. I would say, a third of clients who are already in retail and Amazon, but they’re going the wrong direction because no one’s really managing the ship. They hire us to get them back on the track. Other clients have done well on Amazon and are looking to not rely on Amazon only. Maybe they’re a sole source of income. They want to put their eggs in other baskets and be in Brick and Mortar, be in Kellogg, be on Air and be more as a brand. Again, Amazon is great. It’s awesome when you get into a retail like a Best Buy or Target. It does two things. One, it exposes your company to customers that want to find you because Amazon around the category it’d be hard to find that iPhone case or that headphone when Best Buy in store was still a large number. It’s not thousands and thousands of listings, right, it’s a more creative sort, right. But two, getting it in store at a Best Buy or a Walmart gives you street cred or it seems like you’re a brand, right, and you and I can go to China get a product put on Amazon. Are we a brand? You know that’s going to be debatable, but when we get it in store at a Walmart or a Best Buy, you know you can probably say the latter, that we are a brand because Best Buy or Walmart they want to buy brands for their customer shop.

Kevin King:

So, if I do want some help and I want some guidance, and this is something I want to explore how do I reach out to you guys and work with you?

Yohan:

Sure, so our website is retailbound.com. We’ve run for about 17, 18 years and we are a full-service retail solutions agency that helps inner brands like yours scale really another. They’re on the time, they have the experience, they’re local to the US or they don’t have the connections in place and our job is being an interim uh solution. So, our job is to work with a client for x number of time, get them launched, get them growing and then basically turn the keys over to them to take over someday in the future.

Kevin King:

Awesome. Well, this has been great. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing Yohan. This has been awesome.

Yohan:

Sure, I appreciate your time here, Kevin.

Kevin King:

So if you want to get into retail and you want to do this yourself, you can do that. But I recommend actually going with someone that does this day in, day out, has all the relationships. But if you do decide to do it yourself, one of the best ways is probably to start small. Don’t try to go after Target or Home Depot or Best Buy and Initial, because from the buyer side, they’ve seen it all and you want to kind of hone your skills. So maybe go to a fair, go to the smaller retails, kind of perfect your pitch and perfect everything. Get a few little numbers coming in, even though they might be small, and then from there go into the bigger guys. That could be a strategy. Another strategy is to actually subscribe to my newsletter Billion Dollar Sellers. Billiondollarsellers.com is the address to get on the list. It’s every Monday and Thursday, actionable tactical stuff for e-com and Amazon sellers. You’re going to love it. It’s totally free every Monday and Thursday, like I said, and speaking of Thursdays, every single Thursday we’re back here with another episode of the AM/PM podcast, so I hope to see you again next week. In the meantime, have a great rest of your day and rest of your week, take care.


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