India Sourcing Trip - Interview With Meghla Bhardwaj about Sourcing from India

hi everyone this is Jelena from Amazonia PPC and today with us we have a very very special guest today our guest is Neela Bhardwaj she's the founder of India sourcing trip and also has 20 years of experience in sourcing from India she has become very familiar lately especially because she's a public speaker analogies Amazon related events and we are very happy and honored to have her as our yesterday to talk about sourcing from India so Mila welcome and we're happy to have you here thank you so much for having me on the show you the night it's really nice to be here awesome for us too can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and what it is that you're currently doing yeah absolutely so basically I've got almost 20 years experience in sourcing from India and China so I started my career in India working for a company called Global Sources that's basically a marketplace and then I moved to the Philippines I worked there for three years and then I moved to China and I was based in China for about 10 years before moving to Singapore I'm currently in Singapore and between here about 5 years so when I was in China I used to do I used to work on research reports for importers and that's how I got a good understanding of how manufacturing and exports and trade work I used to visit a lot of factories in China and write about how products are manufactured in in China and in the factories you know what what are the things that affect product quality and the price and what are the challenges that importers will face when sourcing from China and also India so that's my background and then when I was in in China and also in India is to visit a lot of trade shows and you know that's how I got a good understanding of how do how to attend trade shows if you're a buyer to to look for new products and then more recently about four years ago I started working with Amazon sellers organizing a conference for Amazon sellers who are interested in sourcing private label products from Asia and the conference was held in and then last year I started this trip to India called India sourcing trip like you mentioned and because I saw that there was a need for Amazon sellers to diversify their sourcing to other countries and so you know there was there were a lot of Amazon sellers who were asking me how to source from India because I'm of Indian origin and you know I have some experience there so then I thought that there was I saw the need in the market for more education and you know just just more information about sourcing from India so that's how you know the trip and everything started interesting and definitely there is a huge opportunity for sellers and also for manufacturers from India to connect and do business together especially having in mind these latest trends that have happened in legislation from the USA introducing tariffs to Chinese exporters and also more and more Chinese sellers joining Amazon Amazon platform so what is your take on these latest changes especially in the last couple of months yeah definitely I think what sellers have realized is that they cannot put all their eggs in one basket they have to diversify their sourcing marketplace you know where they sauce from to diversify their risks because when the trade tariffs happened when the you know tension between the US and China occurred then a lot of people were affected significantly their production costs increased and it was just not profitable for them to source you know those products so it affected a lot of your Amazon sellers and that's when they realized that oh there is a need to diversify and I think one of the reasons that you know sellers are looking to India is because there are a lot of unique products that can be found in India that are not available in China or in in other countries there are a lot of handcrafted items that India specializes in that are high-quality and that are quite differentiated and that you know also helps sellers to differentiate their own because everyone is sourcing from China but if you have a product that's different it sauce from another country then you know that gives you a competitive advantage and a lot of these products are you know hands made handcrafted and they can command a higher price and therefore they can be more profitable so that's another thing that I'm seeing you know sellers doing when they're sourcing from India they're also they're also developing stories behind the products because a lot of these products are manufactured you know like by people in villages or by women in villages or you know by like underprivileged communities for example there's this one supplier that that that produces products with the help of tribals you know there are these tribal people who live in a car in a certain city in India and then they produce all of those products so there are stories that can be created around products that are sourced from India mm-hmm I agree I agree usually everything is moving towards direct-to-consumer model and when it comes to online e-commerce businesses so one of the ways that businesses such as direct consumer brands will survive in 2020 is through creating a dialogue with their customers and if there's like a backstory to how these products are being produced in can definitely be a contributing factor and also one of the things that we have is a feedback from one of our clients is that quality of these materials that are used in India for the same or very similar price are much higher than the quality is better than when it comes to from China so for example one of our clients has a brand that is in the home deeper industry but they have sort of transcended into a b2b brand that now sells Hotel accessories and all of their are all their products are imported in sourced and from India and they just want like you said they have like a higher price points so they don't really necessarily based their business model on the economy of scale but rather than that they just focus on working with higher-end clients have you know lower volumes but higher profits in general and a lot of sellers who do their product research one of the main you know conditions for them to even consider selling the product there's a certain price point below which they won't even go like you know some of them say it's $20 selling price and someone would say it's 15 whatever works for them in terms of sales volume per month so I can definitely see that there's an opportunity there for from sourcing in from India so you mentioned that there's this brand it makes their production come in a collaboration with some tribals so how does this work how do they ensure the quality is top level so first of all you know going back to the previous point I also want to point out that in India if you source a product from an export focus supplier then the quality is really good and you also get you know the designs and all are suited to West and tastes because these are suppliers that cater to the to the export market they focus on exports and you know they understand the requirements of export markets the regulations the quality requirements and everything but there are also a large number of manufacturers in India that focus on the domestic market and if you sauce from those types of suppliers you know maybe the price would be lower but the quality might not be that that good so that's something to keep in mind when you're sourcing from India you want to make sure that you are sourcing from an export focused supplier that has experience in in exports to shore and then so talking about this specific company that works with with tribals so so this company what they do is they have their in-house staff that actually goes to that the village where these tribals work and there is like a community hall over there where people from these different families come and they you know they paint products or they polish or you know whatever they create the products there in that community hall and then this this supplier they send their QC person there and their staff to you know explain to those tribal people like what what exactly is needed what is the design that needs to be made you know they do all of that training and then they do the QC and all themselves so it's very different from how it works in a factory you know where the workers are in house and things like that so this is of course this is not how all of the production is done in India this is just one example that I gave that was that I thought is kind of a unique you know unique product and a unique brand story I understand so considering that there are various ways in which you can approach sourcing in India depending on the size of your own brand I guess would be the starting point there are differences in how do you approach production to so when we're talking about expert focused suppliers so we're how do we how would we start finding them like for example what the best approach would be should we go to the India market website and look out for them there or the best thing would be to personally go to fairs and just generally what are the advantages of each approach and the downsized so one of the one of the first things that you can do is just do a Google search so whatever product you're looking for type in that product and then India manufacturer or India supplier and you'll you'll see a list of you know manufacturers and usually there are the export focus suppliers that come up first most of their websites will not be updated will their with their latest products but you will get some basic information about the company who their customers are and what kind of product categories they manufacture so that's one thing then the other thing you could do is look on supplier directories such as Alibaba and Global Sources so these are the two main export focus directory is where you find exporters and so once you do these directories and you need to further refine your search results to search by country to filter by country and then select India and then you will see India suppliers on those websites of course the majority of suppliers on both of these websites are from China but they do have suppliers from India as well and in fact both Alibaba and Global Sources have offices in India and with you know active sales teams and they're actually recruiting suppliers for their website so you will find export focus applies over there now India Mart is a local marketplace and the thing with India mud is that there are a lot of suppliers that focus on the domestic market as well on India on India Mart and in fact their focus India Mart's focus is mostly on on domestic suppliers it's not focused on export focus suppliers like Global Sources and Alibaba so in the amount of course has more Indian suppliers but it's more difficult to find you know export experienced suppliers or exporters on India Mart so you might have to you know search a bit more and dig a little deeper and there are a lot of sourcing agents or trading companies and wholesalers on India might as well so if possible I would avoid India Mart you know focus on Global Sources and Alibaba and then you you can also work with sourcing agents so there are a lot of sourcing agents in India and various cities and many times these sourcing agents specialize in certain product categories for example you have certain agents that you know specialize in comments or textiles or home decor items and they usually have a database of suppliers that they themselves have vetted so that's another way in sourcing agents typically charged you know anywhere from five to ten percent of the order value as their commission so just keep that in mind another way to look for suppliers is to search for Export Promotion councils so in India there are these government organizations that are responsible for increasing the exports in in their specific industry so for example there'll be like a silk Export Promotion Council or a handicrafts Export Promotion Council so you can do a Google search look for their websites and reach out to them and usually they have a list of exporters that are members of you know they're of that council and if you reach out to them send them an email they will usually have lists that they can send to you but of course the list might be very long and it might not be updated with the latest information and it's also a bit difficult to get a sense of what that supplier specializes in because they might list a lot of different product categories that they can manufacture so I mean it's you can get a list but then you'll have to sift through you know that the the companies there and maybe individually look at their websites and talk to the companies to actually find out what exactly they specialize in what products they actually produce and then lastly another way to find suppliers is just to go there and there are a couple of sourcing trade shows that you can attend there's this one trade show called Indian handicrafts and gifts there that is the most important export focused fair in India it's like the Canton Fair of India and it's held in Delhi there are about 3,000 exporters that exhibit at that fair is held twice a year April and October and it's it's 4x4 importer so domestic or local people are not allowed to enter the fair I mean unless of course they are there from a sourcing agency or they represent buyers so once you register for the fair they're actually manually check and confirm your registrations so you know it's it's very very export focused and so that's a very good way of you know meeting a lot of suppliers at the same time seeing a ton of different products and oh so you know one of the advantage of sourcing at a trade show is that you get touch and feel products you know that's something that you can't do and your sourcing online and going to a trade show just speeds up the sourcing process a lot you know when you're sourcing online then you're talking to suppliers one by one getting samples from them you know that that takes a couple of weeks and then going back and forth with different suppliers but when you're there at the fair you know you're talking to them face-to-face you're getting a sense of how how well they can communicate what their experiences you can you know see their body language and everything and you can meet the boss of the factory like usually the owner of the factory will be there at the tradeshow and so you get a sense of what the company specializes in and how easy might be to you know work with the company and then the other advantage of trade show is that suppliers will take you more seriously because they know that you are a real buyer you have invested the time and money and effort to you know travel thousands of kilometers to this fairs of course you are serious about importing so once you follow up with suppliers after the show they'll be more responsive they will prioritize your orders and they will just take you more seriously than someone who's just contacting them online now that makes total sense a lot of the things that you mentioned are actually advantageous and a lot of sellers actually also enjoyed going there personally it's like a Disneyland for them best choice of you know products a new product ideas that they might have not thought about before so exactly so who is the best candidate you mentioned there's like three different ways in which you can source products from India and it looks like it's not so difficult at least it sounds to me that's not that difficult only if you have the right information so quiz best - what is the best way to start according to the size of sellers like for example if you don't have a huge need for big order quantities then obviously it won't make a lot of sense to go there personally but for bigger sellers it won't make a lot of sense to lose time through you know doing it all online and then dealing with a lot of samples and communication alright so what is their view about that yeah so I think regardless of whether you are an experienced or new seller it makes sense to be there if you have the capital because if you if you have you know that the money to invest in a trip over there even if you're starting just starting out if you're new but you know you have capital from other businesses or you know whatever if you have if and if you can't afford it then I would say going there is the best because it speeds up the entire process and it gives you a lot of information and learning and you know talking to all of the suppliers will give you a lot of experience that you might take you know like a couple of years to learn if you just do it online so and this this is true for China as well not only India if you're if you can afford it you should definitely go visit you know the factory visit trade shows China and India however if you don't have capital and if you're just starting you know with a small cap with a bit of capital and you're just you know doing this as a side business and not treating it as a full-fledged business as such then I would suggest sourcing online and taking it slow and because when you travel to a country then you know if you're of course spending a lot and if you're going with a sourcing trip then you've got to pay for that and then you've got a paper your flights and everything and then you're spending almost oh you know a week to ten days traveling and everything so and then on top of that you have to have capital for inventory as well right so if you can afford it I think you should definitely go there but if you can't if you're just starting small then I would say sauce online one of the advantages of sourcing from India is that a lot of this a lot of the suppliers will do small mo Q's and so you know when you're in China most of the times they will want like thousands of pieces as the mo q but in India especially if it's a handcrafted product then they can do like even you know five pieces that's one big advantage actually for Amazon sellers and why they why they like sourcing from India in fact when we were there in October you know with this group for an India sourcing trip some of the sellers were so shocked to see the EM of the lo mo Q's that suppliers were asking for and they were like you can't believe it it's just 20 pieces you know we can start with 20 pieces so that I think is a huge opportunity because you know have to invest thousands of dollars on one SKU the approach that you can take when you're sourcing from India is that you can source multiple products are multiple SKUs and then test them and see what works and then depending on you know what kind of like CPC you get when you're running PPC or what kind of sales velocity you get you know you can decide which product to scale and you know source in larger quantities so I think that's a big advantage it's a bit it's a bit less risk here I would say when you're starting with smaller products the other thing that some suppliers will do in India is that instead of having a minimum order quantity they will have a minimum order value that means they'll say that okay the minimum order value is like $5,000 and you can take anything you want you know you can take like five pieces of these ten pieces of this and you know any color any size but it just should be a minimum or $5,000 so that I think is also really good again it allows you to test different products and see what works you know a lot of sellers would find this kind of flexibility very useful for testing out new products especially if you do a lot of product launches and already have like an existing brand and want to see what works and what doesn't work so I can I can definitely see the difference in the value all of that and you also mentioned that Indian sellers when you're there personally obviously it will give you much better head start than when you communicate back and forth online with the all of these suppliers and also one of the bigger advantages sourcing from India versus sourcing from China would definitely be language per ear there's no language barrier like a lot of Indian sellers in India it wishes your second language official language that a lot of people are speaking yet so there is not such a huge language barrier as what it is in China where you have to have some kind of agent working for you there and like you mentioned specialized just for certain category and it all depends on how valuable and contributing this agent is a lot of the communication can just slip through the cracks and that's super sensitive especially if you have a product that's very dependent on the kind of quality in everything you know backlashes through product reviews on Amazon so you can't really play with that kind of thing so when you mentioned that there's like a minimum minimum order value so where is this flexibility coming from how does this work for suppliers like what is the reason why they're so flexible versus the Chinese suppliers one of the main reasons that they're flexible is because a lot of these products are handmade so they don't have you know like huge machines that they need to run and they don't have you know very large like raw material minimum order requirements from their suppliers as such there are a lot of small scale you know like raw material suppliers and small-scale factories and another thing to note is that the government promotes you know handcrafted and the handicraft industry a lot so what the government has done is that there are certain cities in the country that have been developed as production hubs of certain categories and within those cities the government has set up certain facilities that can be used by various suppliers to give you an example there is a city in the north of in northern India called muradabad where a lot of the metal production is done it's known as a metal city because there are a lot of like brass and iron see like all the metal production is done there however a lot of the factories don't have casting facilities in-house so there is a common government-run casting facility that any supplier can go and use so they don't need to invest heavily you know in in in-house casting facilities so that's you know an advantage and then there are other things like you know maybe like polishing machines or certain other machines are also available in that facility that is run by the government and that also allows suppliers to you know be flexible in terms of minimum order quantities because they don't have you know first of all they don't have to invest a lot in setting up their own machines a lot of them do once they scale and you know once they are bigger there are a few factories in that city that do have casting in-house but by and large most of them just use the common facilities that are provided by the government hmm interesting okay so you mentioned that there is a city that is called the metal city I also heard that when it comes to India its number one world exporter of cotton so that might obviously be one of the categories two that are the most convenient for sourcing so I guess the whole textile categories might fall onto that and what other categories you might suggest that are best for sourcing from India yeah so one of the biggest categories is home decor items and most of these products are handcrafted so they are wooden metal kind of products another very fast-growing category is eco-friendly products and these are also doing very well on Amazon currently yeah and I know a lot of sellers were actually sourcing eco-friendly products from India and doing pretty well so there are quite a few unique products in this category that India has developed for example there are these disposable plates that are made from sugarcane waste is known as a gas so that's a very you know eco-friendly kind of material because these plates are biodegradable and you know that they're not made of plastic or any of the other man-made kind of materials and then when we were at the fair in October we saw these rugs that were made from recycled PE tea bottles you know plastic water bottles and so they literally cut up the plastic water bottles that have been disposed and then turn them into yarn and then weave them into you know various things like cushion covers rugs table cloths and all sorts of fabric based products and the fabric doesn't feel very plasticky or it doesn't feel plasticky at all like if you didn't know they're made from you know this miss plastic you couldn't tell it just looks like any you know normal kind of fabric so there's a lot of R&D that's going into developing these kinds of products in India in fact the domestically also you know the government is trying to push eco-friendliness over there so for example in a lot of the bigger cities single-use plastics are now banned and they only use like paper bags or cloth bags you know those kinds of things McDonald's for example does not use plastic spoons they use wooden spoons over there so you know that's something else to consider um and then there's leather leather is a very big category too and growing pretty fast so there's jackets and shoes and belts another category to consider is furniture and furnishings so there's wooden furniture a lot of wooden furniture being manufactured and there all sorts of wood like there's mango wood that's pretty popular that's more at the low end and then there's a high end there's also teak wood that's available so yeah wooden products and furniture and then also furnishing so there's a carpets rugs tablecloths things like that mostly made from cotton or other natural materials a lot of the rugs you find are made from jute which is also a natural material also there's these very beautiful rugs that are made from waste materials you know so that's another thing that a lot of India suppliers are focusing on upcycling materials or recycling materials so these are basically waste fabrics that are disposed by factories because these are apparel factories you know like when they're cutting the fabric to make make a garment then there's a lot of fabric waste so then all of this fabric waste is collected and then it's woven into you know rugs and stuff like that so that was very interesting and I thought there's this one come that I know of that actually makes bags from upcycle materials like old tents or you know canvas or like old bags so things that have been disposed of they get those materials they clean them and then you know they make bags out of those material so again it's good for the environment because they're upcycling products another big category from India is superfoods and this is quite popular nowadays with Amazon sellers as well so there are things like you know turmeric or ashwagandha these are all herbs that are kind of very popular and a lot of Amazon sellers are selling those products as well then there are things like tea and coffee you could do those as well there are spices a lot of people are doing spices and lentils and rice you know those kinds of things as well so these are not your typical products that you know people who are starting out would do but as you grow and you get more experience you can you know take a invest a little bit more and try to do these kinds of products and I know a few bigger sellers that are actually really doing very well in super foods so yeah I think those are some of the categories what you won't find in India is electronics and so that's it's a category that's not yet source about from India but there are a lot of factories I'm seeing that are currently being set up in fact there are a lot of Chinese factories that are setting up their own factories in India because they wanna cater to the domestic market there's a huge huge huge domestic market for electronics and most of the electronics factories currently are selling domestically but over time I think over the next few years we will definitely see a trend where a lot of these factories will also export on an OEM basis that's very interesting um are there any other categories that are currently not available the source from India aside from the electronics yeah electronics and then also in terms of textiles man-made textiles you know like nylon polyester those kinds of things jackets outerwear those things are better sourced in China they're more you know competitively priced and they're more there's more suppliers for those products but products that are made from natural materials are better sourced in India I can see there is a huge opportunity especially like you mentioned for super influence we know that there is a huge trend and also in the supplements very competitive categories so I can definitely see a really good opportunity there so yeah there was this company actually that I met at a trade show there an Israel company Israeli company and they were sourcing tea and other herbs from India and they were selling them as you know like horrible drinks so it was tea mixed with some other herbs and you know like this is a soothing kind of tea because it's mixed with certain herbs that have you know a calming quality or something like that that's something else that you know people can consider you have tea and then blend those different teas with various herbs and you know market those as like drinks I say so there is a huge opportunity for sellers who are a little bit more experienced in that product development base basically just trying to figure out a way to connect that those raw materials that are high in quality and they are domestically available in India to create a product that will the Western market will appreciate and reckon so is there and there's some like obstacles or maybe some things that affect organization from sourcing in sourcing from India like for example we know beforehand that on January 25th there is a Chinese New Year coming up and then for the upcoming month for the whole month old factories are going to be closed and people are going home so no production is going to be available so that you know beforehand the place you are they're a little bit more for that extra month that the title sounds working so are there any kind of like these you know cultural differences so when you're sourcing from India to keep in mind yes definitely so I'll talk about a few of the challenges first and then I'll come to the cultural and and some of the holidays and and the other challenges setting one of the biggest limitation of course sourcing from India is that there are limited number of categories so in China you can source anything in everything right you'll be able to find it so that's something that you find when you're sourcing from India there are specific products that you can source so you need to be aware of what categories can be sourced and you know sometimes you got to do a comparison of that product from India and China and see if it is competitive to source you know from which country sometimes you also might find that lead times are longer especially for handcrafted products it's not generally the rule as such but it does happen often especially if you're just starting out suppliers might not prioritize your orders and you know that's one of the reasons for for longer lead times also the other reason is a lot of these products are handcrafted so that does take time and then many of the people who you know work on these handcrafted products there are actually artisans they're not factory workers know like some of them are factory workers of course and you know if a company has a lot of in-house factory workers doing stuff then their lead times will be faster but if they're outsourcing some of the production to artisans then that might have an effect on the lead time because you know maybe the artisan is working for another factory or there's some problem in their family or you know the artisan doesn't want to work for certain days or whatever so that's that's something that's a bit difficult to manage for factories you know when they're outsourcing specific aspects of specific steps in the production to artisans so typically you'll find that the lead time is you know can go up to like 450 days almost two months whereas in China it'll be like you know 15 days 30 days maximum but in India for handmade handcrafted products it can be longer so that's something - something to keep in mind another thing to keep in mind is that sometimes it's difficult to find suppliers you know you'll find that challenge in in China and others Alibaba this Global Sources a lot of the suppliers are online but in India a lot of the suppliers might not be online so you know you even if you search on supplier directories you might not be able to find them easily and so it might take more effort you might have to go through a sourcing agent or a trade show or you know other avenues so that's something that you find and then another thing is that a lot of the service providers like logistics companies you know some of the QC companies and all there and even the suppliers they're not very familiar with Amazon requirements and so you know like freight forwarders most of them they they don't know how to send products to SVA especially if if the seller is not based in you in the US and they don't have a company in the US you know then some some of the logistics companies might not know how to manage things like you know who's the importer of record and and and things like that and then also when you're when you're shipping to Amazon and then if you have to ship your products to different fulfillment centers some logistics companies might not be able to manage that as well so you've got to choose a logistics company very carefully and you know make sure that they are familiar with FBA requirements and then suppliers sometimes are not aware of you know the labeling requirements or how to do packaging or things like that so that's not a big challenge I mean once you have to like train these suppliers and tell them what to do and you know then it becomes easier after they've done it a couple of times so it's something like you know maybe what China suppliers were three or four years ago when FBA supplier from when Amazon settlers were starting to source from China you know Chinese suppliers didn't really know what to do but now of course they are you know so familiar with Amazon requirements and you know it's it's not an issue at all so in terms of holidays there are a couple of things to keep in mind in India usually there are a lot of holidays during the end of the year because there's one main festival in India for Hindus that's called Diwali and that's the biggest festival it's usually in October or November it doesn't have a fixed date similar to Chinese New Year and even though the official holidays are maybe like 2 or 3 days but you know sometimes workers will go back home to their you know to their fact to their families if they are working in the cities for example or they'll just take time off so that's one time when you have to be you know a bit aware of and then in India there are a lot of holidays throughout the year you know one day here two day two days here things like that so for example there are a lot of religions in India there's Chris they're Christians Hindus Muslims and so they're there holidays for all of the key festivals in each religion so you know for Eid it's a holiday then for Christmas and other Christian festivals and and for Hindu festivals so that's something just to keep in mind another thing to keep in mind is that some cities have more of you know Muslim workers for example or certain religion or a certain community of workers and their traditions may be a little different for example this metal city that I was talking about muradabad most of the artisans and workers there are Muslims and so they prefer not to work on Fridays and so some of the factories are actually closed on Friday Saturday instead or only Friday instead of Sunday they work on Sundays right there they're closed on Fridays so those are little things that you need to be aware of and then yeah again you know if the city there are more Muslims in the city then they will not take leave on Diwali which is a Hindu festival but it'll be for Eid you know so just just talk to your supplier and ask them when are the major festivals and when do they expect to have you know their workers going on leave or not being in the factory so that's just something to keep in mind another thing that might disrupt production sometimes is the monsoon season and so during July August that's when their heavy rains throughout the country and the rain the monsoon season actually starts from the southern part of India and it moves up towards the north and so during that time sometimes it becomes so bad that there is like extreme flooding in some cities especially in major cities like Mumbai which is a major port where a lot of the shipments you know go out from that city becomes very flooded and sometimes it just comes to a standstill for a couple of days so that's something that could affect your production as well you know of course transportation problems or maybe the roads are closed so therefore your products can't go from the factory to the port or it's just that you know maybe the factory itself is flooded right that that also happens sometimes as water in the factory floor so your products might get affected so that's something to keep in mind another little thing to keep in mind is that there are there big regional differences in the country so for example the northern part and also the northwestern part actually is more of a desert area it's very hot it's the state is called Rajasthan and there's this specific technique of printing that's called block printing over there in Rajasthan that's very popular it's a very popular type of plain printing however this block printing works really well in hot summer months but when it's when it rains then block printing does not work very really well one because it doesn't dry and two because the the ink spreads a little bit in the in the cloth in the you know fabric and so it doesn't come out very sharp so if you're doing block printing you know you just have to be aware of that that summer months are better for block printing rather than monsoon or winter months yeah that's actually really really huge pieces of advice that you've shared with us so basically it comes down to really understanding that area geographically and also demographically in which you're doing your products and also trying to avoid if possible the whole monsoon season because if you can or preorder for and avoid these two months during these two months then there would be the approach that's the safest approach basically it possible yeah yeah it also depends on where your factory is with city they are in but it's always good to know that this is an issue so then you can ask the factory you know if it's going to be an issue for them yeah and also a big piece of advice that the information that you gave us is that there is not like a coherent think one big sculpture inside of India but more like diversified culturist everyone living together you just have to see which part you need to pay attention to and how to organize your business according to it so exactly in fact in India you know each state has its own language with a different script so I I'm from I'm from North India if I go to south of India then I have I cannot read their language I cannot understand what they're saying and that is one reason why English is you know like the common language spoken by everyone because it's the language that helps us communicate you know with with people from different states so that's something to consider it's a very diverse country with very different cultures and and customs that differ from state to state okay so definitely something to keep in mind when it comes to all of these differences and everything that needs to be taking into account when you're sourcing from India then definitely it would be helpful to have some kind of agent or a guide there are a host of someone who could help you understand what are the things to ask about you don't have to be know everything up front but you at least have to know what what is the types of information that you will need if you want to do business long term so I wanted to talk about a little bit more about the India sourcing trip and how it came to be and was it helpful for and what is it included in your sourcing trip and just generally what kind of value can it bring to sellers who are looking to all sorts from India absolutely so let me talk about how it started and one of the reasons it started was because of the trade war between China and the US and at that time I think it was two years ago or so I was doing I mean I'm still doing the conference in Hong Kong but when I was talking to sellers they were looking for alternative markets and some sellers were reaching out to me and asking if I knew any suppliers in India and you know if I knew how it worked and so that that's how the idea was born because I saw that there is a need among Amazon sellers to source from alternative markets and because I had experience in India I thought that hey let me do in sourcing trip because there's no better way to source from a country than to go there and I also realized that there's not a lot of information available about how to source from India there is so much information about China there are YouTube videos blogs experts but really nothing about India so that's why one of the first things that I did was I wrote an e-book about how to source from India to give people an idea like an overview of what can be sourced how to source you know how to find suppliers because I realize that people really didn't have any idea I mean specially Amazon sellers they didn't have any idea of where to begin so that was the first thing that I did and then the saucing trip that I organized is is basically you can call it like a sourcing trip with e-commerce and Amazon coaching it's there are three aspects on the trip that we focus on learning sourcing and also cultural experience so we gather a group of about more than 15 coaches there are ecommerce coaches and their sourcing coaches that accompany the group to teach them first of all everything that there is to learn about sourcing from India so we do a full day conference when we are in India where we have experts talking about things like how to find suppliers how to vet suppliers how to do negotiation cultural sensitivities all of those things that will take people a couple of years to learn if they do it themselves so this is like there's almost like a crash course in sourcing from India and then we have a lot of ecommerce coaches from the US from Australia from all different countries there's Tim Jordan who's one of the coaches he is from he's quite popular among you know Amazon sellers in the US and then there's Gary Huang from 80/20 sourcing he's one of the coaches there's Chris Thomas and Margaret jolly and Kevin Alden from Australia Margaret has been sourcing products from India for almost two years and she stopped her China sourcing entirely in her brand is you know she sells on Amazon u.s. all of her products are made in India and so what these coaches do is that they travel with the group and they help people identify Amazon herbal products at the trade show that's one of the biggest things that they help with they guide people on how to validate products how to vet products and then how to find Amazon herbal products so we go to this trade show called Indian handicrafts and gifts fair that I was mentioning earlier that's one of the major export fairs in India and we do a guided tour of the fair first of all we tell people how to talk to suppliers how to look for products that they can source and then the coaches are available to walk with any of the attendees you know walk the show floor and and talk to suppliers together with the attendees and then we also have a lot of cultural experience so India has a very rich you know culture and history so we visit the Taj Mahal we do a day trip to the Taj Mahal that is one of the seven wonders of the world and we also do an cultural program a dance program exclusively for our group so it's called Bollywood night where we have this you know dance party and everybody can participate and you know there's like loud music and drums and everything and like a local dance troupe will do some Indian dance and then we have like hennas and you know I can wear turbans or wear Indian dresses and just kind of experiencing the culture a little bit which is you know something that people find very exciting because it's it's just something different that they so yeah those are the three aspects that we focus on learning sourcing and cultural aspects and it's an eight-day trip the next one is in April and then starts from the 13th of April to the 20th of April so in case people are interested in learning more they can go to India sourcing trip calm to get more information about the trip yes I've been on the website and I'm also familiar familiarize myself with all of these aspects of the trip that you just shared with us and definitely see the needs for that cultural aspect because it's so important yeah to be understood really well when you're doing business with Indian suppliers so definitely but when you mentioned identifying Amazon herbal products does that mean that someone will help you understand that there are certain dimensions or inspection elements or documentation that you have to keep in mind when you are considering the product yes there are those aspects and also how much demand there would be for that product and how competitive that product category is and how easy would it be for you to launch that product and differentiate yourself from all of the other sellers I think that's something that people really struggle with identifying products that they can differentiate and and sell well because increasingly Amazon is becoming very competitive and so so this is one of the main challenges we find you know sellers face they can't find profitable products to source and so that's something that these ecommerce coaches are you know more experienced with because they themselves have been you know helping other sellers for quite a few years and they themselves have been selling products so they know immediately you know when they see a product if it will sell or not and also during the evenings you know when we go to the trade shows and during the evenings we usually have like mastermind sessions where we also do one-on-one coaching and so people can actually you know open up their computers and then they go the coaches will go into helium 10 and do some you know keyword research and product validation and right then and there you know you they can kind of tell attendees if this is a good product or not so I think that is a big help getting access to all of these ecommerce coaches for eight days and you know being able to pick their brains and ask them questions I think that in itself is it covers the cost of the of the you know the the investment that you do into the trip because usually like these you know experts and all day they've charged a few hundred dollars for their time but when you're on a sourcing trip like this you know whether in India or China they are trapped they can't go anywhere they're with you for eight days yes I usually tell attendees that you know make the most of this time that you have with these coaches ask them questions pick their brains and just learn from them as much as possible yeah that's definitely one of the advantages and also all these connections that you made with other participants are usually lifelong internships and collaborations maybe business collaborations for now yes Lutie so we form a whatsapp group and also a Facebook group of all the attendees and the whatsapp group stays active even after the trip so if you have any questions you know when you're back you can always just post in the whatsapp group and some of the coaches or other attendees will help you so you kind of get it like a support group as well you know after the trip so it's not just during the trip and in fact we also do a lot of pre trip webinars leading up to the trip we do about seven or eight webinars before the trip some of them are to help you prepare and others are to cover things like you know if you're a newbie we'll also go over things like seller central and how to set up your account and things like that and then we also cover things like product validation product research listing optimization and then even after the trip we'll we'll do a couple of webinars you know on basics of PPC or how to do your photographs how to do your copy things like that so yeah it's it's almost like a course you know you start in a month before trip and then there's training during the trip and then we do follow-ups and help you place orders and stop you know putting your products up after the trip and then after the trip you also get a one-hour coaching call totally free for with any of the coaches if you have any questions you can just you know set up a call with any of them that's the kind of opportunity that really really didn't exist in the prior years before especially if we're just focusing on the India suppliers in Indian suppliers so definitely a huge opportunity for people I can see that there's this certain demographic that might fit really well for the India sourcing trip like for example if people want to have a change in their career and they have some savings maybe they want to invest in a new business and be three from nine to five perspective and I find this guided tour is really useful and really they won't even know how much value they will get because they don't know how painful it might be when you're doing it you know yes exactly like for example we when we first started out with our brand we had no guidance in terms of like for example quality insurance so we had quality issues with the stock that was already in I was an FBA warehouse so it was a it was a mess so I wish I had someone to tell me all these things and just predict what might happen and let me know so that I can be much more prepared so definitely see a lot of value there okay so you mentioned that there's going to be an e-book that we'll share with the viewers of this interview and I'm going to share the link below in below our video so that they can go there and download it and read all the basics of understanding what it means the source from India and if there is any additional information they can contact you directly would that be definitely yeah absolutely so yeah the e-book is at India sourcing trip /e booked and I also have a Facebook group that where I'm quite active answering questions and doing live webinars every week so just search for sourcing from India for Amazon FBA and feel free to join the group you can reach out to me on messenger on Facebook and yeah be happy to help if anybody has any questions about salting from India okay great milah thank you so much for being my guest and for sharing all this information I personally learned so much from you in this session and I also know that a lot of our audience big part of our audience will consider sourcing from India and benefits a lot of value from your ebook so thank you so much for having me okay great bye bye bye