#367 – How To Fund Your Amazon Growth

You’ve probably heard about Amazon lending or maybe some other FinTech companies who help fund Amazon seller growth. Today, we are going to speak to a unique company out there in the space, and they claim to have helped sellers 10x their revenue. Bradley welcomes Dana Oren, 8fig’s VP of Product, in this episode. They talk about the supply chain changes from then to now, how to deal with the current issues in E-commerce, and how 8fig can be the business growth platform you are looking for!

In episode 367 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Dana discuss:

• 02:20 – Dana Oren’s Backstory
• 04:00 – The Language Of Selling And Growth
• 05:00 – How She Got Started In The Ecommerce Space
• 07:30 – The Supply Chain Changes From The 2010s To Now
• 12:00 – Dealing With The Current Issues In Ecommerce
• 14:00 – How 8Fig Helps Sellers As A Growth Platform
• 18:00 – What Makes Their Platform Different?
• 24:00 – How Does It All Work?
• 27:00 – Real-Life Examples From People Who Use Their Platform
• 32:00 – Who Qualifies To Their Service?
• 35:00 – How To Get Remittances From Them
• 35:45 – Dana’s 30-Second Tip
• 38:30 – Catch Dana And 8fig At The Sell And Scale Summit
• 40:00 – How To Get In Touch With Dana 

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

You’ve probably heard of Amazon lending, or maybe you’ve heard of other FinTech companies who help fund Amazon seller growth. Today, we’re gonna speak to one of the more unique companies out there in this space who have helped sellers 10x their revenue. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the serious seller’s podcast by Helium 10. I am your host Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that’s a completely BS free unscripted, and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we have got somebody who I don’t know anything about, I don’t even know if she’s a seller let alone serious or not, but I know she helps serious sellers out there. We’ve got Dana from 8fig, how’s it going?

Dana:

It’s going great. And yeah, I don’t know if I would call myself serious too.

Bradley Sutton:

Yes. Well, that’s good. You know, sometimes people too serious on this show, it’s a little bit of a problem gaining them outta their shell. So I am happy that we don’t have to worry about that with you. So a lot of people who come on the show, I know sometimes a little bit about them, like, I don’t know what we’re gonna talk about, but you know, I’ve, I’ve kind of, you know, met them many times at conferences hung out. So I know a little bit, and sometimes I’ll be like, no, don’t tell anymore. Cuz you know, I know you’re gonna be on the podcast and I wanna find out with the rest of the people, but I don’t have to do that here cuz I literally know nothing about you guys.

Bradley Sutton:

So I was like super excited when they introduced the idea of interviewing you on the podcast and also Liran Hirschkorn. I just talked to him last week at a conference and he had mentioned you guys as well. So I was like, you know what? This is great, I truly, 99.9% of this episode will all be probably new to me. So let’s just start from the beginning. I always like getting people superhero origin stories, like where are you right now? And then like where were you born and raised.

Dana:

Oh wow. Okay. so right now I am sitting in Austin, Texas.

Bradley Sutton:

I’m sorry about that I hope you have air conditioning.

Dana:

Thank you. Thank you. It is quite hot, but I was actually born in Costa Rica and raised in Israel, Latin America, and the United States.

Bradley Sutton:

So how many languages do you speak?

Dana:

I speak three languages.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. English, Hebrew. Spanish?

Dana:

Yes. Exactly.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Awesome. I don’t want to try and be fancy and safe. All three languages in one. Cause I do speak Spanish, but I don’t speak Hebrew. You know what? You, it’s actually interesting. The very first Amazon conference I ever spoke at the beginning or middle of 2018. Yeah. And speaking speaks of the devil Liran. I was like, it’s gonna be ASGTG and it’s in Brooklyn. So I’m like, Hey, tell me something I can say. And so he taught me a couple of things. The first one I forgot the other, the other one was like, I dunno, kind of, I don’t know if it’s really religious or he was like, you say (Speaking in Hebrew) to everybody. And that always just stuck with me, but that was like that was the only thing I’ve ever said. Right. That they’re on board, but I always are on stage. I always try and speak different languages on things, but maybe you can teach me something else.

Dana:

Well, I could teach you some other ones. Definitely, I think there’s a good mix of like Hebrew and Yiddish, which is, is very handy for someone who’s wanting to talk to the selling community over in Brooklyn. But ultimately I think they’re all speaking the same language, which is the language of selling and growth and that’s what they do best throughout really some of the most tumultuous years, both positively and negatively that e-commerce has experienced. So everything from supply chain disruptions to historically high demand they’ve seen it all done it all and I’m sure everyone listening right now knows exactly what I’m talking about.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah. Regardless of what language we speak, where we come from, we’re all in this Amazon world together and that’s kind of like what the, you know, one of the messages I, I preach here and which is why I like to get people’s background is because you could be somebody who speaks Hebrew who’s from Costa Rica or you could be some American kid born in the USA who’s, you know, selling on eBay and we all have different, you know, struggles in e-commerce. But speaking of e-commerce, you told me a little bit of your journey there, at what point did you get into e-commerce yourself?

Dana:

Yeah. So it’s so true, by the way, what you were saying about you could be someone from anywhere and we see that actually with 8fig sellers hailing from really every corner of the globe with products that are also originating from every corner of the globe and managing these amazing awe-inspiring growing businesses all the time, regardless of their origin story, as you phrased it. So yeah, when it comes to me and e-commerce actually my first foray into e-commerce was with a store that I had opened a Shopify store probably like a decade ago. But when I actually started to do it at scale was actually when I was working for an international retailer and actually over there, what fascinated me most was the whole procurement process, the supply chain operational aspect of the business.

Dana:

Because at that point I was doing a lot of marketing and that sort of came naturally to me and doing it for e-commerce was its own roller coaster and treat, but the whole operational aspect of the planning and forecasting, that’s such a big part of e-commerce was novel to me and was very, very interesting. And so when the opportunity came to join 8fig a couple of years ago, I immediately saw the potential because I knew the toll that those operational necessities took on e-commerce businesses regardless of size. But really when you’re talking about small, medium businesses, which is who we’re talking about when we talk about marketplace sellers, they’re actually compounded because you’re talking about people who are doing things either by themselves or with a very, very small selected team managing in some cases, eight figures worth of merchandise and planning and forecasting and operations and containers, and you name it marketing obviously in the end.

Bradley Sutton:

So what year were you in that bigger company that you were saying in the kind of working on the little bit of the operation supply chain side?

Dana:

2016-2018, those years,

Bradley Sutton:

Take around that time, you know, mid, I don’t know what you even call that, we say, oh yeah, I’m a ’90s kid. I’m an ’80s kid, in the mid-2010s, I guess you, you would say, so, like supply chain issues in the mid-2010s, which is like literally not even six, seven years ago.

Dana:

Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

What is like, what would you say is the top three changes in what people were dealing with, whether it’s good or bad around that time compared to now in 2022? I mean, obviously, the pandemic would be a top-of-mind and the kind of like domino effect that’s had on different things. But other than that everybody knows about what are some things for somebody who’s been in the game like yourself since then?

Dana:

So I love that question because when I joined 8fig and you know, my mandate was basically all right, take this concept, make it into a product that people can use and people can engage with. And then one of the main, main things that mattered there was to inject flexibility into every single one of our user flows. And that flexibility, even before everything that went down in 2021 with like, you know, containers, delays, and manufacturing costs, it’s not like supply chains were this super reliable clockwork thing that always worked and never malfunctioned in the past. So flexibility was sort of a given of if you’re going to build a product for e-commerce sellers to grow their store, you have to understand that it’s gonna be a wild ride. Eventually, you’re gonna end up with positive unit economics and phenomenal year-over-year growth and all those, all that good stuff.

Dana:

But to get there, it’s, it’s gonna be a bit of a ride, so buckle up and then make sure that you give them that ability to to make those changes. So if I’m looking at, let’s say pre mid-2020, and then post mid-2020 supply chains. First of all, I, can’t mention the spike in demand that of course was facilitated by the pandemic, but it’s not like eCommerce was shrinking before the pandemic, it accelerated what was already happening. And even now that you know, according to some sources of media, we’re seeing some sort of slowdown in e-commerce, it’s still nowhere near the pre-pandemic levels. This is a very, very clearly growing sector of the economy. It’s a new way of consumption that it’s not so new anymore, but I mean, people all over the world have become accustomed to it.

Dana:

There’s really no going back. So that’s one big difference is that demand and openness to online consumption among the end consumer, another big difference is the playing field itself. So I’m sure every seller would agree with me, especially Amazon sellers. The competitive landscape has changed significantly even before the pandemic, but of course, the pandemic accelerated a lot of things. You’re talking about things that sellers didn’t necessarily deal with in the past, whether it’s competition coming from other sellers who are thinking this is a great viable way to make a living. And whether it’s a corporate competition coming from Amazon itself. And I know that we recently heard that that might be something that they’re stepping away from due to some scrutiny, but the competition level of let’s say the mid-tens mid to late tens versus the early twenties is starkly different.

Dana:

And it requires sellers to be even more focused, even more dedicated, and even more methodical in their planning and forecasting. And then I would say the last big difference is in terms of operationally, what is required from sellers in order to Excel, and really capitalize on all of those opportunities, which is extremely high demand. And then more and more competition, which of course means that the slice of the pie that you’re getting is potentially up for grabs, there are more people to sort of battle it out for the top spot.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah. Out of those things you mentioned, I don’t think this is just a universal thing. This is just my own personal opinion but the one that maybe hit me most, cuz even though I do work at Helium 10, I also have my own Amazon business as well. You know, it wasn’t necessarily the price increases of shipping or inflation or just, you know, inventory issues. But it was the time that it took for the whole process like back in the day you know, 2018, 2017, I could place an order in China, for example, they’ll produce it in like three weeks and it would take like another three weeks and it would be in my warehouse, like literally, maybe even faster sometimes. There were times in the last year and a half where that’s those same six weeks became like five months four-five months.

Bradley Sutton:

And prices is like Hey, it’s not like, oh, I’m getting hit with inflation or I’m getting hit with higher shipping costs. No, that’s universal. So like, it’s not really gonna affect me that much because all right, if I have to raise my prices, well guess what everybody else is getting hit with the same thing. But like you said like if you run out of stock because you don’t plan for five months worth of inventory. It has sometimes near permanent effects on Amazon. So that was like one of the biggest kinds of like pains for me. Now, it’s nice to know that things here in the middle of 2022 getting a little bit better with some light at the end of the tunnel. But we all deal with issues and that’s from what I understand about your company is you help people with some of these issues as a, would it be corrected in saying that like, 8fig is what we call, a FinTech company. That’s a new word that I learned in my vocabulary last year.

Dana:

Yeah, absolutely. It’s a FinTech. And actually, as you were talking, I thought that it was worth mentioning. So essentially the way that we’ve built 8fig as a growth platform providing financing for e-commerce sellers. So Amazon Shopify all, all other platforms specifically is based on supply chain operations. And that makes both our funding very, very unique and our remittance operations very unique, but also the product itself. Because when you say that you’re a growth platform, the main thing that you’re trying to drive here for sellers is growth. So we’re not in it to, you know, just all right hand out capital and then remit that capital, according to, I guess some sort of predetermined schedule, which starts the day after you receive the capital because that’s going to be ineffective for the vast majority of e-commerce sellers.

Dana:

And that’s due to the way that supply chains work, right? You mentioned five months, even in the past six weeks from initiating an order from your manufacturer until the goods are actually with you and starting to sell. So let’s say eight weeks, those are really, really significant. Those eight weeks are very significant in preserving your cash flow, make sure, making sure that it’s healthy, and that you’re not just remitting funds before even selling one piece of inventory. So what we did is we created a platform for sellers to first and foremost map out their supply chain, which in other words, maps out how many units they’re planning to purchase, and then what their payment structure to their vendors looks like for those units. So whether it’s the deposit in balance to the manufacturer, the freight to the freight forwarder, logistics, if they have some sort of three PL in the United States typically, you know we know that they have to have it, especially nowadays where you have to be more well stocked and constantly be initiating shipments into FBA, which can’t originate as we know from China, cuz that would take too long and then finally any marketing expenses and once that is mapped out we’re very good at also creating some sort of initial forecast for sellers to map out like an entire year of supply chain operations, which let’s call it for the sake of this discussion tentative because the idea is to remember is the flexibility.

Dana:

So any expense, any planned order in the HFI system is subject to change. And when we created this feature, initially it was of course, based on our understanding that supply chains are dynamic, supply chain plans are meant to be broken and delays will happen. And shifts in quantities ordered will happen shifts in the cost of different cogs, such as manufacturing and freight are going to happen. But then something very, very interesting happened in early 2021. So we were seeing those changes happen at an unprecedented scale, sellers dealing with these delays more than we had ever seen, sellers dealing with these price spikes more than we had ever seen, impacting everything from their marketing strategy to the quantities that they ordered, meaning how far ahead they wanted to, they wanted to be.

Dana:

And of course how early they were initiating their supply chain, their production in relation to when they needed to actually replenish the stock. So all of that was happening and it was very, very clear to us months before the whole world started talking about the supply chain disruption, that something very unique is going on. And obviously. We constantly do analyses and, and things like that on our user base. And we managed to see that sellers who actually were using 8fig for the funding and for that flexibility in planning managed to end 2021 with twice as much growth as sellers who weren’t using 8fig. And that obviously strengthened our mission. Even more of, we are going to help you grow by any means whether that’s capital planning or forecasting analytics on a regular basis. And that flexibility, that all-important flexibility of this is a plan it’s important to have a plan because these things don’t happen overnight. Supply chains can’t be always turned around overnight, but once you have a plan, it’s easier to pivot that plan and shift it in real-time.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, now I know, you touched on it a little bit but there are some of us who are a little bit slower than others out there. And I’ll put myself in that, in that group. But I would think that FinTech might not be a word that a lot of people know, but, but people are kind of familiar with this whole process of borrowing money or getting help with growing their Amazon or e-commerce business. And I think the one that people most know about because it’s always just thrown in front of their face every day, you know, for the last few years is like getting a loan from Amazon. Right. You know, like you’ll get that little message and say, Hey, you know, you qualify for this.

Bradley Sutton:

And then a lot of some people are like, wow, that’s pretty cool. But then a lot of people are like, I don’t need $30,000, but if I hit this button, you’re gonna give me $30,000 and charge me from day one. I was like, you know, some people still do for some people that still works. You know, now after that, there are other companies that, that popped up here or there and great companies those companies I’ve worked with, you know, in the, in the industry where it was similar to what Amazon offers in that, they’re just like, take a look at your sales in your Seller Central or your Walmart account or your Shopify account and your sales velocity. And they’re like, Hey, you qualify for this amount. And, but you don’t need this whole amount.

Bradley Sutton:

You let us know how much you need, that’s what you take out. And then you’re not paying, you know, interest and stuff until you actually take that money out apart from the whole amount that you’re owning. So there’s another aspect I think that a lot of people are familiar with. Now you mentioned yourself 8fig is kind of different a little bit in how you guys are set up. So how are you different than these other two things that I think a lot of sellers know the process on?

Dana:

Yeah. So I think there are some key ways in which we’re different, which are great to emphasize here. First of all, you mentioned the word qualify for several times. And that’s something that we’re actually very, very proud to not partake in. Sellers know best, that is the working assumption for every single thing that 8fig builds. Every single feature, every single down to the newsletters that we send, we are never going to assume that we know better than sellers. How much is it’s going to take for them to grow. So when a seller is building their supply chain plan on the 8fig platform, there are never limits thrown at them. This is not something that you’re going to qualify for. This is too much, et cetera. We will try to advise if the plan is submitted.

Dana:

And then there’s some, some sort of mismatch between the seller’s forecast and our forecast, but we’ve been known to be convinced by sellers who are showing demonstrably that they can grow 3x in the amount of units that they’re selling or something like that. So that’s a big key difference of the sellers in the driver’s seat. You are going to tell us what your plans are. We’re just here to validate them and support you on this growth journey. Another way in which 8fig is very, very different is of course the actual way in which the capital is both disbursed and remitted. So the disbursement of capital happens essentially in conjunction to the need. So you said, I don’t need $30,000, but they’re being offered to me. That’s pretty compelling.

Dana:

That’s hard to say no to, right? But if you are the one in the driver’s seat and you’re determining how much and when then you’re able to really make the capital work efficiently for you, because you know, that you’re using it for what you actually need. And then disbursements have been completely separated from remittances at 8fig. And this is again to preserve that cash flow, meaning you’re going to get the capital as you need it constantly and that’s going to be there for you when you need it. If you actually need to pay more for freight or double the amount of units, whatever it is, we got you can do all of that in your account, no call to customer service needed, but then the remittance is actually only going to start once you’re actually selling the goods, right?

Dana:

Because before you’re selling even one unit, any remittance is actually coming from a batch that 9fig, didn’t even help fund. And that’s what you get when you’re taking a loan from, let’s say Amazon lending, which like I said, good product, they have, they definitely have the home game advantage of being there and popping up the message whenever you need. But ultimately if you’re unable to remit according to the original schedule that you signed on with Amazon, and again, that schedule is by definition ineffective, because they’re starting to remit on something that you just received, and probably didn’t even use. Then there could be repercussions for your store. We’ve seen it hundreds of times sellers getting their store suspended or their payouts withhold. So all of that is not going to happen when you know you have the advantage of third advantage, which is that flexibility.

Dana:

If you’re selling through slower than you imagined, then obviously your remittances are also going to slow down if you’re not selling because your goods are stuck in the port for six weeks, again, all real-life examples. You’re not going to remit for those six weeks, and that’s not going to impact your cost of capital, which is that’s probably the most significant part of you have a set cost of capital for the plan that you’ve chosen to take. And then whatever happens, which is normal things that happen in supply chains all the time, like delays or selling through slower things like that. You’re not going to then be “punished for it” by having to pay more. It’s just a normal that’s showbiz, you know?

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. So then, to you, maybe this is a dumb question, but I’m listening through this here, some certain things you, you you’ve mentioned. So does this mean, like, for example, the I don’t know, the loans, I guess if we’re gonna call it that, or the money that I am borrowing is it tied to like, specific, like purchases like, and tied to just the supply chain, like, Hey, I show you guys, Hey, this is my PO to my supplier. And then here’s the invoice for what the shipping is gonna cost. And then it’s kind of like tied to that. And then you guys are you kind of monitoring, okay, well, Hey, we know that it got held up in, in the port, or we know that it’s not selling yet on Amazon, or how do you guys tie all these things together?

Dana:

Yeah, so it’s pretty much, as you mentioned, we tie them all together using something that we call at 8fig lines and lines are essentially one line is one order from your manufacturer. So all of the supply chain stages associated with that one order let’s say 5,000 units of coffee beans that with production being initiated in July and then sell through starting, let’s say November. Okay. Let’s say a Q4 batch. All of the supplier payments that happen in the middle are associated with that batch. And then the sell-through for that batch is going to start sometime in November, which is then going to the remittances are going to be tied to that. The one thing that you did mention is having to constantly feed your account with POs and invoices.

Dana:

That’s not how 8fig works. Okay. The planning part is sort of a one-time thing. And then as the seller needs, they can perform adjustments to their plan. Again, that’s done via the account, usually takes a couple of minutes, and it’s a great source of reassurance for sellers that they can always you know, log into their account, and adjust whatever they need. So at least from the financial perspective, they’re good to go. And now they gotta deal with whatever crisis, you know, is happening. Like getting the goods out of the port, releasing them, or playing with their marketing strategy in order to ensure that the sell-through picks back up. So all of those things are meant to actually take things off of the seller’s plate so that they can focus on selling so that they’re not constantly preoccupied with, how am I going to preserve my cash flow and how am I going to avoid going out of stock, because that’s what really needs their attention right now. Not how am I going to manage this relationship and ensure that I have enough money to sell?

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, now, you know, so you’ve been explaining it quite well, but sometimes the best way to understand is like real-life examples, for our listeners out there. So, I know Amazon sellers are more secret than the CIA, as far as all this my products, I’m not saying, Hey, you have to tell me exactly what products it was, or the names of people, but what are some real-life examples like, Hey, this seller here’s the position they were in. They came to us, we had this conversation. They wanted to order this much of product. It took this long. And throughout this whole process, we were able to take them from A to B, like if you can give us maybe one or two real-life examples to that hopefully some of our listeners can relate to, and then they can kind of more visualize this whole thing a little bit better.

Dana:

Absolutely. And I will say, if you go to our website, 8fig.co there is a category called seller stories right at the top, and you can see lots of real-world examples, real numbers, nothing omitted, nothing hidden. So you can actually see what our cost of capital looks like, and then examples in most cases of actual changes that had to be made for the seller to experience that explosive growth. So the road to growth, the road to eight figures is almost always paved with not just continuous capital, which is what 8fig provides, but actually a lot of pivoting, a lot of changes, and that’s perfectly fine and expected. In terms of some examples, there’s a couple that comes to mind because I think they, they embody this very well, I think they joined 8fig January 2021 and by April, which is when they expected their first shipment to come in it ended up held up in the LA port for at least six weeks.

Dana:

They went out of stock. It was a disaster. It wasn’t a seasonal product, but just going out of stock obviously is very detrimental and their whole plan blew up in their face. So once they performed the change request and that again took a couple of minutes. They were able to focus on releasing the goods and getting replenished, but that shifted their mindset completely. And I remember one of their biggest takeaways was this cannot happen in Q4. How do we prevent this from happening in Q4? And they did, and they planned more aggressively, you know, one of our unofficial mottos over at 8fig is a plan like nobody’s watching. So plan as though money were no object, okay? Plan to the best of your ambitions, and then adjust as you need.

Dana:

You can always adjust down. You can absolutely always adjust down. And that’s what they did. They planned really aggressively for Q4 planned for added some sort of, I think 30% barrier in terms of fulfillment times and amount of stock to, to all of their subsequent lines for the remainder of 2021. And then I will never forget that she emailed me in, I think it was like mid-December. So even before everything exploded two weeks later with the boxing day that so far in Q4, they experienced all five figured days, all five figure days in Q4. And that doesn’t just happen. You have to be sufficiently stocked. You have to have the capital secured for the marketing pushes that you’re going to do. You have to have the assurance that your hero products are well taken care of, so to speak, so that you can now go out and expand your product portfolio, introduce new products, constantly be testing at every turn, and find efficiencies in your supply chain, whether that means exploring additional manufacturers and parallel whether that means securing a better relationship with a freight forwarder, or maybe even air shipping, some part of goods to ensure that you are never out of stock again.

Dana:

And I think it’ll only take one stock out to ensure that a seller knows very, very well to avoid it in the future. All of that happens when a seller is sufficiently funded and they’re now happily seven figure sellers and when they started with 8fig at early 2021, I think it was January. They had just barely broken the six figure mark, just barely.

Bradley Sutton:

Wow. That’s the dream of any Amazon seller starting out like to have their first five figure day, let alone every day be five figure, and can definitely see how that helps. So like, let’s say somebody is intrigued, you know, by this, like who, who qualifies, who doesn’t qualify? Is it difficult to qualify? I think one of the most common questions I get in this space. Yeah. You know, not about you guys. Cause you’re new to my universe here. But just in general is a lot of these companies are US based. And then, so somebody’s like, like selling in Amazon USA, but they’re based in Israel, they’re based in Australia, they’re based in Uzbekistan, can they qualify to get help with their Amazon business in the USA without being American citizens or what’s some of those things are?

Dana:

Absolutely. So as you know, a team that includes a person born in Costa Rica raised in Israel and Latin America and the US, and then also having teams coinciding both in Tel Aviv and in Austin, Texas we are very, very proud to offer funding for Amazon sellers worldwide. Actually, the couple that I was just telling you about, they are located in Australia. But we have sellers in every country that you named and then some Amazon sellers, Shopify sellers, truly that’s part of the greatness of e-commerce is you can have this amazing successful eight figure business wherever you’re sitting on the globe, in whatever lifestyle you’ve chosen for yourself, whatever product and the niche you’ve chosen. In terms of qualifying, so the number one requirement in order to start out with 8fig funding, which is, you know, like I said, only part of our service is three months where you can sales revenue exceeding $8,000 per month. So basically a run rate of $100,000 a year, but you only have to demonstrate it for the last three months. And for all of the other tools that we offer, planning, forecasting, and analytics all that takes is just a store, have your store connect it, and start using 8fig to plan. And then once you hit the requirement, by all means, submit your lines, we’ll fund them, and we’ll help you grow.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. And then for paying things back are you guys like tied to the bank account or tied to my Seller Central to get, you know, parts of the disbursements or what’s the real word remittance, is that remittance?

Dana:

Remittance. Yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

I’m trying to be fancy here now. How do we pay y’all back? You know, it’s like, okay, is I’m trying to say from Texas, that’s how I would say it, but like, yeah. How do we handle the remittance?

Dana:

So the remittance, that is quite fancy. Yes. the remittances are part of the seller’s plan. So you receive it as an inseparable part of the funding offer. But like I said, that is flexible at any time, if you need to make an adjustment. And the way that that’s conducted is via ACH. So pretty simple seamless the Amazon Seller Central is connected, but we don’t remit funds directly from Amazon Seller Central, those payouts go to the seller, of course. And then we use the ACH in order to to remit funds and also to credit funds to the seller. Yeah, but the idea is that we connect to your Amazon Seller Central both for obviously initial plan creation, but then also in order to constantly provide you with analytics about your store and about opportunities in your store.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, cool. Now, before we get into how to contact you, there’s something we do on this show, we call it the TST 30-second tip. You don’t have to stick to 30 seconds. I’m not gonna cut you off or anything, but like a minute or less, you talked about some strategies and things like that, but what’s a strategy or a tip. It can be related to your business. It could be related to all of your experience with supply chain operations can be about anything at all that you think is unique and valuable and actionable for our listeners that you can say in like 30 seconds to a minute or less.

Dana:

I think from what we’ve seen both in the kickstart of this year, this last prime day, which was record chattering. And then what we’re predicting for Q4 is actually plan like money is no object and focus on your top sellers. This is the time to really double down on proven products, products that you can grow year over year, where you’ve honed your supply chain to a work of art. And you know, that you can deliver. You know that you can deliver the results that you need year over year. This is probably not a fantastic time to, you know, experiment for the first time with being a multichannel seller. This is probably not the best time to jump into a category that you don’t know much about. Probably not the best time to jump happy with manufacturers or vendors, but it’s a perfect time to double down on what works, because we’re going to see a lot of sellers who during the pandemic saw it as more of a partner thing, and they weren’t really in it for the long haul, but serious sellers. Apropo this podcast name, they’re in it for the long haul. They know what works, do what works, better than anyone what works,

Bradley Sutton:

Speaking of serious sellers, there’s gonna be a lot of us getting together for some learning and some partying. And I know you guys are gonna be a part of it too, as one of the sponsors of the Sell and Scale Summit. Are you personally gonna go there in September in Vegas?

Dana:

Absolutely. If you’ll have me, Vegas is a place that I know quite well, of course, from the various Prosper shows and just personal visits, so absolutely loved

Bradley Sutton:

That personal visit. I had a personal visit in Las Vegas.

Dana:

Yes. I had a personal visit to Las Vegas where I was handling remittances for the queen.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah. So the remittances.

Bradley Sutton:

I almost felt like when I was, was saying remittance, I had to use a British accent for some reason, but, but anyways, do you know what’s the most important part of the Sell and Scale summit? It’s a kind of trick question here, but let’s, let’s test you out here

Dana:

The most important part, by the way, I have to say the brilliant name and it’s actually a question that we’ve dealt with quite a lot internally at 8fig with the selling frenzy. I think that there was, it’s kind of slowed down, but how do we open the seller’s eyes to emphasize you’ve got a gold mine? Why would you sell this? It’s phenomenal. So what’s the, what’s the most important part, Bradley? Can you tell me?

Bradley Sutton:

It’s not the Gary Vee talk. It is day one where I will be leading a Zumba fitness class there for all attendees to kind of get the blood flowing. So I will expect that you will pack appropriate clothing.

Dana:

If I had any doubt.

Bradley Sutton:

Sweat yourself to death at a Zumba fitness class, and I’m gonna see you there, right?

Dana:

Absolutely. I think in September in Vegas, you’re probably gonna sweat, no matter what you do.

Bradley Sutton:

Very true.

Dana:

I will definitely pack, some neon workout gear and I will be there front row.

Bradley Sutton:

Let’s go, let’s go. All right. Now, if anybody else out there wants to join that Zumba class, or probably the more, you know, let’s be real, the more important part is the networking and learning. You’re gonna have, make sure to go to h10.me/s3, h10.me/s3 can use my hundred dollars off discount code S3BS100, S3BS100. And I will see you in Vegas now, people, of course, can wait until September to see you to ask you more questions, but how can they find you on the interwebs out there if they wanna hit you guys up to the kind of follow up on this conversation that we’ve been having?

Dana:

Absolutely. You can email me directly at [email protected]. You can also just go directly to 8fig.co start your journey, create your account. We have an awesome CS team who’s there to help you if there’s anything that you need. And yeah, we’ll see you around. We’ll see you on 8fig.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. So let me see if I’m gonna give this a stab here. I’m gonna say thank you very much. I’m gonna say (speaking in Spanish), I’m gonna say (speaking in Hebrew), and thank you for coming on here. And I’ll be seeing you on the Zumba dance floor in September.

Dana:

Absolutely. And I will say (speaking in Spanish), and I will also say (speaking in Hebrew) and see you in Vegas.

Bradley Sutton:

I love it.

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