Regional Plays Matter
Expanding your business internationally is easier than ever before but it's more difficult than you think. Which marketplaces perform best regionally should make a difference in where you choose to expand and without knowing that, your plan to expand could fail. Remember that localization makes a difference.
View Video Podcast Here.
Michael Maher 00:00
Hello, everybody, and welcome to The Longer Game, the podcast where we talk about retail, reimagined, focusing on what's happening retail now and the future of retail, and where we just have conversations about what that looks like. Today, joining me is James Dihardjo. He is the co-founder of MerchantSpring, which is software that is helping many brands and sellers expand across multiple marketplaces. I'll let him talk a little bit about that. So that I think he's gonna do a much better job of it than I would. But James, thanks for coming on. I appreciate you doing so. And I think you're, what, 12 hours ahead of me right now. So it's 9 pm or?
James Dihardjo 00:39
Yeah, look, I am, I am in the future, Michael.
Michael Maher 00:41
*inaudible* They're already there. What is it like?
James Dihardjo 00:46
It's no different than the past given COVID. It is 11:15 pm here, boy?
Michael Maher 00:53
Oh, wow. Okay, so you're at 14 hours ahead. Okay. I know that there's a lot of you're in Australia, there's a lot of working relationships sometimes with people in the Philippines and in Australia, because of the fact that you're on the same timezone. Is that is that pretty, pretty correct?
James Dihardjo 01:09
We're close we’re three hours apart at the moment. So we're..
Michael Maher 01:14
In Australia is a huge, like, there are multiple time zones in Australia. It's not like Hawaii. So I mean, it's a very big country.
James Dihardjo 01:22
Yes, it is a very, very big, big country with very few people, Michael. So..
Michael Maher 01:27
It's almost like Canada as an island, but much more Sunny, and probably more pleasant. I mean, the people in Canada, I'm assuming are nice. At least that's what the movies and TV shows tell me. But yeah, so tell us a little bit about MerchantSpring, I know that you help sellers on Amazon, Walmart, eBay, but don't tell me more about the focus of what that does. And you know, what your going intent is?
James Dihardjo 01:55
Yeah, so to put it simply, and without sounding like a salesman here. Its merchants brings DNA is about really just surfacing key metrics when you're selling on marketplaces. So to give you an example, you know, if you're a seller in France, you might have an Amazon account connected to our tool, as cdiscount, account connected to our tool, an F neck account connected and an eBay account connected. Because, you know, and as a French-based seller, you'd be able to see all your marketplaces in our tool, a tool surface, all the key metrics, that you see them all, in real-time, let you know what's going on in a matter of seconds, versus logging into all the back ends of those marketplaces and wasting your time with CSVS, and the like. So yeah, that's it in a nutshell, without, again, without sounding like a salesman.
Michael Maher 02:44
We encourage salesmen. I mean, I think, you know, when I go out and excuse me, when I go out and prospect, and I'm looking for clients, there's no, I don't think there's a need to necessarily beat around the bush, but it is how you present yourself, and are you targeting your audience if I was just going out, and reaching out to, I don't know, like Boeing, and trying to say, Hey, we can help you sell on Amazon like that's obviously very not targeted. But if I'm going to a specific brand and saying, I believe that there's more potential for your brain, let's have a conversation that's very, very relevant. So and honestly, being on the show, it's an opportunity for you to plug what it is that you're doing. You know, I connected a little while ago. And I think one of the most interesting things as I start to expand my perspective of what retail looks like, across the world, Amazon is a very big player here in the US, I would say probably in Canada as well, not as big of a marketplace, or just market in general. In Canada, that's why a lot of people start in the US, especially with Amazon selling. But as we go out, and my agency even looks at, you know, how can we serve as other marketplaces, what's the opportunity there? I'm noticing that there's a lot of regional players, just like how Amazon is, I mean, somewhat regional to the US, they're wanting to be International. And they've got you know, sites in UK, all throughout the EU, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Netherlands, that's still EU but Australia. They have Brazil, but there's no FBA there. It's still fulfilled by merchants, which FBA stands for Fulfillment by Amazon. They're the ones that are fulfilling goods for anyone that that is not clear on that. I don't want to do business jargon and say that a cost and the metrics and the TLC and TPS reports or whatever the office space joke is about, I think it was TPS reports. Anyway. There's a lot of regional players out there and I think it's important that brands who are you know, for brands who are used to being in brick and mortar stores, they get that there's a lot of different merchants out there and so they have to play to some of the regional players and like here in the States, Kroger is a huge grocer, grocer. But they have Smith's and they have Fred Meyer, they have all these other subsidiaries. So it's important that you know which stores you're going into. Someone, in Florida might want to see you in Publix. They don't care about a Kroger because maybe there's one. And there's like five Publix for every one Kroger or whatever the case may be. So there's a lot of regional players. Can you tell me more about what the retail landscape looks like, in Australia, and you're seeing, you know, Amazon comes up in the US. Of course, there's a lot of news about that. But then they start coming into your country. I know eBay is very big in Australia. And that's actually where I got started selling was eBay, which seems crazy now. But there's a ton of, there's many categories that do a billion dollars in the US each year. Most of the product that's on there is new, although they do you know, buy and sell us music gear. That's how I got started on there. But yeah, tell us about what Amazon coming into your country looks like from your perspective, knowing that eBay is already really big. There's likely some other regional players as well.
James Dihardjo 06:13
Yeah. So look, Amazon's been here since the end of 2017. So it's coming up to four years. When they launched, they already had somewhat of a presence, you were able to buy like Kindle stuff for, you know, some basic
Michael Maher 06:28
Gotcha.
James Dihardjo 06:29
digital items. So since then, in four years, I've gone from, I believe, I mean, I could be wrong, but I believe the kind of Kindle-Esque Amazon presence in Australia was around a million visits per month, something like that.
Michael Maher 06:44
Oh, wow.
James Dihardjo 06:44
And now, I just checked the other day, as of July this year, I think they were up to 3030 plus million visits a month, right. So,
Michael Maher 06:54
A month, wow. And what's the population in Australia?
James Dihardjo 06:57
20 million, about 20 million. So,
Michael Maher 07:00
Okay, wow. So multiple people,
James Dihardjo 07:02
it probably visits. It's probably my wife visiting Amazon 200,000 times a day. But um, but yeah, the point I'm trying to make is, you know, it's grown, like crazy here. And to your point earlier, Michael, there are really serious players here in Australia. I mean, there are more marketplaces here than I've probably had hot meals. There.
Michael Maher 07:24
Wow. Okay.
James Dihardjo 07:25
They're, you know, to give you an example,
Michael Maher 07:27
either you're getting starved of hot meals, or there's just really a lot of marketplaces.
James Dihardjo 07:32
No, there really is a lot of marketplaces. So to give you a name, for example, there's a marketplace here called Catch, your marketplace here called Madill and marketplace here called Click Central. That sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Michael Maher 07:42
Yeah, yeah.
James Dihardjo 07:43
But the point I'm trying to make is they are popping up and they are actually really serious, you'll actually see sellers actually drive more sales from catch than they do on Amazon, even though Amazon's growing and all that kind of stuff. So what I'm trying to say is the retail landscape, at least digitally here is more and more marketplaces are coming. Each one seems to be, you know, just as high performing as the next right or, depending on the category may even outperform Amazon or even eBay, for example.
Michael Maher 08:10
Sure.
James Dihardjo 08:11
But what,
Michael Maher 08:12
It is kind of like the original marketplace in Australia? I mean, it's been there for a while, right?
James Dihardjo 08:18
Yeah, yeah, look, I mean, I think, um, I think you know, people at one point were saying, Yeah, just eBay it which means buy something from eBay or sell or some.
Michael Maher 08:27
*inaudible*, Amazon. Yeah, I think people will do that in here in the US, like, just find it on Amazon.
James Dihardjo 08:32
Yeah, exactly. So um, so look, to your point earlier, you know, the region that the kind of domestic players here in Australia, pretty serious. But I would say that, Amazon, although it's, you know, growing nicely over the last four years, it is really, really picking up the pace, like each year, I'm seeing like, huge leaps and bounds in both their offering the traffic they're attracting, and I and anecdotally, like, I just speak to people, you know, even for example, my mother, right, older lady, she's bought online and all that, but as soon as she goes to Amazon, you know, in Australia. I mean, this is the experience we get here. She's like, okay, I want to buy airpods, buys it in the afternoon. The next day in the morning, they arrive right for her.
Michael Maher 09:19
Wow. And that is huge. I mean, how many miles across is Australia? It's not like,
James Dihardjo 09:24
Thousand, it's like *inaudible* between
Michael Maher 09:27
Okay, I think it's like it's big is I mean it's I know it's way bigger than Texas but I mean it's like part of the middle of the country for, for the US to put it in size perspective. So that's pretty there has to be enough fulfillment centers to get it there that quickly it's it can be you know, three towns over and necessarily get to someone that quickly.
James Dihardjo 09:50
Yeah, exactly. And that they have been, you know, they have been aggressively rolling out fulfillment centers around the country and but they realize and to here's my mom's example. You know, that experience, it's so crazy it outperforms eBay, it outperforms, you know, branded site or whatever. You know, my mom's, in her words is, "well, I'm not going to shop anywhere else from now on". I mean, that, that that is like, yeah, you convert, and she's not even, you know, forget about a talking about Prime membership or whatever, like, this is done and dusted. And I can just imagine, you know, once the population kind of gets that experience, like, why would you go back to eBay? I mean, eBay still has a place here, but I'm just saying,
Michael Maher 10:31
sure
James Dihardjo 10:31
You know, the things that Amazon is doing here is really kind of pushing the boundaries, you know, for for the customer, but also kind of pushing the boundaries for marketplaces as well, like, I talked about Catch earlier, actually, the management team, they're a former Amazon, so they realized that, you know, Amazon does this and kind of, they're all pushing each other. And I think we'll get to a fairly diversified omnichannel environment here. You know, where everyone has its place, but you know, I think it's just going to be a survival of the best offering the best service, *inaudible*
Michael Maher 11:04
Yeah,
James Dihardjo 11:05
forward.
Michael Maher 11:06
There's a, there's a similar theme in the US of what, when you look at Amazon, what they've done, and changed from a buyer, or consumer expectation level. So if you go to a website, here in the US, and you see a shipping cost on there, it's gonna look weird to you, because you're used to seeing free shipping. Now, let's be clear, you're paying for the shipping, no matter what it is, it is merely,
James Dihardjo 11:31
Optics.
Michael Maher 11:32
visual, it's very, it's very much optics that is making you feel better about this purchase. But nonetheless, you like seeing free shipping, you want to see, you know, two to three-day delivery. And those are more standards now, that even five years ago, weren't quite standards, you know, getting something in, I think, five days, maybe, you know, a week's time was not too long. And now Amazon's focusing on it, despite, honestly, some of the challenges they're seeing, initially due to COVID. And the overloading of the logistics system, which Amazon has, is a trusted brand, or a trusted logistics company, that's essentially what they are, yes, they have product, that they sell private label stuff. But that's a small part of the very small part of the marketplace, I would say even less than 1% of the offerings or brands that are on there. And I know there's a lot of horror stories that people have told about this one brand getting ripped off, and the other brand getting ripped off, I just don't see that being the majority of people, although it is terrible, when something like that actually happens. Anyway, I digress. there's a change in the expectations that people have, because of what Amazon's pushed continually pushing to do better. And what I've heard in the past is competing against themselves trying to, you know, they're doing things that put their what they're currently doing sort of out of business and make them unnecessary. So not being a Prime member, you know, maybe didn't matter 10 years ago on Amazon. But now being a Prime member is everything. And especially from a brand's perspective, if you're selling on Amazon, you're fulfilling yourself people that are Prime members that spend at least two times what non-Prime members spend, they're more active on the site. Of course, you know, they're paying 119, I think bucks now a year to get access to that, including media, all that stuff. But they're not even seeing your product. And so I think from a regional perspective, or from a domestic perspective, in your case, James, if people are not on Amazon, and on catch, and on Click Central, if they're not on all those marketplaces, which is where all the consumers are, they're actually losing out on potential market share, because they're only visible in, you know, one of five places online.
James Dihardjo 13:53
Yeah, look, I definitely think that's the sentiment here. I mean, it's funny, when I speak to guys in the US, some of them are saying, you know, forget about Walmart, forget about anything else, just hyper-focus on Amazon, because, you know, that's where you get kind of dollars back for your effort. But here in Australia, that, you know, everyone thinks, well, I need to be everywhere. I need to sell everywhere because everywhere is just as you know, requires just an insane amount of effort. I mean, we're talking about Australia, right? So a completely different kind of demographic culture pay *inaudible*. But yeah, the selling mantra here is to exactly what you said, I need to be everywhere, because otherwise, I'm going to miss out. Like that's the kind of logic we have here as a seller, if that makes sense.
Michael Maher 14:37
Yeah, by the way, mantra is a very cool word, but you said it even cooler by saying mantra. I must have a very weird accent for you, I imagine. But yeah, sometimes I wish I could say words cool like that. Or like I'll hear a British accent. And it's like how they shape some of the vowels. And I'm like, Man that just seems so foreign and crazy, but I know a lot of people probably outside of the US All right, well, Hello, I'm gonna go to the United States and have a barbecue or whatever and, you know, make fun of people being hillbillies, which I get. So I think that's, that's a speaks to why being understanding of what the native landscape looks like is so important. One example is I was speaking with someone who owns a translation company, and they help sellers, specifically on Amazon, to translate their listings into the, you know, the country, that language that they're selling. And so if they're going to Germany, they need to, you know, have stuff translated into German now, just translating it with Google Translate, it's not going to look trustworthy, it's going to look like when Chinese manufacturers are selling here in the US, and they're translating, or they're trying to do it on their own. And it looks, it doesn't look professional, it looks authentic. And so people are going to stray away from those sometimes price might, you know, be the only thing like, I don't care if it's broken English, I just want the product here. And I want it cheap. But you have to know, you know, when it comes to translation, localization is important. So there might be certain dialects or certain tones of voice, what I heard from the translation specialist was that Germany, no Amazon copy in the US is like, this is gonna totally change your life. And it's very sales-focused, and they're talking about lifestyle, but in Germany, they just want the technical aspect. And I don't know a ton of Germans. But yes, there is a very, you know, maybe James, you can speak to this, but there's very straightforward linear style, it's not, you know, going off into a bunch of different areas. It's just like, this thing is two inches wide, it's five inches deep. And it will, it will fix your car battery, or I don't know, something like that. It has to be very technical. And if you try to sell what's going on, maybe in the UK, or Canada or US, you're gonna fail on that marketplace.
James Dihardjo 16:58
Yeah, look, I definitely agree with that. And I think even within the English-speaking countries, there are material differences in language, for example, we don't use the word flip-flop. Here. We know you know, that word we will use in place of that. And that's just one example. But what is the word you use and center for we use phones here in Australia, that is what we,
Michael Maher 17:19
Ah, see. Now, *inaudible* here in the US means, something very, very different means a tiny little strain between your butt cheeks.
James Dihardjo 17:27
I'm aware. But as I said, as a real practical example.
Michael Maher 17:30
I got you, yeah.
James Dihardjo 17:31
There are serious differences. And I think you know, your,
Michael Maher 17:34
People wouldn't even know probably if you said flip flop, they would be like, I don't know what that is.
James Dihardjo 17:39
No, that say you, Are you struggling to make a decision. That's what flipflop really means here.
Michael Maher 17:44
Oh, okay. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's a great point. So even going from English speaking to English-speaking country, you're going to have very different regional differences.
James Dihardjo 17:55
Yeah, I think, you know, I also agree with your point about, you know, the actual way the copy is used, I mean, the underlying practicalities of running Amazon copy, like, you know, keywords and all that type of stuff. Yes, that's still probably the same. But you know, I think in Australia, I know of some categories here that it's probably somewhat like what you heard about Germany, and it has to be very detailed as explain all the kind of practical technicalities, because people are like looking for that here. Fitment dot, blah, blah, blah, etc. It's highly critical, rather than saying, you know, change your life or use it on your desk, and it'll be wonderful. You know what I mean?
Michael Maher 18:32
Are these paperweight is going to change your life?
James Dihardjo 18:35
Yeah. So yeah, I totally agree with you, Michael.
Michael Maher 18:39
Talk to me about, so you were talking about France and how there's different marketplaces, they're talking to me about what the retail landscape looks like there. And I think also something good to know is, there's a lot of brands here in the US that start out digital or digitally native. And so they might start on Amazon, get their own, you know, web store using big commerce, or Shopify or Magento, or whatever the case, whatever platform that they're wanting to use WordPress, I think that's kind of going out of style. Of course, Shopify gets a lot of news. And people mistakenly see that as a platform. And I said platform, as in the, you know, vendor that you're using your platform as your own web store. Shopify is not just a platform where you get on like Amazon, and you just put stuff up and then people come to it, you still have to drive traffic to it. That's one of the big differences between eCommerce and Amazon. Ecommerce, in general Amazon, is we don't have developers on our staff. That's a need for eCommerce industry, agencies, they have to developers are a big part of what they do, because they're fixing things that break they're in charge of the interface, there's code, you don't have that with Amazon. It's like, here's this box, here's this, you have to create imagery that looks beautiful. And you have to work within, you know, put up your own content. But other than that, you don't have control over user experience. So that's something to consider, but there's a lot of brands that started digitally native, and then start to go into stores. You know, France is a market that you know about, as well as Australia. What are you seeing? Are you seeing a lot of digitally native brands start online and start to expand offline? Is the focus still very much the online presence right now? Or, you know, you know, what, what does that look like?
James Dihardjo 20:24
Yeah, it's, um, it's very interesting over there, actually, one of our kind of friends of the business over there wrote an article for us about the large amount of marketplaces over there. But I would say interestingly, it's very similar to Australia. So you know, your question about what, you know, what's the importance of different channels, and for digitally native brands and so on, like in France, for example, this partner of ours, called trade booster, they always talk about bracketing, like for them, like rackets in France is just such an important channel and so on so forth, then,
Michael Maher 20:57
It'll be clear. It's an actual sales channel for products, correct?
James Dihardjo 21:01
Yeah, great. It's just because,
Michael Maher 21:02
It used to, it used to be that way in the US, they've now changed it over to be like a coupon and deal site. Yeah, it's a rocket 10 bought, there was another company that, I think was I can't remember who it was, but they bought this company, because my wife would, you know, get money back from them. And now that's what rocket 10 is here. Same thing.
James Dihardjo 21:24
Yeah, it's a full-blown like, you know, regular marketplace over there in the US, sorry, in France.
Michael Maher 21:30
Okay.
James Dihardjo 21:31
But I would say as well that, you know, this, this partner, mouse, you know, they talk about rackets in France, they talk about cdiscount, they talk about f snack, they talk about Dotty, and then they talk about Okay, then it's Amazon and eBay. So interestingly, that kind of dynamic of being, you know, very much aware of, you know, if you're a digitally native brand, or otherwise, actually, you're very much aware of all the other channels you need to be on. And actually, you know, some of them are just as important or if not more important than Amazon, and you know, things like cdiscount Michael, I will share how things have functions similar to that of Amazon, like they're fulfilled by cdiscount as an example. So you can actually kind of trade in the same way, it's just as easy you know, you kind of like, you know, as to your point, just get a CT scan account, you do beautiful imagery, there's no code just get up and selling so long as you kind of like goddamn shipshape.
Michael Maher 22:24
I think, I think a lot of things, sometimes I last night, I had a dream, and there were a bunch of alligators in the dream. I don't know why I wanted to share that. But I just felt like it could be relevant for some people. But that, you know, some countries, us, I would say probably as well, as a tendency to think a lot about themselves. I know, I've heard that about Italians, but other countries, there's a lot of you know, pride in their country. And so they think things outside of their country are, are you know, are not different, it's all the same. And the more global we get, the more we realize how, you know, we're all humans, we have a lot of similarities with the way in which we do things is very, very different. So at from a brand perspective, if you're in the US, and you're going outside of the US, don't just expand to the Amazon Marketplace there. Look for regional players talk to people, there are tons of companies that because of this need for getting on multiple marketplaces at a time, there are now companies that all they do is build your catalog in one place, and then send it out to these different areas, different websites using catalog feeds. Now, this is something that Kroger or other big companies had maybe P and G's of the world and Kimberly Clark's, and Johnson Johnson, they've been using these catalog companies for a long time sending stuff out throughout the web. And it's like very expensive. I mean, it's like 50, maybe to $100,000 a year for these types of tools. That's nothing for them, because they're, you know, getting in the hundreds of millions of sales. So it's not a big deal. But now there's software being created for these smaller brands, and by smaller mean, you know, under 5 million under 10 million to make it more accessible, so they can send their products out to multiple marketplaces. I'm seeing that here in the US. It's something that as we you know, look and explore like walmart.com or eBay, things like that. For, for brands that we're working with, we notice a need for that, of course, Amazon has some special requirements. But if you're able to replicate what you've done in one marketplace and bring it over to four others, you've now just expanded your market reach and you haven't had to do an exponentially different or even a multiplication amount of work, you know, are your multiples not double? It's like one in a 1.5 times the work to get into, you know, six times the marketplaces.
James Dihardjo 24:53
Yeah, look, I think what's really interesting and you just reminded me, Michael, is that that type of selling using Kind of catalog feeds as you put it, funnily enough, is it has been the oldest way of selling here in Australia. It's almost to the point when Amazon came here some sellers were saying to me, What do you mean, I don't need a catalog feed? What do you mean FBA? It doesn't need an inventory feed. What do you mean FBA doesn't need an order feed? And I'll be looking at them like, you know, trying to go well, you know, that's how you sell on Amazon, or you send the stock in and they fulfill it and whatever. Yeah, because here, you know, everyone, everyone's like, initial thought is okay, I'm going to sell in the marketplace, I need a catalog feed. That's like the first thing they think about. So it's very interesting that for you guys, it's kind of like, you know, this not, not new thing. But it's kind of like a new way of thinking here. It's like the new way of,
Michael Maher 25:47
Thinking for smaller brands, for sure, a lot of the bigger brands, or brand owners have been doing it. But for everyone that's coming out of the woodwork. And that's especially digitally native. And if they're starting on Amazon, going somewhere else, and realizing I need a catalog feed, like just going from amazon.com to walmart.com, having a catalog feed is going to be far better. Because when you try and go and make updates and Walmart system, like once that first thing is there, it's even worse than Amazon and that it sticks. And so trying to get support cases in the fix that are almost impossible, you're better off just paying, you know, a couple 100 bucks a month, whatever the case might be to get a catalog feed and it might seem like a big chunk for software, but think about what the revenue potential is, then it seems like a lot less than I don't have comparisons of revenue right off the bat. But even if you were, you know, going to get an extra $200,000 in sales 500 bucks a month is probably not that big of a deal. What are, so Amazon is has been adjusting some of its are coming into Australia and like you're, you know, to what your point you said about your mom, how I'm not going to shop anywhere else they're going in and they're they're pushing the envelope and changing things. And that's a big, big part of why people have adopted them so quickly here in the US or just it becomes such a big player. What are some of the other marketplaces doing, you know, as Amazon kind of pushes the envelope there?
James Dihardjo 27:12
Yeah, so, um, some of the marketplaces here have already started developing their own native fulfillment, so fulfilled by blah, whatever it is, that way, they obviously get to control the delivery times, right, you know, they can influence you know, they don't have to say, Oh, Mr. seller, set your delivery time to blah, they can say, Well, I'm fulfilling it, I'm going to do it this way. So that's one thing. Second thing is, Amazon you know, as you know, has you know, its own self-service advertising and you can bid on keywords and all that. Much places here in Australia haven't traditionally had that they've had like rudimentary versions of that, where you bid, you know, some percentage and you get a spot or it's manual, you have to buy with money and invoices to get us part on the marketplace.
Michael Maher 28:00
Wow. $100 and we'll put you on here for the week or something like that.
James Dihardjo 28:04
And they'll send you an invoice and you pay it and then you have to deal with someone and all that so Amazon's full self-service as you know. So Amazon has actually pushed the envelope for all these other marketplaces they're now thinking well, I can make more money from you know, charging sellers on a self-service basis be it's you know, more giving more leavers and so on. So that's, that's two examples. And the third example is you know, obviously Prime membership everyone knows prime and all that other marketplaces here are starting to kind of realize okay, I have to have this and I have to kind of have this loyalty program then now I have to offer more than just kind of early access to deals and data. So you know, you know to ask me a question there's three examples I mean, I could go on for ages but those are really interesting because,
Michael Maher 28:47
Let's do a whole rest of the show, just changes go.
James Dihardjo 28:52
To give a real practical example like we have this thing called eBay plus in Australia, I don't think you guys, do you have that *inaudible*
Michael Maher 28:59
We don't but Walmart just introduced Walmart plus and it's like basically, you get some additional stuff on groceries it's not what Prime membership is. So there's a long way to go there but I don't think there's eBay plus here in the States.
James Dihardjo 29:14
Yeah, so we've got that and that's just one of you know, every other marketplace. I mentioned that Catch, Madeo, Cogan, Click Central, they all have some version of you know, loyalty program. So yeah, there's three things that Amazon's helping push the envelope for everyone else.
Michael Maher 29:29
Was eBay the first to have eBay plus was that even before Amazon and prime came in?
James Dihardjo 29:35
I think it was just after and that around the point that that FBA kind of went live here in Australia, eBay actually had a branded nice fulfillment service here. Like this massive partnership with his business school Fulfilio your where you can send your stock to Fulfilio, that would basically fulfill your eBay orders exactly like FBA, funnily enough, so.
Michael Maher 29:55
Yeah, eBay and eBay here in the states had started something where if you're a seller You can sell send your product to other sellers, and they'll fulfill it for you, which I always thought was interesting. It was like, the, and when I say, like crowdfunded version of, of, you know what fulfilled by Amazon isn't by crowdfunded. I mean it's, you know, it's done by or supplied by all the other sellers that aren't Amazon, they're, you know, they're not guaranteeing anything, but they're saying, hey, well, we'll ship your products for you. Because, you know, maybe you don't want to do that. Or it could be potentially easier for you. And then also eBay gets an opportunity to, you know, get a little bit extra cash in their pockets.
James Dihardjo 30:36
Yeah, interesting. It's so much like a shed. It's almost like, what is it like?
Michael Maher 30:42
Like, rideshare? from like, Uber? Yeah, fulfillment here.
James Dihardjo 30:45
Exactly. Yeah. Interesting.
Michael Maher 30:47
James, if a lot of the audience that we're talking to is probably based out of the US. Where would you, if someone in the US and they said, I want to expand outside of the US. Where would you, where would you tell them to go? And why?
James Dihardjo 31:05
Well, look, if they're an Amazon seller, right, which I'm assuming they are, I'd say, come to Australia, because you can reuse your expertise, you already know what you're doing. You can have a competitive advantage because you know, you know, most people years to learning Amazon. And it's English. You know, same for some localization. But I'd say yeah, but I think that the main point is that our Amazon here in Australia still has a lot of room to grow. Like we have not hit that ceiling. Like I was looking at the traffic of the US like it's just 18 months ago. It's like two and a bit billion. Last month, two and a bit billion is the same.
Michael Maher 31:46
Yeah,
James Dihardjo 31:47
Here. It's like, you know, 18 months ago, it's black and white chalk and cheese, totally different. So there's opportunity.
Michael Maher 31:52
Wait, what was that? You just said chunk and cheese?
James Dihardjo 31:55
Chalk and cheese.
Michael Maher 31:58
What? Tell me about that. I've never heard that before. I also heard someone recently saying this past week. someone's like, how you doing? I'm hanging in there like a hair and a biscuit. And I've never heard that before. But I'm like, Okay, I get it like a hair hanging out of a biscuit, kind of barely in there. What is chalk and cheese? Just two different things.
James Dihardjo 32:15
It's polarization, total opposites.
Michael Maher 32:19
I'm gonna start saying that and I'm going to pretend that I came up with it here in the US. So come, to come to Amazon, in Australia. What about some of the other marketplaces if you were gonna say the first place you should go outside of Amazon is, guess marketplace?
James Dihardjo 32:35
If it was in Australia, it definitely catch. I mean, I know that, you know, everyone knows their executive team, that former Amazon guys. So they've, they've got an appetite for US sellers.
Michael Maher 32:46
Okay, so did they leave Amazon and create this new marketplace? Or was it already there? And they just brought on a lot of Amazon executives.
James Dihardjo 32:54
Nah, I was already there, and that those executives have just joined.
Michael Maher 32:58
Okay, man, that must, yeah, it sounds like, do you know what total retail in Australia looks like? And do you have any idea of what eCommerce versus, you know, in-store looks like? And I'm kind of putting you on the spot here for metrics?
James Dihardjo 33:11
No, I don't I mean, a lot of people ask, but I'm not across the detail of kind of like physical stores and that. But,
Michael Maher 33:19
No, if there was a big increase in eCommerce purchases when the pandemic hit, because there was a, there was like eight to 10 years worth of growth here in the States, just from a quarter to quarter perspective, then really, a lot of it was like, you know, huge, like, there was a day in March, March 13. I remember where a lot of our lot of there was like, you know, I think a national mass mandate or wherever the case might be, there was a lot of stuff where people just kind of dropped off the map for that one day. And then sales really started skyrocketing for a lot of things. Did you see that kind of jump over in Australia?
James Dihardjo 33:50
Yeah, I mean, I don't have the exact figures. But I can tell you for with 100% certainty. People were not allowed out of their houses here. Like, you know, in Melbourne right now, as I'm talking to you, Michael. I cannot go outside my house. It's illegal. I can't go beyond five kilometers from my house. It's also illegal. So, but I still go *inaudible*
Michael Maher 34:07
Going out on your backyard.
James Dihardjo 34:08
Yes, but I can't go into the street right now. So,
Michael Maher 34:11
But, but on front yard too. So you can stay on your own property. You just can't go out into any public property.
James Dihardjo 34:16
Correct. Correct. But if I was out in my front yard, I'd have to wear a mask. But the point I'm trying to make is big simply because you cannot go anywhere you have to buy online, hence my mother, airpods, Amazon now she's like, she's addicted. So,
Michael Maher 34:34
What about groceries? Are people buying a lot of groceries online? I imagine they would. There's a lot of competitors here in the states like Instacart is one a lot of grocery companies that have their own, you know, delivery services now to what does that look like?
James Dihardjo 34:49
Yeah, absolutely. So there's actually a business here called Woolworths, which was formerly Yeah, they fought Safeway, which I'm assuming you guys are familiar.
Michael Maher 34:57
Okay. Yeah, yeah.
James Dihardjo 34:58
Used to be called Safeway. *inaudible* was. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is, everybody gets delivery from Woolworths. So you can see the little green bags at the doors, in the houses. And what's interesting, Michael, I'm glad you asked is they have decided to launch a marketplace as well.
Michael Maher 35:15
There's a lot of I mean, like Kroger, I think has some limited third-party marketplace stuff. Target has a, you know, limited as well. But they're definitely pioneers are piloting that. I don't think it's going to quite get to the level that Amazon is, but I mean Walmart's aggressively going after that, that third-party business. So I mean, that's something that we've looked at and said, should we be providing a service? You know, for the brands that we're working with it, you know, a lot of people say, you know, is your agency going to provide Shopify services? And I say no, because it's two, totally, there's some crossover, but it's two totally different subjects, subject matters, and a lot of people that come from the eCommerce world, and then pivot into Amazon. There's a big learning curve there. And so, and I've heard from a lot of prospects that you have this bigger agency that helps eCommerce people said they had Amazon capabilities, but in reality, they didn't. They were just saying, Yeah, you know, okay, yeah, we can probably help. It's probably not that big of a deal. But there's a huge difference there. So, pivoting, you know, actually creating something that a service that's going to work, it takes time, and it takes a level of understanding. So you can't just, you know, pivot across from that other side. But anyway, no, I've looked at other you know, marketplaces and said, What's going to be popular like eBay has been around, we've kind of started things Amazon came up and you know, took control the reins, but they still have a place here. Walmart's starting to grow. There's a lot of other players that are starting to pop up. So watch out Amazon. They're coming for you. James, tell people, James Dihardjo people whoo, there's gonna be no claps that I, that was just me doing the claps for you. But James, tell people if they want to find you, where should they look? They look in the basement, should they look under a rock, should they look in the trunk of a car, where are people going to be able to find you?
James Dihardjo 37:16
Well, I think, you know, come to Australia, and I'll be riding a kangaroo as you guys probably think we all do.
Michael Maher 37:24
With our cowboy hat in our horses,
James Dihardjo 37:26
But in all seriousness, LinkedIn, find me on LinkedIn. I don't have any social media like Facebook or Instagram. I have none of that. But I do have LinkedIn. So yeah.
Michael Maher 37:36
Can you spell your last name? It's Dihardjo?
James Dihardjo 37:39
Michael Maher 37:43
DJ. Okay, I was so close. James Dihardjo. Well, thanks so much for coming on, man. I really appreciate you being here, having the conversation. If you want to, you know, get in touch with James. We'll have some details below. Wherever this is being displayed. There'll be some kind of information so you can reach out to James but yeah, that was it. People that the end of the show is here. We've talked about retail, we know a little bit more about what's going on in Australia and outside the country. And if you are a brand that's wanting to expand, don't just look to Amazon, especially if you're digitally native look to other retailers as well. Like, Click Central or if you're in Australia, or Catch. Thanks, everybody. Talk to you later.
James Dihardjo 38:23
Thank you.
