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TAS 153 – Expat Australian Ash Rex on Amazon Japan and leveraging video to sell.
02/03/2024
TAS 153 – Expat Australian Ash Rex on Amazon Japan and leveraging video to sell.
Today I'm delighted to welcome to the microphone, Ash Rex. We've spoken a few times about you, you're an expat living in a sucker I think in Japan is that right. 03:51.76 Ash Rex Very good Chris thanks for inviting me. 04:03.80 Ash Rex Yeah, yeah, well I lived in a cycle for eight years I did Tokyo for 8 years but um I'm originally from Sydney I can speak enough. No one can ever speak fluently. But I can speak enough. 04:06.20 christof66 Yeah, can you speak japanese. 04:15.58 christof66 You know it's great to have you on the show. We've had a few chats you've spoken to me a lot about how you're using video how to sell in Japan. Ah, particularly using Amazon so they're the topics that I would love to explore with you today if that's all right? does that sound. Okay brilliant. All right? Um, let's get straight to it look let's have an intro like yeah I know you've given us a quick intro but what led you to this point. 04:32.97 Ash Rex Yeah, sure sure I love to talk about Japan. It's great. 04:44.95 Ash Rex Well I was working in finances Sydney and and one of my best friends moved to Japan and he strongly recommended come over so that's when the currency was really good so you can make a lot of money in Japan I moved over I was only planning to go here for 1 year but I ended up staying 17 So. 04:56.18 christof66 Um, yeah. 05:01.81 christof66 Held it. 05:03.80 Ash Rex I got in early because ah the japanese invented mobile phone internet on I mode and that was making a fortune you could. It was a subscription model. We could charge $3 a month subscription. So I built out a travel phrase book with about 280000 phrases in Japanese and english. 05:17.73 christof66 Wow! yeah. 05:21.30 Ash Rex And I also licensed the Oxford dictionary for the imode in Japan but it all got killed I came in at the tail end and it all got killed by um, smartphones on the iphone. So I got in a bit late on that and then then I made a tv show with my partner for Reebok and Fox. 05:28.67 christof66 M. 05:38.96 Ash Rex Sports so we made a 20 episode yoga tv show that went across ah 11 countries into 20000000 homes then we then we build out a big Youtube channel this is before you can actually make money on youtube so they built a creator space in Tokyo we we filmed about 700 yoga poses for that. We launched all that but that was before. 05:39.73 christof66 No. Where yeah. Jesus. 05:56.70 Ash Rex Before videos were monetized that Google didn't pay you money back then so we kind of went oh what's next. So then we made ah a video subscription app. We filmed our own yoga Tv shows and content. We licensed a Tv 20 episode Tv show to nagua tv for 2 years in a row and then we we create a subscription app. 05:59.70 christof66 Yeah. 06:16.10 Ash Rex So you could download the app watch all the yoga shows in the app and we got up to about 1000 videos I think and then Amazon launched Amazon Channels in Japan now a lot of people don't know what Amazon channels are but when you're an Amazon prime member in America you can pay an extra $5 or $10 a month. 06:20.65 christof66 Wow. 06:33.19 Ash Rex And and subscribe to a specific channel and they've got 150 channels for example, like Hbo Channel Discovery channel bbc channel there's all these different channels and I think they had 6 fitness channels now they're only lot you can only subscribe to it in that country. So if you're not in America with a. 06:33.93 christof66 Um, right. 06:49.31 Ash Rex amazon.com account you can't watch it even if you're in Australia you can't watch it. You have to be in America so in Japan they launched 30 of those and um I got the fitness channel because I had all this content and more importantly because I'd made Tv great content because people watch Amazon channels on their big tv on their $5000 tv so it's not you can't put Youtube quality on there. You have to. 06:51.69 christof66 Yeah, yeah. 07:04.17 christof66 No. Yeah. 07:08.61 Ash Rex Filmment in tv quality and because I started off making a tv show I I always focused on Tv quality content I never I didnt never did Youtube quality content so that allowed me to have my own Amazon channel thankfully and so I have ah I have a one thousand yoga episode yoga tv channel on Amazon. 07:16.30 christof66 Um, yeah, aha. 07:25.41 christof66 Serious man. Amazing. 07:28.50 Ash Rex So I'm probably one of the only individuals on the planet with his own Tv channel and Amazon it's it's quite amazing actually and and then because of yeah and then because of covert everyone stayed home and started doing more yoga. Alright so so kind of went gang buses and then. 07:34.19 christof66 Ah, that's fantastic just in Japan. 07:39.11 christof66 Um, yeah going. 07:43.97 Ash Rex I always had the goal of selling products under my brand name. So I trademarked my name five years ago for many categories and then I started launching my own products and then during covid um I was introduced I got stuck in Australia actually I was down in the gold coast and I got introduced through a friend of mine in New Zealand to this company called Swift point. 07:49.69 christof66 Yep. 08:02.28 christof66 Um, yeah. 08:03.65 Ash Rex They Ah they make computer mice and they wanted to they wanted to end their relationship with their Japanese distributor who wasn't really innovative in the way they're marketing it and then they asked me to do it and um and we got the trademark registered and then I went I just went to town on video. So. 08:18.76 christof66 Yeah, yeah. 08:20.84 Ash Rex What was exciting was about a year and a half ago Amazon completely changed and they went all out video and because I'd done about 8 years of video. It was really exciting for me. So I've been testing out every single aspect of video on Amazon to the extreme. Every single thing you can do with video I've tried it. 08:27.60 christof66 Um, yeah. 08:37.56 Ash Rex And it's been quite a journey actually and from what I've seen I've reviewed a lot of Youtube channels I've I've looked at what everyone else is saying no one's talking about it. No one actually knows so a lot of the people out there on on Youtube and stuff who are giving advice in all these places they just don't have the video background and they haven't tested it all out because. 08:53.70 christof66 No. 08:56.77 Ash Rex To test it all out is quite expensive right? If you actually had to make videos for Amazon ads. Yeah um, your brand store your product listing all the you know people can't test it out but I've already tested out Amazon with 1000 videos which list alongside products and more importantly I have my own production capacity. So. 08:57.41 christof66 Yeah, yeah. 09:13.30 christof66 Yeah. 09:15.14 Ash Rex I've been able to produce a ah vast amount of video content for the brands I'm selling and test everything out to the extreme. So if I wanted to test something new out. Yeah I know exactly what works and I know how powerful it is and from what I've seen I've been reviewing lots of big brands on Amazon no one is doing video anywhere near. 09:18.34 christof66 So now now what? what? what works? Yeah yeah. 09:33.14 christof66 Yeah, well let's dive in let's dive into that but I want to start with your pair like why. 09:33.70 Ash Rex What they should be doing and they could triple quadriple who knows times 10 their sales and you can give you a very strong comparative advantage. Yeah, let's dive in there. You go. 09:47.15 christof66 Would we as an Amazon seller. Maybe we set up in America or Australia or a few other marketplace. Perhaps even Europe but why would we want to go and start selling in Japan give me some good reasons. Um, yeah. 09:53.31 Ash Rex Well, the most important thing is a very sophisticated mature market. It's probably 1 of the most competitive retail markets on earth Amazon japans about 10% of the market. There's one hundred and thirty five million people here in some accounts japanese are probably the richest people on earth maybe not the e economy is a big anymore. But just remember japanese and Net investors in other countries so that doesn't show the japanese gdp. So if you actually look at their net investment in other countries. They're probably some of the richest people in the world. They got one of the highest densities of millionaires on the planet Amazon has a very very very deep penetration in the japanese market I mean when I say deep I'm talking deep I think. 10:12.71 christof66 Um. 10:21.63 christof66 Yep. 10:29.16 christof66 Yep. 10:31.52 Ash Rex You know prime members in America something like 40000000 or something I don't know what it is exactly but globally it's one hundred million probably thirty five forty fifty million in America which you know out of 350000000 people but in Japan there's only 135000000 people and they're probably easily 25 to 30000000 Amazon prime members now if each household has. 10:32.77 christof66 M. 10:39.70 christof66 Yeah. 10:49.13 christof66 That's huge me. Yeah. 10:50.82 Ash Rex 2 or 3 3 or 4 people that's literally every householder in the whole of Japan and they had some big competitors here but they've pretty much in the last five ten years crushed them and the main reason is and and this is the Amazon model is they have their warehouses out of the city where the rent the land is cheap and the rent is cheap. 10:56.00 christof66 There are. 11:07.18 christof66 Yeah. 11:09.70 Ash Rex And therefore the rental cost is next to nothing compared to the the price. The products you can offer a disc a cheaper value whereas the retail the rental price in the big cities like Tokyo is just astronomical. So the retailers just can't compete um, the other thing is you got ridiculously fuss delivery times because you know. 11:15.59 christof66 Um, yeah. 11:20.52 christof66 Um, yeah, no. 11:27.19 Ash Rex Ah, something like thirty forty percent of japanese live in Tokyo and and so all their delivery centers in Tokyo I mean some products you can get delivering 1 hour you can you can order a bag of rice and someone will go to a factory a go to a warehouse take out a bag of rice hop in a car drive to your house and hand you the bag of rice. 11:36.57 christof66 That's amazing. Yeah, ah ah. 11:46.28 Ash Rex In 1 hour he's unbelievable and and the other thing is the other big thing is japanese absolutely love foreign products. They got a love affair they you know japanese um, it's 1 of the contradictions of Japan they've got a very very rich deep history and tradition and culture. But on the other hand they embrace every single foreign product on earth. 11:47.22 christof66 Yeah. 11:57.23 christof66 He. 12:06.28 Ash Rex I mean they they love testing out foreign products. That's one of the reasons why they're so successful in innovating new products. They love everything and so the biggest brands you can actually Google it you can list the biggest brands in Japan and in terms of customer awareness and love affair. You know with brands you know some of the 3 biggest brands is Disney Ritz -carlton louis viton. 12:10.12 christof66 M. M. 12:25.57 Ash Rex I mean they worship this I mean Louis Viton they were shocked how many people were buying their handbags. They couldn't believe it they had they had I met the head of Louis Viton Japan and he said they had no idea why japanese were buying it. They were the biggest buyers of louisu viton products on earth and they had no idea what they did to have had that success. They were completely dumbmfounded. 12:25.70 christof66 That'll dig a. 12:32.86 christof66 E. 12:43.45 christof66 Well we love we love their japanese well we love japanese products too right we love their cars we love their knives and there's a bunch of different things I've sold japanese products wholesaling some like toy squishies in the past year and my daughter picked them out. It's probably something I was spoken about in the show before. But yeah, my daughter was watching a video once on Youtube and. 12:44.30 Ash Rex They went gangbusters. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I have you. 13:02.16 christof66 She was running into squishy. She was about Eight or nine years old and um, just know these little squishy toys I had no idea what they were because I'm like my fifty s yeah so yeah, so I ended up finding out the the name of the company that was supplying well was selling these squishies and yeah, got in touch and started selling them and made about seventy thousand bucks in my first like six weeks or something. 13:20.17 Ash Rex Well, that's amazing. Well, that's that's the thing see this is 1 thing Japan's unique compared to everyone else. Most people are the western people. They want the highest quality at the lowest price japanese don't think like that they actually want to pay a high price for quality. 13:21.71 christof66 Amazing in America. 13:30.64 christof66 M. Yeah. 13:37.15 Ash Rex They're willing but you know why because they respect your artisanship they respect your skill. They respect your production quality and they're proud to pay you a high price for quality. So that's something unique about Japan people don't know I had a friend of mine and his cousin they had a a billion dollar nut nut company in America. 13:41.19 christof66 Um, yeah. 13:52.87 christof66 Yeah, yeah. 13:54.81 Ash Rex And they told me that um they were selling premium grade nuts in Japan at 3 times higher than any other country on earth and I also um, met 1 of the biggest chocolate chefs on the world and he researched every chocolate market on the planet and he said the best market on the entire planet for chocolate was Japan. 14:08.60 christof66 Yep. 14:14.28 Ash Rex They would pay 2 or 3 times more for premium grade chocolate than any other country in the world. So japanese pay for quality. So if you're selling a high quality product on Amazon look at the japanese market you might be able to get some abnormal returns and because japanese appreciate perfection. They want it to be perfect if it's not perfect. They will return it and give you one start. 14:19.68 christof66 Um, yeah. 14:31.84 christof66 Yeah, ouch. 14:34.10 Ash Rex When I say perfect I mean if you're selling clothing and you got 1 little bit of stitching out of place. They're gonna return it. 14:39.63 christof66 Ouch, Okay, that's very very top tip right? there What about things like packaging because I know that the Japanese just go completely over the top with the packaging that they expect and and retailers provide. 14:47.52 Ash Rex Well japanese yeah japanese probably had the most sophisticated packaging on earth I met once I met a guy to who was it I met this japanese guy years and years ago he made $200000000 making boxes for rolex watches. But he was making boxes for fake rolexboxes. Anyway, you made $200000000 I couldn't believe it. Yeah and their packaging is ah on another on another world. Seriously yeah, you got to get your packaging right? if you want to make money in japan you got to get your packaging right? You can't you can't half hard it you got to go all out. 15:09.32 christof66 Ah, come I got. 15:14.60 christof66 No, not a level isn't it. Yeah I've got to get to Japan. 15:23.50 christof66 Um, yeah. 15:25.37 Ash Rex To the extreme on the other hand if you got a product and you're selling globally Japan's a great place to sort packaging I mean they got tin cans I mean for example I came across a company in Tokyo that sold tin cans for tea and stuff like that they were just full on artistisans they're like a hundred and fifty year old company. Just. 15:27.58 christof66 M. 15:34.85 christof66 Yeah. Um, beautiful. 15:44.97 Ash Rex Specializing in Tin Cans for fatigue. It was out of this world. The quality their tins were just on another planet. You know the tin alone could be a product. 15:49.38 christof66 Ah, yeah, there's a lot of people sort of say that about Apple products aren't they you know and they they tend to hang on to the to the packaging to the box. You know the product comes in I tend to do that as well and I don't know why it's just it's just too good to throw away. It's beautiful, um all right? So we've we've talked about. 15:57.71 Ash Rex Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 16:08.11 christof66 Why we should be selling in Japan because it does it does sound incredibly attractive. But um, how the hell did we do it like what? how do you start selling there if you're you know if you don't live there. 16:14.72 Ash Rex Okay, well this this is the most important thing. Okay, um, basically traditionally you had to have a company in Japan or you had to go through a japanese distributor and and either way your your margins are going to get cut down. 16:26.90 christof66 Right. 16:31.50 Ash Rex You probably can't set up your company in Japan unless you're a big company like Guinness I know they did it and they had huge success. But unless you're really big. You just won't make sales entering retail is next to impossible unless you go through a japanese distributor the big japanese retailers. They will not buy from you because they want to have a. 16:34.74 christof66 Yeah, yeah, we're not going there. Yep. 16:51.00 Ash Rex Ah Japanese presence and they want a company that they can trust will look after repairs returns warranties and stuff like that and and the the Japanese government wants. You know to pay tax properly So you basically if you want to go into retail. It's really hard to do deals that are going to make your abnormal returns. 16:55.82 christof66 Yeah, yep. 17:08.29 christof66 Um, yeah. 17:10.16 Ash Rex However, with Amazon now you don't need a company in Japan and you don't need to have a bank account in Japan and and bank account in Japan that's another story but you don't want to go there but um, so basically now you can have a company anywhere in the world and sell through Amazon Japan right? You don't need a company and you don't need a bank account. But. 17:24.15 christof66 M. 17:29.41 Ash Rex I strongly recommend a trademark and I'll tell you why every market in on Amazon the world is different. You don't know what people are searching for you. Don't know how people make purcha decisions. You don't know who your competitors are you don't know what their problems are and their needs are all right? So with a trademark. Um. 17:30.15 christof66 Um, yeah, um. 17:39.16 christof66 M. 17:47.89 Ash Rex You can test out 20 units run some ads for one month and at the end of one month you get that search query performance data and that search query performance data from Brand Analytics will tell you exactly what people are searching for in that country for your product 1000 keywords and then. 17:48.30 christof66 Yeah. Now. Yes. 18:01.49 christof66 Um, no. 18:06.46 Ash Rex Once you understand exactly what people are searching for for your product then you build your offer keyword backwards you can and then you can build out all your marketing content. You can build out your your bullet points your description. You can you know is it you doing onepack 3 pack fivepack black blue red you want to see what people are searching for. 18:12.48 christof66 That makes sense. 18:24.30 christof66 Cho. 18:26.11 Ash Rex Right? I mean I saw what product um it was a fitness product and they had 8 colors and this was in America and then when I actually looked at search results. People were only searching for one color the other eight colors weren't selling and I was like well why we've been stocking it just stoping one color. Yes, we've done it and the other thing is you' got to do a competitor analysis. So. 18:32.20 christof66 Yep. 18:36.19 christof66 I Just reundant yet. 18:43.35 Ash Rex What I do when I sell in Japan is the first thing I do is identify all the competitors and I buy all their products and I go through the purchasing process for that product I see what it looks like I see how it comes to me package and then I take very very careful notice of their packaging. 18:47.86 christof66 Nice. 18:59.39 christof66 Yep....
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