Spicing Up eCommerce Catalog Management: A Conversation with Vanessa Hung

Zack Franklin: 0:03

All right, welcome to another episode of the Zach Franklin show. Special guest today joining us Vanessa hung somewhere undisclosed location in the United States, all the way from Venezuela. She's done a lot of stuff and created agency that focuses entirely on the unsexy, really unsexy, work of Amazon everything from Excel files like your flat files to bizarre Amazon error codes and you know all these little tiny tweaks and super deep into Amazon that even I don't like to go. I just like to tell other people to do it or I can just ask Vanessa. Vanessa also helps people reach the Hispanic market, which I think I heard you say somewhere that they spent not just on Amazon but in the US in general. Spanish speakers spent like $2 trillion at some point. This is a right like yeah that's crazy.

Zack Franklin: 1:08

So we should be trying to reach them because they might want your stuff. So we'll probably talk about that. She's also doing a boot camp, so if you're just tuning in and you don't have a long attention span for the entire interview, go to the boot camp and it is online solutioncomcom, all right. So all of this is going to be totally live unscripted. We're winging it and we even had chat GBT write all of the interview questions and so we'll see how they go. So we're going to throw a little bit Tim Ferriss style at you, a little bit Sean Evans from Hot Ones, but we don't have any hot sauce. I mean I do downstairs. Then we're going to go maybe my first million style and then how I built this style, so we'll see how it goes. They actually kind of do better than I usually do.

Vanessa Hung: 2:06

Okay, that's exciting. Do you think that in the future there will be a podcast just run by AI? We can do that now.

Zack Franklin: 2:17

I can train it on all of your previous podcast stuff and we'll take a picture like right now and then we'll use the DID to like animate your face and we can clone your voice and actually add a friend that was doing that for his own podcast and, like I listened to like 10 minutes of it and I didn't know that he did it with a robot and like I know this guy really well, like I stayed at his house for a month. Like you know, we meet up all over the world and I'm like this is the craziest like AI voice shit I ever heard and he was doing it. He was publishing like five podcasts a day where he was just like script with chat gbt, do the audio and it was just like content, like crazy. But you know, I still got to hit him up about kind of the results of that experiment. Like even I need to do like a video today because I'm doing a speaking in front of like a thousand people on Friday for like some crazy Chinese AI event.

Zack Franklin: 3:27

We have like the CMO of Anchors going to be there, the CMO of Insta 360, like 10 different high, high, high level. Like head of Google, china, like Shopify partnerships, amazon stuff and for, somehow, me. So it'll be fun. But yeah, I just need to make like a one or two minute videos and I'm like, should I just do this with AI and just do this from now on? It's much easier, let's get into it. So, vanessa, you've been in America for a while, but you came all the way from Venezuela. The first interview question that chat gbt tells me to ask is Vanessa, can you share a bit about your journey from Venezuela to America, while we're, some pivotal moments that shaped you?

Vanessa Hung: 4:21

oh, okay, I guess that I have a story that could be a little bit different from the people that immigrated to America with the intention of staying here and living here. When I came here, I was on vacation, like I decided to come for my birthday for two weeks, and I landed in Miami and I said like well, let's just see what these two weeks have like to show me and let me see if I like it and if I do, I'll try to stay. You know, it's not like you can just decide like that. I was in a tourist visa, so you know there is a lot of paperwork me to be done so you can actually stay and not be like legal stuff like that. So it wasn't as easy, but I came with one luggage, like one bag, and I take it to return back to Caracas, where I used to live in Venezuela, and it was like that.

Vanessa Hung: 5:28

It's just, it wasn't like a pre-missutated decision that took me a long time to, you know, to analyze and commit to.

Vanessa Hung: 5:35

I just like booked the flight, landed here and made it happen and at one point, one of the things that probably made me so focused and successful in just like I'm gonna figure it out to stay here and, you know, make this my life.

Vanessa Hung: 5:54

Was that I forgot, or I put on the on the no list, the fact that I had a plan B like going back to Venezuela was never a plan B, right, it wasn't like, oh well, I didn't make it, let me go back home. I didn't feel that way and now, reflecting after all these years like six years now I reflect that and I that's what we probably one of the things that helped me a lot to just not never lose the focus. So a pivotal moment for me was the time I remember I was staying with a friend and they told me that I couldn't stay with them anymore because you know, I was living in their house, kind of rent free, for two months and you know it was gonna be over, don't deal. And that they told me that maybe and probably on a Monday or Sunday, something like that, and they were like okay, you need to be out of here Wednesday.

Zack Franklin: 7:02

And I'm like, okay, perfect oh shit, and America's not like the easy place to get quick apartments and do things quick when it comes to yeah, especially because I was in a in a process and I'm like a legal process of changing status.

Vanessa Hung: 7:20

So I was kind in the limbo where I wasn't anything. I was in a tourist but I wasn't a permanent residence, so it was just like a process I'm explaining that's what longer was just like so complex. So I remember my friend told me I don't think you're gonna make it, you need to, you need to, you know, reach out to some friends, ask for help. And you know, I don't think you gotta be able to find a place to live in two days, three days, whatever. And I'm like, oh really, you know that was like one challenge that I took really seriously. And Wednesday morning I so on Tuesday I found the place. Wednesday morning I was already moving in into a house that I leave for like a year and a half and it was just the perfect spot. It was such a pretty nice house.

Vanessa Hung: 8:13

And you know when I did that and I probably not that week or not that day, but then looking back to that situation where I was put against the wall saying like you need to solve this problem because basically on Wednesday you won't have where to sleep, kind of thing, and I know I had other friends that I could reach out and crash on their couch, but I'm like, I'm too proud for that, you know, I'm like I will solve this problem and taking that same mindset, I apply the same mindset to my work. I don't believe there is any problem that is impossible to solve, unless we're talking about, like you know, defined gravity. But if it's within the laws of physics and reality, then I think there are very little things that cannot be solved, and that's how I approach my everyday life. So that's my journey, that's what I'm ready to have taught me. Just it is possible, just you need to work.

Zack Franklin: 9:13

That's great because, like when I think of what you're doing now with Amazon and all the crazy paperwork and all the crazy rules and all the crazy stuff that comes along with that, that's still several levels down from dealing with the challenges of, like the American immigration system. So I feel like your actual like immigration experience actually had a lot of carryover to how you approach Amazon and if you can make it through all the crazy stuff in America, you can definitely figure out Amazon.

Vanessa Hung: 9:53

Totally. It is exactly that. You just need to understand what game you're playing and seeing how you can win the system. You know, it's like, not on a way of like, oh yeah, you need to work around and, you know, do black hat stuff. It's not that, it's just like understanding rules and playing as well as you can within the rules. So, yeah, that's probably the biggest learning or lesson that the whole thing has taught me. Unfortunately, now I'm in a place where I can say like, okay, I don't have to deal with that anymore. So, you know, once life opens up a little bit in that way, you're like oh, so there are a lot of other things that I can, you know, invest my time and energy.

Zack Franklin: 10:46

And it has really opened up. Like tell us a little bit, because a couple of years ago you got onto the Amazon scene and now I'm scrolling through and I'm like wow, she's been on like every podcast, she's spoken at like every summit. She's like working with Carbon Six, she's helped hundreds of Amazon sellers. Like tell us a little bit more about online seller solutions and how you kind of got into the Amazon industry and where things are now.

Vanessa Hung: 11:13

Yeah, so getting into space was a coincidence, like I wasn't really looking to get into Amazon. I wasn't really planning or had a dream of, you know, selling a product. I just happened to find a job that I like and it was that kind of problem solving mindset and I'm like okay, I think I'm a perfect fit and I love the challenges there. I learned a bunch while I was working as an e-commerce manager and at one point I got really, really bored with my work. I was just like not having it. I felt that I was going to the office just to warm up a seat because the speed that I, you know, trained myself to work at, I was doing things so fast and so efficient that the things that used to take me weeks to do I was doing it in a couple of hours. So that became very boring and the thing I did at that point I remember I had a period where I had to decide whether I was going to leave that job and find something different or I was going to double down in my Amazon stuff.

Vanessa Hung: 12:24

Right, like I felt I really feel passionate about this industry. I really think Amazon is one of the coolest, more complex, sophisticated you know, like hardcore systems of all, more than you know the opportunity that gives to a bunch of people, and I think e-commerce is a great equalizer for entrepreneurs. You can be an entrepreneur just by having an idea and selling online. That didn't happen like a hundred years ago. That's impossible. But more than that, it's just like I am obsessed with how the system works and I really want to go down so deep that I can crack the code, as I mentioned in the bootcamp.

Vanessa Hung: 13:10

I'm like I want to crack the code because I think it is possible and it is important for sellers to really really understand that. So I decided that I was going to double down in my Amazon journey. I started like consulting and freelancing for some people, and then I hired my first assistant. She was my assistant and then I'm like we have too much work, we cannot handle it. And then I hired the next person, the next person, until a point that I realized that I had an agency. It wasn't just me consulting or doing stuff. I actually had a team, a very talented team. It's the thing that got me where I'm at right now. Like help me build that reputation, like my agency helped me build that.

Vanessa Hung: 14:02

But the real reason is that I'm really obsessed with education. So the reason why I like to crack things down and I like to go deep into problems or situations or knowledge honestly is because I like to digest that and I love educating. So since I was very little probably since I was 12, 13, I used to do probably speaking like those debates kind of things in school where you debate with other kids and everything is fun and you try to solve world problems through a committee and all of that. So that was my way of teaching, like I think I'm very good at explaining complex problems. Also, another thing that I think helps me a lot is the fact that I don't have such sophisticated, high level English. So when I think about things and I had to break it down to small pieces of information, it's really easy for me to explain it because I don't use a complex language system. I don't have it and, yeah, maybe that's one of the pros.

Vanessa Hung: 15:23

And as soon as I started speaking a lot at the local community down in South Florida with Carlos Alvarez and the Wizards of AMZ, I started speaking a lot at those events every Saturday. Then I think it was my first, but my very first webinar was with Seller Labs. So I met Jeff Cohen at Prosper and we met. It's like oh hi, hello, whatever, what do you do? Blah, blah, blah. And then with Talal, we applied to speak at Seller Labs and then I spoke at that webinar.

Vanessa Hung: 15:59

I mean that webinar I was sharing like the stage with a bunch of other people that had podcasts and webinars, and then I went to podcast appealing 10, and then with Amy and then with you know, and first of all, I love to talk about the unsexy stuff when you talk about deep management, things that are not super common, they're not very understood and they're very unappreciated. You know it's like that thing that people neglect, like catalog management. And also I think I'm good at explaining. You know complex concepts into very basic. You know explanations. So those two things start people getting interested in what I had to say. And you know, once you're in one podcast, you started getting invited to another one and then to another one, and I really took that really seriously.

Zack Franklin: 16:56

Yeah, it's actually very easy, because podcasts need guests. So if anyone here is listening they wanna get on a podcast, just get on one, and then you're set Same thing with, like, the public speaking circuit.

Vanessa Hung: 17:10

So yeah, exactly.

Zack Franklin: 17:12

Yeah. So now let's kind of go into some of these Sean Evans hot ones questions, just because I think they're great, like he's one of my favorite interviewers and just the fact that chat you just made these so good. So as we dive into these spicy questions, let's start with a mild one. What's the most underrated aspect of catalog management that everyone overlooks? Oh no, either I lost you or you lost me. All right, technical difficulties might be China, we'll find out. Yeah, right now I'm on a direct phone call I don't know if you.

Vanessa Hung: 18:37

Okay, it was you then?

Zack Franklin: 18:41

All right, let's clap, so that way I can edit it later. Okay, that's the easiest way to do it. So maybe that question was just too spicy. Let's go into it. As we dive into these spicy questions, let's start with the mild one. What's the most underrated aspect of catalog management that most sellers overlook?

Vanessa Hung: 19:11

I'll say it's probably the foundation. So when people start creating, launching a brand on Amazon or a product, they're just really in the thinking mode of I need to launch, I need to make this product work, I need to ship it, I need to make sure the labels are good and all the stuff. So they really don't take time at all to think about how they want to build their catalog, how they want their skewed, convention or taxonomy work, how do they want to label things Like how they envision the next year of the catalog in five years from now. Are they going to go on the channel, multi-channel? Are they going to use FBA only? Are they going to ship from other sources? So those questions I think happen to people down the line when they already have skews created, listings created and their complexity. If I think the industry is going to get very complex or if not, it's already there, it's getting very complex. So now Amazon is not enough. One channel is not enough. A lot of people realize that they need to branch out to different channels or even go D2C and stuff like that. So that is so relevant for catalog management, because I believe you should build stuff for your business and then apply it to the Amazon model.

Vanessa Hung: 20:48

So in the Amazon model, for example, you have a skew that you can call any product like internal ESSL, and those are 40 characters, maximum up to 40 characters. So, thinking about how I'm going to name my product, why I'm naming it that way, if I get to work at some point with a 3PL, will this be easy enough to understand from a fulfillment standpoint? Like, if they see the skew, they can't know what the product is about. Like, are they hints there? If I ever work with an agency, will they be able to track down the specific skew? I've been in catalogs where the skews are something so ridiculous that you're like what is this? It's impossible to track, it's impossible to see. Also, seeing other people not understanding the problems and how the system works. So they just take the simple shrug, which is probably oh, let me delete that skew or delete that asian and then create a new one. That is really underrated.

Vanessa Hung: 21:57

Besides, obviously, solving problems and all of the flat-fell work that I like to talk about, the foundation is extremely important. So you should invest a lot of time well, not a lot of time, but enough time to set those boundaries. And I like to think about when I go into projects or when I try to tell my team, for example, if we're going to make a project, we need to set limitations. What are the boundaries? Where are we not going? So if we decide that our company is not going to go to Etsy, then we don't need to make decisions for that. We will forget it, no problem. Will there ever be a time where I think Etsy is the good way? Yeah, probably, but I set those decisions and my system will be built based on those limitations. So, yeah, that's probably the most underrated thing of all.

Zack Franklin: 22:59

Having a plan. That's usually where most sellers fail. All right, so yeah, there are a couple of levels of spice to these questions. So, moving on to the next level of spice, when it comes to dealing with complex flat files, what's your hot tip that never fails?

Vanessa Hung: 23:22

Complex flat files. I don't know in what way you mean complex. For some people, complex might be that they are more than 100 rows and 100 attributes and their computer is frozen in that regard and that's complex for them. I don't think that's complex. Maybe when I have a huge catalog.

Vanessa Hung: 23:45

One of the things that I like to do is use the flat file which is the one that I talk about is the category listing report, which is the source of your catalog information, and answer your input into the catalog. So when I download that, I like to use it as a database of the information and break it down in things. So, for example, if the catalog has 10 different variations, I like to duplicate that and have each variation in a specific file. That will help a lot with problem solving because when you upload a file that has your whole catalog, you could be messing around with things that are not problematic, but if you change it then it becomes problematic. So I like to be clean and organizing that respect because it will really streamline the process of troubleshooting what's going on. It's easier to troubleshoot a file with 10 products or 10 SKUs than one with 100,000 SKUs, which I work on. They're very heavy but on a troubleshooting part, it is a lot of patience, and one thing that this is something that I talk about in the bootcamp is we have the feed processing summary, which is the information that that file will give you back when you have an error. Sometimes those are big and sometimes it's not really accurate, so I like to test stuff.

Vanessa Hung: 25:28

Is there something that works every time? Not really. That's not true on Amazon. It's very specific to the case. You really know to understand what's the root cause of the problem. To then say, okay, with this root cause, let's say that you have Amazon contributing to your listing and they are the ones that have the contributions for your sites, for example then there is a different path or there is a different way that you need to solve that, versus uploading your images in a global market, like in a different marketplace, like Germany or UK or Italy. Those are completely different things.

Vanessa Hung: 26:11

Well, can they be done with a flat file? Part of the work? Yes, but that's not the only solution, I guess. So don't realize that. It's just like being organized and understanding what you're working on and you know, work that way. I like taxonomies and conventions in everything I do, so excuse need to be very well structured. Cases need to be very well structured. Flat files, the naming of a flat file If you work on a flat file, name it the way it works for you right. The way it works for me could be different from what it works for everybody else, but understanding that. One time I saw somebody on LinkedIn posting something like oh, I wish Amazon had a feature where they could filter or we could see who uploaded a file and the easiest thing to do, or at least that's the approach we take on.

Vanessa Hung: 27:08

Yeah, exactly, just name it and the convention we use at the end of every single case and file and things like that, we use the initials of the person that is uploading that, so we know who to blame. Basically, I think that's important. Is that the ultimate solution to solve all of your problems? No, but it will definitely take you to, puts you in a better position that anyone else that is trying to just directly solve issues.

Zack Franklin: 27:42

So let's talk a little bit. We have sellers of all different levels that will be tuning in. Some of them are flat file experts. Some of them don't know what a flat file is. So what are some things that people are normally doing in just the seller central GUI that they should be doing on flat files that are more efficient for them to do on flat files and just easier. So, in just a minute or two, what about flat files is going to make their life easier?

Vanessa Hung: 28:17

I think it depends on how big is the catalog, because let's say that you only have one product, then probably using flat files is not a deal breaker. It's not going to be the wild thing, I still. What flat files give you is the opportunity to optimize the back end of your listing. And one cool thing that I learned from Louis, a friend who's from Australia, the founder of Wallis-Modder. He said that our first customer, in a sense the first thing, the first person that we need to sell our product to, is to the Almason algorithm or the Walmart algorithm. We need to sell that product to the algorithm, so the algorithm knows what the product is about and the best tool that you have and the best resource that you have to do that in a way that is so complete and so enhanced that there is no way for you to miss that mark is using flat files. So the amount of attributes and things that you see in the front end are not the same ones as the ones that you see in the back end. And also the troubleshooting part if you're having issues on your listing, uploading a file and getting the feed processing report will give you hints or clues on what is going on so that, on a catalog management perspective, will save a ton of time, will make you more efficient. So, if you are optimizing for efficiency, then a flat file is your best friend and it is a tool that you should be implementing and enforcing.

Vanessa Hung: 30:03

Some people are coming to me and say, yeah, I want to optimize my listings and we do that at the agency. We help them, we optimize them. They're beautiful. Now they're a more robust index and ranking and all of the SEO juice. You get that. And then they completely forget about flat. They don't do anything else. Well, that works for them, but they probably are paying a few BAs to just troubleshoot stuff, when, in reality, one of the best tools is to have a flat file with a feed processing, report and then troubleshooting from there. So, yeah, that's basically what you can do. I mean there are other things, but mainly that.

Zack Franklin: 30:48

Yeah, I think that's a key point. I mean, the stuff that you see in seller central is one thing and the stuff you see on the flat file is a different thing. And you do get more options and you do get more stuff to fill out that Amazon wants to see. And also, whatever level you're thinking at, I mean as long as you're not just at, like you know, one to 10 products, but if you're at more than that, start thinking about how to do more things at scale, whether it's through API stuff and chat. You can work with the SP API and create all kinds of like crazy custom scripts. You can actually use AI stuff to write you all kinds of macros to do all the things that you want to do, whether it's renaming all your files, whether it's doing all kinds of stuff.

Zack Franklin: 31:36

But start thinking once you hit a decent level. If you were working at 10x, you know bigger business. What would you have to do? So how can you switch to doing less stuff through kind of the GUI, which is less efficient, and more stuff through custom programs, through big Excel sheets like PPC, bulk files? You know you can set up a couple macros on your PPC and then just run it through bulk files every week and also make sure you are getting all these reports all the time, like set them up to recur, and that you have all the reports and all the flat file history and everything, because I've been in you know $20 million Amazon companies where I look and I see that they haven't pulled a report in five years. Like wait what?

Vanessa Hung: 32:29

Oh, my God. I'm going to just click around and I'm like you're lucky.

Zack Franklin: 32:37

You're not good, but you're lucky. So you know, if you really want to get good at your operations, it's important to kind of think of you know how do you do it at a bigger scale? Yeah, and that's what.

Vanessa Hung: 32:52

I talk about in the bootcamp, like efficient catalog management from that perspective, understanding the basic principles and leveraging the tools in a way that you don't need to. You know, do all the work.

Zack Franklin: 33:08

All right, let's see a little bit more about what chat GPT has to say for us. All right, what advice would you give to someone that wants to enter the Hispanic market in the US, so or wants to reach that group?

Vanessa Hung: 33:31

Oh, let's have a play the different direction with this. Okay, if this person knows a little bit about the capabilities that Amazon has, meaning they translate the whole algorithm in Amazoncom to be in Spanish. If they already know that, then the best way. First of all, four things that I'll check. So, first one do you have the accurate description of your product in Spanish so the algorithm automatically translate your listings based on the information that you have? At the point they made the translation and this is important at the point they made the translation. So if they translated your listing in 2015, and then your listing have evolved to be something super amazing, I hope, like every year, you get better and better then the information that Amazon has on the Spanish translation that is not accurate. Therefore, you need to, you know, request the update of translation and you open a case and you request for that update. So that's the first part. Like that's a very minimum that you need to do because, at the end of the day, they are already shoppers and, as you mentioned at the beginning, they are.

Vanessa Hung: 34:52

There is a Hispanic demographic in the US, which is the highest demographic and the fastest growing demographic of all, that is already shopping online and they're already using the experience on in Spanish. So no matter if you do much more than that, you will still be visible to them. But then the question is visibility, because the algorithm in a secondary language, because each marketplace has its own secondary language. So in the US the secondary language is Spanish, so the algorithm in the secondary language is not the same as the algorithm in Spanish. What I mean by that is, let's say, that you input a keyword in English and you get, you know, certain amount of search result and you know there are a bunch of sponsored positions and there are a bunch of organics, and you know all that. When you search the same keyword or the synonym of or the translation of that keyword in the in the Spanish algorithm, the results might be different and that certainly the sponsor positions are way way less.

Vanessa Hung: 36:05

So what you want to do is again using the same mindset that I thought at the beginning, where, where I told you you need to sell your product to the algorithm. That's exactly what you need to do. You need to sell the product to the algorithm in Spanish, so they prioritize you and put you in front of those customers that are already purchasing in Spanish, right? So how do you do that with backend keywords? How do you input backend keywords in your on your listing? Well, using Flatfiles is the best way, because I don't really like to touch much the generic keywords section, because generic keywords is probably your most valuable read Real estate.

Vanessa Hung: 36:45

When it comes to SEO and keywords, I don't like to input keywords in Spanish there unless they're highly, highly, highly relevant. I don't like to do that. I use other fields to input Spanish keywords. So that's the second thing. And then the other two are coming from the advertising, more like marketing part, which is advertising Spanish. So I wonder, I would recommend you to advertising Spanish if you haven't done the first two things. If you're listening, still not good in the translation then don't do it. And if you're not selling or telling the algorithm what your pro is in Spanish, then you're wasting your ads. But if you have those things, investing in Spanish campaigns are way, way more successful and you know they give you a higher, a lower click on customer click and then it's a higher conversion because there are less, less clicks but they're more intentional because you're actually selling that specific you know need and a lot of the other options.

Vanessa Hung: 37:54

And as you can see a lot of the other options in the search results are probably not that accurate, so the conversion rates are high. Are the search results as big as the ones in English?

Vanessa Hung: 38:06

No of course not, but still, if you, even if you have a thousand search volume a year and you can convert I don't know 5% of that, then you know you are probably improving your business overall by maybe 0.5% every year. So who doesn't want to do that? And that's just one keyword, that's just one campaign. Like you can do multiple. The other thing which is probably my favorite trick is that the Hispanic more like demographic in Latin America and in Spain we have different holidays for things. So Valentine's Day is in September in Colombia, for example. Mother's Day is in October in Paraguay, something so crazy.

Vanessa Hung: 38:58

So if you think about that, think about, oh, what does that mean for my business that I can have for Father's Day in a year? So you let that sink and I'm like, oh, wow, that could be so powerful, right? So to target those audiences, then you improve your Spanish listings and you're going to go there and you're going to start having coupons for those dates, right? Or you know maybe some promo codes with the codes in Spanish so people understand that that's for them. And that's one of those kind of things because at the end of the day, the consumers are really purchasing that they're going to have their Father's Day, whether you have a coupon or not. But what if we can leverage those you know, those holidays to a point that benefits our business? Those are my four steps to getting into the Hispanic market with Amazon. Like I mean doing that on a bigger scale on your own website and other channels. It's amazing, but I just know how to do it on Amazon.

Zack Franklin: 40:08

Yeah, those are fantastic tips and I'm sure you're going to have a Hispanic holiday list on your blog very soon.

Vanessa Hung: 40:17

Yeah, it's only set of solutions that Hispanic holidays something, so it's there.

Zack Franklin: 40:26

It is there, I'll link to it on your blog or something. And then you know, also, just don't sleep on a lot of different stuff with both the Hispanic market and overall Latin America market. If you need actual like influencers and creators, it's actually quite cheap in general, you know, to get Spanish speaking influencers and people on TikTok, on Instagram and stuff like this, but they're probably charging actually a lot less than a lot of English speaking. You know, influencers are in America. So one of my friends has like an entire like TikTok industry thing. He has like 70 Spanish influencers making videos like daily, daily daily.

Zack Franklin: 41:19

Venezuela and Columbia also super good, like worth that work ethic on your time zone, good place to hire. So it is quite easy to find people that can speak Spanish, work on your listings and help you understand a little bit more of the culture. And if you guys are listening to this in America, like book your flight and go down to Mexico and go down to Columbia. Because I loved it and I think everyone else would too, I'm kind of wishing it was a bit closer.

Vanessa Hung: 41:49

Yeah, right now, I think with AI, I don't think it's really that important that you have a person on your team that speaks Spanish to target those audiences Like I did this. I have a whole SOP where I just use chat, gpt and the results that they that. You know, my search, some tool just give me back, and from that I built upon A lot of people just check out when I said like oh yeah, put a Spanish keywords because they roll their eyes and they're like I don't speak Spanish, but I said what you know, what are you talking about?

Vanessa Hung: 42:25

And it's like everybody speak any language right now with AI. So if you don't want, to do it.

Zack Franklin: 42:30

Just don't find an excuse. They're an awesome Chinese social media posts. Uh, now it's uh, this that's everyone's like. How did your Chinese get so good Like, um, also some other stuff. I think I uh heard this tip that I think you gave in another podcast. But for markets like Mexico and stuff like this, they have, uh, mercado Libre, amazon, mexico, stuff like this. You know, if you want to see how people would use your products um in those markets, go and and search the keyword and find it out.

Zack Franklin: 43:06

Uh, I think you gave the example of like a griddle, you know, and then, like America, people are making pancakes and breakfast stuff and then, like Mexico, you're probably making like tortillas and quesadillas and stuff. So it's going to be even how people use the product can be different. And another thing from like when I was in Mexico and all my shit was stolen and I was trying to find like a new laptop backpack and also like packing cubes and stuff like this, and I go on Amazon and everyone is just using NARF, um, and so the prices are insane. You know packing cubes, right, packing cubes I'm going to pop it open on Alibaba right now. Like packing cubes are like the stereotypical, like garlic press type product. They're like cheap as shit. Everyone sells this as like one of their first products and these should not be expensive. But what I saw on Mercado Libre and Amazon like blew my fucking mind. They were selling for like 75 US dollars because no one had gone in there and created like an optimized thing in a Mexican warehouse, for packing cubes that I can see now are like three to $5 on Alibaba.

Zack Franklin: 44:25

The opportunity in Mexico is insane. In Colombia and everything and every street corner of Mexico City, you have like a taco stand and you have like an Amazon advertisement. Like people love Amazon, they love it more than like Mercado Libre. I didn't like shopping on Mercado Libre. Like Mexico should be something you people like consider it's on the way up. There are areas, like you know, condesa, polanco that have, like you know, very, very high incomes, want to buy stuff. Like purchasing power is there overall in Mexico and I just don't really see enough people serve in that market and I don't think the problem is the.

Vanessa Hung: 45:14

The problem is that they don't want to serve that market. I believe because I know a bunch of people that have come to me asking for help to get into Mexico. The problem with Mexico is the import export kind of duty sign representation, like getting products into Mexico is actually very difficult. It's not as like oh yeah, I'm going to just pop up, send a container to Mexico. It's not that it's very complex. You need like representation there like a Mexican partner, unless you have like a company, a constituted company there, and you need to pay a bunch of taxes. And I believe it's designed to protect the market honestly, because you know, I agree with you, mexico is probably actually Mexico City is the biggest city in the whole American continent, like both North America and South America. They have the biggest population and obviously purchasing power. They're very close to the internet and stuff. Yeah, but it's not that simple.

Zack Franklin: 46:23

It felt like I was flying into a Chinese city almost, which I've never said before in the entire Western hemisphere, because I was just flying in for like 30 minutes and it's just like city and I'm like, oh, finally North America has something like this, so I loved it there. But I think that's a really good point. Maybe even your next business is to create a good way for people to do that, and there are really good like Mexican Amazon sellers that you can talk to and learn more about this, and I'm sure someone just has to have the right person to pay off at the port and do some other stuff like, however stuff is done, have someone that can figure it out. Not that I'm advising you to do anything illegal, but you know, actually I learned this from my friends, not naming names, but they're my friends, not naming names.

Vanessa Hung: 47:16

But apparently if you make it through the border this is so funny If you make it through the border in Mexico, your inventory is already legal. It doesn't matter how you got it there, like you can drop it from a plane and. But if it's in Mexico, done. But getting it to Mexico, that's the problem. That's so funny.

Zack Franklin: 47:39

Like a whole mother podcast, like a reverse Narcos, but for Amazon products, like in tunnels under the border. Everything on this podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Disclaimer all around, Just this far. Just this far.

Zack Franklin: 48:01

Nice, okay, so I think we're getting towards the end. So finally, the last hot ones question. As tradition on hot ones, we have our guest share a little known fact about themselves, something that even Google can't tell us about, vanessa. What is that fact? It's remember, it's like at the end of like how they have all the hot sauce. So this is supposed to be like the most spicy like question they ask.

Vanessa Hung: 48:39

Okay, I mean, I don't think you will find a lot of information, A lot of my personal information, on Google, like there is a lot of what I do, my work, but my personal life is just. I just keep it in a different box. Yeah, compartmentalization is just important, but something that you won't find probably anywhere is Okay. Any time you have time I don't know how, all right.

Zack Franklin: 49:30

First thing that comes to your head Five, four, three, two, I don't know.

Vanessa Hung: 49:41

I will say that I spent a lot of time thinking about a lot of things. I spent a lot of deep issues and like universal problems, like I feel sometimes I go into a philosopher mode and I just stay there for a while. So I don't feel a lot of that publicly. But, if you know, once people start, you know, getting to know me, it's like, oh well, that's deeper than I thought. So that's sometimes, you know, what surprises people. I spent time, like you know, the other day I was thinking about evolution and I'm like who was the first human that did this thing? You know some things that are completely relevant to any use, any good use of my time, but I spent a lot of time doing that and sometimes I find great insights.

Zack Franklin: 50:38

All right. So philosophy and flat files and expanding to Hispanic audience and boot camps. So she's already got a lot of people signed up for the boot camp. I checked and it's going to be great. I looked at what's going to be in there. She just put out some stuff earlier about a guide to flat files. I read it. I learned stuff, you know. So Vanessa is really breaking ground here by doing the things no one else wants to do and really diving into, like pages and pages and pages of Amazon documentation, doing the errors, opening a case what the fuck is this error? Going back and forth Like all the stuff you don't want to do on Amazon?

Zack Franklin: 51:29

Vanessa does it. We have a question about flat files. Vanessa and her team are the ones to ask. Go on YouTube. She has done almost every podcast in the industry now. She's spoken at all these conferences because she talks about useful stuff. So go, you know, if you want to learn more about her boot camp, more about what she does, and now she's like, really you know, putting more and more into her blog as well, so a lot of stuff will be featured there. So check it out at onlineseller solutionscom slash well, I was going to say slash blog, but just onlineseller solutionscom and then, if you want to check out the boot camp, it's right there at the top join the Amazon troubleshooters boot camp and then let's plug that ebook too. Let me see if that link works. Yeah, okay, so also onlineseller solutionscom slash ebook. Okay, very easy. And then pop in some details and you get an awesome guide to flat files. So, yeah, thanks again for coming on, vanessa.

Zack Franklin: 52:40

And everyone check out onlineseller solutions. See you next time.