The One With SpeedFulfill: How to Build a Cross-Border Supply Chain for International Expansion

Hey guys, thank you for joining us on this wonderful episode of a Moov+ Speedful Filled podcast episode. We have Omar and Vinnie and Mark, myself, and I'll just do a few intros starting with Omar. You could introduce yourself and let the audience know who you are and what you do.

Yeah, thank you so much, Mark. So I'm currently the growth partner at Moov. I think we did a couple of— we did an episode together, I think a couple of episodes together. So yeah, we're just a service-based company coming out of the Philippines, and we partner with a lot of DTC brands. And what Moov typically does is we partner with them and solve all sorts of supply chain issues. So yeah, that's just the general gist of it.

100%. That's good. That's good. And we have Vinnie over at Speed4Fury over in China, right? Vinnie, explain to us, for the audience, for people who don't know you.

Okay, uh, hello guys, I'm Vinnie and I'm the lead generation team leader from Speed4Bill marketing team. And it's also my, my second time to do this kind of podcast. And to be honest, I'm kind of nervous, and but, uh, it's a pleasure for me to join this, uh, podcast. Uh, in this podcast, I'm kind of like the, the nurse, the half the nurse in this industry, and I'm very happy to listen to two experts in this industry, to listen to their, your source. Yes.

Thank you, Vinnie. Thank you. We need your expertise. And yeah, it was a good introduction. My name is Mark, CMO at SpeedFulfill. So we'll definitely be breaking down a lot of value for you guys. We're gonna talk more about the bottlenecks in e-com. We're gonna talk about the market insights, what to expect with the new tariff laws in the US and the EU. And we'll also dive into a few topics regarding, um, uh, market events that will be coming up. And, uh, yeah, just enjoy the ride. We'll definitely give you guys a lot of value, and we'll go straight ahead, uh, into our podcast. So yeah, the first, uh, question is, um, 2026, um, of course, uh, D2C brands or, uh, dropshipping stores that are listening to this podcast, what are sort of the operational, uh, breakdowns? Because I think from a front-end perspective, a lot of brands usually try to see how to align with the back-end. And we are sort of the back-end, you know, foundation, both Moov Supply Chain and Speed Fulfill as a 3PL. So what are these operational bottlenecks? I'll start with you, Omar. What bottlenecks are you seeing these days in terms of 2026 and e-commerce in general?

Yeah, so 2026 is different from what it was last year. The DTC space is super unpredictable. Of course, we do have our peak seasons, but it's really different from what it was last year, which was a large focus on tariffs, cost savings. That's the theme last year. But now it's more on a little bit of uncertainty in the DTC brand. So I was doing a little bit of digging in trends and a little bit of data analysis. Um, what I found was, um, consumer power, buying power is less. Um, so definitely that should be a sort of data trend that, that people need to look at spending power. Of course, that's generally primarily where DTC brands gets their customers, right? Um, or, or yeah. So I w— I was looking at some numbers and of course with the, with the war, I think that's the biggest factor. The Middle East war, of course, now they've come to an agreement. So that was a big factor. So buying power of everyone, not just people in the US, in EU and all around the world, buying power is definitely less because there's a lot of economical factors. So operationally, you have to be very resilient and you have to look at your, let's say, inventory and your stocks and where you're getting your products from. I think that's a pretty big thing, Especially if you are getting your products from, let's say, China, you're shipping it all the way to the other side of the world, freight costs, I think you guys would definitely know that it has gone up. And even for Moov, we've spoken to a couple of suppliers and they didn't want to give a definitive sort of DDP number. So, They wanted to be a little bit more flexible in that because we don't know, they don't know what, where the market is going to be after, let's say, 1 or 2 weeks. That was a lot of the uncertainty, um, operational-wise for DTC brands. Um, so maybe there's a couple of brands that decided to sort of stock up on, um, some inventory items and stuff like that. So how about you guys, um, in the 3PL and, uh the fulfillment side of things. What did you guys feel?

Yeah, in the 2026, definitely, um, I mean, the big, the big news from '25 was obviously the US tariffs and the changes, and this has led to, you know, a sort of outreach for overseas— when I mean overseas, outside of China— um, fulfillment. And you have, you know, uh, D2C brands looking more into US-based fulfillment, EU-based fulfillment, Australia-based fulfillment. And what we see this year outside of the US is, um, you see a trend from, uh, payment providers being very strict with brands. What this means is it's becoming, uh, as we expected as well. Um, in the past it was Amazon Prime and having, you know, a 1-day shipment in the US, for example. But now what you see as well is Payment providers are becoming stricter with brand owners and founders. And this actually is getting an effect on us because it gives us pressure to process orders faster, to actually ship out orders faster. So you're getting a trend and it's good in a macro perspective, but it adds a lot of pressure. And what we're doing is trying to make systems that make this avoidable. So we've had situations, for example, we have a common client, by the way, and you know, with this client, One of the things is they work with you and they work with us, and they came up with, they had an issue with their SKU count and they wanted to actually see how, you know, Shopify data could be sort of reflected in our system. So we help out with trying to make operational processes more standardized and also to synchronize more or less with the front end, which is Shopify. So these are some of the things that, we're experiencing. So yeah, it's getting a lot, uh, harder, um, but at the same time, I think it's good on a macro perspective. Uh, the other challenge as well is, uh, this month, which you think will be, um, one of our second topic, which would be tariffs from the EU side of things. So of course the US, uh, it's kind of stable now. I guess people have already found, you know, and adjusted to things, but the EU is now causing a lot of chaos in the market. Um, so Yeah, I like a comment that someone said last year about the US and just from a macro perspective where Trump's unpredictability has become so predictable now that, you know, now that people know how the US works and things. The EU is obviously following suit, but a different model, which we'll probably break down in a few moments. But I think that's what we're seeing in terms of 2026. I think the payment provider's a lot stricter and then we are also having to optimize our processes. So yeah, that's what's been going on in general. On our side, middle of the year. Yeah. Great.

Nice. Yeah.

So I think so that's what's been going on, you know, for the past 6 months into the middle of the year. And this brings us to our next question I wanted to ask in terms of market selection, right? There are a lot of factors that are influencing market selection these days. You have brands that target EU only, brands that target US only. Of course, the US is the biggest market. How is regulation setting the environment now for, uh, for e-commerce. Of course, the US has settled. Um, how are things settling out for your clients in terms of tariffs? And, um, you know, I see a lot of talk about countries like Vietnam as well, outside of China-based fulfillment. What's, uh, what's the sentiment in terms of environment and, and cut and trying to find a way around tariffs?

Yeah, I, I think a large number of clients, especially US-based clients that we are working with, um, are still— the sentiment is the same. They largely— a couple of them, of course, want to stay within the US, and expansion to other places is not really big on their list. But we have seen a lot more, um, Australia or, or EU clients that, that want to expand to the US, which is, of course, it is a larger market Um, and right now we're currently working with a, a UK, not a UK-based brand, a Europe-based brand. Um, that, that's currently looking to, that, that is currently still shipping in the US, but the, the, the prices, um, that they're getting for their, from their current 3PL is super high. Um, that they, they are thinking twice about maybe let's not maybe we should perhaps think twice about expanding the business in the US side just because they are overpaying for everything. So I think it is a part of both of our jobs, I think, to help out these large companies that are— that want to have that flexibility of opening up or opening up their market to the US and other countries because at the end of the day, if, if it's not worth it with the price being super high, with all these, all these tariffs and everything, with the, with the, um, with the oil prices still high— of course we're waiting for it to come down just because the, the agreement's just been signed, um, it's gonna be more of a transitional phase at this point in time, um, and I think everyone is still uncertain and they still are thinking and trying to check the feasibility if it's still gonna be worth it. So But it's still nothing that, that, uh, is still possible. And everyone wants to expand to the US. Um, Australian-based brands, we've, we've spoken to a couple that want to open up in East Coast, West Coast. Um, Paris-based brands and, and, and Swiss-based brands as well that we've spoken to recently. Um, sentiment hasn't really changed. It's more of they, they really just want to sort of test the waters first. What's What is it going to look like in terms of freight costs and everything? If I'm going to be shipping from, from let's say China, or should I get a warehouse in the US? But of course, with, with that, your cash flow, of course you're going to be investing a lot in a warehouse there. So perhaps that's where 3PL solutions, let's say such as you guys would definitely come in and give optionality, I think, to a lot of these brands that even we work with. Of course we both have common brands, but I think that's a large advantage of having an expert in the market. Of course, you guys, a large clientele for you guys is UK and EU-based brands, but for sure, once that expansion grows a little bit more and you guys give a little bit of that flexibility, especially in the US side of things, I think it should open up a lot of doors for, let's say, both of our clients. And, and it's just giving them basically options. Um, they don't want to get tied down. I think that's the main sentiment there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the thing, uh, getting tied down is, is something that, you know, they, they still want that flexibility. Um, and yeah, thanks, thanks for sharing that perspective. I think, um, in terms of market selection, like you said, um, it's interesting. I think a lot of brands, a lot of brands, I think like you mentioned last year, international expansion was, you know, uh a big thing. This year brands are a little bit more playing safe card. And Vinnie, what are you seeing in terms of like market selection? How, you know, how brands are selecting markets from your side and your perspective?

Okay, so since I just been in this industry for like less than 1 year, and as I can see previously, maybe I will think that if I want to go to another market, and what I only do is like select this market and turn on the ads in this market and just wait for the customers in. But in reality, if you want to go to another market, you have to take many things, many factors into consideration. Like you two just mentioned about the tariff, Tariffs and some stricts. In some countries, the, the restrictions are very strict, like the documentation, certifications, and something. And that's very important. But I think now the most popular countries are US and some EU countries. And there are some other markets which are maybe also have the huge potential, like be Australia or New Zealand or some countries. So I think from my plain insights, maybe if want to go to another market, owners, brands owners have to take a huge, uh, consider— seriously consideration on that. And besides on that Instead of saying that, taking actions like, okay, I will go into this market and ask the shipping carriers and ask the supply chain manager to say that I want to go to this market. And instead of that, which the brand owners should consider it seriously, not only the market itself, the market inside itself, but also the like, how the shipping will like and will be, will my shipping get cut off in the customs side. Yeah, that's my understanding.

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. In terms of, you know, market selection, give an example of supplements, for example, right? Supplements is big. I'm sure at Move as well, it's been a huge trend for 2026. Supplement brands being targeted, if you're targeting the US, it's a little bit more free flow over there. If you're targeting Australian brands, have issues with targeting Australia because of the regulations and sort of the fines that they could incur. So of course, market selection, I think, also highly depends on the product that you're selling, and those factors need to be considered into that. And of course, you have tariffs as well. And I'll, yeah, I'll just slightly add on to, to the issue of tariffs, uh, some news which I think might be interesting. We're still trying to figure out, um, you know, the change with EU tariffs, and, uh, I'll speak a little bit about it. I know that Move is mainly in the, in the US, uh, market, and of course expanding, and a lot of clients who want to go into the EU would definitely be, be interested. So the EU has, um, very similar to the US, so they have cancelled the tax exemption on orders valued below €150. So that means VAT will be incurred on the product. And this was the loophole that, you know, would allow sort of like e-commerce to thrive. So apparently it's to tackle, you know, companies such as SHEIN and Temu. So actually from the day of this recording, it's about 2 weeks from now, July 1st, is when they will start this rule. So it's causing a lot of questions in the market. And right now, the solutions that we're seeing, we're seeing two solutions very different to the US because the US was a different scenario. In this case, the EU is adding €3 per parcel. So per package, they're charging €3 in terms of this, they're calling it consolidation fee or VAT. So this €3 is an extra charge. So this €3 is per category. So if you have piece of clothing and a cup in one parcel, they will count that as two categories. So that will charge— they will charge €6. So it's going to change the dynamics of how people will sell, what kind of upsells you have on your store. And right now, like two weeks from the day of this recording, we will see what would be the situation. Of course, I think Chinese logistics will do their thing as per usual, but right now it's the solutions that D2C brands in Europe are looking at is either one, low-ticket items, just consolidating one category and paying that €3 and having that shipped out, or consolidating multiple parcels into one parcel and that one parcel counts as €3. So these are some of the discussions that are going on. Nothing confirmed yet because I think in the next 2 weeks we'll see how this will flow. But certainly from a macro perspective, it's going to influence what people sell and how they set up their stores in terms of of selling in the EU. Will it be bundled? Will you have different types of SKUs, SKU types on your store? And that's sort of what's happening in terms of, yeah, with the EU. So we'll see what happens moving in from there and very similar situation to the US, right? Following through, I guess, Omar, it's basically a follow-through and a different version.

Yeah, definitely. And I think for us, for brands that have done well in, let's say, 2025, they have the optionality, right? Should I go Europe? Should I go Australia first, right? Um, so those are really good points to, to just keep in mind. So, um, and I think sort of a deep dive point for, for these DTC owners, um, when trying to choose on sort of what, um, product or even which country to pick, um, your it's always best to stick with, let's say, one country and a limited number of hero SKUs, right? Um, you can— it's, it's always better to test the waters small. Um, because as you mentioned, imagine if you had 100 SKUs and you have that issue with those VATs and you don't know how it's gonna go. So, um, at this point it's always best to, to start small, um, with let's say one SKU and, um, Of course, warehousing as well. That's a couple of things that you have to think about. And at the same time, regional inventory, and it is a thing that you have to test small first, always pilot small. A lot of money, especially if there are brands that are, that have a whole bunch of SKUs, saves you the trouble as well of those really high fees, right?

Yeah.

So pick one country first and maybe like one or two hero products and then you can probably proceed to whichever country that you pick.

Yeah. Yeah. I have a question for you. What do you do with talking about SKU count, right? It's— I think SKU count is very underrated. Like people underrate how this affects the backend. What do you do with clients? I get this all the time. It's like, hey, I want my— I want more options. I want to on the market more. Um, what do you tell clients who want to go in that direction and sort of have multiple SKUs and give more options, but, you know, compromising the back end? I don't think they— a lot of brand owners understand what kind of compromise you're doing in terms of inflow of— I mean, investment in cash flow. So how would you deal with the client? Um, because I had one yesterday as well. And, um, yeah, sometimes you get into conversations with brand owners, they already have a way of thinking back end is just advice, but they still have that and they still want to do it in mind. So I had a conversation, I wanted— I was wondering how it goes with you guys.

Yeah, definitely. We have, um, of course we do have our new product development side of things, so that side of the operations will always be go, go, go. But the inventory management side of things will be like, hold on, we have to check things first. Is it— is your cash flow going to be all right? Do you have this much money? We have to look at your finance. Finance, are you okay to sort of hold this much inventory for this specific new product? So proceed with caution is usually what it is. We try not to enable them because at the end of the day, these DTC owners get their cash flow tied up in large inventory that's just sitting with this new product, which is not even tested, right? You don't know if it's going to sell. Yes, in your head you think so, but Start small as we always, as we always do. And pilot it, maybe do a little bit of research, but it's never, of course we do have brands that seasonal, that have seasonal new products, right? They want to release something every new season, especially in apparel. That's super common. But for brands that are doing it for expansion, Um, yeah, it's always best to start small and, and not go all out with like a large, a large, um, PO on one specific thing. Cause it, that, that is always going to be, it always has to be small. Um, it can never match your hero products because at the end of the day, if let's say you have an entire year or a year's supply of that certain SKU, um, and then let's say 2 to 3 months ahead of time, like in the future people may, might decide that, oh, this is something that they don't want to buy. So you have 6 months or 8 months worth of, uh, of inventory sitting in a warehouse and you're just thinking and pushing your marketing side to, hey, I need you guys to sell this thing. Or at the end of the day, you might end up bundling it just to get rid of it. And, and yeah, for us, it's, it's— I think that's the biggest advice you always give is Proceed with caution and start small.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It's, it's, it's, it's actually a very good, good question because when I think about it, it's a very common question. It's so underrated. I can think of— there's a client we had last year, a skincare brand, and they were scaling very well with this hero product. And I think Vinny can finish the story. Just before Chinese New Year, they just want to increase the value before an exit and they add 100 SKUs, right? So Vinnie can finish the story and what happens from that. It goes south. Vinnie, you can finish the story of how this guy with his hero product, yeah, added 100 SKUs and yeah, things went south from there. Yeah, speaking of SKUs, it's such an underrated issue in terms of the backend. And it reminds me of a story last year of a brand that had this hero product that they were selling and everything was running smooth and they were under pressure to sort of increase the exit value. But in doing that, they added more SKUs on their store. And what this actually resulted in was they had 100 SKUs that they added just before Chinese New Year, and some of them couldn't be sourced. And some of these bundles that they were selling with the Hero product couldn't be shipped out because they didn't have the product that they were dropshipping, which was an upsell and an added upsell that they couldn't have enough cash flow to have in small piles, like you said. So these are some of the things that, yeah, brand owners out there should really be careful and, you know, consult regarding, you know, SKU count and how they want to approach, you know, a new launch for sure.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, I think talking about market insights, we spoke about operational breakdowns. We're currently midway through the year. Mid-year is summer. I guess from a macro perspective, it's a little bit of a low season for some products. You have And I will be clear, some products we do have, I think there are brands that are doing well because their peak season is not even Q4, it's summer. You have a summer hero product, it's doing well. But in general, on a macro perspective, I think you guys can come in, you see that people are going out more, maybe they did their summer shopping beforehand. Omar talked about the macro perspective, cash is a little bit tight from a macro perspective, Yeah, in general, what's, uh, what do you do in a low season? Uh, Omar, what would be advice for a DTC brand owner that's not scaling in summer and what should they do during summer?

Yeah, I think in any brand, I mean, whatever business it may be, um, it's always best to take the, take that slow time to fix what needs to be fixed, uh, admin-wise. If there are, for example, demand forecasting things that you want to work on right now, it's the perfect time to do it. As long as volume is low, you don't need to be, you're not geared up for anything yet because you don't have the cash flow. So if there are things operationally that you want to fix, you want to set up your demand planning, you want to set up your inventory planning, hire some people to probably optimize your current ops. Are there things that you could be optimizing in terms of cost, lead time, payment terms, right? Just because we, we want to take the time when it's a little bit slow to do a little bit of that backend work and sort of cleaning up the backend of your operations is because once peak season comes, you don't have time to be creating a new demand planning tool or something, right? So you're just setting everything up basically until volume picks up. So usually those are the type of pain points that we hear with brands that we're working with now. I'm getting discovery calls from is the fact that, hey, it's a little bit of a slow season, we don't have that much cash flow for this, but we want to fix and optimize, let's say logistics or the current 3PL we're working with right now. We feel like we can save more cost with them or in our inventory, we have a lot of stockouts and then we, or we have had overstocking for a certain SKU that has been with us for 6 months. We want to know how to sort of set it up so that we can start selling it. And at the same time, yeah, it's just a lot of backend admin stuff. I think that's a large part of it. Of course, you have to ensure that you do have, maybe if you wanted to release a new SKU with our previous topic, this is also a good time to do it. Just because if you want to have, if you want to release a new product, Um, it is a little bit slower. Chinese New Year is over, so you don't have that weird break. Um, usually we have brands that come in around about January after a huge amount of money that they got during BFCM and, oh, I want to release a new, a new product. Um, so let's, let's, let's go source in China. And then when they start, um, talking to, start talking to, um, these, these Chinese suppliers, they're gonna be like, okay, we can do it, but we have a really long Chinese New Year break.

Right.

So it gets paused. Um, so you lose momentum. So, but this is a, this is a good time. We're still mid-year. We still have a couple of months before Yom B'Fikr. So if you want to trial, have like a trial product that you want to release in the market, do it during peak season. Right. Um, so this would be a good time to start sourcing maybe, or even maybe start looking for alternative suppliers. If you feel like your demand's going to be going up during that time, Maybe you can do a little bit of dual sourcing, maybe have a supplier in Vietnam and have another one in China, right? Um, and, and once that— once BFCM comes, you're not gonna get choked by one, um, one factory that's also producing, I don't know, everyone else's, um, product, right? So I think it's a good time to look at your optionality if you have a little bit of money Saved up and, and at the same time, it just— a lot of the optimization should be happening at your downtime. Um, uh, because it's, it's very difficult to optimize and to fix things during the peak season because everyone's going to be busy. You're going to be getting so much orders. Uh, so yeah, that's just, that's just typically what, what advice we would give to these DTC brands.

Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, it's, it's a good one. Like, I totally agree. I guess it's more— I mean, 100% agree— optimization, back-end cleaning up. I mean, I think for, for us, uh, we're having the same thing. Like, just from an organizational point of view, uh, brand owners move. Um, this tends to be a typical low season, and what we're trying to do, uh, I was speaking with, with Vinnie and our team, is we try to, you know, plant seeds, see what we can do in terms of optimizing our sort of organization. Right now, of course, if I would give an example of Speed Fulfill, most brands would peak during Q4. Right now, a lot of brands are doing a lot more testing. There's, you know, less cash flow for them to be able to engage in a lot more projects. But we have, I think, one thing that comes like is with the confidence that things will come up. I think it's always that anxiety, right? You have this anxiety. As an organization, as a business, like, okay, that peak season. But if you've run, especially, 'cause there's two scenarios. If let's say Move or Speed For Few, a brand owner who's done 2 or 3 Q4s, they would be able to understand like, hey, okay, you know, this is the trend and this is how it's gonna go. I think it would be a little bit different for someone who just started now and saying, hey, you know, things are not picking up, it's my first Q4, how do I address this? So I definitely agree 100% with what you're saying in terms of, So it's more of optimization, cleaning up, sort of not really spring cleaning, but summer cleaning, right? Clean up everything. Yeah, you're getting ready for the ride. If it's a car ride, you know, clean up everything, service everything on the car so that you're ready to go. So yeah, I think that's definitely key in terms of low season. And yeah, Vinnie, what do you think in terms of low season for brands or organizations in general? You know, how could— yeah, what's your feedback on that one?

Okay, so I totally agree with that. Brand owners can do some optimizations in those seasons because it's a good period that you can sort it out all the— for example, sorted out all the customer feedback. And in terms of bestseller only, Yes, you can try to improve your own products or improve your services, which can be like, as Mark just said, that is kind of like planting the seeds for your Q3 and Q4 growth. Yes.

Great. Yeah, Vinnie, I have a question in terms of, let's say China, right? China, let's talk about China and the domestic market in China. Like people are shopping. For those who are not familiar, you have your Amazon, you have Taobao. Taobao should be number one, and you have Pinduoduo. What is the— does this have peak seasons and low seasons? How is the Chinese market like?

Uh, actually it's quite the same, but in China, I can say the buying power is quite strong, but we have also like BFCM. In China, we have Double Eleven Festival. It's very crazy. That is the peak season. And outside that, we have— we can also— it's low season. And during that time, the store owners, they will try to, as I said, they try to improve their own products. And also they will try to, how to say, collect more feedback from the market and then try to make some optimizations.

Okay, so if you're going to shop on, let's say, if you're going to shop from Taobao right now, so Taobao is the Amazon in China, would the product be cheaper now or would it be cheaper in November during the, the sale? Or how, what is your, your thoughts?

In November No, no, it'll be cheaper in November, no doubt.

Okay, so in November during peak season, then they'll have, they'll have a discount. Ah, okay, nice, nice, nice. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's interesting. Yeah, I also, I also feel that I like, I like what Vinnie said. Uh, I think, Omar, that's the sentiment. I think in general, China, China has like strong buying power, I think. I mean, I think strong buying power from also population point of view, I guess, because numbers-wise And then, yeah, I think in general, in that domestic market, I guess, um, I think it's quite, uh, yeah, it's still quite, quite strong. People are still shopping, um, and, and paying. Um, I guess the macro perspective of, uh, of what's happening with oil, uh, I mean, just compared to, to Western countries— I mean, I don't want to get into politics, but yeah, maybe that's also a factor. Um, maybe like, uh, I'm not sure, like the oil reliance, because I don't think oil in China has really shot up, um, price-wise. So I guess maybe that's, um, just, just trying to see and guess, I guess, around it as opposed to, to other markets.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah, I think, I think with that as well, you can see, um, that China is like right now they're transitioning to, um, renewable energy. And you can see that with, of course, like with our last visit to China, everyone is on electric cars, everything is electric. And of course, that's that, that, that electricity is not just purely from fossil fuels. It's a lot of wind, wind energy, solar power. Right. So I think that's why it's affected. And it's good, even, even like trucks and like long-haul freight trucks. Are electric in China. So compared to, let's say, the US or like a traditional, um, freight truck that, that's just on diesel. And with diesel going up, of course, your, your freight, um, freight costs are gonna go up. So I have a quick question, uh, for you guys. So what, what should a brand or a DTC brand, um, ask its 3PL during a quiet month like now? Um, that is, that would probably already be too late if they asked it during November. Good question.

Yeah, I think, uh, maybe the first one, um, is you're looking— what's the biggest risk during Q4? It's a stockout. Um, so I mean, you have— this is from the sourcing, uh, perspective— one of them will be stockout. The second one is, um, what is your 3PLs plan when prices fluctuate. When they fluctuate because of demand, prices will go up. So from a 3PL perspective, I think you're going to look into, um, how can you manage this fluctuation? Uh, different 3PLs address this question differently. So will they be transparent to tell you what are the logistics rates when they are increased, by what percentage, what was the history? A lot of, uh, unpredictability here, and I think that would be the main main question. If you're a supplier, on the other hand, I think a vendor, what you want to ask them, I think you'd agree on that one, is the risk of a stockout. You know, am I capable? What is their capacity like? But from a 3PL perspective, I think the thing that you want to definitely prepare for is strategize your pricing leading up into that pricing. What is your bundling like?

Like.

Is your bundling optimized for a price increase? If you have, uh, maybe you sell what, one piece, and then if there's a price increase, you're not profitable, but then you have 2 or 3 pieces in that bundle, and then that pricing gets you to be in a profitable, uh, position. So yeah, that would be my, my advice on, on that one. I think it would be key to know what the price is because it's, it's make or break. Yeah.

Oh yeah, for sure, that makes a lot of sense. So yeah, whoever is listening, Definitely, those are very, very good points to ask your, your current 3PL.

Yeah, Vinnie, what would you, what would you put there? Um, uh, okay, um, yeah, those are some of the questions that, that can be asked for sure. And yeah, that's a good one, that's a good one. Um, and, uh, yeah, I think one of the last things we wanted to touch, uh, touch upon in the, in the podcast is, um Yeah, what are events coming? How can people network? What are you seeing? A couple of events coming up, Omar, I think 2026 and '27. Maybe you can give the audience some dates to look at and target.

Yeah, I think speaking of events, before we deep dive a little bit of the bigger ones, it's always good for DTC owners to join these events, especially in a networking perspective, because we've worked with a brand that's always super, um, active in events. They are a CPG brand, and I think every month the owner goes to like 4 or 5 events in the US, um, and it, and it, um, usually for like fairs and everything. And they're a tea company, so, um, they typically go to these events just to, of course, for, for networking purposes as well. And Um, they are trying to break through into retail. Um, so a lot of these brands, I think whatever, um, brand or whatever product category you guys are probably working on right now, or you guys currently have, it's always good to have, uh, that sort of network, um, and make friends with similar owners that make a similar brand because they, they, they could be, they could point you to, let's say, a better supplier than you currently have. So I think events are, I think, super untapped for some DTC owners because maybe they feel like they can't get too much from it, but you can get a lot of information, a lot of network from it. But yeah, of course, the biggest, it's always going to be Canton Fair if there were ones that's going to be looking at sourcing out of China. And I think Vietnam as well has a couple of ones that Moov has visited as well. And I think in the UK there's an e-commerce expo as well that's going to be coming up. Yeah, so there's always something going on with these events. Perhaps they even have promos that get set up. So these are just a couple of ones that I know of, but I think you guys might have a something that, like, an event that you guys have, um, been eyeing recently?

Um, yeah, no, I think because, because we spoke about this actually, right, off camera, and, uh, you, you have for sure these, um, there's Canton, uh, Canton in, um, October, uh, that you could, you could definitely target. Um, there's the Ecom Expo in London you mentioned, which is correct. September?

Yes, 2026.

Yeah, on our side, the events that— I mean, there's also Vietnam you mentioned, uh, there's a couple events. Um, there is, um, Affiliate World. I think that's quite popular in the space. So Affiliate World, I think they have, um, a Euro run in July, and then they also have a US or Mexico in September. So that's also one. I think that's mostly for advertisers, but it's Affiliate World. I think you can check that one out. Yeah. And apart from that, I think next year, of course, there's basically you're running with similar events. But from our side, I think those are the main ones that, that we're seeing. And of course, how to know about these, there's different ways. I think DDC brand owners have communities. I think Moov also has a community where you have this information. Um, oh yeah, and, um, yeah, just a few dates for you guys to look at, uh, in terms of just sharing out value. And, uh, like I said, I think— I mean, like Omar said, it's a good, uh, you know, option to go out, network, and get more information. Um, especially some of these events not only have brand owners but also backend, uh, experts such as us who can facilitate, um, you know, backend sort of like optimization. So I think it's— these are some of the dates that you guys can look forward Yeah, yeah, perfect.

Great.

Yeah. And yeah, in general, I think, yeah, it was a good talk. I think the last, you know, I'll just ask for some last words from both Omar and Vinny. Yeah, we're midway through the year. How do you see the direction? You know, I think we already talked about the direction of the space, but you know, what's for the end of the year? I think, you know, from now until the run into Q4? Some people say there's Q5 because of Chinese New Year and extended, but what do you see going into the end of the year?

Yeah, I think on our side, um, things like have wrapped up. All the issues, most of the issues, war and everything like that, um, has wrapped up. So hopefully we are tracking towards a really good Q3, Q4, um, and that a lot of, um, people will have more buying power so that they can buy more things, and specifically in the DTC space, um, for revenue to, to go up. So I think it's usually tied somehow. Um, and at the same time, um, we, we're also hoping that, that brands, uh, of course with the price of oil going down, diversify in terms of market. I think as we mentioned earlier, um, it, it's, it's where we live in a super global world, and especially one that's of course powered by AI, but that could probably be an episode for another day. And e-commerce has gotten to a point where things are very automated now. AI can run your e-commerce business and everything. So makes it a little bit easier perhaps in the backend. Of course, you could be spending a lot more things, a lot more time as a DTC owner for example, expanding your business, finding new ways to get more business as well, and perhaps optimizing, lowering your costs just because everyone is super into AI and AI will be doing the thing in the back end. And you guys, the DTC owners, will probably be, can focus a little bit more on the marketing side, which is where we always see that that's their main strength is the marketing side. I think a lot of DTC owners, even if they start off from somewhere else, usually they end up having their main strength in the marketing side. So usually that's the type of help that we try to do and we try to give here at Movist for DTC owners to give them relief from the bandwidth of doing the ops side of things, right? Because of course, if you want to be spending a lot more time on doing the ops stuff and the sourcing and the inventory planning and stuff that you need to free up your time. I mean, the Q3, Q4 is right around the corner. BFCM is coming up. This is the time for you to also be working on the marketing side of things. Your ads should— you should be planning ahead of time, getting your, your ads right for the specific whatever product you're going to be you're gonna be, um, releasing, right? So I think, I think that's the main thing, uh, and, and we're just hoping that it's, it's gonna be— everything is gonna be going up, um, because for now I think war is over, hopefully, uh, and yeah, we're just hoping for the very best for these DTC brands come end of 2026.

Nice, nice. Yeah, I guess, um, yeah, from now on I think, yeah, it looks like projection-wise it's going up, you know, moving into the year. And yeah, I think I definitely see, you know, where you're coming from with, you know, some of the macros. And once they're done, you know, we expect a projection up. And Vinnie, what do you see for the rest of the year at Speedfulfill?

Okay, so I think from in Speedfulfill, what we focus now and what we are prepared for the Q4 for the end for the rest of year is we are always trying to optimize our structure, not only in the office but also in the warehouse. We are going to like embrace more machines in our warehouse to improve the efficiency, and so that we can like hold more orders in Q4. And besides of that, we are also try to make our warehouse more structured so that the accuracy and all the orders can be shipped within one day. And also we can avoid after-sales problems and something. And in the office, we are also trying to make everything structured in the office. I mean, like, from the coordination among different teams, because we in our HQ, we have different teams and they will deal with different problems and deal with different process. And so during that time, we always keep— we always focus on improving on ourselves and And also we also learn from our customers, then feedback from our customers to make progress. Yes. What do you think?

Perfect. No, I agree. I agree. I think, yeah, mostly optimizing the backend of the backend, if in a way. So the backend of the backend is the warehouse.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I definitely agree. I think it's, yeah, I mean, optimize the backend of the backend. Get things, processes, and like you said, optimizing. And I think we probably in the next one we can touch more on that, uh, AI automations. It's a big topic always in a lot of podcasts and conversations, um, and all of that as well, and how to optimize efficiency. Um, of course, Speedful Fills, there's a lot of, um, um, team organization as well. I guess we'll move as well because team organization is key. So how to move as a unit, I think, is, uh, is also a big, you know, thing to look into. And yeah, I think those are most of the thoughts that I see from my side. And yeah, it was a really, really good conversational episode today. Off camera, we're saying we'll do this often with Omar, just for the listeners. Yeah, to get a perspective of what's happening behind the scenes from backend operations. It's quite important because these are your foundations. And usually a lot of misinformation, and that's what we're sharing out today. And we hope the audience learned something from today. And yeah, some last words from everyone, but it was a great podcast today.

Yeah, really, thank you guys for your time. Yeah, if you guys wanted to reach out to any of us for any help, I think Mark will cover everything. It probably will have a link somewhere. But yeah, it's It's always gonna be good to support all these brands, whether you're a growing brand, you're an established brand, or you're a brand that's looking to scale, right? At the end of the day, that's what we are here for. What— that's what our companies are here to help you out on, is to support you. And of course, at the end of the day, with more money in your pocket, right?

Exactly. That's, that's the whole goal, the better cash flow. And that's the goal at the end of the day. Yeah, so yeah, Vinnie, I think last words, uh, like we said, we'll put the link, uh, in the, in the bottom, uh, and of course you can reach out if you need help, uh, www.speed4view.com and Omar, www.move-supply-chain.com. Yeah, so move-supply-chain.com, speed4view.com, you'll be able to see that in the link. And until next time, we'll see you guys.

Peace. Thank you so much, guys. Have a good one.