What Smart Brands Are Doing About Tariffs (And You Should Too)

Emergency tariff podcast with the best supply chain person that I know, Lara Guevara, from more staffing. Move supply chain. Lara is like literally the best supply chain thinker I have worked with. She has been building and optimizing supply chains all over the world for a whole bunch of years in E Commerce specifically. She has seen your kind of business before. She knows what your supply chain looks like. She built my supply chain for my brand personally, and it is affected by tariffs in China and we're gonna talk about that as well. I've got a bunch of really good stuff on this episode. We're gonna talk about sourcing in Vietnam, including an incredible opportunity right now to go source in Vietnam. We're going to talk about other countries to look to for sourcing, how to get around all of this stuff. What are the advantages, disadvantages, what should you do about tariffs in your E Commerce supply chain? We're going to get into all of it right now. I have to tell you, I'm legally obligated to tell you this is technically a sponsored episode, but this is not even the reason I had Laura on. I had Laura on because she's the best supply chain thinker I know and tariffs are making the world go crazy. So we're going to talk about her work as a supply chain expert working with brands. And that's the point. You're going to get value out of this episode. Don't turn it off because it's not sponsored. Let's jump into it with Lara Guevara. I don't know why I didn't call you the moment the tariff news dropped. The moment we started talking about this and it was like, wait, we should do a podcast about this. I thought, I'm an idiot. Why didn't I immediately get on the phone? You contacted me before I contacted you because you wanted some help on my side. Anyway, I'm glad you're here because you know something about this and I don't really.

I think, Andrew, it was the shock from your. From, from your end.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're in the Philippines, so you felt this probably a little differently than I did. I'm sure you guys felt it too.

Yes, definitely. Definitely. In all our businesses. And, and just because Philippines is very connected to United States as you know it. We are. We are definitely an ally. And that's. Whatever happens in the US Philippines is always affected.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I mean, I actually was not going to record a podcast about tariff stuff because I thought, like, I didn't have enough perspective of what to really do about it. It's not because I was avoiding it. And then when we started talking I was like, wait, I do have some ideas. And then you started coming with ideas that I think are going to be really helpful. And I think a good place to start here is that this is not the first time you've seen tariffs affect supply chains. You've been working on supply chains for E Commerce brands for like how long?

Like more than six years now for e commerce, but total supply chain, 15 years. Yes.

Yeah. Right. Okay. So you've been in the game for a while and you mentioned to me that like in 2019 there was a wave of tariffs and you guys had to navigate that then. Can you just talk about what you saw then? Yes, I don't even remember that. I was not on that side of the business then really.

It's very interesting because that was my first year in E Commerce. I was like doing supply chain for traditional companies, multinational companies here in the Philippines. And that was the year that I transitioned to being remote supply chain. And that was the first challenge I've got. It was the actually, it's actually the same theme wherein 7.5 to 25% of tariff was imposed and it's actually called section 3, 301. So it's a huge jump because it's an additional 25% or 7.5% to your usual paid tariff. So it's a huge jump. And then it's a lot of at that time, it's not yet like the first step that we've done is not yet really diversify or get from another source. It's more of really also making our cogs minimum, minimum effect, doing a lot of projects in terms of unit cost, freight forwarding, warehousing, working together with our Chinese vendors to help us with the cost. It's actually have been a technique or a strategy for like six years ago or seven years ago. And then a year after it was actually the surprise of pandemic wherein you know, the Chinese New year is January and it's a very long period and then pandemic happens in February. It was like a straight after vacation. They did not come back. So those were the two major supply chain disruptions I've seen a few years ago. That is kind of similar to what we're experiencing right now.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because when you say that in, you know, seven and a half to 25% or whatever those were, it sounds like your solution to that problem was work with your vendors to Try to shave costs in some strategic areas to see if you could sort of claw that number back, you know, as opposed to what you're dealing with now where you're hearing like 150% or whatever. And it's like, well, that just makes China unviable. Like, you know, and it's this fascinating thing, right? Because at the moment of recording this, and it's all changing so fast that by the time this releases in a few days, who knows what it will be like. But at the moment recording this, a whole bunch of tariffs have been reduced. Maybe China has been reduced some. I don't. I saw some news about this. I'm confused about it now, but it doesn't even matter what I say right now because by the time we release and this, what we talk about for the rest of this episode, I want actually to sort of be helpful no matter what happens, because it's changing so fast that, like, it's just going to be crazy. But at the time of doing this, you know, this idea where you've got tariffs in China that are really monstrous versus versus not in other countries, it opens up this thing of like, can you source somewhere else? Like you are, you built the supply chain for my brand, like alongside your team of move supply chain that I'm working on now. I have not announced what that brand exactly is, but here's what I will say publicly about it. The packaging is more expensive than the product and the packaging is being made in China. So the packaging is actually where the bulk of the costs are. And so for us, it has definitely immediately slowed me down. I thought, like, should I raise the price? Should I do all these things? But, but like, as I look at this, that sort of whole model that I'm looking at from the level of unit economics, I'm already going into this thinking, like, we're going to have a really lean opex. We're going to like, you know, build our advertising on, you know, really profit focused, really contribution margin focused. All that stuff was kind of already dialed for me in terms of how we're doing this. But it became no longer viable to make this happen. Like, I have my unit economics calculator pulled up. My cost of goods was going to be about 11%. The packaging, the packaging alone was going to be 11% of the revenue, right? So just the packaging was going to eat up over 11%. So, you know, before I even put a product in it, now, if that number goes to 25% or 22% or something like that, I mean, the Whole thing essentially breaks. The whole. The whole business breaks to some degree. So what immediately your team came to me with was, was, well, let's start looking at Vietnam. Vietnam can do similar things with what they can do. I don't know if they can do it quite there. Let's talk about Vietnam specifically for a little bit. And there's a couple reasons to do that. One of them is that it's generally viable. There's a growing manufacturing sector. And then secondly, you're going to be there like in a week. And so I think I'm really interested to hear what you're expecting when you get there. One thing I'll say up front that I've loved about working with you is you went to Canton Fair in China. That was like what, an hour and a half flight from the Philippines or something like that? Maybe two.

Yes, that's right. Yeah, that's right.

What is it, what is it to Vietnam?

Around that number.

Yeah. And super easy for you to get in and out of Vietnam, isn't that right?

That's right. Even, even no visa. China has visa, but easy to apply. Vietnam, we don't have to apply for a visa, so we can really come and go. Yeah.

So it's like a real advantage for you to be in the Philippines to go check this kind of stuff out firsthand, get in person with, with vendors. So, okay, so that's a lot of context. But your team is immediately going to explore Vietnam for my brand. Let's talk about what's possible there. So is Vietnam like a viable alternative for brands if they're going to start shopping their supply chain?

Actually, Vietnam is your second option in Southeast Asia or even in Asia aside from China. It's, it's the, the trade between China and Vietnam is great. And I've told you before that even though the final production is happening somewhere else, even here in the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, majority of the raw materials are still, still coming from China. So we, we might get the finished goods away from China, but the production will still be depending on China for the raw materials. Vietnam, for example, has its own resources, textiles, chips, but definitely not 100% coming from Vietnam. So a lot of Vietnam, like Philippines, if you can recall, probably more than 10 to 15 years ago, we were the production of. Production of Nike and major brands because. Yes, that's right. We have a major production here in the Philippines wherein major brands are produced here. What happened is that our manufacturing got like, because of the tariff as well of our government, we have to stop it and we can't, we can't compete anymore. But Vietnam's government remained to be supportive in that production. If you actually have a business in Vietnam or a manufacturing in Vietnam, you'll get a benefit from, from the government. And that's a good one. That's why they are, they have been in the scene. China's just really huge that you can't really see Vietnam in that area. But they've been here for like more than 20 years. Production of shoes, apparel, even, even technology and chips. They've been here.

So, so definitely machining too, right? In Vietnam?

Yes, yes. CNC machining. Yes. It was fairly new probably five years, five years ago. But the good, the good. Actually a good fun fact here is a lot of Chinese vendors are actually operating in Vietnam. They're open. They're not, they're probably not 100% Vietnam owned. But Chinese have been, have been really working also to help the tariff since 2019. They diversified their source of, I mean their manufacturing plants as well. They are Chinese businessmen, but they started opening manufacturing plants outside China just to also help with the tariff. So it's a mixture of, of Vietnam being here, being here for many years, producing these products. At the same time they get support from the government and at the same time Chinese vendors can also operate there.

Yeah. So okay, that's really interesting. I actually remember reading something about some Chinese immigration into. I think it was Nigeria actually where there would, there was maybe some similar things setting up businesses, you know, sort of global businesses from that sort of were connected to their home in China, but maybe with different tariffs and different reach into you know, growing regions of Africa and stuff like that, developing regions there. Interesting. But the, okay, so in Vietnam, I mean there's, this is a really interesting idea. Like I mean let's say, let's say your whole thing gets 20, your whole business gets 20% more expensive moving to Vietnam. Right. That's still a mass. I mean like all of your cogs are 20% more expensive. It's still a gigantic win compared to 100% tariff. And so I think that's something that people need to start thinking about. As I was sort of thinking about this problem, it's like if you start sourcing additional manufacturers to start working with potentially and it's obviously this is a huge job but like if you start doing that, it can be more expensive than what your old pre tariff China costs were and still be a win. But as I understand it actually price is not really the problem in China. You mentioned that Vietnam imports a lot of raw materials from China as well as other countries do the same thing, Bangladesh or whatever, introduce a lot of raw materials to China and then do the, do they finish them and they do the actual final assembly and all that stuff in, in, in the, in their country. But of course that doesn't make the Chinese goods subject to American tariffs because the final assembly, but that final actual work is done in those places. It just creates a lead time problem. That's the way that as I understand it, as you explained it, but it's not necessarily a cost problem. So can maybe you can talk about a few of the trade offs like the cost and benefits of like Vietnam specifically and I suspect they'll also apply to other countries. But you can tell me what you think of that?

Yeah, definitely. So China has been our number one source in terms of great MOQs and quick lead time. They were able to really solve that problem. But if you look at it 5 years ago, their MOQs in China is also high. Lead time is also long, but they were able to quickly really solve the problem. And it's not just unit cost, it's why a lot of our clients are DTC brands are dependent on China because they've unlocked everything. MOQ lead time, maybe not just payment terms, but moq lead time, unit cost, and then also the efficiencies of freight forwarding from China to us, China to Australia, China to UK and other European countries. Vietnam for example, as a comparison, they actually even have a lower labor cost. It's surprising to know that because we thought that China has been the lowest, but Vietnam is even lower. That is like accepting the minimum labor. Of course they're following the labor laws in Vietnam. Their minimum is even lower than the minimum in China. And so unit cost, it's actually even cheaper in Vietnam. Their machines and their production is also somehow bigger than Vietnam. They operate in, in like very, very, very huge factories as compared to.

Sorry, sorry, just to clarify, Vietnam's is bigger than China's.

Their factories are usually bigger because when China. Yes, when, when China's. When China started supporting smaller businesses, they actually started renting rooms and operate in a small room. That's when we visited China before. We actually saw how they took advantage of that small orders. And so instead of opening like 1000 square foot of manufacturing plants, they rent rooms. That's why you have sewing machines in room one and then it's like a house and then you go on the second floor there's like the packing and then third floor they were able to pass on that savings because they were able to get like a small space for their manufacturing. It's very convenient for them. Vietnam for example is not doing that yet. That's why the MOQ is high because they have to really operate using their huge manufacturing facilities. And that was the case of China before. So you cannot get like hundred pieces of button downs or hoodies from Vietnam. Definitely going to be a challenge. I haven't been successful getting that in Vietnam, but if I have the capacity to order 500 pieces and up then that where the benefit will definitely be realized from Vietnam because they can accommodate the MOQ for that specific order. And so they are bigger. They're also like like a three shift type of factory, morning, mid and evening shift. So it's actually like the usual operating factory. One thing to consider as well on top of the MOQ is the lead time which also China has an advantage on because China can now produce 30 days including raw materials buying for, for themselves. But for Vietnam, if they are relying to other Asian countries like India or Bangladesh and China for, for the raw materials, they have to like add like 15 days for that ordering. Unless, unless we fix it with them and we store the raw materials in their factory. But otherwise we, we get like 15 days more because of that materials ordering, raw materials ordering from other countries. So with our clients ordering products from Vietnam or even my first, actually my first, my first E Commerce client is an outdoor company, a hammock company using produced in Vietnam. We are good or we are okay with those high MOQ and lead time because we were able to like forecast and keep six months worth of, of our products. So definitely if your inventory planning and demand forecasting can support your lead time that is 15 days longer, you'll have a lot of benefit going in for, for Vietnam.

It's interesting. So what about. So you think the unit cost in Vietnam, how does, how do you think it generally compares to China?

So without tariff.

Well, yeah, so yeah, let's say before, before you factor in a tariff. Yeah.

Yes, yes. They're, they're even cheaper unit costs in Vietnam. They will just have to be longer lead time and probably MOQ MOQ is higher. That's why.

But you also.

Yeah.

What about financing the inventory? Because if you have to buy a bunch more, I don't, I mean we could talk about sort of US based debt to do that. But what about actually the terms that you get from the factory? Is there any advantage there in Vietnam compared to China?

Yes. Vietnam gives terms like here in the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand for Example the minimum is net 30 which you don't usually get from China. In China, net 30 relative to.

As soon as it. Yes, upon receipt. Okay.

Yeah, upon receipt.

I mean that's a big, that's really, that's a big deal.

Yes.

I'm sorry to cut you off. Did you want to say more about that?

No, I, I just, I just wanted to say that they have, they have been doing that practice for a very long time and they just didn't stop doing it. It's. It's net 30, sometimes net 60 depending on the relationship and the long. Like how long was the relationship? But definitely payment terms wasn't really an issue with Vietnam. So if you actually compare it, it's the unit cost and the payment terms that's the advantage in Vietnam while China has advantage on the time and moq. So depending on what kind of products you're selling right now and how many pieces you order per skus, that's, that's the, that we have to understand those information first before we can identify is directly diversifying is a, is the first step for you or we really have to do everything first to lower down your cogs in China before we even go to Vietnam because it's not going to be like, like I'm not sure how long can we source for company or manufacturing that can support like 100 pieces of items.

What do you think about quality relative to China for Vietnam?

Definitely. Definitely for me definitely higher in Vietnam. If you what I've observed Andrew, the higher level product that is being sold in the US they are manufactured in Vietnam because when I, when I was starting to, to learn about this like why like I haven't been really like six years ago before six years ago. I don't have experience working with Vietnam factories. And What I've observed 2019 onwards is why are that like a higher level, higher quality type of brands from, from, from the selling set they're selling in the US is usually made in Vietnam and that is actually true until until today. I have a lot of clients that I know that has products in Vietnam and they are usually the hundred plus to 200 plus dollars per unit cost type of product and they were able to keep that high quality from Vietnam. And based on my experience in, in 2019, like it's actually the same. We have a vendor in Korea and that's our first. It became too expensive. It's the hammock one. And then our first option is to source, diversify. We've sourced from China, Vietnam and the quality in Vietnam was at far higher than China six years ago. So definitely a lot of quality checks. And third party is also very like not, not an option like non negotiable for, for Vietnam vendors as well. So they were actually first in doing quality, then China followed.

Really interesting. I mean I just really didn't realize all that. Such an instinct for everyone to order in China that it's an interesting set of trade offs. I mean part of the way I would think about that is like longer lead time and higher moq make it much harder to be cash efficient in a lot of it, right? Because you create forecasting risk and then you have to outlay a whole bunch of cash. But if you think about this problem, it's just a bunch of trade offs. It's just like which is more valuable to you at a business that whatever business stage you're in, you know, is it, is it the inventory turn or not? And if you, if you think about not, not these are the only options. But if you think about, you know, being able to potentially maybe you have to order a whole bunch more stuff but if you get it cheaper and then you add the tariff part and it becomes a no brainer, right? It becomes like, well look, we're just going to have to deal with stocking six months of inventory and finding a way to financing it if, if we didn't, even if we didn't want to just because we can't afford to pay 150% tariffs or whatever that number is in China right now, you know. And so you just start to, you just start to, you know, kind of have to take that trade. But it's actually interesting to think about it even outside the tariff environment a little bit of like sort of how this might work out for brands. Because if you're talking about higher quality, lower cost per unit and better financing from the factory. So let's say you get it net 30 on receipt. Now let's say I have to go finance that with somebody like settle or something like that, you know, some sort of, or even a bank or something. If I go do that, I actually only have to find, I have to finance a month and a half less or whatever, you know, maybe even two months less depending on the, the timeline of that inventory relative to what I would get from China, right? Because if I have to pay you know, 50% down or you know, whatever, 50% when it, when it goes out from the China, from, from the Chinese factory or you know, even 30, 70 like some, some Chinese, whatever, some Chinese factors will do Now I gotta, now I have like relative to net 30 upon receipt. That's like probably a couple extra months where, where that I have to figure out a way to finance if I'm ordering from China, which effectively raises the cost etc. So it's just, it's just a bunch of trade offs there like I said. And I think it's interesting to think about are there.

It's actually a bunch of trade offs and actually there are still solutions to that. So not all companies or not all DTC brands can keep four to six months worth of products. Definitely what's happening, what you can do in Vietnam that you cannot do in China is you use a blanket po. So you order 2,000 pieces for example, that 2,000 pieces is for the whole year. And then the Vietnam vendor will then order raw materials worth 2,000 pieces but the production is staggered. So that's something that Vietnam factories can do that China cannot do. Right now if you order a po, majority of the vendors in China you have to produce it right away. So if you have 2000 pieces of orders in Vietnam you can ask them to produce 500. 500, 500. So it's not just keeping six months worth, it's making your inventory planning tighter that you're ordering just in time, that you're not, you're not ordering too much, but you know exactly where it should arrive in the US so that, so just you're not out of stock. So it's really as like the smartest way to combat not being able to order a lot of pieces is to make it just in time. Make it a just in time type of inventory planning. You keep the raw materials there, you pay for like a deposit in that open PO and then you instruct your, your manufacturing to order or to produce like 500 at a time and then it arrives in like, like in interval of one month for example. It will depend on the inventory forecasting that you, you have. We have to make sure that we are, we are producing a little bit from the PO and being delivered in two weeks interval or one month interval. So your goods are actually being delivered as it is produced and then you keep receiving it like smaller quantity at the time and not like 2000 right away which is the case in China. So those two things can be done just to, just to help with a cash flow situation if, if ordering too much, ordering a lot is not an option.

I have a lot of other questions about this actually. I'm really interested to talk more. There's a lot of stuff to get to in this call, so in this podcast. So. So I want to be sensitive to that as well. For people who are listening, Sting still on the agenda. I've got some questions directly asked by some folks about sort of how to work through some of this. We're going to get to. I want to talk about some broader business implications of this current moment that I see here. And I also want to talk about other countries besides Vietnam. So those are all coming in a little bit. But right now I do want you to talk about this. This is like incredible fortuitous timing here. Like, one thing I'm actually curious about with Vietnam is if they're, if they're going to sort of bend on any of those MOQs, because if I'm in Vietnam and I'm only owning if I own a factory, right now, I am watching this moment in US China relations going, being opportunistic, and I'm going to find any way to grab a bunch of American business that I possibly can right now. And if that means lowering some MOQs, then so be it. Now, that also implies that you would be getting a smaller business if you're Vietnam. And I bet they were especially going to bend over backwards if you're a little bit larger right now. If you're a little bit larger and can and provide a larger PO to them, then I think probably, you know, just, just generally the way business works in the world. I'm assuming now's the time to really go explore this because I bet you will never get a better deal than by going right now because it's such an important moment for Vietnam to get your business in a way that they probably wouldn't before. I'm just, I would just assume that that's the way that's going to be. But you don't have to assume because you are going to be in Vietnam like very soon. Yes. So this is interesting. The Canton Fair is a thing I think of. And if, and you introduced me to this, I didn't know it existed before, but it's essentially right like a giant trade show for factories for different people to come and sort of check out factories. Right. That's what I understand. Canton Fair to be in Canton in China.

Yeah.

Right. So Vietnam, though, has their own version of this. And it's like in a couple weeks, which again, fortuitous timing relative to these tariffs. Can you talk about what that is? Why its advantage, why there's an advantage, like for you to be there and why, like, essentially why it is helpful to have you Go and represent a brand at that fair, at that trade show. And yet sort of like what it is, why it's helpful for you to be there and what you can sort of expect, what people can expect if they're able to tap into that right now.

Yeah, definitely. The first difference is that Canton Fair is solely supporting China vendors, while global sourcing fare in Vietnam caters to other Asian countries as well. Yeah, so it's like, that's why it's global sourcing fare. They have participants from even. Even in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Bangladesh and South Korea, because those were the strongest manufacturing in Asia. So the global sourcing fair is actually. It's actually organized and being done by global sources, which happens not only in Vietnam, but other countries as well. It's a trade show in Ho Chi Minh City, and it will be on April 24, 26. So it's shorter as well as compared to Canton Fair, where in Canton Fair has three phases, like a total of one month fare. This is like three days. But the focus is sourcing in fashion or apparel, accessories, shoes, home products, gift products, electronics and home appliances from Vietnam from Vietnamese and Asian manufacturers. So it's a lot, like a lot less type of categories, but it can definitely cater to a lot of DTC products as well. And then it's. It's actually they have. Aside from. From the fair, they have like different events, different networking events during that time, meeting vendors from not just again Vietnam, but also other countries. And so addition to the fair, they have like business matching fashion parades and industry seminars. That makes it a little bit more interactive than Canton Fair. But the most, like my most. The number one goal that I have there when I go there is not just to meet vendors in Vietnam and other countries, but also to be able to explore the opportunity if they are also willing to receive visitors in their factory. Just like how open China is. Because we. We wanted to understand. We know that Vietnam has been there at the back of China, but we want to understand what's your real potential. What. What are you not showing us yet that we can definitely unlock right now, given the situation? I think they're just. This is the perfect timing to learn more about their manufacturing. We already know their advantages and where they are. The disadvantages. Of course there are disadvantages, but how quickly can we help you lower down your moq? How quickly can we help you improve your lead times? Because again, supply chain is interconnected. If we help them source their raw materials and if we're good at that, then we're already solving half of their problem. So definitely that's the relationship that I wanted to see and build when I visit Vietnam. That was something that we've already built in China before. Our team in move supply chain actually been to Vietnam. Last January there was a very smart client of ours that has initiated this project even before the tariff blew up. But we visited five or six CNC machining in Vietnam before and the experience was like as smooth as what we have experienced in China. And that person, member who visited Vietnam is the person who also visited China with me. So that learning that learnings that we have last January for that visit is definitely like we made the, made the strategy stronger. Like it's, it's going to be a lot helpful now because of the situation. But definitely we see a lot of potential in Vietnam and I, I know that with the proper and right relationship that we can build with them, it's going to be as quick as China in terms of adapting. How can they still benefit from, from, from improving their supply chain?

Yeah. So I'm going to read two of the questions we got that I think actually hit something that sort of is in the implication of this. I had tweeted about this and said, you know, what questions do you have for, for Lara about this? And, and by the way, if you're a Twitter person, Lara is also a great follow on Twitter at supply chain Laura. I'll link that in the show notes. But yeah, two questions. I'll read them both. Okay, number one question for her, how do you explore an alt supply chain without destroying your current setup? And there's so much uncertainty with policy rollbacks. And then secondly, if a brand heavily depends on goods from China, would you advise immediately finding an alternative solution? Those two questions are very similar to one another in terms of their idea here, which is like, like okay, if the answer is to go find an alternative solution, let's just talk about like is that actually viable for brands to go and find alternative solution right now? And is it, can you, can it happen in any reasonable amount of time by the time you do the sampling process and everything else? Like, and, and, and if so, is there any risk to your current supply chain in doing this? You know, like, yeah. So if a brand wants to talk with you guys and start exploring Vietnam. Yeah. Is it viable and are there any negative implications for the current setup?

Yeah. First of all, before, before I directly answer that question, it's always helpful to understand that what we should be doing even before the disruption starts is that we are already ready for diversification meaning I always, always say this to our clients, to everyone. I'm not sure how much I've been telling about this. But don't wait for, for disruption. Always diversify up until an approved sample. So a lot of our clients or people that I know, they love working with their vendors and that's fine. But you have a business to take good care of. What you have to do is even without tariff issues or issues in your source, you have to have at least one to do alternative vendor that is sample approved. And then don't order from that. It's just that it's ready whenever your your existing vendor, something happened to your existing vendor. Not just tariff, not just pandemic, but maybe like the fire, there was a fire like those kind of emergencies. So first of all I would still, I would still say that even after this, even if the lower, even if the tariff gets lower, we wanted an alternative vendor that is sample approved even if we don't order from them. But moving to answering the question, actually.

Before you move to the question answers, I actually want to piggyback on that really fast. Taylor Holiday tweeted and said somebody tell me what the bull case is for tariffs in China at this moment in E Commerce. Like what is how does this work out for good for people like somebody just do that exercise. And this was one of the things I said right away and it's something that I think is sort of the most obvious part of this. I continue to have the theory, I think this is really important actually. I continue to have the theory that the supply chain of E Commerce brands is still the most under optimized part of E Commerce. Part of the reason I have that theory is because of talking to you. Like first of all I learned so much from you when I talk to you. But secondly, when you've told me about intake calls at move, you have told me that you guys are sometimes like trying to withstand withhold your giggles not because you're like making fun of them, but because of how easy it's going to be for you to make massive improvements so quickly. You just look at it as red meat to you. That's the way you've described it to me because, because there is so, there's just so much low hanging fruit for brands and this is a perfect example of that. Like the idea that brands, right haven't before this moment had some kind of consideration for a backup supply chain, not in China is actually a little crazy and I don't mean to be condescending. There's A lot to do in E Commerce. There's always more to do than you can actually get to. But it's not news that America's relationship with China and that particularly President Trump and his relationship with China is. You know, this is like this has been talked about for a long time as a real possibility. And you know, look, I wasn't savvy enough to be sounding the warning bell on this aggressively, but I like the way you framed it. Like whatever happens in this moment with tariffs, even if tomorrow, even if the moment we hit stop on this recording, the news comes through that the whole thing is, is rolled back. I was just negotiating strong arm tactic like some of this other stuff. Like it's, it would still be a, it should be a kick in the pants to go and like have a couple backup solutions sorted out so you know what's available. Because otherwise 150 tariff has a chance to kill your business. Like kill your business. And so, so like having some backup there. And that's before you talk about everything else and even the trade offs we discussed earlier, which is like, like if it turns out that there's a viable alternative vendor for you that requires a larger MOQ that you can maybe get around with blankets, larger lead times, but it's a higher quality and a lower cost per unit and can get financed, that's actually a really hard decision. You, aside from tariffs, you may want to go to Vietnam. Like and so it just, it just feels to me like one of the ways that this whole thing ends up being better for brands is that they use it as the opportunity they needed to have actual like redundancies built into their supply chain in a way that they can know I have alternative solutions if I can go get them. Because, because it just is a really important part of it. Like I said, you know, I think, I think there's more, a little more supply chain chatter happening in the E commerce community now than there had been for a while. And I'm really encouraged by that. I think you've been a voice in that. Like you know there's people like Mayta Bogle's been talking about some of those things and there's some others as well. But like I, I just think it's, I think it's a really important point for people that, that, that no matter what else happens here, they should do what you just said to do which is have a couple backups, get all the way through the sampling phase. Know that there's a button where you can press go the moment that you need it. So I, you know, anyway, that's like one of the things I really wanted to get out in this episode. Let's go ahead and go over to the question that you answered that you said. So is it actually viable to switch now? And if so, is there any risk to your current supply chain?

Yeah, so there are, so there's, there are two activities that I would strongly recommend to our listeners to do simultaneously. And one is what because it will take time to get an alternative vendor. One is to do it right away like start exporting, exploring what countries you have depending on the category or product that you sell, what country is the best. Next option. We've talked about Vietnam, but there are also India for pharmaceuticals, textiles, automotive components, generally around 10% tariff depending on the category. Then you have Bangladesh for garments, apparels, footwear, furniture. And you have Mexico for other machineries and electronics as well. You have Thailand for automotive parts. Yes, you have automotive parts in Thailand, electronics and also textiles. And then in Malaysia you have machinery, chemicals, you have electronics in Turkey, Turkey is rising to be good in textiles, automotive parts and machineries as well. I would say Philippines for textiles, but it's more of like the specialized type of textiles here in the Philippines. And then Pakistan again is it's textile, leather, leather goods and other food industry. So first is to understand what are your second, your top three options. There are also South America and like Colombia having 10% is also a good alternative for apparel. So understand where you wanted to focus on alternative sourcing. There are a lot of options. Those are just samples that I've shared but definitely there are more. While doing that and simultaneously working on that, there are always the low hanging fruit that we can do right now like today working with our vendors and with our supply chain team members. And of course first of that first, first suggestion that I'll do is while you're already sourcing and looking for, for an alternative vendor, you have to really understand your products right now and like identify which of those is the high margin or your best selling that you wanted to prioritize. Because if you have like thousands of SKUs, it will be very confusing for everyone in your, in your business to find an alternative right away. Like we have to find that priority products first before we, we do anything. And it helps us focus. Not all SKUs get equal attention and I always say that.

And then first and especially if you're Talking about raised MOQs, there's no better time to start thinking about like well maybe we're going to sunset some SKUs you know, if you, if you go to Vietnam or something like that, like it might be a time where that becomes, you know, you call some SKUs that are like, really not that val. Valuable for you anyway. Now, now's the time to be like, well, we're getting rid of those, you know, which, which may actually have benefits to your business anyway. So. Yeah, by the way, really fast with all the stuff you're talking about. Lara, before you keep going, do you guys at MOVE do this for people?

Yes.

Can you take the lead on this? Yeah. Okay, great.

Yes.

So we actually, we actually move supply chain dot com.

Yes, Move supply chain dot com. We.

So with everything she has said, sourcing and. Yeah, okay. So with everything she has said so far and with everything she's about to say, it's worth noting here that like go to supply chain dot com, get on a call. Lara and her team are based in the Philippines, which means they're affordable for you. And she's, and also means she's attracting really, really high quality talent because she's, because she's not cheap. She's, she's, she's not exploiting people. She's paying them good, good money in, in the Philippines, which attracts really good quality talent with deep resumes and at the same time is much more price efficient for you. So. Yeah, okay, so keep going. Sorry.

Yeah. So aside from prioritizing the SKUs, the next easiest step is to renegotiate with your existing suppliers first. You might be surprised how they can support you. So they might or they might not, depending on their business situation as well. But a lot of my experience is that when you really even go there, if you have time and if you have, if you're really focused on doing this, it's going to really help if you meet your vendor in person or you send someone from your team to do it. Because I've seen a lot of good outcomes based on visiting your vendors in China. So that first is renegotiating with them, understanding how can they help you with the unit cost. Maybe they can slash out in your unit cost. That's going to be a huge help. And now what I'm trying to say, it's a combination of different projects happening at the same time, like really getting all those savings from different parts of your supply chain while you're waiting for an alternative supplier. So next is really getting freight and fulfillment savings. So we have different kinds of freight forwarding internationally. You have fast boat, you have slow boat. It's a lot like it's via sea, but different prices depending on the stops that it does or it depends on the lead time or the number of days that it travels. But definitely if you can place your order earlier and you can use the cheapest possible option, the slow boat which takes 30 to 45 days as compared to the fast boat that takes 20 days to 25 days, then you can definitely save on like a dollar and 1.5 dollars per kilogram of DDP price. And then another option is to review your landed cost in general because you also have like warehousing and packaging and shipping. A lot of what we're doing to our clients right now in move supply chain is that we are optimizing their packaging. We are now they have started to do that project wherein they don't just allow their vendors to use whatever packaging they have in their factory, but we're now really computing what is the right size of our master carton so that it's optimized in palletizing and in shipments. So those are the early projects that you can do in warehousing. And at the same time you have a partner 3 PL in the United States. Usually if your 3 PL is in the US there are also a lot of projects that you can do with them. If you can just increase the stacking height from 6 to 10 because your products are not fragile. And all that is like saving a half of your pallet cost because usually in the warehouses you pay by the pallet. So it's like small. Like that small project in warehouse can definitely save you a lot of monies as well. And again, all those like small savings, if you compute in total, definitely will have a huge impact while you're waiting for your alternative in other countries, if that will take. The fastest that I've done it is a month and a half. Which is actually the technique and strategy that we've. Yes, a strategy that we've done with your brand and other brands is what happens is we had a pre sourcing for a month, we had the pre sourcing for a month. We deployed sourcing experts that all they do during that month is like just sourcing. And then when they have shortlisted vendors, we go meet, audit, negotiate right away in person. It's the quickest possible time. And even before we went there, there are already samples awaiting, awaiting our checking. So it's really quick. The usual, the quickest. And NPD usually is three months. Andrew. So if to answer the question that was raised, it is usually three months but we can lower it to 30 to 45 days. Of sourcing. And while that's happening in the 30 to 45 days that you're again sourcing for alternative, your team and supply chain can already start doing the projects that I've mentioned, get that savings and then if we get a viable vendor in one and a half months, then we can definitely slowly transition. It's always making sure that we're not disrupted because I think it's also asked in the tweet, wherein how would you advise immediately finding an alternative solution? You can definitely find it quicker with our strategy of resourcing and going there, that will slash half of the lead time. But again, we have to identify which product should be done there first, what is the priority product, what's your top selling, best profit that you have type of product? Then we go there first, we continue ordering from your existing vendors until such time that we are 100% confident that we can replace it. We can replace it 100% because it's not going to be helpful if, if we disrupt the, the production in, in your current vendors right now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really helpful. Is, is there anything that you just said that you think shouldn't be done, can't be done even if the tariffs go away? Like, or is everything you said just like the stuff that you, you should be doing anyway?

That is definitely the supply chain best practices that we should be doing even without the tariff issues. It's, and again, I've seen clients do this before even without the tariff issue. So they've been really, they, they, they've, they were ahead of the situation and they were successfully, they have successfully transitioned to Vietnam from China in two weeks. And actually I'm very excited for that because I emailed him like I heard, he heard us from your podcast and then we did that project and I told him I admire what you've done. You're one of the vendors, clients that we've partnered with that did the job that I said to do and believe in really transitioning and now, now look where you're, where you are right now. You're in Viet and it's a very expensive product. So I asked him for a podcast interview and he agreed. I just read it earlier and I'm so happy that I will have that conversation with an actual client as well. Definitely something that you can hear directly from a DTC owner. What he has done even before the tariff situation is actually, actually a business game changer for him in his business because he was able to transition last January to Vietnam from China.

That's Going to be so helpful. Where should people go to hear that.

We have our podcast Supply Chain Moves. I can also give the, the link to you for showing. Interesting.

Yeah, I'll put it, I'll put in there. I think, I think I'm gonna go on there as well. So. So if you want to at some point here. Right. So if you want to hear the reversed version of this where Laura asked me questions, we can do it. Okay. Yeah. So go check that out as well. Yeah. The first thing I heard from a client of yours about this, about talking to you was just like insane numbers. It was like save 30% on our COGS and a dollar on our processing fees on every order with our 3PL. And it was just like, holy cow. So do you. What was I going to say? Oh, when I hear the stacking height thing that you said, you know the idea of like, of non fragile stuff that you stack higher, it's such a perfect example of what I mean when I say like supply chains are under optimized. Because under optimized it's like, yeah, it's like, it's like wait, if that was already right there for brands to be able to do like just go with higher stacking height and they just aren't. I mean you just don't know that. If you don't know that's like the way that a warehouse operates and that it, it's a real big difference maker because it saves them space. They can't put anything else above that. You know, it's just like, yeah, it's such a, it's such a big, I don't know, it's just a kind of, it's a perfect little illustration of this like insightful thing that somebody who knows what they're talking about can.

If you haven't seen a warehouse, how a warehouse works, it's hard to identify projects. Like, not just that the biggest savings you can get is actually the bin type, the box type. Because for, for apparel, for example, they open your box and they stock it in shelves and then they cut that opening and then they open it and when there's a peak and packing, when there's an order, they pick one of those products. If there are other products that customer ordered, they will do that. What happens is a lot of those boxes are left open and the way that they charge you is based on the open boxes. So there were like same SKUs, three different boxes open and like the, the first step there is just to combine all the skus together. Like just maintain one box open so that you're charged with one bin. And that's a lot of. If you go to the actual warehouse floor, you will be, you will, you can come up with 10 easy projects right at that moment. And so again it's like not just really inviting everyone to go to your warehouse. You needed to be there at least once a year also for like for example cycle count or wall to wall account to understand the missing products that you have. That is also killing a lot of businesses because of the stolen or lost products in warehouses. Definitely every that that you have a lot of projects in warehouse. You have a lot of projects in shipping, logistics and definitely with your vendors. So combine all of those in the 30 days that some of your talents are sourcing other clients and then you'll be surprised how much you can save right away.

Yeah, it's really good. I see. I was going to ask you about other countries that you're looking at, but it looks like we kind of already covered that. You just gave a nice list of those things. One last question from, from somebody on my, on that thread. Any options to get around tariffs from goods in progress due to come out of China within the next month? You know, if anything, I mean I can't imagine you know some secret way around tariff, but maybe, maybe you do.

Yeah, actually I had a conversation with our freight forwarder that I was able to endorse to a lot of our clients is he's a very good partner. He has, he is afraid for water. At the same time they have warehouse in Guangzhou in Shenzhen, China. So we had a call two days ago and I asked, I told him like how are you or is your business, how's your business doing? Because a lot of his clients are also in the US and he said that this is interesting and I will further investigate here but there's, there's like a way of shipping right now in the DDP setup wherein we can, we can help lowering down freight to combat whatever tariff is being done. So in the end, in the end they will, they will combine and consolidate a lot of. So it's a project. They will combine and consolidate a lot of orders to keep doing full container load instead of loose loads like lcl. And then with that full container load set up, you're getting half of the freight cost that you get. But with the increased tariff definitely you just probably get a little bit more impact there. So, so that's actually coming from someone who's actually doing the freight forwarding at this point because I think few more weeks before that hundred plus type become like if that's going to be a reality, then a lot of our clients doing this has been sending all their stocks right away, the quickest possible time, like via Air. So instead of computation of cogs, there's an alternative way of doing. Instead of sending it via air, it's an alternative way of doing it via C, but consolidated with other clients. So it's full container load. It's cheaper still compared to doing a via Air. So that's. I think the. Because we have. It's under certainty, Andrew, if this is actually really happening. But we cannot just ignore the fact that you have stocks in China sitting in. And the number one strategy that you're thinking is to send it all right away right now via air so that it doesn't meet the May 2 application of tariff. But even, even via air, it's kind of risky because via air right now takes 10 to 12 days and if it gets delayed then it will get hit. So.

And you'll pay the air for the house. That's crazy. Yeah.

Yes. So what I would suggest is to send the right product right now. It's like if it's like panic buying or panic freight forwarding or panic shipment is not probably a good situation right now. It's more of really getting the products that you need, getting the stocks that you need right now and doing like a fast C consolidation fcl. That's the best advice that I can do. There are a lot of freight forwarders right now who's doing the consolidation. So you're like teaming up with your other DTC business owners in the US to have that consolidated shared full container load for you.

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean what I think is like as a general way of approaching this problem, I just think there's short term, long term, which is like short term there becomes this question of like, okay, maybe, maybe, maybe for like I would, I would separate this into two buckets, right? So the first thing I would think about is like, okay, do the thing you just said, right? Which is like consider the possibility of trying to get around it with the current orders that are out. I think that's a smart strategy that you said don't panic, buy all that stuff. I think, I think in the short term it's very possible that brands are just going to take a big hit here and they're going to have a load of things that are less, less, less profitable than they want, etc. They might have to raise some prices, you know, they may have to do something where they behave at a higher margin for a little bit. Like one thing I've thought about with one brand I'm working with is just like essentially take current inventory that they already have and, and, and try to stretch it further by just like growing a little slower and take more margin on first purchase. Nearly every brand that I can think of that's importing from China is making a decision about what kind of contribution margin they take in their ad account. That usually has something to do with growth. Now sometimes there's cash needs for the rest of the business and for payments and I get that. And so you have to keep a certain volume going. But if you can at all, maybe now is the time to slow your spend down, take a little more profit, try to stretch your current inventory a little bit further and see if you can push out rebuying any inventory for further, for farther. Like essentially just try and see if you can behave that way. I've got one brand that's actually been able to do that so far and, and where we've actually generated sort of increase CM now it's not the top line. Growth is not going to look that great. You know, year over year might be negative or whatever but they're actually going to be fine profit wise, not going to be an existential threat to their business or anything like that. So and, and I think like that's kind of the part of the way I would think about some of these things like where's your current inventory position, how should you think about your ad buying relative to that inventory position, what's on the way, what's in, in order, what can you sort of put a stop to and, and sort of try to trade off some of those games. So there's this short term consideration that includes a whole bunch of factors like that and then, and then to kind of go down the route of some of the strategies you just mentioned. But, but I would just also say like long term. My real hope in this moment is that it helps businesses think more efficiently about their businesses. We just talked, we talked about one of them a second ago with the issue of thinking about like building out a supply chain that's more, that's less fragile, that has backups built in. We talked about that idea, doing all the things you talked about a second ago, you know, related to warehousing and all that. Like all that stuff is good. I also just think, I also just think there's a thing here where it's like, you know, like on the ad buying side since I just mentioned it. I think this is where it's where like I hammer ideas for people about like you've got to stop allowing there to be unprofitable ad spend in your ad account just because like you, you need to behave in a way where that, where the profitability of the, of the dollars that you, that you put out is high. And so like, you know, you know, my hobby horse of creative testing campaigns and ad accounts is something I talk about a lot. But it's like, it just makes no sense to me that you just sort of allow someone to go and spend a bunch of money at a loss that doesn't have that for no apparent reason that I can, that I can think of that sort of not, you know, meaningfully helping your ad account like, or not running on manual bids because you know, if you have some whatever, like go and assume there's some price at which a customer is no longer profitable to you and to you and stop spending bad doll throwing them around and all kinds of stuff like get efficient and focused and care about the profit that you're, that your dollars are driving and make sure that matters to you a lot. The other one that I would say is opex. This actually blew my mind. I am so bullish on E Commerce even in this present moment because I believe that there are ways to build larger for a lot of reasons, but there are ways to build larger businesses more efficiently on leaner OPEX all the time. And, and this is one of those moments where like when I think about Final Loop, Final Loop put out a stat saying that their median user has an OPEX of 19%. OPEX as a. So the percentage of revenue, their fixed costs, software people rent, all that stuff is 19%. That is too freaking high. It is too high for most businesses. That number has like you should be targeting 15. And I bet with AI and why by like working with you guys, you know, working with people like you, Laura, who are offshored where it's like, you know, I can get access to the best talent that I've ever worked with at again, a lower price than I can get the talent in the US between offshoring and AI for a US based business. It just makes no sense for that number to be that high. And the thing is, if I do the math and I say like the gap between 15 points of my P and L being eaten up with by opex versus 19 points, that's actually like that 4 point gap. Those 4 percentage points on my P and L of cost are extremely like, that's a lot of the difference in cogs for a lot of these brands that you get with tariffs. Like, you can claw that back right away just by being relentless about this. I did an interview with Ben Perkins from Ann Caller recently. Great conversation. Go check that out. It was like a week or two ago that I released this episode where he talked about how like when they were, you know, getting killed with huge debt payments in their business and they, they absolutely had to shave their opex or, or they were going to die. He did this thing where he gave every one of his employees a P and L and said this is the numbers you need to hit to be part of this. Basically, you know, and essentially each one has an individualized P and L for their profitability in the business because an employee is supposed to drive profit somehow in your business. That it was harder with some, easier with others, that it certainly created resentment with some employees. But most of the employment employees with whom it created resentment, he offered them a generous package, said, we'll, you know, give you three months severance or whatever. Like most of those left. He said he, his team got cut in half. And guess what? He didn't really lose any money revenue wise. Not because even necessarily those people were bad or whatever, because he had just overhiered or something like that. And so by tracking that kind of thing, you know, he loaded up his software, all that kind of stuff. Like this is the kind of moment that helps people get clear about that. And I just think there's this way in which brands ought to do that. It's part of the reason I love talking to you about this so much. Lara is like, you know, I'm not trying to pay as little money as possible in the Philippines. That's not the way I think about it. I don't think about it as like, how do I go as cheap as possible with my team, But I am committed to building my team there. What I'm committed to is like, like my Philippine, Philippines employees in my business are incredible. Like, they're, they're great employees. So I'm trying to figure out all the time how do we pay them more, how do we get more of them and how do I expect more of them in a way that like, people are getting paid great relative to local possibilities and they love to work with me and it's a great environment that's going to attract the best talent in my business and I'm going to do all of that while maintaining my margin and serving my customers at the agency business. And I would do the same thing if I was serving my customers at the E Comm business in this way. Right, because you have a staffing agency as well, not just the supply chain agency, more staffing. You guys have sponsored my podcast for a long time. So I, you know, this is a little bit of a rant, but I'm just, I'm just looking at the total business possibilities in this tariff moment and so saying like, if you can actually use this as a moment to build redundancies in your supply chain, get serious, serious, serious about running a lean opex and get serious about the profitability of your ad spend that that actually like you can actually come out of this in an okay spot. And, and if it means going to Vietnam or not like you, you know, there's different things for different brands. Like, but, but yeah, I think, I think there's ways to do this in a way that will actually make sense for businesses and they'll, they'll end up being okay. I don't know if you want to react to any of that. I know some that's a little bit outside of your normal stuff, but yeah, yeah.

Actually the key takeaway for me in what you've shared is it's a learning. Like right now, it's like a huge learning for our e commerce community wherein this is already the third major situation that we've experienced in the past five, six years. And so resilient supply chain is what I always say. Do not wait for the next big hit again before we do something like making our OPEX leaner or making our supply chain tighter and doing so many projects at the same time. Do it while it's not yet happening and it will save your business during this difficult times. Definitely will make it stronger. And I think what we're seeing in more staffing right now as, as we observe what's happening is we're getting more like a hire of like a part time which we definitely can support because we're not just hiring full time, we're also hiring part time team members. And I think people are getting smarter, clients are getting smarter in making sure that they will only like commit to like 20 hours of for example, financial services or 20 hours of design services. And definitely that's something that we've seen, we've seen the past few weeks and definitely supportable in supply chain side. There are a lot of optimization that we have to do with or without tariff and that's something that we should start right now, as soon as possible so that it can make our supply chain Stronger.

Yeah, agree. Completely. Okay, so people should follow up with the supply chain side@move supply chain.com, schedule time with Laura and her team there. She's going to be in Vietnam very soon. If you want her to represent your brand there, look for the right opportunities there. You should get on the call with her right now. Again, I am literally having a conversation with her about my brand. So I'm, I'm quite literally putting my money where my mouth is on this. Right. This is not just like a spot. This is Laura. I've joked about this with other people, but like we have a very funny relationship where like literally everything I touch is working with all three of the agencies that you help lead on, on your side of things. So I'm paying you in three places and then you guys also sponsor my podcast. Like I. Yeah, it's this insane interconnected thing, you know. So anyway, it's not. Yeah, but definitely. Yeah, yeah, it's great.

Yeah, yeah.

So move supply chain. What'd you want to say?

We're actually, we're actually going to China as well. Like, like the more that we needed to go to China because we've been invited to many factories right now and I think it's them trying to understand the situation. Of course they're very fearful of losing the clients. That's their goal. And if your client is really like has a good relationship with you, definitely you get a support. And at the same time, we will be there because a lot of our clients right now has taken the China or Vietnam visit package that we've offered in supply chain just to make sure that we can negotiate whatever we can in person in Vietnam and in China so that the result is as quick as possible. So I'll be doing a lot more content about that soon. So I'll be working more on Twitter and podcast so that we can help you identify or we can help you. We can share whatever is the learning of that trip to China and Vietnam coming soon.

Great. And people can also go to more staffing co AF in that case if they want to talk to you about like a full time or part time team member. There probably are some brands I suspect that should actually be considering hiring like a, like a supply chain manager and a more full time basis to take on some of this stuff, right?

That's right.

And you guys, I know, have a lot of experience staffing those folks. That's the world you came from. So yeah, I've staffed graphic designers, video editors with you guys. I'm currently, I have two job descriptions out with you guys right now for accounting and for post production for this podcast. Yeah, so, so, yeah, so I'm again, I'm doing it everywhere. Like I've said to some other people for the brand that I'm building right now, you know, on the lean up side. At some point I will actually announce to talk through what it is. But you know, I'm planning on, I'm planning on for as long as possible. My partner and I in the business being the only US based employees. Like we're planning to build the entire team in the Philippines. Every single time I have ever expected more of my Philippines based team members, they have reached or exceeded it and I have. And I remind myself that I'm not expecting enough. And it's, it's not, not in a way of like pushing them harder, driving them harder, but just like, it's just, I still am just in somewhere in my mind and thinking like, oh, like, I don't know, they, I don't know, stupid. It's, it's like a dumb thing and every time I do it, it's like people are just even better and smarter than I realize. So anyway, it's, it's, it's been a great setup for me. So go check us out. Move supply chain dot com. More staffing co AF Both of those links are in the show notes. Laura, thanks for your time for an emergency podcast.

Thank you for your help.

I appreciate it so much.

Yes. I hope we're smarter after this challenge that we're facing right now. Definitely.

Yeah.