This is a YouTube video titled "Disruptive Ecommerce Technology: OZ Medical Supply Merchant Testimonial - Cahoot Order Fulfillment" featuring a conversation between Manish Chowdhary, founder and CEO of Kahoot, and Ismail Ozakur, a merchant from OZ Medical Supply. Recorded in April 2019, the discussion covers Ismail's business background, customer service philosophy, shipping challenges, and reasons for joining the Kahoot network, highlighting ecommerce and fulfillment topics.
Hello, my name is Manish Chaudhary. I'm the founder and CEO of Kahoot. I'm joined here with one of our new merchants, Ishmael Ozakur. Ishmael, welcome.
Thank you.
Can you tell us a little bit about your business and what you do?
Well, we've been around for the last almost three years. The company's background, my experience goes back about 12 years. We are located in Northern California, Pleasanton. One single warehouse, you know, humble operations that we have going on over here. We got about six employees and mostly our field is in the health and beauty category. We're getting into some more industrial supplies and we're going to expand our portfolio products, hopefully in the next 12 months into different categories as well in all the marketplaces.
Awesome. Ismail, you have spectacular ratings on Amazon Marketplace and you take your reputation very, very seriously, which we understand very well. Why that is so important to merchant success on the Amazon platform. Can you talk a little bit about how do you manage to keep such spectacular ratings on your Amazon store?
Well, we kind of follow Amazon's customer driven idea probably. I literally say every this, every day, every time I see a customer or patient that walks into our door as well. I'll do anything for our customers. And sometimes this cost us money, sometimes this cost us time, sometimes it costs us inventory. But the way just at the end of the day people are shopping anywhere they shop from us, they want that product, especially in some of the healthcare related items, that means they need that product. And if they get the product, if it's not their own time or if they get their own product, they have to make to some other ways. And we just know, I understand and appreciate this urgency or appreciate about this importance about the products. And we just make sure that they are happy at all times. And we just try to relate this mentality to our operations as well.
Terrific. And I know you ship nationwide, use all the popular carriers. Can you talk a little bit about how the shipping cost and transit time play a role in what you do and the challenges that you face with regards to shipping?
Amazon kind of spoils everybody. Expect to get stuff the next day or in two days. So we ask all the merchants, all the sellers on any marketplace, they know the importance about the shipping, they know the importance about getting places on time. And we try to utilize all of it. UPS, FedEx, local carriers, USPS. We rely on their service level to get the products on time to the customers. Certain times we have to upgrade the service, sometimes we can downgrade the service, but at the end of the day, it becomes a money game. And the shipping costs are increasing. USPS latest increase and zone, especially for the first class zone pricing has kind of changed the whole game for us. So we're constantly looking for new ways to optimize our shipping because anything that goes more to the shipping that means more is coming from our bottom line. So it's a very, very important topic that we spent a good bit of amount of time and resource trying to optimize it at all times.
Well, great. And Ismail, I know you took your, you know, ample time to do the due diligence on Kahoot and finally decided to join. So can you tell us about why you chose to join the Kahoot network?
I'll be honest. First thing was when I first got the phone call, it was like, oh, my God, this is a brilliant idea. So I literally wanted to meet the guy who actually read this or thought about this thing. And then I thought more into it and says it will definitely work because it will actually put some pressure on the pains that I'm currently feeling, like the time commitment or the cost, if I've met the time commitment, carry on service levels. So I'm excited. I want to learn more about the details. And I know there's probably a lot more room to grow, but this is a cooperation thing. Everybody has to pitch in. It's a buddy system that we all, even though we kill ourselves, we try to kill each other in the marketplaces, but when it comes to the bottom line, this is something definitely we can help each other going forward.
