Episode 342: Exploring Asia with Dave and Mark (Factory Tours, Hong Kong Gift Fair, and PromoCares!)

What does the promo industry look like from the inside out? I mean, all the way to the source, from manufacturing in Asia to delivered product to clients. Well, in today's show, we're getting a peek behind the scenes as we take a promo tour through Asia with Dave Schultz, Comiskey's VP of Supplier Partnerships, and Mark Graham, Comiskey's President and Chief Brand Officer. The two industry vets journey to Asia for a factory tour and a visit to the Hong Kong Gifts and Premium Fair. Plus, they joined CJ Schmidt, the CEO of HitPromo, to help build a water tower outside of Hanoi with Promo Cares through Planet Water Foundation's Water for Good initiative. At a time when supply chain uncertainty ripples through the news, we learned through Dave and Mark's visit that it's the industry's resilience and generosity that gives us hope. Welcome to the SkewCast, a podcast for innovators and maverick thinkers in the promotional products space. My name is Bobby LeHew, and today's episode is brought to you courtesy of us at CommonSkew. Over 900 distributors powering $1.8 billion in network volume rely on CommonSkew's connected workflow. Process more orders, connect your team, and dramatically grow your sales. To learn how, visit commonskew.com. Now here's my chat with Dave and Mark. Dave and Mark, what an opportunity to have you on the SkewCast. And what a great excuse. You have to go take a trip to Asia. Just to be on your own podcast, but welcome.

Thank you, Bobby. Yeah, we had to fly 23,000 miles round trip to get back on Skucast, but I'm happy to be here.

The bar is very high on Skucast, so you have to do crazy things to do— you have to earn your right as a guest.

Dave, give us a mind map for those listening by audio. This was the Great Asia tour that you had taken. There's multiple reasons which we'll unpack in this episode, but tell us the locations you went so that we can understand the journey.

Yeah, for sure. It's the whole thing started out wrapped around the water tower build that we'll talk about in a little bit that happened in Vietnam. But it, as it turned out, as we were looking at scheduling flights and such, we realized that the Hong Kong Gifts and Premium Fair was essentially a couple of days before we had to be in Vietnam for the build. So Mark and I decided to fly into Hong Kong, visit the fair, talk to some of our supplier and distributor customers there, and host Collins Key's first international community meetup, which was fantastic.

Awesome. That is so good. Yeah. And Mark, again, the cities you visited?

We were in Hong Kong and then Hanoi. And then Dave, you went down to Ho Chi Minh City. And then I went back to Hong Kong to fly back to Canada.

Okay. Very cool. Let's talk about first the Hong Kong gifts and premium fare. So many interesting things to unpack here, but what were your initial impressions as you walked into the market? This is your first time.

Think about this.

You've been in the industry for a large part of your career. And this is a very important place in the story of promotional products. Yet it was your first time to see it. What were your initial impressions?

I was overwhelmed, but I was also like a kid in a candy store because I love— I've always loved the big trade shows in our industry, whether it's the regional shows or obviously the big one at Expo. They're, they're so energetic and there's so much, so much product information there. That walking into Hong Kong, this beautiful, first of all, beautiful trade show convention center right on the waterfront, absolutely gorgeous. And we walk in, two kids in a candy store, and are immediately, we're immediately welcomed by all these booths. That's like a rabbit warren of little booths, all these different factories, some trading partners that are there, all representing their goods. And it felt familiar. A little bit like walking into Expo, but at the same time it felt unfamiliar because it just was a different way of doing things. The suppliers are more factories, whereas of course when you're at Expo, you're dealing with North— largely North American suppliers that are inventorying product that they're bringing in from Asia and then decorating and shipping locally. This is a totally different ballgame.

Dave, how did it differ from Expo? To give us more texture to what Mark just said.

Yeah, I agree with everything you said. And by the way, Mark is always like a kid in a candy store. I'm just saying, having worked with suppliers in this industry for— I'm afraid to say it— over 20 years now, and coming from the world of engineering, I love seeing how the sausage is made, so to speak. And I've gone as far upstream as you can go when it comes to visiting supplier factories. That is typically somebody's importing pen barrels from China and they're, they're putting logos on the pens in the factory here. And you certainly have manufacturers in the US that are extruding the plastic barrels on site at their factories. But in China, we're literally visiting the place where the raw materials are put together into products that are ultimately shipped to US-based suppliers. So it was fun to, to go a whole nother level upstream and just be on the front lines of watching that interaction between our US-based suppliers and how they work with their, their vendors over there.

And as you're walking the floor of this massive facility with this like Bigger than Expo. Are you running into suppliers and distributors from North America? Both. Yeah.

Both. Yeah.

I, it, yeah, it didn't take us long to run into supplier and distributor customers and it was, it was obviously really exciting to see familiar faces. And we were, the questions we were asking of distributors was how's business? How's the tariff situation impacting your business? And we can get a little bit more into this.

We will.

Like why were they there? Did it represent a potential channel conflict, like getting that, addressing that elephant in the room?

Sure.

And then the supplier conversations were all about obviously tariffs and like why they were there, whether they were looking to move product away from China, how business was doing on their front, and then also just how it is that they're restructuring their product lines. And in many cases, a lot of them are focusing their product categories because it just makes it easier to manage in this particular climate.

Let's get into tariffs 'cause everyone's gonna tune in for the tariff conversation for sure. Was the energy there positive, electric? Was it down? What was, what did it feel like, Dave, as you're walking through there? Because as we unpack tariffs, depending on when you visit, there could be good news or bad news. What was your impression, Dave?

I think we, I'm trying to remember the exact dates. I think we landed in Hong Kong right about the time the tariffs had been pushed up to close to 150%. And 2 days after we got home, they were back down to 30%, I believe. So it's all about the timing. When we got there, yes, there were a lot of people there that were trying to vet new factory resources and particularly looking for folks that were opening factories in Vietnam, Cambodia, what have you. In fact, it was very visible on certain booths that had very bright signs that said, we manufacture in Vietnam, we manufacture in Cambodia. Um, it was interesting to see that was— I don't know that's always been something that's gone on at this particular trade show, but it was very visible this time around. And so the conversations certainly were about just trying to diversify and eliminate some of the risk of having all their manufacturing in one place. They're not looking to leave China since China still is the leading manufacturer for most suppliers in this industry, particularly on the hard goods side. And as far as technology and labor and everything else, they still do have an edge over some of the neighboring countries.

Mark, was the energy palpable? Was it exciting? Was it— what did you feel like?

So this was our first time, so it's hard to compare, but what I can compare it to is the energy level that you see at Expo in Vegas. And I really picked up on strong positive energy. Certainly that was evident with the distributors and suppliers that we saw that were all there, I think with a sense of open-mindedness and curiosity. It definitely looked like a place where business was getting done and with lots of people. I think the thing that I thought was interesting is I thought there would be more animosity and negative feelings towards the American market because of the tariff situation. And what I thought was interesting is that it was acknowledged, but it wasn't a barrier to doing business with Asian partners. It was all about, okay, we recognize this is what's happening geopolitically. We may not like it, but we We're now going to adjust and let's still get business done. And for me, that was exciting because it tapped into this idea of collaboration and partnership that I think we've seen so much of at Commonsku and the supply chain in North America that we have more exposure to. That spirit of openness and getting work done and collaborating was just as alive and well in Asia as it is in the US and Canada.

How did you see suppliers shifting purchasing, making, manufacturing? To other countries?

I think that what we saw is very active discussions around how to move product out of China. I think in some cases, some suppliers are further ahead than others, and others are more there just to evaluate other, other partners in different countries. Despite the sort of theoretical enthusiasm for moving product out of China, there's also the reality that a lot of the materials are not available in those countries, or the labor is not as highly skilled in other countries, or just even the logistics of shipping raw material from China into, say, Laos, Cambodia, or Vietnam adds considerable expense. Then there's also just the concern that that's not actually going to get around the US tariffs because the US would look at it as a primarily made— sorry, a primarily Chinese product because of the raw materials are all coming from China. The labor's only happening in Vietnam. So there was a lot of discussion, I think some confusion around what's happening there, but what I can certainly report on is that our industry is aggressively trying to figure out a solution to this. And that was very evident when we were there with all the discussions.

Yeah. Supply chain resiliency. The industry has always been incredibly good at that. The pandemic taught us just how strong our supply chain really is. Before we move on to factory tour, was there any other reflections you wanted to share about the Hong Kong Gifts and Premium Fair, Dave?

It's— I just, I think at the very tail end of it, we had a community meetup at a local— it was actually a Belgian restaurant, I believe, Belgian bar that Winston Low had found. So it was just, there was an interesting angle of being that far away from home.

Very international.

Yeah, it was an interesting angle about being that far away from home and running into customers and getting together for a beer and talking about business and life and things like that. And it was just, it was great to see them over there.

Mark, how about you?

It was, it was positive for me to see the optimism in in the trade show hall and certainly in the many discussions that we had at this community forum, that in a lot of cases, I would say 80 to 90% of the distributors we spoke to have had a very strong year, better year this year than 2024 year to date. And that's interesting. And we were talking about lots of reasons why that could be, could be the case, but that's encouraging. Same thing with suppliers, that it's, it has been a relatively strong year and that everyone was walking away with a degree of cautious optimism for the balance of the year. And that's interesting to me because all signs would point to that not being the case.

Yeah.

Given what's happening geopolitically and also with concerns in the economy. Now, mind you, this could just be a very small group. This is a group that invests time and energy to go to Asia to source. And so maybe it's different than distributors who don't do that, but I was surprised by the positive business outlook.

And we just wrapped CEO Summit, and the majority of people in the room also had seen significant growth year to date, so last year. So it's fascinating to look at that.

One other thing here, Bobby, just to add to that is I think that there's amongst the suppliers that were there, certainly some of the mid to large size suppliers, I think that they look at this as a, as an interesting opportunity, just like they saw COVID as an interesting opportunity to grow their business. And, you know, there are some advantages that some of these larger suppliers have with already deep inventory in the US. They've got lots of cash on their balance sheet, or more cash, I should say, than, say, a smaller supplier. And they've got the ability to, I think, weather this storm and I think take business away from other suppliers. Now, that's not to say that it's bad to be a small supplier. I think, I think a small supplier would probably see unique opportunities in their model. That where they could take business away from some of the larger suppliers. But there was just a spirit of we may not be happy with what's happening geopolitically, but there are still ample opportunities if we think strategically. And I loved that outlook. It was just, it made me so happy to be there.

Yeah, that's cool. Dave, you also visited a factory. How did that come about and where did you go?

Yeah, we, when we planned the water tower build, which this particular Water Tower was part of the overall Water for Good campaign that Promocare started a couple of years ago. We get more into that, but this particular tower is funded 100% by HIT Promotional Products. So their team working with Planet Water had planned this water build. And just because they were going to be in that area, they had some factories outside of Hanoi that they're working with currently and a couple they wanted to vet. And so they invited us along to peek behind the curtains with them and visit these factories.

So Mark, you visit a factory. What kind of factory did you visit?

So what, one of the, one of the ones that was quite memorable was a non-woven tote bag factory. And the scale of this place was, it was hard to describe. Like Dave, was it like millions of square feet?

It was, I think it was about, yeah, I think each building was probably half a million square feet and there must've been 6 buildings that had been built in the last 12 months. They didn't exist a year ago. It was wild.

Yeah, it was amazing. So we were driving. It was about a 90-minute drive south of Hanoi. So we were in the middle of— I shouldn't say middle of nowhere, but for us it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. And we show up at this very impressive factory, quite modern, and it was completely vertically integrated right from the discarded plastic food containers that was essentially the raw material to how that was extruded into large plastic sheets and then how it was then cut into, I suppose you could call it plastic fabric for lack of a better term. And then to see it get woven into these bags was absolutely fascinating. Each one of these steps in the process was in one of these huge factories or huge plants that Dave was just talking about. And we're just walking and seeing all these different steps in the process. And then we were brought into where the cutting and sewing was taking place and then right to the final decoration where we could see the bags being logoed for huge retail brands, folks like Nike, for instance. There was a big job for Nike being, being done at the time. And I think for me, I've had the chance to visit a lot of Canadian and US factories and certainly Mexican factory with our friends at Numo. And we see products being made, but I'd actually never seen the fabric. I keep calling it fabric. That's not the right description, but the source material to see that actually getting made in the very beginning, all the way through to the very final step in the process was fascinating. And as Dave was saying that you typically don't see that usually what you see in Canada and the US is either a cut and sew factory for apparel, or you're seeing products that have been imported from Asia that are being decorated and shipped out from a US and Canadian supplier. So yeah, mind-boggling.

Yeah. Dave, what else? You've been in many factories here in the industry. What else was a big difference between the factories that you've seen in North America versus what you saw?

One of the aspects that was super fascinating about this particular plant was that every product that came out the back end was originating with the discarded plastic containers that Mark was talking about. These are 100% recycled bags, and we were watching them the plastic waste be shredded up, melted down, extruded back into plastic sheets that were cut up and then woven back into bags or non-woven bags. And so it was neat to see the entire process, soup to nuts, as people would say, from raw material being the trash to these finished bags being shipped off to Nike. It was a pretty wild process to see.

Did that inspire you from a sustainability standpoint? Because I'm looking at a product that I got from Japan that is completely made from soy and corn, but it's a synthetic and it's a new engineering marvel. And it gives me hope for what we see in the industry.

Did you—

did that cross your mind as you're looking at this and going, wow, it's amazing what they're doing, sustainability, Mark? What did you think about that?

First of all, I'd never seen anything like this from soup to nuts. I think that when I in the past had heard that this is a bag made from recycled material, I'm like, yeah, I understand that from a theoretical perspective. I didn't understand what that actually meant. And now I feel a lot more educated and aware of it. Of course, it gives me, gives me a lot of hope. And I think not really knowing the, maybe the economics of this manufacturer is bringing in product that's effectively waste and doesn't cost as much as say a traditional material would. And just the way that they were reusing every scrap of this was quite something. And so if I have my business capitalist hat on, I'm looking at this as I'm able to make a product from a raw material that is free to some extent. Now, yes, there's a lot of machinery and technology that goes into actually producing this, but to me, I just thought like, how cool is that? And it's being produced into a bag that is going to get used, is a great advertising product, and is entirely functional. And that is then also then diverting plastic bags from landfills. So when it works, it is like this most perfect, beautiful win-win type situation. So absolutely. And I think that I wouldn't be surprised if the economics of this are attractive for the manufacturer that you're gonna see more of this.

Yeah.

Like why wouldn't you want to be using discarded material?

Yeah.

Your input costs are just lower. So that I think is always exciting when sustainability marries with capitalism. Yeah. Because I think at the end of the day, like that's really where you get the scale. Yeah, because it can be done at a profit, which is important, I think, for some of the manufacturers and obviously suppliers and distributors. But at the end of the day, it's also good for the consumer and the planet. Like, I'm very excited about that value proposition.

I think what's— what is inspiring about that too, to extend that a bit further, we were there as guests of Hit Manufacturing, and Hit built their business on plastic items, lowest cost. And they are now the ones walking through these factories trying to figure out how to move to a factory that is manufacturing recycled products. I give a lot of credit to Doug and Nathan and Tracy, their chief merchandising officer, that have been empowered to figure this out, go after more sustainable products, shrink the number of SKUs they offer and offer better, a lower number of SKUs. So that is heartening to see that some of the larger suppliers focusing on that too, for sure.

Absolutely. One of the biggest suppliers in the industry making that a strong initiative. Speaking of Hit and CJ's generosity and just hosting you and letting you peek behind the curtains more, let's talk a little bit about Water for Good with Plant Water. Dave, can you tell us what that initiative is about? Who's involved? Sure.

Yeah, it's, we, it's an initiative out of a group called Promocares. And if you haven't ever heard of Promocares, it's just, it's a, we are a loosely formed organization that came about several years ago when Danny Rosen and Roger and Bill Petrie and that group got together and tried to figure out like, how do we highlight companies in this industry that are doing good, whether it's sustainability, whether it's give back products, things like that.. And what we found that we've been good at the last several years is these campaigns to raise money for a cause. We did mental health awareness one year, we did Ukraine one year, and the last two years we've done Water for Good. That has been the most successful one to date. The idea behind it is we get suppliers to partner with us and pick a SKU or a couple of SKUs where you give 2% of sales, whatever it is, back to the campaign. And that money ultimately goes to our partnership with Planet Water Foundation, who builds these Aqua Towers around the world to provide clean water for places in need. Hit just, they don't do anything small. They went all in and said, every drinkware piece in our line, we're giving 2% back. And so—

Wow, that's amazing.

They have funded, oh my God, CJ's gonna kill me if I get the number wrong. I wanna say they're at like 14 towers or something now they've funded.

Wow.

And he's thinking big for the next 2 years too. And this is one of the towers that they funded that went in outside of Hanoi. And there were several suppliers that have been involved in this. And then distributors, obviously there was a common SKU collection and there was a Zoom catalog out there that distributors could take to their customers and say, hey, here are some cool products doing some cool things. So it was a way to get suppliers and distributors involved and do some good around the world in places that need clean water.

That is so cool. And Dave, I wanted to ask you this question too, but Mark, paint us a picture of what that's like on the ground. So you go over there to be a part of this initiative. What are you doing?

Well, why don't I, I'll back up and maybe talk about how the, what the day was like. Yeah. So we were driving, what about 2.5 hours? Outside of Hanoi. Dave, we get picked up first thing in the morning, 6 in the morning. We're in these buses. We're driving along again, absolutely beautiful countryside. And as soon as we open the doors, we're greeted by the entire school, the kids, teachers, the administrators. They're standing in a line, sort of two lines, and we're welcomed like procession style. They're waving these flags. There's this music that is swelling up as we're walking through it, and they're like welcoming us like visiting dignitaries. And I must say it was very emotional. Like I had no idea what to expect, and they were just so hospitable and just such a lovely group of people. And then we were seated. We walk into the school, this outdoor area of the school, and then we're welcomed on stage very formally. And then The kids start dancing for us and lead us through this traditional dance routine. And then all of a sudden they're like, you get on up. And Dave and I and CJ and the whole team, like, we're all— or I should speak for myself— a little awkward on the dancing front. Dave, you were amazing. And we're being led through this dance routine. There is footage. There is footage out there. And we had a blast. And they talk about getting out of your comfort zone. But I must say, it just really made me think about the value of hospitality, right? And how to welcome people. And this school just set the gold standard for this. So Dave, you can talk about the rest of the day, but I just, I really want to emphasize like what that experience was like at the beginning and that spirit of hospitality lasted throughout the whole day. It was so special.

By the way, it strikes me too that CJ and Hit and the team are manufacturing there and also giving back to this community. So when I talk with distributors about sharing supply chain story and sharing the story behind people who make your product, this is a great part of the story of a supplier who's investing back in the community, who builds their product. But Dave, go ahead and paint us a picture of what the rest of the day was like.

Yeah, you can just envision Mark's dancing in your head right now. I feel it. And it was tricky because it was a dance where you had to like, to the beat, you had to step over these bamboo poles that these kids were holding on the ground and bouncing up and down. It wasn't really easy. So that was the first part of the day. And then there was an education part we'll talk about later in the afternoon. But then we got into the build itself and it's, as a reformed engineer, playing with adult tinker toys is always a blast. And so these towers, it's, I give Planet Water credit. They have, they have designed these towers and they're always innovating on this, but they've designed these towers in such a way that they ship to a location in two small crates. And then they source the big water reservoir that goes on top locally. And it's fairly straightforward. They know that not everybody on the team is handy with tools. And so it's use that wrench, put this bolt in here, and you start to build this tower. And then another team is working on the water filtration system, which is this 10-phase filter that is all gravity-based. There's no electricity involved that filters water down from the top through these tubes, through these filters. And comes out ready to drink or wash their hands. And it cleans 1,000 liters of water an hour. It's a pretty impressive piece of technology. Wow.

Yeah. Wow. Sounds like a scalable, repeatable process to me.

It is. In fact, when we were there, Planet Water was celebrating their 2,000th tower put up around the world. So it's a big achievement.

Amazing.

Oh, wow. That's incredible. And what will this— I'm going to ask the dumb question because that's my job. What will this water do for this community that they didn't have before?

This particular school has never had access to on-demand clean water. They've had to—

this—

I did one of these before in Mexico, and they had well water off the side of a mountain that they just, they drank, and it wasn't water to our standards, obviously. In this case, they brought in bottled water. They had to buy bottled water and bring it into the school for the kids to drink, or they had to bring it from home. So now they've got this tower in this school. What were there, 300, 400 students in this school, I think?

Mark? Yep.

And one of the towers can serve a community of, I think, up to 1,800 people with the amount of water it provides. And so, wow, they will share with— these kids all live near the school. They were all on bikes and e-bikes and motorcycles and you name it. But yeah, it will— they use it both to get drinking water and to wash their hands before and after their meals and all that kind of good stuff that they just really haven't had a place to do before.

That's astounding. So Mark, Also throughout the day, you had some special lunch experience as well as learning and education session. Tell us, what was that about?

It was so special to be able to go into a local community member's house. As Dave said, he and his, his family had prepared this beautiful lunch, very local, and we just dove right into it. And there was, we were speaking with local community members. There was certainly some language barriers. But you can communicate so much with waving your hands. Obviously the power of smiles, laughter. They did teach us how to do a Vietnamese cheer, cheers. And so there was, there was some strong wine I remember that was served as well as some local beer, which was very good. And then so that we all had a lot of fun with that. And that's a universal language. Yeah. But I think that at the end of the day, I think it is, it pays to be curious and open-minded and eating foods that are new to you and communicating with people who may not speak English and It was a great lesson. And I think at the end of the day, you're out of your comfort zone. And I think that to maybe map it back to business, I think that the most successful among us in this industry are those that put themselves out of their comfort zone. And this was exhibit A. So I really appreciated that. And I think we walked away with some new friends and that was important.

Yeah. Dave, what was the educational session about?

Yeah. So after lunch, and by the way, that Mark was talking about, mo thai bat yo, and then you drink. So there you go, Bobby. We'll do that.

Sometime I sneeze. Okay, next week.

I had a volume of about 100 times more than that day.

You're right. Yeah.

It's essentially 1, 2, 3, drink in Vietnamese.

Ah, okay.

So Planet Water focuses on the education that goes around owning and operating one of these things essentially. But it's really cute. They talk to the kids about germs, why they should be washing their hands, all these things. The kids have to, on a piece of paper, they have to draw a specific germ and then they put yarn through it and they wear it around their neck and they— so they're the germs and Mark and I and CJ and the hit team were the people they had to catch. So there's this game of like chase around the schoolyard.

Oh, that's cool.

You know, played soccer with them and basketball and yeah, and you go through all the education process and then there's an official handover of the tower at the end of the day.

I want to ask you both as we're wrapping up here, how did this change your perspective on the nature of the supply chain in our industry? Not just in terms of tariffs or production, all of it, the giveback component, the sustainability factor, the resiliency through tariffs. Like, Mark, what were your thoughts? How did this broaden, enrich your viewpoint? Because you've both been in this story a long time, and I think it's fascinating that it had to change your perspective.

I think one thing that has maybe not been mentioned right now is that the sophistication of the supply chain in Asia is very much a thing. I don't know that I knew the scale of the factories and the sophistication of the production. I think I'd heard stories, but I hadn't seen it before. And that was quite a sight. I think our industry has benefited from that specialization in the past. And to be clear, there's ample opportunity for domestic, made in Canada, made in the US, opportunities. And I think we've seen that for years in our industry. I think the one thing that I walked away with from after visiting that bag factory in Vietnam is I was thinking, I'm not sure that this factory would ever exist in North America. And if it did, it would take 10 years to build. And by that point, the Asian partner would have innovated considerably. Yeah. And so I think for me it was just, it was really an education in supply chain and just really understanding like where, like the value of specialization and this deep partnership that we have globally with different suppliers. That was very evident for me.

Dave, how about you?

Yeah, same thing. I think there's something to be said for domestic manufacturing for sure. The shirt I'm wearing is made in the US and I love it for that fact. But there are certain things that they're just— for us to bring them back to the United States would be very difficult. And that, that part of the supply chain is an integral part of our entire industry. It employs tons of people overseas as well. And some of the advances they're making in technology and in some of the things on the sustainability side that they're doing over there now is very encouraging, to say the least.

Last question. We all know we have two different audience members. We have distributor members and supplier members. As our last question, Mark, I'm going to ask you to encourage distributors who might be looking at the economy, considering the volatility, hearing rumblings about supply chain. How would you encourage them based on your visit from Asia, distributors specifically, as they look forward to business in the upcoming year?

I think that I have always been a proponent of educating your client about tariffs, about the opportunities and threats around supply chain. I think being proactive at communicating with customers, I think, has always represented an amazing opportunity for business. Clients are always looking to be educated and to be informed by their distributor partners. And what a great excuse for a meeting to talk to a customer about what to expect with tariff, what to expect with the shifting supply chain situation, so on and so forth. You don't need to travel to Asia to learn these things. You could listen to this podcast, you could learn from Dave and my experience. I think there's lots and lots and lots of ways to inform yourself about what's happening. And I think that's really where I see a significant opportunity for distributors to get the attention of their customers, educate their customers, and then also listen, if a tariff is going to make a product from China unsustainably or unsustainable from a price perspective, distributors are amazing at shifting the shifting demand into different, different countries. And so I feel like that's always been the opportunity. If China is on the hit list right now, there's opportunities to import from other countries, even domestically. And so from my way of seeing it, sure, there's a blip with what's happening with China. That uncertainty isn't great, but I think the best distributors and the best suppliers are the ones who are able to harness that uncertainty and turn it into opportunity.

Dave, final word. Suppliers, this is nothing new to them. They've been over there many times. But how would you encourage— you've been in many factories, you've talked to suppliers all the time, you have been a supplier yourself. How would you encourage suppliers as they're looking at the upcoming volatility in the year, potential volatility?

Yeah, I think, you know, what Mark said, I think openness and transparency with their customers is key. I have already talked to a couple of distributors that are now starting to get the emails from suppliers saying, we've brought our pricing back down because the tariffs have come back down. It's gonna be a day-by-day thing for sure. But like Mark alluded to earlier in the conversation, the suppliers we talked to over there are bullish on the future of this industry. Part of that may just be historical. We've always seemed to weather these types of scenarios. Part of it is their boots on the ground. Jason Lukasch, he, that was his 60th time, I think, over to China when he he was there about the time we were. So they've seen it all and they will continue to see it all. But for us, it was a, it was a first time being there. It was a bit of an eye-opener and some of it was more of a shock than the suppliers see it every day.

I think one other observation, Bobby, that Dave and I had when we came back is that there is such power in diversifying your business. And I think that this is a great reminder that ongoing supply chain hygiene, I think, is really important. We certainly know of some very large suppliers that have been diversifying their supply chain out of China for many years. And it's not that they don't have strong partnerships in China, but at the end of the day, they're diversifying for this very reason. The same argument can be made on the customer side. So if you're a distributor, not making sure that your eggs are all in one basket with a particularly prominent client. And so I think it's the same thing. And that's been a bit of a wake-up call, I think, for some suppliers that have depended so heavily on China. And I think some of them were a little wide-eyed in terms of, okay, what are we gonna do about this? But a great reminder that you don't wanna put all your eggs in one basket.

Yeah. Thanks guys. We will look forward to the next time you're on the SkewCast, maybe post Dave and Mark India trip. I think that might be a good time for us to come back and do this again.

We'll put a link in the— you wanna come to that one?

Yeah. No, not me. We'll put a link in the show notes for all these things we talked about, like PromoCare and things like that. Thank you, gents. This was very informative.

Yeah, thank you, Bobby. Thank you, Bobby.