Episode Summary
Ryan Cramer of PingPong Payments talks about How to Simplify Your Amazon Capital and Sourcing.
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In this Sellernomics Podcast Video Sponsored by GETIDA – Ryan Cramer of PingPong Payments talks about How to Simplify Your Amazon Capital and Sourcing.
About Ryan Cramer of PingPong Payments – Ryan Cramer has worked for various companies in the eCommerce/Amazon space for 6+ years, specializing in partnerships, marketing, business development, and branding. He was introduced to the eCommerce/Amazon world in 2014 when he worked for Evergreen Enterprises under their B2C sector as their Affiliate/Partnership Manager – working with deal sites, blogs and influencers. He grew a non-existent revenue channel to multiple years of 6 and 7 figure growth. After a few years working outside of e-commerce, he jumped back into the industry in 2019, working for Viral Launch, and has been with PingPong Payments since April 2020. His diverse background and expertise have allowed him to grow businesses of all kinds in the eCommerce and Amazon world. Currently, Ryan’s focus is partnering with sellers and service providers, sharing best practices in cross-border payments, cost-saving techniques, and the buyer psychology around deals & conversions. He started the podcast, “Crossover Commerce” in September of 2020 and has hosted over 115 episodes with industry leaders, bringing a unique perspective to the Amazon and eCommerce community. About PingPong Payments “PingPong provides marketplace sellers and entrepreneurs global solutions for controlling their domestic and international funds. A PingPong account enables companies to significantly reduce their costs when receiving or making international payments – all on a platform that helps increase operational efficiencies saves time and allows sellers to manage their business profits from a single source.”
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Find the Full Transcript Below
Intro 0:04
Welcome to the Sellarnomics podcast, sharing valuable tips and information in the Amazon and e-commerce space. Each week we deliver the best interviews with some of the top Amazon personalities in the industry to help you grow your business. Today’s episode is brought to you by GETIDA the global leader in FBA auditing and reimbursements. Get $400 in free FBA reimbursements at getida.com/sellernomics. And now here’s your host, Rob Stanley.
Rob Stanley 0:35
Hey, welcome, everyone to the brand new Sellernomics podcast, I guess the third time’s a charm, right, Ryan? That’s what they say. Right? Yeah. So everybody if you’ve been following obviously, this is my third and final podcast. Not the final meaning like I’m only doing one episode like my final podcast. So I actually am the owner of the Sellernomics podcast, which is obviously sponsored by GETIDA, which I appreciate very much. And being the new chief marketing officer over there at GETIDA is awesome. And I really appreciate all the team over there and everybody. So But hey, we got a great one today, everyone. And we got some great ones coming up in the next couple of months. But today, I got Ryan Cramer, partnership and marketing manager for Ping Pong payments. What’s up, Ryan?
Ryan Cramer 1:18
Rob, first off, I want to say congratulations on the new show. That’s really cool that you get to brand this yourself and obviously partner with GETIDA. It’s really cool. But yeah, I’m gonna say third time, we’ve kind of started all these journeys together, which is kind of funny. And then here we are again, yet again. So but yeah, it’s been great to thanks for inviting me for the first show. It’s been awesome.
Rob Stanely 1:38
Yeah, absolutely. And we do have some great information. So just real quick, everybody, we are going to be talking about how to simplify your Amazon capital and sourcing. And Ryan always has great tips. And yes, it is kind of a trend every time I’ve started a podcast. After the first one, Ryan’s been my first guest, and we didn’t want to break that trend. So the cool part is so just so you know, Ryan, this is gonna be a funny one. So the last two podcasts that I’ve had to exit or leave Jana from YLT Translations have always been my last person. And so guess what she’s gonna be up Thursday. So everybody, make sure you tune into that Thursday episode, because Yana will come on. And I’m excited to have her on to and of course, as you know, Ryan and I are actually both good friends with her also, and she’s amazing one,
Ryan Cramer 2:20
But we need to break that trend. That’s a trend we need to break.
Rob Stanley 2:23
That’s the trend we need to break. Right. Well, the good part is like I said, I actually own the podcast. It’s actually in the works being trademarked right now, Sellernomics. So that’d be really cool. And again, thank you to GETIDA for sponsoring the podcast. And Ryan, let’s kick this off. Let’s get things going here. So let’s talk about like, how does a seller saves time on both current invoices and paying invoices? And tell me if I’m wrong. But I think you’re talking a little more like if you’re selling International or no. I’m sorry, when you’re actually like sourcing products right from overseas, right.
Ryan Cramer 2:56
Yeah, right. Yeah, good question. So when Ping Pong obviously, I work with Ping Pong. So thanks for Ping Pong, the logo, you can check it out right there, I should say on the side. So Ping Pong, what they do, they’ve simplified the payment solutions in terms of paying suppliers manufacturers, as well as any other sort of entity out there that you as a seller might be growing to. As we all know, as you’re beginning your Amazon journey, you’re going to be starting probably by yourself if not a partner or a very small team. So time is always of the essence. And what I always preach on my show, but also to anyone who’s I’m speaking with is there are only so many different things you can do to have control over in the Amazon space. Fees are kind of set for you. storage fees, FBA fees, performance fees, even shipping costs, those are kind of are set for you. You don’t have control over that. But the things that you do have control over are your time and how you spend it. So that I would consider the most valuable asset that you can possibly use and what you’re going to be using to grow your business. So we actually have built this really cool solution to take your time, no matter how big or small of a seller you might be or an enterprise-level brand. Globally, you can save that time and really free up people’s time to do other things like building your actual business. So let’s go back to the begining. So if you’re listening to this, and you’re saying, I just don’t have time to even listen to a podcast, I need to figure out my product selection finding a great supplier manufacturer, let’s say you did that. You’re going to be having to figure out logistics and all these other things. How can I shorten the amount of time I spend on paying my manufacturer or supplier to get my goods back over to a fulfillment center or through a warehouse, whatever that might be. You can do that by using a third-party provider or using a partner or a person who’s actually involved with Amazon’s payment service provider network. So those are actually we’re one of those things. So what I mean by that is the traditional sense of paying a supplier you’re going to be getting an invoice, and then I’m gonna have to spend anywhere from seven to nine minutes to pay that singular invoice. So it’s the time at my computer, I’m gonna have to figure out either in person making an international wire, which is time off your plate to do other things, or I’m going to be doing that via my virtual bank. So by doing that, you’re actually taking your bank, you’re putting in information, sending it to an international bank account. There’s all these other barriers that it’s going through your money is getting, actually, once you click pay, that’s not where the payment stops. So it’s going through all these different channels and third-party barriers. So that one eventually gets your supplier, it could be anywhere from, you know, a week, two weeks, maybe even upwards of three weeks, depending on where they’re located and what kind of banking situation they have on. So that just receives the funds and then getting that converted so that they can actually purchase goods, pay their employees, all that takes time and effort. So when we’re looking at it, ultimately, you can be talking about a matter of weeks, just by paying somebody with money to get it overseas, wherever your supplier might be, and then having it so that they can use it. That’s the time of your play. And as we all know, logistics is kind of the headache in the Amazon world and e-commerce world of getting your goods quicker and faster. So this is one way to actually shorten that window, get your goods and money to your supplier quicker, and pay them out in actual local currency. So that’s what I mean by actually saving efficiencies in time.
Rob Stanley 6:29
Yeah, no, that’s, that’s great information. And we appreciate that Ryan, and we got lots of great questions. And a couple of quick shoutouts, we have a person on Facebook hitting us up saying congratulations, we really appreciate it. It’s been a while in the making and took me some time to figure out the name. But thank you so much. And again, just real quick, I show a little more love. I appreciate any thumbs up or likes. If you’re on YouTube, there’s a thumbs up in the bottom right corner. It’s in red, I’d appreciate it if you hit that subscribe to our channel. We have both on GETIDA and the Sellernomics channel. So and then, Lisa, actually, great choice of your first guest. I agree. Ryan is my great first guest, and he has Lisa. Oh, yeah, that’s always cool. And I appreciate her, you know, tuning in there. So let’s keep moving on. So yeah, everybody, once again, if you are interested in checking out GETIDA.com forward slash Sellernomics. And there’s a great discount there. We’ll be talking about that a little bit later. But let’s move on with Ryan. And we got lots more questions. So Ryan, sellers usually are struggling with like, forecasting. And that can be a big issue. So what about Capital Management and forecasting? Like, how do you guys help with that?
Ryan Cramer 7:44
Yeah, good question. So with Capital Management, obviously, a lot of the time when I think about Capital Management, it’s a big fancy word. But let’s think about the simplicity a little bit, let’s talk about knowing where your money is, a lot of the time, people don’t know if they’re paying or receiving funds. So this can be simply as if you’re selling in the United States, or only if you’re located in the United States, you want to know is my money being tied up in inventory, if I’m paying out my employees, if I’m going to be paying out virtual assistants, or if my money is sent over to my manufacturer, distributor, those are just the very few basic entities where you can actually have money that’s coming and going. But you don’t know if actually when people say checks in the mail, that’s actually money, not that you don’t have in your actual account, it’s actually sitting there, but it’s not on your books, as funds that you have sitting in your bank account. So by definition, if I’m paying a supplier $10,000, and I either wire them funds, that money is not any longer mine, that money, even though it’s not been received, and those goods have not been technically quote-unquote, paid for yet, that’s money off my books. And I have to account for that. So that actually affects you as anyone from your accountants, they have to know where your money is, at all times, obviously, to account for any sort of audit, or just any sort of growth, capital and just know where the flow of inventory or funds might be coming from. And this is also super important. When you want to exit your business. When you’re talking about exiting, they’re gonna look at your account books and say how much money is tied up in inventory? How quickly Are you getting your funds once you pay for those and then getting them turned around and selling through inventory that actually affects your multiple when in terms of if you want to exit you’re your biggest asset and that’s your brand on Amazon. So all that being said, simplifying it for us is paying for goods or inventory or even people in terms of salary or, you know, your assistants or virtual assistants, you can actually pay for them a local currency, just with the help of a solution like Ping Pong. So how it works is you actually are applying for an international bank account so you can pay up to 170 different current currencies. Up to over 117 countries, excuse me, and you can pay entities in those locales. For example, if I pay my manufacturer in China, what I can do is with the funds that I have more people on the account, I can actually convert that over at a very low rate better than what you would get at with any sort of bank or paying like through PayPal, for example, or any other drug to peer payment option, you’re actually going to get a very low rate to convert that over to local currency, and it hits their account, whether it’s a Ping Pong account, instantaneously, or most, or if it’s another bank account if they don’t have a Ping Pong account, they can receive it in anywhere from 24 to 48 hours. And that’s in local currency. So that window I talked about in the beginning for them, it’s anywhere from potentially weeks on in for the get that money to get converted over, you’re talking about a matter of days where they can start paying out for their goods, you until become your suppliers best for them because they don’t have to wait on money being converted over. And here’s the other fun fact that I love telling people: Did you know that suppliers are actually baking in this, that there’s this thing that’s called a buffer, right? So when I get an invoice as an Amazon seller, I’m actually getting charged four to 5% more in my invoice, because of the simple fact of currency conversion. So my supplier might say, Oh, yeah, pay it out in US dollars, that might be good, and dandy might think nothing of it. But when I’m paying them out and not currency, they’re actually charging me 4 to 5% more. Now, why is that you might ask? That’s a good question that I’m going to answer for myself. Why? Wait? Yeah, exactly. Thank you, we’re upset, I’m going to set myself up. You might think why is that the case? Well, when money is just sitting there, and it’s kind of in limbo, being converted over by the bank, again, all these different third party banks, and actually takes so long, that currency exchange, whatever that might be, it actually fluctuates every so often, might be a few cents, it might be as drastic, as you know, Brexit was announcing the valuation of your currency just completely bottoms out. If that were to happen, and you have, you’re paying out US dollars, and they’re going to convert over, your supplier doesn’t want to lose money, no one wants to lose money in a transaction, they want to be instantaneous. They want to be instant, in that fact that they know that they’re going to receive the actual funds, they need to make your goods and make a profit. So they’re not going to hold the bag and lose money on the transaction, you the seller are going to so it’s all part of a working negotiation that if you pay on local currency, they know they’re going to get their money quicker. They know that that you have the capability to work with an entity and they know that you’re serious in the fact that you want to save money and make time worked for you and not against you in that fact.
Rob Stanley 12:45
Yeah, no, that’s great information. And you know what, Ryan? I mean, I have two points. I heard you talk about that. I’d like to touch on a little bit more. One of them, you’re talking about invoices and how they paid the invoices. I like to give a couple of couple actual examples of when I was selling on Amazon or heck, not even just Amazon when I was just selling online for last 20 years of that happening. And then also, you’re talking about being able to improve your multiplier when you’re exiting. And that’s a great point and I’m going to tie that in in a second but we will stop for a quick break from our sponsor GETIDA.
Announcement 13:17
Today’s episode is brought to you by GETIDA, the global leader in FDA auditing and reimbursements.Get $400 in free FBA reimbursements at getida.com/sellernomics.
Rob Stanley 13:32
So be sure to head on over to getid.com/sellernomics and get that $400 offer that they have. That’s going to be obviously commission-free or no fees. And that’s good for an infinite amount of time whenever you get that $400. So be sure to head on over there to getida.com/.sellernomiccs. Alright, let’s talk about the invoices. So I’ve been selling online for like 20 years, and you are absolutely right, Ryan, there’s been times that I would get these invoices. And I would look and I’d start actually go online, look at what the rate exchange was. And I was just like, Whoa, they’re definitely padding this, like, they weren’t just padding it because of the currency exchange, they were also padding the shipping. And it because I get on the phone with like, you know, this was like, quite a few years ago, when some of the shippers were a bit cheaper, you know, or I could get ahold of like UPS and find out what was my rate, and things like that. And they were definitely padding it and especially, you know, I get the fact that, yeah, there’s gonna be some fees, they’re like, they’re gonna have to deal with some of it. But if you can get it to them in their local currency, there are a lot fewer fees they’re having to deal with. They’re not dealing with some of the wire fees, because wire fees sometimes are double-ended. If I’m not mistaken. Right, right. And sometimes you get hit like when you’re sending it and then they get hit when they’re receiving it. So they have to pay that and that’s something that you guys are able to offset or help lower some of that cost on. Correct me if I’m wrong on that.
Ryan Cramer 14:55
No, the more entities or the gates you have to go through. Think about this. way, that’s why credit cards are so high in terms of fees, they have to pay all these different entities that are anytime money goes through another barrier, everyone gets a piece of the pie, right? So you’re just taking that slice, and you’re dividing up in multiple different ways. But if you eliminate all those barriers, and what we do, we actually have just surpassed the entire system directly. Partnering with banks has been the number one best thing that our company could ever do. Because the likes of the United States partner with banks, I’m talking about legitimate banks, not your local credit union down the road, I’m talking about Citi Chase, Wells Fargo, HSBC, those beings, we have direct correlation partnerships. So when you actually sign up for an account online, you’re actually going to be getting a city account or a Chase account, depending on where you are in the world, right, that’s how we determine which one you get. But the fees are still the same, no matter who we work with, but it makes your money getting from point A to point B get, there’s so much quicker, instead of having to go through all these checkmarks and checkpoints. That’s what delays your money, so long as because, you know, like technology, if has to go through all these different gates, it’s just gonna be a lot slower. It’s just how technology in the economy works. But when you kind of eliminate all the middle ground, which is kind of what e-commerce has always been, it’s like eliminating the retailer entirely and just going from direct to consumer, this is kind of that way, but it benefits everyone in that regard. The only person you’re hurting is maybe a financial Institute, which we all know, they’re still getting paid, we’re still, you know, at some point, they’re all getting paid. They don’t want to have to handle those small transactions, no matter if it’s $1,000, or, you know, $100,000, those are still small peanuts, and they’re quite often. So today, we’ve done about $90 billion in cross-border payments and those conversions.
Rob Stanley 16:47
Wow, that’s a lot. Yeah. And so to touch on the other subject I was talking about earlier, about the exit and, you know, crit and helping your multiplier out when you’re exiting. I mean, that’s a big subject right now, there. You know, there’s a quite a few, you know, companies or aggregators out there, they’re looking to buy Amazon based companies, GETIDA deals with a lot of them and partners, a lot of them so does Ping Pong. And, you know, so that’s something I want to touch on is the fact that you know, Ryan just said he just gave some great examples of ways to increase your multiplier and get he does the same way. You know, we help you find refunds reimbursements, that basically you do and that goes right to your bottom line. That’s money that Amazon owes you. So you know, this is kind of great to have Ryan on, because there’s a lot more kind of, you know, things you could do together with Ping Pong, and GETIDA to be able to try to increase your multiplier when if you’re looking at selling, or if a worst case, you’re putting money in your pocket, right, Ryan?
Ryan Cramer 17:40
Yeah, absolutely. So when we’re talking about saving money, like this is not money that you’re in fictitiously going to save like a coupon or anything like that this is actually your money, you’re just not paying the fees. In terms of the day, it’s actually your money, you know, Amazon owes it to you because of something on there and happen. So in this case, Ping pPong saves money. So we talked about the supplier side at the beginning of the show, right? Now, let’s talk about the receiving side. So if I’m an international seller, or if I’m a seller, look in the United States, and I’m selling in Canada, or in Australia, or Germany, this is where a lot of you’re seeing a lot of brands start to build on themselves. Throughout, you know, just over the course of these last year, two years. Or if you’ve been in the game long enough, you’ve been doing this for quite a while. But knowing that the opportunity exists internationally is a big opportunity for the likes of aggregators. That’s where they’re growing internationally and taking brands at scale in the United States, and moving them internationally so that they can penetrate those markets. So why is it important to use ping pong for your receiving funds? Great question. Again, I’m like intervening myself. Yeah, let me ask the question.
Ryan Cramer 18:49
Yeah. I’m saying like, Oh, my God, God, not those. But anyways. So internationally, if I’m receiving funds, Amazon is, say, for example, I’m in the United States, I’m selling in Canada, right? My goods are getting sold in the Canadian dollar. They are being you know, we’re asking someone to pay for that in that currency. It’s listed in that regard. If I if I’m if Amazon is receiving those funds, obviously, it applies to the seller account, just like it is the United States. But what you don’t see is that every two weeks, it’s the same pay schedule, you get paid out to your bank account when you upload into your seller account, instantaneously, wherever you selling internationally. So if I’m putting my Us Bank Account, Amazon will pay me on the US dollar. That’s awesome. In theory, what they’re not telling you is that they will convert it over from the Canadian dollar that you should be receiving, and will convert it for you. But also charge a fee on top of that, and there’s actually in the seller, central account. When you look through international selling, you can actually see at which scale, no matter how much you’re selling, how much in terms of currency conversion, the fees that Amazon will charge you. Now if you’re a big enough brand, you might get a lucky break in there. If you’re selling $10 million in Canada, which most people are, but that say, that’s one, one marketplace that you’re selling in, they’re still charging one and a half percent fee just to convert your money over if you’re selling $10 million dollars. Now that actual fee kind of substantially goes up, the less you are selling in an international market. Now, again, this is after Amazon takes away your FBA fees, your storage fees, no matter what other fees that Amazon’s gonna list out that you typically pay. This is one of the areas that they don’t list out. And you can actually real-time go right now, if you’re watching this, go to your seller central account, if you’re selling in Canada, you can look and take out after all the fees, how much Amazon should have paid you and you take that money, and you go into Google and you say what was the currency conversion on this date from Canadian dollar US dollar, take the Canadian dollar and put it in there. And then you’ll see in real-time what you should have gotten at that rate. Now, a lot of the time that number will be much higher than what you actually receive in your bank account. Hence, why Amazon charges those fees, they don’t tell you about it, it’s part of the terms and conditions and part of Amazon’s you know, you know, entity, that they’re facilitating these financial transactions and conversions over to the domestic funds, which you need to have asked and requested for. So the solution of that is, you know, again, that’s money left on the table, we’re talking about saving money, that is money that anywhere from two to 4%, we’re talking about that you’re just paying out and fees unnecessarily. So a solution like Ping Pong, you can actually have a receiving account, it’s a digital bank account, you can open it up through us, can put it into your Canadian account and receive Canadian dollars. That’s amazing. Because this is a cool trick, instead of every two weeks that money has to convert over to US dollar, you can let it sit there, you can let it say if I’m selling only a couple $1,000 a month in Canadian dollars, I can let it sit there until I feel comfortable or I feel like the currency valuation or whatever the you know, the strength of the Canadian dollar versus the US dollar is. I can convert those funds over to US dollars whenever I want, I can just let it sit there, instead of every two weeks, it gets converted for me. So there are a couple of benefits there. One, it’s you’re not paying a fee for conversion. Because no matter when you’re converting money, that’s a fee will be associated with that no matter which entity you use. But two, you can use those funds either let them sit there and use it to pay out another entity and Canadian dollar if you so choose, or you just have you wait until that accrues to the amount to the point when you need to either pay out manufacturer or supplier or just get paid out yourself. So that’s a B of that, and you can actually receive up to 10 different currencies with our solution. So down the road, I’m gonna start selling in the UK, or I’m gonna sell in your in Australia if you have a Ping Pong account, and this is where it’s kind of simplifying the nature, I don’t have to open multiple bank accounts, you can actually request to open up an Australian dollar account, or a euro account, or a British Pound sterling account. In all in one dashboard. You can see I’m receiving this much from my UK business, I’m receiving this much for my euro business, I’m receiving this much from my Australian Business all in one dashboard. It instantly just t’s a headache for your financial person that might be your wife, it might be your husband, if you’re listening to this or Mr. B, your accountant. And you can actually take the money holistically just on Amazon alone. But we can actually apply that to your Shopify store. You can apply it to international marketplaces such as wish or Rakuten if you’re in Japan, or ricotta Libra, or CD discount if you’re in France. So as your business scales that appropriately scales, you can start to see in one simple way to see where all your money is coming and going and not know that. Oh, the checks in the mail, I need to account for hundreds of 1000s of dollars that might be missing or just floating in the ether out there. You can actually see simplistically in one place where the money has.
Rob Stanley 24:04
Yeah, no, that’s great information. Man. I’m glad I’m on you’re the show there, right. No, it’s no that’s it’s great information. And as you know, Brian and I are both hosts of podcasts so it’s always fun when we got on other ones I could literally just rattle on for like an hour. But I do have a few more questions for you. And I want to get this answer. Because I know there’s more info
