Yonah (00:08)
My name is Yonah Nimr and welcome to the Amazon Playbook, where we dive deep into the strategies and stories behind the most successful brands on Amazon. In our upcoming episodes, we'll be sharing conversations with key partners who have been instrumental in growth of brands like Biogents, Batchwell, and Ray -Bans. This episode today is brought to you by Amazon Growth Lab. At AGL, we help brands on Amazon achieve explosive growth.

with a focus on organic visibility. Andy, I know you and I have been working together for a little bit of time. And yeah, I was really excited to see that when we started working together, you know, your new Ray -Ban bundles they were launching, we're doing roughly 200K a month. I'm stoked that we were able to get it to almost 850K a month in a similar ACOS. And I'm excited to get to a point where, you know, we'll hit the $3 million mark too, which I have no doubt we'll get to. And if you're ready...

Andy (01:05)
Thank you for having me here and thank you for your team for taking our business to the next level.

Yonah (01:11)
Yeah, yeah, we're just getting started, man. We're in our infancy. So just for the viewer, if you're looking to take your Amazon presence to the next level, let's make it happen and visit amazongrowthlab .com to learn more.

Andy (01:22)
Definitely. Thank you.

Yonah (01:23)
So before introducing today's guest, I just want to give a quick shout out to John from BioGents. BioGents has this new incredible technology when it comes to ensuring that you don't get mosquito bites. I would definitely check them out on Amazon. I know myself, every time I go on a camping trip, I just get completely attacked. And it's really changed my life. You struggle with mosquito bites at all, Andy?

Andy (01:36)
Alright.

Yeah, actually I hate mosquito bites. So you spray it on your body and I think there's a brand called Avon. So I actually took notes to look at Biogen on Amazon.

Yonah (01:52)
You

That's amazing. I'll talk to John and I'm sure we'll get you a free product. Thank you for being on here. So a little intro of Andy. Andy Ali is the CEO of E -Shades and is the official largest Amazon dealer of Ray -Bans. That is wild that you got there. I know that you're also a wholesale buyer of Gucci, Tom Ford, Oakley. The list goes on and on.

Andy (02:09)
Okay, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you.

Yeah.

Yonah (02:31)
somehow everything you touch on Amazon just turns to gold. So, you know, before we even just get to the modern day, I'm curious, yeah, when did E -Shades begin and how did the vision even like come to being?

Andy (02:46)
Eshed started actually in 2004 on eBay 2004 -2003 with a hangout in my apartment. It was a small get together with friends. So how I started was my family was into a luggage business and you know how you get those

the travel belts when you travel and you put your passports and money into it. So I was at the store managing the store over the weekend and one of the representatives came in and he was giving us a sale seminar and at the end of the seminar he had those extra travel belts and he gave it to me.

He said, you know what, I don't have a need of them. You just keep them or whatever you want to do with them. So I brought those travel belts home. And at that time, eBay was taking, it was not going wild, but it was a new thing at that time. You're talking about 2004, 2003, 20 years ago.

Yonah (04:04)
What year is this just for context?

Okay, cool.

Yeah, this is basically when the idea of online sales, no one really understood. There was no, there was no real thought of that being a place to buy an item.

Andy (04:13)
Go.

Exactly.

Exactly. At that time, believe it or not, USPS was not even allowing packages to be shipped online. You have to go to the post office to ship the packages. I think they came in right at that time when something happened, because I still remember that when we used to package a box, they would take it to the post office, stand in the line for one hour, and then hand over the packages to them.

Yonah (04:46)
And you would do this all yourself.

Andy (04:48)
I mean, it was me and so listen to the story. So I was going to school for bachelor's in accounting and I had a roommate, he was into mechanical engineering. So I brought those security belts back home and I put it on eBay. So I still remember those belts probably retail for like $10 or $8, something like that. And we sold all five of them in two days.

for the same retail price or maybe a buck higher than that. So the same weekend, we had a small get together with my friends. And I told my friend, you heard of eBay? And he said, yeah, man, you can buy and sell stuff over there. I said, yes. I sold those travel belts over there. And then, know,

and I saw them close to retail. And my friend who's actually a city planner in the city of Calexico right now, he told me, wow, just imagine if you had thousands of those belts. The moment the words came out of his mouth, I knew after hearing that, that's what I'm gonna do rest of my life. Because in that age, he made a...

you know, just like, know, certain time, you know, a word of wisdom comes out of your mind and it gives you a total life perspective. So the thing came out, if you have thousands of those, what happened? You could have made thousands of dollars. So I was completely lost in that on his words and I was not paying attention what other things they were talking about. My mind was like,

multiplying in the future. So I think that get together last like probably 1 a at that night. So while my couple of friends were leaving, I go to my friend whose name is George and I told him man thank you so much for giving me that that tip and he's like what tip and I said about that eBay so he didn't understand but he did you know the word came out of his mouth but he already gave me you know the idea what I wanted to do.

So that's where eShit started out of a conversation and out of our investment of $100 and you know we started on eBay and then technically you know stabilize ourselves it was doing pretty good at that given time you know I mean the second year I think the first year we did like a revenue of like probably $150 ,000

and then we double it every year. Pretty much double, triple. after five, six years, then Amazon started. I never liked Amazon initially because it's all about pricing. You're not able to edit the listing. Whoever has the lowest price under one listing, they win the buy box and technically...

you you sell it so it's mostly like you know even if you do advertisement on the listings you're not going to get the buy box it's all about lowest pricing and your feedbacks but anyways we did that and

Yonah (08:29)
Just for context, I know you said you doubled every year, 20 years ago. So, you know, what's been the best year that you've done in revenue? And yeah, what percentage of that was on Amazon versus other platforms?

Andy (08:33)
Yes. Yes.

So we did not start Amazon until 2010. seven years straight, we did only eBay. That's how the journey was. And we were only doing business on eBay.

Even still today, we don't sell it on our own website. think it's the business we are in, we sell designer brands. We don't have to advertise those. are already companies have millions and millions of dollar budgets. And so we have no need to sell it on their, on our own website. So we strictly Amazon, eBay, and this is it. So.

So we did that. Roughly we started like you know $150 ,000 in revenue and now our total revenue on you know on Amazon and eBay is roughly at 45 million. That's how much we do on the yearly basis.

Yonah (10:03)
Okay, so you you've obviously come a long way. For starters, you know, the night that you probably were drinking a couple beers with your buddy in college, the best ROI that anyone's ever seen, you know, you're spending $40 on drinks for you and your friends, you get $45 million in return, it's not too bad.

Andy (10:06)
Yeah.

Yes.

Exactly. That's how everything starts, right?

Yonah (10:26)
Totally. you at a point in your career where you're like, wow, I've made it. I know obviously you have a new vision of where E -Shades is going to go. At one point in time, you were just focusing on having the lowest price on the buy box. And recently, you now want to own your own listings and create bundles, which we'll get to in a moment. But you've already built a business that's doing $45 million a year.

Do you feel like you've made it in your career? Do you feel like you're just getting started? Yeah, what comes to mind when I ask that?

Andy (11:02)
So you know there's two things to look at it. One is a revenue base and one is a business based fulfillment where you are satisfied. After creating this bundle, these bundles, the businessman inside, you know what mean, is fulfilled. You have, you call it stability. And

since you met with your company and you helped us out to take your bundles to the next level. What bundle is, those are your proprietary listings. No one else can come in. You are the owner and then technically you put the advertisement on them and you take it to the next level and even smaller brands.

Yonah (11:52)
So just to explain it to the viewer so they understand, initially you're just selling Ray -Ban sunglasses. Then you realize, anyone can sell these Ray -Ban sunglasses and if they sell it for a lower price, I lose the buy box and I lose my sales. So it's a constant bidding war. So the new idea is, okay, let me now take Ray -Ban cleaning kits and Ray -Ban glasses containers.

Andy (11:59)
Exactly.

Exactly. Exactly.

Yonah (12:21)
like cases, and let's also just put in our own eShades cleaning kit in there along with the sunglasses, and now no one else can own the listing other than eShades.

Andy (12:32)
Exactly.

Yonah (12:33)
What do you think that, like how did you come up with that idea? Is that just an idea you had in the shower? You meet up with your college buddy again? Or where did that come from?

Andy (12:43)
No, it comes with an experience like I never liked doing business on Amazon from the get go, but the volume was too high. And remember at the beginning of the conversation, I told you that every seller sells the product under one listing. And you know, it's all price conscious. You know, the lowest price get the buy box. I think what Amazon is getting

If you want to do business on Amazon and you want to be profitable, I think first You need to have some sort of exclusivity like the brand you mentioned The biogen's you know, I mean they have their own product they can advertise they can you know They can hire your company to take you know to take the brand to the next level so they have some sort of exclusivity and

They have exclusivity and then you know they can put advertisement dollars into it and they can build the brand. by engaging your company with our business that you're building our own exclusive catalog and that's what I look at every single day because that's where it gives you a future satisfaction, stability.

and you feel like you will be in business for a longer period of time. Even two years ago, revenue in business, you want to have more, more, more. That's pretty much, that's a typical business, man. Hey, you want to double from here, you want to triple from here, that's pretty much what it is. So I'm not going after the revenue. The revenue which I have, I'm happy. And you know, and...

I want to have like organic growth, small growth, you know, a long term growth. You know, a certain time you're in business, you push the level to the, you know, to the last level, but that revenue is not sustainable for a longer period of time. That's not the business is done. If you grow 3%, 4%, 5%, you get to that point 10%, you know, it's perfect. Yeah, if you're growing 200 % like you know, your company did.

You know, if it's, but you know, we did grow 200 % like, you know, after we did the bundles, but it's stable. I mean, every month we are doing the same amount of sales. Certain time you grow and after two months the business goes down. You know what mean? So not interested in that. You have to maintain it for the longer period of time.

Yonah (15:30)
Yeah, it makes sense. this is something that I see that a lot of brand owners struggle with where they have one day of really good sales and they're over the moon. And then there's one day of poor sales and they start freaking out that their business is falling apart as opposed to the more holistic approach of looking at it from an aerial view. So you obviously seem like someone who's extremely goal -oriented. Do you have a vision in mind of, hey, with this new strategy of

Andy (15:42)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yonah (15:57)
how you're bringing Ray -Bans and Oakley, Tom Ford's and all these brands to Amazon now with your own listings. What do you think the potential is? Like what's your goal of, yeah, from a revenue perspective, what you wanna bring it to from a monthly basis? What do you think is conservative? What do you think is a stretch goal?

Andy (16:21)
I think I see these bundles, I want my bundles to do 50 % of the revenue, that's pretty much what it is. That's a long term goal, but if we get to...

25 % of our total revenue, like $8 million in business, that would be good too.

Yonah (16:51)
that makes a lot of sense. And yeah, how did you even like stumble across going from belts to suddenly selling, designer items? Why did you choose designer items and how did you even get the relationships to get good prices?

Andy (16:52)
Yeah.

So, after that travel belts, it was a luggage store business, a travel luggage store. mostly I was selling all the luggage items, like all the brands. I was always into the brands, like know, Travel Pro, Samsonite, all that thing. At that point, all these luggage companies never charge dimensional weight.

Like you know if you are sending a big box, the box is 15 pounds but once you ship it through UPS or DHL, that 15 pound box is like 28 inches like you know the big check in size. Like if you ship that check in size from California to New York, it's going to cost you like $120 to ship. They charge you like technically 140 pounds. It's called a dimensional weight.

If you sell, if they don't charge the dimension weight, the 15 pounds is going to cost you like $15. You get my point? So at that time, there was no dimensional weight. So it was actually whatever as big the package is, whatever, how much, how much it weighs, you ship it out and that that's pretty much it. So I think after the recession, 2007 and 2008,

Yonah (18:11)
Totally.

Andy (18:33)
all the companies switched to dimensional weight. So then, like overnight, you know, it was, you know, it was not sustainable. That was the one thing. And second thing, was running, you know, our eBay business out of our apartment. And pretty much, you know, at one given time, we didn't have a room to sleep. You know what mean? And all the apartment was filled up with the stuff.

Yonah (18:37)
Mmm.

Andy (19:02)
So what do we do? I say, you know what? you got to understand, we are this young person. let me go back a little bit. So my friend who was doing mechanical engineering in Cal Poly University, and he was, I reached out to my seat, just work with me part -time, you know what mean? In helping me out, you know, on eBay. He said, yeah, I do that. He's a white guy.

His name is Chris and he started working part time here. After six months, he comes to me, he said, you know, I need to talk to you. I said, He's like, I quit school. I said, what do mean you quit school? I said, I want to do this for the rest of my life. And even still today, he's with me. It's been, you know, it's been 25 years generally.

was 20 years. So that's pretty much it. Then we left everything and I said, you know what, so he's the one I was still, you know, taking semi -serious, pretty much all the money was coming in. The profit was coming. We working hard. We didn't know what we were doing. mean, technically, we working hard and partying hard. It was never a career thing at that time.

Yonah (20:02)
Wow, that's beautiful.

Andy (20:27)
some sort of a career, but you you have that excitement that you're doing something and you're getting rewarded for it. But once you are young, you're not that career oriented. You are like, technically, let's see where it goes. You know what mean? You take you take day at a time. But the moment he told me this, it's really stuck. said, man, this thing is getting serious. And I had I have to take it serious because this guy is his career. He wants to do it. What am I doing? Right. So he gave me a vision.

Yonah (20:33)
Totally.

Andy (20:56)
I said, okay, you know what? This is the time for me to get serious. So at that time I said, you know, we have to go to a different commodity, which is small. So I said, what should I do? At that time they launched overstock .com. At overstock they were selling some designer sunglasses and I still remember it was a Dolce and Gabbana piece. So I bought some Dolce and Gabbana, you know, glasses and I bought three of them.

So at that time I got engaged and I thought like, know, I buy three glasses, I give one of my sunglasses to my fiance and I sell two of them which will cover the cost of the first one. So I, you know, as a businessman, I don't have to pay for that gift, right? So I bought those three and I put, you know, I bought those two glasses from Overstock, I put it on eBay.

and I made like extra $30 profit. still remember even paying for the third pier. I said, this is the glasses I have to go after. I said, it's a small commodity. And I was not thinking long -term. I was thinking like, hey, you know what? We can still run this business from a part because we're very young. So I reach out to the company. said, Dolce & Gabbana is based out of Italy. So I get a calling card. I call them and send them an email that I want to sell your product.

So they have a head office, another head office in New York. After two days, I get a call from this guy, hey, know what, reach out to us and what's going on. I said, well, I want to sell your product. He said, do you have a store? I said, yeah, you know, I want to sell online. He's like, what is that? I said, you know, online. I heard about that a lot of people are doing it. And he said, well, our minimum order is 50 pieces. I said, okay. And he said, you have to pay for a front. I said, okay. So I said,

I was hesitant to pay it up from, he said if it does not sell, you know, I will take it back for you. But initially you have to pay it back. You have to pay up. I said, okay, that's fine. But you know, I ordered 40 glasses, they got delivered. At that time, we used to take pictures of every single stuff by ourselves. So there was no like a technically, there was no pictures available.

So we put those glasses on eBay. So I bought 50 glasses. So usually in the store if you order 50 glasses, they check with you on every month basis how much you sold, right? Still remember we got the glasses on Tuesday. We worked overnight and we put all the glasses on eBay with the pictures.

By Sunday we sold 30 pairs, you know what mean? Out of 50. So next month, that's when I decided that's what I wanted to do the rest of my life and glasses is my commodity, Instantly. So I go call on Monday, he said.

Yonah (23:40)
Were shocked?

How much did you end up putting down to buy the 40 pairs of sunglasses?

Andy (23:56)
I think it was at 25 % off, you know, back then.

The pricing was not that if you put 10 % off, 15 % off, 25 % off, I mean, you're getting the sales. At that time, there was no competition. There was no Amazon. It was on only eBay. So I called my representative. His name was Rainy Tillner. And he's like, hey, did you get your shipment? I said, yeah, yeah. said, good, good. I said, I need to order more. The guy's like, what?

What do mean you need to order more? I said sold 30 pieces. Okay, so this one, know, at 10 a he said we need to meet for lunch. When do you want to meet? He said I want to meet today. Let's have a lunch right away. So he comes in, he said, are you serious? You sold 30 pieces? I said yes. I placed an order for 100 units.

Yonah (24:38)
He respond.

Andy (24:58)
And usually 150 units a retail store sells in one year or 200 pieces.

And then we were ordering technically at least 500 units of that brand per month. And we became his largest account technically in three months. And we were doing 50 % of his business because at that time,

Yonah (25:27)
No one else was telling these glasses online at the time.

Andy (25:30)
No see, at that time, lot of people were selling it. But we will take an extra effort to create our listings the same way you are doing it for us. You see a value. Once you have a listing and it creates a brand environment and you know at the know and you can at the end of this podcast you can show this to

people what is the regular Ray -Ban listing looks and what your company created. They will see a differentiation. They will see a confidence. And you will be tempted to buy other listings even if it's $10 to $15 more expensive because they know it's authentic. It's just pop. You put some bells and whistles to it.

You give a conference to a customer, they need all the information. So that's pretty much what it is. So we took an extra, we took an extra mile. We provided all the dimensions. Our pictures were like, you know, super. We were taking the pictures of inside the temple where it shows the product is made in Italy. The UPC numbers. I mean, we gave them A to Z every single thing. So even if we were selling our product.

$10 to $15 more expensive than our competitor. We were not the lowest one.

In certain cases, we were in a mid -range. know, if we are, you know, 10 sellers are selling, were number five. But we were getting our sales because at the same time, we want to be profitable. It was, and I bring you...

Yonah (27:19)
Were you running ads on eBay at the time or no?

Andy (27:23)
So eBay at that time was not ad driven, it was feedback driven. Once you have a good listing and you have a good feedback and your gallery pictures looks pretty good, because eBay does not give you a standard picture. Maybe they do right now. But at that time, you have to upload every single picture. So your gallery picture will tell you A to Z every single thing. You know how you create a gallery picture for us where we put in the Ray -Ban

Yonah (27:48)
review.

Andy (27:53)
you know, kit with it. it differentiates us from other people. So that's how we, you know, first you need to have differentiation, the quality should be there, and nowadays you need to have advertisement. That's what your company provides on all three levels.

Yonah (27:59)
Mhm.

At this point in time, you're basically, you you're engaged, you're still a kid, you don't really know what you're doing, but you're kind of stumbling into success. At what point in time do you have a vision that this is really a real company that you're growing as opposed to just a fun side hustle?

Andy (28:22)
Yeah.

Because of the volume, obviously the volume was going big and once the volume goes big you need to create more infrastructure. Once you create an infrastructure I know you have to sign leases and stuff. So then it's a long -term expense. Once you have a fixed cost coming into a business, in any business once you have a fixed cost where you have to pay your employees on a monthly basis no matter what however your business is.

then you would take it seriously. at this, it gets into a phase. Once you start something, you're not 100 % sure you want to do that for a longer term, but then it gets mature day by day. And then you know, you know, you're into it.

Yonah (29:04)
Hmm.

And did you have any mentors that helped you out along the way? Is this all 100 % self -taught? Because at this time, a lot of people now, when they want to sell online, they go to YouTube and they get educated. You're doing it at a point in time where there is no playbook.

Andy (29:34)
The online business is much more easier right now. You find mentors online. You do that. We did it everything by ourselves. We created... Once we started doing this thing, there were no examples. We made an example to ourselves. mean, like you go, how do you do this? And there's no way because you don't get answers at that time.

So even still today, I don't watch YouTube video. You just have to do your own numbers and what makes economic sense. And you see, this business is a custom -made business for everyone. Everyone has different goals. know what mean? The infrastructure is different. The financial situation is different. So you can scale the business to whatever level you want it to be.

Some person wants to be like, hey, we don't want to risk that much money into it. We want to start with this phase. The dot com business is for people who wants to invest $100 ,000, $100, or $1 million. That's pretty much what it is, which route do you want to go. But the end goal is one, to be profitable and something for a long term.

Yonah (30:44)
you

Mm

Do you have other friends now that are in the marketing space? Like, do you act as almost like a mentor to other people or are most of the people you know not in e -commerce?

Andy (31:06)
No, mean, to be honest, I keep it on the low side. And if there was any other person, you know, I mean, it was asked me to do a podcast, I wouldn't have done it. But you're a business partner, couldn't say no to you. Yeah, so that's pretty much what it

Yonah (31:18)
You

That's very, very, very sweet. What? So I know you talked about the fact that we're partnered together. What made you decide to get external help? Like up until now, you've done everything internally, right? It sounds like you and Chris have pretty much built the whole infrastructure on your own. Why get to the point where you even want to work with an agency?

Andy (31:45)
So like I said, I think I should have gotten the agency before, but I didn't have anything exclusive. I think it would have justified my investment. Like if you go to the regular listings, know, like Ray -Ban or Oakley, the brands which we sell, if you optimize our listings pretty much,

There's no optimization because we are selling it under, you won't be able to change anything on Amazon because we are not the owner of that listing. When I decided this, when I convinced the company to let me do the ribbon bundles, first it's so hard to do the bundles on Amazon. It took me like five years to figure that thing out.

Yonah (32:26)
course.

Andy (32:42)
Still, we try to do bundles for other brands that don't allow. So I really have to convince Ray Ban, know, beside, you know, that you have to give us that opportunity. And once we convince them, then there's the one thing which we didn't learn about advertisement, which we never did. And advertisement is not, you know, our cup of tea first.

We know how to sell the product, infrastructure. I think you have to be very educated on doing advertisement. And if you want to do it by yourself, it will take you two years just to learn the basics of it. obviously, we don't have that much time. And so I said, at that given point,

One thing we started doing advertisement but it was not to the... It's a boring category to me, you know what mean? Technically, to be quite honest, that's another thing. I... Yeah, initially we did a little bit with my Amazon account manager but it was like... I said it's way too much hectic and way too much time.

Yonah (33:52)
Were you doing it yourself initially?

Andy (34:05)
So I was looking for some, you know, advertisement company and I reach out to my Amazon account manager. He said, you know what we should do, you know, I interviewed one person, not that much excited. And then I interviewed another company, didn't like it. Then your reviews were pretty strong and we read your reviews on your website or with my Amazon account manager. I said, this is the company we should talk to.

And then I spoke to you. You were like technically the one with things really liked that you didn't say like, let me take you as a client. I want to study your account first, what you are all about. You wanted to understand the business first, which I liked. I said, well, this can turn into a partnership.

where he wants to know what it is, you don't want to take me as a client, just whatever, if you cannot perform, you want to take your time and do some due diligence and then technically, you understand what my goal was, where I am, and then technically after that, you look at the total, you know, Amazon account scenario, and then you come up with a, you know, then we talked and then how we started, and then you brought in like, you know, some clawback stuff.

on our Amazon account, he said, you know what, we are doing, we were doing it by ourselves, but our view not getting that much refunds from Amazon. And he said, let me handle that. We figured out a plan. And the one thing which I told you, I want something long term. There's a.

Yonah (35:50)
So just so that people know what clawbacks are, are you able to explain what clawbacks are and what your experience was when doing it on your own versus when working with us?

Andy (36:02)
So, clawback is the hidden refunds which Amazon does not automatically provide to you. For example, once you send the shipments in to Amazon, you send them 20 pieces and Amazon only received 18 pieces in their system and they say they never received those 20 pieces.

So the Clawbacks team does, they reach out to Amazon, they say, you know what, we shipped out, you know what mean, 20 pieces and these are the invoices. And you know, you have to give us a credit. They look at it, they open up the cases for you. Then Amazon say, we don't have it, you have to send us more invoices, you ship these items in the other shipment and this and that. So their team take care of the whole thing. And after that, Amazon will give you credit.

on those two pieces which are missing. So, and if you're a high volume, you know, seller, roughly like, you know, we get 50 to $60 ,000 worth of refunds from Amazon, which we were getting, we were doing it by ourselves, we were getting 20 to 25 ,000, you know, Yona and I need to bring in Athan here who's our...

who is our go -to person and he's our account lead, account manager. We work with different companies with AGL. We have a main account manager, then we have a brand manager, and then you have the advertisement people underneath it. So we communicate with like six, seven people in AGL team, you know what mean, to take care of our thing. So go back.

Yonah (37:53)
I found it funny how with most people, we're like, hey, by the way, Andy, over the past few months, we got you back like 300K that Amazon overcharged you. Most people would be over the moon. And you're just like, nice, nice, cool. That's great. Thank you. So you send over the documents. And that's just an illustration of the size that you've grown to, right? Where like, a lot of sellers, 300K, it's like, that's a lot of money.

Andy (38:05)
Yeah.

Hehehehe. Hehehe.

Yeah, exactly.

Yonah (38:21)
And for you, it's like, okay, cool. Yeah, that's nice that we got that back. Thank you. And I always found that comical.

Andy (38:26)
Yeah.

So like I said, know, there are certain things, especially in business, you wanna, you wanna hear thanks from their mouth and there's certain thing also come with loyalty and a long term friendship. You know what mean? That's pretty much, I'm on that side of a person. Maybe I don't acknowledge a lot of stuff, but hey, you know, there are certain people like technically you don't talk to like 10 years and you call them, hey,

Yonah (38:45)
Totally.

Andy (38:59)
I can still count on you, right? And if there's a certain friend, you won't even have to call them. You're like, you know they're going to be there. Like, you you put someone as a reference. OK, you know what? Obviously, know, they will already know. I don't have to explain that to him. So especially in business, the business is done on this one principle. You don't worry about what you're making now. You're always worried about what can you do in the future.

Yonah (39:25)
Long -term value.

Andy (39:27)
Long -term value of forget, you know, certain people go for the short -term profit and they forget about the, you know, long -term loss. It's always about the long -term profit and short -term loss. That's what business is. So what we are doing, especially on these bundles right now, when we sat down, it was actually a huge investment on our side and you were loud and clear that, you know what, maybe we don't pull profit. In the first year,

and we have to do all this advertisement and this and that we're doing some revenue. as, once we take you as a partner then technically we are in, you know what mean? We go, we make mutual decisions.

whenever I need to do some on my account or even I always ask your people feedback. Hey, you know what? There's so many times, you know what mean? I reach out to Aithan, our brand manager, Asif. Hey, what do you think? Even like a technically the person who upload the pictures and who take care of the pictures, his name is Suleiman. I say Suleiman, what do you think, man? Technically, what should we do? You know what mean? It's always...

good to get all the feedback and then technically it helps you make a decision. That's how it is.

Yonah (40:46)
makes sense. So what has been the highlight of working together thus far?

Andy (40:52)
First, your whole team is on point and I think they communicate at the same pace with each other when they are not. So whoever you go to, very organized. And one thing also in you that you work on every level so you know technically what customer needs are.

There are certain person comes in and then, you know, they haven't worked at the beginner level. You know what mean? So they don't know what, you know, customers needs are. So, you know, your companies organize on every single thing. They know what they're doing and they understand where we can save money and where we can, you know, where we can make more profit.

Yonah (41:39)
So do you see yourself down the line? Obviously right now you're doing eBay, you're doing Amazon. Do you see yourself getting on Walmart? Do you see yourself getting on Target Online? What other marketplaces do you see yourself entering into or is Amazon really just the focus right now?

Andy (41:57)
I think we can easily double our business on Amazon and I you know Amazon has 60 % of the market share if you did not tap if you go to the other other marketplaces you can but You need to go with your full potential on this Amazon first, especially these bundles. I mean we

what I have planned with some different brands and stuff. I mean, we will be busy for another two years. And to be honest, I want to make this thing work completely. You know what mean? Then we take it to the next level. Now, you know, we order Tom Ford bundles. We are doing Saint Laurent bundles. We are doing the after the Michael Kors bundle. Then Oakley is coming in. I mean, Oakley is as gigantic as Ray -Ban.

Yonah (42:25)
you

Hmm.

Andy (42:49)
You know, they are the two brands like, you know, Rayman and Oakley. mean, we see we only talking about Rayman bundles because that's our prime focus. Just imagine we have Gucci. Gucci now we are selling 20 pieces, 30 pieces a day. Technically 30 pieces multiplied by 350, 10 ,500. We are doing $300 ,000 in Gucci bundles now per month.

Yonah (43:12)
Hmm.

Andy (43:13)
So all those things come in play, one brand sells more, other brands sell less, but you take an overall, you know, thing, then technically it's a different ballgame. Maybe, you know, Oakley Bundles do better than Ray -Ban. And we only talk about Oakley at that time. Oakley is a very gigantic brand. It's a worldwide brand.

Yonah (43:31)
What drives you to keep building the business? Is it lifestyle that you want more money? Is it a matter of it's almost gamified and it's just a game of can you make the number go up? What drives you to still be here and work on this every day?

Andy (43:48)
Because you created that business by yourself and the drive to keep going once you have a baby, it's a part of you, this business is part of you. When you're working for yourself and a lot of people will agree they were not.

taught like how you do these things. Some people do it differently. It's a big university. So once you create something by yourself, you're very emotionally attached to it. So I think that's a drive I have. I'll give an example. You're doing rib and bundles.

Yonah (44:23)
you

Andy (44:31)
and then you're working with the Biogen company, right? So you kind of created and you are a part of that brand and you're a part of that story and you can talk about it. So that's the same motivation I have.

Yonah (44:50)
Said really well, words of wisdom. Cool, so final question before we close this out. And I guess even before we get there, I'm curious, there a place that if anyone wants to reach out to you, is there a place that they should look you up or contact you? Or also no pressure, if you wanna stay hidden in the shadows and don't wanna be disrupted, no problem there too.

Andy (45:18)
They can, I'd rather have them come through you. You can give your phone number, right? And if you think, yeah, I reach out to you and then technically if you think the person, you know my personality, you know my mood, you know my work schedule. So so have it come through you and then technically you let me know that this person is going to be reaching out to you and I will take care of it. All right.

Yonah (45:24)
I love it. Well, if anyone wants to reach out, my email is yonah.

Andy, Andy needs the funnel.

of it.

That's great. If anyone wants to get in touch with Andy, you know, there's a two step verification process where you need to go through me first. reach out to Yona, Y O N A H at amazongrowthlab .com. And Andy, final question for you. I'm not sure if you're much of a reader, but I'm curious if you have any books that you recommend that have been pivotal in getting you to be the successful business owner that you are.

Andy (45:50)
Yeah.

know the motivational quotes are very important. Usually once you read the books, it's one story. read motivational stuff where technically, know, motivational quotes really help me. I like reading those. We tell you, you know, a taste of life. It's all about life. So, you know, so...

Yonah (46:39)
Hmm.

Andy (46:43)
hardly whatever time you have now Mr. Google is like where you can find the motivation. So if you even try to have whatever free time you have and you read those know, motivational quote about business, motivational quotes about personal. It's all about organization. You have to organize your life first in order to be successful. It all comes in play. The routine

And decision -making skills are very important. Always never ever make a certain decision in your life. Every single time when, if you remember, when we were technically in negotiations and we were talking about like developing a business together, I never gave you a yes right at that moment. I told you give me a couple of days. Let me think about it. I will get back to you. Right.

Yonah (47:30)
That was back when I was harassing you on a weekly basis.

Andy (47:33)
Yeah, I was taking my time. So this is a thing never ever make a certain decision and whenever you make a decision then don't even listen to yourself. You cannot change that decision. So technically you made a decision take your time. But certain time people get confused and they call it a buyer remorse. Hey, you know what you already did it and this is it. So take your time to make a decision. Whenever you think about a decision you always make that decision better.

that you know the answer but you will implement it in a better way.

Yonah (48:04)
Hmm. Well, thanks for coming on the show today, Andy. I really appreciate it. Once again, Andy from E -Shades. is the largest seller within Amazon when it comes to Ray -Bans and many other top designer brands. We're really lucky to have you.

Andy (48:09)
No problem anytime.

Thank you, good luck on your podcast and hope to talk to you again. Bye