October 21, 2025 • 44 mins
Ready to scale your Amazon business? Click here to book a strategy call. https://calendly.com/firingtheman/amazon
Tired of guessing your way through stockouts, overstock, and Amazon’s ever-shifting fees? We sat down with Randy Thebeau—programmer, analyst, Amazon seller, and former 3PL owner—who turned years of warehouse chaos into SKU Compass, a practical system for sellers who want clarity, not dashboards for show. Randy shares how he set a hard revenue target and deadline to quit his bank job, then learned the hard way why spreadsheets crumble under daily sales swings, multi-channel expansion, and the hidden math of bundles and kits.
We unpack the habits that protect margins: treating safety stock as non-negotiable insurance, measuring coverage in days (not just units), and setting channel-specific thresholds so FBA stays lean while sales stay steady. Randy breaks down a hybrid approach to AWD and 3PL that speeds replenishment without surrendering your P&L to auto systems, plus a simple rule to cut long-term storage by taking manual control when FBA dips below a 30-day window. We also get tactical on returns triage for higher-ticket products, supplier standards that prevent rework (barcode at the factory or walk away), and why two manufacturers per SKU can save a launch when quality slips.
If multi-channel sales have turned your inventory into a guessing game, you’ll hear how bundling can push up average order value while SKU Compass handles the tricky component math across Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, WooCommerce, and ShipStation-powered channels. The throughline is simple: right-size your stock, protect cash flow, and make fewer—but sharper—decisions that compound over time. Subscribe, share with a seller who’s stuck in spreadsheet hell, and leave a review with your biggest inventory headache—we’ll queue it up for a future deep dive.
Randy Social Media:
https://www.facebook.com/randy.thebeau
https://www.linkedin.com/in/randy-thebeau/
SKU Compass Social Media:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61566592928758
https://www.youtube.com/@SKUCompass
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sku-compass/
https://skucompass.com/
Ready to scale your Amazon business? Click here to book a strategy call. https://calendly.com/firingtheman/amazon
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (01:07):
Welcome everyone to the Firing the Man Podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income stream in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Schoma and
(01:29):
Ken Wilson.
SPEAKER_02 (01:34):
Welcome back to another episode of Firing the
Man Podcast.
Today I'm excited to introduceRandy Tebow, the creator of Skew
Compass, an inventory managementsoftware built to solve one of
the biggest headaches ine-commerce, keeping your
products in stock, your cashflow healthy, and your business
(01:54):
running efficiently.
Randy knows firsthand the painof juggling stock-outs over
stocks and the constantguesswork that eats into profit.
Instead of settling for outdatedtools, he set out to build Skew
Compass, a solution designedspecifically for entrepreneurs
who want clarity, control, andconfidence in their inventory
(02:16):
decisions.
In this conversation, we'll diveinto Randy's journey, the key
features that set Skew Compassapart, and how it can completely
change the way you manageinventory and scale your
business.
Randy, welcome to the show.
Hey, buddy.
I'm glad to be here.
Absolutely.
Absolutely glad to be.
I got to share with the audiencea lot of the people that I know
(02:38):
in e-commerce, I have met in aZoom meeting or through email.
Uh, you're one of the rarepeople I have met in the wild.
Uh we had lunch in person theother day, and and it was
refreshing.
It was really refreshing.
What did you think?
SPEAKER_01 (02:52):
It it is strange.
I mean, both of us live inMissouri, so it is strange to
think how there's there's peopledoing real things uh in the same
state.
SPEAKER_02 (03:01):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And of course, the conversationtoday is going to be geared
around Skew Compass, but when wehad last talked, you were just
go you were about to leave forAmazon Accelerate, is that
right?
SPEAKER_01 (03:16):
Yeah, so that was about a week and a half ago at
that time.
How was it?
So it's good, man.
I I went to Amazon Accelerateand I went to the month earlier
uh to the Walmart seller summitum that they had in San Diego as
well.
And then it's so interesting.
Uh Walmart's trying to keep upwith Amazon, but Amazon is still
ten times way further ahead ofWalmart right now.
(03:38):
But man, you meet so many coolpeople doing the same things.
You meet a lot of other agenciesthat are just um trying to make
the world a better place forsellers, and you you meet the
spectrum of sellers, the onesthat are struggling um and about
to lose everything if they don'tfigure it out, and the ones that
are doing billion dollars.
So it's it's kind ofinteresting.
I loved it.
SPEAKER_02 (03:58):
Well, very good, very good.
That was one of thoseconferences that was on my
radar.
I wasn't quite sure, but hearingthe positive experience you had,
I think definitely gonna have toadd it to the calendar next
year.
SPEAKER_01 (04:09):
So it's uh it's kind of a no-miss thing if you want
to meet people in your space.
SPEAKER_02 (04:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
So, well, let's get into theinterview.
So, Randy, you you've worn manyhats.
You were a senior analyst atsome major banks, you've been an
entrepreneur, you've been anAmazon seller, a 3PL operator.
Can you walk us through thatjourney and how those
experiences shape the creationof Skew Compass?
SPEAKER_01 (04:35):
Yes, it's funny that uh in most people's journey, it
is a stepping stone to whereyou're at.
Uh, you can trace back how yougot there fairly easy, and and
that's kind of my story.
It's it's just all along theway, every little job you did
kind of led into what you'redoing now.
Um, it's just very helpful.
(04:55):
Uh I I've been a programmersince I I remember uh my dad
taking the computer out of thebox when I was 13 from Walmart,
and this was in the 90s.
And I I actually think aboutthis quite a bit because it was
so interesting.
Like he took this computer outof the box and I wasn't allowed
to touch it until my olderbrother got to do what he wanted
(05:15):
to do, and then I could touchit, and it just felt good.
It just felt like it was right.
So I've been programming since Iwas 13.
Like it's a thing that I I lovedoing.
Uh I don't know uh I'mself-proclaimed good at it.
Like I think I'm good at it.
So but it's been doing it eversince.
Um, had a knack for it, had aknack for spreadsheets and
(05:36):
formulas, um, and that led intosome just jobs with um uh MCI,
which was the largest bankruptcyin the the country, or maybe
world, um, and then into uh acouple of the big banks.
I worked for them for 15 yearsdoing programming, analytics,
um, statistics, um, dataanalysis.
And then I just like really kindof got tired of doing it.
(06:01):
Like basically, as your podcastsays, working for the man.
It was straining my brain to dothis all day long for um an
entity that wasn't contributingto me.
Like they contributed to mehourly wage, but it it was
different.
It wasn't fulfilling.
So that's how I jumped intoAmazon.
I created several brands, um,some big ones that we're doing
(06:24):
in the millions and some ofthem.
And then a lot of the stuffwe're doing led into having a
3PL for myself and um and allthe people I met at these
conferences.
That's why conferences aregreat.
I met some of my closest friendsin the space I've met at these
conferences.
They were like, hey, I need helpwith warehousing.
So here we go.
Now we have a warehouse.
(06:45):
We have 30 clients and 30,000square feet, and doing these
Amazon brands, doing awarehouse.
Uh, I had to write software uhfor the warehouse to um help
with billing and and track allthe inventories and push stock
numbers back to all theseplatforms.
And uh there wasn't a greatone-stop solution at the time
(07:05):
for software for that.
So all that, and I exited out ofthe uh warehouse after five
years.
Uh I have one brand on Amazon, Ijust use it for testing, but I
kept my software because it waskind of my baby, my thing I made
and a thing I really loved, andwind up I still have an original
client on the software fromseven years ago.
(07:26):
They're still using it today.
SPEAKER_02 (07:28):
Awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (07:28):
That's that's what led into Skew Compass.
SPEAKER_02 (07:31):
Okay, okay.
And I'm excited to dive intothat a little bit more.
However, this is the Firing theMan podcast, and I do want to
dig into your Firing the Manstory.
So you were working for somemajor banks, you had put in 15
years.
Can you tell me about the daythat you decided this is it?
I'm going out on my own and II'm firing the man.
(07:55):
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?
SPEAKER_01 (07:57):
Uh yeah, because this actually led from another
business.
Uh, my wife had a restaurantcatering company, and when we
sold that, uh she was lookingfor something to do uh on the
side, and we're like, well,let's try selling on eBay.
And we tried several differentthings, and one of the things we
sold on eBay were uh camouflagewedding rings of all things.
(08:21):
But the very first month we didthis, we made like$7,000, and
we're like, there's something tothis.
And it was a struggle because westarted doing bundling, and we
can talk about bundling later.
It's actually the reason for thesoftware too.
But when you started matchingmultiple sizes with multiple
men's sizes, ladies' sizes, itgot complicated.
(08:41):
Inventory was a mess.
But that led into, hey, let'stry selling on Amazon.
And then as soon as that pickedup and we started creating a
brand, it took me six monthsfrom that time to say I'm gonna
quit my job in February afterbonuses get paid out.
(09:03):
And then so I gave myself asix-month timeline to make it
make it or break it.
So I have to get this up andgoing by February so I can fire
the man and do my own journey.
So that was that was theprogress, and we hit we hit the
goal.
The goal was to do$25,000 insales by February, and we we
(09:24):
were right there.
And then after that, I mean itwas actually a lot easier when
you're full-time.
SPEAKER_02 (09:29):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Um, well, I I I love that storyand and you know, to our
listeners, one thing I reallylike about it is you you gave
yourself a deadline.
You you drew a line in the sandand said, This is this is when I
want to accomplish this goal.
And and you also defined thedollar amount.
Uh, this is the hurdle that weneed to reach uh before I am
(09:51):
comfortable going out on my own.
And so very uh there's a verymethodical way of going about
it, and there's some goodlessons there that we all can
pull from that.
So yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:01):
As a as an former accountant for you, I'm sure you
really love that.
Get some numbers nailed down.
SPEAKER_02 (10:06):
I do.
I, and it's been well documentedon this podcast.
My my decision to fire the manoriginated in a spreadsheet and
was executed uh by decisionsmade from that spreadsheet.
And so uh it was definitelydefinitely helpful and and
definitely having somethingmeasurable is helpful.
What I found is waiting to leaveuntil you don't have discomfort
(10:31):
isn't a good criteria becausethe discomfort of what if this
doesn't work never really goesaway.
And I'm several years intofiring the man, and I still some
days have that that question ofwhat if this doesn't work.
And so had that been mycriteria, I would still be
working for the man.
SPEAKER_01 (10:48):
And so there's guarantees of working for the
man, but there's there's onlylimited upside.
And I like the unlimited upside.
SPEAKER_02 (10:57):
As do I.
As do I, and and I I couldprobably speak for our listeners
that they they do as well.
So let's talk about the earlydays of the 3PL and what were
some of the issues that you wererunning into that led to the
decision, hey, we need to buildsomething in-house to address
(11:19):
this, which eventually becameSkew Compass.
SPEAKER_01 (11:22):
Yeah.
Early on, you kind of do what ifyou're a products person, what
everybody does.
What stock do I have?
Well, let's go count it.
And that's the stock I have.
And that's okay at a smalllevel, small SKU level.
You can do that.
You can go and just let me lookat the warehouse, let me look in
(11:43):
my garage and see what I've got.
And it's easy.
You that's you plug thosenumbers into something, the
spreadsheet, and that's what itis.
But as far as a warehouse oranybody that's scaling their
brand on multiple channels, likeit's it's every day you're
shipping things out.
So every day the numbers arechanging.
So if you're not accounting forthe numbers changing, you can't
(12:05):
do a once-month count or once aweek count.
You need to know daily whereyou're at.
So in the 3PL world, so I cantell my clients, they need to
know where they're at.
They need to know how much theyhave on the shelf and how much
they're selling to understandwhat to order.
So it was it was a littlechaotic.
Like any business, like you seethe end result, and you're like,
hey, that's a system.
(12:25):
They got some systems, they gotforklifts, they're running
around with pallets, they knowwhat they're doing.
At first, you're just like,where do I stick this box?
How do I know it's here?
How am I going to find it again?
And especially when you startgetting clients that have high
SKU count, you need to knowwhere everything's at.
And we quickly grew out of our5,000 square foot warehouse.
(12:47):
We were adding a container aweek before we moved to a 30,000
square foot warehouse.
It was getting it was getting alittle crazy.
It was we were spending moretime rearranging stock versus
actually doing what we needed todo as a 3PL.
So there was so much coming inthat we had to have a system.
And we found that the othersystems were either outside of
(13:10):
the reach of what we wanted todo for a 3PL.
We didn't want to spend$10,000 amonth on software.
The ones that were in our reach,they didn't account accurately
for like returns or bundling,and there was a lot of
manipulation that needed tohappen that couldn't happen.
So there came the need for thesoftware and then billing and
(13:30):
tracking the boxes.
Like if a customer's got a largeitem, we you know, this box cost
$1.50 versus that 10 cent box.
So we had to push that costback.
SPEAKER_02 (13:39):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And so at some point during thisjourney, you made the decision
that this is this internal toolthat we've built could have some
benefits to people outside ofthe 3PL.
And and you use that as thefoundation for what is now SKU
(13:59):
Compass.
So can you can you talk aboutthat aha moment?
SPEAKER_01 (14:04):
It wasn't too far into the 3PL that we realized
this, or I realized this.
And um I was even on anotherpodcast with another software
that does what we do.
Um you know them well, your youraudience probably knows him
well.
And I was building the warehousethere, building the software at
the same time.
We kind of tandemly were doingthis, and I was just thinking, I
(14:27):
know my software can do this,but it's not my focus.
It's it's really hard when youstart dividing focuses.
And I ran into this problem withAmazon earlier on.
Like I started a brand,successful, another brand is
successful, another brand.
I'm like, okay, all my otherbrands start struggling because
I kept starting things.
So I really got into with the3PL.
I'm not going to start goinginto this process of let's just
(14:50):
start something because I can.
So I put it on the shelf.
Then at some point when weexited that software, um, or not
software, but we exited that3PL, then it became a something
I have time to do this now.
Let's let's we still had aclient on it.
Um the warehouse was using itfor a while.
They switched to somethingdifferent uh for support
(15:12):
reasons, and my original clientwas paying for basically the
server.
So we had a free product and wehad some ground to work with it.
SPEAKER_02 (15:21):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
So I it has been my experiencethat oftentimes inventory
management starts in aspreadsheet.
And there's a a certain pointwhere you outgrow that.
And you know, to our listeners,what are some signs that you are
outgrowing the spreadsheet andwhat are some of the
(15:43):
shortcomings of managinginventory in that way?
SPEAKER_01 (15:48):
There's there's times where a spreadsheet just
makes sense, um, especially whenyou're trying to figure out what
is the what is the thing I wantto track.
You don't want to go out andfind software to figure out what
you want to track sometimesbecause that can get expensive,
time consuming, the setupprocess, all that stuff.
It's kind of good to understandwhat am I looking for and I'm
(16:09):
looking at in a spreadsheet.
And there's nothing wrong withthat.
Almost everybody starts in aspreadsheet because they start
with one skew.
And at one skew, you can almostdo the math in your head on at
early volume.
It's when you start, there'sthere's almost this level of
when you start looking at yourinventory every day or three
(16:30):
times a week, it's probably timefor something different because
you're spending as anentrepreneur, as a person that
knows how to build a business,you're spending your time on
things that aren't growing thebusiness, they're maintaining
the business.
So therein lies the time for asystem.
So I'm not three times a week,four times a week, whatever it
(16:52):
is stopping what I should bedoing, growing the business.
I'm going back to look at myinventory to make sure I have
enough to order.
I I always say to my clients, ifyou are spending more than an
hour a week on inventory, youdon't have the right systems.
Or if if you're spending morethan an hour a week, that means
you're growing at a fast pace.
SPEAKER_02 (17:12):
That is a good, easy criteria to apply.
And I I really like that.
I I I really like that.
In the in the physical productsbusiness, you're you're in the
business selling inventory.
It it is arguably one of themost critical parts of your
business.
SPEAKER_01 (17:29):
100%.
SPEAKER_02 (17:30):
Conversion rate, PPC, none of that matters if you
don't have inventory in stock.
And so I would imagine throughthe 3PL and through dealing with
your clients, you have dealtwith some companies that are
very good at inventory andinventory management and
inventory forecasting.
And you've probably dealt withsome that are not.
(17:51):
And so in the in the AmazonShopify world, what are some
observable best practices thatyou've seen?
And that could be how oftenyou're reordering, that could be
safety stock.
What what are some bestpractices that you've observed?
SPEAKER_01 (18:09):
Uh I think maybe one of the worst practices not
observed is safety stock.
So, like you said, withoutproduct, you have no sales.
So without safety stock andadding in a measurable quantity
of safety stock, so you have iton hand in case something
changes.
If your sales go up, sales godown, it doesn't matter.
(18:31):
You have a built-in time frame.
I have this stock in place so Ican go get what I need for my
manufacturer.
There's so many companies thatcome on and that's not even a
calculation.
It's just what do I have?
Uh it feels like I need toorder, or my manufacturer
minimum quantity is near.
I need to order that.
So and then then you wind up ingetting to overstocking or
(18:54):
understocking because you'rejust trying to meet minimums or
hit reach the levels.
So not having safety stock maybe one of the worst things you
can do.
It's just the insurance.
That's the insurance of yourbusiness.
Something happens, you have thestock, and you can keep selling
without selling, you're notpaying your employees, you're
not paying your your services,things like that.
(19:14):
So that's that's a measurablethat you gotta have.
Um I don't know.
What were the uh no?
SPEAKER_02 (19:22):
That's that that's uh uh really good, and I'd like
to dive in there a little bitmore.
So on on the topic of safetystock, I would say in the
e-commerce ecosystem, a lot ofpeople are ordering from China
or abroad.
Their product is getting on aboat from somewhere.
It's been my experience thatlead time from the time I place
(19:44):
my order to the time it'ssellable is anywhere from 120 to
150 days.
And so when you're thinkingabout safety stock, and of
course there are seasonality andother things that would dictate
this, but is there a a good spotto start?
(20:05):
If someone says, Oh, I waslistening to this podcast with
Randy, I don't have any safetystock, I need to get some, what
would be a good starting spotthere?
SPEAKER_01 (20:14):
It depends on your bank account, really.
Because when you think aboutsafety stock, if you say, and
and the software that we that Ibuilt is measured in days.
So you're selling 10 a day andyou want 30 days, that's 300
units of that skew.
So but you also gotta think, ifI'm doing 30 days and I'm going
(20:37):
from zero to thirty days, all ofa sudden I'm holding the cost of
goods of 30 days of stock.
And that may not be feasible foruh new sellers, small
businesses, like that's that's alot of money.
So starting with something, I 45is where I hey, that's that's a
good spot to be because, likeyou said, if you're ordering
(20:58):
from abroad, uh usually 30 daysto make it and two weeks to
airship if worst case, uh, butit's also another 30 days to sh
air boat it, so that's 60 days.
So almost a minimum of 45 iswhat I suggest on like our
strategy calls I have withanybody that wants to have one.
And anything lower than that, uhyou have maybe an easy way to
(21:23):
get stock.
It's stateside, it's wholesale,things like that.
There's clients that do 90 days,that's because they have the
bank to do it, and theirbusiness is built on products
and they do not want to run out,especially if they're you know
anticipating high fourth quartervolume or Amazon special days,
prime days, things like that.
SPEAKER_02 (21:44):
Okay.
Okay.
So we we we touched on some ofthe best practices.
What have been, and you may havesome good stories here, the
worst.
What are some examples thatyou've seen of just horrible,
atrocious inventory management?
SPEAKER_01 (22:02):
Oh man, it's not having your manufacturer do the
things that are easy.
Sometimes it's it's themanufacturer your box when you
get it in should have the labelon it.
If your manufacturer can'tfigure that out, you just got
the wrong manufacturer.
That's that's like step one.
It's so easy for them to do.
(22:24):
Uh it's to process.
A lot of our um clients that hadmultiple SKUs of variations,
like their shirts or things likethat, where str the manufacturer
struggles to put the rightbarcode in the right thing.
That's a good time to fire yourmanufacturer.
SPEAKER_02 (22:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (22:39):
Find another one.
Because honestly, in when we uhwhen I had um our sunglass and
watch company, we had twomanufacturers for every product.
Always.
Because if one manufacturer,there was always this like up
and down ebb and flow withmanufacturers, like great
product this this this round,and the next round, well, what
(22:59):
what happened?
Did you guys outsource youroutsourcing?
And so we always had we wouldchange our order volume based on
how well the manufacturer wasdoing, and until we had it
figured out, ironed out withthem, they wouldn't get the
order volume back.
So that's a huge like safety netright there.
But not having the box ready togo to send wherever you want to
(23:20):
go, that's huge not havinginventory like that.
Managing a ton of SKUs in Excel,you can't update um your sales
velocity for a hundred skews allthe time correctly.
So that's just like the easyones right there.
SPEAKER_02 (23:36):
Yeah, yeah.
No, I I I think the the commentson on having things ready to go,
that's that's something Iremember in my early days of oh
well, just ship them to my houseand I'll put the barcodes on.
And and you know, I can tell youthere were nights where my wife
(23:56):
and I were up till 2 a.m.
barcoding, and it's a goodexample of working in the
business and not on thebusiness.
And so that's uh I I thinkreally good, uh a really good
criteria for when you'reengaging, when you're getting
pricing.
Um, you know, not just askingwhat's the unit cost, but what's
(24:17):
the unit cost for this being ina box that's case-packed with
barcodes on it?
That's that needs to be part ofthe conversation.
So I think that's a a reallygood pro tip.
So now let's get into the nutsand bolts of SKUCompass.
So for someone that has not usedit, what's the the core
(24:38):
functionality of SKUCompass andhow does it make a seller make
better decisions day to day?
SPEAKER_01 (24:45):
It does sort of what I've been talking about, where
knowing your numbers, if youhave more than one SKU, it it's
doing the calculations for you.
Uh you could be selling one unita day and just think that's
that's what's happening, or youmight be going to one and a half
units a day.
So the difference of that is a50% growth.
(25:05):
And if you don't have the stockfor 50% growth, it's a different
story on your metrics.
And even even leaving off thedecimal point on sales velocity
matters at the lower uh end ofthe spectrum.
When you get to the higher endof the spectrum, like you're
selling a hundred and a hundredpoint two a day, that doesn't
matter.
But if you're down in the lowerspectrum with a new SKU and you
(25:25):
don't have a lot of inventory,it does matter because what you
have to order doesn't go up by10%.
It may go up by 30% or 40%.
So that that matters.
Like those those small numbersmatter, and that's where SKU
Compass comes in, gives you,hey, here's exactly what's
happening.
And then when you onboard, itjust pulls all the SKUs in
(25:46):
automatically and it sets adefault lead time, sets default
um manufacture lead time andsafety stock, and then just does
the calculation for you.
Here's what you need at Amazon,and you can little slider scale
to say, I want 60 days inAmazon.
And Amazon gives you what theywant you to put at Amazon.
And I I put a uh Facebook postout the other day.
(26:09):
It's it's their calculation fortheir inventory storage for
fourth quarter, it nearlytriples.
So what it costs to have apalette uh nearly triples in the
fourth quarter.
So they in some some areas, likeAmazon wants you to fully stock
their warehouses, but itdoesn't, they're not looking at
what it costs.
They don't care what it's goingto cost you.
(26:31):
They want their warehousesstocked so they can ship in two
days.
But that may not always be inthe best interest of the seller.
They may only want 45 days, 60days there.
If they have 60 days of stockthere, they're paying monthly on
their stock to Amazon.
I have one client, they theykeep 35 days there.
They pay next to zero FBAstorage because it's always
(26:54):
cycling.
And they're high volume, andthey're$10,000 a day.
And they're always cycling theirinventory so fast that they're
hardly they're not gettinglong-term storage, they're not
paying FBA storage fees becausethey're just cycling so fast.
I mean, you got to pay inboundsto the story.
SPEAKER_02 (27:11):
Let's talk let's talk specifically Amazon
inventory because it has beenthe I remember when I first
started, you could just ship acontainer in without there's no
inbound placement fees, there'sno capacity restrictions.
Uh it was really the Wild West,and that's changed a lot.
And so good days, man.
SPEAKER_01 (27:31):
Good days.
SPEAKER_02 (27:31):
I know, I know.
I I dream of days where thingswere that simple.
Um and I so for the Amazonsellers listening, what are some
what are some best practices oror what are some things that
they need to be on the lookoutfor as they're navigating a
complicated inventory process?
SPEAKER_01 (27:51):
Yeah, and again, this is so this can be very
broad because you this the thisthe sellers that aren't selling
a ton versus the ones that areselling more different strategy
completely.
But if you're in the middle ofthe road, um there's now
Amazon's got AWD, which isAmazon's warehouse distribution,
and there's a lot of positivewith that.
(28:13):
The fees are very cheap.
It's it's it's very cheapcompared to FBA.
So instead of sending all mystock in FBA, and you don't have
a 3PL, it's good to utilize AWD.
But if you have a 3PL, there's astrategy that me and my other
analysts have been working on.
We haven't had anybody actuallydo it.
(28:35):
Um, but we've like we've we'veworked on the math just in
general, just like it I think itmakes sense uh where having AWD
and a 3PL almost makes sensebecause your 3PL is going to be
cheaper than AWD, but AWD canget the stock into Amazon
faster.
And you don't have those umplacement fees that you have
(28:58):
with moving I got a fly on me.
With moving a 3PL, like thestock from the 3PL, you have to
have those placement fees.
You have to send in a minimum offive cases or whatever it is.
Uh but with doing both, like ifyou have the inventory to split
it up both, you can feed AWDslowly.
And when the time calls for it,we need five cases.
(29:19):
You can ship it in from your3PL, and then you can balance,
load balance both warehouses.
You can really make an impact inlike keeping uh FBA stocked, but
at a lower level where youreduce your FBA fees, and then
all your uh bulk fees are thatare on your big inventory, all
your inventory is in AWD and3PL.
SPEAKER_02 (29:40):
Okay.
Is there so I know on AWDthere's the auto replenishment
and then there's the manualreplenishment.
Is there any recommendationsthere?
SPEAKER_01 (29:55):
I am going to give um my my suggestion and just
take this with a grain of salt.
It's again Amazon's game, andthey are going to want to stock
their warehouses appropriately.
That's the math they're in.
To do two-day shipping fromanywhere is to stock the
warehouses.
(30:16):
Again, that if you do autoreplenishment, they are going to
stock the warehouses to theirlevels and not necessarily to
the levels in which you thinkyou are selling or scaling.
And I had a client on board lastyear, and his his only warehouse
is AWD.
(30:37):
And he came to me, his long-termstorage was forty seven hundred
dollars a month.
And it's because Amazon stockedhim up, FBA, didn't need to.
(31:01):
They just kept stocking FBA, andthe result is he's had forty
seven hundred dollars of longterm.
Storage when he could have leftall that into AWD.
And then when it came on to us,we're just like, we're taking
over manually.
We're not sending anything intoFBA unless it's above the 30-day
mark.
Like we're below 30 days ofstock, then we'll send it in.
(31:21):
So over six months, um, by theend of July, June, we had them
down to like the$1,500 oflong-term storage.
There's other strategies on topof that that you know he wasn't
willing to do, but basically wedidn't add any new long-term
storage because we took a wetook charge of what AWD was
doing.
So that's my suggestion.
SPEAKER_02 (31:42):
Key takeaway is is Amazon, AWD doesn't always act
in in the best interest of yourbottom line.
And uh and there's definitelysome examples that we can point
to there.
On on the topic of long-termstorage fees, I uh it's
something I think if you sell onAmazon long enough you're gonna
run into.
(32:03):
You've got a couple options,right?
You can you can dispose of yourinventory, you can return it to
the seller, you can continue topay long-term storage fees.
When you've got a client in apickle like that, what what are
the things that you're lookingat to make that decision?
SPEAKER_01 (32:21):
On what to do next.
It's sort of um sometimes youjust got a bad product.
And I've had my bad productstoo, and there's time to cut the
ropes, and you can pull yourstock back.
There's there's a uh show, um, Ithink it's Marcus Luttrell, the
Prophet, I think it's his name.
(32:42):
It's on uh CNBC Money orsomething like that.
It's an amazing show where hejust goes in and buys
businesses, but he gets intothese businesses where they have
all this extra stock justsitting in the rafters and
warehouse.
And first thing he does is like,just get rid of this.
So we have the cash flow back.
We have the storage, we have umthe cash back in our pocket.
Sometimes it's okay to cut yourlosses and sell out of something
(33:05):
to get the cash back to reinvestinto what's working.
So if you've got long-termstorage, it's either because you
didn't you mismanaged your FBA,sales changed, or it just wasn't
a good product to start with.
So there's a I mean, ads isalways a thing.
Like if you're not doing ads,you're not gonna get any rank,
you have a bad listing, there'sa lot of things going involved,
but if it's the bad product,it's a bad product.
(33:25):
So sometimes you can cut yourlosses and move on and find a
good product, or you need towork on your listing, work on
your ads to get it visibleagain.
SPEAKER_02 (33:35):
Okay, okay.
On so long-term storage fees isan example of where you you have
a unit that's at Amazon, youneed to decide what to do.
Uh another topic here isreturns.
And I have definitelyexperienced this with my own
customers that they know thatthey can get free returns for 30
(33:59):
or 60 days, and and you know,some people will buy the
product, use the product for 29days and return it.
Uh, some people buy the wrongsize and need to swap it out.
But there's a a decision thatneeds to be made on what do we
do with this?
Do we just allow the customer tokeep it?
Do we return the inventory backinto stock?
(34:22):
Do we what do we do with this?
Do we dispose of it?
Which seems wasteful, butsometimes is the economics of it
make the most sense.
Yeah.
Any as you've worked with withuh clients of of varying um
velocities, have there been anybest practices here that you've
observed?
SPEAKER_01 (34:44):
Uh this is actually an interesting topic because I I
met a guy in um in Seattle atthe Amazon conference, and this
was what his company does islike they help profitability
with um Amazon companies or anyreally products business that
has a high volume of returns.
(35:05):
And he was explaining it to me,and I was like, this is genius,
because there are some recoursethat you can push back to the
customer and Amazon, but youhave to act within, I think, 24
hours of receiving the product.
Like so if your product comesback and you look at the reason
why it came back and is like,oh, um then having shoelaces and
you open the box, take picturesof it, and it has shoelaces on
(35:28):
it, you can go back to thecustomer and say, hey, this is
your return reason.
Uh it does not fit what theactually the problem is.
Would you like a half creditback?
Would you like like what can wedo?
You can actually work with thecustomer on that.
And if the customer doesn't workwith that, you can actually go
back to Amazon and work withthem.
But there is a time limit.
And this may not make sense fora larger seller who's got
(35:52):
low-cost goods that you're gonnahave to wind up paying somebody
to actually do this for you.
If you've got to pay somebody toopen every return and look at it
and decide and you're spendingmore on that person than the
return, then you've got to weighthat cost.
But if you've got a high volumecost item and doing a lot of
volume, it may be worth itbecause your competitors are
(36:12):
sending or your customers aresending back competitor
products, which we've allreceived.
If you sell anything on Amazon,you've received somebody else's
product.
And you know, you gotta look atthat.
Is it is it worth my time?
Is it worth my time to actuallygo after, not go after the
customer, but you know, confrontthem.
Is it worth that?
SPEAKER_02 (36:33):
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely.
Okay.
So we we've talked about a lotof best practices on inventory.
We we've talked about a lot ofscenarios that say an Amazon
seller is going to be runninginto.
Uh taking our conversation backto SkewCompass, what are some
other features here that youthink are are notable or are
(36:56):
something that separates thissoftware from what is
commercially available?
SPEAKER_01 (37:02):
It's really grown uh since, you know, two years ago,
since day one.
Like it's uh in and my idealclients grown too.
Like who best fits StewCompassand it fits everybody, but
there's not everybody has a needfor it.
But it's kind of grown into amulti-channel um source for
(37:24):
pulling in orders and volume andstock and analyzing what's where
and how much is selling so Iknow how much to order.
So as you know, clients grow andthese products business grow
into multi-channels, like weadded Walmart, uh, we have
Shopify, we got WooCommerce, umTeemu actually reached out, they
want to integrate with us.
(37:45):
And then on ShipStation, if anyof the integrations that
ShipStation does, we can uh linkinto and as which is like 80
other platforms.
So we can pull all of that in.
So the clients that have beencoming to us now are ones that
are on multi-channel becausethat's where the huge struggle
is.
Amazon's a struggle by itself,and it helps and it reduces like
(38:07):
overstocking and understockingand running out of stock, things
like that.
But if you're growing intomulti-channel, you've got a
whole other problem.
It becomes another set ofproblems.
Just like Amazon's has its ownset, you now have another set on
all the other platforms.
You gotta have distribution, yougotta have stock, you gotta have
somebody monitor that.
Um so SkewCumbers is helpingthere.
(38:29):
It's really um the one of themain features I added in early
was bundling kits.
Uh with my brand, so I think ourhighest year was like 1.5
million in sales.
40% of that was bundles.
We started bundling everythingtogether, and I think it's
bundling is underutilized in theproducts world.
(38:51):
So we would bundle sunglasses ofthe watch and we'd do a
five-pack, and we would do allkinds of things and just up the
order volume uh from thecustomer.
And when you sell a 10-pack ofsomething, that's a that changes
your velocity if you're notaccounting for that.
And it gets really hard in aspreadsheet.
So then you're constantly doingmath, and that's why like Skew
Compass is it's built for that.
(39:12):
That was one of the baseline uhprogram that I put in there.
And it was really uh the thoughtprocess was behind that was
something I brought in from likehow I did something at the bank.
So brought that in and made itto where it was super simple.
You can bundle till your heart'scontent, and you can push the
stock numbers back to Amazon.
You push the stock numbers backto Shopify, and you don't have
(39:32):
to worry about running out ofstock that way.
SPEAKER_02 (39:35):
I I can tell you from personal experience, adding
I started out Amazon only, andit was when I added in Walmart
and Shopify that my own uhinventory management went
sideways.
And as those have become biggerand bigger components of my
business, that that is continu,you know, I I am now managing
(39:59):
inventory in in multiplelocations and and uh my orders
with suppliers have gotten moredifficult.
And so I I that feature alone isis something that I think sets
apart uh Skew Compass from a lotof different providers out there
that are focused on oneparticular channel, such as
Amazon.
SPEAKER_01 (40:20):
So um Amazon was a hot ticket, hot button thing,
and all these other guys areunless you're uh like top-tier
software and you want to spendthousands of dollars to go with.
So everybody went with Amazon.
SPEAKER_02 (40:34):
Yeah, yeah.
Um now, Randy, if people areinterested in in checking out
Skew Compass, what's the bestway to do that?
SPEAKER_01 (40:42):
You can just go to SkewCompass.com.
Um there'll be a link probablyin this podcast or our video
wherever it's at and to check itout.
And you can the pricing's there.
Uh, I think right now our lowestpricing is just for that
intermediate, like starting outperson,$9.99 a month.
Like it's super simple.
And it scales all the way up touh I think our largest client,
(41:04):
it does over 30, 40 million ayear on the outstanding just
runs.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (41:10):
Definitely definitely something that'll
scale with you.
So outstanding.
Well, this has been a really,really good interview.
Before we wrap up, there'ssomething that we do called the
fire round.
It's four questions we ask everyguest at the end of the at the
end of the interview.
Are you ready?
Hit it.
All right, let's do it.
What is your favorite book?
SPEAKER_01 (41:31):
So the this two-part, right?
Uh non-business book.
It's called Michael Vay.
There's a series, and it's justa good one.
Something I uh got my kids into.
I read uh several times.
So business book, Rich Dad, PoorDad.
SPEAKER_02 (41:46):
That book has changed more lives than uh than
probably any other book on theface of the planet.
SPEAKER_01 (41:52):
So it gets you out of the uh the normal bias
thinking.
SPEAKER_02 (41:57):
I I fully agree with that.
All right, number two, what areyour hobbies?
SPEAKER_01 (42:03):
Hobbies pretty much don't have a lot of hobbies.
Um I have been trying to learngolf.
Um it's more of a frustratinghobby.
But it's I I don't know.
I I think that would be the onlything I'm I've been venturing
into lately is trying to playgolf.
SPEAKER_02 (42:24):
Okay.
What is one thing you do notmiss about working for the man?
SPEAKER_01 (42:30):
Man, the thinking and using my brain for somebody
else that's not beneficial formy family.
SPEAKER_02 (42:42):
Absolutely.
I agree with that one.
And final question (42:44):
what do you think sets apart successful
entrepreneurs from those whogive up, fail, or never get
started?
SPEAKER_01 (42:55):
The ones that are doing well, they just went out
and did it.
There's a there's a quote fromMatthew McConaughey that says,
if you're gonna do it, do it.
Just go out and do what you wantto do.
And if you fall short of doingit, then and stop, that's you're
not gonna be successful.
The world's not gonna make yousuccessful because you want to
(43:16):
be.
It's it's because you're tryingto be successful.
Outstanding.
SPEAKER_02 (43:21):
Outstanding.
Well, Randy, this has been areally good interview to our
audience.
I'm gonna post links uh toRandy's social media as well as
Skew Compass's social media.
Be sure to check them out.
And Randy, looking forward tostaying in touch.
Appreciate it, brother.
Welcome everyone to the Firing the Man Podcast, a
show for anyone who wants to betheir own boss.
If you sit in a cubicle everyday and know you are capable of
more, then join us.
This show will help you build abusiness and grow your passive
income stream in just a fewshort hours per day.
And now your hosts, serialentrepreneurs David Schoma and
(01:29):
Ken Wilson.
SPEAKER_02 (01:34):
Welcome back to another episode of Firing the
Man Podcast.
Today I'm excited to introduceRandy Tebow, the creator of Skew
Compass, an inventory managementsoftware built to solve one of
the biggest headaches ine-commerce, keeping your
products in stock, your cashflow healthy, and your business
(01:54):
running efficiently.
Randy knows firsthand the painof juggling stock-outs over
stocks and the constantguesswork that eats into profit.
Instead of settling for outdatedtools, he set out to build Skew
Compass, a solution designedspecifically for entrepreneurs
who want clarity, control, andconfidence in their inventory
(02:16):
decisions.
In this conversation, we'll diveinto Randy's journey, the key
features that set Skew Compassapart, and how it can completely
change the way you manageinventory and scale your
business.
Randy, welcome to the show.
Hey, buddy.
I'm glad to be here.
Absolutely.
Absolutely glad to be.
I got to share with the audiencea lot of the people that I know
(02:38):
in e-commerce, I have met in aZoom meeting or through email.
Uh, you're one of the rarepeople I have met in the wild.
Uh we had lunch in person theother day, and and it was
refreshing.
It was really refreshing.
What did you think?
SPEAKER_01 (02:52):
It it is strange.
I mean, both of us live inMissouri, so it is strange to
think how there's there's peopledoing real things uh in the same
state.
SPEAKER_02 (03:01):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And of course, the conversationtoday is going to be geared
around Skew Compass, but when wehad last talked, you were just
go you were about to leave forAmazon Accelerate, is that
right?
SPEAKER_01 (03:16):
Yeah, so that was about a week and a half ago at
that time.
How was it?
So it's good, man.
I I went to Amazon Accelerateand I went to the month earlier
uh to the Walmart seller summitum that they had in San Diego as
well.
And then it's so interesting.
Uh Walmart's trying to keep upwith Amazon, but Amazon is still
ten times way further ahead ofWalmart right now.
(03:38):
But man, you meet so many coolpeople doing the same things.
You meet a lot of other agenciesthat are just um trying to make
the world a better place forsellers, and you you meet the
spectrum of sellers, the onesthat are struggling um and about
to lose everything if they don'tfigure it out, and the ones that
are doing billion dollars.
So it's it's kind ofinteresting.
I loved it.
SPEAKER_02 (03:58):
Well, very good, very good.
That was one of thoseconferences that was on my
radar.
I wasn't quite sure, but hearingthe positive experience you had,
I think definitely gonna have toadd it to the calendar next
year.
SPEAKER_01 (04:09):
So it's uh it's kind of a no-miss thing if you want
to meet people in your space.
SPEAKER_02 (04:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
So, well, let's get into theinterview.
So, Randy, you you've worn manyhats.
You were a senior analyst atsome major banks, you've been an
entrepreneur, you've been anAmazon seller, a 3PL operator.
Can you walk us through thatjourney and how those
experiences shape the creationof Skew Compass?
SPEAKER_01 (04:35):
Yes, it's funny that uh in most people's journey, it
is a stepping stone to whereyou're at.
Uh, you can trace back how yougot there fairly easy, and and
that's kind of my story.
It's it's just all along theway, every little job you did
kind of led into what you'redoing now.
Um, it's just very helpful.
(04:55):
Uh I I've been a programmersince I I remember uh my dad
taking the computer out of thebox when I was 13 from Walmart,
and this was in the 90s.
And I I actually think aboutthis quite a bit because it was
so interesting.
Like he took this computer outof the box and I wasn't allowed
to touch it until my olderbrother got to do what he wanted
(05:15):
to do, and then I could touchit, and it just felt good.
It just felt like it was right.
So I've been programming since Iwas 13.
Like it's a thing that I I lovedoing.
Uh I don't know uh I'mself-proclaimed good at it.
Like I think I'm good at it.
So but it's been doing it eversince.
Um, had a knack for it, had aknack for spreadsheets and
(05:36):
formulas, um, and that led intosome just jobs with um uh MCI,
which was the largest bankruptcyin the the country, or maybe
world, um, and then into uh acouple of the big banks.
I worked for them for 15 yearsdoing programming, analytics,
um, statistics, um, dataanalysis.
And then I just like really kindof got tired of doing it.
(06:01):
Like basically, as your podcastsays, working for the man.
It was straining my brain to dothis all day long for um an
entity that wasn't contributingto me.
Like they contributed to mehourly wage, but it it was
different.
It wasn't fulfilling.
So that's how I jumped intoAmazon.
I created several brands, um,some big ones that we're doing
(06:24):
in the millions and some ofthem.
And then a lot of the stuffwe're doing led into having a
3PL for myself and um and allthe people I met at these
conferences.
That's why conferences aregreat.
I met some of my closest friendsin the space I've met at these
conferences.
They were like, hey, I need helpwith warehousing.
So here we go.
Now we have a warehouse.
(06:45):
We have 30 clients and 30,000square feet, and doing these
Amazon brands, doing awarehouse.
Uh, I had to write software uhfor the warehouse to um help
with billing and and track allthe inventories and push stock
numbers back to all theseplatforms.
And uh there wasn't a greatone-stop solution at the time
(07:05):
for software for that.
So all that, and I exited out ofthe uh warehouse after five
years.
Uh I have one brand on Amazon, Ijust use it for testing, but I
kept my software because it waskind of my baby, my thing I made
and a thing I really loved, andwind up I still have an original
client on the software fromseven years ago.
(07:26):
They're still using it today.
SPEAKER_02 (07:28):
Awesome.
SPEAKER_01 (07:28):
That's that's what led into Skew Compass.
SPEAKER_02 (07:31):
Okay, okay.
And I'm excited to dive intothat a little bit more.
However, this is the Firing theMan podcast, and I do want to
dig into your Firing the Manstory.
So you were working for somemajor banks, you had put in 15
years.
Can you tell me about the daythat you decided this is it?
I'm going out on my own and II'm firing the man.
(07:55):
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?
SPEAKER_01 (07:57):
Uh yeah, because this actually led from another
business.
Uh, my wife had a restaurantcatering company, and when we
sold that, uh she was lookingfor something to do uh on the
side, and we're like, well,let's try selling on eBay.
And we tried several differentthings, and one of the things we
sold on eBay were uh camouflagewedding rings of all things.
(08:21):
But the very first month we didthis, we made like$7,000, and
we're like, there's something tothis.
And it was a struggle because westarted doing bundling, and we
can talk about bundling later.
It's actually the reason for thesoftware too.
But when you started matchingmultiple sizes with multiple
men's sizes, ladies' sizes, itgot complicated.
(08:41):
Inventory was a mess.
But that led into, hey, let'stry selling on Amazon.
And then as soon as that pickedup and we started creating a
brand, it took me six monthsfrom that time to say I'm gonna
quit my job in February afterbonuses get paid out.
(09:03):
And then so I gave myself asix-month timeline to make it
make it or break it.
So I have to get this up andgoing by February so I can fire
the man and do my own journey.
So that was that was theprogress, and we hit we hit the
goal.
The goal was to do$25,000 insales by February, and we we
(09:24):
were right there.
And then after that, I mean itwas actually a lot easier when
you're full-time.
SPEAKER_02 (09:29):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Um, well, I I I love that storyand and you know, to our
listeners, one thing I reallylike about it is you you gave
yourself a deadline.
You you drew a line in the sandand said, This is this is when I
want to accomplish this goal.
And and you also defined thedollar amount.
Uh, this is the hurdle that weneed to reach uh before I am
(09:51):
comfortable going out on my own.
And so very uh there's a verymethodical way of going about
it, and there's some goodlessons there that we all can
pull from that.
So yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (10:01):
As a as an former accountant for you, I'm sure you
really love that.
Get some numbers nailed down.
SPEAKER_02 (10:06):
I do.
I, and it's been well documentedon this podcast.
My my decision to fire the manoriginated in a spreadsheet and
was executed uh by decisionsmade from that spreadsheet.
And so uh it was definitelydefinitely helpful and and
definitely having somethingmeasurable is helpful.
What I found is waiting to leaveuntil you don't have discomfort
(10:31):
isn't a good criteria becausethe discomfort of what if this
doesn't work never really goesaway.
And I'm several years intofiring the man, and I still some
days have that that question ofwhat if this doesn't work.
And so had that been mycriteria, I would still be
working for the man.
SPEAKER_01 (10:48):
And so there's guarantees of working for the
man, but there's there's onlylimited upside.
And I like the unlimited upside.
SPEAKER_02 (10:57):
As do I.
As do I, and and I I couldprobably speak for our listeners
that they they do as well.
So let's talk about the earlydays of the 3PL and what were
some of the issues that you wererunning into that led to the
decision, hey, we need to buildsomething in-house to address
(11:19):
this, which eventually becameSkew Compass.
SPEAKER_01 (11:22):
Yeah.
Early on, you kind of do what ifyou're a products person, what
everybody does.
What stock do I have?
Well, let's go count it.
And that's the stock I have.
And that's okay at a smalllevel, small SKU level.
You can do that.
You can go and just let me lookat the warehouse, let me look in
(11:43):
my garage and see what I've got.
And it's easy.
You that's you plug thosenumbers into something, the
spreadsheet, and that's what itis.
But as far as a warehouse oranybody that's scaling their
brand on multiple channels, likeit's it's every day you're
shipping things out.
So every day the numbers arechanging.
So if you're not accounting forthe numbers changing, you can't
(12:05):
do a once-month count or once aweek count.
You need to know daily whereyou're at.
So in the 3PL world, so I cantell my clients, they need to
know where they're at.
They need to know how much theyhave on the shelf and how much
they're selling to understandwhat to order.
So it was it was a littlechaotic.
Like any business, like you seethe end result, and you're like,
hey, that's a system.
(12:25):
They got some systems, they gotforklifts, they're running
around with pallets, they knowwhat they're doing.
At first, you're just like,where do I stick this box?
How do I know it's here?
How am I going to find it again?
And especially when you startgetting clients that have high
SKU count, you need to knowwhere everything's at.
And we quickly grew out of our5,000 square foot warehouse.
(12:47):
We were adding a container aweek before we moved to a 30,000
square foot warehouse.
It was getting it was getting alittle crazy.
It was we were spending moretime rearranging stock versus
actually doing what we needed todo as a 3PL.
So there was so much coming inthat we had to have a system.
And we found that the othersystems were either outside of
(13:10):
the reach of what we wanted todo for a 3PL.
We didn't want to spend$10,000 amonth on software.
The ones that were in our reach,they didn't account accurately
for like returns or bundling,and there was a lot of
manipulation that needed tohappen that couldn't happen.
So there came the need for thesoftware and then billing and
(13:30):
tracking the boxes.
Like if a customer's got a largeitem, we you know, this box cost
$1.50 versus that 10 cent box.
So we had to push that costback.
SPEAKER_02 (13:39):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And so at some point during thisjourney, you made the decision
that this is this internal toolthat we've built could have some
benefits to people outside ofthe 3PL.
And and you use that as thefoundation for what is now SKU
(13:59):
Compass.
So can you can you talk aboutthat aha moment?
SPEAKER_01 (14:04):
It wasn't too far into the 3PL that we realized
this, or I realized this.
And um I was even on anotherpodcast with another software
that does what we do.
Um you know them well, your youraudience probably knows him
well.
And I was building the warehousethere, building the software at
the same time.
We kind of tandemly were doingthis, and I was just thinking, I
(14:27):
know my software can do this,but it's not my focus.
It's it's really hard when youstart dividing focuses.
And I ran into this problem withAmazon earlier on.
Like I started a brand,successful, another brand is
successful, another brand.
I'm like, okay, all my otherbrands start struggling because
I kept starting things.
So I really got into with the3PL.
I'm not going to start goinginto this process of let's just
(14:50):
start something because I can.
So I put it on the shelf.
Then at some point when weexited that software, um, or not
software, but we exited that3PL, then it became a something
I have time to do this now.
Let's let's we still had aclient on it.
Um the warehouse was using itfor a while.
They switched to somethingdifferent uh for support
(15:12):
reasons, and my original clientwas paying for basically the
server.
So we had a free product and wehad some ground to work with it.
SPEAKER_02 (15:21):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
So I it has been my experiencethat oftentimes inventory
management starts in aspreadsheet.
And there's a a certain pointwhere you outgrow that.
And you know, to our listeners,what are some signs that you are
outgrowing the spreadsheet andwhat are some of the
(15:43):
shortcomings of managinginventory in that way?
SPEAKER_01 (15:48):
There's there's times where a spreadsheet just
makes sense, um, especially whenyou're trying to figure out what
is the what is the thing I wantto track.
You don't want to go out andfind software to figure out what
you want to track sometimesbecause that can get expensive,
time consuming, the setupprocess, all that stuff.
It's kind of good to understandwhat am I looking for and I'm
(16:09):
looking at in a spreadsheet.
And there's nothing wrong withthat.
Almost everybody starts in aspreadsheet because they start
with one skew.
And at one skew, you can almostdo the math in your head on at
early volume.
It's when you start, there'sthere's almost this level of
when you start looking at yourinventory every day or three
(16:30):
times a week, it's probably timefor something different because
you're spending as anentrepreneur, as a person that
knows how to build a business,you're spending your time on
things that aren't growing thebusiness, they're maintaining
the business.
So therein lies the time for asystem.
So I'm not three times a week,four times a week, whatever it
(16:52):
is stopping what I should bedoing, growing the business.
I'm going back to look at myinventory to make sure I have
enough to order.
I I always say to my clients, ifyou are spending more than an
hour a week on inventory, youdon't have the right systems.
Or if if you're spending morethan an hour a week, that means
you're growing at a fast pace.
SPEAKER_02 (17:12):
That is a good, easy criteria to apply.
And I I really like that.
I I I really like that.
In the in the physical productsbusiness, you're you're in the
business selling inventory.
It it is arguably one of themost critical parts of your
business.
SPEAKER_01 (17:29):
100%.
SPEAKER_02 (17:30):
Conversion rate, PPC, none of that matters if you
don't have inventory in stock.
And so I would imagine throughthe 3PL and through dealing with
your clients, you have dealtwith some companies that are
very good at inventory andinventory management and
inventory forecasting.
And you've probably dealt withsome that are not.
(17:51):
And so in the in the AmazonShopify world, what are some
observable best practices thatyou've seen?
And that could be how oftenyou're reordering, that could be
safety stock.
What what are some bestpractices that you've observed?
SPEAKER_01 (18:09):
Uh I think maybe one of the worst practices not
observed is safety stock.
So, like you said, withoutproduct, you have no sales.
So without safety stock andadding in a measurable quantity
of safety stock, so you have iton hand in case something
changes.
If your sales go up, sales godown, it doesn't matter.
(18:31):
You have a built-in time frame.
I have this stock in place so Ican go get what I need for my
manufacturer.
There's so many companies thatcome on and that's not even a
calculation.
It's just what do I have?
Uh it feels like I need toorder, or my manufacturer
minimum quantity is near.
I need to order that.
So and then then you wind up ingetting to overstocking or
(18:54):
understocking because you'rejust trying to meet minimums or
hit reach the levels.
So not having safety stock maybe one of the worst things you
can do.
It's just the insurance.
That's the insurance of yourbusiness.
Something happens, you have thestock, and you can keep selling
without selling, you're notpaying your employees, you're
not paying your your services,things like that.
(19:14):
So that's that's a measurablethat you gotta have.
Um I don't know.
What were the uh no?
SPEAKER_02 (19:22):
That's that that's uh uh really good, and I'd like
to dive in there a little bitmore.
So on on the topic of safetystock, I would say in the
e-commerce ecosystem, a lot ofpeople are ordering from China
or abroad.
Their product is getting on aboat from somewhere.
It's been my experience thatlead time from the time I place
(19:44):
my order to the time it'ssellable is anywhere from 120 to
150 days.
And so when you're thinkingabout safety stock, and of
course there are seasonality andother things that would dictate
this, but is there a a good spotto start?
(20:05):
If someone says, Oh, I waslistening to this podcast with
Randy, I don't have any safetystock, I need to get some, what
would be a good starting spotthere?
SPEAKER_01 (20:14):
It depends on your bank account, really.
Because when you think aboutsafety stock, if you say, and
and the software that we that Ibuilt is measured in days.
So you're selling 10 a day andyou want 30 days, that's 300
units of that skew.
So but you also gotta think, ifI'm doing 30 days and I'm going
(20:37):
from zero to thirty days, all ofa sudden I'm holding the cost of
goods of 30 days of stock.
And that may not be feasible foruh new sellers, small
businesses, like that's that's alot of money.
So starting with something, I 45is where I hey, that's that's a
good spot to be because, likeyou said, if you're ordering
(20:58):
from abroad, uh usually 30 daysto make it and two weeks to
airship if worst case, uh, butit's also another 30 days to sh
air boat it, so that's 60 days.
So almost a minimum of 45 iswhat I suggest on like our
strategy calls I have withanybody that wants to have one.
And anything lower than that, uhyou have maybe an easy way to
(21:23):
get stock.
It's stateside, it's wholesale,things like that.
There's clients that do 90 days,that's because they have the
bank to do it, and theirbusiness is built on products
and they do not want to run out,especially if they're you know
anticipating high fourth quartervolume or Amazon special days,
prime days, things like that.
SPEAKER_02 (21:44):
Okay.
Okay.
So we we we touched on some ofthe best practices.
What have been, and you may havesome good stories here, the
worst.
What are some examples thatyou've seen of just horrible,
atrocious inventory management?
SPEAKER_01 (22:02):
Oh man, it's not having your manufacturer do the
things that are easy.
Sometimes it's it's themanufacturer your box when you
get it in should have the labelon it.
If your manufacturer can'tfigure that out, you just got
the wrong manufacturer.
That's that's like step one.
It's so easy for them to do.
(22:24):
Uh it's to process.
A lot of our um clients that hadmultiple SKUs of variations,
like their shirts or things likethat, where str the manufacturer
struggles to put the rightbarcode in the right thing.
That's a good time to fire yourmanufacturer.
SPEAKER_02 (22:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (22:39):
Find another one.
Because honestly, in when we uhwhen I had um our sunglass and
watch company, we had twomanufacturers for every product.
Always.
Because if one manufacturer,there was always this like up
and down ebb and flow withmanufacturers, like great
product this this this round,and the next round, well, what
(22:59):
what happened?
Did you guys outsource youroutsourcing?
And so we always had we wouldchange our order volume based on
how well the manufacturer wasdoing, and until we had it
figured out, ironed out withthem, they wouldn't get the
order volume back.
So that's a huge like safety netright there.
But not having the box ready togo to send wherever you want to
(23:20):
go, that's huge not havinginventory like that.
Managing a ton of SKUs in Excel,you can't update um your sales
velocity for a hundred skews allthe time correctly.
So that's just like the easyones right there.
SPEAKER_02 (23:36):
Yeah, yeah.
No, I I I think the the commentson on having things ready to go,
that's that's something Iremember in my early days of oh
well, just ship them to my houseand I'll put the barcodes on.
And and you know, I can tell youthere were nights where my wife
(23:56):
and I were up till 2 a.m.
barcoding, and it's a goodexample of working in the
business and not on thebusiness.
And so that's uh I I thinkreally good, uh a really good
criteria for when you'reengaging, when you're getting
pricing.
Um, you know, not just askingwhat's the unit cost, but what's
(24:17):
the unit cost for this being ina box that's case-packed with
barcodes on it?
That's that needs to be part ofthe conversation.
So I think that's a a reallygood pro tip.
So now let's get into the nutsand bolts of SKUCompass.
So for someone that has not usedit, what's the the core
(24:38):
functionality of SKUCompass andhow does it make a seller make
better decisions day to day?
SPEAKER_01 (24:45):
It does sort of what I've been talking about, where
knowing your numbers, if youhave more than one SKU, it it's
doing the calculations for you.
Uh you could be selling one unita day and just think that's
that's what's happening, or youmight be going to one and a half
units a day.
So the difference of that is a50% growth.
(25:05):
And if you don't have the stockfor 50% growth, it's a different
story on your metrics.
And even even leaving off thedecimal point on sales velocity
matters at the lower uh end ofthe spectrum.
When you get to the higher endof the spectrum, like you're
selling a hundred and a hundredpoint two a day, that doesn't
matter.
But if you're down in the lowerspectrum with a new SKU and you
(25:25):
don't have a lot of inventory,it does matter because what you
have to order doesn't go up by10%.
It may go up by 30% or 40%.
So that that matters.
Like those those small numbersmatter, and that's where SKU
Compass comes in, gives you,hey, here's exactly what's
happening.
And then when you onboard, itjust pulls all the SKUs in
(25:46):
automatically and it sets adefault lead time, sets default
um manufacture lead time andsafety stock, and then just does
the calculation for you.
Here's what you need at Amazon,and you can little slider scale
to say, I want 60 days inAmazon.
And Amazon gives you what theywant you to put at Amazon.
And I I put a uh Facebook postout the other day.
(26:09):
It's it's their calculation fortheir inventory storage for
fourth quarter, it nearlytriples.
So what it costs to have apalette uh nearly triples in the
fourth quarter.
So they in some some areas, likeAmazon wants you to fully stock
their warehouses, but itdoesn't, they're not looking at
what it costs.
They don't care what it's goingto cost you.
(26:31):
They want their warehousesstocked so they can ship in two
days.
But that may not always be inthe best interest of the seller.
They may only want 45 days, 60days there.
If they have 60 days of stockthere, they're paying monthly on
their stock to Amazon.
I have one client, they theykeep 35 days there.
They pay next to zero FBAstorage because it's always
(26:54):
cycling.
And they're high volume, andthey're$10,000 a day.
And they're always cycling theirinventory so fast that they're
hardly they're not gettinglong-term storage, they're not
paying FBA storage fees becausethey're just cycling so fast.
I mean, you got to pay inboundsto the story.
SPEAKER_02 (27:11):
Let's talk let's talk specifically Amazon
inventory because it has beenthe I remember when I first
started, you could just ship acontainer in without there's no
inbound placement fees, there'sno capacity restrictions.
Uh it was really the Wild West,and that's changed a lot.
And so good days, man.
SPEAKER_01 (27:31):
Good days.
SPEAKER_02 (27:31):
I know, I know.
I I dream of days where thingswere that simple.
Um and I so for the Amazonsellers listening, what are some
what are some best practices oror what are some things that
they need to be on the lookoutfor as they're navigating a
complicated inventory process?
SPEAKER_01 (27:51):
Yeah, and again, this is so this can be very
broad because you this the thisthe sellers that aren't selling
a ton versus the ones that areselling more different strategy
completely.
But if you're in the middle ofthe road, um there's now
Amazon's got AWD, which isAmazon's warehouse distribution,
and there's a lot of positivewith that.
(28:13):
The fees are very cheap.
It's it's it's very cheapcompared to FBA.
So instead of sending all mystock in FBA, and you don't have
a 3PL, it's good to utilize AWD.
But if you have a 3PL, there's astrategy that me and my other
analysts have been working on.
We haven't had anybody actuallydo it.
(28:35):
Um, but we've like we've we'veworked on the math just in
general, just like it I think itmakes sense uh where having AWD
and a 3PL almost makes sensebecause your 3PL is going to be
cheaper than AWD, but AWD canget the stock into Amazon
faster.
And you don't have those umplacement fees that you have
(28:58):
with moving I got a fly on me.
With moving a 3PL, like thestock from the 3PL, you have to
have those placement fees.
You have to send in a minimum offive cases or whatever it is.
Uh but with doing both, like ifyou have the inventory to split
it up both, you can feed AWDslowly.
And when the time calls for it,we need five cases.
(29:19):
You can ship it in from your3PL, and then you can balance,
load balance both warehouses.
You can really make an impact inlike keeping uh FBA stocked, but
at a lower level where youreduce your FBA fees, and then
all your uh bulk fees are thatare on your big inventory, all
your inventory is in AWD and3PL.
SPEAKER_02 (29:40):
Okay.
Is there so I know on AWDthere's the auto replenishment
and then there's the manualreplenishment.
Is there any recommendationsthere?
SPEAKER_01 (29:55):
I am going to give um my my suggestion and just
take this with a grain of salt.
It's again Amazon's game, andthey are going to want to stock
their warehouses appropriately.
That's the math they're in.
To do two-day shipping fromanywhere is to stock the
warehouses.
(30:16):
Again, that if you do autoreplenishment, they are going to
stock the warehouses to theirlevels and not necessarily to
the levels in which you thinkyou are selling or scaling.
And I had a client on board lastyear, and his his only warehouse
is AWD.
(30:37):
And he came to me, his long-termstorage was forty seven hundred
dollars a month.
And it's because Amazon stockedhim up, FBA, didn't need to.
(31:01):
They just kept stocking FBA, andthe result is he's had forty
seven hundred dollars of longterm.
Storage when he could have leftall that into AWD.
And then when it came on to us,we're just like, we're taking
over manually.
We're not sending anything intoFBA unless it's above the 30-day
mark.
Like we're below 30 days ofstock, then we'll send it in.
(31:21):
So over six months, um, by theend of July, June, we had them
down to like the$1,500 oflong-term storage.
There's other strategies on topof that that you know he wasn't
willing to do, but basically wedidn't add any new long-term
storage because we took a wetook charge of what AWD was
doing.
So that's my suggestion.
SPEAKER_02 (31:42):
Key takeaway is is Amazon, AWD doesn't always act
in in the best interest of yourbottom line.
And uh and there's definitelysome examples that we can point
to there.
On on the topic of long-termstorage fees, I uh it's
something I think if you sell onAmazon long enough you're gonna
run into.
(32:03):
You've got a couple options,right?
You can you can dispose of yourinventory, you can return it to
the seller, you can continue topay long-term storage fees.
When you've got a client in apickle like that, what what are
the things that you're lookingat to make that decision?
SPEAKER_01 (32:21):
On what to do next.
It's sort of um sometimes youjust got a bad product.
And I've had my bad productstoo, and there's time to cut the
ropes, and you can pull yourstock back.
There's there's a uh show, um, Ithink it's Marcus Luttrell, the
Prophet, I think it's his name.
(32:42):
It's on uh CNBC Money orsomething like that.
It's an amazing show where hejust goes in and buys
businesses, but he gets intothese businesses where they have
all this extra stock justsitting in the rafters and
warehouse.
And first thing he does is like,just get rid of this.
So we have the cash flow back.
We have the storage, we have umthe cash back in our pocket.
Sometimes it's okay to cut yourlosses and sell out of something
(33:05):
to get the cash back to reinvestinto what's working.
So if you've got long-termstorage, it's either because you
didn't you mismanaged your FBA,sales changed, or it just wasn't
a good product to start with.
So there's a I mean, ads isalways a thing.
Like if you're not doing ads,you're not gonna get any rank,
you have a bad listing, there'sa lot of things going involved,
but if it's the bad product,it's a bad product.
(33:25):
So sometimes you can cut yourlosses and move on and find a
good product, or you need towork on your listing, work on
your ads to get it visibleagain.
SPEAKER_02 (33:35):
Okay, okay.
On so long-term storage fees isan example of where you you have
a unit that's at Amazon, youneed to decide what to do.
Uh another topic here isreturns.
And I have definitelyexperienced this with my own
customers that they know thatthey can get free returns for 30
(33:59):
or 60 days, and and you know,some people will buy the
product, use the product for 29days and return it.
Uh, some people buy the wrongsize and need to swap it out.
But there's a a decision thatneeds to be made on what do we
do with this?
Do we just allow the customer tokeep it?
Do we return the inventory backinto stock?
(34:22):
Do we what do we do with this?
Do we dispose of it?
Which seems wasteful, butsometimes is the economics of it
make the most sense.
Yeah.
Any as you've worked with withuh clients of of varying um
velocities, have there been anybest practices here that you've
observed?
SPEAKER_01 (34:44):
Uh this is actually an interesting topic because I I
met a guy in um in Seattle atthe Amazon conference, and this
was what his company does islike they help profitability
with um Amazon companies or anyreally products business that
has a high volume of returns.
(35:05):
And he was explaining it to me,and I was like, this is genius,
because there are some recoursethat you can push back to the
customer and Amazon, but youhave to act within, I think, 24
hours of receiving the product.
Like so if your product comesback and you look at the reason
why it came back and is like,oh, um then having shoelaces and
you open the box, take picturesof it, and it has shoelaces on
(35:28):
it, you can go back to thecustomer and say, hey, this is
your return reason.
Uh it does not fit what theactually the problem is.
Would you like a half creditback?
Would you like like what can wedo?
You can actually work with thecustomer on that.
And if the customer doesn't workwith that, you can actually go
back to Amazon and work withthem.
But there is a time limit.
And this may not make sense fora larger seller who's got
(35:52):
low-cost goods that you're gonnahave to wind up paying somebody
to actually do this for you.
If you've got to pay somebody toopen every return and look at it
and decide and you're spendingmore on that person than the
return, then you've got to weighthat cost.
But if you've got a high volumecost item and doing a lot of
volume, it may be worth itbecause your competitors are
(36:12):
sending or your customers aresending back competitor
products, which we've allreceived.
If you sell anything on Amazon,you've received somebody else's
product.
And you know, you gotta look atthat.
Is it is it worth my time?
Is it worth my time to actuallygo after, not go after the
customer, but you know, confrontthem.
Is it worth that?
SPEAKER_02 (36:33):
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely.
Okay.
So we we've talked about a lotof best practices on inventory.
We we've talked about a lot ofscenarios that say an Amazon
seller is going to be runninginto.
Uh taking our conversation backto SkewCompass, what are some
other features here that youthink are are notable or are
(36:56):
something that separates thissoftware from what is
commercially available?
SPEAKER_01 (37:02):
It's really grown uh since, you know, two years ago,
since day one.
Like it's uh in and my idealclients grown too.
Like who best fits StewCompassand it fits everybody, but
there's not everybody has a needfor it.
But it's kind of grown into amulti-channel um source for
(37:24):
pulling in orders and volume andstock and analyzing what's where
and how much is selling so Iknow how much to order.
So as you know, clients grow andthese products business grow
into multi-channels, like weadded Walmart, uh, we have
Shopify, we got WooCommerce, umTeemu actually reached out, they
want to integrate with us.
(37:45):
And then on ShipStation, if anyof the integrations that
ShipStation does, we can uh linkinto and as which is like 80
other platforms.
So we can pull all of that in.
So the clients that have beencoming to us now are ones that
are on multi-channel becausethat's where the huge struggle
is.
Amazon's a struggle by itself,and it helps and it reduces like
(38:07):
overstocking and understockingand running out of stock, things
like that.
But if you're growing intomulti-channel, you've got a
whole other problem.
It becomes another set ofproblems.
Just like Amazon's has its ownset, you now have another set on
all the other platforms.
You gotta have distribution, yougotta have stock, you gotta have
somebody monitor that.
Um so SkewCumbers is helpingthere.
(38:29):
It's really um the one of themain features I added in early
was bundling kits.
Uh with my brand, so I think ourhighest year was like 1.5
million in sales.
40% of that was bundles.
We started bundling everythingtogether, and I think it's
bundling is underutilized in theproducts world.
(38:51):
So we would bundle sunglasses ofthe watch and we'd do a
five-pack, and we would do allkinds of things and just up the
order volume uh from thecustomer.
And when you sell a 10-pack ofsomething, that's a that changes
your velocity if you're notaccounting for that.
And it gets really hard in aspreadsheet.
So then you're constantly doingmath, and that's why like Skew
Compass is it's built for that.
(39:12):
That was one of the baseline uhprogram that I put in there.
And it was really uh the thoughtprocess was behind that was
something I brought in from likehow I did something at the bank.
So brought that in and made itto where it was super simple.
You can bundle till your heart'scontent, and you can push the
stock numbers back to Amazon.
You push the stock numbers backto Shopify, and you don't have
(39:32):
to worry about running out ofstock that way.
SPEAKER_02 (39:35):
I I can tell you from personal experience, adding
I started out Amazon only, andit was when I added in Walmart
and Shopify that my own uhinventory management went
sideways.
And as those have become biggerand bigger components of my
business, that that is continu,you know, I I am now managing
(39:59):
inventory in in multiplelocations and and uh my orders
with suppliers have gotten moredifficult.
And so I I that feature alone isis something that I think sets
apart uh Skew Compass from a lotof different providers out there
that are focused on oneparticular channel, such as
Amazon.
SPEAKER_01 (40:20):
So um Amazon was a hot ticket, hot button thing,
and all these other guys areunless you're uh like top-tier
software and you want to spendthousands of dollars to go with.
So everybody went with Amazon.
SPEAKER_02 (40:34):
Yeah, yeah.
Um now, Randy, if people areinterested in in checking out
Skew Compass, what's the bestway to do that?
SPEAKER_01 (40:42):
You can just go to SkewCompass.com.
Um there'll be a link probablyin this podcast or our video
wherever it's at and to check itout.
And you can the pricing's there.
Uh, I think right now our lowestpricing is just for that
intermediate, like starting outperson,$9.99 a month.
Like it's super simple.
And it scales all the way up touh I think our largest client,
(41:04):
it does over 30, 40 million ayear on the outstanding just
runs.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (41:10):
Definitely definitely something that'll
scale with you.
So outstanding.
Well, this has been a really,really good interview.
Before we wrap up, there'ssomething that we do called the
fire round.
It's four questions we ask everyguest at the end of the at the
end of the interview.
Are you ready?
Hit it.
All right, let's do it.
What is your favorite book?
SPEAKER_01 (41:31):
So the this two-part, right?
Uh non-business book.
It's called Michael Vay.
There's a series, and it's justa good one.
Something I uh got my kids into.
I read uh several times.
So business book, Rich Dad, PoorDad.
SPEAKER_02 (41:46):
That book has changed more lives than uh than
probably any other book on theface of the planet.
SPEAKER_01 (41:52):
So it gets you out of the uh the normal bias
thinking.
SPEAKER_02 (41:57):
I I fully agree with that.
All right, number two, what areyour hobbies?
SPEAKER_01 (42:03):
Hobbies pretty much don't have a lot of hobbies.
Um I have been trying to learngolf.
Um it's more of a frustratinghobby.
But it's I I don't know.
I I think that would be the onlything I'm I've been venturing
into lately is trying to playgolf.
SPEAKER_02 (42:24):
Okay.
What is one thing you do notmiss about working for the man?
SPEAKER_01 (42:30):
Man, the thinking and using my brain for somebody
else that's not beneficial formy family.
SPEAKER_02 (42:42):
Absolutely.
I agree with that one.
And final question (42:44):
what do you think sets apart successful
entrepreneurs from those whogive up, fail, or never get
started?
SPEAKER_01 (42:55):
The ones that are doing well, they just went out
and did it.
There's a there's a quote fromMatthew McConaughey that says,
if you're gonna do it, do it.
Just go out and do what you wantto do.
And if you fall short of doingit, then and stop, that's you're
not gonna be successful.
The world's not gonna make yousuccessful because you want to
(43:16):
be.
It's it's because you're tryingto be successful.
Outstanding.
SPEAKER_02 (43:21):
Outstanding.
Well, Randy, this has been areally good interview to our
audience.
I'm gonna post links uh toRandy's social media as well as
Skew Compass's social media.
Be sure to check them out.
And Randy, looking forward tostaying in touch.
Appreciate it, brother.
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