How Alex Carter Turned His Footwear Idea Into a High Growth Ecom Brand

Listen in on Nathan’s talk with Alex Carter of Flatbed Footwear in this podcast!

Nathan Resnick:

Hey, what’s going on? It’s Nathan Resnick with Sourcify. Today, we have another awesome episode of Product Sourcing Stories. We’ve got probably one of the most inspiring entrepreneurs and founders I’ve ever had on the show, Alex. He was part of our Product Sourcing School. He now runs Flatbed Footwear, which is a really cool footwear brand. You should check it out at flatbedfootwear.com. Alex, thanks so much for joining us today.

Alex:

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Nathan Resnick:

So I want to hear this process because we had you in Product Sourcing School, you went through the modules, you now have a full-fledged e-commerce site with your own products where you’re selling your own footwear. I mean, break it down for us. Tell me, I guess, a lot of people when they go into a program, they get overwhelmed, they get stuck. Did you ever feel stuck?

Alex:

No. I mean, at the beginning of the process when I had the idea, I definitely felt overwhelmed just because it can be scary to try and find a manufacturer abroad and you’re putting in your own personal money. I mean, you don’t want to get scammed. I mean, there’s just a lot of uncertainty that goes along with the process. So, just joining Product Sourcing School just definitely helped me get more aligned than just… It helped me look out for certain things and really helped me to find a manufacturer and just to kind of organize all the steps I needed to take in the process in order to bring the product to life.

Nathan Resnick:

Right. And tell us before we dive in, I want to learn more about… or I want the audience to learn more about who you are. So maybe just give a quick 30-second background, where you live, what you do, all that stuff.

Alex:

Yeah. So I live in Minnesota currently, born and raised here. I went to college in Wisconsin but moved back here. I work in data analytics. I just had the [crosstalk 00:02:13]-

Nathan Resnick:

You did this while you had a full-time job?

Alex:

Yup. Still do.

Nathan Resnick:

Nice.

Alex:

It’s just a little side project I started during the whole coronavirus quarantine situation. Just had a lot of extra time on my hands. And this is an idea I’ve had since 2016. I just didn’t have no any money back then to try and get it started. I mean, fast forward four years later, I had some money saved up and would have regretted not trying it. So, here we are.

Nathan Resnick:

That’s awesome. And so I’m curious, disclose what you are willing to, and keep… Don’t disclose everything. But I mean, to get your brand up and running, how much money did you put in at the end of the day? I mean, I assume, some money for production, maybe some money for web development. I mean, walk us through, I guess, the cost to get where you’re at today, which is a full-fledged e-commerce brand that I order from. I mean, the shoes are shipped out. I got that notification. I’m pumped to receive them. But, walk us through what kind of cost breakdown you’re willing to share.

Alex:

So, really my costs are based on what my manufacturer’s minimum order quantity was. And so that was just where the bulk of my costs came in. So on my first shoe order, I spent around $17,000 on them. And so then along with that comes getting them from a manufacturer to the United States. So I had to tack on an additional $2,600 for shipping costs. And then really other than that, just I have a Shopify plan, and just using their templates and a lot of their drag and drop functionality, I just built the website myself. Didn’t really require a lot of backend development work. Got a little bit of programming and coding background, but it really wasn’t needed just because the Shopify App Store just had a lot of cool free apps that I could install to-

Nathan Resnick:

That’s awesome.

Alex:

… help add certain features to my website that I needed.

Nathan Resnick:

So when you were doing the production run, I’m curious, did you do a third party inspection or utilize the factory’s inspection? Or what would that look like?

Alex:

I used QIMA.

Nathan Resnick:

Yeah, got it.

Alex:

Q-I-M-A. So I used them. That was a $300 cost. They went out for one day after the shoes were produced and just inspected them.

Nathan Resnick:

And it was pretty easy [inaudible 00:05:06].

Alex:

Yeah. It was a super easy process. They did a really good job and then they just sent over a report when they were done. And I just gave him kind of a list of things to look out for with the products. And it passed the inspection, and then they were shipped, I think, the next day.

Nathan Resnick:

That’s amazing. That’s cool. And so did you use a freight forwarder or use the factory’s forwarder. How did you import them?

Alex:

I just used the factory’s forwarder. I was looking at freight forwarding costs and trying to compare them, but they were pretty much the same and it was just easier to go with manufacturer’s shipping clients.

Nathan Resnick:

Yeah. That makes sense.

Alex:

I got a tracking code once they went out, and I was just kind of tracking. I couldn’t track it while it was crossing the sea, but once it landed in the U.S and I was tracking it, that was exciting.

Nathan Resnick:

That’s epic. That’s so cool. So did you decide to work with a 3PL or you’re shipping them out yourself right now?

Alex:

I’m shipping them out myself with the help of my dad.

Nathan Resnick:

Awesome. There you go.

Alex:

He’s retired, so he’s got some extra time on his hands and he’s been helping me out, which I really appreciate. He’s super helpful. And that’s just allowed me to just work. Just allowed me to spend the 40 hours that I need to on my current job and then do this on the side too.

Nathan Resnick:

Right, totally. So let’s talk about too, just kind of marketing strategies that you have to grow. I mean, I know you’ve got social media app. What kind of is the strategy behind growth when it comes to marketing, and social media, and all of that? I mean, do you have a strategy in place right now?

Alex:

So I’m kind of working through that. So I mean, I got the word out to all my friends locally. So ideally, I’d try and grow it organically at a local level first, but I also want to layer in some paid social advertising. So I have a Google shopping campaign, but I’m going to set up, and then I think I’ll just have some sort of funnel approach when it comes to Facebook and Instagram. I have a kind of a slideshow video that I created…

Nathan Resnick:

Oh, sweet.

Alex:

… that will kind of serve as more of the awareness video view optimized top of the funnel, and then just kind of target people based on their engagement with the video throughout the funnel.

Nathan Resnick:

Nice. Well, you should do a collaboration with other brands that target similar demographics as well, and I’m sure there’s some influencers that you can do too. Because I think you could set aside some number of products to kind of do giveaways with, or give out for free to different influencers, because, I mean, the thing is with e-commerce when you produce your own product, your margins are strong enough where you don’t have to sell every unit to break even on the amount you put into production. You’re going to have strong enough margin where you could probably even sell 30 or 40% of your products and break even on your production costs.

Alex:

Yeah. That’s true. Influencer marketing for sure is something I want to look into. I sent out one pair to someone I would consider an influencer. I’ve been just kind of DMing certain people, and then also just seeing what the cost is to hire influencers. I know there’s some companies that just have a pool of influencers that you can hire, but I don’t have much experience with that side of marketing. That’s a piece I’m trying to figure out, but one that I think is super important in the fashion and apparel industry, especially.

Nathan Resnick:

Right. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, it’s so interesting just to see how the influencer world is working right now, and so many brands are trying to work with these influencers. But I want to ask you, because a lot of people listening in are probably in a similar position, they’re working a 9:00 to 5:00 job, putting in their 40 hours a week. How much time did you allocate towards going through your production process? I mean, how much time did that take on a weekly basis?

Alex:

The design process was super collaborative. And so when I was working through the design, we were in contact every day. And-

Nathan Resnick:

And that was with the factory or that was with…

Alex:

Yeah. That was with the factory. I mean, with the time change, once it got to 8:00 o’clock here, I was in contact with my manufacturer, and we would email back and forth or chat on a WhatsApp for, I don’t know, maybe a couple of hours. So I would say probably putting in 10 hours per week at that stage. And then kind of dwindled down once the production run was finalized and the inspection was cleared. Then it was just touching base as the products were arriving.

Nathan Resnick:

And how many samples did you go through? Or it was the first sample the one that you were ready to place a purchase order on.

Alex:

I only got one physical sample and I was pretty much ready to purchase after that, or just a few minor details that I wanted to tweak. So we did that and then I just got picture updates, and I just approved it via photo.

Nathan Resnick:

That’s great. It’s amazing to see you go through this whole process in a few months, I mean, while working a 9:00 to 5:00 job. It’s incredible to see, and I think it’s going to be super inspiring for other people to hear this story. Is there anything that looking back on the process, you would change? Anything you would do differently?

Alex:

I think I would have just started sooner. I mean, I feel like the area that I wasted the most amount of time in was just trying to get my sketch right. And that was something I kind of learned through talking with you and through Product Sourcing School, is that you don’t need a perfect sketch with all your specs in order to produce the product.

Nathan Resnick:

You should see some of my sketches. They’re crap.

Alex:

Yeah. I just had a very, very average sketch of a shoe, and then I worked with my sales rep and their designers, and we were able to just put together something that became a real life product. Because I mean, earlier in 2020, I was just spending a lot of free time just trying to get my sketch right and get all the measurements right. But that just wasn’t necessary.

Nathan Resnick:

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. That’s awesome. This was great insight for people tuning in that were trying to bring their products to life and figure out how to do this while working a 9:00 to 5:00 job. Alex, if people want to get in touch with you and learn more about Flatbed Footwear, where can they find you?

Alex:

You can reach out to support@flatbedfootwear.com. That’s probably the best place to contact me. I get those notifications right to my phone. Otherwise, just visit my website, flatbedfootwear.com, and then you can just contact me directly from there too.

Nathan Resnick:

Great. This was amazing. Thanks again for joining us on Product Sourcing Stories, and appreciate your time, Alex.