David Applegate has an online page called WrestlingMart. It is an e-commerce store committed to wrestling. During his five years in the business, he sought to know where his suppliers got the gadgets he sold, adding T-shirts, shoes and duct tape.
However, instead of navigating lots of discs by hand, he discovered a better way. He built something called ImportYeti. Searches between scales, documents that suppliers attach to shipments to their customers, to tell you where you buy a store your merchandise.
The biggest challenge in building a product is supply. Many large brands supply the same company, and whether a small business or a new company looking to enter a crowded market (e.g. yoga mats), knowing where your competition is buying products can change the rules of the game. If you can buy the same products in bulk at the same reasonable prices, you have the possibility to be competitive and enter the market.
Most brands do not manufacture their own products and outsource mass production to Asian companies. The data collected through ImportYeti allows the competition to know where to look if they need to buy similar products in bulk.
“I focus on answering a singular question: ‘How do I find the right supplier to create my product overseas?,’” Applegate said. “I approach this two ways. I allow you to find the suppliers that are used by reputable companies and I allow you to vet suppliers by understanding whether or not they actually move volume in the product you’re interested in.”
Data pages are a lot of engaging information. Of the aforementioned yoga mat providers, we are informed that Manduka, as advertised in its marketing, imports from Germany, among others, while Gaiam basically turns to Asia. Meanwhile, a study on Apple shows us imports from Hon Hai generation giant Quanta and Foxconn-related corporations.
It’s one thing that ImportYeti turns out to think that Apple imports Heineken beer and Star. I asked Applegate about the confusion and suspect that the naming conventions used on the bill of boarding are disrupting the system.
“We are looking to erase knowledge a little bit. For example, Apple is under Apple, Apple, Inc, Apple Computer, Apple Computer Inc, Apple Computer C O OHL, etc.,” he said. “There is a possibility that the company called ASA Apple will import in the same carrier in New Jersey.”
We contacted Apple for comments, but got a response.
Applegate, for its part, loves this data. He’s a self-proclaimed technician and built it.
“Like, I breathe and sleep in e-commerce,” he says. “I myself use this knowledge to locate suppliers. I am a technician and because of the brutal effect of covd-19 in my shop, I have a little more free time.”
He said few sites offer the same knowledge for a value and hope to keep it loose as long as it can.
“The formula is looking for more than 70 million boys’ bills to perceive which suppliers to choose based on knowledge rather than empty claims and probably endless options,” he said, even if he’s wrong.