The E-Comm Show
The E-Comm Show
Amazon Reselling & Private Label Tips: How Joey’s Shopping Grew a Profitable Brand | EP. #203
Looking for Amazon reselling strategies that actually work?
In this 203rd episode of The E-Comm Show, host Andrew Maff sits down with Charles Chakkalo, partner at Joey’s Shopping and author of Just a Seller, to share how he built a profitable Amazon reselling business while scaling private label brands at the same time.
From running his own warehouses to predicting Amazon’s next big moves, Charles breaks down the unorthodox tactics that helped him stand out in a crowded e-commerce space.
What You’ll Learn
- Amazon Reselling vs. Private Label: Why hybrid models build both cash flow & long-term brand equity
- Logistics Advantage: How in-house warehouses cut costs & boost margins over 3PLs
- Agency Real Talk: When outsourcing works, and when it doesn’t
- Amazon’s Next Moves: Predictions on Buy with Prime, TikTok Shop & fulfillment trends
- Building Differently: Why breaking the “e-comm rules” can give you a competitive edge
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🐤 Twitter: / bluetuskr
📧 Email: info@bluetuskr.com
CONNECT WITH GUEST:
📻 LinkedIn: Charles Chakkalo
📧 Newsletter: Just A Seller
Entrepreneurs, by definition, in my opinion, are people who don't follow the book, the rule, the orthodoxy.
Andrew Maff:Welcome to the E comm Show podcast. I am your host. Andrew Maff, owner and founder of blue tusker, from groundbreaking industry updates to success stories and strategies, get to know the ins and outs of the e Commerce Industry from top leaders in the space. Let's get into it. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the E comm show as usual. I am your host, Andrew Maff, and today I am joined by the amazing Charles Chakkalo, who is a partner over at Joey'z shopping. Charles, how you doing? Buddy? Ready for good show?
Charles Chakkalo:Thank God. Healthy into one piece. Imagine if I said two.
Andrew Maff:Yeah, dude, I love it. I'm so excited to have you on the show. I know you and I, we met at the MDS group and had a very interesting conversation with you. Ton of stuff to get into, but I always kind of like to like, let's, let's just clear the air. Give you the land. Tell everyone a little bit about your background, how you got started with Joey shopping, and we'll take it from there.
Charles Chakkalo:Sure. So back in college, I was, I was going to go to, I was a pre law student. I was going to law school, and my brother tapped me on the shoulder one day. He goes, Hey, you know this thing that we've been doing since elementary school? You know, I went into Best Buy, getting things on sale. He went into anything from Bass Pro Shops or fishing related stores, just resold things for just a modest markup. You want to try that for real? I go, What do you mean for real? He goes, you know, put our heart and soul into it, not just stick to Best Buy in fishing, but but to do it on a larger scale. So we did. And mind you, this is the brother that I was partners with selling Coca Cola is in elementary school, quote, unquote, against the rules. So it wasn't something I was unfamiliar with. I took my LSAT, submitted my law school applications, and just never went to law school. I said to myself, I'm not getting back 22 to 25 those age those age ranges, ever again, but if I need to, I'll go back to law school later on, and here I am not a lawyer. That's how that started. We started in a room in a basement, reselling light bulbs. Light bulbs were something that just had a great margin when, when he got me on that shoulder, and we graduated from a room in a basement to a full basement, and then to a sidewalk, and then to a warehouse, and then to a second warehouse this year.
Andrew Maff:Wow. And primarily marketplaces. I know you've got your own website, but is it mainly?
Charles Chakkalo:It's the conventional split of, I would say most Amazon sellers, or if they consider themselves an Amazon seller, it's a conventional split of, like 99 to one half a percent being DTC and a half percent being Walmart, something like that.
Andrew Maff:So, just kind of reference. So you and I mentioned we met at MDS, and the conversation with you, I loved every minute of it, just because, like, you're one of very few people that will just be like, so, so straightforward, and just, you know, stick it to whoever thinks they're doing things correctly or incorrectly. And just no bullshit. I know you've also got your own newsletter and stuff that's kind of got that same.
Charles Chakkalo:I shoot for it. Listen, it's the person I am. I mean, entrepreneurs by definition, in my opinion, are people who don't follow the book, the rule, the orthodoxy and and because I don't have an agency, I don't have a bottom line, and I like to think that I have a mouth on me. I'm not afraid to use it. And I just I saw this huge movement in Orthodoxy, in the Amazon ecom space, of you have to have your own brand. You have to have your own brand story, your own unique value proposition, your own private label. You have to sell off using some sort of M and A firm, and and and multiples, is what you live in, live and breathe by. And it's just not necessarily the case. I mean, if that's how you function, all the power to you, but it's not a necessary condition of being in this industry. That's, that's, that's a big part of what I think stuck with you.
Andrew Maff:the specifics of it. That's different from kind of the typical, like, private label brand story, that typeof thing.
Charles Chakkalo:So not to say we don't do private label. It's a significant part of our business. It's actually it ranges on year on year from 60 to 50% of our gross revenue. We started that in about 2020, but what's particular to our businesses, we engage in resale, which, by the way, can, in my opinion, has a bunch of other terms associated with it. People differentiate between retail arbitrage, wholesale resale, so I just consider it all resale. We have resale operations going on. That's immediate profit. So if I buy, if I buy a tube of toothpaste for $2 I sell it for$3 that's immediate profit that access. Sort of like a profit funnel and an engine to the private label endeavor where everybody knows cash flow is not as immediate. So that's that's really the unique element of it. And the part that gives us a certain leg up is that we run our own logistics. Because we don't, we don't use any 3ls. The furthest extent of a 3PL that we do use is FBA. So by us owning our logistics, yes, that means we deal with HR, that means we deal with utility bills, that means we deal with repairs, that means we deal with three sets of parents dying when it's the nice weather outside. That is something we all handle in house, and enables us to actually operate at better margins than many others could.
Andrew Maff:Yeah, I say, Do you I know your I know your feelings towards agencies. But even outside of that, just in any general service at all, is there anything that you outsource?
Charles Chakkalo:Sure, yeah, there's plenty that we outsource. Listen, I have nothing against agencies. I just have something against when agencies overdo things and and just treat their audience as a bottom line. No no shame to them. They have to. That's what they're there for. But I mean, just, just for example, uh, Amazon announced about a month ago that they're deprecating a feature where where sellers can reach out to people who leave negative product reviews on their branded goods. They announced that they're deprecating that feature at the end of July, earlier this month, they announced that, and we're recording this September 10, they announced that they're not going to be deprecating that feature due to seller feedback. There was an agency owner who specializes in removing negative reviews, or that's their niche, and they set up this whole many chat funnel on LinkedIn you have to reply to give their posts more engagement. And there was a whole big sense of urgency because Amazon, quote, unquote, was so deprecating the feature, but that entire funnel and the deliverable that they promised you was still based on outdated information, and either that seller knew that the feature wasn't going to be deprecated, or they just want, they just set up the whole apparatus, and didn't want to let all that work go to waste, and wanted that post to get more engagement, and wanted an email list, and wanted more engagement with themselves, to be viewed more as an authority in the space, and maybe land more clients. Yeah, that's my pitch. Just something happened yesterday. Anyway. Yes, there's plenty I outsource to agency, yeah, be it creative work, be it repricing, be it PPC. Yeah, we, I mean, we can. We tried an era of handling PPC in house. It took it 30 hours a week of a partner, and 30 hours of a partner is not, is not where we want to spend our time. So, yeah, there's plenty that we outsource. And I was, actually, I was talking to somebody else about this. It's amazing to that agencies run on a churn model, like, it's inevitable that somebody will leave you, and it's inevitable that more people will come in. Like, the whole idea of leads and chasing and and churning is just, it's a business model that wouldn't get me too excited, but I guess it was.
Andrew Maff:Yeah, look, I'm an agency owner, and I don't disagree. It's it, you know, it's a I knew having you on the show is like, All right, we're going to end up having conversations about the cons of agencies. And even a part of me was like, Is it smart for me to have my show because of what's going to happen. Here I go. But you know what? It's it is, it is reality, right? Like, it is a fact. Like, look, if I said I've never lost a client, I would be lying straight to your face. Of course, it's absolutely happened. There's a lot of times where I think there's a big differentiate, differentiator of agencies that lose clients, and they're just okay with it, and so they just move on to the next one, and they, you know, to your you know, to your point, it's like a churn model. I try to look at it more like, Okay, how do we keep that from happening next time? The problem is, is, no matter how many things you put into place, you still end up dealing with some people that just like to run their business completely differently, or they have cash flow issues that you don't have control over, or inventory issues or tariff issues or whatever. There's 500 other things that happen. So to your point, yeah, point, it does become a problem of constant churn, but you know, there's also, I think the other issue with the agency space is it's so easy to start an agency, it's really hard to create a good one, and so it just becomes this obnoxiously crowded mess where it makes it really hard for even brands to figure out, like, who, who's worth working with and who isn't. But to your point, like it doesn't make sense for a partner to be doing 30 hours a week on advertising. It just doesn't. But at a certain point, it does make sense for pretty much everything to eventually be brought in house, once you get to a certain size.
Charles Chakkalo:I don't know, I don't know about that, maybe just because I'm not that at that level, but maybe, maybe, I mean, I guess if you develop your so you're, built for it.
Andrew Maff:Let's say 30 you're 30 hours a week for a partner for paid ads, right, right, right. Why not hire someone internally to just run that for you? Put your own. SOP together and have them do it. So you're not paying an agency?
Charles Chakkalo:Because the SOP is not free. The SOP and the especially the way you want it, is going to take time and development.
Andrew Maff:True, but if you put, if you put the effort into putting that SOP together, you can eventually let your agency go. You're now saving the money on not only the retainer of the agency, but potentially the time of dealing with the agency, and if they've got you as a percentage of spend, kind of makes your margins a little bit better as well.
Charles Chakkalo:Yeah, but a price, a price that, again, we can't put dollar amount on, because everything is different, is the development of that SOP potential errors because of developing that SOP, as opposed to just keeping it with somebody who has a lot more experience than you do in the field and letting them handle it. Yeah? That's, that's, that's my feeling. That's my feeling.
Andrew Maff:I look, I'm, I'm all for it. I'm an agency.
Charles Chakkalo:Yeah, nothing against them, nothing against agencies, just something against agencies claiming to deliver value and just treating you as another number. That's that. That was my whole pitch, that that is my whole pitch. I'm just a seller. And I just, you know, I like to adopt a sort of grow in public mentality out there of saying, This is me as a seller, and this is stuff that pains, that I that I hit this week. And it may not be relevant to everybody, but something that they do know is I'm not going to try to try to get you on a discovery call.
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Andrew Maff:So you mentioned today's the 10th so you and I are at accelerate next week. This won't air until after accelerate. So assuming that you're accurate, what do you think any new stuff you're expecting them to discuss next week that they'll be launching soon?
Charles Chakkalo:Well, you know, I've been selling on Amazon 15 years. I'm 29 years old. I've been selling on Amazon 15 years. The first time I'm going is next week, which is pretty exciting.
Andrew Maff:Oh, really?
Charles Chakkalo:Yeah, all it took was for them to sponsor my ticket. But that's a good cherry on top. Am I expecting them to announce anything in particular? So it's been, it's been a long theory of mine dating back to the announcement of buy with prime, and then even this year, in February or so, featuring outbound links on Amazon directly to DTC sites as far back even two years ago. I'm remembering now, when they update, updated the entire storefront to just be more to be more graphically engaging and and a lot more brand centric, that all of this is building up and mounting a defense against their their antitrust, monopolistic practices lawsuit. I think we're going to see more of Amazon trying to make it like they're empowering brands to tell their own story and to make it a brand centric platform. I don't think it'll be anything significant. I think it may be like will allow you to put a logo on the top left corner of your main image. Or, you know, they'll it'll just be beefing up their case to say that we allow brands more differentiation. Again, I don't think it'll be anything substantive, because in the end of the day, they want to keep you on platform and keep those referral fees. Yeah, I do think we're going to see a deepening of of their connection to, let's say, Tiktok shop. They they announced last year that buy with prime is going to have a direct integration, but I haven't seen a platform wide rollout. Tiktok shop is basically, undeniably taking over a lot of market share. I think they're also going to be going even more into the supply chain side of things. They're trying to own the entire India supply chain, and they just got tacked with those 50% tariffs just about three weeks ago now. So that was a blow to their to complete supply chain dominance. I mean, they already control. What is it, from the port to a WD to FBA. Now they're going for the holy grail of the factory, to the port to a WD to FBA. So I think that, I think we're going to see another widening of that sort of grasp Amazon wants. And maybe something, maybe something on the intellectual property front, because I've been seeing a lot of that activity now of yeah, there. I think Amazon as a platform is leaning more towards every seller has to meet a higher level of need to sell another brand. I think that we're either going to see a death blow in that every seller needs explicit permission to sell another brand, or just more of an inching towards if you are the brand owner, you can get your own brand, at your own risk, at your own at your own will, at your own whatever it is. And they may even seek to make a quick buck out of it, like they do now, if you want a blanket gating of your brand, and I'm talking like Nike level, they charge, they charge a good chunk of change to do that, they may, they may announce that. They may announce that they're all things I'm looking out for.
Andrew Maff:Yeah, interesting. You know, the I know last year, at least on my they announced a ton of stuff. Last year. The big thing on my end was the Buy with prime side of them now allowing you to run DSP ads back to your site. And I thought that was kind of interesting, that they're now allowing you to start to kind of sort of earn that data back. Now DSP hit or miss on how good it can be for some brands, but I thought that was interesting. So you think that they may open that up to actually potentially including, like, a DTC link on the listings.
Charles Chakkalo:Yeah. I mean, they've already featured DTC links on search results. Again, my conspiratorial mind is thinking they only show sites that have buy with prime on them, so that Amazon is getting some sort of kickback, or at least have multi channel fulfillment, or at least have their prices matched or more expensive than they would be on Amazon. Yeah, again, I don't think Amazon's giving charity traffic to DTC sites. I think that if they're giving charity traffic, it's just charity traffic to give themselves a defense on the monopoly case or the anti competitive case. But I do also think they're prioritizing links that they still have a financial interest in facilitating, like a link with buy with prime, or a DTC site with MCF. One of the other
Andrew Maff:Yeah. See, one of my theories was, the you you've had, you know, FBA increases, fees increase, however, what percent over the past, like five or six years, CPCs have gone up like 8% year over year. I know, competitions increasing by about 6% but a lot of them are coming from overseas, so you're seeing reduced product costs, and so it's making it really difficult for sellers to be able to increase their costs for their products, so it's just crushing these margins, because fees are going up, but it's really hard to charge more. And so I feel like the marketplace is getting so competitive and so expensive, it's making margins so thin that Amazon's now realizing we should lean in heavier on fulfillment. So that's when they started to open up, like, buy with prime and allowing them, like, how can we kind of dip our toes into the rest of their business? Because we're kind of hitting a wall with the marketplace. Now I don't think that, like, the marketplace isn't growing at all, but I think that even Amazon is starting to look at how they can diversify the marketplace business in itself and the fulfillment business, just because they're kind of seeing that same issue, and they've made it almost too easy for sellers to just come on and start throwing product up there, and they don't really know what they're doing.
Charles Chakkalo:Yeah? Well, I mean this, yeah. This morning, I saw a post by Steve Pope, my Amazon guy, and he was saying that peak in an FBA business is actually on the decline since 2023 and he cites a Google Trends report to substantiate that. And I don't think that interest has declined as much as difficulty has increased. The difficulty is now ranging from you have to understand placement fees, you have to understand that it's not throwing a product up and hoping that it just takes off. It's understanding that there's a lot of variables, like the logistical cost of things, what a referral fee is that the fact that storing something in your basement is not theoretically free, it does cost you something to occupy that space. So when, and on a second point that you said how Amazon is leaning more into the logistical side of things, that was always their strength, yeah, Amazon deprecating Amazon posts was, you know, writing on the wall. They are not a social marketing selling platform. And by them, you know, in business, there's a rule of do more of what works. And what always worked for them was the logistical side of things. That's why, I think, I mean, they do have the best logistical framework in the country, probably in the world. And a different tangent, if you want to take this route, I think the only threat that that logistical apparatus takes is Walmart. Walmart, with their locations, I think, holds the only lever to put Amazon's logistical dominance at risk right now, they either not doing it or not doing a good job at all in doing it. But, yeah, those are two thoughts that I have on that spiel.
Andrew Maff:Well, Walmart's always been like the redheaded stepchild. They're always like 10 steps behind amazon. So you think that Walmart will start to give Amazon a run for its money, at least from a fulfillment perspective?
Charles Chakkalo:No, no, no. I don't think they will. I think they can. Or if there's anybody who can, it's them and them only, because right now, they're doing a horrible job if you want to go down the Walmart route, I definitely can. Yeah, that's giving me my fair share of headaches. Yeah, interesting. So you, you know you're, you're pretty big name in space, specifically in the E comm space, obviously. But obviously, you're talking to somebody last week saying, I'm I'm a nobody.
Andrew Maff:You're here.
Charles Chakkalo:I'm here.
Andrew Maff:So you're, you also have your, uh, Just A Seller newsletter.
Charles Chakkalo:Yeah.
Andrew Maff:And so what's the, what's your focus? What's your goal? Like, going forward, are you looking to continue scaling up Joey'z shopping? Are you kind of looking to get into, like, you know, more of brand space?
Charles Chakkalo:There's no doubt, there's no doubt that that that Joey's is my red butter focus, heart, soul and blood that and that is, and that is priority number one. I don't, I don't dare put an extra letter in my newsletter before my Joey's work is complete. And the point of that newsletter was exactly what I was referring to earlier in that there's no seller out there saying what the day to day grind is. There's no seller out there that that is, that is saying things about, let's say I didn't call out that agency earlier with the with the whole review deprecation feature. But there's no seller out there willing to say, I use this agency because they actually care about their clients and deliver value on such and such niche. There's no seller out there saying that this conference is a complete waste of time and a money grab, which I've done. I've ruffled feathers, and people have gotten pretty pissed at me, to say the least about it. So that's, that's, that's the point of that. I just seek to deliver value. What I plan on doing with it? I have no idea. I mean, maybe I'll offer some coaching if people, I mean, some people ask me from time to time, but that's really it. And I don't really want to monetize that. There are affiliate links, but that's basically the extent of it. And I guess I just, I want to. I like this. I like I like presenting, public speaking. It's always been a passion of mine, and the fact that I'm doing it within my field is just easier. And I like it. It's just, it's engaging and and, yeah, it's just, that's just a feature of one of my passions, learning, public speaking, presentation, and especially thinking about it among people who are not so fixed again, entrepreneurs questioning the status quo and actually acting on it. Those are things that always intrigue me, and especially with people that think the same way.
Andrew Maff:Yeah, amazing. Charles. Really appreciate it having you on the show. I don't wanna take up too much more your time. I'd love to, yeah, I'm gonna give you the floor. Tell everyone more that where they can find out more about you, and, of course, more about Joey'z Shopping.
Charles Chakkalo:Sure, JustAsellernewsletter.com. Is where you could sign up for the newsletter. Again, my North Star is just delivering value, not looking to get you on a discovery call, unlike almost every other. And yeah, from there you can see, from there you'll find everything else. Just sign up for that. I'm on all the socials and LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a pretty good spot for me, just because, because of the interaction so they were there.
Andrew Maff:Love it. Charles, thanks so much, buddy. I'll see you next week. For everyone who tuned in, thank you as well. Please make sure you do the usual thing, rate review, subscribe all that fun stuff on whichever podcast platform you prefer, or head over to the EComm show.com to check out all of our previous episodes. But as usual, thank you all for joining us. We'll see you all next time.
Charles Chakkalo:Thanks, Andrew.
Narrator:Thank you for tuning in to the E comm show. Head over to e commshow.com to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform or on the BlueTusker YouTube channel. The E comm show is brought to you by BlueTusker, a full service digital marketing company specifically for E commerce sellers looking to accelerate their growth. Go to bluetuskr.com now for more information, make sure to tune in next week for another amazing episode of the E comm show!
