Fulfilled by TikTok, Traveling 6 weeks to find the right customers, Product returns, and more | D2CVille Newsletter

Hey there, great people of the D2C community who are building fantastic things! This is your host Berkay writing.

This Friday on D2CVille’s Newsletter:
🏭 Traveling 6 weeks across Asia to find the best suppliers with Ben Ridding, Founder of ULU OX
📦 TikTok’s new logistics offer: Fulfilled by TikTok
👤 Influential person of the D2C space: Christian Alexander Endresen
🏷️ Discounts on leading Shopify tools
📚 Free resources on inventory management
🗞️ Aaannd weekly updates from the D2C world

🏭 Traveling 6 weeks across Asia to find the best suppliers with Ben Ridding, Founder of ULU OX

Soo, the part we like the most: Podcast highlights!

🏊‍♂️🎒 In the 8th episode we did with successful D2C entrepreneurs, we had a chat with Ben, founder of the UK-based dry bag brand ULU OX.

One central theme I have been noticing throughout the entire podcast experience is successful brands mostly come out of problems creative people have. And ULU is no different!

Truly enjoying open-water swimming and hiking on the coastline, Ben was frustrated when he found out there were no good quality dry bags in the market. So he decided to start his own brand, and after getting a small amount of investment from a local investor operator, he got to work!

Ben is also a sustainability champion! According to ULU’s website, they “upcycle ocean waste into great products. With each Ulu bag you buy, we save 6 lbs of ocean-bound plastic from entering the ocean.” Kudos to that!

But, the journey that truly captivates the essence of this process, however, revolves around Ben's remarkable 6-week trip to Asia to find the best supplier for his business. To me, THIS IS MESMERIZING!

^{You can also listen to the episode on Spotify, Google, or Apple Podcast!}

And here are some highlights from our chat!

💪 Test, test, test. Ben's hands-on approach involved rigorous laboratory product testing of ULU's products. This process sometimes caused up to 15 different backpack prototypes before actually finding the one! All that matters is the product!

🏊‍♂️ This process also includes Ben personally putting ULU bags into a test. He personally subjects products to demanding conditions to ensure their dependability in extreme scenarios. This hands-on assessment assures reliable performance.

⛓️ “Unless you have scrutiny through every single step of your supply chain, it’s very difficult to prove what quantity of recycled plastics are going into a product.” As previously mentioned, Ben incorporates ocean-bound plastics into his products to combat plastic pollution in oceans. However, he doesn't rely on buzzwords like "carbon footprint" to demonstrate his commitment. He is genuinely dedicated to improving the cleanliness of our oceans as a water sports enthusiast.

🏃‍♂️ Travelling across Asia. Working with the right people was very crucial for Ben, as he needed the find the best supplier that would commit to his goals. And for this reason exactly, he traveled to Asia for 6 weeks!

🤝 The manufacturers there took Ben seriously for two reasons:

1. He went all the way to their factory to actually meet them face-to-face

2. Ben was very aware of the language manufacturers speaks
   “..My father was involved in manufacturing my grandfather. I had picked up a lot of the terminology and also manufacturing processes.”

🫂 A beautiful community. Ben travels a lot! And each time he travels, he meets fellow water sports enthusiasts and has built a community around ULU with them becoming customers afterwards.

📹 Improving social media presence. ULU’s content creation involved Ben, his phone, and his drone. Now, they have taken on a more professional outlook by initiating an email newsletter with approximately 4,000 people and trying to grow their social media audience. But it’s still mostly Ben sharing lovely instances where he and his fellow water sports enthusiast friends use ULU’s dry bags 😍.

🧐 What’s next for ULU? Surely growing their business by leveraging the power of their already very engaged audience!

📦 TikTok’s new logistics offer: Fulfilled by TikTok

You all know TikTok launched TikTok Shop in 2021. And now they’re introducing a new service: Fulfilled by TikTok in the UK! It’s a logistics service similar to Amazon's Fulfilled by Amazon. This service will manage inventory, packing, shipping, and returns for UK shop merchants.

It officially started on the 23rd of August but the company has been beta testing since November last year.

Sellers in the UK can register for FBT on TikTok's website with their shop’s name, email address, shop name, and TikTok Shop code.

Here is the registration form.

TikTok fulfillment has specific requirements:

1. Sellers must be in the UK and deliver within the UK.

2. Packages can't exceed 30 kg or 31.5 cubic liters in volume.

What TikTok fulfillment offers:

1. Same-day order processing until 7 p.m. on weekdays and Saturdays.

2. Two-day delivery for orders after 7 p.m.

3. Next-day premium delivery option.

4. Enhanced customer service and feedback.

5. 30 days of free storage for new shipments.

6. FBT covers the fee for picking the first item.

The good thing is merchants can estimate their FBT costs using a calculator on this page.

Aaanndd TikTok is also beta-testing its fulfillment services in the USA, partnering with third-party logistics companies.

But there are some limitations. According to @SAMHABIBI_’s recent post on Twitter, TikTok just published a "TikTok Shop Prohibited Products Policy" that has a long list of items that you can’t sell on TikTok Shop.

The list includes adult products, baby and maternity products, some food products, body and mental wellness products, kitchenware, beauty products, virtual products, and more!

Currently, the company is very serious about enforcing these policies. According to, again, @SAMHABIBI_, they shut down one of the largest well-being brands because they violated the allowed product guidelines.

So it seems so many great D2C brands in the UK will miss out on a great opportunity!

What are your thoughts on this? Will you give FBT a chance?

💪 Influential person of the D2C space: Christian Alexander Endresen

This week, we're super excited to kick off a brand new section where we get to know some awesome folks in the D2C space. And guess who's up first? It's none other than Christian Alexander Endresen, the co-founder of Float Analytics!

Previous to founding Float, Christian spent his time working with and investing alongside founders, at BDT & MSD. But today he is on a mission to solve a lack of transparency within e-commerce return orders and help brands understand why returns happen, and what they can do to reduce them.

We had the pleasure of chatting with Christian after stumbling upon his fantastic posts about D2C brand returns on LinkedIn. 😊

Here are a few of his great posts:

Soooo we really encourage you to connect with Christian to have a chat and dive deeper into the topic of returns. Plus, don't forget to take a peek at Float Analytics – it's a fantastic tool for cutting down those return rates! 😊

🆇 TWEETS OF THE WEEK

1. Cold plunge in the morning, that’s his secret 😂 

2. A killer product is all it takes!

3. 🫢

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