Frank Lavin has devoted much of his professional life to working in and understanding the Asian market, from top level roles in U.S. government including Undersecretary of Commerce, Ambassador to Singapore and other White House appointments, to much time in the private sector a top roles such as Chairman of Public Affairs, Asia Pacific for Edelman. All of which means now as the Chairman and Founder of Export Now, a China solutions company for international brands, Frank has a unique and highly informed perspective on the China market, consumers, and how to understand the vast opportunities eCommerce offers
Welcome to the The Voice of Retail , I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Frank Lavin has devoted much of his professional life to working in and understanding the Asian market, from top level roles in U.S. government including Undersecretary of Commerce, Ambassador to Singapore and other White House appointments, to much time in the private sector a top roles such as Chairman of Public Affairs, Asia Pacific for Edelman.
All of which means now as the Chairman and Founder of Export Now, a China solutions company for international brands, Frank has a unique and highly informed perspective on the China market, consumers, and how to understand the vast opportunities eCommerce offers
Frank joins me again on The Voice of Retail to catch me up on the latest developments on the ground in China and talk about his new book, The Smart Business Guide to China eCommerce (https://www.amazon.ca/Smart-Business-Guide-China-Commerce/dp/9814954659/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=frank+lavin&qid=1631858986&sr=8-6 )
Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode please consider leaving a rating and review, as it really helps us grow so that we can continue getting amazing guests on the show.
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co!
Until next time, stay safe and have a great week!
Michael LeBlanc is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. You can learn more about Michael here or on LinkedIn.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 00:10
Frank Lavin has devoted much of his professional life to working in and understanding the Asian market, from top level roles in U.S. government including Undersecretary of Commerce, Ambassador to Singapore and other White House appointments, to much time in the private sector a top roles such as Chairman of Public Affairs, Asia Pacific for Edelman.
Michael LeBlanc 00:28
All of which means now as the Chairman and Founder of Export Now, a China solutions company for international brands, Frank has a unique and highly informed perspective on the China market, consumers, and how to understand the vast opportunities eCommerce offers.
Michael LeBlanc 00:41
Frank joins me again on The Voice of Retail to catch me up on the latest developments on the ground in China and talk about his new book, ‘The Smart Business Guide to China eCommerce’.
Frank Lavin 00:51
Most brands will tell you, you know, eCommerce is now 10% of our total sales or 15%. And it's growing faster than our traditional sales channels. So, most brands, you know, have caught,
Michael LeBlanc 01:02
Right.
Frank Lavin 01:02
caught religion on this point button and bought even though they know China's being in China, retail markets being in China's digital. They say yeah, but it's not inviting. It's intimidating.
Michael LeBlanc 01:12
Let's listen in now.
Frank, welcome back to The Voice of Retail podcast. How are you doing my friend?
Frank Lavin 01:18
Michael, it's great to be back with you. If only digitally I can't wait to we're allowed to travel again. But it's good to connect on the air.
Michael LeBlanc 01:25
Yeah, no, no kidding. I was thinking about, the last time you and I spoke was really early in the COVID era, I think there was even a different administration in the office in the US. So many things, a few things, to say the least since we last spoke. So, it's a real great opportunity to, to catch up. Let's start. Let's start at the beginning. So, for those listeners who maybe haven't heard our other episodes, and I encourage them to page back, because it's kind of interesting, our perspectives, even in the in the very early days of COVID and business and talking about China. Let's start as I said at the beginning, tell us about yourself. Tell us about Export Now and tell us about what you do there.
Frank Lavin 02:02
Sure. Thanks. Michael look, Export Now is a US company. And what we do is we run ecommerce stores in China, for international brands, primarily North American brands, as you might expect, but, but we work with French brands, Korean brands, Australian brands, others, and what we can do is more or less replicate any consumer website in Canada so, we can replicate that in China, meaning we'll do inbound logistics, we'll do product labeling and testing, we'll do all store operations. We'll do the competitive analysis, we'll do social media, live streaming, SEO, SEM work, manage last mile delivery, and we'll do financial settlement and remit back, your, currency of your choice back to your market so, and give you IT integration on top of that. So, you can sit in your laptop in Ontario, and you can run your team all store. Right, so, it's just a great force multiplier for merchants and brands.
Michael LeBlanc 02:56
So, and, tell me about, as you do that, your background, let's talk about your background and how you came to do this work such a length of service in the Southeast Asia corridor, so to speak, if I can say it that way. But tell us a little bit about that. So, people kind of, wrap-
Frank Lavin 03:11
Well, well, well, heavily, heavily East Asia oriented for most of my professional career, but I've spent about half my career in government about half in private sector, but most of it, Asia facing or China facing as you know, in in government my last two positions was, I was US ambassador to Singapore, under George W. Bush and subsequently his Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade. So, in charge of trade promotion activity, helping businesses go to new market, supporting all the commercial counselors around the world were folks who reported to me trade, negotiations heavy, heavy China focus at that time as remains today. But, and, in the private sector job somewhat similar worked at Citibank, I worked for Bank of America. I worked in public affairs for Edelman, but, but all of that work tended to be Asia facing or China facing work, meaning the common thread and this is just problem solving for international businesses in Asia or the China market, and helping folks get into the market helping folks win.
Michael LeBlanc 04:14
Well, let's talk about the China market and the China consumer. When we first were speaking about impact, I mean at that point, you know, if we think our, turn our minds to a China that was just coming out of severe lockdowns, they seem to have had the right formula at least for the time. How is this all affected, the Chinese consumer, there's obviously less travel we don't see them, here in Canada. They're not traveling internationally, but lots of brands are going there. Lots of people are really picking up, you know, ringing your phone number. How has the Chinese consumer reacted to all this?
Frank Lavin 04:45
Well, this,
Michael LeBlanc 04:45
What's your observation?
Frank Lavin 04:46
Yeah, the single most important phenomenon of last two years has been an ongoing or an accelerated swing to digital, meaning China's the most digital retail market in the world. But that was pre pandemic it was
Michael LeBlanc 04:58
Yeah, yeah,
Frank Lavin 04:59
but, but now eCommerce has now passed over 50% of all retail spend in China.
Michael LeBlanc 05:05
35 was a 35%. When we were last talking like
Michael LeBlanc 05:08
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Frank Lavin 05:08
by the way, 35% was huge, so 50 perce-.
Frank Lavin 05:08
just 3 or 4 years ago, sure,
Michael LeBlanc 05:12
All right, so, have to throw that number out there isn't, like, ahh it was just 35%. right, right.
Frank Lavin 05:16
Right, and so when you think of it saying, look, there's a percentage of this country that is so rural or so poor, so remote, that they really not digitally oriented, there's 10, or 20% of the country that is that, you know, they're very elderly, or they're just not computer oriented. So, we do and then there's a percentage of retail sales, which are spur of the moment or emergencies, whether it's burned-out light bulbs, or pack of cigarettes, or I mean, the point is, you're never going to get 100%, you're not even going to get 80 or 90%.
Michael LeBlanc 05:43
Right.
Frank Lavin 05:43
So you say boy, if you're over 50%, you've got extraordinary penetration, that digital is now the shopping channel of choice for any Chinese person, say younger than 40. That's their preferred distribution channel.
Michael LeBlanc 05:55
I think we say the name and the country name China. So, often we forget how vast geographically how different geographically the parts are, and that is the billion people like when we talk about numbers, they all kind of get a little bit. They almost, they almost like Oh, 50% and 50% is huge, right, I think, you know, China's economy is now number one or number two in the world. I mean, we're talking, you know, trillions and trillions of US dollars
Frank Lavin 06:20
The base is massive. Well, I'll give you one statistic, the main ecommerce platform in China, Alibaba, the main ecommerce company, is three times the GMV of Amazon. So, three times as much. That's a huge number.
Michael LeBlanc 06:36
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Frank Lavin 06:36
So, so you've got a great base there for if you're a foreign merchant.
Michael LeBlanc 06:40
Well, let's talk about China in a slightly different context here, you're so connected to the region retailers, and even as I talked to them today, supply chain is, is number one, I can't imagine a time when more consumers in the world didn't know the term supply chain, they didn't even think about that stuff. It just showed up on their shelves, like on a regular basis. But of course, a lot of product is made in China and, and I was thinking that, you know, as we, we suffer through, as we all suffer through these, these port shutdowns when they have, you know, single or small outbreaks, the Chinese approach to handling the pandemic has been a kind of a zero tolerance policy, now Delta seems to be messing with that a little bit, but here we sit in North America and we watch you know, boats that don't leave and congestion and ports that shut down, as you talk to your, your team on the ground and as you meet with people, do you do you sense any kind of movement on a policy level that would start to change that direction to be more I don't want to say live with the virus but a little more, let's not shut down. They must be pressure on their economy as well, right, like, how are you seeing?
Frank Lavin 07:48
I think, Chinese look into different political system in China, it's a it's a, it'll single party, government, their top down system, and it's got a Confucian Ethos as well meaning, unlike a lot of Western societies, where you celebrate individualism, or flamboyance or the, the outlier, in China, you'd say, look, Confucianism sort of dictates that your obligation, your civic role is that you have to fit into a broader system. And certainly, in the middle of a pandemic, that point is loud and clear to say, you've got a social responsibility to always wear your mask to be vaccinated, play by the rules.
Frank Lavin 08:27
So, you have a high degree of compliance in China. And as you know, us as sort of famously, you know, it call it to be polite, call it independent minded, but people just have their own opinions, and they just do, kind of, do what they want to do. So, you know, which is really helpful at sometimes, it's probably not helpful in the middle of a pandemic. So, so, the point is, I think what you had was China getting its arms around the transmission side of the problem very quickly, because people just behaved.
Frank Lavin 08:55
They, I'll tell you one little story from our office, we've got a team of 50 people in Shanghai, but one person on our, our team got a phone call from the health authorities at home saying, Hey, we're going through the supermarket and somebody the supermarket today was determined to be positive, COVID positive. So, we're going through every single person who paid and visited that super mart because you have to check in you have a you have a QR code, you have to check in every place you go every merchant you go to or we're quarantining every single person who was at that supermarket day for two weeks. So, you are now under two weeks of quarantine. Right. And you say wow, that is a strong-arm government, no doubt, but boy, it's gonna have a effectiveness as well.
Michael LeBlanc 09:36
Yeah.
Frank Lavin 09:36
I mean, if you do that, if you're calling everybody who ever comes in contact with anyone, who ever had, you will see you will really stop any kind of transmission.
Michael LeBlanc 09:44
What do they call it, in England, when they had it, they called it a ping-demic, when their phones would ping whenever you had some kind of exposure? They call it the ping denic.
Frank Lavin 09:54
Wow, that's funny.
Michael LeBlanc 09:55
Brits are always very clever with their descriptions.
Frank Lavin 09:58
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 09:58
So, let's now, let's, listen, you've got a new book. This is exciting to me. It is, 'The Smart Business Guide to China eCommerce' so, tell me about it.
Frank Lavin 10:09
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 10:09
Who did you write it for and the approach .
Frank Lavin 10:11
well,
Michael LeBlanc 10:11
you took, tackling such a huge that's a big remit.
Frank Lavin 10:14
Its a big remit but well, here's what we've seen that look, every business, every brand understands ecommerce, and they get it and they, in fact, most brands will tell you, you know, ecommerce is now 10% of our total sales or 15%. And it's growing faster than our traditional sales channels. So, most brands, you know, have caught.
Michael LeBlanc 10:33
Right.
Frank Lavin 10:33
Caught religion on this point, but bought, even though they know China's big, and China retail markets big and China's digital, they say yeah, but it's not inviting. It's intimidating because I've got no China familiarity. There's huge language and cultural gaps, it is a different political system. You know, and I don't, I don't have any way to get involved with it or to understand it, right. So, this book is written for that audience brands and consumer groups and merchants who say I want to try to develop an understanding of this market and see if I can do something there. But I'm not going to I'm not going to fly to China for a week and try to you know, understand the market and is there some is there,
Michael LeBlanc 11:08
Yeah, even an, even if that would work like being on the ground, it feels like being on the ground in a country like China, like many others, you, you're not gonna figure much out, you're really, you need more than that.
Frank Lavin 11:18
I think so, I think it can be misleading. You say, Well, on the streets, I saw X, Y and Z. But you say yeah, but look at sales statistics, you'll see something different maybe than what you see on the street.
Frank Lavin 11:27
So. So this is just an intro book to help people become familiar with the market, the techniques, the platforms, the do's and don'ts. In what ways are the Chinese consumers different than the Canadian consumers? And even if you hold open, even if you hold even for income levels, you know, do you see differences in what the Chinese consumer wants, or with Canadian consumer wants? In other words, can you take a nicely performing Canadian product, and how would you try to figure out or model whether it would work or not in China is sort of the core commercial question that every merchant faces some products you can take on the road and are kind of global in nature, and really do well on other products have trouble escaping their home market.
Michael LeBlanc 12:07
Interesting. So, would you, would you, did you structure it like a How To book; okay, here's the market, understand the consumer, understand the processes, because, you know, retail is very different in China, right. As we've talked previously, it didn't evolve from stores to digital ad, really, in many ways, was digital first and in a big way.
Frank Lavin 11:27
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 12:28
Obviously, with you know, even the before time you were 20, 35, 40%. Now I know north of that. So, can I, can I take that book and say, listen, I think there's an opportunity for my business in China, I want to understand it a bit better. And then I want to understand how to go after it because that's complex, or dif, different, right, I mean, every country is different, right, they're more different-er, is that, was that your approach as well?
Frank Lavin 12:49
Well, that's exactly what the approach is, it's, you know, you almost call an airport book or the airplane book, because it's 190 pages, it's going to be in an airport bookshop, where I can
Michael LeBlanc 12:58
Booked a flight to China better figure it out before I get there
Frank Lavin 13:00
well, but even, even a domestic. The point is, you're saying look, I don't need to get a PhD in China ecommerce. I don't even want a master's degree in it. But I want to spend a few hours thinking about it. And I've got to think through the next steps. And what we've seen is brands can be very successful in growing domestically, sort of through organic growth, his brand started 50 years ago, it maybe was Mom and Pop, maybe a bigger group owns and now, now the nationally distributed maybe they're even North America distribution. So, it's a very nice success story. But boy, they've never grown outside of organic growth. So, this would be kind of a leap for saying, look, we get it, we get to the markets, huge. And we can access it. But, but it's a leap for us. We've never, we you know, we've never gone to Mexico, we've never gone to France when we've never gone to China. So, how do we make that journey?
Michael LeBlanc 13:50
Well, it's one of the things, it's one of the reasons Canada benefits from a big international presence is because we're, kind of, US lite, right. You can come to Canada, it's different enough that you got to figure it out. So, you kind of develop some muscle memory on figuring out different systems but it's familiar enough, I guess, you know, is thinking of your book and kind of paging through and thinking, it's, kind of, like, you know, if nothing else, and there's a lot of else, at least I'll know the questions to ask. And that's a really good starting point from there, yeah, right?
Frank Lavin 14:14
Yeah, gives you an analytical framework, and you're not going to solve. Look, it's almost like saying 190-page book on how to sell on Amazon, you won't have all the answers, but at least you're better off from where you were. And you could start, you do some toes in the water activities. You know, I tell because I give this presentation, I'm thinking about Canada all the time to American groups. I say, listen, guys, here's an idea. Take a long weekend and go to Toronto and go to your nearest big city, spend your day or two going through supermarkets with your smart camera and search the aisle where your product would be and look at the price points and the skews and the sizes and the presentations on the show.
Michael LeBlanc 14:19
Competitors, who’s on the shelf.
Frank Lavin 14:19
Yeah, so at least you'll come back with a decent, you know, competitive analysis and you'll be able to present this to your leadership team. Say, can we make a go of this or not.
Michael LeBlanc 15:02
Well imagine the listeners have taken that trip to China for the weekend. And what would you say the one or two, three things that they need to understand, to win in China, give us, give us a sense of that?
Frank Lavin 15:17
Well, I'll tell you what's really interesting to me is, it's a digital country, China, and you need to have a digital DNA in some brands. And, some companies do that, they communicate beautifully. Online, through, through social media through KOLs, through chat rooms, they have a whole team that does that, that some brands are not able, or they don't have that pedigree, they've never really done it. Cosmetic brands, beauty brands tend to do extremely well, baby and mommy brands tend to do extremely well meaning the customer wants to be part of a conversation, the customer does not just want to see a static ad on TV, or in the newspapers but wants to be able to comment or criticize or ask a question or give an exception or something and some. So, I'd say brand has to be able to develop that digital communication approach, if you want to be successful in China, and that some people have it, some people have to make that journey.
Frank Lavin 16:11
The other point I'd mentioned is you can be dominant in your home market; you can be very successful in Canada and be a long time leading brand lead your segment. That doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna be dominant in any new market.
Michael LeBlanc 16:24
Right, right.
Frank Lavin 16:24
Because you might be dominant, because you're, you were first mover, or you had best distribution or other kind of structural reasons, but all of that washes out to sea. So, the real point is, can you, you're, you're going to a new planet, you're, you're, you're parachuting down to Neptune here. And you have to be able to court the consumer, again, some brands are able to do that they can explain themselves, well, they can provide a description, have a discussion. And some brands say, well, look, everybody loves me, I don't have to do it. And you say, ‘Boy, you know, everybody loved you back home, because you've been around for 50 years’,
Michael LeBlanc 16:55
Right.
Frank Lavin 16:56
So, so some, some brands are natural communicators. And we say every successful brand has a good narrative. So, I would say those two being, being digitally capable, and being able to court the consumer are just huge requirements for success in the China market. And I'd go back to a point I made earlier, Michael, if I may, which is to say, look, you can pretty easily look at the competitive map, you might be in a segment that is doing very well, but you can say I can compete effective, those the top two or three brands in the segment, I can do as well as those top two or three. So, that's a great little discovery, you might be in a segment that's kind of small, but, but you're strong enough in that segment, you're okay with me, meaning you might have make up some numbers, you might have 20% market share in your home market, you might have 1% market share in China, but you could be quite profitable with one percent if it's digital.
Michael LeBlanc 17:43
One percent of a massive market. Yeah, yeah.
Frank Lavin 17:46
It's a huge base. It's a huge base anyhow, and, and, and it's all a digital strategy. So, you say, look, I don't have to pay a distributor, I don't have to pay three for intermediaries.
Michael LeBlanc 17:56
Right.
Frank Lavin 17:56
So, I actually have a greater profit margin in China than I've got in my home market. Because it's pure, play digital.
Michael LeBlanc 18:02
You talk to a lot of businesses, brands, DTC retailers that are looking at China, what are the things they most often get wrong about the market, most often things?
Frank Lavin 18:14
Yeah, I can tell you, the number one mistake is what we call the mistake of nothing, or the sin of nothing, meaning they go to China to go to the market and they change nothing. They don't change their pricing, they don't change the product slate, they don't change their messaging. They, what they're really saying is their entire experience is domestic growth, domestic expansion. That's all they know. And they've been very successful. And so they go to a new market, they say, ’Well, we'll just keep, we just, let's bring that record from the old phonograph, we'll play it again’. And you say, ‘Well, that, that might be 90%, right, or 80%, right. But there might be some adjustments you want to make about your messaging or your brand position, or you might find a different competitive environment’. So, it's worth doing a little diagnostic, and don't simply say, everybody loved me back home. Therefore, I'm going to do the same dance and same music in China, and everybody's gonna love me again.
So, it's worth doing a little bit of diagnostics, and making some adjustments on, so for example, we found some minor points that if the Chinese consumer uses your product less frequently than say the Canadian consumer that might be purchasing power, or just might be cultural, they like it, but they're not, they don't use it as much, then you need to look at selling smaller portion sizes don't sell this giant and jugs of the product because people's eyes kind of uninviting to buy a, well, and you see this dramatically in products like coffee, where per capita coffee consumption in China is significantly lower. And you're much likely to see the one-pound canisters and these oversized containers but you're much more likely see the seagull serving cache sachets I should say. And, and then if the coffee mixes are a lot more common, because the office is less likely to have a coffee maker and your home is less likely to have a coffee maker and you might only be a certain coffee once a week or twice a month as opposed to serving tea every day.
Michael LeBlanc 19:57
It's not because they don't like it. It's just as you said the consumption pattern. They're just different, right?
Frank Lavin 20:01
Yes.
Michael LeBlanc 20:01
You know, exactly that sin of omission, I guess, or less than commission, I suppose. And, you know, I can't have you on the microphone. This isn't a political podcast. But let's put something in the context of political economy. So, you know, in our last conversation, we were saying, you know, how big is this going to be, and what's its global impact? And you're saying, listen, this isn't, this is going to be a major event, I think we, maybe, undersold it a little bit. You know, what, as you look forward with your vast experience around global political economics, I see, do you see what I see, I see the ascension of China, but some of their vaccine policy is, is, you know, not as effective as maybe they like, but yet at the same time, lots of things are happening around the world. China's economy continues to grow, their influence continues to grow.
Michael LeBlanc 20:50
How do you, how do you see this all settling out? What do you think has changed? If anything, maybe this is all going to happen anyway, but do you think this has been accelerated by COVID or has anything fundamentally changed that retailer’s kind of need to think through, because, you know, their global supply chain actors, in setting a context for what you see as changes in global footprint?
Frank Lavin 21:11
Yeah, no, this is a great question. And I'd say, look, there's really sort of two parts of it. Sometimes, domestic brands, when they go international, to any extent, if they go to the UK, or Canadian brand goes the US,
Michael LeBlanc 21:22
Sure.
Frank Lavin 21:22
you say, look, you have to look at customs issues, currency. I mean, these might be all kind of predictable, or kind of minor, if it's to two pounds sterling or US dollars, but still, you've got to have somebody there thinking about it. And the further out you go on that spectrum, from, you know, more homogeneous markets to more distant markets, the more you've got to think so China's more at the farther end of that.
Michael LeBlanc 21:42
Right.
Frank Lavin 21:42
Say look, we know less about it, less familiarity, different political system. And so it's, it's, it's more intimidating and it represents, I think, to some brands more of a risk factor, because they just don't deal with it as well, but I'll tell you this. What we advise people to do in China, again, is backs into ecommerce, is don't hesitate to use an incremental model, meaning you might, you might normally say I invest $30 million in a new market, I build out my warehouses, I buy a fleet of trucks, I say, well there's no need to do that. You don't need to you can lease warehouses, you can contract out for trucks, you know, so go for an asset light or an incremental model and, and you know, building out, do it by year, as your sales grow as you develop familiarity with it, but there's no need to go all in or with both feet.
Michael LeBlanc 22:32
Yeah.
Frank Lavin 22:32
I think, I think in some respects, ecommerce is really your best friend because ecommerce it's almost a 19th century business model, meaning you ship in, once a month, you know, several pallets or, or container of goods, and you collect the money in next month, you shipping it again. So, you say look, ecommerce means you can sell in China without ever setting up a legal entity in China without ever having to hire personnel in China without ever having to visit China. So, if business goes up 10% next month, you say that's fabulous. I'm happy to supply 10% more, and businesses off 10% you say well, I don't like that it's 10% less revenue, but I'm not at any kind of risk. I'm not at systemic risk for not making a debt payment or going underwater or foolishly over investing. So, I can, I can ride that wave that volatility without heartburn.
Michael LeBlanc 23:19
Well, it's a complex, complex market. I can't think of anyone better to explain it to the retail community. The book is, The Smart Business Guide to China eCommerce’. Now I think it's, I saw it on, I think I saw it on Amazon October 27. So, it's not released but you
Frank Lavin 23:35
No, no its up now, it's up now,
Michael LeBlanc 23:36
It's up now.
Frank Lavin 23:37
For weeks now, Kindle's, Kindle's got it up, hard backs up and yep, and please go take a look. Absolutely.
Michael LeBlanc 23:43
All right, so the book is a ‘Smart Business Guide to Chinese eCommerce’. It's available now. And you've got such great experience, how can people get in touch and learn more about all the great things you're working on?
Frank Lavin 23:53
Michael probably the best way is either ExportNow.com as you said, or I'm on LinkedIn is Frank Lavin and Export Now so I mean, you I love, we love talking to brands, we love talking to retailers. We love talking about China and Michael love talking with you about all this stuff, too.
Michael LeBlanc 24:07
Yeah, listen and what the listeners don't know is you and I talked for about half an hour about all this fun stuff. And even before we hit record, so, maybe I should have recorded that too. But I was kinds of wide ranging. Such a great conversation. Frank, I really appreciate your insights and congratulations on, on the launch of the book and I wish you continued success in your business. And I will put links to the book and your contact information on the show notes and all that great stuff. And listen, I look forward to touching base with you again, as we continue to figure all this stuff out. I can't think of anyone better. And I really appreciate you coming back on to The Voice of Retail podcast.
Frank Lavin 24:42
Michael, thanks so much for having me on. It's an absolute pleasure to connect with you again.
Michael LeBlanc 24:47
Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of The Voice of Retail. Be sure to follow the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you enjoy podcasts so you don't miss out on the latest episodes, industry news, and insights. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review as it really helps us grow so that we continue to get amazing guests onto the show.
Michael LeBlanc 25:06
I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc. and if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co
Michael LeBlanc 25:15
Until next time, stay safe and have a great week!
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