Two Blokes Talking Amazon Prime Day – what is it, shopping tips, behind the scenes at Amazon

Two Blokes Talking Amazon Prime Day

Show: Two Blokes Talking Tech (special edition)
Date: 2026-07-04
Hosts: Trevor Long & Stephen Fenech
Featured guests: Lydia Avril (Amazon), Julian Freyer (Petz Park)

[00:00:00] Trevor Long: We have recorded in a lot of places, Stephen.

[00:00:03] Stephen Fenech: We have.

[00:00:03] Trevor Long: This would be the loudest, and it'll be hard for people to hear because the microphones are such a quality.

[00:00:07] Stephen Fenech: We've recorded in loud places before.

[00:00:08] Trevor Long: Where's the loudest place we've recorded?

[00:00:10] Stephen Fenech: Events, events, like launch events?

[00:00:11] Trevor Long: Nah, this is louder.

[00:00:14] Stephen Fenech: This would be.

[00:00:15] Trevor Long: We are, and we foreshadowed this program earlier in the week. We told people that we were going to be coming out here to Amazon's fulfillment warehouse in Kemps Creek in Sydney. It's one of their biggest and most robotic warehouses.

[00:00:26] Stephen Fenech: This is a very, very big facility.

[00:00:29] Trevor Long: Oh, it's crazy.

[00:00:29] Stephen Fenech: It is huge.

[00:00:31] Trevor Long: Um, I said to Jackson, if we get time— because Jackson's here helping us out— we get time after we're done, I have to take him upstairs to see what's going on.

[00:00:37] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, of course.

[00:00:38] Trevor Long: Yeah, but no, I've seen—

[00:00:38] Stephen Fenech: well, they do tours here. You can do a tour of this place.

[00:00:41] Trevor Long: They do real, real tours.

[00:00:43] Stephen Fenech: Today's tour is going to see the two blokes.

[00:00:44] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:00:45] Stephen Fenech: Part of the tour today.

[00:00:46] Trevor Long: I wonder if there'll be a tour today.

[00:00:47] Stephen Fenech: They normally have a morning tour, which is, I think, around here. You'll see them filtering through.

[00:00:52] Trevor Long: Might come in.

[00:00:53] Stephen Fenech: I might ask you for autographs. I say, I traveled along from the Today Show at Amazon.

[00:00:56] Trevor Long: Yeah, good. Not this morning, I said no. I said no and then they called him.

[00:01:01] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, anyway, yeah, I said I'm with, I'm with the knucklehead that you called originally.

[00:01:06] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, anyway, we are here at Amazon for a special edition Two Blokes Talking Amazon Prime Day here from Amazon's fulfillment center.

[00:01:16] VOICE OVER: Welcome to Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:01:18] Trevor Long: Not a bad price.

[00:01:19] VOICE OVER: With Trevor Long from eftm.com.

[00:01:21] Stephen Fenech: Really handy device.

[00:01:23] VOICE OVER: And Stephen Fenech from techguide.com.au.

[00:01:27] Trevor Long: Stephen, this, I mean, this is a— so the reason I said I thought this was a really cool thing to do is because we're not just going to talk about Amazon Fulfillment. We will, we'll talk about this place a little bit. We're going to talk about Prime Day, because if you're listening at the time of publishing this, Prime Day is literally this week coming.

[00:01:41] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:01:42] Trevor Long: But even if you're listening down the track, Prime Day happens every year. It's all about sales. It's all about, you know, for me, it's, it's a kind of a demonstration of Amazon's logistics powers, right? They can literally switch on a huge sale and people can be clicking and shopping and have that, you know, same day, sub-same day, next day delivery.

[00:02:03] Stephen Fenech: It's funny, you know, when, when I told people we're on our way here today and, uh, and I told people I did a couple interviews and my usual radio views, and I said, I'm going out to Amazon. I said, ah, the first reaction was, I love Amazon. Yeah, I love it how I can order something, it's on my doorstep. I said, well, I'm going to the place where they probably send that stuff, mate. We're going to be here. Yeah, yeah.

[00:02:23] Trevor Long: So Prime Day is the Big— one of the biggest shopping events of the year, but it's exclusive for Amazon Prime members. You know, that's a really important thing to talk about for a minute because it feels like for some people Amazon Prime is a membership that gets you next day or same day delivery, right? Yes. But for some people Amazon Prime membership is, you know, Reacher.

[00:02:42] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah, right. Or Prime Amazon Music as well.

[00:02:46] Trevor Long: A lot of people don't realize there's a book.

[00:02:48] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that's right.

[00:02:49] Trevor Long: There's a bunch that you get. I— and I think we've said this before on Two Blokes Amazon Prime is probably the best value subscription out there.

[00:02:58] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely. Yeah, I think it's, uh, what is it, $9.99 a month, and you get, you get the free delivery, you get all these other extras as well. So, uh, yeah, and, and, you know, we should, we should point out that Prime Day is so big that it now goes over a week. Yeah, it's not just a day.

[00:03:14] Trevor Long: Every day from, from Tuesday through to the following Monday.

[00:03:19] Stephen Fenech: So it's, it's It's happening for a week. It's got— it's gotten so big. Was it ever just a single day?

[00:03:23] Trevor Long: I don't know.

[00:03:24] Stephen Fenech: You know what, this is so— we need to make it longer.

[00:03:26] Trevor Long: But literally, you could be online at midnight 01, you know, so 1 minute past midnight on Tuesday the 7th, and the discounts will film. And I'll tell you how, um, how specific it is. I'm doing a Today Show segment on Prime Day, right? And we won't know the deals until Prime Day starts.

[00:03:44] Stephen Fenech: Okay, of course. Like, that's how—

[00:03:45] Trevor Long: that's how big it is that retailers, the people that sell sell. They're, they're refining their deals right down to the minute. And later on in this show, we're going to talk to someone from Amazon.

[00:03:52] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:03:53] Trevor Long: We're also going to talk to someone who sells on Amazon because I think that is probably one of the—

[00:03:57] Stephen Fenech: kind of the bread and butter of this place, isn't it? Selling their products.

[00:04:00] Trevor Long: Yeah, this is, this is not Amazon selling Amazon products. There's a bunch of Amazon Originals here.

[00:04:05] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, of course.

[00:04:06] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah. Um, there's also a bunch of Aussie small businesses who use Amazon for their fulfillment, and that's how they get their products market.

[00:04:14] Stephen Fenech: So you gotta, you gotta remember, a lot of Aussie businesses are taking part in Prime Day and, and use these facilities to, you know, all year round. But we should also mention that this isn't just limited to small Aussie businesses. We're talking Apple, Samsung, yeah, Roborock, Lego. Yeah, is that what you're shopping on Prime Day?

[00:04:35] Trevor Long: Maybe, yeah, yeah, maybe. But he still sends me a text every 3 weeks with a photo of Lego saying still your fault.

[00:04:41] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, every time I buy something, I'll take a photo. It's like a hostage photo.

[00:04:45] Trevor Long: Meta Quest. Yeah, Sony, SodaStream. Oh, SodaStream. SodaStream.

[00:04:49] Stephen Fenech: But also too, if you're after an Amazon device like a Kindle, the Ring, Fire TV, an Echo speaker, they're going to be a part of this sale as well.

[00:04:57] Trevor Long: I think a lot of people are very narrow in their Amazon shopping because it's like, I know I can get this thing on Amazon, but when you realize that Amazon is electronics which we love.

[00:05:07] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:05:07] Trevor Long: Beauty, skincare, books, homeware, fashion, books.

[00:05:10] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:05:10] Trevor Long: Uh, toys, household appliances. It's like, it's everyday essentials as well.

[00:05:16] Stephen Fenech: Yes, it's going to be available. And again, if you're a Prime member, you're going to know about it. There's going to be, uh, once you hit that home page, you're going to see a lot of deals.

[00:05:24] Trevor Long: Here's the thing, I think the, uh, the sneakiest trick of all on Prime Day—

[00:05:28] Stephen Fenech: what's that?

[00:05:29] Trevor Long: Tip, tip, if you're new to Prime Day, you can get 30 days free if it's your first time. So if you've never used Amazon Prime, okay, you can sign up for like a 30-day free trial. So you're getting, you're getting the first month of Amazon Music, Amazon Prime Video on the 1st of—

[00:05:45] Stephen Fenech: on 7th of July, and free delivery. Well, you know what, uh, but chances are you'll like it so much you'll keep it because all these other extras come with it as well.

[00:05:54] Trevor Long: It's highly likely. So look, I think that when you spend your time on Amazon, obviously it's, it's a— I don't even know how many products Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of products there when you go on the Amazon website. But when you're— when you realize that it's more than just what you normally do, and then you start to talk about the Aussie small businesses, right? The, the, the— it's a great way for you this week to support Aussie small businesses. That's right, save money. Um, there are more than 14,000 Australian sellers in Amazon stores and using Amazon stores and all taking part in Prime Day.

[00:06:27] Stephen Fenech: And you know what, Prime Day is, is, could potentially be an introduction to, for customers to these companies, to these products.

[00:06:33] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:06:34] Stephen Fenech: So, uh, and this sale is so big, you know, we've seen stats and research about how families actually, that they've got a limited budget, they're not spending less, they're just spending it at a different time where they know they're going to get a lot more value. So this is one of those times where they're going to have a great look through these specials and make their purchases at this time of year.

[00:06:54] Trevor Long: Well, Well, there's no better way to find out more about Amazon Prime than to talking to someone from Amazon. So, right after this, let's talk to Lydia Avril from Amazon.

[00:07:03] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

Lydia Avril — Amazon Prime Day & the Kemps Creek fulfilment centre

[00:07:07] Trevor Long: All right, Stephen, we said the best person to go to was someone that works here in the heart of Kemps Creek. Yes, on the ground here. At the fulfillment center.

[00:07:13] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:07:14] Trevor Long: Lydia Avril, Amazon spokesperson and a regular out here at Kemps Creek. Well, I mean, I just wanna know, What do your family say when you say you work at Amazon? Is that, is that the cool thing? Or like, what questions do they give you?

[00:07:27] Lydia Avril: It's a really good question. So I've been working, this is actually my 9th year in Amazon.

[00:07:31] Trevor Long: Wow.

[00:07:31] Lydia Avril: So I've worked in the UK, came to Australia. And so what I love is when people come to the site and they're just absolutely amazed by the robotics and the way the operation works end to end when a product comes through to when a customer ships out to our customers.

[00:07:45] Trevor Long: So that's awesome.

[00:07:45] Stephen Fenech: So tell us, it's obviously Prime Day is the big, the big event here. So tell us about it. What is it? And give us an idea of sort of how this place transforms for that.

[00:07:54] Lydia Avril: Yeah, absolutely. So Prime Day is an exclusive event for our Prime customers. So this year we're excited to share it launches in July. So from the 7th of July, from midnight, it's a 7-day event that features significant—

[00:08:07] Stephen Fenech: The longest day in history.

[00:08:09] Trevor Long: Exactly.

[00:08:10] Lydia Avril: Exactly. So I'll have discounts across your staple brands like your Lego, your Coca-Cola and so on. But also we—

[00:08:16] Stephen Fenech: So you mentioned too, Australian brands that I love. She's absolutely loved you in one go. You've been looking at my emails, I think.

[00:08:24] Trevor Long: Or your Amazon account. Maybe.

[00:08:27] Lydia Avril: But then also we support a lot of Aussie businesses. So we've got about 14,000 Aussie businesses that use the Amazon platform to sell their products. So not only are you going to save a lot of cash for the 7-day event, but you're also going to support a lot of Aussie businesses.

[00:08:39] Trevor Long: Because, you know, you mentioned LEGO and Diet Coke. Very close to Stephen's heart, of course, as we all know. But it's, it's some big brands as well. Like Amazon is used as a storefront by some of the biggest companies in the world as well as those Aussie small businesses, isn't it?

[00:08:54] Lydia Avril: Yeah, exactly. And just to give you this scale, this building is the first robotic building in the Southern Hemisphere and we hold up to 20 million products. That really gives you the scale.

[00:09:04] Trevor Long: 20 million products.

[00:09:06] Stephen Fenech: That'll cover the long household anyway, 20 million products.

[00:09:08] Lydia Avril: So we'll be shipping hundreds of thousands of products when we come into this sale event.

[00:09:12] Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:09:12] Lydia Avril: And that just really gives you the scale and breadth of how, what we can do.

[00:09:15] Trevor Long: I mean, I was fortunate enough, I've been here probably 5 times and I was here before it opened. I was here just to give people a context of why robotics is more than just, you know, something that moves a shelf, right? Yeah. Upstairs on the 2 levels that are robotic, we came here on a big media tour. You know, they're obviously trying to get news coverage and things. And there was these little stickers on the floor and the people that built the place were talking about how they've never had to be so specific about things like the concrete pour and everything because it needs to be perfectly flat. From one end of the building to the other, it has to be— there can't be a deviation on the level by more than a few millimeters or something, right?

[00:09:51] Stephen Fenech: That's precision.

[00:09:52] Trevor Long: Building was built with precision, and the robotics here are probably one of Amazon's most proud things. Like, we were just in London with Amazon at Delivering the Future, and it's amazing how much they talk about robotics, but it's not a robot delivering to your home, it's the robots helping make deliveries better in the warehouse and helping make the lives of staff better as well.

[00:10:13] Lydia Avril: 100%. It improves the process. Yes. So the robotics helps with our inventory and we can store, you know, 20 million on this site. But the people is what is the heart of this operation. Like you can see around us, we have a lot of people here shipping a lot of the orders today and I still feel like we're in their way. Yeah, maybe. Not at all.

[00:10:31] Stephen Fenech: If they want water wipes, we're in their way. Look at how many are over here.

[00:10:33] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:10:34] Stephen Fenech: Wow, crazy.

[00:10:34] Trevor Long: You were going to mention the number of extra people that come on.

[00:10:38] Lydia Avril: Yes, we're hiring an extra 850 seasonal workers when we come into our Prime event to help deliver for the extra volume that we're going to see. So Prime this year will be bigger, it will be better, but it is exclusive only to our Prime customers. So you do have to be a Prime member to have those discounts.

[00:10:52] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:10:53] Lydia Avril: And so if you're not a Prime member, you can sign up online. There's a 30-day free trial. So just try before you buy.

[00:11:00] Trevor Long: That's the tip, right? If you haven't been a Prime member, that's the tip of the day. Yeah, 30-day free trial. During the longest day of the year for Amazon.

[00:11:08] Lydia Avril: Exactly.

[00:11:09] Stephen Fenech: Can you tell us how are people shopping on Prime Day? Like what can we expect their item, when will they be sent out? Is it gonna be, you obviously get, it's huge uptake in sales.

[00:11:21] Trevor Long: Can you still do things like the fast deliveries 'cause it's so busy?

[00:11:24] Lydia Avril: Exactly, and that's the benefits of the Prime membership is that fast and free shipping that we provide. It's convenient, you know, you can get some of those more bulky items delivered straight to your door.

[00:11:33] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:11:34] Lydia Avril: And so they, The operation that we have here, the people is what makes it happen. So we've got the workers on site here that'll be packing the orders, but then also we have Amazon Flex drivers who will be delivering it to the door.

[00:11:45] Trevor Long: Let's go Flex drivers.

[00:11:46] Lydia Avril: Yeah, let's go Flex.

[00:11:47] Trevor Long: Flex drivers, what are you doing?

[00:11:48] Stephen Fenech: What Trevor's trying to ask you is that I wanna still get my product really quickly, even though it's really busy time.

[00:11:53] Lydia Avril: Yeah.

[00:11:53] Stephen Fenech: That'll still happen.

[00:11:54] Lydia Avril: Exactly. And the way that we do that is the location of these sites. And so this site alone, we can reach 85% of the Australian population within a 12-hour drive. What? Wow. Yeah, from here. So that just shows the speed.

[00:12:07] Stephen Fenech: That's only 10 minutes to your house, mate. It's pretty close to this place.

[00:12:09] Trevor Long: That's amazing. 85% of the Australian population lives within a 12-hour drive of this centre.

[00:12:15] Lydia Avril: Wow.

[00:12:15] Trevor Long: Yeah, that's crazy.

[00:12:16] Stephen Fenech: So the location is strategic, isn't it?

[00:12:19] VOICE OVER: Strategic.

[00:12:19] Trevor Long: This may be above your pay grade, so just tell me to nick off, but these locations are actually named by the nearest airport, but there's a nearer airport going to open later this year. Will you have to rename?

[00:12:30] Lydia Avril: Well, BW2 is the name of this site. We have a BW1, we have a BW6, we have a BW4, but that's named after the Bankstown New Airport that we have. And then our Sydney airport, the SYD, we have a corporate site called SYD15. That's named after that airport. So yeah, that's how you can always recognize the names.

[00:12:48] Stephen Fenech: There you go. I think it's very— you know, you're only seeing a very narrow portion of the fulfillment center here, but just the sheer scale of this place and how many levels is it?

[00:12:55] Lydia Avril: So we have 4 levels, including the ground. Yeah, 4 levels.

[00:12:58] Stephen Fenech: Is it right, it's 200,000 square meters?

[00:13:01] Lydia Avril: Yeah, and to put it into comparison—

[00:13:03] Stephen Fenech: That's a lot of football fields.

[00:13:04] Lydia Avril: It's a lot of football fields, but it's also the size of Taronga Zoo. That's the equivalent size of this building.

[00:13:09] Stephen Fenech: But with less animals.

[00:13:10] Trevor Long: As in the footprint, or if it was laid out?

[00:13:13] Lydia Avril: Yeah, if it was laid out, it's the same size as Taronga Zoo. So I think it's the same equivalent of like 24 football fields. But yeah, it's a pretty significant building.

[00:13:21] Trevor Long: Incredible, incredible. It's a masterpiece of engineering as an engineering style nerd. But I think what people really, you know, appreciate, and they probably can't appreciate from just where we're sitting, but this is, you know, just the last bit of what happens inside. As you mentioned, there's the robotics upstairs, there's this down here, and then it goes outside for the actual delivery portion to a delivery center and then to the Flex Drivers and things like that. But the robotics, you would get to see people come and do the tours. We've talked a little bit about the tours and we'll continue to talk about it later.

[00:13:49] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, they're booked up, aren't they? The tours are— Yes. You got to book weeks ahead.

[00:13:53] Lydia Avril: Yeah, we have. And you know, we actually have a lot of families, people that work here, they bring their families.

[00:13:58] Trevor Long: Oh, nice.

[00:13:59] Stephen Fenech: School holidays, maybe popular.

[00:14:01] Lydia Avril: Exactly, school holidays, we bring kids through and they have little cute high-vises, little baby high-vises. But yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing to see their faces when they come upstairs.

[00:14:09] Trevor Long: I was just going to say, is that the thing that you take some joy out of? Especially like I saw, we saw some, it looked like a senior school kids coming through.

[00:14:16] Stephen Fenech: Like a senior school kids.

[00:14:17] Trevor Long: And they must come upstairs and go, what is happening here?

[00:14:21] Lydia Avril: It helps paint a picture of how Amazon operates.

[00:14:25] Stephen Fenech: Yes, I think as we said earlier, it really gives you an appreciation of everything that's involved in the operation, just how vast it is. But yet you can really narrow it down and get things to people really quickly.

[00:14:36] Trevor Long: What are your— if you're at family dinner and they're saying to you, how do I get the best from this Prime Day sale? What are your personal tips or tricks for Prime Day?

[00:14:46] Lydia Avril: Well, first you've got to be a Prime member, of course. Download the app. The app is amazing because you get everything in one shop. You know, you don't have to toggle between different websites. You get all your categories in one, all your products, but then you also get real-time updates on your orders. Um, yeah, the app is incredible. But what I— what my top tip is when we come into Prime is actually stock up on your everyday essentials. I think we always think about our sort of top brands on those electronics and the big gifts, but everyday essentials. And you can see behind me, I've got Water Whites, I've got almond milk, But that's the best way to optimize and save a lot of cash. So I bulk buy a lot of those every day.

[00:15:25] Stephen Fenech: So yeah, I do know there'd be a lot of families, a lot of people that are waiting for this period. They've got their money ready to spend and they're waiting for this sales period. So the app, I'm assuming, or everything you'd see on a browser on a computer, the app has all the specials and all the info. And you said you can also get notifications on your tracking as well. Exactly.

[00:15:45] Trevor Long: So yeah, incredible. I'm fascinated by your personal journey, if we can just touch on that for a minute. Yes. Like, you started in the UK with Amazon, and again, tell me to nick off and we won't talk about it, but did you come to Australia to be with Amazon? Did you see them opening here and starting here and think, that's where I want to be? Like, what was it that drew you here?

[00:16:03] Lydia Avril: Yeah, it's a good question. I started out in the UK, so I actually came in as a graduate area manager in the operations. So I actually used to run one of the processes that you see seen behind you. And then Australia, 4 and a half years ago, this building launched. And so I actually joined and I got the amazing opportunity to move with Amazon to come to Australia, come to Sydney. And yeah, I've fallen in love with Sydney. I really love what I do.

[00:16:27] Stephen Fenech: Your new home, Sydney, eh? I don't think you'll ever go back now, will you? This is your new home.

[00:16:31] Lydia Avril: I know, the weather, the lifestyle. But yeah, and then since then I've moved into a few different roles, and now I'm in the HR department.

[00:16:39] Trevor Long: So, wow. Well, it feels— and look, we don't work here, but we've had a lot to do with Amazon over time, but it does feel like a great place to work. I've always—

[00:16:47] Stephen Fenech: good vibe.

[00:16:48] Trevor Long: There's a nice vibe in here. I'll say this about Amazon, Stephen, you don't have to comment on this, but whenever I come here, do you know how many times you go somewhere and it's like you're going behind the curtain and they're like, oh, you can't walk there, don't go. It's like we can walk around, like with them obviously, but they don't— they're not hiding anything from us here. It's a really open organization, and I genuinely All the staff walking around just feel like they're having a good time.

[00:17:10] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely, yeah, there's a lot of smiles on their faces.

[00:17:13] Trevor Long: Smiles up, Steven. Smiles up. There you go. Lydia, absolutely lovely to meet you.

[00:17:20] Lydia Avril: Lovely to meet you both.

[00:17:21] Trevor Long: I'm glad you're enjoying your time in Australia. I'm sure you'll be here for a long time to come because Amazon isn't going anywhere.

[00:17:26] Lydia Avril: Yeah, thank you for having me.

[00:17:27] Trevor Long: Happy Prime Day.

[00:17:28] Lydia Avril: Yeah, happy Prime Day.

[00:17:30] Stephen Fenech: Happy Prime Day. Prime Week.

[00:17:31] Trevor Long: Hello. Hey, can my birthday last a week?

[00:17:33] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long. And Steven Fenech.

[00:17:41] Trevor Long: Now we mentioned at the start, we're obviously out at Kemps Creek. This is, there's a couple of different types of Amazon warehouses and you know, they're just big indiscrete kind of warehouses, big buildings in the middle of nowhere often. But I've been to one in Melbourne, you've been to one in Tokyo.

[00:17:54] Stephen Fenech: I've been to one in Tokyo, I've been to one in San Jose as well. And London as well.

[00:17:59] Trevor Long: Oh yes, we were there a couple of weeks ago. But they're also different. So some of them, are robotic.

[00:18:06] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:18:06] Trevor Long: Some of them are, let's just call them manual. So the difference is in a— so I was at the Melbourne one, um, I did this great Today Show story if you want to find it. We put a, we put a camera on a package and followed it all the way around. Did a little GoPro on the conveyor belts and everything. It was awesome. But that— so basically there's shelves and shelves and shelves of products. But what's really fascinating about that is that when Amazon has, let's say they have 200 copies of Grand Theft Auto. Yep. Let's say they're sitting in the shelves. Or Far Cry. Or Far Cry, great game. Or a book. Or toilet paper, whatever it is. But it's not like when you walk through Woolworths and all the copies of a book or a game are in one spot. They are spread throughout the warehouse randomly. And the reason is it came about because when Harry Potter launched, what happened was so many people ordered the book and all the workers were going to pick up deliveries. All the traffic, all the workers were in one spot.

[00:19:00] Stephen Fenech: Well, that makes sense of my office. I've got things everywhere, so that's great. That makes me happy.

[00:19:05] Trevor Long: So they built this randomized system, so there could be a Harry Potter book in every third shelf all the way through the warehouse.

[00:19:12] Lydia Avril: And being—

[00:19:13] Stephen Fenech: and so that's— there's obviously the manual pick, as you said, but we're in the robotic— this is a robotic fulfillment center. So to sum it up, basically what happens the old way is the person goes to the shelf and comes back and packs it up. Here, the shelf comes to the associate. So That's the big difference here. This is the biggest warehouse in Australia, 200,000 square meters. And because it's a robotic fulfillment center, they don't need to make spaces between the shelves for people to walk.

[00:19:43] Trevor Long: So instead of having shelf, aisle, shelf, aisle, all the shelves, and I'll try and find some vision and throw it in. But the shelves are these tall yellow shelves on a rope that a robot goes and picks up. Brings it to a picker, and then there's amazing technology. There's a light that shines on the part of the shelf where the product is, where it has to be, so they know where to reach. And they put it in, put it in a cubby, in a little plastic container.

[00:20:06] Stephen Fenech: Because of that closeness of the shelves, they can fit up to 40% more product in here in a place like this. They don't need to have aisles for people to walk.

[00:20:13] Trevor Long: And by the way, there's two levels of robotic shelves above us. So this is where we are, is kind of the last part of the fulfillment. It comes from upstairs after it's been picked. And it gets down here, and there'll be people behind us through the day boxing things up. And they, you know, they've got smart technology to work out how big the box should be. They also very, very strong environmentally, not to waste boxes. Because if a thing— let's say you order a box of Coke, you've ordered 30 cans of Coke, Diet Coke, right?

[00:20:41] Stephen Fenech: Diet Coke for me, thank you.

[00:20:42] Trevor Long: They won't re-box it because they know this—

[00:20:44] Stephen Fenech: if it's in a box, it stays in a box. That's right.

[00:20:47] Trevor Long: So it's very— they're very smart about that. They're very smart about their sustainability.

[00:20:51] Stephen Fenech: Other thing they do too is obviously they're going to be slightly busier here in the next few weeks. So they also employ a lot of seasonal workers too. So people who don't normally work here 360, you know, for the year, they bring in all these extra staff for these sales periods to be able to handle the demand.

[00:21:09] Trevor Long: It's also one of those great misnomers about Amazon. People like, oh, it's a robotic warehouse. Amazon doesn't employ anyone. There are.

[00:21:15] Stephen Fenech: The car park's packed. I'm telling you now.

[00:21:18] Trevor Long: We drove in and Jackson goes, there's a lot of cars here. Mate, there's a lot of staff here.

[00:21:21] Stephen Fenech: There's a lot of people here, yeah.

[00:21:22] Trevor Long: Because you've got, there's pickers upstairs, so they're grabbing stuff out of the shelves. There's packers down here. Then there's people walking around who are robotics engineers and experts having to maintain things. When you go to the break room here, there are thousands of lockers because there are staff.

[00:21:36] Stephen Fenech: A lot of people here. Work here every day. Exactly right.

[00:21:39] Trevor Long: And I think it's a real myth that an Amazon robotic warehouse Yeah, isn't full of stuff.

[00:21:44] Stephen Fenech: It's not just robots.

[00:21:46] Trevor Long: You remember when we came?

[00:21:48] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it's not a robot. We're not robots.

[00:21:50] Trevor Long: I am real. It is me. Um, when we came here to work out where we would sit and do this show, we walked to a lot of different places. I mean, we got in a lot of people's way.

[00:22:00] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:22:00] Trevor Long: And that, that's the proof that there are people here.

[00:22:02] Stephen Fenech: People, this is their work.

[00:22:03] Trevor Long: If you wanted to have selfies with Trevor, there was absolutely not a single person. I even went up to the tour group and no one gave a rats.

[00:22:11] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, the seniors, they actually recognized me probably before you. They're all TGV listeners.

[00:22:14] Trevor Long: They probably went to school with you. Oh, that's cruel. That hit hard. That hit real hard. But this is— I do— we mentioned at the start, and you just mentioned it then, the tours. It is such a cool thing to do, and, and it is something that, you know, I think a lot of, um, groups do. So like seniors groups, let alone school groups. But you could do it yourself. But it does book out. Yeah, like, it's free.

[00:22:38] Stephen Fenech: You've got to go ahead and if you want to do it, book now, because you'll be waiting a few weeks.

[00:22:42] Trevor Long: That's right. You might have to wait some time, but it is an absolutely awesome tour.

[00:22:47] Stephen Fenech: I'd be blown away if people don't leave the tour going, "Oh yeah, I'm gonna go buy something." It just like, every time we come here and it will, for the tour, the tour guide, the tour groups as well, it gives you an appreciation of when you hit that buy button, it just gives you an appreciation of what's involved. You see it from the process start to finish. So from the products being brought into the facility here, ingested into the system, stored, and then picked, and then the labels going on the boxes. And there's all conveyor belts all around us here, boxes flying around everywhere. And then at the last point, put onto a truck and then to your doorstep.

[00:23:22] Trevor Long: Yeah, absolutely. And look, I just want to be very clear here, we were super excited to agree to do a sponsored podcast with Amazon, right? This was a no-brainer for us because some of the—

[00:23:30] Stephen Fenech: two of the best customers right here.

[00:23:32] Trevor Long: May not be me, but at least my fam— I'll just say my family Amanda. Um, we get a lot of parcels.

[00:23:38] Stephen Fenech: Like I said before, everyone who I mentioned this to that we were coming out here, they said, oh, they love it. They said, oh, I use it. I said, well, mate, me, you and me both. Like, yeah, we're all, we're all, uh, you know, from Amazon.

[00:23:48] Trevor Long: In preparation for this, because I didn't want to pull our studio apart, I mean, I went on Amazon and bought new cables, you know, kind of everything.

[00:23:55] Stephen Fenech: You were going to be here, they could have just walked it across. Well, you know what I said, we're going to be here.

[00:23:58] Trevor Long: You know when you go into Amazon and you choose your delivery address Yeah, there are Amazon, um, parcel lockers around the place, right? There's one out the front here.

[00:24:06] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:24:06] Trevor Long: And I, I'm gonna—

[00:24:08] Stephen Fenech: so staff could go by.

[00:24:09] Trevor Long: It might be called Iris or something like that, right? It's got a name.

[00:24:11] Lydia Avril: Yeah.

[00:24:12] Trevor Long: Anyway, I did put it in my, my list because I was going to try one day to see how quickly you could get delivery to that location. But I don't know that you could get a sub-1-hour delivery.

[00:24:22] Stephen Fenech: Let me ask you, what's the fastest you've got a delivery ordered at?

[00:24:26] Trevor Long: I think it was 9 AM and got it at like 5 PM.

[00:24:29] Stephen Fenech: I could beat that. Yeah, I ordered at like 8 PM, 9 PM.

[00:24:33] Trevor Long: And you got the overnight, 4 AM. There's a 4 AM to 8 AM window. There was something I needed for today and I, I nearly went for the 4 AM to 8 AM delivery and then I went—

[00:24:43] Stephen Fenech: would you— you would have been awake anyway, mate. Yeah, exactly, up that time.

[00:24:45] Trevor Long: Yeah, well, actually I slept in until 6:30 today.

[00:24:47] Stephen Fenech: Oh no, it's unbelievable.

[00:24:48] Trevor Long: Oh no, which cost me today's show segment. But anyway, the, the, um, but I just went, I've got to leave at 7:15, so my luck, my luck, it'd come at 8, at 7:45, and I wouldn't get it.

[00:24:59] Stephen Fenech: That's right.

[00:25:00] Trevor Long: That's how— now we— but that's a first world problem for us because we live— firstly, we live in Sydney where that's available. Those kind of delivery windows, the closer you are to a fulfillment center, the better the delivery windows you get. And that's, that's part of their strategy. And we've seen this in London when they were talking about delivery in the future, what their strategy is to build. They don't always want to build big, huge facilities like this. Sometimes they'll build smaller facilities like when, when you get to the point of groceries, you know, essentially all everyday essentials, I think they call it, um, Coke and things like that.

[00:25:30] Stephen Fenech: Is it— haven't got a partnership now with Harris Farms? Harris Farms is one of them.

[00:25:33] Trevor Long: But when, when Amazon gets to a point of understanding the, the order systems or the thoughts and the orders of people in certain areas, they can build delivery centers closer, and that allows for faster delivery.

[00:25:43] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely.

[00:25:44] Trevor Long: All right, let's get into, uh, Prime Day itself. Some shopping tips. Yes, for everyone out there, we want to give you some shopping tips for Prime Day. Okay, so Prime Day, if you— we publish this on Sunday, Prime Day starts on Tuesday midnight, right? First and foremost, you have to be a Prime member. Okay, so become an Amazon Prime member. Uh, the best tip there is $79 a year.

[00:26:05] Stephen Fenech: That's—

[00:26:05] Trevor Long: I think it saves you about $40.

[00:26:07] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I always pay my subscriptions yearly. Do you do that? I like, you know, all the streaming and Amazon.

[00:26:12] Trevor Long: I think if you, if you go back to the private feed this week, you'll realize he's more financially savvy than I am. So I'm going to take some advice from Steven and start converting my subscriptions to annual. But yeah, and as I mentioned earlier, 30-day free trial right now. So first tip, become an Amazon Prime member if you're not already. 30-day free trial. And if you do love what you're doing, yeah, the best value is doing it.

[00:26:35] Stephen Fenech: But also too, you got to remember, you don't have to be at your computer to, to be ordering stuff through Amazon. They've got a really good app as well, gives you the same experience on the app. So if you're on the you're on the train coming home thinking, oh, I need this, or wherever you happen to be, jump in on the app. You get the same interface, same reaction to all the great specials. But yeah, anywhere you are, use the app.

[00:26:55] Trevor Long: Back in the 1920s when you got married— sorry, that was so cruel, mate. Back when you got married, you had a gift registry, right?

[00:27:05] Stephen Fenech: I did.

[00:27:05] Trevor Long: You had a wedding registry. And that's the idea of saying, here's 50 things that we would need or love if you wanted to buy us a gift.

[00:27:11] Stephen Fenech: It was pre-internet, let's just say, when I got married.

[00:27:14] Trevor Long: Okay, yeah, well, I didn't want to go too hard, but I went to the '20s. Um, have you heard that— sorry to interrupt our, uh, shopping guy— but have you heard the, the thing that young people are doing now saying, oh, they were born in the late 1900s?

[00:27:25] Stephen Fenech: Yes, like, dude, two of my kids were born in the late 1900s.

[00:27:29] Trevor Long: You were born in the mid-1900s?

[00:27:32] Stephen Fenech: Later. Anyway, two older kids were born.

[00:27:35] Trevor Long: My point about the wedding registry and the gift registry is you can create an Amazon wishlist.

[00:27:39] Stephen Fenech: Wishlist, of course. So you know how many is on mine? Mine's this long.

[00:27:42] Trevor Long: Uh, Phantom Comic. No, no, um, so the thing, thing about a wishlist is it's things that you, you might want. Now that can be a wishlist for yourself, so you can also create save lists, but you can create a wishlist of things so that when it does come, you know, birthday time, Christmas time, and everyone's like, what can I, what can I get you? You just go, you know what, here's my wishlist, here's the things that I want on Amazon. And the thing is it, it updates continuously, so Prices update, all those kind of things they update.

[00:28:08] Stephen Fenech: So you know the great thing too about that, you create your wishlist, but you can also, you can stay organized with Alexa. So if you've got an Alexa speaker, you can say, add this, hey Alexa, Alexa, add this to my wishlist. Probably how many people's Alexa speakers have gone off right now. Yeah, so that's another thing you can do, let Alexa do the work for you as well, because you can create that shopping list and add to it. And you might even say, Alexa, start a Prime Day wishlist.

[00:28:33] Trevor Long: Yes, and so then you can create that wishlist, add to it as you go, and obviously during the week ahead you could share that wishlist with your family and friends.

[00:28:42] Stephen Fenech: There you go, so drop a hint for your birthday, is that what you're saying, mate? You put it on your wishlist. Yeah.

[00:28:46] Trevor Long: Drop a hint, say, "Here's what I want." Now the other thing about Alexa is because of the knowledge that Alexa has of things you've put in your cart, things you've saved, you could say things like, "What are my deals?" So it'll actually tell you things that have come up as a decent deal for you as well. Add it to the cart. You can do all that via voice. So you can actually use Alexa.

[00:29:05] Stephen Fenech: You know what I find? You use Alexa if there's like stuff you order regularly. Like, you know, you might order like, like when we had our dogs, I'd say, okay, Alexa, add the dog food to the—

[00:29:15] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:29:15] Stephen Fenech: And then knows the one I bought last time and it added to the list and order or order it.

[00:29:19] Trevor Long: Yeah. Here's the best Amazon Alexa shopping tip. Alexa. 'Where's my stuff?' And so it'll tell you where your delivery is. Yeah, right, because I get a little notification.

[00:29:29] Stephen Fenech: 'Your front door, stupid, you haven't checked yet.' Yeah, you get those little—

[00:29:31] Trevor Long: 'I was there at 4 AM.' Those little, um, ding-dings that tell you that there's been a notification. Ding-ding-ding. All right, notifications, I think they're called, um, about your deliveries. But another one is just to ask, 'Where's your stuff?' Yeah.

[00:29:43] Stephen Fenech: And how about Amazon Lens? You can take a photo, upload the photo, or scan a barcode and see if there's a match or a similar item.

[00:29:51] Trevor Long: And the barcode, I think a lot of people don't realize. So you've got the app, you just open up Amazon Lense, and you just scan a barcode of something you've already got, and it'll show you where it is on Amazon and how many times I've done that.

[00:30:01] Stephen Fenech: Like, I've done it— like, yeah, you see stuff, you're on social media, you see some— someone flogging some product, and you think, I'm just going to check on Amazon. It's usually the same product but cheaper.

[00:30:11] Lydia Avril: Yeah.

[00:30:12] Stephen Fenech: So I'm thinking, okay, I'm gonna go— here's somewhere, a place I know and trust.

[00:30:16] Trevor Long: Retail is competitive. The bottom line is, if you could be in a retail store and use Amazon Lens to scan a barcode And here's the thing, that's it, that retailer won't want to match the price. But if not, just click buy. Absolutely. And it might be your door that night.

[00:30:29] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, you might be there when you get home.

[00:30:31] Trevor Long: So some simple shopping tips this Prime Day, uh, write the list down. We might— I might put that list on EFTM, you might put the same on.

[00:30:37] Stephen Fenech: Oh, we'll do the very same thing.

[00:30:38] Trevor Long: Um, little tips for Amazon Prime Day this week coming. And it's the same for every Prime Day, so it doesn't matter when. Honestly, it doesn't matter when you're listening to this. If Prime Day's already passed, those tips are still super valuable, still relevant, uh, here on Two Blokes Talking Amazon Prime Day. Now, um, I think the best way to understand things we talked about earlier with small businesses is to talk to a small business. So after this, we'll talk to Julian Freyer from Pets Park.

[00:31:00] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Steven Fenech.

Julian Freyer (Petz Park) — Selling on Amazon as an Aussie small business

[00:31:09] Trevor Long: So as I said, the best way to find out how Amazon works for an Aussie small business is to talk to one. Julian Freyer from Pets Park. Welcome, mate.

[00:31:16] Stephen Fenech: Welcome, Julian.

[00:31:17] Julian Freyer: Thank you.

[00:31:17] Trevor Long: Great to have your company, mate. Tell us about Pets Park. What is Pets Park?

[00:31:22] Julian Freyer: Pets Park specializes in dog and cat healthcare products. So we provide supplements that customers or pet owners can mix in with their pet's existing food, and each of these products provides a very specific health or addresses a specific health benefit.

[00:31:40] Trevor Long: Wow.

[00:31:40] Stephen Fenech: Okay, did you come up with these yourself, or how did, uh, Well, what was the inspiration behind this?

[00:31:46] Julian Freyer: Look, I found an opportunity in the market. It is a very rewarding business. That was important to me. We're actually helping. It's not like we're just selling sugar. These products are very potent, concentrated, and they truly do and deliver on what they, what they promise.

[00:32:04] Trevor Long: How long have you been operating?

[00:32:05] Julian Freyer: So Petspark has been around for over 7 years now.

[00:32:08] Trevor Long: 7 years. I noticed there's an Australian made logo on there. That's a tough thing to get because you need to meet criteria. Is that a really important thing to you as well?

[00:32:17] Julian Freyer: That was the number one priority for us. All of our products have the official Made in Australia logo.

[00:32:23] Lydia Avril: Wow.

[00:32:24] Julian Freyer: Everything is made here in Australia. That was very important to us.

[00:32:28] Stephen Fenech: So take us back. What was the inspiration to start the business? So you're obviously a pet owner yourself, I'd imagine.

[00:32:34] Lydia Avril: Yes.

[00:32:34] Stephen Fenech: Tell us how it got started and how you've scaled the business.

[00:32:38] Julian Freyer: Look, I was actively looking for an opportunity to get into e-commerce. This was back in 2018, and that's when sort of the pet humanization trend started to evolve. Um, lots of pets, pet owners spending more and more money on huge money treating their, treating their pets, part of the family. Yeah, treating their pets like children, like kids. And so that's where we realized there was a gap. A couple of products already existed, but back then the major brands, companies, they weren't really talking to the customer directly, to the end consumer. They all were set up in retail and through vet clinics, vet channels, but no one really went out to actually approach the end consumer, right? And this is where we saw an opportunity.

[00:33:29] Trevor Long: So you, you focus directly on e-commerce from the start.

[00:33:33] Stephen Fenech: Your goal—

[00:33:34] Trevor Long: a lot of, a lot of businesses, especially in the pet space, would be going, our goal is to get into Pet Barn, or our goal is to get into wherever. Your goal is simply to sell to pet owners in the best and fastest possible way.

[00:33:45] Julian Freyer: Well, don't get me wrong, I did knock on everyone's door. I did, I did knock on, on Pet Barn store and Pet Store, but As a small business with only a couple of products, no one really wants to take on any risk. So no one really wanted to work with us and stock us initially, which is why we then, um, spent— spun it around and thought, okay, well, we'll focus on the end consumer first. We go there, we collect all the reviews, we make a bit of noise out there until we get to the point where the big retailers just need to pay attention to what we— what we're doing.

[00:34:19] Trevor Long: Yes. And so early on in the direct-to-consumer model, was it just setting up a website and having an e-commerce backend, you know, that kind of thing?

[00:34:27] Julian Freyer: Yeah, so when we first started in 2018, Amazon didn't exist in Australia as a platform just yet. So our only way was setting up a website, running Facebook and Google Ads, and operating an online store through Shopify.

[00:34:42] VOICE OVER: Wow.

[00:34:42] Stephen Fenech: So how much of a change then? Well, it was 2019, wasn't it, Amazon started in Australia? So What sort of changed then was after you say you started online through social media, so having Amazon in the picture now, that dramatically changed things for you?

[00:34:57] Julian Freyer: Absolutely. No, Amazon does play a very crucial role these days. I myself, I'm a shopper first. So Amazon, I grew up in Europe, Amazon has existed for many, many years over there, so I'm very used to using the platform as a consumer, and so when it became available over here, I just knew the tremendous value that came with it.

[00:35:22] Trevor Long: Right, and so the specific Amazon feature we're talking about is called Fulfillment by Amazon. If you were at a family barbecue, for someone who doesn't work in retail, how do you describe Fulfillment by Amazon to people?

[00:35:39] Julian Freyer: FBA, what we're referring to, is extremely helpful for us as a small business because literally all we have to do is we put products on a pallet, we send it to one of these amazing warehouses, and then Amazon does everything for us. So whether we sell 100 products per day or 10,000 a day, it adds no additional pressure onto our daily operations.

[00:36:06] Stephen Fenech: So you can then focus on scaling, producing your product and scaling to even, even better, right?

[00:36:13] Julian Freyer: Yes.

[00:36:14] Stephen Fenech: Okay, so that big weight off your shoulders to be able to let Amazon do the heavy lifting, basically.

[00:36:19] Julian Freyer: We love it.

[00:36:20] Trevor Long: And so does that mean that anyone, anyone watching, anyone listening who has a business where they have a physical product that they sell to consumers via the internet should be looking at Fulfillment by Amazon because it allows them to essentially have a place in a big shopping center, if you want to think of Amazon that way, and not have to staff it, not have to, you know, spend the extra man hours on the sale of the product.

[00:36:44] Julian Freyer: Yeah, oh, I absolutely recommend, especially now that Amazon has gained a lot of traction over the last couple of years. I mean, when we first started, there were hardly any sales, but it's really evolved into something. And the beautiful thing is we're growing with the platform. The platform is still being adopted, a platform is still growing at a fast pace, so we have the opportunity to grow with the platform.

[00:37:08] Stephen Fenech: So do you still have your own internet storefront as well as the FBA as well?

[00:37:14] Julian Freyer: That's correct, so we're running multiple, we've got multiple sales channels in parallel.

[00:37:18] Stephen Fenech: How does the FBA, I'd imagine would be a pretty popular line for you?

[00:37:23] Julian Freyer: Absolutely, yes, and it's the, I have to say, I like it the most simply because everything is being handled behind the scenes. I don't need to pay staff at our warehouse to pick-pack orders, it's all being done for us.

[00:37:40] Trevor Long: And I guess then, and to be clear, you retain your own platform, your own website, your own fulfillment, because there's sometimes when you want a direct-to-customer relationship, you want to build that and grow that, but you'd be kind of cautious about wanting as many sales as you can get through FBA that way because of the sheer cost of doing that yourself, I assume.

[00:37:58] Julian Freyer: Yeah, I mean, an omnichannel approach, I think, is just very important these days. It just sort of helps you safeguard yourself against whatever might happen to you or your business. We love working with Amazon. It plays a tremendous role and part in our business, but I wouldn't solely want to rely on it.

[00:38:20] Trevor Long: Because it's not— it's, it's just another way to sell your products. And I think it's fascinating because the stats— I don't know, but the stats would be phenomenal around the number of people who literally go on Amazon every day, right? And then you go, okay, so narrow that down to pet owners, right? Yeah.

[00:38:35] Stephen Fenech: And a lot of those—

[00:38:36] Trevor Long: your ability to pick up customers. And one of the things a lot of people might not understand about an Amazon listing is, you know, you can put so much into the listing. You can put effort into the listing, which is part of the sales process, right? So The more imagery, video, like you can put a lot into the listing that allows you to essentially be there selling to the customer without physically doing anything.

[00:38:57] Julian Freyer: Correct, and Amazon constantly releases new features and updates to further improve the customer experience. They also provide all the important metrics behind those listings that then allow us to go back, make tweaks, and just further optimize.

[00:39:14] Stephen Fenech: So you can see what's selling, what is not, and sort of keeping it— have a great overview of the business.

[00:39:19] Julian Freyer: Yes, we can run A/B tests, which are very important to help incrementally improve conversion rate. So there's a lot that Amazon provides us as a seller, yes, within, in terms of tools and visibility.

[00:39:34] Trevor Long: But because of the scale, I would think that would also just help you generally in business too, because if it's, if you do an A/B test, and for people that don't know, an A/B test is to say, look, we want the title of the product to be we want the title to be this or the feature image to be this, but we also want to try it with this title and this image to see which one gets people clicking or whatever it might be. And you could use that because of the scale of Amazon, you could use that as learnings on your other platforms as well.

[00:39:57] Julian Freyer: Well, you need, that's right, you need numbers in order to—

[00:40:00] Trevor Long: An A/B test is no good with 2 people.

[00:40:03] Julian Freyer: That's correct. In order to run a successful test, you need numbers and Amazon certainly has millions of viewers and shoppers.

[00:40:11] Stephen Fenech: So tell us, how important is Prime Day? Is this a massive event? You guys, obviously you'd be leaning into this, all the people who are in your position. I know there's gonna be a lot of eyeballs on the site. What does it mean to you?

[00:40:25] Julian Freyer: Oh look, I always refer to it as the Black Friday event in July. So it's huge, it's massive. We get super, the entire team gets super excited about it. We prepare for it.

[00:40:36] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:40:36] Julian Freyer: We do everything we need to do to supply Amazon with all the inventory.

[00:40:40] Trevor Long: Because you need to make sure they've got enough.

[00:40:41] Lydia Avril: They've got enough product.

[00:40:41] Stephen Fenech: That's it. To meet demand.

[00:40:44] Julian Freyer: Yes, but then the beautiful thing as a seller is too, once we've done all of our preparation, we sit back and we just watch the sales come in and Amazon or Amazon's robots, I think, they do their thing.

[00:40:57] Trevor Long: Can I ask, and again, this is just me nerding out, but as a seller, is it almost real-time, the kind of data, the metrics? How often are you looking at the dashboard that says, how's Prime Day going for me?

[00:41:09] Julian Freyer: It is very addictive, especially checking your dashboard, especially on days like, Prime Day.

[00:41:16] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:41:16] Julian Freyer: Um, yeah, it's, it's close to real time, but you will find me refresh multiple times per day.

[00:41:22] Trevor Long: Yeah. And can I ask, in terms of Prime Day, you mentioned Black Friday. I mean, it's weird, I don't think dogs— Christmas would be because a lot of people like— we've got a— my, my brother-in-law doesn't have kids, he's got dogs, and so we buy, we buy pet presents for them. Yes. So the fur babies. Chris, are the spikes for you Christmas, Black Friday, and Prime Day? What are the spikes during the year?

[00:41:43] Julian Freyer: Yeah, technically it's Prime, it's Prime Day and Black Friday, but the beautiful thing about our products is they qualify for repeat purchases and Amazon offers subscription services. So during sales events like Prime Day or Black Friday, we try to acquire as many new customers as possible because we know that the likelihood that these will stick around or jump on a subscription is extremely high.

[00:42:10] Trevor Long: Yes. How long a packet of Skin and Coat for dogs, how long does that last? So is it a month or 3 weeks? And so that subscription, is that what you get?

[00:42:19] Julian Freyer: Yeah, so it depends on the weight of your pet. Of course. But generally speaking, anywhere between like 8 to 12 weeks.

[00:42:26] Trevor Long: Right. And so the thing about— and that we haven't even really touched on the subscriptions today, but it's a really good feature. You could use it for Diet Coke, as you've mentioned, but you could absolutely use it for this. So you could just say, look, every 10 weeks I want another packet of Skin and Coat. And if you worked out that it was becoming less or more, you can adjust it. But essentially you don't need to do anything. It's just— and you've acquired a continuous income stream from that customer.

[00:42:50] Julian Freyer: Now Amazon has done a great job.

[00:42:52] Trevor Long: So for Trevor, look, hip and joint. Hip and joint.

[00:42:55] Julian Freyer: They'll fix your joints.

[00:42:57] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Oh, probiotic.

[00:42:58] Trevor Long: Yeah, that's good for everyone.

[00:42:59] Lydia Avril: That's great.

[00:42:59] Trevor Long: Sounds like something I need.

[00:43:00] Stephen Fenech: So hang on, these are all— all the products here are for dogs. Do you have cat products?

[00:43:03] Julian Freyer: Yes, we've got a cat line as well.

[00:43:05] Stephen Fenech: You're a cat guy. I'm a cat guy.

[00:43:06] Julian Freyer: I'm more a dog person myself, but we've got a full-fledged range for dogs and then a similar range but specifically tailored towards the needs of cats for cats.

[00:43:17] Trevor Long: Before I let you go, because I'm genuinely fascinated by Australian Made, I'm passionate about it, but I understand why we don't make things. I get it. But it's a big deal that you've been able to achieve that. How hard was it back in 2018, 2017 to find a factory, the equipment, like how did you do all that yourself or did you find a place?

[00:43:36] Julian Freyer: No, I've been very fortunate that I have built a very successful team around the brand, around myself. It wasn't easy, I had to knock on many, many doors to find the right people to say yes, that actually believed in the vision and wanted to work with me because obviously order volumes were very little to begin with.

[00:43:57] Lydia Avril: Yep.

[00:43:58] Julian Freyer: But I think it speaks for itself. It is an Australian-made product. It is high quality. We're not necessarily trying to compete on price, but we deliver and we deliver results. Customers love it. They see the results.

[00:44:14] Trevor Long: They see their pets are in good health and they want to keep them that way. Can I tell you, we're old school, so I still listen to the radio a lot. There's a company, I don't know who they are, but if I did, I wouldn't say it. There's a company advertising now something about food for dogs, and it's all about how they, how they toilet. And it's actually unbelievably good cut-through, the way they're able to talk about the outcome for the animal. I think a lot of that for you is, is a smart move to talk about what does this do for the, for the dog or the cat, because you're so passionate about the ingredient. It sounds to me like that's your, that's your critical point of difference.

[00:44:48] Julian Freyer: Well, the products, like I said, they need to work. No one comes back.

[00:44:52] Trevor Long: Reviews matter.

[00:44:53] Julian Freyer: Reviews matter. We have over 10,000 verified Trustpilot reviews. Reviews matter. They, they need to work. No one comes back if the product doesn't actually deliver, um, what it, what it says it does. And so there's nothing more rewarding than having cat or dog owners email or send in, yeah, messages on social media and say, thank you so much, your product has been Yes, so helpful.

[00:45:19] Trevor Long: That's lovely.

[00:45:19] Julian Freyer: My dog has gone back from limping now back to running up the stairs, and I can't, I can't thank you enough. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing.

[00:45:29] Trevor Long: Well, I'm glad Australia could be the home for your ideas. You've come from Europe and here you are with an Australian business, Australian-made, and making it, uh, making it big online. Well done.

[00:45:39] Julian Freyer: Thank you, really appreciate it.

[00:45:41] Trevor Long: Thank you, mate. Julian Freyer from Petzpark, Petz with a Z, P-E-T-Z-P-A-R-K. Z, Pets Park. So if you've got a dog or a cat, there's plenty of great products.

[00:45:49] Stephen Fenech: Look them up.

[00:45:50] Trevor Long: You can buy on Amazon and get deals this Prime Day.

[00:45:53] VOICE OVER: Everything about tech you never wanted to know. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:46:01] Trevor Long: So look, it's a great thing, Stephen, supporting small businesses, Aussie small businesses. And I think it's so many of them. It's so cool that you can be shopping on a global juggernaut like Amazon. Yeah., but be supporting an Aussie small business.

[00:46:12] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely right, I think that's something we should highlight, that you, yes, you're shopping through Amazon, but it's the, these small businesses that are actually benefiting. So everyone wins.

[00:46:21] Trevor Long: Now, when I came, I think it was to this warehouse, I did some stuff, it was another, I think it might have been another Today Show segment, we were talking about, I was doing a segment not just on Amazon, but on essentially the secondhand economy, right? So I looked at a mobile phone company that was doing refurbished phones and a bunch of, uh, kind of sustainability things. And I met a lovely lady here who works in their kind of Amazon resale or renewed area. Right now, the re— gotta remember, there's, there's a couple of things that happen when you buy a product. You buy a product, you love it, you keep it. You buy a product— and I'll give the example, I mean, it was pouring rain last week and Amanda had to work on the school carnival, big fair that was on, and she was very worried it was going to be muddy and horrible out at the carnival. So she went on Amazon, bought gumboots. I looked at the order and went, "Oh, she's bought gumboots. What about this?" Anyway, she got them on Friday night, opened the box and went, "Ooh, they're probably tighter than I would have liked." But what she did was she went, "I'm gonna hold onto them until tomorrow." And then tomorrow it wasn't muddy, it wasn't wet. So she went, "You know what? I'm not even gonna push it with my feet. I'll just put 'em back in the box." And then on Monday morning I got an email 'cause it's my account saying, "Your return." So she'd gone through the process online of sending back the return.

[00:47:28] Stephen Fenech: So those— To be clear, there was nothing wrong with them.

[00:47:30] Trevor Long: Nothing wrong with them. They're just not the right size. And they hadn't been used.

[00:47:33] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:47:34] Trevor Long: Perfectly good. So they've come back to you, so you take them to the local area, like it might be that our local chemist is a returns point for Amazon. So you take them back and they get sent back here and someone here opens the box.

[00:47:45] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:47:45] Trevor Long: They look at the product, they inspect it, they inspect it, and then they get sent back onto the website for resale, back in the inventory.

[00:47:53] Stephen Fenech: There you go. And, and to be clear again, nothing wrong with it. So a lot of people send back products that it gets— just doesn't suit their needs.

[00:47:59] Trevor Long: I watched one of the associates here at Amazon open up a I think it was a camera, it was a piece of electronics, right? And I thought to myself, it looks sealed. She goes, yeah, but you could reseal it and look like it was brand new, right? Opened up everything and looked, was every cable there? Was it all there?

[00:48:13] Stephen Fenech: So that's what they do when it comes back, they've got to make sure it's all—

[00:48:16] Trevor Long: check it still turns on, it is all in the box. Yes. Then it gets listed on Amazon and resells. So you can go to the Amazon resale homepage, um, and you can choose the buy used. So a lot of products have the listed an extra option to buy used. Yeah, cheaper than the original and it's as new, I guess. As new. Yeah, because the other thing is some of those returns simply didn't get delivered. So if you don't accept an at-home—

[00:48:44] Stephen Fenech: so they go on that as well?

[00:48:45] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:48:45] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, wow.

[00:48:46] Trevor Long: So when I did Amazon Flex driving, the delivery stuff, right, I was so nervous I was going to end up with a lot of parcels that no one collected because I had a lot of unit blocks, right? And because the unit block, you really often can't leave the parcels because it's not someone's front door. And so you can imagine there would be a percentage of Amazon deliveries that do not get delivered.

[00:49:03] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:49:03] Trevor Long: And they probably try a redelivery, but then if it fails, it just goes back into resale.

[00:49:08] Stephen Fenech: And so because the product was sent out of the warehouse, it's no longer listed, even though it's still sealed up and everything, because it's left the building back in.

[00:49:16] Trevor Long: Because it left the building, the quality check is to say it left the building, we don't know what happened to it.

[00:49:20] Stephen Fenech: Okay, right. Okay, wow.

[00:49:21] Trevor Long: So it comes back in, so It is a super cool tip to know that Amazon has resale. Now Amazon Resale, they also have a thing called Amazon Renewed. Now this is a little different because it doesn't happen here, but they, they source electronics in the same way that some other companies we've talked about over the years. They source electronics that have been tested and checked. Yeah, so refurbished.

[00:49:44] Stephen Fenech: How popular is that, people buying phones and other products refurbished? So that's all part of the Amazon Renewed.

[00:49:50] Trevor Long: So if the reason we wanted to point out these words, Resale and Renewed, is because you might see them on the Amazon website. You might see a product that says Resale and you go, well, hang on, what's that mean? It means they sold it to someone else, they sent it back. Yeah, but you can trust that Amazon checked it and you're getting a better price because of that.

[00:50:04] Stephen Fenech: That's right.

[00:50:05] Trevor Long: If it says Renewed, it means it went to a facility or it came from a facility that deals with these secondhand electronics. Mate, it could be TVs, it could be an Xbox or a PlayStation, it could be anything, right?

[00:50:14] Stephen Fenech: Tablets.

[00:50:14] Trevor Long: Yeah, something that, that needs to be electronically fully checked.

[00:50:18] Stephen Fenech: What did you say? Gaming console? Yeah, Xbox.

[00:50:20] Trevor Long: Yeah, imagine that.

[00:50:20] Stephen Fenech: PlayStation.

[00:50:21] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah. So all of those things are part of their program. If you're looking for absolute deals, yes, don't feel like you're just buying someone else's stuff. I, I saw one once that someone had bought Lego.

[00:50:32] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:50:32] Trevor Long: And I went, that I can tell that has been open because you know how Lego boxes, you can't, you can't re-box Lego. Of course, you know that, right? It's open. Okay, so I looked at this and went, well, hang on a minute, why is this here? And they go the box is, is dented and damaged. Oh, now think about it. You've gone online and you're going to buy your great mate Stephen something new from Star Wars to start a, a collection for him that will cost him a lot of money into the future, uh, and you receive it and think, oh, this is a gift, but the, the box, the corner of the box is dented in. You're like, oh, it's kind of, it's not, not the gift I want to send. You know what I'm going to do?

[00:51:06] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, some serious LEGO collectors, the, the packaging is as important as the actual bricks themselves.

[00:51:10] Trevor Long: Send it back. So they sent it back because the box was damaged, and someone else buys that because they go, I don't keep the boxes.

[00:51:16] Stephen Fenech: Guess what I'm looking for?

[00:51:17] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:51:17] Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:51:18] Trevor Long: It's a great way to buy, buy things just because the box was damaged. Yeah, yeah. So shout out to Amazon for having that returns program, having that ability to, you know, make sure that things— it's also environmental, right? It's making sure things don't just get returned and thrown away because they think they don't work. But it's part of that whole sustainability thing. You know, we talked about it earlier, they're very strong on trying not to use packaging where they don't need to.

[00:51:39] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:51:40] Trevor Long: Trying to minimize packaging where they do.

[00:51:42] Stephen Fenech: I remember Jordan Mailata came out. I did a story, an interview with him. He was their packaging officer, and that was interesting. It was actually educational to know that if it's in a box, as you said earlier, it's— why put another box in it?

[00:51:54] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:51:55] Stephen Fenech: So they're trying to sort of minimize the packaging if they can.

[00:51:58] Trevor Long: I just have to say, because I think it's behind us in shot, or it might have been behind our guests, what do you think Milk Lab is? I mean, it's just so many boxes.

[00:52:04] Stephen Fenech: What about the Water Wipes?

[00:52:06] Trevor Long: There's too many boxes of these things around here. It's crazy, and you can't see, but we are just surrounded. Fortunately, we have really good microphones. We are surrounded by conveyor belts. This place will ramp up a little later today with just so many purchases, and next week it's going to be crazy.

[00:52:23] Stephen Fenech: All hands to the pump next week.

[00:52:25] Trevor Long: It's Amazon.

[00:52:26] Stephen Fenech: All hands on deck for Prime Day.

[00:52:27] Trevor Long: Amazon Prime Day starts midnight Tuesday morning, so Tuesday morning when you wake up, or if you want to go through— Stephen's more of a more of a go-through past midnight. I'm more of a wake up early for midnight. That's kind of just how we differ. I'll be in bed by 6 and wake up at 12:01, open up the app in bed, find the deals. We genuinely don't know.

[00:52:48] Stephen Fenech: You'll find Amanda next to you already on the app.

[00:52:50] Trevor Long: You know when the house is completely dark but then there's just one little light on the roof, you're like, oh, someone's on their phone. We generally don't know what deals they're going to be, but we know that Prime Day has been huge for deals over many years.

[00:53:00] Stephen Fenech: Just look at the list of the the brands that are taking part. That's how big it is. You've got some of the biggest companies in the world that are taking part.

[00:53:08] Trevor Long: Excellent stuff. So shop online, shop Amazon. We hope you've enjoyed a little bit of a look under the covers or behind the scenes here at Amazon to learn a little bit more about Prime Day, get the best from Prime Day in terms of your deals. And, uh, yeah, we appreciate Amazon's support of the podcast and for having us out here this week.

[00:53:23] Stephen Fenech: Yes, it's great to be guests of Amazon out here, and I'm going to order some stuff and sort of wait for them over there.

[00:53:28] Trevor Long: That's what I'm doing. And we'll be back throughout the week with all your normal shows right here on Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:53:34] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.