Amazing FBA Amazon and ECommerce Podcast, for Amazon Private Label Sellers, Shopify, Magento or Woocommerce business owners, and other e-commerce sellers and digital entrepreneurs.
908 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 days ago -Amazon Private Label and eCommerce Interviews with Experts in Amazon product chooosing, Amazon listings, sourcing private label products, importing from China, and Amazon product listings. We serve new Amazon sellers and 7-figure Amazon sellers with specialist content.
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Episodes
123 Are your products beautiful?
December 07, 2016 06:00 - 7 minutes - 6.08 MBAre your products beautiful? If you are selling on Amazon, you are likely private labeling products, probably from China. Although, if you are in America then you might be looking at other alternatives in light of Trump’s plan to raise tariffs. For now, let’s assume you are importing from China. China makes some of the world’s worst products. China makes some of the greatest, such as the Apple iPhone. It’s equally possible to create terrible products as it is to create amazing ones since 80%...
122 Big Business Vision- St Paul’s Cathedral, London
December 06, 2016 06:00 - 6 minutes - 5.87 MBHave you got a vision for you business? I have to confess. I have spent way too long, jumping from product to product, trying to make a buck, which is fine. However, after a couple of years, I stop and think, “What’s it all about?” This is a very important question you must ask yourself, and it’s something that will change over time. When I first started, my vision was to make a lot of money quickly and put it back into my life, into other projects that were important to me. While that is ...
121 Why Belonging to an Exclusive Club could help your Amazon Business
December 05, 2016 06:00 - 4 minutes - 4.11 MBDetailed Research shows the truth: Your income is the average of the 10 people you spend the most time with. So it follows that spending time with other successful people is going to increase your success! That's the value of belonging to the right club! Going to an exclusive gentleman's Pall Mall club today reminded me of that. Of course, the exclusive London club for Amazon business owners is the Amazing FBA London Mastermind. If you're interested, click the link and find out the details...
120 How to Increase Your Amazon Profit – without more sales
December 03, 2016 06:00 - 14 minutes - 13.4 MBThe final 5th part of this miniseries of 5 episodes, this completes this overview of Profit Maximizing Strategies. Remember the basics: you can only increase profit 2 ways: Increase income decrease costs We looked last time at decreasing your overheads. Here we address the other profit killer: your Direct Costs. Otherwise known as COGS=Cost of Goods Sold. look at your Total Landed Cost (TLC): Here are some ideas for reducing these: -Manufacturing cost - can you negotiate with your su...
119 Are these Hidden Amazon Costs Killing your Profit?
December 02, 2016 06:00 - 11 minutes - 10.1 MBThis is the 4th of 5 episodes in the mini series with One aim: Increase Your Profit! Today we address the less sexy side of increasing profits: decreasing costs! All of us are to some degree aware of costs when ordering inventory because a sudden spend of several $1000 in one go generally gets your attention! But there is a hidden profit killer that I've fallen victim to too many times: OVERHEADS! Your overheads creep up over time, it seems, like weeds! Add the latest software product once...
118 the 3rd way to increase your eCommerce/ Amazon Sales
December 01, 2016 06:00 - 9 minutes - 8.59 MBThere are only two ways to increase your Profits in any Business: Increase your income Decrease your Costs! in this 3rd of five parts in this mini-series, we talk about the 3rd way to increase your income. It's called increase AOF - and it's the most ignored! AOF=Average Order Frequency. Simply put, we are trying to get our customers to come back and buy from us more often! This is not just a marketing idea - it affects all your business decisions. For example, if you go into a catego...
117 The 2nd way to increase Amazon Sales
November 30, 2016 06:00 - 26 minutes - 24.6 MBThis 2nd way of increasing sales is so neglected, you can get ahead simply by implementing anything in this area! The simple idea is to increase the AOV=Average Order Value. It can be more difficult to implement on Amazon than just getting new customers but is potentially much more profitable. If someone usually buys a $10 widget at 50% margin, you get $5 profit per sale. If you usually sell say 10 orders of 1 $10 widget a day, your profit per month=$5X10X30=$1500 If you can increase the ...
116 The 1st way to increase Amazon Sales (Part 1 of 5 of increasing profits)
November 29, 2016 06:00 - 6 minutes - 6.16 MBThe first way to increase Sales (and thus increase profits) is the best-known way: get more customers. On Amazon this primarily comes down to the basics of: Ranking for high volume (or low-volume but high-converting) keywords on Page 1. (Impressions). PPC plays its part as does optimizing your product listing. Getting Amazon shoppers to click through to your listing - a keen price and great photo are key. (Clicks/sessions) Getting people who view your product page to buy (Conversions...
115 Increase Profit: The 2 Basic Methods for your Amazon Business
November 28, 2016 22:11 - 4 minutes - 4.01 MBThere are just two ways to increase profit in any business. You must either increase the sales; or decrease the costs. It's that simple. But don't overlook the power of the simple yet true. This is simplifying thought that is obvious once you think about it - but that makes it all the more vital that you grasp it. And from that first thought, several other powerful principles follow...read the next episode to find out more... To find out more about the Amazing FBA London Mastermind menti...
113 Know Where You’re Going with your Amazon Business
November 28, 2016 22:02 - 5 minutes - 4.64 MBThere is a triple metaphor here. Simple stuff but still true: Know where your business is heading. And where it is right now. If you don't have goals, you won't know where it's heading. And if you don't measure your position accurately (eg cash, cashflow, P & L etc), you won't even know where you are now. 2. Know where you are going. How does your business fit into your life? How does it serve your goals? 3. When you are literally having goods transported from one side of the globe to a...
Getting Things Done on Amazon
November 28, 2016 21:55 - 6 minutes - 6.36 MBJFDI -it's nothing fancy; it's a London saying. But it works... If in doubt - stop making excuses. If you know you need to do something, Just Do It! It's like Nike said (but with less swearing). Sounds simplistic but it's the mindset that gets stuff done: come what may, whatever it takes, whether you're in the mood or not, inspired or feeling flat...do it anyway.
Black Friday
November 24, 2016 23:36 - 6 minutes - 6.38 MBThis tactic is pretty simple but can produce powerful results. If you want more details, let me know in the comments and I'll do detailed step by step instructions.
111 The Trump Antidote!
November 14, 2016 06:00 - 11.3 MBForget Trump - Do this Instead! Following on from my encouragement to move on from stressing about Trump and Politics generally, here’s what I suggest you need to do: Take action! Instead of focussing on events out of your control, focus on what actions are under your control. If thinking global is stressing you, think local. Do some retail arb, go to talk to a mom and pop shop about wholesaling their goods; there are so many possibilities. Even just do some freelance work and earn some cash...
110 Stressing about Trump is FOOLISH and Losing you Money!
November 13, 2016 06:00 - 17.1 MBNewsflash: stressing about Trump is FOOLISH! If you’re an Entrepreneur, you have 3 main resources. In reverse order of importance: Investment Capital 3rd most important. Obviously, Money is crucial for any product based business, especially if you’re going to do Private Labelling. That said, it’s possible to start Retail Arbitrage or Online Arb with a tiny budget and wholesale with a few hundred pounds. Having a budget of several 1000 can still easily lead to business failure without the ...
#109 Oriana Marcolongo of Currencies Direct Part 3
November 07, 2016 06:00 - 17 minutes - 14.5 MBMannan Shah, the senior account manager - 6 years’ experience as Trader/dealer What 3-5 factors are most important to consider to help predict future relationships between currencies? The main determination for currency movement is the key interest rate for that particular country. For the US, if the Federal Reserve says there will be a major hike in interest rate by December 2016, it will struggle against other currencies. The expectation of the interest rate is the main factor. The secon...
#108 Oriana Marcolongo of Currencies Direct Part 2
November 06, 2016 06:00 - 2 minutes - 2.17 MBIs now a good or a bad time for UK sellers to be targeting the USA? Now is the best time to start targeting the USA. Exchange rates haven’t been this low in 30 years. Since the GBP is weakening against the USD, that means you get more pounds per dollar, and you have to sell less to make the same amount. Many of Oriana’s clients are acting quickly trying to capitalize on the lower exchange rate. Let’s say I have £4,000, or about $5,000 and I want to start an Amazon business. I will be sellin...
#107 Oriana Marcolongo of Currencies Direct Part 1
November 04, 2016 06:00 - 15 minutes - 12.9 MBOriana Marcolongo is the ecommerce partner manager at Currencies Direct. Currencies Direct are Currencies Specialists and Oriana is very experienced at explaining the the technical side of this area via webinars etc to ordinary business people. Why do we need to think about Currency as small business owners? Cross-border trade is the norm now, so small business owners do need to think about currency. If you look at the business cycle, there are three key stages where it has an impact. The ...
#105 Finding a Killer Amazon Product part 5: Competition – Reviews and Listing quality
October 28, 2016 06:00 - 12 minutes - 11.3 MBCompetition - Photos and Reviews Everyone gets a bit obsessed with the wrong things when it comes to Amazon competition. The first mistake is to get blinded by sales volume and ignoring the competition and what that will do to your profit margin. If you can't produce a differentiated product, don't go into a market. However, you need to assess the competition correctly. REVIEWS - WHAT REALLY MATTERS The biggest red herring is to worry about the raw number of reviews the competition has...
#104 Finding a Killer Amazon Product Part 4: Check Competition!
October 27, 2016 06:00 - 9 minutes - 8.52 MBCompetition - Brand Dominance The next thing to do IF your product has good demand at a fair price (so probably over $30 at least), the next thing to do is to check the competition. Here we look first at brand dominance. This comes in two forms: A big, well-known brand which takes a lot of the market at the higher price points If you're in the Cookware space, for example, if you see a product like "Russell Hobbs" and you can see that the spread of prices is $15-30 but only Russell Hobbs...
#103 Finding a Killer Amazon Product Part 3: Panning for Gold – Demand Research
October 26, 2016 06:00 - 7 minutes - 6.86 MBPanning for Gold After having found great product ideas, the big phase we are now in is the FILTERING stage - panning for gold! Now we look at the overall Demand and check for demand depth. If nobody wants your product - just eliminate and move on. The easiest tool I reach for here is the same each time: the Jungle Scout Chrome Extension. OVERALL DEMAND Firstly: Don't get obsessed with units sold per month. Traditionally you look for 3000 units/month sold on page 1 - which means per pro...
#102 Finding a Killer Amazon Product Part 2 – Set your Budget & Aim for the Most Expensive Products you can!
October 25, 2016 06:00 - 12 minutes - 11.8 MBSetting your Budget After gathering ideas, the big Second Phase is: FILTERING. The first thing to say is: there is no single perfect formula. If you use the same formula as everyone else, you'll end up with the same products, you'll compete on price and you'll make no profit (if you manage to make sales). So DON'T choose "$20-40 sales price, 3000 units a month, lighter than 1 lb weight"! The first thing to do in this Phase is: set a budget. The main thing that makes a difference is how m...
#101 Finding a Killer Amazon Product Part 1 of 5: Generate Great Ideas
October 24, 2016 06:00 - 7 minutes - 6.73 MBGenerating Product Ideas The first step to finding a Killer Amazon Private Label Product is generating good ideas. I think there are basically two ways to do this: Option 1: Organic Ideas Brainstorm - I use a tool called Workflowy but a Google doc (especially good if you'll be sharing with a partner or VA) or Word or Pages (Mac) document would do. Or even a notebook! Go to Argos, Tiger and similar shops - maybe Tesco for UK if you're after clothes or Walmart in the States Look at ph...
Adam Hudson
October 21, 2016 06:00 - 22 minutes - 18 MBTo find out more of Adam's own strategies and tactics, CLICK HERE Reviews are a major part of any strategy and you mentioned earlier that you want enough reviews to seem viable. Is that correct and could you expand on that? Yes. It hard to seem credible if you have five reviews and everyone else has 100, so you have to work for those reviews. How much is enough? And what do you do now that incentivised reviews have been removed? How many depends on the product. It depends on what page one...
Adam Hudson
October 20, 2016 06:00 - 15 minutes - 12.9 MBSo you mentioned you started with $20,000 when you started your first company and I often tell people that you need at least $5,000 to start, which is a manageable figure for many people, but is that a viable number for people to start out with? It is. You just need to do a lot of research. Adam uses Zonguru, which he owns, which is similar to AMZ Tracker and Jungle Scout if they had Feedback Genius built in. You need to track something like 100 - 200 products. Spend hours tracking products...
Adam Hudson
October 18, 2016 06:00 - 16 minutes - 13.8 MBGet Adam's Latest thoughts HERE So, the first thing is to have a great product, what’s the next thing? The next thing is to have great photography. Not good photos, not the best you can do, but great photography. The best that you can possibly get. If you look at AirBnB for example, one of the decisions they made early on was to send professional photographers to the homes to take photos. In the beginning, people weren’t booking because the photos weren’t good enough. As soon as they star...
Amazon Entrepreneur Mindset
October 10, 2016 06:00 - 10 minutes - 9.56 MBHaving just played piano for music auditions in London recently, it struck me that the Main mistakes made in auditions are the same as those made by many beginning Amazon entrepreneurs. mindset strengths or mistakes and doing it well - needed for auditions for peak performers are the same as those needed for Amazon Mistake #1 Failure to prepare Solution: Prepare! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that Xmas sales are big in retail. Plan your inventory accordingly. Plan your cash ...
Amazon Reviews Update
October 09, 2016 10:11 - 28 minutes - 26.2 MBUnless you've been living on Mars, you will have gathered by now that Amazon has done a major update, basically banning "Incentivized Reviews". From What I've seen on the Facebook groups, as usual, in response to an Amazon shifting of goalposts, the usual panic and "The sky is falling!" mentality abound. My advice is: Don't Panic! There are and will be multiple ways remaining of gathering the necessary reviews. I'll be going into detail on that in the next couple of weeks. More importan...
#94 The Seven Steps of an Amazing Amazon Business Launch
October 03, 2016 06:00 - 23 minutes - 21.5 MBAmazon Overall Startup Process - 2.5- 6 months 1. Product selection - 4-12 Weeks / Many Hours a week! 2. Business setup - 2-4 weeks/ A few hours only 3. Sourcing - 3-12 Weeks or More! / Many Hours a week! 4. From Port to Live - 1-3 weeks/ A few hours 5. Product Listing - 1-2 days/ A few hours 6. Product launch - 1-2 weeks/ A few -many hours 7. Stabilise - Ongoing/ 2-3 hours a week, then say a day a week Which of these areas is your biggest block to progress? Let me know at ht...
#93 How Amazon Changed my Life
September 30, 2016 06:00 - 8 minutes - 7.67 MBA decade ago, I was a humble, indeed, humiliated double glazing salesman. I learnt a lot from it but I hated it. I had no life, little money and hung out with boring or outright unpleasant people. A decade on, I'm earning a living online, I can work from wherever I want and I get to hang out with successful entrepreneurs, including legitimate millionaires. So what changed? Two As - Action and Amazon! Amazon is an amazing opportunity. It's tough, it takes time, effort and real money. But it...
Amazon FBA
September 24, 2016 06:00 - 11 minutes - 10.3 MBThis is the traditional time of year for "Back to School" - not just for pupils, or parents of pupils, but also for those of us who have to work in them...until now! Amazon and the online world have enabled me to quit all of my "day job" work that I wanted to leave. It works! However, I want to say that it has taken me about 2 1/2 years to get to that point - so the pitch of getting free of the day job within 3-6 months is unlikely. Possible - but unlikely. You'll have to work, take calcul...
Amazon FBA
September 24, 2016 06:00 - 11 minutes - 10.3 MBThis is the traditional time of year for "Back to School" - not just for pupils, or parents of pupils, but also for those of us who have to work in them...until now! Amazon and the online world have enabled me to quit all of my "day job" work that I wanted to leave. It works! However, I want to say that it has taken me about 2 1/2 years to get to that point - so the pitch of getting free of the day job within 3-6 months is unlikely. Possible - but unlikely. You'll have to work, take calcul...
#89 Why Amazon Got Me Up Early This Morning
September 13, 2016 06:00 - 6 minutes - 5.67 MBPart of the "Summer Episodes" This quick episode tells you why Amazon got me up early this morning. I'm not going to tell you why here - you'll have to listen! This episode is one of the **Summer Series** of bite-sized chunks of Amazon Strategic Goodness!
#87 The Amazon Reviewer’s Perspective with Augustas Kligys – Part 2
September 09, 2016 06:00 - 23 minutes - 21.7 MBCan you tell us about any products that you get asked to review that are over-saturated and there are too many of them out there? It can depend on the season. For example, during the summer he was getting a lot of review requests for money pouches and passport holders that you would use when you travel. As we get closer to Christmas he will likely start getting a lot of requests for lights and other holiday items. Keep this in mind if you have seasonal items. For instance, let’s say you are...
#86 The Amazon Reviewer’s Perspective with Augustas Kligys – Part 1
September 06, 2016 06:40 - 33 minutes - 27.1 MBAugustas's Background Augustas is originally from Lithuania and moved to Germany because that is where his wife is from. He has moved around a lot and is quite the digital nomad. For access to the European Summit with special bonuses for Amazing FBA listeners, click here. About a year ago he learned that he could get free stuff from Amazon sellers after looking into doing FBA. He never started his Amazon business, instead he got into doing reviews. He found Facebook groups for German product...
#85 What the sea can teach Amazon entrepreneurs about time management
August 31, 2016 06:00 - 7 minutes - 6.67 MB#85 The sea...and Natural Rhythms It's funny how interacting personally with basic natural forces reminds you of some Business basics for Amazon. Here are a couple of thoughts that have struck me while swimming in the sea off the South-East coast of England: There is a natural rhythm to everything in business. Just like the ebb and flow of the tide, it's almost like a force of nature. If we learn to recognise hear or see those rhythms, we can work with them not against them. Examples of na...
#84 Are you making this Basic Mistake in your Amazon business?
August 30, 2016 06:00 - 5 minutes - 5.02 MB#84 Basic Mistake...but easily made I'm not going to give away this basic mistake - but let's say, the sea gives you a major clue...and have a listen to this 5-minute episode... Part of the **Summer Series** of bite-sized chunks of Amazon Strategic Goodness!
#83 What 2 hairdressers can teach Amazon entrepreneurs
August 29, 2016 16:20 - 15 minutes - 13.8 MB#83 Episode -Why your customer chooses you. Differentiation -example: Hairdressers in Haslemere Think like a customer - go shopping for products like your own. First impression -look and feel (brand part one) Quality - perception and experience. Positioning (cheap and cheerful/expensive/exclusive) What people say about you (brand part two aka reputation) If they can't differentiate on either they will shop on price Amazon is not the high street. Comparisons are near instant and...
#82 Is your Amazon Business missing this?
August 19, 2016 06:00 - 6 minutes - 5.77 MBAre numbers important for Amazon FBA product choices? Of course! Are they enough on their own? I just don't think they are. I believe if they ever were, they aren't any more. There is one vital ingredient that you need now. If your business is missing it, you just can't succeed now. Listen to this episode to find out what it is! This is part of the Amazing FBA Summer Series - a series of quick dual video/audio podcasts with bite-sized chunks of meaty goodness for Amazon sellers!
#81 Richard Branson’s Top Productivity Tip
August 18, 2016 11:21 - 5 minutes - 4.89 MBRichard Branson is famous as a serial entrepreneur. And a very rich and consistently successful one at that. So when someone asked him for his best way to be productive, what do you think he said? Listen to the podcast to find out! This episode is part of the **Summer Series** of bite-sized chunks of Amazon Strategic Goodness!
#80 How to prep for Amazon UK with Greg Jones – Part 2
August 15, 2016 06:00 - 27.9 MBWhat are the major freight paperwork and how do we overcome those? If you are using a courier or one of the freight professionals, they do all that for you. You don’t have to worry about the various paperwork, custom claims, etc. This is a skill these guys have been working on for years, they can do it better and more efficiently than you, so let them do it. UPS is around £11 per shipment for customs clearance. DHL is right around there as are most of the others. Since you’re importing the p...
#79 How to prep for Amazon UK with Greg Jones – Part 1
August 12, 2016 06:00 - 32 minutes - 30 MBGreg has sold on Amazon for about 2 ½ years now so he has quite a bit of experience with selling. Greg saw an opportunity while he was selling. He hated doing the prep work. It took a lot of time and kept him away from what actually made him money, sourcing and working with suppliers. So he started FBA Prep UK almost two years ago as a solution for Amazon sellers. Why bother with prep at all? Why not just send directly from China or supplier to Amazon? First of all, things happen to product...
Selling an ecommerce business
August 08, 2016 06:00 - 51 minutes - 47.6 MBWho would buy my business? Typically, from about $20k to $2.5mil, you’re looking at individual investors. Above that, from $2.5 to $5 million there is a bit of a black hole because individual investors don’t have that kind of capital. Some do, but it’s rare. Above that $5 million mark your are looking at private equity firms and larger businesses. Let’s talk about the $20k to $2.5 million. These individual investors’ primary driver is fear of loss. They don’t want to lose their investment. S...
#76 Importing to USA, Brand Building & Email followup: Q & A Tuesday No. 12
August 02, 2016 06:00 - 26 minutes - 47.4 MBQ 1 Corinne First, I am not an American but want to sell [on] Amazon.com I have sent a few small packages to Amazon FBA. There was no issue at all until I started sending 15 cartons. When I sent this 15 cartons, I don't have Federal tax ID number. Thereby I needed to spend US$ 500 to have freight forwarder to help me. Then I tried 8 cartons through DHL which declared $1200 for the customs. However, it is still got rejected by the customs. It seems FEIN is required if i want to ship my inve...
#75 Prioritising Tasks – Overcoming Amazon Overwhelm Part 3
August 01, 2016 06:00 - 29 minutes - 26.8 MBWHAT TO WORK ON What you work on (effectiveness) is way more important than how well you do it (efficiency). Prioritising is absolutely critical. It is probably the single biggest factor after. This takes discipline, courage and energy. If you lack those, work on your mental and physical state. Go for a run. Phone a friend (Briefly!). Have a quick coffee. Whatever works for you. Then crack straight into it. How to identify what to work on: What worries you most? What are yo...
#74 Overcoming Amazon Overwhelm Part 2 – Energy
July 29, 2016 06:00 - 36 minutes - 33.8 MBFor Amazon Entrepreneurs, feeling overwhelmed is the commonest problem outside finances and product selection. Here I address the second area: Personal Energy.
#73 Overcoming Amazon Overwhelm Part 1
July 25, 2016 06:00 - 32 minutes - 29.8 MBEPISODE #73 -Overcoming Amazon Overwhelm “Lack of time is lack of priorities” (Tim Ferriss). This will be addressed in a later episode in detail. Know that the better you set priorities, the easier decision making will be. It will still require energy and courage, however (see II below) But here, you still should do a quick and dirty Goals review (see #73) what do you want from your life ? How do you want your amazon business to serve that? (Ultimate Goal) Passive income str...
#72 How your Amazon Business serves your Amazon Goals
July 24, 2016 11:54 - 9 minutes - 8.57 MB#72 How your Amazon Business serves your Amazon Goals This is a quick podcast just provoking thought more than anything else: remember what your "Reason Why" is for creating an Amazon business in the first place. At this time of year, with beautiful weather in the UK (for once!) and in holiday season, it's a natural time to reflect.
Private Label Myths
July 19, 2016 06:00 - 40 minutes - 37.3 MBAmazon Myth #1 Startup capital : $1000 is enough. The first Amazon myth is that you can start a Private Label business with $1000 or so. Reality: $1500 is an absolute bare minimum; $3000 is more realistic for private labelling. Of course you can start making money on Amazon with just a few hundred dollars - but not with Private Label, unless you get very lucky. You'll be looking at models like Retail Arbitrage, Online Arbitrage or flipping generic products from Aliexpress to Amazon. Th...
#70 Sales Tax and GS1 UPC codes
July 12, 2016 06:00 - 19 minutes - 18 MBQ. 1 UPC Code - Stuart. OK, so you may have seen some talk recently about Amazon cracking down on non GS1 barcodes in the US. I'm just wondering what people's thoughts are on how to handle this. When I first setup my private label products, I used a third party barcode company, that were significantly cheaper than the official GS1 barcodes. At that stage I wasn't too worried, as I was just starting out and money was tight, and hey, it's not as if I needed to be able to print barcodes onto m...
#68 Brexit
July 08, 2016 06:00 - 14 minutes - 12.9 MBBrexit has hit UK based entrepreneurs, like everyone else in the UK. But I think it's time to start reflecting quietly on what this means for your Amazon business. There will be threats and issues - but also opportunities. First and foremost: Don't panic. Don't despair. Respond but don't react! Assess everything with a cool business brain. Don't be a Polyanna; don't be pessimistic, either. Just be aware of events and stay aware of threats and opportunities. When you spot the latter, act dec...