Lessons For Successful Nutra Branding & Dropshipping, with Zack Woods from HoneyComm

Episode Overview

Episode Topic: In this episode of NutraPreneur, we go on an informative journey with Zack Woods, Creative Director at Private Label Supplements and the graphic designer turned catalog manager for HoneyComm, as he shares insights on how his innovative approach is reshaping the e-commerce landscape for consumable products. Discover what excites him most about the future possibilities and get a sneak peek into his upcoming projects. This episode is a dynamic exploration of design, technology, and dropshipping in the consumer packaged goods industry, providing valuable insights for entrepreneurs and e-commerce enthusiasts alike.

Lessons You’ll Learn: In this episode, we delve into the remarkable journey of Zack Woods, from graphic designer to Catalog Manager at HoneyComm and the Creative Director at Private Label Supplements. Discover how his design expertise prepared him for managing an extensive product catalog, and learn about HoneyComm’s innovative approach to dropshipping and branding. Gain insights into the future of e-commerce and dropshipping, and what sets HoneyComm apart in real-time order fulfillment.

About Our Guest: Our guest, Zack Woods, brings a unique blend of design sensibility and catalog management skills to the world of consumer packaged goods. With a background in graphic design and a pivotal role at HoneyComm, Zack has been instrumental in reshaping dropshipping for consumable products. His experience in building brands from scratch and ensuring branding consistency across diverse products sets him apart as a creative force in the industry.

Topics Covered: Here, we uncover Zack’s transition from graphic design to catalog manager at HoneyComm, exploring his role in merging design and product information management. We also delve into HoneyComm’s comprehensive dropshipping solution and its impact on the industry.

Our Guest: Zack Woods: Versatile Professional with a Background in Graphic Design and a Pivotal Role at HoneyComm

Episode Transcript:

Zack Woods: We’ve made it easier than ever to create a supplement store. So I know a lot of people are going to be saying, well, more people, more competition. That’s not entirely true because of COVID. The industry itself has grown because of people’s hyper awareness to their bodies and to what they consume and what they put into their bodies. And because of that, the industry is bigger than it has ever been. There might be a lot of sellers, a lot of competitors, but the money that is available is still astronomical when it comes to margins and it comes to your customer base. So the possibilities are limitless at this point.

Bethany Jolley: Welcome to NutraPreneur the Nutra Industry Podcast. I’m your host, food scientist, and nutraceuticals consultant Bethany Jolley. Each episode will be exploring what it takes to thrive in the nutraceutical industry, from conversations with successful nutraceutical entrepreneurs to venture capitalists to tech executives whose innovations are reshaping the nutraceutical industry. We explore the innovations and trends that are shaping the next generation of nutraceutical businesses.

Bethany Jolley: Welcome back to NutraPreneur, the podcast that unveils the transformative narratives in the nutraceutical world. I’m Bethany, your host, and today we’re exploring the intriguing intersection of design, technology, and dropshipping. Joining us is Zack Woods, a versatile professional with a background in graphic design and a pivotal role at HoneyComm from building brands from scratch to managing product catalogs. Zack has been at the forefront of innovation in the consumer packaged goods industry. Welcome, Zack. Thanks for joining us today.

Zack Woods: Thanks for having me.

Bethany Jolley: First, I’d love for you to share your journey transitioning from a graphic designer at HoneyComm DFY team to your current role as a catalog manager, really bridging the gap between design and product information management.

Zack Woods: Sure. So on the DFY team that stands for done for you and that consists of logos like a brand kit, we typically give three label concepts, and then out of those three label concepts, the customer can pick which design they would like to continue with, and then we would take that one design and duplicate it across all of our products. And that was what I handled now outside of me. There are also a web, there’s a web team, there’s a marketing team, there’s a copywriting team. And then we also have virtual assistants that come with specific packages. Now, those are I’m not sure that those will all be. Those will all be available in the future. But as of right now, that is what the done-for-you package consists of. Now the transition between done for you into product catalog product catalog consists of what you had mentioned earlier, but it’s bridging the gap between design, quality control, software development and pretty much just anything product-related comes through me that way. There’s a single point of contact for all the various departments that we have.

Bethany Jolley: I think it’s safe to say that HoneyComm is reshaping drop shipping for consumable products. So can you provide some insights into how this all-in-one solution merges manufacturing, packing and shipping and how you’ve played a part in this transformative journey?

Zack Woods: Sure. So HoneyComm came from the company dropified and dropified was just your typical drop shipper software. And I worked for the manufacturing and packaging side of things at that time, and we saw that there might be a good fit there. So we partnered with them and tried to create some sort of solution to this problem, which is there is not a way to drop ship supplements or not an effective way to drop ship supplements. So that was the creation of the concept of the idea. I’ve been with the HoneyComm since the very beginning, but it just is a piece of software that bridges the gap between manufacturers, packers, ship fulfillment centers, and like online stores. It’s an all-in-one piece of software.

Bethany Jolley: Yeah, it sounds like it’s really one-stop shop for new brands that need all of those resources and may not know where to go. They can just come to HoneyComm. You offer everything they need, all of the guidance and educational resources as well. And I know in your previous role you were really instrumental in building brands from scratch. So how did the process of creating logos and brand kits and labels really prepare you for your current position? And how do you ensure that branding remains consistent across a vast catalog of products?

Zack Woods: Sure. So the kind of the transition and what I’ve learned is my mind is more geared towards the marketing side of things, which if you have any, if you have the chance to get into HoneyComm and really look around it, you can tell it was designed by marketers. I mean, the whole thing through and through is built with the idea of selling. So from my perspective, coming from the design background, the transition into the product kind of catalog quality kind of area is a really seamless transition because I’ve already been working tightly with quality control and I know a large majority of the rules and what can and cannot be on a label. Therefore, I can help guide new people while they’re designing their labels before they even submit it to be quality reviewed. That helps one our quality team not have to check so many labels in the revisions are minor compared to hey, swap out all this crazy stuff. It’s just it’s a lot more seem. Seamless. Yeah.

Bethany Jolley: That’s so great because there’s so many brands out there that have these great ideas. They have an amazing graphic designer. They put together this label, but then they realize, Oh wow, there’s all of these regulations I need to be following from claims all the way down to what font size you have to use. And so having someone that’s experienced with dietary supplements specifically I think is really helpful to those new brands that are out there. And then also that you have someone in quality control on staff is great as well because quality of course is so important. And while HoneyComm offers a technology platform, it’s also backed by a team of experts. So how does this blend of technology, and human expertise benefit clients in the world of consumer packaged goods?

Zack Woods: One of the biggest things is we touched on it, but the fact that we have a quality team. I mean, the large majority of these softwares are competitors. They have quality teams. But I would argue to say that they are not as well-versed in the industry as we are. We have secret-shopped a lot of our competitors and tried to see how those systems work. And we’ve purposefully put errors on labels and they have gone through the system. So we know for a fact that they’re not checking as diligently as we are. So that is honestly the number one delimiter between the two is our quality control and the fact that we have 24-hour customer service. So if you need to get on and ask a question and you’re in Canada or you’re in the Philippines or you’re in the US, whenever whatever, we’ll be there, we’ll be there answering questions will help you get whatever question or problem you might have. We’ll find a solution. The idea is that we put our customers first always, even when it doesn’t seem logical. So we’ll break our own system if it means that it’ll help somebody get over a little hurdle that they’re having.

Bethany Jolley: Yeah. And that’s also something that’s critical for startups because they might have questions at different hours in the night or have an issue pop up that they need help with immediately. And so being able to offer that service is really important. I would say the drop shipping landscape is truly evolving. So could you delve into how HoneyComm leverages technology and innovation possibly in ways that clients might not immediately realize to really empower businesses in real-time order fulfillment?

Zack Woods: Absolutely. So we are now at HoneyComm, very technology-based. We have just launched we call it the Label Lab. It is a label design editor built into our software. So now there’s no need to hire a designer, especially if you’re looking for a very basic label. It all can now happen inside of the software itself. This is a future thing. So this has not been launched, but we’re going to be leaning heavily into AI. I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say, but I will say it is unreal what the software can produce. I’m talking like within ten minutes you can have a logo, a brand, a label, and a website. Wicked fast. It has not been launched yet, but I’ve had little sneak peeks and it is very impressive. One thing that we’re doing in the meantime so that we’re not behind on like the AI side is that we have supplied AI prompts. So if we’re on like chat GPT, I’m not sure if you’ve used that, but that’s like the go-to AI. What we’ve done is we’ve created learning material and given our customers prompts to ask the AI to generate whatever they need. I have a company that specializes in blank. I would like the logo to be blank and blank blank. You just it’s like one of those fill-in-the-word games. I forget what they’re called, but that’s pretty much what it is, and you just copy and paste it and it generates your answer. You take that and you just it’s just so quick and so easy, especially if you understand the power of AI. But you just need a little help. We’ve we’re helping in that aspect as well. 

Bethany Jolley: That’s incredible. And I’m sure is a lot more efficient for these brands. I know people don’t want to wait around for their designer to create their logo. And so that’s really, really neat that technology has come so far to be able to do that.

Zack Woods: Oh yeah. And we’ve had the opportunity to work with some very large companies. I know inventory is always been a problem for the drop-shipping model because it’s a shared inventory system, meaning let’s say that the manufacturer produces 500 bottles of apple cider vinegar. Out of those 500 bottles. Let’s say that there is a thousand stores that want to sell that one product. Well, if each one of those stores sells one bottle, obviously that math doesn’t add up. So you have to have a really big inventory position from the manufacturing perspective so that your customers don’t ever stock out. And because of these very large partnerships, inventory will not be a problem in the near future.

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Bethany Jolley: We’ve touched on it a large amount of inventory quality control and think maintaining brand consistency across products is no small feat. So how do you ensure that product labels, claims, and images align with the client’s brand identity while accommodating the demands of an ever-expanding catalog?

Zack Woods: So one thing that I like doing personally on my designs is I like figuring out what niche the client is wanting to go into. So let’s say it is first responders. I just recently did a label for this, so it’s fresh on my mind. So what I like to do is I like to do a very basic template or a basic design that feels like it could age well. And then what I do is I’ll swap out an image of, let’s say it’s a firefighter because of the ability of HoneyComm, you can launch the same product six times over, five times over on the same website so that you can hit a very wide target market, but it feels niche. We had one guy who had. I’m just going to keep using apple cider vinegar because that’s an easy one. But we had a guy who had apple cider vinegar and we marketed it to firefighters. We marketed it to ambulance, we marketed it to police, we marketed to nurses and doctors, anybody like that. And then that way, when they’re running their campaigns, they can target the market all the way down to those sub-niches with no additional cost or no muddying the water, because in your typical manufacturing setup, you would have to take an inventory position, which is typically a minimum of 50 to 250 depending upon your manufacturer. Then you have to order 50 of those labels or 250 of one label, whereas in this system you’re not ordering any labels. You’re as an order gets or as a bottle gets purchased, the label gets printed, applied to the bottle, and shipped to the customer. So it allows for wide growth of branding and marketing.

Bethany Jolley: You bring up a good point. Those minimum order quantities, a lot of brands can’t handle that or purchase that upfront, and then if they do, it makes it difficult because they only have one product in their lineup, whereas this gives them the ability to have more than one product. They can change up their labels, they can get creative, and not have to take on all of that inventory. So I think that’s a really great business model for new brands.

Zack Woods: Yeah. One thing that I love about that idea is the fact that you can launch your store and immediately have a massive store. I mean, you can have 80 products on day one and, and what kind of is cool too, and a lot of people view Out-of-stock products as a problem. However, if you keep them live on your site, it just makes it look like you’re selling a ton of stuff. So then when you have somebody new land on your store, they’re like, Oh, this company has been around for ages. They’ve got ten products or five products out of stock already. These guys are selling through like, I want to get in on this. So instead of viewing Out-of-stock products as a burden, you can use it as an opportunity to show the idea that your store is huge when in all reality you might have only have launched it last week.

Bethany Jolley: Right. So can you walk us through the journey that a client typically takes with HoneyComm and highlight how the platform and your role as catalog manager really contribute to their success?

Zack Woods: Sure. So my job actually starts before the client actually signs up. So all of the information I control not only populates our backend information but also pushes to the front. So there is only one spot for all information to go and it goes to both places. It goes to where the customer can log in on the back and it also goes to the marketing on the front From the customer’s perspective on going through the whole system. You can sign up in a couple of different ways. You can sign up through our website or we are integrated in with Shopify. So we are an app that you can download and sign up for and I believe we are in WooCommerce or BigCommerce and we’re planning on adding more and more over time and getting into more and more app stores. But the idea of how the customer goes through the process is different depending upon how they sign up. If they wanted to sign up through our marketing agency, let’s say that they landed on like an ad, then they would probably go through the marketing line. If they found us through the manufacturing, then they would go through it that way. Or if they found us through the like Shopify, then they’re that experience is going to be completely different as well.

Zack Woods: But in the end, it’s all the same. There’s a library of product that anybody can pick from. You upload a design or you can design. Now inside the software, you push it through to a quality control. They review it, they make sure it looks good. There’s open dialogue between you and a real person. And then once that quality control person or manager has approved your label, then it goes into the next phase, which is it’s available for pushing to your storefront. Once it’s connected to your storefront, then it’s alive. There is nothing else that needs to happen after that. It’s just up to the customer to market the product. As product ships, there is a live inventory on the back of Shopify as well as inside of HoneyComm, and that’s pretty much a very short, condensed version of the walk-through of what is available. And there’s many, many other things as well like we have inserts that you can add in like marketing inserts, stickers, custom retail, boxing, and many, many more things that just weekly feel like we’re adding a new feature. So by the time this show comes live, I’m sure there’s going to be five new features.

Bethany Jolley: Yeah, that’s great. And for those listening, if you would like to learn more about HoneyComm, we will post the link to their website in the show notes so you can check it out. I think it’s really obvious by everything you’ve said today that HoneyComm’s approach is revolutionizing drop shipping for consumer products. So how do you see this approach shipping the future of e-commerce and what excites you most about the possibilities that it offers?

Zack Woods: There’s just going to be a lot more exposure. We’ve made it easier than ever to create a supplement store, so I know a lot of people are going to be saying, Well, more people, more competition. That’s not entirely true. Because of COVID, the industry itself has grown because of people’s hyper awareness to their bodies and to what they consume and what they put into their bodies. And because of that, the industry is bigger than it has ever been. There might be a lot of sellers, a lot of competitors, but the money that is available is still astronomical when it comes to margins and it comes to your customer base. So the possibilities are limitless at this point.

 Bethany Jolley: Yeah, I agree. I don’t think the dietary supplement industry is going anywhere. People are more health conscious than ever and there’s constantly new innovations and new ingredients coming out. And so I think it’s still a great opportunity for new brands to jump in and get into the supplement world. So.

Zack Woods: Absolutely.

Bethany Jolley: I know you’ve talked about the future a bit and some new things coming up with HoneyComm, but are there any other exciting projects or partnerships that you’d like to highlight as you continue to redefine the drop shipping landscape?

 Zack Woods: One thing that I did forget to mention is that if you are a manufacturer and you want to be a part of this system, we have a manufacturer partnership to where we can hook your, hook our software in with your product. So let’s say that you sell pet products. We’ll vet you as a manufacturer. You have to make sure that you follow all cGMP. Kind of. You are a legitimate manufacturer. You can’t work out of your garage. We’re not going to hire you. But if you meet all of our kind of our standards and you pass all of our testing and all of that stuff, then you can become an approved vendor of HoneyComm. And as long as you can keep up with inventory requests. You’re going to be able to sell product through our system.

Bethany Jolley: Yeah. And I know you mentioned pet products. Are there any other types of supplement manufacturers that you’re really looking for at HoneyComm?

Zack Woods: Yeah. So we’re always needing the more obscure stuff. So we have we have somebody for CBD, but we we’re always looking into more opportunities there. Pet Products is another one that we would love to expand on and would probably say our biggest one is sports nutrition. That’s a ginormous market and if you’re in the industry of sports nutrition, that those products are very expensive to make. Therefore, a lot of manufacturers have to put up a lot of money to get that ball rolling because of that. It’s just more complicated to create a partnership with somebody that in that world. But that is absolutely an area that we would love to expand more into sports nutrition, number one.

Bethany Jolley: All right. Well, once again, thank you so much, Zack, for joining us today. And as we wrap up our illuminating conversation with Zack Woods, we’ve uncovered the dynamic interplay of design technology and drop shipping in the consumer packaged goods industry. Like I said, if you’d like to explore the world of HoneyComm further, we will share the provided links on our show notes, and stay tuned for more captivating discussions. Don’t forget to subscribe. Share your thoughts and join us in celebrating the world of nutraceutical innovations on social media. Until our next episode, stay inspired and informed.

Bethany Jolley: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of NutraPreneur. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and better yet, leave us a review as it really helps us grow the show.