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In eastern China's Zhejiang Province, there's a city called Yiwu. Despite its size, the city has got a grand title. It's the world's capital of small commodities. The city attracts hundreds of thousands of sellers and buyers every day. More often than not, the foreigners you meet on the streets of Yiwu are business people rather than tourists. Among these busy traders, you might run into Herod Morry, a young Peruvian man who has got big plans for his promising export trade. Hello, I'm Ninh Jin. In this episode of Making It in China series, Herod Morry shares with us his story of how he started his business from scratch here in Yiwu. Hello, how are you doing? My name is Herod Morry. I come from Peru, almost living here 10 years in China. I'm a business man as a professional, and here I also started my MBA. I'm really happy to be in China. First of all, are you doing bilateral trade at the moment? Actually, it's only one side. It's only from China to Peru. From Peru to China, we're not doing that yet. We export from here and in Peru, we receive the goods. What do you export to Peru? Actually, we don't have a focused industry. We go to what is fashionable at the moment, and then we just try to work on that. We always are looking for trending things, and then we start exporting, exporting, exporting until the fashion finishes, and then we look for, on the process, we're also sending other trending stuff. It's always changing, changing, changing. We're not like, okay, focus on, I don't know, on housing or focus on kitchen or focus on kids or toys or whatever. No, if some housing stuff is trending, we start sending that. Okay, so basically, you are exporting everything from toys and home appliances to other small commodities. Is that what you said? It depends on the market. What market requires, we send. So everything that's popular at that moment. Okay, so are you currently focusing on this small commodities trade? Is there a very big market in Peru for such products? Yeah, actually, what we call, what people sometimes say, I don't need it, but I want to spend on it. So that's why we focus on that. So it's more commodities that people, they don't really, sometimes they need it, or sometimes they don't really need it as a thing that they have to have, but they are able to spend on that. So that's why we're focused on it. So it's something that makes people happy. Not necessarily, you will definitely need it for the day's use, but this item should be something that please you. Yes, exactly. Okay, just give me one example. For example, my cell phone, it has a phone case that I have changed like two weeks ago. And it's like a new trend in this, for example, this animal that is what you call this capybara. So I just changed it because I like it. It's not that I needed to change it. It's just I like it and I bought it. So that's exactly what we're focusing on. Sometimes you don't need something, but you like it and you buy it. I see. Are Chinese small commodities very popular in your home country? Are Chinese commodities of this type popular over there? Yes, the good thing of Chinese market, actually, you know, was the worst thing in Peru and everywhere, I guess there is always like a rate between the quality and price. So it depends on your market. My market is not like a really low price and low quality. But my market is like, you know, like a half quality, half the price. So when one product start 20, we are here in like a middle price and middle quality. So we start focusing on that. There's a moment that yes, everyone wants to buy that and they start like fighting about the price and they say, oh, I have a price, but OK, the quality is low. That's the exactly moment when we get out of the industry or that product, because we don't compete with the low quality. We compete with good quality and an average price. So when the quality starts to go down, we get rid of that product and we don't do any more. We start with another product. I see. Basically, you are pursuing products that offer you relatively good quality for acceptable price. Like the price range is not that high, but the quality is definitely not bad. So you are exporting goods of such type to your market in Peru. OK, so apart from this kind of a quality and price attraction, what other attractions you are looking for in Chinese products? The market is so huge, you know, like you can walk and you don't finish like maybe in a year at the whole market. Sometimes I already know where the trending goods are. So mostly every day I'm walking, walking, walking, and then I'm seeing some products and say, oh, I will try with this. I will try with that next day or next week. There are new products. So the good thing I'm looking here is that there are new products almost every week or almost every day. So every time I go to my supply, I say, OK, why do you have new? I have this, I have that, I have that. So they have new goods. And that's what people like also, having new things. So you look for the trendy stuff, whether it is a toy or some kind of small electronic device, you look for the latest fashionable thing, the most trending thing for your own market. I guess that's a very interesting job because you do shopping every day in a huge market in Yiwu. Find the stuff you like and then try to export them to your home market. You seem to be a very busy man because through our messages back and forth, I know you've been traveling to other countries, going to Peru and then come back to China. Maybe in one or two weeks time, you are back in Peru again. You are rather busy. I guess that means your business is very good this year. Fortunately, it's growing. You know what was the problem that everyone maybe has? Because you can hear, as we say always, it hears easy. You just go buy the new trending stuff and you export and then you buy. You sell it there. Yeah, but I mean, here in the market, there are millions of products, thousands of products. OK, let's put it like this. Choosing the right ones is not easy. You can just go and say, do you have this? OK, go. But I mean, if you don't know how to say you don't know your market, then you will just fail. So my point of going to Peru, coming back to China and going to Peru, coming back to China, is because I go to the market and then I see what the real situation there. Going to Peru and coming back to China makes me update a lot of information for clients and also from suppliers. And also, here's a little my mind, because walking every day, you can see everything the same. You don't see new things. You go out, you refresh your mind, you come back and you see everything and you say, oh, that wasn't there. That wasn't there. That wasn't there. OK, I want to try this one. I want to try the other one. That's, I guess, the key of our business. Another key of our business is that, OK, I'm local from Peru. Yeah, I didn't grow up like a really high class people there. I was in the middle, maybe middle class, so maybe I can talk with more people at the same time. And here in China, the good thing I have is that I speak Chinese. So I'm the one person talking with suppliers and I'm negotiating not only the price, but also the time of delivery and the color, the quality, the something that I want to change and everything. So focus on my market. I do the business here in China. So that's our key of business. It's a very busy schedule traveling like that. Can I ask how big is your company now? I'm not a big, bigger company in Peru because we don't have too much time in Peru. We were not a family business family. We created the business with Covid, actually, because I was in China. I got stuck in China. So in 2020, I started doing business. I was living in Shanghai. So how big is my company? This year, we grew up twice. We grew up twice as we were the last year. But I guess we're not still on the top 10 or the top five or the top 20. We have a plan on 2030 to be in the top 10. So we're working on that plan, but it's like still six years. Okay. When you say top 10, what type of top 10, like a world top 10 or Peru's top 10? Now it's a family business. My sister is the manager in Peru. But you are stationed in Yiwu long term. I see. As far as I know, you first came to China as an overseas student. Yes. How did you come to China to study? Like on what occasion that you chose to come to China? Were you interested in China back then? It's a long story, but I will try to make it short, you know, in 2013. Yeah, something like that. 2013, something like that. I finished my college, university, Tashi. Okay. And I had free time because in that time I was studying and I was working at the same time. So when I finished my university, I have a lot of, you know, free time. So what I decided, like, okay, what do I do with my free time? And then I decided to study another language because I already speak English in that time. I said, okay, I will study a new language. Many languages, they were on my, you know, on my list. But then I decided Chinese because I saw, I mean, I like something that I can use in the future. We're talking like 10 years ago. I was checking the numbers of China. I was checking the numbers of all the countries and I said, okay, let's go for Chinese. And then I started studying Chinese. And I have to say that, for example, I don't know if I was lucky. People say that I'm always lucky, but they say that maybe sometimes I take good decisions. And that was a good decision because 10 years ago, 10 years ago, maybe China had the mindset that in 10 years, they will be where they are. But in Peru, in South America, I don't know, in the United States, maybe in Europe, 10 years ago, they didn't see China as what they are doing right now. So really few people saw that. So, and I was one of those people that saw a future in China. And I'm telling you this not as a business, as a family of business people, you know, because family of business people, yes, they are here a long time ago. Kids are here a long time ago, but because they are doing business a long time, I wasn't that I was just a worker. So I'm telling you as a worker, seeing this, it was a good decision. Then I started studying Chinese in Confucius Institute in Peru. But then I applied for a Chinese scholarship here. So I went to Shanghai. The first time I came to Shanghai was in 2015. And then I came back to Peru. And then I came back again to China, not with scholarship, I say, almost one year of my life, I save money in order to come here, but with the plan of applying for my MBA. And I got it. I went to Sisu. Sisu was the first one, the other one was Sufi. Sufi was Shanghai Saita, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. That's one of the good universities for MBAs there in Shanghai. I studied there. I studied almost two years in my MBA. I didn't even have the time. Sorry, I didn't have the mind for opening my company there. I was planning to be in a good corporation, you know, work in a good position, maybe as a manager, maybe as, I don't know, in the future, seeing me as a CEO of another company, not mine. Then I applied for a company there in Shanghai. It was a Peruvian company. Actually, they showed me all the process of buying of everything in the interview. That's why I always say that they showed me everything that I know in the beginning, or I knew in the beginning, I knew thanks to that interview, because I really prepared for that interview. And then I didn't get the job, but I got the feedback. I got the whole school of that. Finishing his MBA study in 2019, Maori didn't immediately land the big corporation job he'd hoped for. While he was wondering what he was going to do with the rest of his life, the pandemic struck, and he had to stay temporarily in China. Watching his savings dwindling, he began shuttling between Shanghai and Yiwu in neighbouring Zhejiang province, trading small commodities. Yiwu is located in the central part of Zhejiang province. It covers an area of just over 1100 square kilometres. Despite its size, Yiwu is the world's largest wholesale market of small commodities, encompassing hundreds of categories. From fridge magnets, toys, clothes, and accessories to furniture and electronic products, traders can find all kinds of goods there. These commodities are exported to more than 230 countries and regions. According to Yiwu customs, the total value of imports and exports of Yiwu reached 566 billion yuan, that's around US$73 billion in 2023. Eventually, Maori left Shanghai behind and moved to Yiwu. So what motivated you to start your business in Yiwu then? Because there are a lot of places in China that are financial centres or business centres of the country. And you actually studied in Shanghai. Why did you choose to go to Yiwu to start a business? Why Yiwu? Yiwu is like two hours from, two or four hours from Shanghai. I mean, if you see, the train is two hours. As I told you in the beginning, it's like a lot of products here and you can see that. So it was a good opportunity to see many products, to just try, try, try, try, try. It's like a trial and error, you know? Like, okay, this doesn't work. Okay, let's move to another one. This doesn't work. Let's move to another Shanghai. It's more financial and big corporate stuff. Here, since the beginning, we started sending a container every three months. Last month, for example, last month in a week, I sent seven containers and they're like, you know, and everything is for my brand. So it's, imagine that change. So from almost 10, 20 containers in a month, I guess it's what we're sending. That's our change, I guess. If you want to ask me how big is my company, how it changed it, we're still a small company, to be honest. There are many companies that send 400 containers, 500 containers, 1,000 containers a year. We're not there yet. But as I told you, I were hoping that in 2030. So that's what we're planning. China is actually developing very fast. As long as you have the business sense, you can always get the thing that you want and you know your market. And I think you have that sense because, you know, before you came to China, you knew to check the numbers to decide which country you would go to further your study. You mentioned check the numbers. What numbers were you checking when you were still a student? Export numbers? Bilateral trade numbers? The things that I was telling you, I was, okay, as a worker, where I can find a job easily, so then I saw the investments of Chinese markets and how Chinese market was growing internationally. So I said, okay, let's go for Chinese. And then, as I told you, not thinking as doing business, but thinking as having a job. I was having a mindset of a worker, you know, like, okay, where I can have a job and where I can, I don't know if I have family, where I can feed my family easily, where if I get fired or I want to change my job, where I can move to another one. So it's like that. I would say you are very smart. I'm lucky, as many people say. Going back to our question about doing business, I know you've studied Chinese and you've been living in China for nearly a decade, but doing export trade, it demands you to have the ability to do a lot of negotiations. You've got to negotiate the price with other traders, with the manufacturers, and you also need to go through the customs, get the red tapes, and the logistics also need to be taken care of at both ends. Has it been easy for you? Actually, you know, what they learned is like, just to outsource that. The difficult part is just finding these outsourcers, the right ones. We're not talking about only the price. We're talking about, you know, how they get some solutions when you have a problem. And yes, I'm working, fortunately, with some good outsourcers of these custom agents. And also here, like, you know, who ties with the forwarders. Yes, that's the name. So that part, I don't do. I do, my main core is finding the products and negotiating. The other, like, you know, that I cannot manage too much. That is like, you know, like loading containers or while finding containers, finding the vessels and doing the customs in Peru or doing the customs here, this I outsource. Of course, we are part of the outsourcing, but we don't do the main thing there. All right. So basically, you just find the item you want, place the order and leave the rest of the things to other companies. We do until we load the container because we're receiving our warehouse, we receive the goods, we load the container and then the customs, the forwarders and then in Peru, the customs also, we have like, you know, this custom agent they do there. And we also have a warehouse in Peru. So the main part of us finding good products and selling in Peru. That's our core business. Okay, let's talk about your negotiations. You negotiate the price in Chinese, in the local dialect or in English? In Chinese, in Putonghua. I don't speak Yuhua, but I guess here also people, there are really few people that speak Yuhua, but I speak a Chinese, Mandarin Chinese. So that's the negotiation I do with. I hear the culture is negotiating. Every time you go, it's negotiate. So they already know us. So it's like, they already know how we buy. They already know that we are responsible. Sometimes they see us and they want to work with us. And they invite us to like, don't you want to buy here? We have this, that, that. And I say, wow, sometimes I would like to, but the other one, I'm working already a long time. Do you have the same products? I prefer to work there because I already know them. And I already know, for example, the times that they deliver, sometimes they have mistakes. Can I solve them or not? It's part of the business. But the negotiation and the problem, because the negotiation is not only, you know, give me the price, lower the price. No, that's not a, that's not really, that's really a little part of the negotiation. The negotiation finishes when you receive the goods. Is this good or the goods are good or not? Not. Okay. You have to still negotiate. How do we deal with this stuff? Yes, I deal with that in Chinese, you know, like I speak Chinese with them and say like, okay, we have a problem here. So how do we solve them? Oh yeah. Can we lower the price? No, I don't want to lower the price. Can you please take it back to your warehouse? Okay. Next week, would you just give me back my goods, but really well done because that's what I need. Okay. Now, for example, it was a 10 cubic meters. It was a huge space in the container and I don't have other goods to load. What do I do? Hello. How are you doing? Do you have 10 cubic meters for now? Oh, I will come in three hours. Is it okay? Let me see. Another one. Do you have goods for this? Yes. In one hour, is it okay? Okay. Coming one hour, we have to load the container. This, if you don't speak Chinese, it will be difficult. I don't say it won't be impossible. I say it will be difficult because you have to take decisions at the moment. And this taking decisions is part also of the negotiation. What do you value most about China? Well, for now, it's the security that I can have. And you know that every time, even if I go partying, I don't know, really a few times I go partying. If I'm really walking the street kind of drunk or something, nothing will happen to me. And everything is so clean here. Most of the people, when they are abroad, they see China, they should be so polluted and everything. When they come here, they see different stuff. And well, my business is doing business. So what I like here is exactly that I have the opportunity for doing business. Would you be staying in China for long? Where do you see yourself in 10 years time? I have my five years, actually. I didn't see my 10 years. But let's put it like this. This year, I decided that I will stay in China, at least for the next five years. And then I have to also see other markets, not only Peru, but also other markets in Latin America or maybe in Europe. Because if I want to grow, as I told you, I have to see other markets also. And in five years, I see myself as maybe the manager of one of the top 10 companies in Peru. And maybe in 10 years, in Latin America, at least one of the top 10. I wish you all the luck there. China is Peru's largest trading partner. The China-Peru Free Trade Agreement officially came into effect in 2010. The latest figures from the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism of Peru shows that the total trade volume between China and Peru from January to August of this year was $25.7 billion, an increase of over 11% year-on-year. Hopefully, the friendly relations between the two countries will open more business opportunities for traders like Maury. That's it for today. Thanks for listening. If you are interested in hearing more about the lives of ordinary but incredible people in China, follow us wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Ninh Jin. We'll see you next time. Bye for now.