The Ruminant: Audio Candy for Farmers, Gardeners and Food Lovers - e108: Aliwawa?

Episode Date: February 22, 2019

In which your host tells you all about his experiences sourcing certain farm equipment using Alibaba, the massive, China-based gathering place for buyers and manufacturers. He'll take you through all the steps, from confusion to suspicion to curiousity to impulsivity, before cruising through anxiety and ending up at ambivalent satisfaction.  Plenty of tips in here! All the Alibaba tips! The specific supplier mentioned in this episode is Shijiazhuang Daoliangmou Trade Co., and my contact there is Ada Guo. Show sponsors: BCS America and Dubois Agrinovation

This episode of the Ruminant Podcast is sponsored in part by BCS America. BCS two-wheel tractors are versatile, maneuverable in tight spaces, lightweight for less compaction, and easy to maintain and repair on farm. Gear-driven and built to last for decades of dependable service. bcsamerica.com This episode is supported by Dubois Egg Renovation. For irrigation supplies, hand tools, mulch films, pest control, containers, and much more, visit DuboisEggRenovation at DuboisEgg.com and get free shipping on orders of $200 or more.

That's D-U-B-O-I-S-A-G.com. I'm Jordan Marr, and this is The Ruminant, a podcast about food politics and food security and the cultural and practical aspects of farming. You can find out more at theruminant.ca, or email me, editor at theruminant.ca. I'm on Twitter, at Ruminant Blog, or find me on Facebook. Alright, let's do a show. The first thing I remember feeling about Alibaba is confusion. I'd be in the middle of some internet search for something for my farm and end up on a page that felt a little bit like Amazon, only it seemed to be a place where I could order 10,000 of the thing I was after, but not just one. And did I want to put out a request for bids? What? What bids?

Never mind. Back button. Another feeling I experienced in one of those early accidental visits to Alibaba was that I wasn't supposed to be there. It reminds me of one of the first times I was ever on Wikipedia. Back then I didn't understand how its content was generated, and I randomly clicked on an entry and realized I could edit it. Something felt wrong, like there was a glitch that was giving me access I shouldn't have. That's kind of how being on Alibaba felt. It occurred to me that this was a site meant for transactions between manufacturers and resellers, and I wasn't supposed to be there to see wholesale prices normally hidden from end users like me. Huh. Oh well, never mind. Back button. At some point, I must have read or heard more about how Alibaba worked,

or maybe I was just feeling extra curious on one of my accidental visits, or maybe extra desperate to find what I was after. At any rate, I signed up for a buyer account and started doing some serious poking around on the site, which led to my first purchase, and then another, and another, and so on. And now I'm here to report back to you about what I learned. And I know you want to know what I've learned. Maybe not all of you, but lots of you. I've seen your posts on online forums wondering about the quality of this cedar or, well, actually, mainly I've seen posts asking about precision cedars that can be found on Alibaba. Luckily for all of you cedar seekers, I have an answer because I bought

one of those Alibaba cedars. More on that later. First, I want to talk more generally because I know that Alibaba is a mystery to a lot of people. And I also know that lots of people are keen to try it, but don't know if they can trust it. Okay, so right off the bat, I need to clarify that the website Alibaba and the separate website AliExpress are affiliated, but not the same thing. AliExpress is a consumer-facing site that operates pretty much like an Amazon. It's made up of countless third-party manufacturers, mostly based overseas, with very friendly prices. If you want to warm up for Alibaba proper, go have some fun on AliExpress. That's what I did, with mixed results. The hose clamps I ordered were crappy. So were the plastic impact sprinklers. But I got

some overhead irrigation emitters that were great. And I also, in my quest for the one fanny pack to rule them all, ordered three or four different ones off the site. They all showed up and one of them actually turned out to be a holy grail with straps. I plan to order more of those for my staff. Okay, back to Alibaba. In a nutshell, here's how it works for lone wolf farmers like you and me. Alibaba is made up of many, many, many manufacturers, each of which has a unique mini site within the larger Alibaba ecosystem. This means that you can search for items supplier by supplier, or use Alibaba's common search engine to search for items across all of the mini sites at once. Most of the time, I use the main search engine, though it can also

be fun to search around on one supplier's mini-site if they specialize in something like greenhouse equipment, because you can end up discovering technology you didn't know existed. Once you click on an item of interest, you can read the description and specifications for that item, just like any other commerce site. A few words about the info that you'll find in these listings. that you'll find in these listings. They go into a lot of detail, but the English used isn't always great, and you'll read specs in one part of the description that seem to contradict specs listed elsewhere in the same description. Or you'll be reading a listing for, say, a square folding tomato cage, and the photos included feature a round cage. You don't need to be put off by these inconsistencies. Not yet, anyway. My advice for browsing item listings in the early stages of a purchase is to just try and get a general sense

that the item in question is what you're after. You'll be able to confirm details later in the process. The most important thing to look for is the minimum order quantity or MOQ. If the MOQ listed is 1000 units and you're after two units, probably you should move on unless you want to try and convince the supplier that you're after a sample in service of a larger purchase at a later date, which is a thing that people do and you can try, but I don't have any experience with it, so I won't speak to it. By the way, items listed on Alibaba generally give a range of pricing. This is to reflect that prices get better by ordering in bulk. As someone who is likely after the smallest order possible,

you can safely assume you'll be paying the highest price in the range. Alright, so you've found a product you want to try buying, and the price, even the highest price in the range given, seems great. At this point, you need to sign up for a buyer account if you want to get beyond just being a looky-loo. Signing up is easy. Alibaba doesn't ask you for a pound of flesh or a credit card number. From there, you can reach out to the supplier of your desired product. This is where Alibaba can be pretty fun, as you essentially begin what becomes a protracted negotiation, or negotiations if you're dealing with multiple suppliers at once,

that's pretty low stakes because it isn't face-to-face and you don't have to commit money up front. So who do you negotiate with? Well, I don't actually know who I'm negotiating with, but I do know that they all tend to present as young women, typically with English names such as, well, let me check my recent message history. Candy, Faye, Risky, Sunny. You get the idea. I've interacted with male sales reps too, but mostly it has been women or people who say they're women. I mean, you're just looking at an avatar and communicating via messaging. So it's impossible to know for sure, unless you get on the phone with one of them, perhaps to record a segment for your farmer focused podcast. perhaps to record a segment for your farmer-focused podcast.

So I guess I'm hinting at what's to come here. The first negotiation I had that led to a purchase was for 10 greenhouse sidewall roll-up cranks. You've seen them. The ones you can buy from North American suppliers are orange and currently go for around $60 to $70 US. A couple years ago when I made the purchase, they were actually more than that. Anyway, I got mine to my door for around $35 US per unit. Mind you, I had to buy 10, but I needed six right away, and I know I'll use the other four eventually. This was a good first experiment because the product involved was fairly simple in design, so I could be reasonably confident that the quality would be sufficient.

And it was. I'm thrilled with my cranks. And now, some words on shipping from China. When you're purchasing in small quantities on Alibaba, it's actually the shipping charges that ruin the price. Those greenhouse cranks I just mentioned were actually only $12 US per piece, adding up to $120 US for the 10 pieces I ordered. The cost to ship them via air? An additional $200 US. And why air freight, you ask? In my experience, if you ship by air, the process of actually getting your order is a lot simpler. The best case scenario being that the product is delivered to your door. As far as I figured out, if I have a supplier ship by sea, it's up to me to arrange further shipping from the port of entry.

Plus handle customs. It's just a mess. I should know. I'm currently arranging a sea shipment for my latest purchase. Why by sea? The products in question are really heavy. Sea freight is costing me $550 US. Air freight was more than triple that.

The next thing I ordered on Alibaba was a bigger ticket item and more of a gamble. Guess what it was, cedar seekers? Yeah, it was a cedar. Here's the context, which the cedar seekers will already be aware of. One of the highest regarded single row precision cedars out there is the Jang JP1. I've had mine for years. I'm in love with it. To buy one new from a North American retailer

costs around $600 US once you factor in a few seed plates and shipping. I use this seeder all the time and it was totally worth the investment. But Jang also makes a JP6. The 6 stands for six rows, as in you can seed six rows at a time with this seeder. It's a massive push seeder with a massive appeal for certain kinds of plantings. Only on my farm, its applicability is quite limited. So the retail price tag from North American dealers, $3,000 to $4,000 once you factor in seed plates and shipping, made it a non-starter for me. And then I found multiple companies selling it or their version of it for a fraction

of the price on Alibaba. How much cheaper? The total cost of my Jang JP6 lookalike was $700 US, including shipping by air, plus an additional 200 US for 24 additional seat plates, also a steal. My verdict on the quality of the new seeder? It arrived with certain bolts jangling around in the box, which wasn't a good sign, and it didn't take more than a few minutes of playing with it to conclude that this machine was of lower quality than the Jang. All of the bolts, and there are many, are constantly coming loose, and there are a bunch of examples on the machine of production corners having been cut. But look, the real question is, do I regret the purchase? Listeners, I do not. My cedar,

functionally speaking, performs as well as the Jang technology I've used before, and was 30% of the price. I definitely have to go a bit easier on this machine since it's not as durable, but when compared to the alternative of just not owning a six-row cedar at all, I choose Alibaba. All right, so this is officially the longest monologue I've ever subjected my listeners to. Time for some reprieve. In putting together this episode, I reached out to some of my sales reps on Alibaba for an interview. To my delight, one of them agreed to get on the Skype with me. You're about to hear from Ida, the rep who sold me my six-row cedar. After that, I'll be back to make a few more Alibaba observations. But before either of those things, I'm taking a break to plug the show and its supporters a bit. Today's episode is supported

by BCS America. BCS two-wheel tractors are often mistaken for just a rototiller, which is really funny to me because I own a BCS and four attachments, and the tiller attachment is probably the one I use the least on my five-acre market garden. I invested in a BCS just ahead of my second year in business. That was six years ago, and I still consider it the most important investment I made for my farm. Check out bcsamerica.com to see the full lineup of tractors and attachments, plus video of the BCS in action, bcsamerica.com. And thanks to BCS for their support. This episode is supported by Dubois Ag Renovation. Renowned for their customer service, Dubois can be your one-stop shop for tools and supplies for the modern farm and market garden.

Irrigation supplies, hand tools, pest control, mulch films, containers, and on and on. Visit them at duboisag.com and get free shipping on orders of $200 or more. As a market gardener myself, I've benefited from their huge selection, and it's really easy to get someone on the phone to ask questions and build an order. That's D-U-B-O-I-S-A-G.com. Thanks to Dubois for their support. Hey, one more note while we're on the topic of show support. Producing this podcast is a ton of work, and if you enjoy it, please consider supporting it. You can do so at theruminant.ca slash gift registry.

That's theruminant.ca slash gift registry. Thanks, everyone. All right, here's my conversation with Ida, one of my suppliers on Alibaba. Ida, thank you very much for coming on the phone with me. Could you please tell me about your company? What do you manufacture and what percentage of your sales are to North American customers? Yes, I'm glad to introduce our company here. Our company has a store on Alibaba named Shi Jia Zhuang Dao Liang Mo Trade Limited Company. We have our own factory, which name is He Bei Ding Gua Gua Machinery Manufacturing Limited

Company. We mainly focus on manufacture agricultural machines. Large machines we have self-propelled silage harrasser, no-till planter, green seed drills. Small machines we have self-propelled salad harvester, no-till planter, green seed drills. Small machines, we have manual vegetable seeder, corn seeder, and cultivators. At present, 35% of small vegetable seeders have been sold to North American. Okay, so you have a lot of experience selling to North American customers. Okay, Ida. So I'm curious, of all the sales you sell in North America, is it a large percentage that you are selling to people who want to use the products for their own use? In other words, they are not resellers, they are just ordering one piece or two pieces of equipment to use on their own farm. Is that very common?

This problem is complicated. Considering higher delivery costs and customer import tax, it's not an economic way to sell machines to personal use, you know. But for our machine, Simple is available. We indeed received some personal use orders and get good back from them. They often introduce their friends or neighbors who buy from us. introduce their friends or neighbors who buy from us. Right. And I can attest to that because I was your customer last year and purchased a six-row cedar and it has worked out well for me.

And so I have been telling my friends about it. Yeah, welcome to and send inquiries to me for more about the products. I will give you best price. So when you... Do I understand then, Ida, that when you receive requests from people, from farmers who just want to buy one piece, you are very open to having a conversation with them?

Yes. But it's up to the product. Our products can, MOQ is the minimum order quantity, can be one piece. But for other products, for example, vegetable cutting broth, MOQ, is 500 pieces. Cost around is $0.6. Considering its total amount, $300, the delivery cost, labor cost, and the product cost. The profit is not high if sellers haven't profit it meaning lies for business so sometimes for some products is very hard to lower the minimal all the quantity can understand I totally understand so depending on the product people like people like me may not

have luck convincing a seller to send them small quantities of items and i small quantities for our products we we can accept we we can support you from start small quantities now do you is it possible or do you advise to hire an agent or broker to receive purchases from multiple suppliers and then ship them so i mean someone who is in china who will gather orders from different suppliers and ship them all together? Is that something that I could do? Yes, we also met these same conditions. Some of the customers also buy from different suppliers in China and ship them together. If you need to, we can be your agent and you

need to just pay some commissions to us yes you can I will have you found good quality products and the talk and talk with different suppliers. Then you can save more money and time and also can use a good product. Okay, I understand now. Okay, so I just want my listeners to understand that every company on Alibaba has salespeople like Ida. And so Ida, what you were saying, what you were saying is I could,

I could ask someone like you to basically gather orders for a commission and then you would send them all together. Yeah. And Ida is, am I correct in assuming that if I hired you to do that, I could save a lot of money on shipping because I could ship a larger quantity by sea. Is that correct? Yes. I also can help you find some reliable shipping companies for you if you need. Okay. So Ida, I am curious, what are your biggest frustrations or challenges when dealing with overseas customers, particularly people like me who are not experienced on Alibaba? I think the biggest challenge is the buyers like you, maybe they're worried they can't receive the machines smoothly or receive by the quality machines, which makes their financial losses. I agree.

I'm sorry, I don't understand. Could you try explaining again? This is a challenge I deal with and dealing with the customers. Most of their worries is about they can't receive the goods smoothly, you know, or receive bad quality goods from the supplier. And then they may lose their financials. I see. So this is the big, big challenges. Okay. So I just want to make. I see. So this is the big challenges. Okay, so I just want to make sure I understand. You're saying that for you,

one challenge is that a lot of customers are worried about the quality of what they will receive or maybe they ordered from another company on Alibaba with bad quality and then it makes them reluctant or hesitant to order from you. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, yeah. But, you know, Alibaba have found the trade assurance.

This may help customer more trust the suppliers and the suppliers also all maltrusted the customers you know so ida when when when i asked you about frustrations i expected you to criticize me i want to know what people like me do that makes you want to pull your hair out yeah uh no for you, I think I haven't that frustration from you. I think you are a reliable person. Okay, well, let me ask you this. How many inquiries do you have to answer before you make one sale? Is it 10 inquiries? Is it 100 inquiries do you have to answer before you make one sale is it 10 inquiries is it 100 inquiries um or 10 10 see and i i would just imagine that if i were you that would make that would be

challenging and frustrating to have to answer because you know people write with requests and then maybe you put together a quotation and then you never hear from them again now at the present we make the condition faster than than before we and we can replace them soon now. Make them believe the condition is true. Aida, I think you are just a better person than me. I think it would make me very grumpy, but it sounds like you are very patient and good

at your job. Thank you. Thank you. This is what I should do for you and for other customers. Do you have any advice for people who are new to Alibaba? I think they should know about the trade assurance service first and know about the order process with suppliers,

then they can select the goods they like and start the order. It's easy now. And before you mentioned that some suppliers do not supply high-quality goods, how can someone like me find out about the reputation of each supplier? I think you can check their trade assurance transactions on Alibaba. This is a contract on each company's contacts. You can check it. You can also check our store on Alibaba.

You can see the transactions with other customers from different countries. Okay. And they also give some good backs to us. Okay. They also gave some good backs to us. Okay, so there's lots of information on Alibaba that helps customers decide if a company is trustworthy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, we are almost done, Ida. One question, Ida, that I did not provide you with ahead of time, because I just thought of it tonight is I am noticing that, uh, many salespeople ask me to move over to WhatsApp

for conversations. And I'm wondering why they are asking me to move to WhatsApp. Because WhatsApp is more easier and convenient to talk with customers like you, we can directly talk about the questions you want to know from us. We also can know the information from you then this can make our other mosfet and help you help you and me is to establish the trust right you know yeah I think I understand so it's just it's it's I guess you're saying one reason is it is faster is a faster way to communicate yeah um okay so i also there was one more question i came up with and i'm just wondering if you can talk briefly about the differences of shipping by air freight or sea freight? Yeah, yeah. We will help people

choose the best economic way to send the machine to their place according to their quantity need. This will help customers save a lot

of shipping cost. Okay, so I guess because I think when I bought one cedar from you, it came by air, which I guess made sense because it came quickly and it was not a large quantity, so it was not too expensive. But if we are talking about

heavy items or large quantities, then it would just probably be very, very expensive by air. Yeah, yeah. Then they need to ship by sea. By sea is the best economic way. But is it true that if I ship by sea, I then need to hire a customs broker to receive the items at a port? By sea. By sea is more safer for large quantities and machines and not make machines broken, you know. By error, for large quantities, it will break the machine.

For small quantities, the best is by error. Okay. Aida, is there anything else you want to talk about? I want to talk about, I want to talk about, I hope more and more people know I'm born to the Alibaba trade assurance and that make people online shipping simple because of trust.

And they can enjoy the shopping fun and convenience on Alibaba. And we will offer better and better service to our customers and hope everyone could buy good quality products from us. Welcome to visit our store on Alibaba. Thank you. And Ida, I will provide a link to your store when I publish this interview.

So I just want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I know my listeners will be very, very happy to hear from you and your advice. Okay, thank you. It's my pleasure to introduce and tell some truth and to explain some questions to your customers. Okay, Aida, have a good night. Okay, bye. Bye-bye. Okay, so a few comments about that interview.

First of all, I'm aware that I was talking like this to Aida. I realize I come off as condescending. But man, my own grasp of other languages is terrible. So my default is to try and make it a bit easier on people speaking a second language. And I come off sounding like an a-hole in the process. So I guess I'm sorry, not sorry. Two more things. Ida frequently referenced an Alibaba program called Trade Assurance,

which is an effort to instill more trust in buyers by providing reviews of sellers and also under certain conditions that are actually pretty easy to meet, giving you a money back guarantee on your purchase. You'll see it advertised all over Alibaba if you're there. Also, I asked Ida about moving communications over to WhatsApp. I asked her because it's a request often made by sellers, and yet Alibaba recommends against it. Ida said that it's mainly about speeding up communication, which I can confirm it does because Alibaba's messaging system is a bit clunky. But I also think that sellers like to move off platform because I'm pretty sure that any promises they make to you in that case can't be held against them. Just a thought. Also, I sincerely cannot pronounce the name of Ida's company on Alibaba, but I've listed it in the show notes and at the ruminant.ca.

She gave me great service. And here's an extra pro tip. Her Jang seed rollers are perfect. And they're a fraction of the price of what you pay in North America. And they're light and small. So low shipping costs people. Okay okay we're in the home stretch i want to leave you with a list of do's and don'ts if you're going to try out alibaba first up do be prepared to have to trade some of your monetary savings with your time making purchases on alibaba takes time and if you're shipping by sea you're either going to have to go make a trip to your nearest seaport or arrange a customs broker and shipper on your own to get the goods to you. All in all, it takes a long time from the point of browsing

to the point of actual reception of your product. Second, don't take chances on products that either A, are going to be essential to your farm operation or B, tend to have complex design and or many moving parts. Should you consider ordering tomato cages? Yes. Should you consider ordering a tractor? Careful there. While we're at it, don't spend money you're not willing to lose. This year, I'm taking a chance on four machines with electric motors that are not easy to find in North America, let alone find cheaply. And it all told will cost me close to $1,500 US. If they all tank, the financial hit will suck, but I can absorb it.

And they probably won't all tank, right? Right? Okay, do learn what the acronyms mean, because they're important. RFQ means request for quotes, as in you can describe what you're after, send the request out over Alibaba and the sellers will come to you. And there are a bunch of acronyms to do with the cost of products and shipping that you should learn. If a supplier says that a product will cost $300 FOB, they mean that shipping is extra, whereas $300 CIF means that shipping and insurance are included in the quoted price.

Pretty big difference. What else? Don't be naive. If the product you're after is really bulky or heavy, count on a shipping cost that's prohibitive. So you're probably not going to be able to get a greenhouse shipped to you cheaply or say 500 T-posts. Do be prepared for Alibaba to take over your browser. For some reason, every time you click a link there, it opens a new tab. It kind of sucks. Finally, do be prepared to get burned.

So don't do this if you can't handle that. As Ida implied, there are lots of high quality suppliers on Alibaba, but also lots of charlatans. So read supplier reviews, or maybe go find Ida and ask her to do your shopping for you. The commission she wants is probably easily worth it. So here's a tidbit. The photo that I've used for the artwork for this episode is a photo of the shipment that I've ordered that is due to be leaving a port in China any day now. As you can see, it's packed really sturdy. And as of this taping, I'm actually somewhat optimistic

about the order I've made. I suppose I'll have to provide an update here at some point later on to let you know how it works out because this is the biggest order to date. All right, that's everything I know or everything I can think of that I know to tell you. So I hope that was helpful, everybody. And have a good one. Good luck if you're going to try it out. Talk to you next time. All right. So guess what, folks? This, this episode right here is episode number five of a batch of five episodes that I released all at once a little while ago. Well, today, right now, I don't know. We'll see what happens. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this batch.

I sure would love to hear from you with some of your comments about the episodes that came out in this batch. Editor at TheRuminant.ca if you want to do that. And maybe tell me what you think of like a batch drop of episodes like this. I won't get into why I did it. It kind of suited me a little better. And yeah, I think I might do it again. On that note, the next batch, which promises to be a pretty good set of episodes, is coming out in roughly six weeks. So look for a batch of episodes to drop sometime in early april early to mid-april if things are on schedule all right that's it happy farming or eating or whatever it is you do with food stuffs Foodstuffs. Why would we live in a place that don't want us?

A place that is trying to bleed us dry. We could be happy with life in the country. With salt on our skin and the dirt on our hands. I've been doing a lot of thinking, some real soul searching, and here's my final resolve. I don't need a big old house or some fancy car to keep my love going strong. So we'll run right out into the wilds and braces we'll keep close quarters with gentle faces and live next door to the birds and the bees and live life like it was meant to be Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba you