[AMA] Importing & wholesaling for resale on eBay.

[ljb7]

Sales are starting to ramp up for Christmas. I Sold 25k in all of October. So far in November I have sold 21k and haven't even hit the busiest time yet. Next weekend will be crazy!

If you have items listed set some time aside to ship them out cause they will be selling!

That's awesome man I hope it all goes great for you!!! How long ago did you make your re-orders to stock up for the Christmas period?

I'm receiving 5 different products (4 samples but 3 of them samples have between 10-20pcs) in the next 8 or 9 days - hopefully getting them right on time for the Christmas sales! Didn't plan it this way but I'm glad it's worked out like this!!

 

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[Ecom man]

That's awesome man I hope it all goes great for you!!! How long ago did you make your re-orders to stock up for the Christmas period?

I'm receiving 5 different products (4 samples but 3 of them samples have between 10-20pcs) in the next 8 or 9 days - hopefully getting them right on time for the Christmas sales! Didn't plan it this way but I'm glad it's worked out like this!!

I still have the tail end of Christmas orders coming in. I ordered most everything about 2 weeks ago. Some of my suppliers are better at shipping immediately than others. I am hoping to sell most of this by the end of November and get a reorder done and received by the 7th of December. We will see how the time frame and reorder works out.

 

[MoneyDoc]

I still have the tail end of Christmas orders coming in. I ordered most everything about 2 weeks ago. Some of my suppliers are better at shipping immediately than others. I am hoping to sell most of this by the end of November and get a reorder done and received by the 7th of December. We will see how the time frame and reorder works out.

Sorry if you've answered this before, but, how are you shipping your products? USPS? FBA?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Ecom man]

Sorry if you've answered this before, but, how are you shipping your products? USPS? FBA?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I ship using USPS Priority Mail. Quick turn around times makes for happy customers. I am going to the post office twice a day right now to make it even quicker to each customer.

 

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[btkfr]

Hey Ecom man, Thanks a lot for this AMA.

I was just wondering:

1- at the beginning of this thread you said running this business took you like "1h a day shipping + some time to find new products to sell" I guess today it's a way more than this ? And do you have any plan for the future when you will have (I hope for you) to deal with 100-500-1000 orders a day ? (FBA ? / Getting employees ? etc ...)

2- About packaging. Do you usually get your products individually packed from manufacturers (and ready to be shipped directly to your customers to be clear) or do you have to do it yourself ? And how do you do this if you have to ? (I mean would you like to have specific packages for every different products or you just put your products in basic cardboard boxes ?)

I hope I made myself clear enough since i'm not really fluent in english, anyway thanks you so much in advance for you answers.

 

[Ecom man]

Hey Ecom man, Thanks a lot for this AMA.

I was just wondering:

1- at the beginning of this thread you said running this business took you like "1h a day shipping + some time to find new products to sell" I guess today it's a way more than this ? And do you have any plan for the future when you will have (I hope for you) to deal with 100-500-1000 orders a day ? (FBA ? / Getting employees ? etc ...)

2- About packaging. Do you usually get your products individually packed from manufacturers (and ready to be shipped directly to your customers to be clear) or do you have to do it yourself ? And how do you do this if you have to ? (I mean would you like to have specific packages for every different products or you just put your products in basic cardboard boxes ?)

I hope I made myself clear enough since i'm not really fluent in english, anyway thanks you so much in advance for you answers.

I have been doing 40-50 orders a day this week. It will probably double to 100+ a day starting next week. Christmas is the busiest time of the year for me. I am planning on next year having things ordered way ahead of time and using FBA.

2. Each item is individually packaged for retail type sales. I use Priority Mail packages to ship it my customers. Priority Mail offers many different shape and size of packages and boxes. I use them for a couple of reasons. 1. They are free when you ship using Priority Mail. 2. Priority Mail is 2-3 day shipping anywhere in the US so that makes customers happy to get items fast.

 

[Guest3722A]

@Ecom man thank you for this awesome and strait forward thread! I just purchased my first few products and am anxious to see how this plays out. I have a question about this one item in particular that I really see a lot of potential with, but there are only a couple of manufacturers that have it listed in their products list. I have contacted both more than once, but neither has replied. Do you have a specific way to break the ice with an opening message that has a high probability of getting a response?

 

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[ljb7]

@Ecom man thank you for this awesome and strait forward thread! I just purchased my first few products and am anxious to see how this plays out. I have a question about this one item in particular that I really see a lot of potential with, but there are only a couple of manufacturers that have it listed in their products list. I have contacted both more than once, but neither has replied. Do you have a specific way to break the ice with an opening message that has a high probability of getting a response?

If you aren't having any luck contacting them via Alibaba, search their factory name in google and contact them on all the different trade sites that pop up.

Click here for an awesome opening message.

Hope that helps

 

[Rinzler]

I wanted to share my experience with a recent item I -thought- was going to sell, and wanted to see if anyone would be willing to offer some advice.
Long story short I found an item on eBay that is selling extremely well, roughly 16 sales an hour. I figured since the item, and many like it were being sold from Hong Kong, that I could jump in and start competing, using faster shipping as an angle.

I then found the exact same item on Aliexpress, being sold for roughly the same price. But being dead-set on the idea of buying a sample of 5 and jacking up the price on my own eBay listing since I could offer better shipping, it didn't occur to me that there's THOUSANDS of these generic accessories being listed on eBay.

I can't really explain this while being all secretive, but I was trying my hand at wallets. I found a style that was selling well, and tried competing and now since it's an unbranded wallet, my listing isn't even on the first 20 pages of search results.

I've had success with eBay but mostly because I was selling "branded" items. Now that it seems I have failed with a generic product, I want to know if there's any way to salvage this loss, and I also want to know if most of you have found success with generic items, considering anything "branded" on Aliex or Baba is a knockoff. A lot of generic items off Aliexpress are listed on eBay as well, most likely by the same suppliers... and it wasn't until now that I realized it may be a bad idea trying to compete since they rule the first few pages of eBay Listings on search results.

I might have to head to Craigslist or do some social media advertising to get people to see the listing, but at this point I don't have much faith in it.
Hopefully someone can shed some light on this!

 

[MP_fLEX]

I'm having the same experience with my first item which were some unique gemstone bracelets, At the price I'm selling them now I'm basically only charging for shipping (which I have set to Free Shipping).
I have yet to sell 1 online for 2 weeks now and so I posted them on Craigslist and gotten some hits but of course it has its drawbacks, namely all potential buyers have flaked.

I'm just looking to trade them in for some eBay feedback at this point heh

 

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[Ecom man]

I wanted to share my experience with a recent item I -thought- was going to sell, and wanted to see if anyone would be willing to offer some advice.
Long story short I found an item on eBay that is selling extremely well, roughly 16 sales an hour. I figured since the item, and many like it were being sold from Hong Kong, that I could jump in and start competing, using faster shipping as an angle.

I then found the exact same item on Aliexpress, being sold for roughly the same price. But being dead-set on the idea of buying a sample of 5 and jacking up the price on my own eBay listing since I could offer better shipping, it didn't occur to me that there's THOUSANDS of these generic accessories being listed on eBay.

I can't really explain this while being all secretive, but I was trying my hand at wallets. I found a style that was selling well, and tried competing and now since it's an unbranded wallet, my listing isn't even on the first 20 pages of search results.

I've had success with eBay but mostly because I was selling "branded" items. Now that it seems I have failed with a generic product, I want to know if there's any way to salvage this loss, and I also want to know if most of you have found success with generic items, considering anything "branded" on Aliex or Baba is a knockoff. A lot of generic items off Aliexpress are listed on eBay as well, most likely by the same suppliers... and it wasn't until now that I realized it may be a bad idea trying to compete since they rule the first few pages of eBay Listings on search results.

I might have to head to Craigslist or do some social media advertising to get people to see the listing, but at this point I don't have much faith in it.
Hopefully someone can shed some light on this!

What you have to avoid is generic items with tons of competition unless you have been selling a while. I could probably sell those same wallets and be successful selling them because of high amounts of feedback and getting the "best match" in search. I would say chalk the 5 up to a learning experience and start digging again. Ideally you want a product that sells 5-10 items a day with just a few competitors or none at all. Once you've found an item that sells 5 a day then you can order 150 of them and be set with a month's inventory. You can then move on to finding another product that sells 5 a day.

I have some products that sell insanely well and some that just sell 1-2 a day. You can make money on all of them if you have enough different items selling 1-2 a day.

 

[P3HSB]

Ideally you want a product that sells 5-10 items a day with just a few competitors or none at all.

How do you check how many units of a product is sold a day on eBay? Do you just use the advance search, "sold listing" and count manually?

 

[Ecom man]

How do you check how many units of a product is sold a day on eBay? Do you just use the advance search, "sold listing" and count manually?

If there are competitors with buy it now listings just watch them for a day or two. Write down how many they have as "sold" on their listing and then check back in 24 hours. If there are no competitors you have to order a sample and see how they sell.

 

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[Guest3722A]

If you aren't having any luck contacting them via Alibaba, search their factory name in google and contact them on all the different trade sites that pop up.

Click here for an awesome opening message.

Hope that helps

Thanks. I actually did do both of those this last week, and surprisingly, the supplier did reply back today to just the simple message I sent. So far, they're trying to sell me that its a branded item so I asked them if I could get rid of the brand and put my own on it. Waiting to hear back.

 

[ljb7]

I woke up to a lovely surprise email from one of my suppliers this morning. Take a look...

And the gift she's sending...

What a way to start my week... I guess that's a little more proof that building relationships not just around business but also around everything else is important.

 

[johnp]

I'm currently looking for a few products to import..You can never have too many income streams and I have been interested in importing for years. I tend to be impulsive, so I'm taking my time and trying to be very calculated in my approach right now.

I found an interesting product in the gambling industry. I'm probably not going to import the product because it doesn't seem like the demand is there, unless I'm missing something. So here's my current thought process. I'm going to share as much about the product as I can..

- Using the basic generic keyword for the product you will see 1,500 results appear in the buy it now section. But you will also see that many of the products are cheap plastic versions of this product. There is actually a market for higher end version of the product.

- The high-end versions of this product are usually wood. So I added the word "wood" infront of the keyword and the search showed 63 results, some of which are sold buy the same person and many of the products are not the actual product. So there's really 2 two main sellers of this specific product right now.

- The first result is the exact product that I would import and sell. It's selling for $292.50, with free shipping.

- This seller has more than 10 available with 29 sold.

So here's where I'm getting suck. I could import the product for around $100-$150 per unit. But my feeling is that the demand is not there. I can't tell if this seller has sold 29 units in the last month, or if this is over a 5+ month period.

I looked at the revision history and it goes all of the way back to Feb. So my guess is that this listing has been up for awhile. I looked as the sellers review history, and I have not seen any recent reviews for this specific product...but maybe the buyers of this product are not leaving reviews.

The margins and the low competition makes this product tempting, but I'm seeing too many possible issues with this product.

Am I thinking the wrong way about this?

 

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[Ecom man]

I'm currently looking for a few products to import..You can never have too many income streams and I have been interested in importing for years. I tend to be impulsive, so I'm taking my time and trying to be very calculated in my approach right now.

I found an interesting product in the gambling industry. I'm probably not going to import the product because it doesn't seem like the demand is there, unless I'm missing something. So here's my current thought process. I'm going to share as much about the product as I can..

- Using the basic generic keyword for the product you will see 1,500 results appear in the buy it now section. But you will also see that many of the products are cheap plastic versions of this product. There is actually a market for higher end version of the product.

- The high-end versions of this product are usually wood. So I added the word "wood" infront of the keyword and the search showed 63 results, some of which are sold buy the same person and many of the products are not the actual product. So there's really 2 two main sellers of this specific product right now.

- The first result is the exact product that I would import and sell. It's selling for $292.50, with free shipping.

- This seller has more than 10 available with 29 sold.

So here's where I'm getting suck. I could import the product for around $100-$150 per unit. But my feeling is that the demand is not there. I can't tell if this seller has sold 29 units in the last month, or if this is over a 5+ month period.

I looked at the revision history and it goes all of the way back to Feb. So my guess is that this listing has been up for awhile. I looked as the sellers review history, and I have not seen any recent reviews for this specific product...but maybe the buyers of this product are not leaving reviews.

The margins and the low competition makes this product tempting, but I'm seeing too many possible issues with this product.

Am I thinking the wrong way about this?

Keep checking on his listing for the next week. See how many he sells in a weeks time. If he still has 29 sold he obviously didn't sell any this week. Watch it for a month and you can get sales per month. If he is selling enough to make you competing worthwhile then you know before ordering.

 

[johnp]

Perfect, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the response.

 

[Rinzler]

What you have to avoid is generic items with tons of competition unless you have been selling a while. I could probably sell those same wallets and be successful selling them because of high amounts of feedback and getting the "best match" in search. I would say chalk the 5 up to a learning experience and start digging again. Ideally you want a product that sells 5-10 items a day with just a few competitors or none at all. Once you've found an item that sells 5 a day then you can order 150 of them and be set with a month's inventory. You can then move on to finding another product that sells 5 a day.

I have some products that sell insanely well and some that just sell 1-2 a day. You can make money on all of them if you have enough different items selling 1-2 a day.

Thanks for the response, @Ecom man! I'll definitely take that into consideration for next time. I always look at amount sold and what shipping they offer, but I got stuck just watching their listing, not realizing how many others there were. Feedback is something I need to work on as well, I have 30 submissions all 100% Positive, but now I know thats a factor in results too.

Thanks again! I'll report back if after digging.

 

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[SeanyHang]

So like many of the gentlemen and ladies in this thread, I've been doing fairly OK with this whole importing game. I've been learning more and more information on the subject as well as testing more and more products and sourcing sites(I even set up my very first LLC!). This is nothing new from me though as I've already posted on the thread a bunch of times stating my progress and thanking you @Ecom man as well as several others for planting the importing seed into my mind and then encouraging us all to go for it (but seriously - thanks again!!!)

Maybe I missed this while re-reading the thread... But is there an easier way to find products to import? The main thing that I've been doing is scouring Amazon Best Sellers in search of great products to sell and truth be told I've been successful with a few of them.. But - there's only so many products that you can see on Best Sellers.

For any of the more amazon-savvy out there: Is there a way to find a list of products being sold on amazon in order of ranking? For instance let's say I'm looking at dog toys on Amazon Best Sellers.. but I don't really like what I see on the list of the top 100 best sellers - is it possible for me to see the 101st item and so on? Also.. There HAS to be a way to automate this whole product search.


I appreciate an insight you guys have to offer!
Keep kickin' a$$ everybody! Ecom Man should serve as an inspiration as to what is possible.

 

[Ronak]

SeanyHang,

It's not a perfect solution, but it will get you what you need.

On the Amazon search bar, select the category, and in the box type 2 square brackets w/ a space in between, like this: [ ]
and hit enter. On the Sort by pulldown, select "New and Popular"

After the first few pages of results, you'll start to see beyond the first 100.

So like many of the gentlemen and ladies in this thread, I've been doing fairly OK with this whole importing game. I've been learning more and more information on the subject as well as testing more and more products and sourcing sites(I even set up my very first LLC!). This is nothing new from me though as I've already posted on the thread a bunch of times stating my progress and thanking you @Ecom man as well as several others for planting the importing seed into my mind and then encouraging us all to go for it (but seriously - thanks again!!!)

Maybe I missed this while re-reading the thread... But is there an easier way to find products to import? The main thing that I've been doing is scouring Amazon Best Sellers in search of great products to sell and truth be told I've been successful with a few of them.. But - there's only so many products that you can see on Best Sellers.

For any of the more amazon-savvy out there: Is there a way to find a list of products being sold on amazon in order of ranking? For instance let's say I'm looking at dog toys on Amazon Best Sellers.. but I don't really like what I see on the list of the top 100 best sellers - is it possible for me to see the 101st item and so on? Also.. There HAS to be a way to automate this whole product search.


I appreciate an insight you guys have to offer!
Keep kickin' a$$ everybody! Ecom Man should serve as an inspiration as to what is possible.

 

[SeanyHang]

On the Amazon search bar, select the category, and in the box type 2 square brackets w/ a space in between, like this: [ ]
and hit enter. On the Sort by pulldown, select "New and Popular"

@Ronak - YOU SIR.. Are the man. I was honestly looking for a way to do this on and off since about August - I COULD NEVER FIND ANYTHING ON IT no matter how many different ways I'd try to word the search in google and youtube. Last night I finally threw up my hands, accepted defeat and decided to ask for help on here. This morning I woke up to go to class to find that it was snowing HARD (I live in NJ). "Awesome!" I thought, "I'm going to sleep a little longer, then use the day find 10 new products to import". I go back to bed, wake up and look at youtube.... THE VERY FIRST recommended video was from some guy named "offline seller"(lol) that was explaining the bracket technique. I literally screamed "YESSSSSS!!!" and waved my arms around giggling like a school girl and jumped up to get on the computer. A few hours of searching later, I come on here and see that you said EXACTLY the same thing he said - which is even further proof that this is probably what I should have been doing.

The universe can be a funny little bastard sometimes.

 

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[KaiReader]

Did you have difficulty when you first got started selling, building up a reputation?
I know a lot of people are wary of buying from sellers that haven't sold TONS of products yet and that's always made me hesitate to invest in this sort of thing.

 

[GuestUser112]

2. Fastest shipping! If someone order a product before 1 pm it goes out the same afternoon before the post office closes. Anything ordered overnight is shipped out as soon as the post office opens in the morning. I only ship Priority Mail. It is more expensive and sometime the same time as regular mail but I use it every single time. I have shipped items that were purchased overnight Friday night, sent out on Saturday morning and the person got it Monday morning. Would you be happy getting your purchase that fast? I know I would

I know this is a very old post but this is something I want to get into as a stepping stone(main goal: quit job, move out of parents house) and so today I went to the post office "Canada Post" and inquired about their shipping fees. I was going to start off with CO2 tanks for paintball guns because I could see the margins instantly...but due to their size, I'm afraid the shipping fee's would totally eat the margins.

For example, the national Priority price of Canada Post for delivering a parcel that weighs more than 1 kg is $36.95...I was happy about the Co2 tanks because I could get them for under 20 bucks when they're selling for $30 in some places. Either I need to change my shipper or change my product.

Also, I'm pretty sure Canada Post is a government agency, which probably makes it a shitty business to deal with anyway, but they are the only mail office in town. I'm new to this. Do you know what it is I'm doing wrong? That price isn't even including postage, packaging, etc. Just transport.

 

[Ecom man]

Did you have difficulty when you first got started selling, building up a reputation?
I know a lot of people are wary of buying from sellers that haven't sold TONS of products yet and that's always made me hesitate to invest in this sort of thing.

Building up reputation in any business is a process. If you have 10 feedback and 100% people will not have a problem buying from you if you are the cheapest seller.( From my experience) If you couple being the cheapest with offering free expedited shipping then you will certainly see good sales amounts. As you get more feedback you can start to sell even of you aren't the cheapest. I am $5-10 more expensive than the cheapest person for each of my items yet i sell circles around them because of my best match placement and my feedback/fast shipping.

 

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[Ecom man]

I know this is a very old post but this is something I want to get into as a stepping stone(main goal: quit job, move out of parents house) and so today I went to the post office "Canada Post" and inquired about their shipping fees. I was going to start off with CO2 tanks for paintball guns because I could see the margins instantly...but due to their size, I'm afraid the shipping fee's would totally eat the margins.

For example, the national Priority price of Canada Post for delivering a parcel that weighs more than 1 kg is $36.95...I was happy about the Co2 tanks because I could get them for under 20 bucks when they're selling for $30 in some places. Either I need to change my shipper or change my product.

Also, I'm pretty sure Canada Post is a government agency, which probably makes it a shitty business to deal with anyway, but they are the only mail office in town. I'm new to this. Do you know what it is I'm doing wrong? That price isn't even including postage, packaging, etc. Just transport.

That item at those margin obviously won't work. (unless you sell them on craigslist) An item that you can buy for $20 and sell for $30 will cause you to end up broke almost every time. I look for items that I can buy for 20 and sell for 50-60+. In Canada, I know your shipping costs are absolutely crazy compared to the US so maybe instead of selling online maybe you import and sell to locals or local stores. You have to take all costs into consideration before buying an item. A heavy CO2 tank would probably cost me $10-15 to ship so that wouldn't make sense even with the cheaper US shipping.

 

[GuestUser112]

That item at those margin obviously won't work. (unless you sell them on craigslist) An item that you can buy for $20 and sell for $30 will cause you to end up broke almost every time. I look for items that I can buy for 20 and sell for 50-60+. In Canada, I know your shipping costs are absolutely crazy compared to the US so maybe instead of selling online maybe you import and sell to locals or local stores. You have to take all costs into consideration before buying an item. A heavy CO2 tank would probably cost me $10-15 to ship so that wouldn't make sense even with the cheaper US shipping.

Yeah. I'm glad I took all costs into consideration but boy am I disappointed. I would have to move to a larger city in order to do the local thing. The town I live in has a population of 3000 and I have yet to reclaim my drivers license. It looks like importing may not be a great route for me after all at this point. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Ecom man]

Yeah. I'm glad I took all costs into consideration but boy am I disappointed. I would have to move to a larger city in order to do the local thing. The town I live in has a population of 3000 and I have yet to reclaim my drivers license. It looks like importing may not be a great route for me after all at this point. Thanks for the advice.

Don't get me wrong importing can work anywhere. It won't work with that product your describing. You need to find cheaper items or smaller/lighter ones with far less shipping costs.

 

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[GuestUser112]

Don't get me wrong importing can work anywhere. It won't work with that product your describing. You need to find cheaper items or smaller/lighter ones with far less shipping costs.

Would you say that expensive items with a larger margins would work as well, so the margin could eat the shipping cost? I know you recommend staying away from electronics and the like, but I can't help thinking that there are expensive items out there that have fewer (relatively) competitors. Of course you have a lot more experience than I.

I volunteered the item I found because I hadn't yet invested anything, so I understand if you are reluctant to share anything about particular pieces since this is your livelihood - that being said, say I have $500 to go into this with, is there a way you would recommend getting started when I'm dealing with higher-than-average shipping costs?

I don't want you to have to repeat yourself so this is what I've gathered so far:

1. Find a niche with fewer competitors
2. Choose a product that enables high margins

Of course, this is easier said than done. I feel like I've been wading through a swamp.

There is another product I've been considering, with huge margins (relative), and if it is worth something to you, I'm happy to share it for the advice:

Glowstick bracelets - on Alibaba some companies are selling them for 2-3 cents each if you buy a large order (5000 or so). Of course this would involve a lot of wholesale and/or repeat customers (ravers, EDM fans, maybe?) but I've seen people at fairgrounds selling them for up to a $1 each sometimes! And I'm sure that if they were packaged in sets of 5 - 10 that customers would be willing to spend up to 40 cents each on them online, although this is speculation. Maybe I shouldn't have shared this, but it kind of seems too good to be true. Your advice seems like it'd be worth more than that product idea in either case. Thanks for your time.

 

[amp0193]

I'm sure that if they were packaged in sets of 5 - 10 that customers would be willing to spend up to 40 cents each on them online, although this is speculation.

The first thing I do when the margin checks out, is to evaluate demand for the product. Margins are useless if no one wants it. Terapeak is a great tool for this. 9/10 products that initially pique my interest turn out to have little demand when I investigate further.