[AMA] Importing & wholesaling for resale on eBay.

[Walter Hay]

The best thing about the escrow service is that it helps reduce scammers. You can still get scammed but far less likely and a lot harder. Plus with aliexpress you can pay with your credit card so you are covered by your credit card too.

You are right, Aliababa's escrow service does help reduce scammers but it does not eliminate them. Dubious suppliers know all the many loopholes and they use them if they are unscrupulous. The most common way for them to avoid having their money withheld is to procrastinate while appearing to be willing to cooperate. Once the time limit has passed, they refuse to refund and sometimes won't even answer.

There are other ways they manage to keep your money even if you have paid by credit card or PayPal. I describe one common one in my answer to Q 12 in my AMA.

 

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[albertut77]

I'd like to get a bit into grey waters today.

As you all know, there are some items that eBay forbids to sell in their platform, such as sex related products. Hence, if you list these kind of items you will eventually have your listing put down. I'm guessing that several attempts to sell "eBay forbidden products" would jeopardize your account, ending up in an account ban. However, many, many users sell these items, and it's not a one-time thing (many have over a thousand feedback, meaning they've been there for a while). So, somehow, these guys go around eBay's policy somehow.

I bought a product that turned out to be against eBay policies. The product sold good and gave me decent profit, but the listing was taken down and after a long and exhausting call with eBay, the only thing they told me is "if you see anyone selling these products you should report them". I managed to sell all my stock through a different account (they sold fast and it was a test product, so I didn't have that much stock anyway). This is a private account with the same name and addres on it than my business account, but a different bank account.

I would like to know a couple of things. If they took down my personal account because of eBay policy infringement (although I'm not worried as this only a one-time thing), would this affect my business account as well?

Also, if anyone has any experience on this field and/or knows how these guys are selling these kind of products regularly without being taken down, I would like to know.

I most likely won't be getting any of these anymore, as I'm making way more profit on other items and I wouldn't dare risking my account for a small bonus, but I'm very curious.

Thanks.

 

[Ecom man]

You can sell sex related products but you have to make sure it is listed in the correct category or they will pull the listing. Read the following for the rules on sex products.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/adult-only.html

 

[albertut77]

You can sell sex related products but you have to make sure it is listed in the correct category or they will pull the listing. Read the following for the rules on sex products.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/adult-only.html

Thanks, but the sex products were just an example. Clearly a bad one. For instance, BDSM items are completely prohibited (at least in my country), but many eBayers sell BDSM kits. Why are these accounts not taken down?

 

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[Ecom man]

Thanks, but the sex products were just an example. Clearly a bad one. For instance, BDSM items are completely prohibited (at least in my country), but many eBayers sell BDSM kits. Why are these accounts not taken down?

If it is forbidden in country but not by eBays TOS that is probably how they are getting away with it. Otherwise they are just selling until eBay shuts them down and then setting up new accounts to sell once the original ones get shut down.

 

[Moises]

Finally, I read all 69 pages. my issue seems to be finding manufactures. I find product with decent numbers on eBay but I cannot seem to find a manufacture that will sell me the item at the right price. It also seems that a lot of manufactures jack up the shipping charges.

 

[Ecom man]

Finally, I read all 69 pages. my issue seems to be finding manufactures. I find product with decent numbers on eBay but I cannot seem to find a manufacture that will sell me the item at the right price. It also seems that a lot of manufactures jack up the shipping charges.

You have to see what you are comparing prices to.
You have to double check and make sure you are comparing apples to apples. If you are trying to undercut Chinese sellers prices that is not likely going to happen. If other U.S. sellers have it at a certain price point then they are either buying in bulk to get the price down or finding suppliers with cheaper prices. All of the Chinese sourcing websites have people that claim to be manufactures and are not. Find a product and start getting lots of quotes is the best way to do it. (Contrary to some people's opinions there are no sure fire ways to get manufactures every time)

 

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[aivahness]

I've been reading the thread for a few days now and I decided that I'll post once I finished reading the whole thread. Thank you @Ecom man and to everybody who contributed to share your knowledge. I've learned a lot from you guys. And followed your advices. I ordered my first samples from alibaba and received them last week. I post them for sale on ebay and it's been a week since I posted them for sale but still got no sale. I even lowered the price but still couldn't get any sale. Here is my list: (removed)
Can you take a look at it and tell me what else I should do to get a sale. It currently has 56 views and 5 watches. Thank you I would greatly appreciate your help.

 

[Ecom man]

For your basic title there are 1,400+ buy it now listings. That is your problem. Your listing is lost in the sea called eBay. Even if I wanted to buy your product it would take me hours to scroll through the other listings to find yours. You either can do something to get your item to be the cheapest (add a cheap product option to the listing so it moves your listing to the cheapest) or stop selling the item.

 

[aivahness]

For your basic title there are 1,400+ buy it now listings. That is your problem. Your listing is lost in the sea called eBay. Even if I wanted to buy your product it would take me hours to scroll through the other listings to find yours. You either can do something to get your item to be the cheapest (add a cheap product option to the listing so it moves your listing to the cheapest) or stop selling the item.

Thank you for your advice. I'm gonna change it a little bit or add free stuff. I'll see how it goes then if things still won't work, I'll think of another way. I refuse to stop selling them haha. First thing I learned is do your research very well and never sell a product in a saturated market. Thanks for the help.

 

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[Tyman]

Thank you for your advice. I'm gonna change it a little bit or add free stuff. I'll see how it goes then if things still won't work, I'll think of another way. I refuse to stop selling them haha. First thing I learned is do your research very well and never sell a product in a saturated market. Thanks for the help.

You could also put them on craigslist. If I had a broken controller I would definitely want to get it fixed asap, so meeting someone same day through craigslist would be better than waiting for it to be shipped.

 

[Brentnal]

Researching is most definately the most time consuming part. You just have to make time to do it.

How do you do it and what are some other good ways to do this?
I can't really find good information on this.

 

[aivahness]

You could also put them on craigslist. If I had a broken controller I would definitely want to get it fixed asap, so meeting someone same day through craigslist would be better than waiting for it to be shipped.

I'll try to sell them on craiglist. I have a question though. If someone want to buy them do I have to deliver it to their house or we can like arrange a meet up or something? I've never used craiglist before sorry.

 

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[Tyman]

I'll try to sell them on craiglist. I have a question though. If someone want to buy them do I have to deliver it to their house or we can like arrange a meet up or something? I've never used craiglist before sorry.

You can either deliver to their house, meet somewhere, or have them come pick it up. Some people don't like going to stranger's houses to buy stuff (or sell stuff) so meeting somewhere that is close to both of you is probably the best way.

 

[aivahness]

You can either deliver to their house, meet somewhere, or have them come pick it up. Some people don't like going to stranger's houses to buy stuff (or sell stuff) so meeting somewhere that is close to both of you is probably the best way.

Thanks man. Really appreciate it. Been wanting to post ad on craiglist but I couldn't figure how to sell them. I thought it was complicated. Thank you again.

 

[MoneyDoc]

Thanks man. Really appreciate it. Been wanting to post ad on craiglist but I couldn't figure how to sell them. I thought it was complicated. Thank you again.

Make sure it's a public place.. Some people are hungry for as little as $50.

 

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[mikeb]

Hi, I read The Millionaire Fastlane about a year ago and just recently joined the forum. This thread seems interesting, and I could see myself finding a few products to sell. However, I haven't seen almost anything written about product liability insurance.

If you were testing a few products in the United States to sell, how could you cover yourself if someone sues for something? (I would try to make sure the products are safe but it could still happen). If you are someone doing this, are you buying some sort of insurance and/or setting up business entities?

 

[Chazmania]

Make sure it's a public place.. Some people are hungry for as little as $50.

100% yes.

It's one thing if you're selling your old washing machine or grill and you have someone come to the house to pick it up, but if you are selling items consistently and they are new in box, do it in a public place. That way people aren't showing back up to your house to get a refund or whatever.

I've sold this way and I just texted people the address of a shopping strip close to my house and told them I'd meet them in front of (whatever store is there) on my way home from work. Or say you're working close by and that's a good place to meet.

Being in a public place is safer for sure.

 

[Dad2Four]

Thanks man. Really appreciate it. Been wanting to post ad on craiglist but I couldn't figure how to sell them. I thought it was complicated. Thank you again.

I have alot of experience selling on Craigslist and wanted to throw something else out there that you will want to check into.

On Facebook we now have a local group called Kirkwood Swap And Sell. This style of group is popping up all over the place. If you don't find one in your area I highly recommend you start one up.

Here is what's great about the Faceook groups. On Craigslist you will experience many many no shows. It's extremely annoying.

When you use a Facebook group you are dealing with people that all are accountable because they can earn a reputation of get kicked if they aren't up to par. A feature of the facebook grooup we are involved in is that it's a tight knit group. Users are required to live in our city(kirkwood) so pickups and drop offs are very local. We do porch pickups where we put our items that are for sale out on the porch and when others pickup they leave the money in the mailbox or under our doormat. Many times we arrange to do pickups and drop offs for others when it's convenient. We give things away or buy things that are cheap for each other when we know someone will want it. We have raised money for victims of home fires or a victim of spousal abuse that needed donations. The list goes on and on. In short, it's a tight knit community and we all look out for each other and have high levels of expectations of each other. There are even protocols for how to claim dibs on an item and how the seller has to sell in order of who claimed the item.

Now I also wanted to say that individuals do businesss through the site. For example, one guy designed a cardboard triangle shaped box for cats. They come as a flat piece of cardboard that he designed and had produced. You can use one or buy several and stack them. Cats love them, they are like boxes. He advertises these through the site. Another lady makes great tamales and we know we can order them from her at anytime.

I can go on and on but i'll stop, I'm sure you get the idea. If you don't have this type of group in your area I highly recommend starting it. I know that if I can ever come up with a good import product I'll be successful offering it to this group as one source of sales.

Good Luck.

 

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[Dad2Four]

I'm trying to learn how to research and discover viable products.

I found this one.

Dyneema Braided Sea Fishing Line

So far I have only found two sellers. I see over 5k completed listings, over 9k listings for sale.

All completed listings I have seen are shipping out of China. Price range seems to be 8 bucks up to 13 for various colors and weights of line. It seems that shipping from within the U.S. would be an advantage.

Trying to make sense out of what I see on Alibaba.

From what I have learned in your thread this could be a good candidate since it's easy to ship, not too heavy or bulky.

What do you think, would this be an example of a good one or a bad one and why?

 

[Dad2Four]

I've been doing this for a few years so it does get easier with practice. I am selling 25-35 items a day currently. Obviously Christmas time will be far more.

Schedule for the day is similar to this
9-10ish get up.
10-11 do the packages that sold overnight
11-12 take packages from previous day and sold overnight to post office
12-7 do running around shopping, family time etc.
7-9 research new products, reorder what I'm running low on etc.
9-11 package up sales from the day
11-12 or 1 research new markets, niches, or just generally read on forums. (Millionaire fast lane, reddit entrepreneur, reddit flipping, reddit marking, etc.)
This is normal M-F routine. Saturday is a little different since the post office closes at noon here.

I am far less rigorous in my schedule now then I was when I had a full time job. For instance right now I'm sitting with my 3 year old watching pink panther Cartoons on YouTube.

Christmas time gets far more intense. Normal sales are 150-200 a day. We make 2 trips to the PO 10ish and 4ish. We normally do packages in the morning, at around 2pm (to take to the PO before they close at 5) and then again at night.

You have defined my dream life right here.

All of it. Always wanted to be shipping people things that they were sitting there totally anxious to receive. I always thought that would be a blast.

Only tweak I would add to your days is during some of the research time I'd be sitting at a coffee shop or some restaurant. I like the atmosphere.

I have to figure this out.

 

[albertut77]

Hey guys!

Yesterday I got my 100th positive feedback!


If it hasn't been made clear enough before, I'm very grateful to this thread and everyone helping, specially Ecom man, so I just wanted to pop by and say thank you all, again!

I also have a couple of questions. I've got a webpage for one product already set and am just waiting for some final details to be finished before I launch it, but there's something bugging me that I can't find a clear answer to: I'd like to offer worldwide shipping. I've checked the shipping rates and it is doable, but I haven't been able to work out what difficulties I might find with customs and additional taxes. I'm in Europe, so I already pay VAT for importing. However, if I was to ship my products to non-EU countries, what additional charges could I find? I've read tons of information about it but somehow there is no clear answer to this.

For instance, if I have a sale in the US, where you don't have to pay VAT (lucky bastards), should I have to pay for anything else than the international shipping? Would the buyer encounter any problems when the product enters the US (customs asking for additional payment for a customs declaration or anything like that)?

If so, what would the best way to proceed be: 1) I say in the description that any additional costs due to taxation differences / customs are not included and the buyer must be responsible for those; or 2) Account for this in my selling price / shipping fees (which I find quite ridiculous, as this may vary between countries)?

Additionally, @Ecom man and whoever owning a successful webpage, should I also offer free shipping in there? Is that going to make a difference?
I've seen that many webpages with related products add shipping fees, however I have mixed feelings about this: on the one side, I believe offering free shipping is a big plus anyone would like. None likes to see a price, go to the checkout and see that the price has now increased. However, offering free shipping might come out a bit "cheap" when you have your own webpage. What do you think?

Thanks!

 

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[Ron Dee]

Econ man or anyone. Do you have bulk discount shipping rates or commercial rates? I am looking to ship cheaper than the post office online price that ebay gives you. I have just started looking into this and someone from the post office needs to return my message.

 

[Ecom man]

Hey guys!

Yesterday I got my 100th positive feedback!
View attachment 9791

If it hasn't been made clear enough before, I'm very grateful to this thread and everyone helping, specially Ecom man, so I just wanted to pop by and say thank you all, again!

I also have a couple of questions. I've got a webpage for one product already set and am just waiting for some final details to be finished before I launch it, but there's something bugging me that I can't find a clear answer to: I'd like to offer worldwide shipping. I've checked the shipping rates and it is doable, but I haven't been able to work out what difficulties I might find with customs and additional taxes. I'm in Europe, so I already pay VAT for importing. However, if I was to ship my products to non-EU countries, what additional charges could I find? I've read tons of information about it but somehow there is no clear answer to this.

For instance, if I have a sale in the US, where you don't have to pay VAT (lucky bastards), should I have to pay for anything else than the international shipping? Would the buyer encounter any problems when the product enters the US (customs asking for additional payment for a customs declaration or anything like that)?

If so, what would the best way to proceed be: 1) I say in the description that any additional costs due to taxation differences / customs are not included and the buyer must be responsible for those; or 2) Account for this in my selling price / shipping fees (which I find quite ridiculous, as this may vary between countries)?

Additionally, @Ecom man and whoever owning a successful webpage, should I also offer free shipping in there? Is that going to make a difference?
I've seen that many webpages with related products add shipping fees, however I have mixed feelings about this: on the one side, I believe offering free shipping is a big plus anyone would like. None likes to see a price, go to the checkout and see that the price has now increased. However, offering free shipping might come out a bit "cheap" when you have your own webpage. What do you think?

Thanks!

For anything I ship worldwide I just choose the option that buyer is responsible for any import duties or taxes. I'm not sure if you can do that in your country or not but it works in the U.S.

 

[Ecom man]

Econ man or anyone. Do you have bulk discount shipping rates or commercial rates? I am looking to ship cheaper than the post office online price that ebay gives you. I have just started looking into this and someone from the post office needs to return my message.

If you are buying labels through eBay or PayPal you are getting commercial base pricing I believe. I currently use Shippo for my website shipping. There are no monthly fees and they give commercial pricing. They charge 5 cents a label I believe.

 

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[Ecom man]

I'm trying to learn how to research and discover viable products.

I found this one.

Dyneema Braided Sea Fishing Line

So far I have only found two sellers. I see over 5k completed listings, over 9k listings for sale.

All completed listings I have seen are shipping out of China. Price range seems to be 8 bucks up to 13 for various colors and weights of line. It seems that shipping from within the U.S. would be an advantage.

Trying to make sense out of what I see on Alibaba.

From what I have learned in your thread this could be a good candidate since it's easy to ship, not too heavy or bulky.

What do you think, would this be an example of a good one or a bad one and why?

I did some checking and most definitely not a product I would recommend. Searching for "fishing line" on eBay has over 80,000 buy it now listings. You would have a very difficult time getting your listing to show. The other issue is Sales numbers are not very high at all. I just recently subscribed to terapeak. I typed in fishing line And the sales are minimal ( no seller has over $800 in sales in a months time)

 

[johnp]

After a couple of months of monitoring products and learning how to do the research I can now find good products in my sleep. But I have hit a wall with shipping the products into the US, NYC side of the country. Would you mind taking a look at the response from the mot recent quote? Something seems weird about the pricing of shipping:

The product details:

• About medium size, not too big.
• Lightweight
• I can import at around $11 and resell for $50 and also build a brand around the product

Above is FOB ShenZhen price.

For 20pcs, we can offer you at USD12.00 per piece at EXIT-FACTORY PRICE, however, I don’t know how to ship this to you, if ship by sea then it will cost me USD300 for local forwarder and custom clearance charge, and then abt. USD100 of sea freight. Then when goods reach NewYork then there’s US side forwarder charge and then delivery to you cost, which in US side my estimate is abt. another USD300 cost. Which means abt. USD700 for goods delivery from my factory to your warehouse by sea, and it takes one month.

If ship by air, then for 20pcs the volume is 1CBM and by UPS express of door-to-door service the cost is USD1000. I don’t think it’s worth to pay USD1000 for just 20pcs. This takes 5 days.

Do you think this workable?

So the options are:

- Ship by sea for:

• $300 local forwarder and custom charge
• $100 for sea freight
• $300 for US side forwarder charge

Total - $700 for shipping + 1 month.

Seems insane for 20 small products.

Then there is:

-Ship by air for UPS express d2d
- Total cost = $1,000

Is this really how expensive in can be? Did I miss something or did I come across a supplier who is trying to make money on the shipping?

 

[Ecom man]

Without knowing the exact products or the product dimensions it is hard to tell if you are being overcharged or not. If you could give general dimensions per product it would make it easier to tell if you are being gouged. Ask your supplier what would be the charge for DHL shipment or for EMS. Almost everything I get is shipped one of those methods.

 

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[PandaTank]

Hi Econ man.
Great thread so far. I'm about halfway through, so forgive me if anyone has already asked these questions..

I live in South Africa and would like to start selling products sourced via Asia in the US using FBA. My current understanding is that this is possible, but I'm not yet sure of the profitability.

1) My research has lead me to understand how important it is to not only test the products, but also the market by ordering a small sample size of your product first. The shipping costs are double or more to South Africa compared to the US, but this would be necessary for me to first test the quality of my imports right? However, once I recieve the products, how can I test the market so to speak? The online market is quite small here. Should I just go about trying to sell the products to friends, flea markets and just anyone I can? I feel like in doing so my data would be skewed and I would not be getting a true representative of the market (US) I would be eventually planning on selling to.

2) I believe it would be necessary for me to use a per-furfilment center to label, package and check the products before being forwarded to the FBA warehouse. This would further eat into margins. In addition to some of the extra costs listed in question (1), do you still think there is profit to be made for someone in my situation? I know its all about finding that golden product. But it feels like the odds are stacked against me. Do you think I would have an easier time importing to my own country? I could handle all the packing, shipping etc myself, but in turn selling I would be selling to a much smaller market.

 

[Ecom man]

Hi Econ man.
Great thread so far. I'm about halfway through, so forgive me if anyone has already asked these questions..

I live in South Africa and would like to start selling products sourced via Asia in the US using FBA. My current understanding is that this is possible, but I'm not yet sure of the profitability.

1) My research has lead me to understand how important it is to not only test the products, but also the market by ordering a small sample size of your product first. The shipping costs are double or more to South Africa compared to the US, but this would be necessary for me to first test the quality of my imports right? However, once I recieve the products, how can I test the market so to speak? The online market is quite small here. Should I just go about trying to sell the products to friends, flea markets and just anyone I can? I feel like in doing so my data would be skewed and I would not be getting a true representative of the market (US) I would be eventually planning on selling to.

2) I believe it would be necessary for me to use a per-furfilment center to label, package and check the products before being forwarded to the FBA warehouse. This would further eat into margins. In addition to some of the extra costs listed in question (1), do you still think there is profit to be made for someone in my situation? I know its all about finding that golden product. But it feels like the odds are stacked against me. Do you think I would have an easier time importing to my own country? I could handle all the packing, shipping etc myself, but in turn selling I would be selling to a much smaller market.

I would not sell anything before getting samples and testing them personally yourself. It seems to me that it might be better to start selling on a small scale in your country via Internet, flea markets etc. to get some money flowing. Ask every customer what they like about the product and don't like. Ask what they are using it for. (If not obvious of course) Ask them or think about what they would be using along with it. It is possible that in a smaller Internet market you could get more sales if you are the only one selling what people want/need in your country. I would look very closely at selling in your own country before recommending selling in the U.S. There might be some problems selling in the U.S. that are difficult to deal with from that far away.