[AMA] Importing & wholesaling for resale on eBay.

[Ecom man]

I actually read through all of the pages so I know this hasn't been asked....

I understand the request for a sample to "test" quality from a supplier. However you guys then talk about going back and ordering 50-100 from them. Do they not expect you to adhere to their MOQ after the "sample"?

What type of startup capital are you guys using?

Seems like you need to have/find a few products to get the ball rolling. Then use additional capital to add more products. Obviously you don't want to buy large quantities until things are moving.

As others mentioned MOQ really doesn't mean a whole lot. Many supplier just put large amounts so they can justify the jacked up final price. My startup capital was whatever I could fit onto my cc. First orders were a few hundred, grew to a few thousand, now in the tens of thousands per order. I personally have just thrown almost all the profits back into more inventory. I'm getting ahead of the game for Christmas this year. (Hopefully)

 

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[Ecom man]

Hey Ecom man, love this post, I've learned a lot, any chance you could share a link to your website

Sorry but no

 

[jason91]

Hey Ecom man, love this post, I've learned a lot, any chance you could share a link to your website

lol

 

[Ryan D.]

lol

I find it hilarious that someone can read through this thread (or pretend that they have) and ask questions like that.

 

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[smartman]

It is almost offensive.

 

[Motley crue]

hey again ecom man, I had a kind of stupid question. I recently purchased my first sample from aliexpress an it should be here within the next few days. anyway when you were selling on ebay how did you do the shipping? I know it sounds foolish but did it cost anything to print a label from paypal? and from there did you go to the post office or did you have packages and postage ready at your home and just take it to a mail box from there, and if so how did you pay for postage? I guess mostly im asking how did you pay postage and where did you take the package?

 

[TKDTyler]

hey again ecom man, I had a kind of stupid question. I recently purchased my first sample from aliexpress an it should be here within the next few days. anyway when you were selling on ebay how did you do the shipping? I know it sounds foolish but did it cost anything to print a label from paypal? and from there did you go to the post office or did you have packages and postage ready at your home and just take it to a mail box from there, and if so how did you pay for postage? I guess mostly im asking how did you pay postage and where did you take the package?

Allow me to answer your question.

eBay has its own shipping program with USPS and gives you a 10% disount when you ship your packing using the eBay services. Once an item sells, you will be allowed to print your shipping label which is essentially a barcode with a shipping address. Just print it out, tape it onto your box and you're good to go.

Most people just pay using PayPal as it is the same account where the money from the sale is going into.

Don't forget that eBay/PayPal fees are collected at the end of each billing cycle. Be prepared to receive an invoice and pay it promptly so your account doesn't get suspended.

 

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[Motley crue]

thanks for the quick response. does the shipping label cover the cost of postage too so you can just drop it in a post box?

 

[Tyman]

thanks for the quick response. does the shipping label cover the cost of postage too so you can just drop it in a post box?

Shipping label is all you need.

 

[Motley crue]

cool, thanks a lot guys I really appreciate it

 

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[Ecom man]

hey again ecom man, I had a kind of stupid question. I recently purchased my first sample from aliexpress an it should be here within the next few days. anyway when you were selling on ebay how did you do the shipping? I know it sounds foolish but did it cost anything to print a label from paypal? and from there did you go to the post office or did you have packages and postage ready at your home and just take it to a mail box from there, and if so how did you pay for postage? I guess mostly im asking how did you pay postage and where did you take the package?

Printing the label on eBay cost varies depending on what method of shipment you use. I personally used Priority Mail flat rate boxes, envelopes, etc. You just choose to print the shipping label in PayPal and they will take the amount directly out of your PayPal account. You then tape the label onto your package and take it to the post office or give it to your mail carrier. It is cheaper to get it through PayPal or eBay than to stand in line at the post office and send it that way. Plus it uploads tracking etc automatically when you print off the label on PayPal.

 

[BlahBlahBlah]

Amazing thread, got to page 46 in a couple of days - I have a couple of questions for Echo Man.

1) You mentioned that selling via Amazon/EBay is the starting point and the final goal is to build your own E-Store and sell from there directly avoiding commissions, I would like to ask if by selling items from different niches you plan to build a single big store, or will you be building different sites for difference niches, with only a few products in each site?

2) Where do you buy the envelope/boxes you use for your deliveries? If there a supplier you would advise to use? If guess you order them in large quantities...

Thank you for your time!

 

[Ecom man]

Amazing thread, got to page 46 in a couple of days - I have a couple of questions for Echo Man.

1) You mentioned that selling via Amazon/EBay is the starting point and the final goal is to build your own E-Store and sell from there directly avoiding commissions, I would like to ask if by selling items from different niches you plan to build a single big store, or will you be building different sites for difference niches, with only a few products in each site?

2) Where do you buy the envelope/boxes you use for your deliveries? If there a supplier you would advise to use? If guess you order them in large quantities...

Thank you for your time!

I currently have put them all on one site. I am going to separate the different niches onto different sites after Christmas of this year. My end goal is 2-3 years from now to sell off each niche site and products separately. Then I can keep the most profitable niche and sell off the other ones and retire... At the age of 30.

2. I use priority mail to ship out everything. You can order free supples from the USPS website to ship things out.

 

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[Cesare]

First of all: This thread is really pure gold. Threads like this make this forum so unique and special.

@Ecom man Just one question: You said "Stay out of any electronic market. Most of those are run by high volume low margin folks." Then you also added that the electronic market is constanly changing: "New" products become outdated products after a few months.

I am able to relate to this argument but my experience taught me that people are mainly interested in electronic products. Are there really alternative products?

 

[Ecom man]

First of all: This thread is really pure gold. Threads like this make this forum so unique and special.

@Ecom man Just one question: You said "Stay out of any electronic market. Most of those are run by high volume low margin folks." Then you also added that the electronic market is constanly changing: "New" products become outdated products after a few months.

I am able to relate to this argument but my experience taught me that people are mainly interested in electronic products. Are there really alternative products?

You are correct people are interested in electronics, but there are millions of other products sold every single day online that are not electronics. Go get a trial for terapeak. Grab a dictionary or Google and start typing any keyword into terapeak. I guarantee you 99% of words will have sales associated with them. I typed in the word "toilet". The first result is a portable camping toilet that has sold 7k in 30 days on eBay. Is it profitable? I don't know. I do know it isn't an electronic and it has sales.

 

[Paul David]

I actually only sell electronic products. And in a very specific niche. There is a lot of competition but it doesn't stop me selling over £1m a year of them.

If there isn't competition and you start selling something trust me there soon will be.

I and another seller had a product we were selling for 17.99. Cost price was 2.00. We had a good run of 3 or 4 months before other greedy competitors jumped on board and has seen the price driven down to 5.99. Literally within a week or two. It was an internal part for tablet.

I separate myself from other competitors in the electronics niche by investing more time on products. My niche is database driven so having more popular models that no competitor has means we sell when they don't.

Also by concentrating on a particular niche means we can make the transition to a successful website rather than trying to sell everything under the sun. Having recently been suspended for a shirt period of time it was a giant wake up call.

Don't rely on amazon.

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

 

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[AndreHimself]

You are correct people are interested in electronics, but there are millions of other products sold every single day online that are not electronics. Go get a trial for terapeak. Grab a dictionary or Google and start typing any keyword into terapeak. I guarantee you 99% of words will have sales associated with them. I typed in the word "toilet". The first result is a portable camping toilet that has sold 7k in 30 days on eBay. Is it profitable? I don't know. I do know it isn't an electronic and it has sales.

Hey @Ecom man, What did you put in all the product search categories to get this toilet example? Been trying to find it on terapeak, but can't.

 

[Ecom man]

Hey @Ecom man, What did you put in all the product search categories to get this toilet example? Been trying to find it on terapeak, but can't.

Nothing, I don't mess with categories. Just did product search, clicked advance search and typed in toilet. This came up

 

[Motley crue]

So I just put my first sample up for sale on eBay and had a disappointing realization. I'm only going to turn $2.30 profit for each item I sell after base price, shipping cost, and eBay expenses. It could be lower with PayPal expenses. It's also a saturated market, and I have to charge a little more than every one else. We'll see how it goes but I hope my mistake will provide others with some advice to do more research. I would also like to ask about ē bays sale limitations. They only allow me to list 100 items a month or make up to $5,000 a month, which greatly reduces potential profit. Is there any way around the limits?

 

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[Motley crue]

I would also like to share an interesting way to find good selling products on eBay
Step 1: go to the eBay homepage, scroll all the way to the bottom and click "site map"
Step 2: click the tab that says "all categories"
Step 3: choose a category (preferably one that sells fairly well) and select "see all"
Step 4: from here select a sub category you might be interested in trying to sell
Step 5: select auction only
Step 6: sort the auctions by "number of bids: most first"
From here all you have to do is look through the listings. You can find all kinds of items that will sell and from there just check the market for the item and how much it would cost you on alibaba

 

[AndreHimself]

Nothing, I don't mess with categories. Just did product search, clicked advance search and typed in toilet. This came upView attachment 10222

@Ecom man, can I pm you to get your opinion on something?

 

[Ecom man]

@Ecom man, can I pm you to get your opinion on something?

Sure, I'm happy to help in any way I can.

 

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[Ecom man]

So I just put my first sample up for sale on eBay and had a disappointing realization. I'm only going to turn $2.30 profit for each item I sell after base price, shipping cost, and eBay expenses. It could be lower with PayPal expenses. It's also a saturated market, and I have to charge a little more than every one else. We'll see how it goes but I hope my mistake will provide others with some advice to do more research. I would also like to ask about ē bays sale limitations. They only allow me to list 100 items a month or make up to $5,000 a month, which greatly reduces potential profit. Is there any way around the limits?

There aren't any ways around the limits that isn't against eBays TOS. Just max out the 100 items/5k every month for a couple months and then call eBay and ask them to raise limits. As long as your feedback is good they normally will.

 

[BlahBlahBlah]

Quick question for European Sellers: is it possible to sell on ebay.co.uk, ebay.de, ebay.it, ebay.es, etc. with a single account? If it is then great, if not is there a way to merge all feedbacks received for the different accounts, so that it improves the Seller status, or is each account separate?

Same question for Amazon, is it possible to sell on .co.uk, .de, .it, .fr, .es, etc. with a single account?

Another question, I have become familiar with Wordpress in the past couple of months and build my first 3 websites (none of them E-Commerce though), would Wordpress be good for E-Commerce, or is Shopify better? I don't mind spending a bit more time getting the site done, but want to ensure to save time on ongoing maintenance as time passes and have a simple, nice, user-friendly platform to host the site.

Question for @Ecom man: now that you only sell on your website, do you only sell existing products, or how do you scout for new products? if you only search and sell new products via your website, don't you miss Ebay/Amazon audience at least for the first sale (after which you include the coupon in the delivery and hopefully the customers start buying directly from you site)? Do you reach new customers for new product exclusively via paid advertising (Adwords, Facebook, etc.) ?

Thank you!

 

[BlahBlahBlah]

I started contacting suppliers for my first couple of products, with regards to the payments i am asking for Paypal/Escrow only as advised on this thread and want to avoid WU & TT . I see many suppliers offer moneygrams, could you please advise what is this? Is part of the safe or unsafe forms of payment?

Also while searching products I have a bit of issues drawing a line of what is copyrighted and what is not. I was looking into soccer jerseys for example as the new season is about to start, however after I received a few quotations from the suppliers that I contacted one told me clearly that the are not allow to copy the team jersey and can only customized them. So I did some further research and found out that Nike/Adidas are actually very serious about replica items, despite of several sellers already selling them on ebay. As I don't want to get sued I will obviously not pursue this product - my concern is that most of the popular items (selling at >20$ at least) are branded items, so I was wondering if you guys ONLY sell generic items, or whether some of these branded items can be resold?

Last question: did anybody use the quotation process on Alibaba? Would that be as effective as contacting suppliers or better/worse? I guess the advantage is that it opens door to every potential supplier available, the downside is that maybe some good suppliers won't even look at that section of Alibaba - what do you think?

Thank you for your help.

 

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[bartzawada]

First things first - thank you @Ecom man for this AWESOME thread. I'm preparing myself to start similar thing in Poland. I expect a lot of bumps on the road as taxes and costs of running a business here are pain in the back. However it's barrier to entry for most of folks here and it's not something that can hold me back. Maybe I will create Progress Thread once I got first samples. Anyway good luck and keep up the good work!

 

[Superwoman]

I have been reading through this thread off and on since February as well as participating in other coaching calls, etc to learn about this business model. I had to take a break so I could invest time and money in my "non-passive" real estate investments. (another story).

Have been back in this thread, reading from the beginning. Last night, I saw an opportunity to sell something fun, where there is no competition, (yet). The kicker is----it only has a two month selling window!!

I have not been able to find anything to buy ready-made on the net. The "want" for this product was created yesterday because of an event. I did see one, but it was obviously made by the person I saw on TV. This product idea needs a supplier to assemble two existing products. It should not be tough, but because of the short time frame to capitalize coupled with my lack of experience, I am concerned I don't have enough time to get it done.

It would probably be too time consuming for me to assemble the products on my own, but I could for a test.

I am wondering if someone with experience and supplier contacts would like to partner up with me to get this product to market ASAP? Like I mentioned above, the opportunity only lasts for 2-2 1/2 months.

On a side note, I want to thank Ecom Man for starting this thread, and all the other experienced folks that have been on here mentoring others. It has strengthened my faith in humanity that most people are good and are willing to help others. Thank you so much.

 

[Ecom man]

I started contacting suppliers for my first couple of products, with regards to the payments i am asking for Paypal/Escrow only as advised on this thread and want to avoid WU & TT . I see many suppliers offer moneygrams, could you please advise what is this? Is part of the safe or unsafe forms of payment?

Also while searching products I have a bit of issues drawing a line of what is copyrighted and what is not. I was looking into soccer jerseys for example as the new season is about to start, however after I received a few quotations from the suppliers that I contacted one told me clearly that the are not allow to copy the team jersey and can only customized them. So I did some further research and found out that Nike/Adidas are actually very serious about replica items, despite of several sellers already selling them on ebay. As I don't want to get sued I will obviously not pursue this product - my concern is that most of the popular items (selling at >20$ at least) are branded items, so I was wondering if you guys ONLY sell generic items, or whether some of these branded items can be resold?

Last question: did anybody use the quotation process on Alibaba? Would that be as effective as contacting suppliers or better/worse? I guess the advantage is that it opens door to every potential supplier available, the downside is that maybe some good suppliers won't even look at that section of Alibaba - what do you think?

Thank you for your help.

1. Money gram is a wire transfer so don't use it with new suppliers etc.

2. There are millions of items that you can choose to sell from. Some items are far more competitive than others but money can be made on most of them. I have more products/new business ideas than the money to start them. If I had 100k tomorrow I could turn it into a million + in under a year. Opportunities are absolutely everywhere right now! Anyone who tells you different either doesn't want more competition or is looking in the wrong places.

3. All over ever got from the quotation section is spammed to death

 

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[Ecom man]

First things first - thank you @Ecom man for this AWESOME thread. I'm preparing myself to start similar thing in Poland. I expect a lot of bumps on the road as taxes and costs of running a business here are pain in the back. However it's barrier to entry for most of folks here and it's not something that can hold me back. Maybe I will create Progress Thread once I got first samples. Anyway good luck and keep up the good work!

Good luck and keep on moving!

 

[soccerfan91]

I started reading your thread 2 weeks ago and got went through the whole process and two days ago I finally listed my items I received and I have attached a picture to show how much I was able to do in two days! It is not a lot but it is a start. Thank you so much for this thread Ecom man!