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[AMA] Importing & wholesaling for resale on eBay.

Ecom man

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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!
Awesome job! I love it when people do something with the information!
 
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kaqm

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I read most of this thread last year, just read from around page 50 to here, thanks everyone for your input and advice especially @Ecom man

I have a couple of products selling on ebay but margins aren't great or sale quantities and I'm looking to take things in a new direction in terms of categories etc. I'm only continuing with these products for the sake of Christmas sales and to keep my account active and get positive feedback.

What are people's methods for searching? Do you look at best selling categories then look through every sub-category in any particular order? Do you do a thorough search on each subcategory until that possibility is exhausted before moving on or do you swap between categories and just keep note of your progress for when you want to go back to it? What are people's opinions on doing things in a structured way like this? Does anyone do this?

I just signed up to Terapeak so have been tinkering with that but only with the category I currently sell in. Anybody got any tips on the best ways to use Terapeak for research? I like the hot research section but that changes so frequently, haven't checked for a way to keep track of common trends yet.

Any advice welcome, just looking to get my head around how to process so much data in the most effective way.
 

soccerfan91

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I read most of this thread last year, just read from around page 50 to here, thanks everyone for your input and advice especially @Ecom man

I have a couple of products selling on ebay but margins aren't great or sale quantities and I'm looking to take things in a new direction in terms of categories etc. I'm only continuing with these products for the sake of Christmas sales and to keep my account active and get positive feedback.

What are people's methods for searching? Do you look at best selling categories then look through every sub-category in any particular order? Do you do a thorough search on each subcategory until that possibility is exhausted before moving on or do you swap between categories and just keep note of your progress for when you want to go back to it? What are people's opinions on doing things in a structured way like this? Does anyone do this?

I just signed up to Terapeak so have been tinkering with that but only with the category I currently sell in. Anybody got any tips on the best ways to use Terapeak for research? I like the hot research section but that changes so frequently, haven't checked for a way to keep track of common trends yet.

Any advice welcome, just looking to get my head around how to process so much data in the most effective way.

Let me tell you what I do. I find a product like Ecom has said. Mostly, by vague search words and looking through that to see what I think sells well. Once you have 1 product and it sells well and you have a supplier you regularly use. I just simply ask my supplier if they have any more products that I would be interested in and they give me a list and I look through those and find my next product in that category. It has worked out very well for me. Started selling about a month ago and I'm selling on average $400 a day just by asking my supplier for products and shifting through those. Good luck.
 

Ecom man

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Let me tell you what I do. I find a product like Ecom has said. Mostly, by vague search words and looking through that to see what I think sells well. Once you have 1 product and it sells well and you have a supplier you regularly use. I just simply ask my supplier if they have any more products that I would be interested in and they give me a list and I look through those and find my next product in that category. It has worked out very well for me. Started selling about a month ago and I'm selling on average $400 a day just by asking my supplier for products and shifting through those. Good luck.
That is a super way to do it!
 
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Ecom man

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I read most of this thread last year, just read from around page 50 to here, thanks everyone for your input and advice especially @Ecom man

I have a couple of products selling on ebay but margins aren't great or sale quantities and I'm looking to take things in a new direction in terms of categories etc. I'm only continuing with these products for the sake of Christmas sales and to keep my account active and get positive feedback.

What are people's methods for searching? Do you look at best selling categories then look through every sub-category in any particular order? Do you do a thorough search on each subcategory until that possibility is exhausted before moving on or do you swap between categories and just keep note of your progress for when you want to go back to it? What are people's opinions on doing things in a structured way like this? Does anyone do this?

I just signed up to Terapeak so have been tinkering with that but only with the category I currently sell in. Anybody got any tips on the best ways to use Terapeak for research? I like the hot research section but that changes so frequently, haven't checked for a way to keep track of common trends yet.

Any advice welcome, just looking to get my head around how to process so much data in the most effective way.
Terapeak is a great tool to use to find new products. Head to terapeak and type in any word. Look around your house, garage, etc. The first thing you see... Search it on terapeak. Floor, wall, carpet, car, ceiling, fan, window, kitchen, counter, etc etc etc. Engross yourself in terapeak, eBay, and supply side sites. You should be able to find products in no time.
 

kaqm

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Let me tell you what I do. I find a product like Ecom has said. Mostly, by vague search words and looking through that to see what I think sells well. Once you have 1 product and it sells well and you have a supplier you regularly use. I just simply ask my supplier if they have any more products that I would be interested in and they give me a list and I look through those and find my next product in that category. It has worked out very well for me. Started selling about a month ago and I'm selling on average $400 a day just by asking my supplier for products and shifting through those. Good luck.

That sounds like a great idea, thanks, and well done with your progress :)
 

SeanyHang

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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.

There have been a few threads on this site that have truly helped me over the years and propelled me to a better place both monetarily and mentally. This has been one of them. I took a lot of your advice from this thread a few months (or at this point close to a year?) ago and used it to build myself a nice little amazon business. It feels awesome to have something really work (after plenty of failed side ventures and experiments). Keep kickin' a$$ @Ecom man .

I attached your quote above because the last time I read through this thread you were only selling on eBay. I eventually saw that you had you're own website and wrote down "Ask @Ecom man if he is selling products that are all in the same niche or if his site is like mini-walmart." But kept reading to see if my question had been answered... Eventually it was!

I'm super surprised that you went the "mini-walmart" route and just put a bunch of your random products on your own site! I sort of had the expectation that modern consumers would see such a site as scammy as opposed to going to "ECOMMANS-AUTOPARTS.com" and seeing a site that's dedicated to car parts. I'm glad to see that I was wrong!

Congratulations on your success!!
 
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kaqm

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Terapeak is a great tool to use to find new products. Head to terapeak and type in any word. Look around your house, garage, etc. The first thing you see... Search it on terapeak. Floor, wall, carpet, car, ceiling, fan, window, kitchen, counter, etc etc etc. Engross yourself in terapeak, eBay, and supply side sites. You should be able to find products in no time.

Thanks, will start doing this as of now :)
 

Dsant

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Hi!

First of all loved the the thread, it's awesome what you're doing here Ecom man!
i'm trying to read it all since the begging to accumulate the most information possible, before i start so i make the less mistakes i can. What's pulling me down a bit it's that i'm from Portugal in Europe, and from what i read we have some Taxes to pay from shipping from outside Europe, and since we have that my margin of profit won't be as high, but not impossible..

Is there anyone doing this on Europe and having a good margin of profit? Any advice you could give me? probably going for bigger items will be a the way to make profit but is anyone making it a different way?

Thank you!
 

Motley crue

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hey all.

had a quick question about what you suggest I do in my current situation. In July I ordered my first product of aliexpress. In hindsight it wasn't the best idea. I misunderstood the order, and bought into probably one of the, if not the most saturated product on the ebay market. I was expecting 40 units but got 4, stupid mistake. nevertheless I posted the 4 items for sale on ebay on July 29th. through the first two weeks I didn't sell a single one. Lost interest in the whole thing and stopped checking ebay. stupid mistake. A few days ago I checked back on ebay just to make sure nothing had sold. To my surprise somebody had bought 3 of my 4 items, on august 26th. it was at least 10 days before I even realized I had sold anything, but surprisingly I didn't have any messages at all from the buyer. A day later I sold the last item I had in stock to someone who lives in the same state as me (the reason I add he was from the same state is because I considered the possibility he bought it because we're in the same state with a population of about 1.5 million) which I noticed the day he bought. so today I finally got everything shipped. So my dilemma is, now that i'm out, do I cut the cord and stay out, or does this seem to be my sales are starting to take off and submit another (probably larger) order? any opinions?
 
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kaqm

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Download the app, the you'll be notified as soon as you get a sale. Thankfully your buyers said nothing but the last thing you want especially when starting out is negative feedback. If the margin is worthwhile and you're already selling then personally I'd reorder, but when I first started I sold some things with hardly any profit, just to get my feedback up.
 

BlahBlahBlah

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I am pretty excited as I made my first sale last night and two more this morning :)
Posted my items on eBay about a week ago but couldn't sall any, probably also due to the fact that this is a brand new eBay account with no feedback. So I lowered the price a bit and wrote in the description (big, in red, at the top) "new eBay seller, special offer only until 50 positive feedback are reached", and boom, started selling :)
I only ordered 10 items in the first sample (3 now gone) but look forward to order more!
I am a bit frustrated as I also have 10 items of another product but could not post it on eBay as apparently for the first month I am allowed to sell only 10 items. So I have this product sitting there for now (posted for sale on a couple of smaller sites) and have to wait another 3 weeks before I can start selling it.

I also found another 3-4 products (all from a single supplier) that find very interesting, I sent a request for quotation and hopefully will receive an answer soon. All products are in the same niche, so hopefully by the end of October I have an LTD company setup (I am based in Ireland) and can start selling on the online shop I am working on at the moment. I prefer not to sell via the shop until I have the company setup.

I haven't opened an account on Amazon yet just because I heard if you mess it up for any reason on your first orders they may close your account permanently, so I am just using eBay to make a bit of practice for now.

PS: when trying to print labels from eBay/Paypal I got the following error message "PayPal Shipping is not available. We apologize for the inconvenience.", anyone got the same error?
 

BlahBlahBlah

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Hi @Ecom_man (or whoever can help :) )

a couple of simple question for you but very important to me:

1) When you sell on eBay a product with different variations, do you usually use a single post, or multiple? For example, suppose you sell a pen and you have it in red, yellow, blue and green, do you create 4 different entries, or only a single one with different variations? Just trying to understand what the best strategy is.

2) My initial eBay limit is 10 items only for the first month. I sold out after a week and I am quite frustrated at the moment. I contacted eBay and asked to increase my limit but they said to contact them next month. Would you know what limit I can expect to receive next month? Are these limits negotiables?

3) I will soon open an account on Amazon, are there selling limits on Amazon too?

Thanks for your help.
 
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MAFI

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Hi @Ecom_man (or whoever can help :) )

a couple of simple question for you but very important to me:

1) When you sell on eBay a product with different variations, do you usually use a single post, or multiple? For example, suppose you sell a pen and you have it in red, yellow, blue and green, do you create 4 different entries, or only a single one with different variations? Just trying to understand what the best strategy is.

2) My initial eBay limit is 10 items only for the first month. I sold out after a week and I am quite frustrated at the moment. I contacted eBay and asked to increase my limit but they said to contact them next month. Would you know what limit I can expect to receive next month? Are these limits negotiables?

3) I will soon open an account on Amazon, are there selling limits on Amazon too?

Thanks for your help.
For your example with pens i found following strategy useful:

1. create one buy it now variation listing with 4 colours
2. create for every colour an auction and point to you variation listing via link (credit to Vigilante)

you want to avoid duplicate / identical buy it now listings as they are punished with bad positions in search results.

i dont know exactly whether ebay can detect it as identical if you have red/green, yellow etc variation list with buy now and for ex. one single red pen buy now. May be some one else can share experinece in this matter.

I do know that if you put up many identical single listings for one item you will rank really low. I see a lot of sellers that have not adapted yet. Welll last years this strategy worked to target all the diefferent keyword combinations. But today not anymore.

greetings
 

Ecom man

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Hi @Ecom_man (or whoever can help :) )

a couple of simple question for you but very important to me:

1) When you sell on eBay a product with different variations, do you usually use a single post, or multiple? For example, suppose you sell a pen and you have it in red, yellow, blue and green, do you create 4 different entries, or only a single one with different variations? Just trying to understand what the best strategy is.

2) My initial eBay limit is 10 items only for the first month. I sold out after a week and I am quite frustrated at the moment. I contacted eBay and asked to increase my limit but they said to contact them next month. Would you know what limit I can expect to receive next month? Are these limits negotiables?

3) I will soon open an account on Amazon, are there selling limits on Amazon too?

Thanks for your help.
There aren't selling limits on Amazon. If you sell a ton of products quickly they will verify the account etc. but they let you sell as much as you want. eBay limits will go from 10 items to a hundred normally. The longer your account is open the higher the limits.
 

Ecom man

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There have been a few threads on this site that have truly helped me over the years and propelled me to a better place both monetarily and mentally. This has been one of them. I took a lot of your advice from this thread a few months (or at this point close to a year?) ago and used it to build myself a nice little amazon business. It feels awesome to have something really work (after plenty of failed side ventures and experiments). Keep kickin' a$$ @Ecom man .

I attached your quote above because the last time I read through this thread you were only selling on eBay. I eventually saw that you had you're own website and wrote down "Ask @Ecom man if he is selling products that are all in the same niche or if his site is like mini-walmart." But kept reading to see if my question had been answered... Eventually it was!

I'm super surprised that you went the "mini-walmart" route and just put a bunch of your random products on your own site! I sort of had the expectation that modern consumers would see such a site as scammy as opposed to going to "ECOMMANS-AUTOPARTS.com" and seeing a site that's dedicated to car parts. I'm glad to see that I was wrong!

Congratulations on your success!!
I actually have now set up another site that is specific to one of my larger product categories. It is converting at a much higher % than the website that has everything on it. My "everything site" is converting at 2.5-3.5%. My category specific site is converting at 5%+. My visitors are lower on category specific site as of now but great conversions so it appears that is the route to go rather than a mini walmart
 
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Ecom man

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hey all.

had a quick question about what you suggest I do in my current situation. In July I ordered my first product of aliexpress. In hindsight it wasn't the best idea. I misunderstood the order, and bought into probably one of the, if not the most saturated product on the ebay market. I was expecting 40 units but got 4, stupid mistake. nevertheless I posted the 4 items for sale on ebay on July 29th. through the first two weeks I didn't sell a single one. Lost interest in the whole thing and stopped checking ebay. stupid mistake. A few days ago I checked back on ebay just to make sure nothing had sold. To my surprise somebody had bought 3 of my 4 items, on august 26th. it was at least 10 days before I even realized I had sold anything, but surprisingly I didn't have any messages at all from the buyer. A day later I sold the last item I had in stock to someone who lives in the same state as me (the reason I add he was from the same state is because I considered the possibility he bought it because we're in the same state with a population of about 1.5 million) which I noticed the day he bought. so today I finally got everything shipped. So my dilemma is, now that i'm out, do I cut the cord and stay out, or does this seem to be my sales are starting to take off and submit another (probably larger) order? any opinions?
I agree with kaqm download the eBay app on your phone so it rings through for every sale you get. Depending on the buyer you might get negative or neutral feedback for the delay in shipping. Always keep track of your sales either by the app or check the sales once a day on your computer. If you don't check in on your account but once every couple weeks you aren't going to do very well in any business.
 

Ecom man

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I am pretty excited as I made my first sale last night and two more this morning :)
Posted my items on eBay about a week ago but couldn't sall any, probably also due to the fact that this is a brand new eBay account with no feedback. So I lowered the price a bit and wrote in the description (big, in red, at the top) "new eBay seller, special offer only until 50 positive feedback are reached", and boom, started selling :)
I only ordered 10 items in the first sample (3 now gone) but look forward to order more!
I am a bit frustrated as I also have 10 items of another product but could not post it on eBay as apparently for the first month I am allowed to sell only 10 items. So I have this product sitting there for now (posted for sale on a couple of smaller sites) and have to wait another 3 weeks before I can start selling it.

I also found another 3-4 products (all from a single supplier) that find very interesting, I sent a request for quotation and hopefully will receive an answer soon. All products are in the same niche, so hopefully by the end of October I have an LTD company setup (I am based in Ireland) and can start selling on the online shop I am working on at the moment. I prefer not to sell via the shop until I have the company setup.

I haven't opened an account on Amazon yet just because I heard if you mess it up for any reason on your first orders they may close your account permanently, so I am just using eBay to make a bit of practice for now.

PS: when trying to print labels from eBay/Paypal I got the following error message "PayPal Shipping is not available. We apologize for the inconvenience.", anyone got the same error?
Try using a different browser and see if that fixes the error. If not contact PayPal and tell them about the situation.
 

MartinG

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Excellent thread.

I see a number of people selling a product I am interest in selling on ebay at over double of what it costs on sites like Alibaba. Usually there is a creative marketing strategy, creative artwork on their ebay page, or additional add on which they use to sell the item at such a cost.

Is it as easy as it sounds above?
Thanks.
 
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Ecom man

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Excellent thread.

I see a number of people selling a product I am interest in selling on ebay at over double of what it costs on sites like Alibaba. Usually there is a creative marketing strategy, creative artwork on their ebay page, or additional add on which they use to sell the item at such a cost.

Is it as easy as it sounds above?
Thanks.
Just because something is listed for a certain price on alibaba doesn't mean that's the price you can actually get it at. Sellers put these low prices on there then jack up the shipping etc. The only way to see what the actual price is that you can sell it for is by contacting the sellers or using the sites that actually have a price listed that you can really buy it at.

Alibaba would do far more sales volume if they simply made it where the price listed is what you can actually buy products at and shipping prices had to be on each listing. I couldn't tell you the last time I used alibaba simply because it is such a headache to find an accurate price.
 

MartinG

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Just because something is listed for a certain price on alibaba doesn't mean that's the price you can actually get it at. Sellers put these low prices on there then jack up the shipping etc. The only way to see what the actual price is that you can sell it for is by contacting the sellers or using the sites that actually have a price listed that you can really buy it at.

Alibaba would do far more sales volume if they simply made it where the price listed is what you can actually buy products at and shipping prices had to be on each listing. I couldn't tell you the last time I used alibaba simply because it is such a headache to find an accurate price.

Thanks for this. I understand that. I have received samples at a good price and will test them.
 

mikeobi

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Hi,

I'm in negotiations with one supplier that takes T/T only. Would T/T be the equivalent to wire transfer with the transfer fee for my bank still applying? Also, some suppliers have quoted me "sample charges" that are like 100-150 dollars and shipping charges of 90 and above for just 5 units. Does that make sense?

Thank you,
Mike
 
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Ecom man

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Hi,

I'm in negotiations with one supplier that takes T/T only. Would T/T be the equivalent to wire transfer with the transfer fee for my bank still applying? Also, some suppliers have quoted me "sample charges" that are like 100-150 dollars and shipping charges of 90 and above for just 5 units. Does that make sense?

Thank you,
Mike
T/t Transfer is basically a wire transfer. Once the money is sent you have absolutely no protection. Unless you have used this seller extensively before I would never pay that way. You have no recourse if they just take your money and run. Sellers "sample prices" is many times just a way for them to get $$$$$ out of you. If I order samples I have no problem paying for shipping but there is no reason they would jack up the price of the item except they want more money.
 

mikeobi

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T/t Transfer is basically a wire transfer. Once the money is sent you have absolutely no protection. Unless you have used this seller extensively before I would never pay that way. You have no recourse if they just take your money and run. Sellers "sample prices" is many times just a way for them to get $$$$$ out of you. If I order samples I have no problem paying for shipping but there is no reason they would jack up the price of the item except they want more money.

I thought that wasn't right. Thank you so much!
 

BlahBlahBlah

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Hi @Ecom man ,

thank you again for all your help.
I am currently working on setting up my first E-Store. I only have 2 products at the moment though and I will be ordering in the next couple of week 5-6 new products that I have identified, I am just going through the supplier selection process at the moment, as I have shortlisted 5 or 6 who seem good. I am meeting on Monday with a Tax Accountant who will help me setting up an LTD and then I will finally open the shop - hope to have everything ready by mid-October.

I just have a couple of questions:
1) I checked for similar sites in my area (Ireland), I found 3-4 really nice ones and I can see each of them sells 50+ products at least. I am concerned that if I have only I very limited amount of products I may no be taken too seriously at the start, so I was wondering whether it would be a good idea to add some products on sale from other shops at slightly higher price (ie. they sell item A for 30€ including delivery, I sell it at 35€), then if a customer buy is I order it from them and ship it to him, breaking even or with a slight profit. The sole purpose would be to have a wider range of products available and attract more customer, then obviously if some of those products sell regularly I can find a supplier and sell them myself. I don't want to drop-ship as the customer would see where the item is coming from. Would this strategy make sense?

2) On eBay I had a couple of sold item and the customer hasn't paid yet. I sent them a reminder, but no answer. This is kind of annoying as I don't have anything left in stock due to initial limitations and they are blocking the items. Does it happen often that buyers don't pay immediately? How do you handle this?

3) On eBay do you leave the feedback for the buyer straight away, or only after the buyer has left a feedback for your first?

Thank you again for your help!
 
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mbj316

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Just because something is listed for a certain price on alibaba doesn't mean that's the price you can actually get it at. Sellers put these low prices on there then jack up the shipping etc. The only way to see what the actual price is that you can sell it for is by contacting the sellers or using the sites that actually have a price listed that you can really buy it at.

Alibaba would do far more sales volume if they simply made it where the price listed is what you can actually buy products at and shipping prices had to be on each listing. I couldn't tell you the last time I used alibaba simply because it is such a headache to find an accurate price.

So, what are you using if not Alibaba, if you don't mind me asking? I'm only familiar with DHgate, Alibaba, and AliExpress.
 

Ecom man

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Hi @Ecom man ,

thank you again for all your help.
I am currently working on setting up my first E-Store. I only have 2 products at the moment though and I will be ordering in the next couple of week 5-6 new products that I have identified, I am just going through the supplier selection process at the moment, as I have shortlisted 5 or 6 who seem good. I am meeting on Monday with a Tax Accountant who will help me setting up an LTD and then I will finally open the shop - hope to have everything ready by mid-October.

I just have a couple of questions:
1) I checked for similar sites in my area (Ireland), I found 3-4 really nice ones and I can see each of them sells 50+ products at least. I am concerned that if I have only I very limited amount of products I may no be taken too seriously at the start, so I was wondering whether it would be a good idea to add some products on sale from other shops at slightly higher price (ie. they sell item A for 30€ including delivery, I sell it at 35€), then if a customer buy is I order it from them and ship it to him, breaking even or with a slight profit. The sole purpose would be to have a wider range of products available and attract more customer, then obviously if some of those products sell regularly I can find a supplier and sell them myself. I don't want to drop-ship as the customer would see where the item is coming from. Would this strategy make sense?

2) On eBay I had a couple of sold item and the customer hasn't paid yet. I sent them a reminder, but no answer. This is kind of annoying as I don't have anything left in stock due to initial limitations and they are blocking the items. Does it happen often that buyers don't pay immediately? How do you handle this?

3) On eBay do you leave the feedback for the buyer straight away, or only after the buyer has left a feedback for your first?

Thank you again for your help!
Selling items at a higher price than the competition so your store doesn't look empty is certainly a good option. I wouldn't advertise those products since you don't have much margins on them but just as fillers/to make your store look better it is a good option.

If a buyer hasn't paid you can open up an unpaid item case after a certain number of days. I always list items with buy it now and immediate payment required so people have to pay before the item is considered sold. Too many people bid/buy and then don't pay and having to wait to open an unpaid item case is annoying.

I normally leave feedback as soon as I receive payments. You can't leave negative feedback for buyers so there is no point in waiting imo.
 

Ecom man

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So, what are you using if not Alibaba, if you don't mind me asking? I'm only familiar with DHgate, Alibaba, and AliExpress.
Aliexpress and dhgate are great options. Prices and shipping are already listed so you don't have to spend days getting the run around only to find out the seller is trying to screw you on shipping.
 
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Aliexpress and dhgate are great options. Prices and shipping are already listed so you don't have to spend days getting the run around only to find out the seller is trying to screw you on shipping.

Prices on Alibaba seem considerably cheaper than Aliexpress and DHGate though in most cases though, probably it is better to spend a bit more time finding the right supplier at the beginning and then establish a long term relationship and save a lot of money on big orders?
 

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Prices on Alibaba seem considerably cheaper than Aliexpress and DHGate though in most cases though, probably it is better to spend a bit more time finding the right supplier at the beginning and then establish a long term relationship and save a lot of money on big orders?
The keyword in your statement is "seem". Alibaba seems cheaper until you contact the seller and they give you the final price including shipping. Then they aren't much cheaper if cheaper at all.
 

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