[AMA] Importing & wholesaling for resale on eBay.

[onaquest]

Hi everyone. This is my first post.

Just finished reading the majority of the 56 pages and what an education.
I am indebted to you ecom man,and others, for sharing your gold on here.
Your experiences,positivity and success have inspired me to take action
and to stop over analysing.

If I can add 25% of the value that some of you have,I will be very
pleased.

Thanks again!

 

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[barren92]

more inventory on the way. i used DHL this time

 

[NYCGoblin]

Have any of you upgraded to an ebay store? If so shat benefits have you gotten other then the break on final value fees?

 

[samuraijack]

@Ecom man For most of your consistent sellers, were they products that initially had no competition? I've read some posts on this forum that advocate only importing products that aren't yet sold in the U.S.

Besides the product being hard to find, how would you know the product would even sell if there weren't any other sellers confirming the market need?

 

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[mars]

Thought I'd share this site for people having a hard time finding products and don't want to buy terapeak. http://www.watchcount.com/

I knew there had to be something basic out there that would tell you the items that sold the most in any given category. You can either search by keyword or category or drill down a little deeper in the advanced search. Works for every country as well.

@Ecom man what are the categories that you stay away from and which ones do you see as being the most profitable. Also, what trends are seeing now that you have been doing this for going on 3 years. Is Ebay starting to get crowded. I sell on Amazon and I can tell the increase in sellers.

 

[HumbleBeginnings]

Hi I have a question. If say I'm in Australia and want to sell on us ebay as well as Australia's ebay will shipping be a problem? I'm just starting out doing research on ebay selling. Been searching online and here can't find it. Just trying to do it to raise capital.

 

[samuraijack]

Thought I'd share this site for people having a hard time finding products and don't want to buy terapeak. http://www.watchcount.com/

I never understood this, isn't it bad to go after things that are very popular on eBay? Since if it is that popular it means there are tons of sellers driving the price down plus you likely won't rank anywhere near the top listings.

 

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[KONIG]

Well in one way it may help you identify a popular product or niche that you can expand into, or you can see whats popular and selling and come up with your own twist/bundle of the product to differentiate

 

[mars]

I never understood this, isn't it bad to go after things that are very popular on eBay? Since if it is that popular it means there are tons of sellers driving the price down plus you likely won't rank anywhere near the top listings.

Competition isn't a bad thing. It at least let's you know a product is selling well. You can then check out Amazon and see if there is space for you to sell there and Amazon seems to get a premium price on products. You can also drill down with the advanced searches. That helped me find a product that only had 5-7 sellers (even less on Amazon). The product sold for $60 on Ebay and you could find it on Alibaba for $15-$20 shipped.

Also, when looking on Alibaba try searching through http://deals.alibaba.com/. I've had better luck directly reaching the supplier over AliExpress.

 

[K.Y.]

placed two orders via dhgate.

• first order I paid for DHL. they sent via epacket.
• second order I requested epacket. they sent via china post.

is this common?

 

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[Arguin]

How do you guys protect yourself from scammers?
I started reading about it and there seems to be a lot of them nowadays... Scammers know Paypall will refund their money almost every time and Ebay and Paypall almost always sides with the buyer because they only care about making money and don't give a F about the sellers...

 

[barren92]

How do you guys protect yourself from scammers?
I started reading about it and there seems to be a lot of them nowadays... Scammers know Paypall will refund their money almost every time and Ebay and Paypall almost always sides with the buyer because they only care about making money and don't give a F about the sellers...

can you elaborate on what you mean by scammers? kind of sounds more like a unhappy customer?

 

[Arguin]

Scammer buys item, with bad intentions they claim they didn't receive it(even if you sent it with tracking number doesn't matter) or the item was not as described or the item does not work (although it did when you sent it). Paypall takes the money back out of your account and refunds it without questions asked. So you get bad reputation/feedback and are out of the item and out of the money

Or if in case of returns they sent back other broken item and keep your new one (the bait and switch refund)or take out parts if equipment ...

 

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[Ecom man]

Sorry for the delay in responding to the questions. I have been completely immersed in getting my new website set up. It's up and running and did $4,000 in sales in the first week. Not too shabby for never setting up a website before! I will try and get to all the questions today.

 

[K.Y.]

Sorry for the delay in responding to the questions. I have been completely immersed in getting my new website set up. It's up and running and did $4,000 in sales in the first week. Not too shabby for never setting up a website before! I will try and get to all the questions today.

are you using ppc for traffic to the site? that's freaking awesome man!

 

[Ecom man]

Thanks for the response. I have 100% positive feedback. The 2 negative comments were written saying it did not work for them or it was difficult to take off. They still gave me positive feedback, just negative/neutral comments. Sorry for the confusion. I agree with you that customer satisfaction is the most important

If just the comments were negative but the feedback was positive then you are still golden. People really don't look through the positive comments at all. Buyers tend to look very closely at negatives though. I have 99.9% positive with over 3500 feedback and I get people messaging me and asking me about the .01% of negatives. They never message about the positives.

 

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[Ecom man]

Sorry Ecom man, I am not trying to hijack your thread, but I think AceCobra1 is facing a serious problem, and your answer had not come in until a moment after I clicked on Post Reply.
Walter

Not a problem. Sea shipment is probably more in your wheelhouse than mine. Glad to see you could help out.

 

[Ecom man]

Finding stuff to sell really is tough. I've done over the years but I came across those products by chance, not actively looking for them.

The biggest pain is digging through the Amazon sub categories. I wish they could just list them all on one huge page.

Also, finding the good stuff that is actually generic is also a challenge. I didn't realize how many of these items were actually brands. I would expect to see that in the toys section but not in some others.

Finding products is certainly the most time consuming part of the process. It can be annoying, stressful, and much more. Most people give up after searching for a few hours/ days. You aren't going to have a business overnight. It takes time to find products, get them in, and resell them. It's a process. Keep your eyes out for things people around you want as well. I ordered a new product and tested selling it on craigslist in my local area. I sold 100 of them via craigslist in 3 days. You think it will sell well online? Yeah me too!

 

[Ecom man]

@Ecom man For most of your consistent sellers, were they products that initially had no competition? I've read some posts on this forum that advocate only importing products that aren't yet sold in the U.S.

Besides the product being hard to find, how would you know the product would even sell if there weren't any other sellers confirming the market need?

I think all of my products had some sellers, just not many. As time has gone on more competition has gotten on the "train". Some products have become a race to the bottom on pricing and I have either stopped carrying them or left my prices higher and see if it comes back to more reasonable prices.

If there are no sales at all for the product you are looking at the best thing to do is make a test order. Order 10-20 or more (depending on product price) and see if they sell and how long it takes. For me to carry an item I want to be selling at least 1 a day on average. The products i really like are the ones averaging 5 sales a day. It isn't a big enough demand for most people to take notice so you can sell with less competition but it is a good profit maker daily.

 

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[Ecom man]

placed two orders via dhgate.

• first order I paid for DHL. they sent via epacket.
• second order I requested epacket. they sent via china post.

is this common?

You need to message your supplier and see what the deal is. Personally I wouldn't work with a supplier who is talking out of both sides of his mouth. If your listing says shipping is DHL then I expect to receive it DHL or we will have a problem.

 

[Ecom man]

Scammer buys item, with bad intentions they claim they didn't receive it(even if you sent it with tracking number doesn't matter) or the item was not as described or the item does not work (although it did when you sent it). Paypall takes the money back out of your account and refunds it without questions asked. So you get bad reputation/feedback and are out of the item and out of the money

Or if in case of returns they sent back other broken item and keep your new one (the bait and switch refund)or take out parts if equipment ...

The way you deal with scammers is the same way a lot of stores deal with thieves. You do all that you can to prevent it but you build in the cost of it happening to your margins. You can protect yourself from item not received cases with tracking numbers. There is no way to get around the "buy and return different item" scam. Just figure it will happen and there isn't a whole lot you can do about it. Build a cushion in your margins for the people that will steal from you with those scams.

 

[Ecom man]

are you using ppc for traffic to the site? that's freaking awesome man!

Yes, I'm using PPC for the site. I am running at $.07- $.10 ad cost per $1 in revenue. That is pretty close to what eBay fees will run you anyway and far more control on your own site. eBay has been getting more and more giant seller oriented. You never know if they might clamp down on smaller sellers or what so better to have your own avenue of sales to spread your risk around.

 

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[carburated]

Yes, I'm using PPC for the site. I am running at $.07- $.10 ad cost per $1 in revenue. That is pretty close to what eBay fees will run you anyway and far more control on your own site. eBay has been getting more and more giant seller oriented. You never know if they might clamp down on smaller sellers or what so better to have your own avenue of sales to spread your risk around.

Once again, thanks for sharing all this!

Question about your website:
Do you have a shopping cart on the website, with PayPal (or 2CheckOut) payment gateways?
Or does your website send customers to your eBay/Amazon stores?

Thank you!

 

[GUTTA BOB]

Just a heads up... Chinese New Years is on the 18th. Seems like most manufacturers I've been dealing with are stopping production this weekend (some already have) and will start again around March 2nd.

 

[Ecom man]

Once again, thanks for sharing all this!

Question about your website:
Do you have a shopping cart on the website, with PayPal (or 2CheckOut) payment gateways?
Or does your website send customers to your eBay/Amazon stores?

Thank you!

I used shopify to set up the website. They have a built in payment gateway that I accept credit cards through and then i also accept paypal. I would not send people to my eBay store as all you are doing is taking them away from sales that are all yours and putting them where they could buy from someone else.

 

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[evlttwin]

Post Edited due to possibly messing up someones angle.

 

[GreenLeaf]

Hi Ecom man, is there anything you do to reduce postage costs on Aliexpress?

I have found a few interesting products but whenever I select postage via DHL or FEDEX the postage costs eats up any potential profit. Even when selecting orders of 10 or 20, the postage discount does not seem to be that great.

For example, one relatively small and light product, at a cost of $7 per item costs $38 via DHL. An order of 10 costs $148 to ship.

I am from the UK but the postage costs seem to be about equal whether shipping to the UK or the US?


Also, is there anyone else on here from the UK currently trading on Ebay/Amazon successfully?

Thanks again for all the info and advice!

 

[AceCobra1]

Post Edited due to possibly messing up someones angle.

What do you mean ?

 

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[evlttwin]

What do you mean ?

I don't want to "mosquito patch" a product that someone may use.

 

[KONIG]

I saw that item a few weeks ago. I have seen multiple items that people have already mentioned on here or on other threads about importing. Out of the millions of items that there is, when I see that I might just be seeing the same items as everyone else it makes me feel like there really isnt that much variety. I'm not sure if that makes sense the way I wrote it, I hope it does.