Mr_Candyman
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- Feb 5, 2013
- 10
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Hello Ladies and Gentleman
I'm going to talk here about my small experience with business cooperation and let you know one of my biggest lesson ( amongst a lot of other .. ), yet a failure with partnership .
Let's get back 3 years earlier …
I was 17 years old, Student, and I just found a pretty great business which will alow me to solve a need and allowed me to save some money for something bigger .
I was solving a NEED using a product already known, very cheap, that I could sell almost 6 times the price I would buy it, The fact is that this product isn't usually used in this environment, nobody would have think ( at this moment ) about it because the original purpose didn't have anything to do with the purpose I was selling it for, and it wasn't easy to find it even though it's such a common product ..
Thanks to my previous experience concerning import, especially from China, Everything went really smooth, just as expected, the communication with the seller was perfect, the delivery was fast, And, something really great, the product already existed, so I didn't have to do any development .
After a week, I received the sample,GREAT ! The seller is serious, a pleasure to deal with in fact .
( Most of the time, I have been really satisfied with the Chinese service, as long as you respect some precautions, just like everywhere else )
The product works perfectly, it's a simple product, very durable with few to zero maintenance need.
I just threw few on sale on specialized forums, ebay, classifieds websites etc..
It was selling great, I had a good friend of mine who was very Famous in this environment, Who offered me to sell some of them as he had a lot of connections with people there .We negociated a comission and that was it !
I gave him few products to sell, what he did well at the beginning ..
Next step, I was still selling most of the products by myself and as I wanted to grow my business, I delivered some products directly to my friend's house to save time .
Everything seemed well, except that my« friend » was a little slow to wire my money, when, one day, I didn't receive money AT ALL, I heard he used most of what he owed me to finish his car's project, but that He will refund me as soon as possible ( what he never did of course ) .. WHAT ?
I'm not a bank, he is 5 years older than me, live at his mom's house,use MY product to make money and spend MY money on his car ? Is this serious ? How can one be so stupid ?
Anyway, I stopped my collaboration with him, and the guy just decided to start his own selling with the exact same product ( Huge mistake from myself, when I ask the supplier in China to deliver products at my friend's house, He must have put his contact details in the package ) .. I was upset like I had never been!
Anyway, I was still dominating the selling while he was making around zero profit . Because he was just a bad seller in fact, and had no idea how to make things and the most important, he couldn't speak english .
Then my studies gone bad, and I had to stopped my business suddenly .
Long story short, some months ago, I was in contact with this « friend » again, and heard that he was still selling the product but I figured out he had made HUGE mistakes, such as leaving every informations on the box of the product, every stickers on the product itself, sent some of them across the France, and put pictures of everything on internet.. the customers would just have to search on google what was written on the box to find different suppliers, and they could buy the product for 5 times cheaper ..
Guess what ? At this moment, you could find dozen of sellers for this exact same product now, In France, at the exact same price I was selling it 3 years ago , and this guy didn't even made money with it ! He earned about 2000€ for 3 years ...
But I just couldn't let it go like this, my entrepreneur mind was yelling at me to do something.. So I just started to look once again at this product from chinese supplier, and I found it 2 times cheaper than it was back then .I negociated the price a little more and Ordered some, with some cool new accessories included . And start to sell again; cheaper than the competition, with the same product, but with a new design, some new accessories, and a beautiful box . And the most important, a real service ! All of this without affecting my margin
First week, 10 products sell, that's a beginning, I am having full benefit since the 2nd product sold, The first two products sold recover the entire cost for the 10 products . following weeks were just doing better and better .. I then left this business after some months for something better .
Just after my come back, 90% of the competition has disapeared, because they just didn't know how to deal with it anymore, they didn't expect this, and they didn't have any plan , because what they did was just copying what I was doing 3 years ago, they didn't even think about developping the idea, the product, searching for better supplier, or new technology, it was just a simple copy, with the exact same crappy pictures that were used back then .. they just contributed to spoil the whole thing, by exposing the supplier's name on pictures, and when they lost theirs customers, they even started to put the supplier's contact details everywhere on forum etc..
This is where the Title of this topic comes from,
Give clueless people an idea, a product, and they won't do anything clever with it !
Even worst, they can spoil the whole thing ! He could has made thousand with this, but as the competition appeared, thanks to his discretion, he didn't take any action, he just tooks part of the sheep's flock, and lowered his price a little was his only action to fight back while the competition was taking over
In fact some years ago, when I gave my trust to this guy, I totally lost control of my product . ..
From now on, a lot of peoples have spread the word, and most of them buy the product from china since they can buy it without any MOQ nowaday (ebay).
Anyway, I'm not even mad at my« friend » because he just lost a big chance with this,and as I already have had a lot of opportunities that I took since this business, and much more interesting than this one, I'm still 5 years younger than this guy, and as I learn more and more each day, by mistake, failure, or sometimes small success, this guy is still stucked in the slowlane and will probably be forever, without even noticing it ...
.
This isn't my only experience, I have had a lot of similar disappointment about partnership, which were just, in fact, stupid mistakes from myself for trusting people because they were friends of mine .
I took a lesson from it, He didn't, And trust me, He has lost much more than me !
Thanks for reading this little story ladies and gentleman
And have a nice day !
I'm going to talk here about my small experience with business cooperation and let you know one of my biggest lesson ( amongst a lot of other .. ), yet a failure with partnership .
Let's get back 3 years earlier …
I was 17 years old, Student, and I just found a pretty great business which will alow me to solve a need and allowed me to save some money for something bigger .
I was solving a NEED using a product already known, very cheap, that I could sell almost 6 times the price I would buy it, The fact is that this product isn't usually used in this environment, nobody would have think ( at this moment ) about it because the original purpose didn't have anything to do with the purpose I was selling it for, and it wasn't easy to find it even though it's such a common product ..
Thanks to my previous experience concerning import, especially from China, Everything went really smooth, just as expected, the communication with the seller was perfect, the delivery was fast, And, something really great, the product already existed, so I didn't have to do any development .
After a week, I received the sample,GREAT ! The seller is serious, a pleasure to deal with in fact .
( Most of the time, I have been really satisfied with the Chinese service, as long as you respect some precautions, just like everywhere else )
The product works perfectly, it's a simple product, very durable with few to zero maintenance need.
I just threw few on sale on specialized forums, ebay, classifieds websites etc..
It was selling great, I had a good friend of mine who was very Famous in this environment, Who offered me to sell some of them as he had a lot of connections with people there .We negociated a comission and that was it !
I gave him few products to sell, what he did well at the beginning ..
Next step, I was still selling most of the products by myself and as I wanted to grow my business, I delivered some products directly to my friend's house to save time .
Everything seemed well, except that my« friend » was a little slow to wire my money, when, one day, I didn't receive money AT ALL, I heard he used most of what he owed me to finish his car's project, but that He will refund me as soon as possible ( what he never did of course ) .. WHAT ?
I'm not a bank, he is 5 years older than me, live at his mom's house,use MY product to make money and spend MY money on his car ? Is this serious ? How can one be so stupid ?
Anyway, I stopped my collaboration with him, and the guy just decided to start his own selling with the exact same product ( Huge mistake from myself, when I ask the supplier in China to deliver products at my friend's house, He must have put his contact details in the package ) .. I was upset like I had never been!
Anyway, I was still dominating the selling while he was making around zero profit . Because he was just a bad seller in fact, and had no idea how to make things and the most important, he couldn't speak english .
Then my studies gone bad, and I had to stopped my business suddenly .
Long story short, some months ago, I was in contact with this « friend » again, and heard that he was still selling the product but I figured out he had made HUGE mistakes, such as leaving every informations on the box of the product, every stickers on the product itself, sent some of them across the France, and put pictures of everything on internet.. the customers would just have to search on google what was written on the box to find different suppliers, and they could buy the product for 5 times cheaper ..
Guess what ? At this moment, you could find dozen of sellers for this exact same product now, In France, at the exact same price I was selling it 3 years ago , and this guy didn't even made money with it ! He earned about 2000€ for 3 years ...
But I just couldn't let it go like this, my entrepreneur mind was yelling at me to do something.. So I just started to look once again at this product from chinese supplier, and I found it 2 times cheaper than it was back then .I negociated the price a little more and Ordered some, with some cool new accessories included . And start to sell again; cheaper than the competition, with the same product, but with a new design, some new accessories, and a beautiful box . And the most important, a real service ! All of this without affecting my margin
First week, 10 products sell, that's a beginning, I am having full benefit since the 2nd product sold, The first two products sold recover the entire cost for the 10 products . following weeks were just doing better and better .. I then left this business after some months for something better .
Just after my come back, 90% of the competition has disapeared, because they just didn't know how to deal with it anymore, they didn't expect this, and they didn't have any plan , because what they did was just copying what I was doing 3 years ago, they didn't even think about developping the idea, the product, searching for better supplier, or new technology, it was just a simple copy, with the exact same crappy pictures that were used back then .. they just contributed to spoil the whole thing, by exposing the supplier's name on pictures, and when they lost theirs customers, they even started to put the supplier's contact details everywhere on forum etc..
This is where the Title of this topic comes from,
Give clueless people an idea, a product, and they won't do anything clever with it !
Even worst, they can spoil the whole thing ! He could has made thousand with this, but as the competition appeared, thanks to his discretion, he didn't take any action, he just tooks part of the sheep's flock, and lowered his price a little was his only action to fight back while the competition was taking over
In fact some years ago, when I gave my trust to this guy, I totally lost control of my product . ..
From now on, a lot of peoples have spread the word, and most of them buy the product from china since they can buy it without any MOQ nowaday (ebay).
Anyway, I'm not even mad at my« friend » because he just lost a big chance with this,and as I already have had a lot of opportunities that I took since this business, and much more interesting than this one, I'm still 5 years younger than this guy, and as I learn more and more each day, by mistake, failure, or sometimes small success, this guy is still stucked in the slowlane and will probably be forever, without even noticing it ...
.
This isn't my only experience, I have had a lot of similar disappointment about partnership, which were just, in fact, stupid mistakes from myself for trusting people because they were friends of mine .
I took a lesson from it, He didn't, And trust me, He has lost much more than me !
Thanks for reading this little story ladies and gentleman
And have a nice day !
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