Made $6,900 Importing From China and Reselling on eBay.

[GuestUser116]

How do you find a product that will sell? Did you have dropshifters?

 

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[Deleted28123]

i had the idea of doing this but the producting seem to be alot of money and its hard to know who to trust at this point

 

[Tehcasa]

i had the idea of doing this but the producting seem to be alot of money and its hard to know who to trust at this point

These are just myths. You don't need a lot of money to start making a profit and there is a process to scam-proof yourself from all the risks involved in importing. PM if you want the full details of how to go about this.

How do you find a product that will sell? Did you have dropshifters?

My response to P3HSB pretty much summarizes this question for you

How do you find a product that will sell? Did you have dropshifters?

 

[JordanK]

About a year ago I was considering setting up a business selling International Football Jerseys during the World Cup. I was able to source multiple distributors in China who sell at rock bottom prices but I heard that it is illegal to sell these jerseys because the designs are copyrighted would this not be the same for your idea number four, selling movie novelty products?

 

[Achilles]

Did you brand these products? How did you brand them?

 

[wade1mil]

http://profitspotlight.com/ (Opt-In required but it gives you instant acces)

Any idea how they come up with the sales numbers?

 

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[Daniel M.]

Any idea how they come up with the sales numbers?

I couldn't say for sure but this profit spotlight is a product of Amazing Selling Machine (http://amazingsellingmachine.com/). It is an academy and twice a year they are open ... right now they are closed so the videos are not reachable ... They have 4 very very useful video about this project, buying and selling but I couldn't find them.

You should base your decision just on these numbers, but it is a great resource also

 

[wade1mil]

if you can find another kind of case which you can't find on Amazon/eBay

Yeah I agree that can work. Tons of competition. I'd want to be selling around $20 though, not like some of these people selling cases for $5.

I just spent four days going through the top 100 list and doing keyword research. Narrowed it down to 165 products. Need to automate this like yesterday.

 

[mosdef]

did you have any sells before starting or did u start selling without any "reviews" on ebay?

 

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[Tehcasa]

I heard about this, that it is a great opportunity. There is a course "Amazing Selling Machine", it is about this. Buying from alibaba and selling on Amazon. I want to try out this too.

I have a few questions:
- Where do yo store the products? (Amazon has the option to even store your products, you dont even have to see what are you selling)
- What was you initial investment? How products did you buy, how much did you spend on them?

And to contribute a little to this thread feel free to visit the link below to spot the best products to sell on Amazon:
http://profitspotlight.com/ (Opt-In required but it gives you instant acces)

And, in order to store your products on Amazon while you are selling, read here:
http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/benefits.htm?ld=NSGoogleAS
For UK and EU: http://services.amazon.co.uk/services/fulfilment-by-amazon/how-it-works.html

In regards to your questions, I stored my product in my bedroom
My initial investment was 50 USD. I had no idea what I was doing at the time because I was a new start-up. But now looking back, my 150USD investment on a product got my importing income going! The products ranged and the price differed, I did not only sell one product, i sold heaps. Usually for a product test, I would buy a few and if they worked (profitable) I would buy 10 more, then 50, then 100. I liked buying in smaller increments then buying a lot (bulk at the start) because I felt safer.

Aa, ok, I understand. I dont want to claim that this in the best because I don't know, so it really depends on you. Maybe you can find even more sources and then decide which is your product.

I think that good products are smartphone cases, I know that there are A LOT, but if you can find another kind of case which you can't find on Amazon/eBay, I think you can easily sell.

I disagree, products like that are over saturated (Too many suppliers and not enough buyers). I could maybe agree with you on finding cases that are not found on amazon/ebay, but how would you know if they would sell?

did you have any sells before starting or did u start selling without any "reviews" on ebay?

No in actual fact I started with 0 sales and 0 reviews

 

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[mosdef]

And you got sales directly?

 

[Tehcasa]

And you got sales directly?

Correct, my process of finding "perfect products" helped me with this. Mainly due to the fact that I knew the products would sell (looking at the sell through ratio via terapeak).

I heard about this, that it is a great opportunity. There is a course "Amazing Selling Machine", it is about this. Buying from alibaba and selling on Amazon. I want to try out this too.

I have a few questions:
- Where do yo store the products? (Amazon has the option to even store your products, you dont even have to see what are you selling)
- What was you initial investment? How products did you buy, how much did you spend on them?

And to contribute a little to this thread feel free to visit the link below to spot the best products to sell on Amazon:
http://profitspotlight.com/ (Opt-In required but it gives you instant acces)

And, in order to store your products on Amazon while you are selling, read here:
http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon/benefits.htm?ld=NSGoogleAS
For UK and EU: http://services.amazon.co.uk/services/fulfilment-by-amazon/how-it-works.html

In regards to your questions, I stored my product in my bedroom
My initial investment was 50 USD. I had no idea what I was doing at the time because I was a new start-up. But now looking back, my 150USD investment on a product got my importing income going! The products ranged and the price differed, I did not only sell one product, i sold heaps. Usually for a product test, I would buy a few and if they worked (profitable) I would buy 10 more, then 50, then 100. I liked buying in smaller increments then buying a lot (bulk at the start) because I felt safer.

Aa, ok, I understand. I dont want to claim that this in the best because I don't know, so it really depends on you. Maybe you can find even more sources and then decide which is your product.

I think that good products are smartphone cases, I know that there are A LOT, but if you can find another kind of case which you can't find on Amazon/eBay, I think you can easily sell.

I disagree, products like that are over saturated (Too many suppliers and not enough buyers). I could maybe agree with you on finding cases that are not found on amazon/ebay, but how would you know if they would sell?

did you have any sells before starting or did u start selling without any "reviews" on ebay?

No in actual fact I started with 0 sales and 0 reviews

 

[mosdef]

do you use the free terapeak or do you pay for it?

 

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[FeaRxUnLeAsHeD]

Thanks for starting the thread.

What was your process for finding reputable suppliers?
Do you order in bulk and store the products yourself, package, and deliver all by hand?
What's your process for finding a product to sell?
How does the selling on ebay part work out for you. I used to do that a bit here and there and made a few hundred dollars when I was 17, I always felt that ebay was difficult to sell on though due to the influx of items constantly being listed.. I remember paying a dollar here and there to constantly relist shit.. and having some inventory never sell. How does that play out for you?

 

[BellaPippin]

Hi @Tehcasa, thanks for the AMA. This thread has very valuable information and I wanna give this a try. I had a couple questions after reading the thread, hope you can help with this:

Regarding your comment saying you bought a few at a time and then increased quantity as you saw each product work well, how hard is (or how did you do it) to find manufacturers with such a minimum order quantity? I keep scrolling and going through pages and they all have quite a bit of MOQs. 500 units is the smallest I have seen.

Also do any of the manufacturers on Alibaba (sorry, newbie question) dropship? If they do, how does one recognize them (or just need to ask?)?

Thanks in advance

 

[Cookie]

Hello and thank you for opening this thread.
I have a question regarding a given product found on alibaba :
It has a brand name, but on amazon it's this same brand which is selling it's own product already. Can I buy and resell this same product on Amazon? (at a cheaper price)

 

[Tehcasa]

Hi @Tehcasa, thanks for the AMA. This thread has very valuable information and I wanna give this a try. I had a couple questions after reading the thread, hope you can help with this:

Regarding your comment saying you bought a few at a time and then increased quantity as you saw each product work well, how hard is (or how did you do it) to find manufacturers with such a minimum order quantity? I keep scrolling and going through pages and they all have quite a bit of MOQs. 500 units is the smallest I have seen.

Also do any of the manufacturers on Alibaba (sorry, newbie question) dropship? If they do, how does one recognize them (or just need to ask?)?

Thanks in advance

Hi BellaPippin.

In order to find suppliers who provide samples (little MOQ), the process was simply asking the supplier through a real time chat conversation (which is located on each sales page on Alibaba under "Chat Now". I always try and sound professional when communicating with any supplier. As always, a supplier can feel virtually uncomfortable when dealing with anyone online. This is because suppliers not only deal with real buyers (like myself and you), but competitors, scammers, spammers, etc. Additionally, when you scroll through pages and see most have high MOQ's, that is not always the case, you can always persuade, ask them yourself if they can provide less. But I reinforce, sounding REAL, AUTHENTIC, PROFESSIONAL will definitely make your time importing worthwhile.

Some manufactures on Alibaba drop ship. It's the matter of becoming friends with them first. Maybe import a few goods, become friends before getting into drop shopping. You could also try Ali-express for drop shopping as (Shipping is free). And yes, you can't really recgonise them unless they state on their product listing they do, alternatively you just ask.

Regards, Pat

 

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[Papillon]

I found this post as a result of checking out recent posts on this part of the forum.

I can't understand how people can pay $5,000 for a course that supposedly teaches how to import, (as well as how to sell on Amazon,) but provides no helpful advice on how to source and how to import.

All they teach on the subject is: "Go to Alibaba to find products to buy." Today I dealt with an inquiry from a person who has ordered 50,000 items in his first order and had not the slightest idea what is involved in shipping them from the supplier to his delivery address.

That is the kind of result I so often see when people claiming to be experts give such off-the-cuff advice after charging a huge amount for their wisdom.

...maybe cos there's more moola in the teaching

Why do these Guroooo's who claim to make guzillions on amazon sell 5K programs...then up-sell ya to more expensive programs, well emm...maybe, just maybe cos they are the real fastlaners?:embarrased:

 

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[mikeobi]

.

 

[Tehcasa]

Some ideas:

• make it with a better material
• package it in a premium box
• make it part of a bigger kit
• make it in a range of different colors or designs to give people options
• make a new product based on it
• make it bigger
• make it smaller
• make it lighter
• make it heavier
• make it transparent/see through
• build a brand based around it through a website, social media, influencers
• add an instruction booklet with comical step-by-steps and ideas on creative uses
• price it really high
• price it really low

Exactly what Jonny said

 

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[Tehcasa]

Wow you guys are right on value. E-commerce really is like the gold rush and if you you're just doing the simple importing OEM products and selling them on e-commerce platforms right out of the package for too long, some day you might get bodied out of the market or deal with heavy saturation. Really something I need to consider.

The products I import always become saturated on the market, and here are two main reasons why.
1. I only deal with new upcoming trendy products on a global scale. This involves new product inventions that are rising in sales and likes. After a while the product would usually become saturated; and hence this is where my second reason comes in place.
2. I quickly change products and ideally, find a new product niche. This is integral for keeping your business unique and different to your competition.

It's quite a simple flow to work by, and its definitely something I recommend. Don't get me wrong, there are some product niches where you can keep selling the product for a long time without disturbance from competitors or as I like to call the market spectrum we work in, a "perfect competition".

 

[Dream&Achieve]

As of the age of 16 I started importing directly from Chinese manufactures (through Alibaba). During the course, I was a failure. I didn't break even, I was scammed once and I had no clue on how to find reliable suppliers and profitable products to sell.

Before I go on, many people ask me "did you use your own money to start-up your own import venture". My answer is: Yes. I scrubbed dishes like a crazy old lady, cooked bread and oysters like no tomorrow and scrubbed toilets with my bare hands in a restaurant I worked at for no longer than one year.

As of today, I've made close to $7,000! I know it may not seem that much, but I started importing at the same time I had school.

My process on importing is simple. FIND, BUY & SELL!
Of course it's not going to be as easy as it sounds. But the more questions you ask me, the more you'll be better off in your start-up journey.

For now, I have stopped importing mainly because of starting year 12 and putting all my time into that for necessary purposes. Please don't rant onto me about dropping out of high school...

As a small success, I want to give back to the Fastlane community. If you have any questions related to importing from Alibaba and reselling via eBay. I'm your man. Personal Message me if you like!

Pat

How did you find a legit manufacturer? I've looked around and I'm not sure how to tell if they're legit or sell fakes.

 

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[JonnyC]

The products I import always become saturated on the market, and here are two main reasons why.
1. I only deal with new upcoming trendy products on a global scale. This involves new product inventions that are rising in sales and likes. After a while the product would usually become saturated; and hence this is where my second reason comes in place.
2. I quickly change products and ideally, find a new product niche. This is integral for keeping your business unique and different to your competition.

It's quite a simple flow to work by, and its definitely something I recommend. Don't get me wrong, there are some product niches where you can keep selling the product for a long time without disturbance from competitors or as I like to call the market spectrum we work in, a "perfect competition".

Why not make your own products as a brand owner instead of reselling other brands?

 

[Tehcasa]

Why not make your own products as a brand owner instead of reselling other brands?

After I was successful after selling my first load.. I didn't want to change or excel my process into selling re branded products. Of course ODM is great, however, at my particular stage of importing I was more inclined to stay on this path.

 

[Dream&Achieve]

Nicole, if you read Page 2 of 3 on this forum post. you will examine my full written summary on my process for finding reputable suppliers. Hope this helps

Thank you!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tehcasa]

Yes, it is that simple.

However, how much value are really adding by doing that? I just got off the phone with @LightHouse and we were talking about this.

So many people looking to sell on Amazon (and off of Amazon) merely import something from Alibaba, get their logo stitched on it, and throw it on Amazon.

There's an Amazon / importing gold rush happening right now.

Most of the guys making the best money are supplying shovels and pans for that gold rush. Look at all of the Amazon software out there.

Yah, that's easy. It's still a lot of work - but how much value are you REALLY adding?

Yes, you can make some money (and in some cases, a LOT of money).

But in the end, you are doing what everyone else is doing - the easy thing. The stay at home mom who makes $2000 from importing from China and selling Amazon.

If you don't add any real value to your branding or product, how long do you expect to last?

If it's easy, don't expect to make a lot of money.

Maybe you can make some money in the short run, but you will be driven out of the market if you don't have large competitive advantage.

I feel privileged to have a legendary contributor visit my post

How did you find a legit manufacturer? I've looked around and I'm not sure how to tell if they're legit or sell fakes.

Nicole, if you read Page 2 of 3 on this forum post. you will examine my full written summary on my process for finding reputable suppliers. Hope this helps

 

[Dream&Achieve]

I've been asked the question regarding "the process for finding reputable suppliers" a lot, so here is a small summary of what you should know.


WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW!

ALIBABA'S DIFFERENT CLARIFICATIONS:

GOLD SUPPLIER: Is a company who pays for a yearly membership to host their store on Alibaba. This also allows the supplier/company to have premium benefits. The number one rule is to ALWAYS this button as it ensures that you are buying from a verified supplier. Also, the number on gold symbol represents how long the company has been on Alibaba. The longer the better your chances are of finding a verified supplier.

ONSITE CHECK:
Informs you that the supplier’s company premise has been checked by Alibaba.com staff to verify onsite operations exist there. Again, this box should ALWAYS be selected before you search for a product.

ASSESSED SUPPLIER:
This highlights that the supplier has been assessed by Alibaba’s third party inspection companies. This Feature is another way to certify that your supplier is verified.

ESCROW SERVICE:
Is a safe payment method to use when purchasing goods on Alibaba. The service will hold your payment until the order has been processed. The payment will be released to the supplier upon your confirmation. Although this feature seems important to select, I highly recommend that you only use PayPal to purchase your goods on Alibaba seemingly because it’s one of the safest ways to transfer money without having to share financial details.

E-CREDIT LINE:
Paying a supplier through credit. I highly discourage this because you may have to give out your financial details to a supplier. Entirely, I wouldn’t bother selecting this button when you are searching for your specific product.

ONLINE:
This means that the supplier/company has sales representatives in real time ready to chat with you about the product you want to purchase. Another note to add is to buy ONLY from suppliers who are ALWAYS online. You always want “on the spot clarification” when you are researching your products. It is inevitable at sometime that most suppliers on Alibaba will be offline. This is due to the different time zones between your country and China

RESPONSIVE RATE:
Informs you that the sales representatives are active and will respond quickly to your inquiry. The responsive rate of a sales representative should range from 20% to 100%. This figure can be illustrated below. In doing so, you will save a lot of time.

Acceptable responsive rate
Even if a company has a responsive rate over 40% they may use an automatic program to greet you when you open a real-time conversation with them (chat now)

CHINA MAINLAND:
This is another important clarification to note. You ALWAYS want to purchase from China (Mainland) manufacturers. Most other global manufacturers like India increase the chances of scam.

LISTINGS:
Also, another important part to add to your notes is that a company usually has more than one of the same product listings. For example, the above diagram shows two listings which are exactly the same product from the same company. Companies do this for publicity of their product. If they are seen more than once, a viewer may believe that they exclusively provide that product to consumers.

FOB PRICE:
Simply means Free on Board or Freight on Board. FOB idolizes which party (buyer or seller) pays for shipment and loading costs, and/or where responsibility for the goods is transferred.

MINIMUM ORDER QUANTITY:
This is how many units of the product you will have to buy in one order. The above supplier has an MOQ of 1000 Piece/Pieces. Never buy this amount during the early stages of your importing venture. You will always want to negotiate with your supplier to reduce the MOQ to a smaller quantity.

PAYMENT METHOD:
At first, buying direct from Chinese Suppliers over the internet can be overwhelming. The major concern is money transfer requests. ALWAYS use PayPal when transferring money to a supplier. It is the safest way to pay for goods without sharing financial details. Ideally, a Alibaba company will have it stated if or not they accept their payment through PayPal.


USE ALIBABA'S TRADE MANAGER!!! search it on google
The trade manager will be used significantly throughout your importing stages. It is the lifeline of connecting you with a supplier in a real time conversation

To start conversations with the supplier click “chat now”. Your Alibaba trade manager will load
up and a real time chat with a sales representative will appear.

Chinese sales representatives don’t like buyers who are mean and disrespectful and so you should always behave in a respectful manner while talking to them.

Getting on the good side of a sales representative will be as simple as this:
-Talk about your life in general. For example, your lifestyle in Australia.
-Ask why “China is a good destination to travel”.
-Have manners. For example, thank you for your time, I appreciate your service or you’re the best.

Most suppliers will be able to understand and write in English, but you will find out that some won’t. Don’t deal with these sorts of suppliers because communication is GOLDEN in finding the right product.

The main goal to have a long term relationship with a supplier is to maintain trust. I encourage you all to set up a Skype account and to ask the supplier to talk to you through there instead of the trade manager. Skype’s interface is much more user base friendly and it’s easier to track your messages after a long period of time.

--

I always tested my products first by buying a few samples to see how they could sell. From this I determined if they were good to buy in bulk. If yes, I would purchase around 20 and from there I would buy a much larger quantity. The product would come straight to my door via the courier agency that was assigned to me. I would list the product myself on eBay and as soon as someone purchased one of my products I would go to the post office myself and send it off. Not all the time I did this, when I had heaps of products selling I would buy bulk satchel packs instead of going to the post office and send the products off to the nearest post box (which was 100% faster and more efficient).

How I find products to sell? Well, if you go to the first page of this post, you will see my response already answering this question. It is just a small summary of how I would go about finding products to sell.

As for the eBay part, It is quite ok. eBay now offers I think its still (occurring) 80 free listings every month? I'm not 100% sure on that. But that helped me a lot. Not much extra costs except for the tax of each product I sold. And influx? This will depend on the product you buy. Not all products are heavily listed on eBay. When you see my old response on this posting on "finding profitable products to sell" you will see that the products I found were new and trendy. Products that are not over-saturated!

Hope this helps. pm if you want to join my skype group full of new start-up importers.

Great information! Thanks for sharing!

 

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[Tehcasa]

Hey man thank you so much for making this AMA.

My question are:

what made you choose to sell on ebay rather than amazon?

Will you consider selling on amazon in the future?

Hey Benjamin
I initially choose eBay over Amazon because "as a start-up importer" I felt more competent using eBay's simplistic interface design, whereas Amazon there was much more to uncover. More so I just wanted to sell a product fast and easy, and eBay was the first eCommerce website to do that for me, hence why I've stayed. Now, Amazon is certainly a better selling platform than eBay for more experienced sellers as it carries FBA and other fantastic benefits for sellers. However, the largest and most popular selling fulfillment network websites in the world, Fulfillment by Amazon is not deployed in Australia. This is ultimately why I have stayed with eBay for so long.

 

[Late Start]

I'm planning to dip my toes into these waters come tax refund time (hopefully this is the last year we qualify for a refund) - the supplier I am eyeballing on Alibaba is a Gold Supplier and offers Trade Assurance - do those designations truly mean anything useful, or is it just marketing hype. Is there any particular resource you would recommend to get a crash course of importing from Alibaba? I grabbed a well reviewed Udemy course that I plan to start after I finish a couple of others not related to import.

 

[Tehcasa]

I'm planning to dip my toes into these waters come tax refund time (hopefully this is the last year we qualify for a refund) - the supplier I am eyeballing on Alibaba is a Gold Supplier and offers Trade Assurance - do those designations truly mean anything useful, or is it just marketing hype. Is there any particular resource you would recommend to get a crash course of importing from Alibaba? I grabbed a well reviewed Udemy course that I plan to start after I finish a couple of others not related to import.

First, both reliable and unreliable suppliers and manufacturers do exist. Your view on suppliers who are gold suppliers and offer Trade Assurance is factual. Marketing within Alibaba is extensive and any apprehension to "sell more" is vital and enforced by all Chinese suppliers. So yes, becoming a Gold Supplier is a small facet for many Chinese companies marketing strategies, hence effecting a buyers choice to view their online store. A majority of legitimate and reliable companies however become Gold Suppliers in order to "actually" become successful. It's quite clear and evident that many buyers/importers will buy from these sellers "only" and dismiss any other sellers who aren't. That's why it's vital to research Gold suppliers who are matured or in other terms have been selling on Alibaba for many years. In contrast, 1-2 year gold suppliers may be more fabricated then 3+ gold suppliers, but don't get me wrong I've had matured suppliers who've scammed me in the past.

If you're looking for a particular resource, I'm here to help! I can teach you the whole process in a 1 on 1 conversation. Plus, I'm currently in the working stages of creating my upgraded online importing course for startup importers.