The-J said:

It seems that the author of the article just joined the Fastlane Forum.

Welcome, Will. Glad to have you here.

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Mike39 said:

I was just wondering how you estimate weekly sales on a product, you said you count sales on ebay for a week but is that just counting individual sellers or the entire list of sellers and if the latter, how do you manage going about that?

Extremely informative and well written article by the way!

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Mike39 said:

Analytical traffic sources would be my guess

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oddball said:

Does anyone have experience with getting selling privileges back from Amazon? I lost mine a couple years ago, tried getting it back through the appeal feature but no luck. I am going to try and call and see if I can get a person to manually override it.

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theag said:

You can always create an LLC and open a new account if all else fails.

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JAJT said:

Whoa. Did you find this place because I posted this thread? That was quick!

It amazes me how much this place is like a lightning rod for professionals. Glad to have you!

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JAJT said:

Whoa. Did you find this place because I posted this thread? That was quick!

It amazes me how much this place is like a lightning rod for professionals. Glad to have you!

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theag said:

Pingback

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oddball said:

Loved the article. I took a look last night again, found an item after about 30 minutes, it sells on ebay for about $47 but I saw wholesalers offering at $6-10. Going to start the process of interviewing the wholesalers. I also can see several products in the same area I could add to the line.

Does anyone have experience with getting selling privileges back from Amazon? I lost mine a couple years ago, tried getting it back through the appeal feature but no luck. I am going to try and call and see if I can get a person to manually override it.

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theag said:

You can always create an LLC and open a new account if all else fails.

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oddball said:

I think I need to get a PO box as well. I tried using an LLC I have for my app but they still catch it, I think by the address since I still used my home one.

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mapaul04 said:

I looked through his book list and when I didnt see TMF I figured he would see a bunch of fastlaners read the article from your link and join the forum but that was very quick!

Great article by the way, very detailed, I started a similar process a month or so ago and found it very helpful.

I too found places like doba WWB and the lot useless. Alibaba and Ali express are all you need. thanks will

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WillMitchell said:

Thanks a lot for your kind words! Yea, right when I saw the email I said "how don't I know about this?!" - excited to be a part of what seems to be a high quality, ambitious community.

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WillMitchell said:

Thanks a lot for reading

Sounds like you found a prime niche, congrats!

Amazon is a real b*tch after you get banned once. I made an account when I was under 18 (for this) and they called me when I was 20 or 21 to ask me my birthday. I of course didn't remember what I had put, so they blacklisted me and all of my information.

I was paying my friends $50-100/month to use their accounts for a while, but you can also grab an LLC, a business checking account, and a VPN and get by just fine. I would suggest not signing in from the same IP address/browser on any account, as Amazon has strict algorithms after you get blacklisted.

Hope this helps, I know the feeling - you are a good businessman, probably better than 90% of the Amazon seller community, but you can't even get a second chance. Really hate this about Amazon.



This, with the extra precautions I mentioned.



Exactly - Address/Bank info is a big one, as well as broswer/computer cookies. I use just one laptop, separate from my work desktop, to manage Amazon and eBay now, along with always being connected from a VPN. HAs worked for me for 2+ years now, hit me up if you need more info.



Thanks a lot for your kind words! Yea, right when I saw the email I said "how don't I know about this?!" - excited to be a part of what seems to be a high quality, ambitious community.

A lot of people are confused with my criticism of DOBA and WWB, but like you said, Alibaba and Ali Express are 100x better and free. I have never found anything from those membership sites...

Thanks again
Will

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WillMitchell said:

Thanks a lot for reading

Sounds like you found a prime niche, congrats!

Amazon is a real b*tch after you get banned once. I made an account when I was under 18 (for this) and they called me when I was 20 or 21 to ask me my birthday. I of course didn't remember what I had put, so they blacklisted me and all of my information.

I was paying my friends $50-100/month to use their accounts for a while, but you can also grab an LLC, a business checking account, and a VPN and get by just fine. I would suggest not signing in from the same IP address/browser on any account, as Amazon has strict algorithms after you get blacklisted.

Hope this helps, I know the feeling - you are a good businessman, probably better than 90% of the Amazon seller community, but you can't even get a second chance. Really hate this about Amazon.



This, with the extra precautions I mentioned.



Exactly - Address/Bank info is a big one, as well as broswer/computer cookies. I use just one laptop, separate from my work desktop, to manage Amazon and eBay now, along with always being connected from a VPN. HAs worked for me for 2+ years now, hit me up if you need more info.



Thanks a lot for your kind words! Yea, right when I saw the email I said "how don't I know about this?!" - excited to be a part of what seems to be a high quality, ambitious community.

A lot of people are confused with my criticism of DOBA and WWB, but like you said, Alibaba and Ali Express are 100x better and free. I have never found anything from those membership sites...

Thanks again
Will

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Graham Chong said:

What a reading list you have.

I have read about 5 of them so far (and they are all quality), and it seems like I have loads of catching up to do after April.

Again, welcome to the community

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TK1 said:

Welcome Will, hope you stay with up, top notch content on your site (and here!)

About having those amazon-ebay issues:

It's actually a good thing if this happens to you and amazon shuts down your biz (the earlier the better).

Why?

Because you have now realized the 'commandment of control'.

Now after having been thrown out of ebay, amazon or the classic paypal stuff, you can think about finding a way to sell through other ways - like you said using friends accounts, hiding behind other IDs etc.

Now, you are somewhat free - because you've been through the crap and know how to handle it.

I see this with facebook all the time: facebook has a very strict policy about using FB as a dating site, which is why most males get their accounts blocked for 30 days or even completely deleted etc. Now, if this happens and you find out a way to get a new account, you are basically free and aware of the power facebook has over your account.

One question Will:

Can you share your experiences with ebay with us? Have you experienced the same like amazon, losing your account? How is it possible on eBay to come back after for example having an account that gets holded - or: catching too many negative feedback ratings etc.?

Thanks!

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oddball said:

Thanks, I couldnt believe they banned my account. I sold an iPad and threw in a FREE case, the customer wasn't happy with the case because the corners were a little worn. I told them I was not going to replace it because, a) it was free, b) I didn't have another, c) I was the lowest cost iPad on their to begin with. Amazon wasn't happy I guess.

I actually thought about paying a friend but I think it would be cheaper to get a PO box and do it under an LLC. I will definitely do that if this pans out. I am going to try ebay first and see what happens. I also found another product I think would be better, I can see higher volumes and more products to add down the line. Lots to do this weekend.

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bernieshawn said:

Hey Will,

I've noticed that a lot of these manufacturers seem to be listing their products directly on Amazon, which makes it pretty much impossible for us to compete. Is this a sign to choose a different product, or is there still a way to compete with products like these?

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bernieshawn said:

I've noticed that a lot of these manufacturers seem to be listing their products directly on Amazon, which makes it pretty much impossible for us to compete. Is this a sign to choose a different product, or is there still a way to compete with products like these?

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Ãœbertreffen said:

There can be products which have sellers from China on eBay/Amazon. This doesn't necessarily mean its the manufacturers that are selling but could be representatives or middle man.

The pain point for sellers in China who are trying to market USAers is time. No matter how you look at it, it's going to take a lot longer to get your item from China as opposed to buying from someone in the USA directly. Use that towards your advantage.

Don't avoid any warning signs. If the market is saturated with the product then you either need a different approach (focus on stating that you ship from the USA, branding, etc) or a new product. If so, move on and find something that is more valuable towards your time.



- Devin

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WillMitchell said:

Hey Bernie,

I'm not sure if any overseas manufacturers are listing directly on Amazon, because it would be insanely expensive for them to ship small shipments. Not only because of the shipping costs, but because they are built and streamlined for larger orders.

You'll see some of the same items on Alibaba and eBay, you jsut need to find an item you can compete on.

Hope this helps,
Will

(hit me up if I didn't understand your question right or anything)

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Ãœbertreffen said:

There can be products which have sellers from China on eBay/Amazon. This doesn't necessarily mean its the manufacturers that are selling but could be representatives or middle man.

The pain point for sellers in China who are trying to market USAers is time. No matter how you look at it, it's going to take a lot longer to get your item from China as opposed to buying from someone in the USA directly. Use that towards your advantage.

Don't avoid any warning signs. If the market is saturated with the product then you either need a different approach (focus on stating that you ship from the USA, branding, etc) or a new product. If so, move on and find something that is more valuable towards your time.
- Devin

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• Faster shipping times, 4-7 days vs 21+ days.
• Better copy + customer support due to being native English speakers.
• Better presentation; taking better pictures of the products to make them look more appealing.

bernieshawn said:

Thanks guys. Yeah, I was thinking that just by being in the USA, we have a couple advantages where we might be able to get away with higher list prices:

• Faster shipping times, 4-7 days vs 21+ days.
• Better copy + customer support due to being native English speakers.
• Better presentation; taking better pictures of the products to make them look more appealing.

Does that sound about right?

Also, are you guys selling these products exactly as you get them with no branding or are you adding your own logos/brand names?

EDIT: Another question. When you're examining past sales activity on eBay's completed listings, what's the minimum sales volume to look for? For example, I'm looking at a product and I'm seeing about 6 completed (and sold) listings per day on eBay, which isn't a lot (these sales are in the $20-60 dollar range). Does this indicate that this product just isn't popular enough, or is there still hope?

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WillMitchell said:

It really depends on the product and what direction you want to take it. For airsoft, I just wanted to put up some airsoft guns that parents would buy for their kids and 15 year olds would jump on and buy. They arent looking for anything special in an airsoft gun, and I could undercut the current sellers who had brick and mortar stores, so I dominated it.

On the other hand I have a friend who built his importing business up from scratch into a large brand. Completely different strategy and ball game all together, but both entirely possible.

My airsoft guns at the time were only showing 3-4 sales per day and I sold plenty on there, but it really depends on the product again, and I am not sure how eBay's display algo works so...its all just a guess there.

If you are really worried, you could either order some samples and sell those, or I have even set up dummy accounts to test for sales and refund right after, but this is a lot more tricky...

Hope this helps!

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WillMitchell said:

It really depends on the product and what direction you want to take it. For airsoft, I just wanted to put up some airsoft guns that parents would buy for their kids and 15 year olds would jump on and buy. They arent looking for anything special in an airsoft gun, and I could undercut the current sellers who had brick and mortar stores, so I dominated it.

On the other hand I have a friend who built his importing business up from scratch into a large brand. Completely different strategy and ball game all together, but both entirely possible.

My airsoft guns at the time were only showing 3-4 sales per day and I sold plenty on there, but it really depends on the product again, and I am not sure how eBay's display algo works so...its all just a guess there.

If you are really worried, you could either order some samples and sell those, or I have even set up dummy accounts to test for sales and refund right after, but this is a lot more tricky...

Hope this helps!

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kurtyordy said:

fyi will, the article that the op originally posted will not load for me. I can get your homepage to load, but when I go to the import article either directly from the link here or from the link on your homepage, all I get is a blank page that takes way too long to load.

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TK1 said:

LOTS of sold articles on ebay don't show up on the 'completed listings' feature on ebay.

Often times I browsed through completed listings in a category and think of one sold article or a seller 'whoa, they only sell this article once a week, how do they make a living'?

Then I visit the sellers account and see some active listings for the same article and it says something like "1048 items sold for 9,99 each".

Don't let the 'completed listings' feature discourage you

Plus: Let's say you have 3 cafes in one street in your local area and you want to open up another cafe. And those 3 cafes don't have lots of customers you find out, after visiting all 3 in your 'market research' time.

Now, you could get discouraged by the fact that when already 3 competitiors don't have many customers in this street, maybe there are not enough customers for you and not enough at all, right?

Could be, but it's not a fact due to other factors and a small factor is always ruled by randomness, too.

Sometimes you can shake up a whole market by offering the same cafe basically, but with better food, marketing etc.

Just because right now, a certain offer is not successful doesn't mean you can't change it / make the same thing successful.

Many times somebody comes up with an idea/offer for a per se small niche and suddenly the new offer creates a whole new market.

Another good example I know is by the famous german playboy Rolf Eden: After the world war he came to germany and nobody really wanted to party-go to clubs in Berlin and people didn't have the money for all of it.

So, even though he saw all the clubs failing / being empty in his local area, he still opened his club and offered something nobody did before: Free entry for all girls. Plus he did something that in this time nobody was really thinking of in germany: Trying to get VIPs like the Rolling Stones in his clubs. Another idea he had: His club became the location where they've selected the new "Miss Germany".

Suddenly he made his millions and opened up 6 clubs in one street and is Berlin's most famous club owner in the probably world famous street "Kurfürstendamm".

Or: How many people WANT to buy so many certain products before they appear on QVC? But because of QVC they turn into hot-sellers. The same goes for the famous effect the shark tank series has. So many entrepreneurs come there without many customers thinking "nobody wants my product" and after appearing on TV they sell out or even there websites crash because of so much traffic. It's like MJ writes in the fastlane book "Marketing is the queen of your business". Even a bad product can survive with excellent marketing.

Don't let a small market / a not so good market research scare you ;-)

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