[AMA] Importing & wholesaling for resale on eBay.

[Ecom man]

I have been lurking on the forum for about a month and have gleaned so much information I knew it was time to give back. I currently run an import/ resale on eBay business. I started the business about 3 years ago but just dabbled in it up until about 6 months ago.

6 months ago, I quit my job and started working the business "full time". I use that term loosely because full time for my business is abt 1 hr a day packaging up sold products and a few hrs a week researching new products.

I have been pretty much in the same niche since I started selling things 3 years ago but because of reading TFM I have started to branch out to reach more people. I added one product in the last two weeks that has already translated into a $1500 a month extra PROFIT!!!

I have sold mainly through eBay and a little through Amazon. I have imported a lot of things as well as bought things wholesale by the pallet. I would love to be able to help anyone in any way that I can.

 

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[Ecom man]

Just wanted to say there are opportunities to buy things wholesale and resell at good prices all over the place.

Today I was spending time at the zoo and shopping with my wife and daughter. We went by a store that is closing and doing final liquidation. We went in and they basically only had the shelving left. In the corner they had a huge box full of electric dryer cords. I asked the lady how much they were and she said regular retail was $15 and they were liquidating at $5 each. I asked her how much if I buy the whole box and she said $1 each (quite a difference). I bought all 110 she had at a buck each. I can resell them on eBay for $10. After shipping and fees I will make $4 profit each. I will make $440 profit on taking one little item and reselling it to those who need it.

Deals like this are all around us at physical stores and especially importing from China. Get off your butt quit making excuses and go get it!

 

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[Ecom man]

Thank you for the thread Ecom man; I am in the beginnings of selling on ebay. The struggle I have been having is finding wholesalers who sell on lower volume, with margins after shipping. I have bought wholesale lists from ebay, and amazon books on the subject. Wanted to ask if you had any recommendations, for web sites. thanks

I struggled with the same thing when I was starting. I still have lists in my email that I paid a lot of money to buy and most websites were inactive or not good margins.

I use three main sites for importing dhgate.com alibaba.com and aliexpress.com. A lot of people will tell you that these sites are tapped out etc etc etc. I can tell you with millions of products available in the world they are not even close to tapped out.

I was doing research on alibaba this morning and found a product that I can double my money on. It can be time consuming to find products but it is well worth it.

A couple of tips for you, stay out of any electronic market (phones, tablets, cords, etc.) most of those are run by high volume low margin folks. Second, look for things that people need to use. Look around at business places at friend's houses etc. what do they need to use every day. Once you have a list go on all three sites and see if it has margins that will work.

 

[Ecom man]

Yeah iv noticed this upon contacting a few of them on Alibaba.
One guy I'm dealing with the now he is extremely friendly and is willing to try match my MOQ.
However a woman I dealt with last week however wasn't as nice, going from $10 to $40 for the same item just due to manufacturing costs.

So you just ask for sample orders? Does this fluctuate the price significantly or do you say that you will try get some interest and then see how it goes to hopefully match their MOQ in a short time?

Shipping costs for sample order should be the only thing that goes up. They should not quadruple the price of the item just because you want a smaller sample order.
I just tell them I need the sample to test quality of the product. Once I receive the item I open it and make sure it looks and functions like it should. If everything looks and works right I will post it for sale and see how long it takes to sell the samples. If it takes me 2 weeks to sell 5 items I can assume that I will sell approximately 10 a month.

If the profit margin is there I will turn around and order ten more of the same item. If it takes a month to sell all ten then when near the end of the month's time I will order 20. By doing this the only amount of "my money" I am risking is the orginal put out for samples. I use the sample money plus the profit to buy the next order than you that order amount plus profit for the next order and so on.

I pretty much ignore what their MOQ is and tell them what quantities I need to buy. There are enough sellers of almost every item that at least one of them will work with you to give you what you want.

 

[Ecom man]

So you look for items that are already selling on eBay, or do you find an item that hasn't caught on? If you do find one that is already being sold how do you compete? Price, or what other value do you add?

I actually do both. Items already selling allow for a much better idea of margins of amount of sales. An item that hasn't caught on has more potential for profit (you set the price) but also more potential for error (picking a product that doesn't sell)

I set myself apart in 3 ways
1. Quality i never sell something that I would not be happy buying myself. I would rather throw something in the trash because it is poor quality than try and pawn it off in an unsuspecting buyer.

2. Fastest shipping! If someone order a product before 1 pm it goes out the same afternoon before the post office closes. Anything ordered overnight is shipped out as soon as the post office opens in the morning. I only ship Priority Mail. It is more expensive and sometime the same time as regular mail but I use it every single time. I have shipped items that were purchased overnight Friday night, sent out on Saturday morning and the person got it Monday morning. Would you be happy getting your purchase that fast? I know I would!

3. Returns/exchanges if the item I am selling is is broken in shipment or arrives not working I either give them a refund or send a new one out immediately. Does this open me up to possible scammers? It absolutely does. Does it make for 100% satisfied customers? It absolutely does that as well. It costs me extra money probably 1 in every couple hundred items, but the extra profit and customer loyalty is well worth the few resent or replaced items.

 

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[Ecom man]

Do you sell others brands or do you private label underneath your own?

I do both depending on the product. When starting out I didn't even know that putting my own brand on an item was even possible. I just found things with good margin and would order a decent amount. If the product failed oh well on to the next one.

Failures are a part of any business. A couple years ago I bought someone's inventory of "vintage" clothes so I could resell them. Spent $3,000 on the inventory and in the last year sold $200 worth of the inventory finally just chalked it up to clothes not being my thing and donated them all to Salvation Army.

I am always learning, always growing, always looking for the product that people need.

 

[Ecom man]

Do you use any website like Terapeak of any type of software to give you some insight on products?

I have used terapeak before but the problem is there is no work involved for anyone to access that information. Most of the "hot" items are way too competitive to make any reliable profit. I have found searching for an item that is currently not selling in the US or maybe with only one other seller of the item works far better than terapeak.

An item I found today that I thought about using but don't have the time is on Alibaba. It is a mosquito repellant patch. There is not one US seller of the item on eBay. It is all natural patch and supposedly lasts up to 72 hrs. Some even come in packaging for resale. They are pennies a patch and you could easily resell them on eBay, your own website, or start a business selling it to all the local gas stations in your area.

See how easy and fun it is to find items?

 

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[Ecom man]

Hi there, what does your process of researching new products consist of?

Normally my process is just time spent on my iPad looking through import sites and Amazon and eBay completed items sold. I use Amazon best sellers list a lot and I use eBay's completed listings and sort that by price high to low.

 

[Ecom man]

How do you go about the MOQ?
On Alibaba a lot of their vendors/sellers have crazy MOQ's.

Also what bad experiences have you had? You sound pretty experienced so surely wasn't always plain sailing.

Pretty much every bad experience I had was because of my lack of knowledge.
I have ordered things before and completely lost my money (paid by western union) btw don't ever pay by western union or wire for first shipments til you get a feel for the supplier.

eBay and Amazon can be a huge pain in the neck if you try to buck what they want. eBay has gone to almost forcing you to offer free shipping long return periods etc. Fighting them is a losing proposition! If eBay wants it shipped free then ship it free. Learn as much as you can about the rules of any selling platform.

One other thing: THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS WRONG! Yep you read that correctly. 99 times out of 100 there is a problem it is because of customer error, (if you are selling right) but ALWAYS PUT THE BLAME ON YOUR SHOULDERS. If a person didn't read the description properly take the blame! Take the loss and always say it is your fault and you will make it right.

 

[Ecom man]

This thread keeps getting more awesome by the minute!

May I ask how many products you roughly carry?
And could you shed some light on the process of developing a pool of "winners"?

I right now have 8 different products listed. I normally keep closer to 12-15 but am out of stock on a few items. Developing a pool of winners is really just all about time. The more time i spend searching for/researching products, the more possible winners I am going to find.

I am on alibaba or dhgate just about every day. That doesn't mean I sit down in front of my computer and stare at the screen for 12 hours a day. I will do it during the NBA playoff (during commercials of course) and pretty much any other random time. I probably spend less than an hour a day right now looking for products. I already have 15 or so products that I'm selling so I don't have to spend tons of time looking for more.

If I was starting I would spend every possible minute finding my first product. Once you find one and get a sample ordered, start looking for another one before your sample is delivered. I have found 3 possible items this week that the profit margin is there on so I am in the process of getting samples for each one. Constantly search, constantly think about what people need.

 

[Ecom man]

I like your idea on the mesquite patch. An\y others you dont feel like pursuing?

I've got 3 or 4 items i am researching/getting quotes on right now. If I choose not to pursue any of them I will post it on here.

There are virtually unlimited amounts of products and each product has an angle/need that can be used to profit from it. Learning the process of searching and finding a product and then checking prices and making the decision on your own is worth far more than me just doling out product ideas.

I can give out a list of every product i currently sell today and have 10 more products/ samples on the way in a weeks time. You need to get to that point as well. Who cares if someone invades your space and steals your product. Go out find ten more products and get 10 times the profit. Once you have the process of finding products, communicating with sellers, ordering samples, and then selling those samples down you won't need to ask for ideas. You will find ideas in every store, website, and home you visit.

 

[Ecom man]

What a journey business is! I started this thread over 2 years ago and my how things have changed. I went from approximately 250k in sales in 2014 (sorry don't have the exact 2014 numbers in front of me) to a hair under a million in 2015 to being on target for 2-3 million this year!

We've moved from selling out of a spare room, to a garage, to now a small warehouse space. It will be interesting to see what the next couple of years hold. I was talking with a friend this week about the future of the company. We should be doing 10 million in sales per year by 2018. We have expanded to over 150 different products currently and growing all the time. Every new product gets us a little closer to that goal.

What are your goals? What are you doing today to get you there?

 

[Ecom man]

What advice/tips do you have for someone who is just starting out?

How do you go about discovering what products are selling?

Is finding the current "hot item" the way to go or do you suggest selling consistent and long term products?

Thanks for your time and I look forward to the knowledge shared in your thread.

I normally try to find items that will stand the test of time. Many times the "hot" items are either too competitive or the margins just don't work for importing.

I start looking for products based on things i use. One of the products I am selling right now is selling to purely businesses. I am not selling many of these items (15-20 per month) but the profit is $100+ on every item. It's large and expensive to ship but at $100 profit each I can deal with carrying something to the post office.

 

[Vigilante]

Order one and find out. Most likely, they are using USPS First Class mail and a regular size envelope. Regular first class stamp. Best way to answer your own question is to order one from them.

 

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[Ecom man]

This has become quite an onerous task in the last couple of weeks. I've crunched the numbers on over sixty products now and I've only found two that I can make over $7 profit per transaction after fees, and already there are new people selling these products at a lower price. I've been looking at higher price items for the last couple of days; thinking that there wont be as much saturation as with cheaper products, but i'm really not excited about tying up that much money in inventory.

Continuing to grind ...

I have found the more expensive the product the less competition. Also, the less the product sells the less competition (obviously). If you can get say 5 items that sell 10 each in a month i promise your profits will be higher per sale than if you find 1 item that you can sell 50 each month. A lot of people wont spend time fooling with a product that will only profit them $1,000 a month. I will take that all day long. Then just find 10,20,100 etcof those items.

It is a grind. Honestly the grind is the barrier to entry in this business. People will give up after a few days or weeks. The ones who keep at it til they find the gold are the ones that are making money.

PS. I made $200 profit while I was sleeping last night! Is it worth the grind to make money while sleeping??? Oh yeah!

 

[Ecom man]

do you have an older product you were selling, that you no longer deal with that you could use as an example to the rest of us? if that's not possible or you are uncomfortable with it, that's totally fine. I would love to just see a product someone had success with and do the research from there on my own instead of asking a ton of questions.

As of right now I am still selling every successful item that I tested. That is the main reason that I stay away from the "next big thing". That "big thing" will be long gone and I will still be selling the same products over and over again.

As for unsuccessful items I have tons of those: women's underwear, iphone cords, baby animal bath robe/towel, and on and on and on lol.

 

[Ecom man]

Thank you for your input.

What is your take on writing, optimizing a description?

Any tips or tricks to increase traffic to new sellers with minimum sales/listing history?

Thanks

Normally what's in the description wont be searched for so you don't have to worry about keywords etc. there is a way to search in descriptions as well but hardly anyone on eBay uses it.

Don't have a one sentence description! Even if it is a brand new item you need to write a couple of paragraphs. I have one paragraph about the item (Brand new, still in box great to be used for.....) one paragraph explaining shipping (what carrier you use, how you offer free shipping, how you ship every item within 24 hrs carefully wrapped etc) one paragraph about your return/defect policy ( guarantee 100% satisfaction! we will do everything we can to make you happy! we are in business to meet your every need etc.) and a couple short sentences about how you want them to be completely satisfied with your product and if not contact you immediately so you can make it right.

Don't make promises you don't intend to keep. If you say 100% guaranteed then you will have people that will take advantage of you. You have to understand it is the cost of doing business and just deal with it. Same thing with shipping times. Don't promise fast shipping and then not deliver on it.

 

[Ecom man]

How do you go about the MOQ?
On Alibaba a lot of their vendors/sellers have crazy MOQ's.

Also what bad experiences have you had? You sound pretty experienced so surely wasn't always plain sailing.

Most of the sellers will give you the MOQ that you need to make the deal work. The item that I most recently started imported had a MOQ of 100 and it is a $100+ Per unit. That would be 10 grand just to try it. I messaged them and asked if they would do a sample order of 5 units and they agreed. After receiving and selling those, I then ordered ten more and so on.

Most suppliers will work with you as they want and need sales. You will pay more for shipping when ordering in lower quantities but it is worth it to be able to test the item and the market for yourself.

 

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[Ecom man]

Do you mind if I ask how much profit you're doing each month?

Also, is it possible to automate this type of business to the point where you don't have to constantly drive to the post office to ship stuff?

Right now I'm doing around 7 grand profit a month. Last November and December I profited over 15k a month.

It is very possible to automate it. You can use a fulfillment center and send your items to them and they do all the shipping, uploading tracking, etc. when an item is sold. You can even use Amazon's fulfillment for eBay sales or for your own website.

 

[Ecom man]

It looks like my first product wasn't delivered to the buyer and it's on its way back to me. F*cking awesome! more money down the drain.

At this rate I should just start wiping my a$$ with my money, at least I'd get better use out of it.

Every problem you encounter is a barrier to entry. Every problem helps to weed out people who arn't serious about the business or who are just quitters in general. Yes it sucks to have problems and yes it sucks to lose money. What sucks a lot more than that is working 40 hours a week for $1600 a month. (Yes folks $10 an hour is what the going rate is around here for something besides fast food) I made more than $1,600 in the last week and I didn't have to go out and kill myself for 40 hours.

 

[Ecom man]

That normally is very true. Amazon commands a $20 to $30 premium over eBay for many of my products. I had started on eBay and gradually have been branching out into Amazon.

If I started selling from scratch I would begin on Amazon and then transition to eBay. One other warning about Amazon, they are VERY particular about selling metrics. If just beginning selling I would get my feet wet on eBay before jumping to Amazon.

 

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[Ecom man]

Thankyou. Say you wanted to build a fastlane business out of this? What would you do differently from the beginnig or say even now? When you set up your ecommerce store what would be your niche? because you wouldn't want to be a "we sell anything and everything" type of a store?

What you are doing is great and its what im going to start off from aswell but I dont wanto be doing it for too long but focus on buildig a business out of it - I want to see - if for example another fastlane opportunity does not come "your" (as in mine, yours or anybody elses) way - how could we turn this into a fastlane biz down the line with the premise bing correct in the first place

I am building a fastlane business out of this! I would say a business profiting 100k+ a year 3 years into it isn't too shabby considering I was flying by the seat of my pants when starting. I wouldn't change anything except probably spend more time finding new products and getting a website up and running near the beginning. Of course up until a few months ago I had never even heard of a "fastlane".

 

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[Ecom man]

Just got back from taking my daughter to the park for a picnic and feeding the ducks. The rewards for working this business are a lot more than just money!

 

[Ecom man]

@Ecom man Do you use FBA for Amazon and eBay or do you ship out every product. I know that FBA can get you a competitive edge on Amazon vs sellers that are shipping their own.

I currently just ship out everything myself. A few reasons,
1. I can ship it out faster than any company can. (I normally have items at the post office within hrs of the purchase.
2. I can list things for sale as soon as I get them in from China. (This was especially helpful during holiday season when I would sell out of items within literally hours of listing them.)
3. I get to keep the extra profit. Doing FBA would be easier but it does cost more money than doing the shipping yourself.
4. I am not big enough where it has become too bad of a nuisance. (Besides Christmas time) I normally make $50 to $100 per item profit so at $100 each I am only shipping out 2-3 packages a day on average.

 

[Ecom man]

I love this thread, seeing someone killing it on ebay and at a level where you were able to quit your f/t job is remarkable. Keep it up, hope you scale this beast 2, 5, 10X...

The above shipping "scam"...I see it every day. I've sampled dozens of products, and 90% of them pull this off. If I love the product and really want to sample it, I call them out on the shipping costs being outrageous (in a nice way) and advise them to check other couriers. Two things happen, either "sorry sir there was a mistake in my shipping quote" or "I tried a different courier and got it for x price". Better yet, if you really don't want to get scammed with shipping, create your own DHL/Fedex account and have them use your account for shipping and pay them the sample fee only. I've tried this myself and for the larger items, the factories get much better shipping rates, but at least you can have something to compare to if you feel like they're taking you for a ride on shipping costs.

Also, some guys will try to charge you 3x the item amount for a sample...you can't get away from that, I've tried. For larger items, I've had to pay 3X the amount or they tell me where to go, they don't have time to waste on me. Sometimes, you have to invest a little in order to avoid losing a lot by buying in bulk a lot of crap which is unsellable. In my experience, maybe 1/5 sample orders are duds, meaning I had to toss them down the shoot.

Just thought I would chime in, this is something I do daily nowadays.

Again, thanks ecomm for sharing the knowledge with the board.

I am going to scale this like crazy! My goal is to double total sales in the next year and then double that. It is easily attainable, I just have to find more products, rinse and repeat!

Turning this into a million dollar PROFIT each year shouldn't be more than 5 or so years in the future.

 

[JustinBoshans]

Hey ecom man! To date I've made over 100 dollars profit just from my first item. I know that isn't a ton but it was mostly passive, and has funded all the rest of my next items. Thanks again man you rock! Rep transfered

 

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[Ecom man]

When you quit your job to focus on your business, did you waiver back and forth on the decision? Or was it more instantaneous?

Again thank you for sharing and answering all of our questions!!

I have been wanting to quit for the last year or so. Last Christmas was absolutely insane and quitting was a high thought on my mind. I have a wife, a daughter, and a baby on the way. I wanted to be completely sure that the business would support us before quitting my regular job. I am not the kind of person that makes a decision like that instantly. I waited until my business was providing my job's 2 week paycheck every day. To make sure it wasn't a fluke I waited 30 days to see what the numbers looked like. Every day for those 30 I made more in 1 day from my site then I did in 2 weeks from my job. It was time to quit.

 

[Ecom man]

I looked up the mosquito patches you were talking about and if you don't mind I would like to try selling them. If not, can you tell me how you would go about selling them? How do you pick your prices?

Good job taking action! Go ahead and make all the money off that product you can! I would look for other like products and go somewhere in that range. If going wholesale to gas stations, bait shops etc. I would sell it to them at a price point that is excellent for both of you. A win win situation is always the best way to go.

I didn't do a ton of price research but if I was going fishing or camping I would pay $3.99 or 4.99 retail for a box of ten or twelve patches. To get the businesses to place my product I would offer it to them at say half of that wholesale. Your cost is maybe 50 cents a pack selling wholesale at $2 or $2.50. Pretty good profit margins. Because of shipping costs online you would probably want to sell them in multiple packs say 2 for $10, 4 for $15 or whatever you decide. The possibilities are almost endless.

 

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[Ecom man]

I've been trying to figure out how to use ebay completed listings more efficiently. Do you search by category, specific product? How exactly do you use this feature Ecom Man?

When looking for new products i normally don't use the completed listings. I use the active buy it now listings. Most people who import or sell tons of products use buy it now to sell large quantities. I will use any keyword "toy" "kitchen" "bath" literally any word and then search buy it now listings. I will go through a few pages of the best match and click into each listing. If one of them looks promising (has a lot of sales, looks small enough to ship, something i personally would purchase) then I use that item as my keywords and see who else is selling it. If it has just a couple competitors or ones that have horrible feedback or shipping times I will then see what prices I can get on the various sites. If tons of competitors and not much profit I'll go back to searching the keyword I was on. Many times one keyword search will give you more ideas and products than you could research in a year.

 

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[Ecom man]

A quick little progress update for me. I ended up selling $60,000 for the entire month of November which is more than the 50k goal I set. I am hoping to hit 100k in sales in Decmber before the 18th which will be my cut off sales date until after Christmas (way too many people buy on the 23rd and want it for a present! Plus, USPS can have delays this time of year.)I have $20,000 in sales through the first 5 days of the month so it is certainly looking like 100k month is within reach!

 

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