[AMA] Importing & wholesaling for resale on eBay.

[SkuNK_]

So I have this question, My first product has just arrived a couple days ago. The margins aren't as great as you expect, but I got to start off somewhere. There is this person on ebay already from the UK selling at least 30 of this item a day(I'm from Canada). I ordered 10 of the exact same item. Copied his description and changed it in a way to be a little similar. Priced my item slightly cheaper. Pretty much copying what i believe to be working however for the last 2 days I can't get a sale and he's still selling 30 a day.
I came to believe it's his reputation? he has like 3000 sold to date. A lot of feedback. Is this a problem for new sellers? I've done research and people also suggests getting more products the more the better to flow traffic around all your products. What is your take on all of this? As well as how do you think I can change to improve?

 

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[Wuz]

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.

you re spending money on your education.

NOt the type of education you probably would like, but a hell of a good education.

If you find the lesson in that situation , you just made a good investment of your money. Sometimes people telling us to not do that and this, its not enough. Sometimes we need to experience it and feel the pain, so our brain remember us to not repat the same mistake again.



Money is a tool. You either use it to consume or produce. If you produce you have to put in mind, that higns will not go always as planed.

 

[Harley]

When i import from china its almost always bigger shipments that i have shipped here by sea which is the cheapest if your not in a hurry for your products, my last shipment took 2.5 weeks. I have a broker here for big shipments but i dont have a broker in china just yet so i always ask for the CNF price from the manufacturers which is all the costs to get it to a canadian port then after it lands i get my broker to handle paperwork and shipping from there.

Im not sure about not getting charged under $20 as ive never had a shipment less then that and the amount of duties you pay depend on the product that your importing, some you dont pay any at all and some like shoes has a huge duty roughly 17% and thats not including broker fees, shipping from the port etc.

The seller asked you what price you want on the parcel is because if its a lower price your duties are lower, i personally never done this just because i dont want the hassle of being caught for something like that and besides you should of done the research on what your cost and margin is including all fees before ordering.

ps. my friend that imports smaller amounts say 4 big boxes that arent too heavy uses DHL air

Thanks for the feedback. Great points! I was thinking via sea would be like 6-8 weeks.
One other part I didn't anticipate is that they want paying in U.S dollars, which bumps the price up a bit too when determining margins.
Cheers,

 

[mosdef]

Completed listings are your best friend. If there are other sellers of those items you can see what those sellers are selling. If they are selling as buy it now you can also see the quantity they have sold in their listing.

what are the difference between sold listing and completed?

 

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[jon.a]

what are the difference between sold listing and completed?

Sold = sold
Completed = done, whether sold or not

 

[mosdef]

im sitting at my dayjob looking for products to sell and found product x, i can buy it for about 12 dollars and sells for 15 on ebay, only from chines sellers. The products sells alot, can i buy it and sell it for 25-30 in europe? Its double the chinese seller but i read its okay to do this since they will get it much faster?

 

[s168]

im sitting at my dayjob looking for products to sell and found product x, i can buy it for about 12 dollars and sells for 15 on ebay, only from chines sellers. The products sells alot, can i buy it and sell it for 25-30 in europe? Its double the chinese seller but i read its okay to do this since they will get it much faster?

You're going to have to buy some and find out. We can't tell you whether it'll sell at that price or not.

Have you calculated your breakeven sale price, covering for all overheads like taxes, fees, etc? Once you have that figure, add your profit margin to it, and ask yourself whether people will pay that to receive next day delivery?

 

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[mosdef]

You're going to have to buy some and find out. We can't tell you whether it'll sell at that price or not.

Have you calculated your breakeven sale price, covering for all overheads like taxes, fees, etc? Once you have that figure, add your profit margin to it, and ask yourself whether people will pay that to receive next day delivery?

i will do that, but dont think i will provide next day since i live in sweden it would be almost impossible to provide next day

 

[Ecom man]

i will do that, but dont think i will provide next day since i live in sweden it would be almost impossible to provide next day

If you are selling to people in Europe you will have an advantage over the Chinese sellers. If you are selling to people in the US they will be just as wary of buying from you as they would a Chinese seller. The trick is you can charge a considerably higher price when the customer receives it in a couple days over the 30+ days. If your shipping time is going to be a week or two then you are competing with the Chinese sellers and you cant charge that extra amount.

 

[Ecom man]

So I have this question, My first product has just arrived a couple days ago. The margins aren't as great as you expect, but I got to start off somewhere. There is this person on ebay already from the UK selling at least 30 of this item a day(I'm from Canada). I ordered 10 of the exact same item. Copied his description and changed it in a way to be a little similar. Priced my item slightly cheaper. Pretty much copying what i believe to be working however for the last 2 days I can't get a sale and he's still selling 30 a day.
I came to believe it's his reputation? he has like 3000 sold to date. A lot of feedback. Is this a problem for new sellers? I've done research and people also suggests getting more products the more the better to flow traffic around all your products. What is your take on all of this? As well as how do you think I can change to improve?

On eBay, the more you sell the more you sell. I know that sounds odd but sales makes new buyers feel comfortable in buying as well. If your profit margins can handle it I would drop your price a few dollars cheaper than his. A few pennies will not sway someone to buy from you instead of him but a few dollars sometimes will. Once you have a few sales on your buy it now listing people will be more comfortable buying from you.

What is your feedback number? If his is in the 1,000s and you have 0 then thats your problem right there. Buy a few things to get your feedback above 0.

 

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[mosdef]

If you are selling to people in Europe you will have an advantage over the Chinese sellers. If you are selling to people in the US they will be just as wary of buying from you as they would a Chinese seller. The trick is you can charge a considerably higher price when the customer receives it in a couple days over the 30+ days. If your shipping time is going to be a week or two then you are competing with the Chinese sellers and you cant charge that extra amount.

i see, lets say i can charge 10 dollars more, to be able to provide next day delivery is going to cost me way more than 10 dollar. Prob near 20-30 dollars!

 

[Ecom man]

Hey ecom man, thanks for this thread! Great info and I'm happy to hear you're succeeding.

I am basically house-bound by a medical issue for the time being, and while I do make some money through other ventures, I need to step it up to another level. I have dabbled in E-Commerce already but on a smaller scale and am determined to get something going here.

This may sound silly, but the biggest challenge I've observed thus far is that there are so many possible products and keywords to search. I've searched for office products, home products, etc... but I get 15,000 results for each search (using dhgate and AliExpress). I go page-by-page, often narrowing the price range to my liking, but often times I'll go for 50 pages without seeing anything worthwhile. Just thinking there must be a more efficient way. Another thing I've done is checked out the eBay "top searches" but I feel as if most all items with relative keywords already have saturated markets. I've read the thread but don't recall you speaking to this.

Obviously I am still early in this process, but if you wouldn't mind sharing your approach/mindset as to how you decide what to search, I'd be curious to hear your input.

Thanks!

Best
Hayden

It is honestly just a super time consuming process. That is the barrier to entry is that people give up because it is too "hard". I normally hit a super broad keyword and then narrow it down by price (looking to buy things say $5-$10 each) then I just go through the list looking at each item until I find one that I personally think is cool/ I would use. Once I find one i jump to eBay and see if there are any sellers of the item, any sales of the item, and at what price they sold. If the selling price is a good margin I will see how many are selling a week, month, and year. (Sometimes you can find this and sometimes you cant.) if the product still looks promising i order a sample of 10 or more and then when they come in see what the real data shows.

It doesn't matter how many other people are selling, it matters how many you can sell!

 

[Ecom man]

i see, lets say i can charge 10 dollars more, to be able to provide next day delivery is going to cost me way more than 10 dollar. Prob near 20-30 dollars!

Well then it obviously isn't worth it to buy the product.

 

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[s168]

Mosdef, this is a business like any other business. You buy at one price, add whatever value you can and differentiate yourself, then sell at a profit after cost of sales are deducted.

Even if you find a profitable product, that doesn't mean you'll make profits from these products forever. All it takes is one or two competitors to come along and undercut you and then at some point you'll be asking yourself whether it will be worth stocking this product anymore. I learnt that in my early days selling tutorial products and other lightweight stuff on eBay about 10 years ago. If it's a commodity and you have non-exclusivity, you're at risk.

That's why it isn't easy to find a lot of decent products with great profits that have longevity against the competition in the marketplace. Having said all that, with that extra effort comes rewards for the few who pursue past the point where most just give up in search of something easier. Most people don't want to risk time and money on things, and if you're smart about it, you can manage that risk by doing a bit of research, negotiating with suppliers in a way that incentivises them, controlling spending on samples, and learning lessons along the way. At some point, it'll start to make sense to you.

 

[SkuNK_]

On eBay, the more you sell the more you sell. I know that sounds odd but sales makes new buyers feel comfortable in buying as well. If your profit margins can handle it I would drop your price a few dollars cheaper than his. A few pennies will not sway someone to buy from you instead of him but a few dollars sometimes will. Once you have a few sales on your buy it now listing people will be more comfortable buying from you.

What is your feedback number? If his is in the 1,000s and you have 0 then that's your problem right there. Buy a few things to get your feedback above 0.

Thanks for the quick reply. After I wrote this down I drop my price by a little and to my surprise made 2 sales while I was asleep. Which is AWESOME! Well I don't have 0 But I only have like 30 which is not that different. My item so far is already cheap and the profit margin is only a the cost which is like 6 bux however with all the fees I'm unfortunately left with 4 or so profit. I dropped my price so even less now so profits are lower. I was also pondering rather than making a bigger profit off each item, just sell it cheaper and hopefully sell more in quantity. As well as hopefully if i sell more I'd get more "watchers" on my items.

Your right though the barrier is time consuming and dealing with production, costs, shipping and such but I hope we can all get through it =)

 

[Ecom man]

Thanks for the quick reply. After I wrote this down I drop my price by a little and to my surprise made 2 sales while I was asleep. Which is AWESOME! Well I don't have 0 But I only have like 30 which is not that different. My item so far is already cheap and the profit margin is only a the cost which is like 6 bux however with all the fees I'm unfortunately left with 4 or so profit. I dropped my price so even less now so profits are lower. I was also pondering rather than making a bigger profit off each item, just sell it cheaper and hopefully sell more in quantity. As well as hopefully if i sell more I'd get more "watchers" on my items.

Your right though the barrier is time consuming and dealing with production, costs, shipping and such but I hope we can all get through it =)

Well $4 profit certainly isn't much but at least now you know what your profits can be. Then you just have to decide if it is worth it for $4 or not. But hey on the upside you are making sales and learning!

 

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[SkuNK_]

Well $4 profit certainly isn't much but at least now you know what your profits can be. Then you just have to decide if it is worth it for $4 or not. But hey on the upside you are making sales and learning!

I agree it isn't much but I am learning the difficulties with this business and the obstacles. However seeing the guy selling 30 of these making like 120$ a day off one item isn't bad to start, plus because it's cheap I felt its a good start to get my feet wet as well as startup costs wouldn't cost much.


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[SkuNK_]

I forgot if u mentioned it already but how do u keep track of ur items costs, sales, fees for personal and tax purposes?


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[Ecom man]

I forgot if u mentioned it already but how do u keep track of ur items costs, sales, fees for personal and tax purposes?


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I just use a little ledger type book. I pay for everything i buy with a dedicated credit card so I get a statement every month with all my purchases. Every day when I print shipping labels i figure out my profit for the day. At the end of the month i total my monthly profit and put that on a page in the book. For tax time I had to spend extra time going through paypal statements to completely itemize the expenses (shipping costs, eBay fees, paypal fees) I subtracted all the fees from total yearly sales then subtracted all that I spent to buy the merchandise over the year= total profit.

 

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[crownbjj]

Thanks you so much for all the great details! Its gonna help many of us greatly. Your the best!!

 

[Ecom man]

Thanks you so much for all the great details! Its gonna help many of us greatly. Your the best!!

Glad I can help.

 

[Chazmania]

Not a quitter, but nothing has gone right with any of the 3 products that I've ordered. It's hard to stay positive, especially when I read others comments about how great they're doing.

I don't have a lot of disposable income right now so I have to make every dollar count.

Boo hoo ... I know.

Hang in there bro, there's no doubt you can get past bumps in the road. Just a string of tests from the e-commerce gods to test your resolve. Show them you're here to win. $$$$$$$$$$$$$

 

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[mosdef]

ecom man, how many products are you selling?

 

[Kristof]

Hey guys, just about to order my first product (sample order of about $200) from an Alibaba supplier. Is it normal however that the supplier sends the invoices via email and not through Alibaba? They are also trying to charge me for Paypal fees (5% so more than the real fees actually), is this common practice?

 

[s168]

I don't buy via Alibaba but have you Googled the supplier name, checked their website and contact numbers, checked the Paypal invoice is from a business and not an individual account, checked how many positive feedback they have received recently, how long they've been on Alibaba, checked their prices relative to their competitors, checked their feedback and profiles on other sites like dhgate, etc?

 

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[Kristof]

I don't buy via Alibaba but have you Googled the supplier name, checked their website and contact numbers, checked the Paypal invoice is from a business and not an individual account, checked how many positive feedback they have received recently, how long they've been on Alibaba, checked their prices relative to their competitors, checked their feedback and profiles on other sites like dhgate, etc?

Yeah I have Googled them (no mentions of scams on the first pages). Also checked their AliExpress page as well as Ebay and Amazon accounts (They sell direct to consumers as well) where they have mainly good feedback. They are also a 6 year Gold member on Alibaba, though with only 1 feedback on their profile (positive). Prices are similar to competitors. On the invoice however they ask to pay via PayPal to the email address of the General Manager (it's a trading company).

 

[Ecom man]

ecom man, how many products are you selling?

At any time I have between 10-15 items listed.

 

[Ecom man]

Yeah I have Googled them (no mentions of scams on the first pages). Also checked their AliExpress page as well as Ebay and Amazon accounts (They sell direct to consumers as well) where they have mainly good feedback. They are also a 6 year Gold member on Alibaba, though with only 1 feedback on their profile (positive). Prices are similar to competitors. On the invoice however they ask to pay via PayPal to the email address of the General Manager (it's a trading company).

That seems fine. Just make sure when you pay through Paypal you mark that you are buying something not sending as a gift. That semi protects you from fraud.

 

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[Kristof]

Thanks for the advice!

 

[mosdef]

At any time I have between 10-15 items listed.

simply amazing