Firstly please forgive my writing, it will probably feel disjointed and abruptly change in subjects.
E-Commerce is something I've wanted to try for a while. Five years ago, when I heard about Alibaba I instantly realized what it could mean for small businesses thought I should try it. But of course I never did and up until a few days ago I had never contacted anyone on Alibaba.
1 key advantage I'm glad I have is(For mindset at least): My stepdad is a serial entrepreneur, so this fastlane stuff has never seemed like magic or impossible. He typically specialized in eCommerce and imports things from China. He usually has more capital and uses loans however.
Before trying this things I have tried are (I use tried very loosely). If you can get any of the ideas to work for you go ahead. If I didn't execute and you can, that's my fault.
1. PC Repair delivery - Essentially I would offer a few services on my semi-limited knowledge of computer repair. My only real knowledge was spyware and virus removal, my Unique Selling Proposition was I would come to where you were, fix it and deliver it back to you. It still is a cool idea, but I was working fulltime to make ends meet and couldn't swing it. I also did really not want to do it. I posted to craigslist and someone tried to scam me from somewhere in Africa. It's cool I strung them along for about a week or two and wasted their time.
In my mind it violated the commandments of:
Need: My entire game plan was to compete on price. If that's all I had to offer, it probably wasn't needed.
Entry: I threw up a site in a few hours, and had very little knowledge of computers to actually repair.
Time: It would be a phenomenal waste of time trying to do a bunch of different tasks I could barely do or scouring google trying to figure it out. mistake was I like computers so "Hey I should do what I love, I love computers, Let's repair computers". No. Just. No.
2. Paralysis Analysis - I read all about importing, signed up for a mid quality course, read the StartupBros blog posts, downloaded a few books, watched a lot of YouTube, and got a few books on Kindle. What ended up happening is I researched for about 2-3 months on Alibaba looking for the perfect product. <sarcasm> Surprisingly I couldn't find this magic product. </sarcasm>
I vacillated between selling on Amazon, EBay, my own store, in flea markets of a product I didn't have nor had a clue of. Was thinking 8 steps ahead and not on the step that I needed to.
3. Internet Marketing - I read a lot of books and blogs about Internet Marketing. To make a long story short I only was really learning it to hock shoddy clickbank products on anyone I could drive to my site. I could never drive anyone to my site anyway because a) I never did any off page SEO for reason b) I was looking for the site to just have hundreds of visits a month with no particular work on my part. I also had no clue about the niche "blogs" I started(Only made 1 blog post or two per each) nor really cared to know. Did not give a damn about my customers at all.
I could never get any of it off the ground.
I'd like to tell myself that I have a hard time promoting bullshit to other people. It was probably laziness.
During this time I read lots of marketing blogs and books. So it was at least not a 100% waste of time.
Now - I finally have decided to act upon the knowledge I gained during my 2 period. And honestly I knew pretty much every theoretical thing about importing 1.5 years ago. Any thread I read here gives me a bit of new information, but most of it is reinforcing what I knew.
Actually about 4 months ago I made my first purchase with the intent to resale. It was selling on Ebay for about 25 dollars. I ordered 20 from Aliexpress. 20 days later they were selling for 4 dollars or less from US shipping addresses with free shipping. The product was a cheap glasses case.
Recently I ordered some Chinese branded cheap watches from Aliexpress with the intent of also reselling. My plan was to have a website and sell them there. The watches just got here yesterday, but before they arrived I ran a small test. I threw up some copy and pictures from a few Chinese watch companies. After that I started a PPC campaign on Google Adwords and PLA. I put my maximum bid as then most I was willing to pay for a click based on a conversion rate of about 2%. What I learned was the market was not interested in my price from my PLA listing. I learned from my adwords campaign that either people wanted to buy that brand from Amazon for much cheaper or my USP (90 day guarantee and free shipping) was weak.
I may sell them on Amazon at cost at some point and make some money back.
I also ordered another product from Alibaba Wholesale with the intent of testing the Ebay market place and giving a generic brand my own brand. Upon reading through Vigilante's thread I decided I probably won't go down this avenue, because there are three main competitors who are way ahead. Two having their products in stores already. One having a good brand story and USP. The other leading brand having a the USP of having cool looking designs(Though so does the other).
But if my tests work at a price I can deal with, I may give it go. But have to test first.
I also contacted another seller directly on Alibaba. Asking about getting samples for a product that seems to have no real competition in the US. Hopefully all goes well with it and Ill brand it and sell it.
My plan for the moment
Stop wasting about $100-150 a month on F*ckery and devote that to product testing.
One question I have for anyone who happens to read this thread.
I have a degree in Engineering from 2 years ago, but I have a low paying job and have never been hired in engineering(I used the resume blast approach, didn't work, never networked in college). I now work a desk job after searching for quite a while.
If I had a job in engineering I could get paid significantly more, and have a lot of extra money for testing.
But I probably would have a lot less time to read at an engineering job. I can spend about 80% of my time at work now reading threads here and researching products.
P.S. I also thought I'd throw up this link to my Profit Desired calculator I made for excel. Its not pretty but it has been helping me get a feel on if a product is worth bringing in and at what price.
Profit Desired Calculator
E-Commerce is something I've wanted to try for a while. Five years ago, when I heard about Alibaba I instantly realized what it could mean for small businesses thought I should try it. But of course I never did and up until a few days ago I had never contacted anyone on Alibaba.
1 key advantage I'm glad I have is(For mindset at least): My stepdad is a serial entrepreneur, so this fastlane stuff has never seemed like magic or impossible. He typically specialized in eCommerce and imports things from China. He usually has more capital and uses loans however.
Before trying this things I have tried are (I use tried very loosely). If you can get any of the ideas to work for you go ahead. If I didn't execute and you can, that's my fault.
1. PC Repair delivery - Essentially I would offer a few services on my semi-limited knowledge of computer repair. My only real knowledge was spyware and virus removal, my Unique Selling Proposition was I would come to where you were, fix it and deliver it back to you. It still is a cool idea, but I was working fulltime to make ends meet and couldn't swing it. I also did really not want to do it. I posted to craigslist and someone tried to scam me from somewhere in Africa. It's cool I strung them along for about a week or two and wasted their time.
In my mind it violated the commandments of:
Need: My entire game plan was to compete on price. If that's all I had to offer, it probably wasn't needed.
Entry: I threw up a site in a few hours, and had very little knowledge of computers to actually repair.
Time: It would be a phenomenal waste of time trying to do a bunch of different tasks I could barely do or scouring google trying to figure it out. mistake was I like computers so "Hey I should do what I love, I love computers, Let's repair computers". No. Just. No.
2. Paralysis Analysis - I read all about importing, signed up for a mid quality course, read the StartupBros blog posts, downloaded a few books, watched a lot of YouTube, and got a few books on Kindle. What ended up happening is I researched for about 2-3 months on Alibaba looking for the perfect product. <sarcasm> Surprisingly I couldn't find this magic product. </sarcasm>
I vacillated between selling on Amazon, EBay, my own store, in flea markets of a product I didn't have nor had a clue of. Was thinking 8 steps ahead and not on the step that I needed to.
3. Internet Marketing - I read a lot of books and blogs about Internet Marketing. To make a long story short I only was really learning it to hock shoddy clickbank products on anyone I could drive to my site. I could never drive anyone to my site anyway because a) I never did any off page SEO for reason b) I was looking for the site to just have hundreds of visits a month with no particular work on my part. I also had no clue about the niche "blogs" I started(Only made 1 blog post or two per each) nor really cared to know. Did not give a damn about my customers at all.
I could never get any of it off the ground.
I'd like to tell myself that I have a hard time promoting bullshit to other people. It was probably laziness.
During this time I read lots of marketing blogs and books. So it was at least not a 100% waste of time.
Now - I finally have decided to act upon the knowledge I gained during my 2 period. And honestly I knew pretty much every theoretical thing about importing 1.5 years ago. Any thread I read here gives me a bit of new information, but most of it is reinforcing what I knew.
Actually about 4 months ago I made my first purchase with the intent to resale. It was selling on Ebay for about 25 dollars. I ordered 20 from Aliexpress. 20 days later they were selling for 4 dollars or less from US shipping addresses with free shipping. The product was a cheap glasses case.
Recently I ordered some Chinese branded cheap watches from Aliexpress with the intent of also reselling. My plan was to have a website and sell them there. The watches just got here yesterday, but before they arrived I ran a small test. I threw up some copy and pictures from a few Chinese watch companies. After that I started a PPC campaign on Google Adwords and PLA. I put my maximum bid as then most I was willing to pay for a click based on a conversion rate of about 2%. What I learned was the market was not interested in my price from my PLA listing. I learned from my adwords campaign that either people wanted to buy that brand from Amazon for much cheaper or my USP (90 day guarantee and free shipping) was weak.
I may sell them on Amazon at cost at some point and make some money back.
I also ordered another product from Alibaba Wholesale with the intent of testing the Ebay market place and giving a generic brand my own brand. Upon reading through Vigilante's thread I decided I probably won't go down this avenue, because there are three main competitors who are way ahead. Two having their products in stores already. One having a good brand story and USP. The other leading brand having a the USP of having cool looking designs(Though so does the other).
But if my tests work at a price I can deal with, I may give it go. But have to test first.
I also contacted another seller directly on Alibaba. Asking about getting samples for a product that seems to have no real competition in the US. Hopefully all goes well with it and Ill brand it and sell it.
My plan for the moment
Stop wasting about $100-150 a month on F*ckery and devote that to product testing.
One question I have for anyone who happens to read this thread.
I have a degree in Engineering from 2 years ago, but I have a low paying job and have never been hired in engineering(I used the resume blast approach, didn't work, never networked in college). I now work a desk job after searching for quite a while.
If I had a job in engineering I could get paid significantly more, and have a lot of extra money for testing.
But I probably would have a lot less time to read at an engineering job. I can spend about 80% of my time at work now reading threads here and researching products.
P.S. I also thought I'd throw up this link to my Profit Desired calculator I made for excel. Its not pretty but it has been helping me get a feel on if a product is worth bringing in and at what price.
Profit Desired Calculator
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