How To Test Your Market And Generate Sales Before Importing From China

[gulp86]

I've been reading a lot about importing from China to resell in your local market via ecommerce.
I think I found a specific product that has potential within a specific electronics niche.

How would I test the product in my market before importing the minimum order from China? (100 units).

This is what i thought so far: finding sellers of the same product i want to import and offer them a dropshipping relationship --> already tried this, they didnt like the idea, they wanted me to make sales first and then buy from them to fullfill the orders so im thinking of doing that.

Im not looking to make a profit, just to break even or even lose a little bit of money on every sale to acquire the data i need.

Side note: i dont sell on ebay type of sites, i do mainly PPC, both search and display (i would price the product 65% higher than the ebay price). I was thnking about offering a help-thread about PPC, but then found Eskil thread which is great.

Thoughts?

 

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[brycer9]

Did you tell your distributor that you are a new store and ask them if you could have one sample or a smaller mimimum order quantity for the first order?

this is what i did

 

[Talisman]

Well you're going to have to (read: you should) get some samples, even before the small order. That doesn't mean it has to be a sample of 1. Get 5, or 10. Keep one to break/test/play with, and flog the rest. If they say they only sell 1 sample that's BS, you're paying through the nose for the first sample, in shipping, anyway - so you might as well pull in more than 1. I usually get 3-5 samples, that way I can do a mini consistency/quality check, and check sale-ability.

 

[gulp86]

I didnt try to ask for more than 1 sample but here is my point:

There are big hussles around importing in my country, thats why Im trying to come up with a plan that allows me to gather some real world sales data before commiting myself to solve all the importing burocracy crap and get it done.

Otherwise why would I do all that stuff first and wait for the huge delivery time of the 3-5 samples before even proving that:

1) There is an active market for the product
2) I can generate consistent sales on a profitable way (assuming importing numbers).

Please keep the feedback coming and thanks everyone.

 

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[brycer9]

you have to take some risk as a business owner.

otherwise,
1. show your market a picture of the product/tell them about it
2. ask them if they would buy it
3. ask them how much they would pay for it
4. get leads

or set up a website or some type of landing page that talks about your product, and make it look like you have the product. then send people to this page. when it comes time for them to order, tell them you dont have the product yet

this way you know if people will buy it

 

[gulp86]

or set up a website or some type of landing page that talks about your product, and make it look like you have the product. then send people to this page. when it comes time for them to order, tell them you dont have the product yet

this way you know if people will buy it

I respectfully disagree with what you are saying here. The only real way of knowing they would buy is letting them actually buy (not just clicking a buy button).

What do you think brycer9 about using another seller as my source to fullfill a couple of orders (15-20) just to be able to see if i can make some real sales without having to go through the importing hussle?

 

[brycer9]

gulp: i was implying that you can look at google analytics and see if people go to the last order page. that way you know if they are going to buy or not

thats your choice but id go for it

 

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[Bruce]

I respectfully disagree with what you are saying here. The only real way of knowing they would buy is letting them actually buy (not just clicking a buy button).

What do you think brycer9 about using another seller as my source to fullfill a couple of orders (15-20) just to be able to see if i can make some real sales without having to go through the importing hussle?

Bryce is telling you setup a store just as you would if you had the products. Except when they check out and are right about to pay you, say you're on backorder or out of stock.

I can't think of any other way how you can verify someone's commitment to buy something other than having them press "Pay Now".

 

[gulp86]

I can't think of any other way how you can verify someone's commitment to buy something other than having them press "Pay Now".

Thank you again for your post, as you know cart abandondement is something natural to any ecommerce process, only a small % of people that click buy end up actually paying, but i get the idea.

One of the other reasons why I thought about sourcing my product from a competitor is that I would not be losing money on any of those "fake" sales becuase i would be at least recovering the investment or cost-per-sale.

Question for those of you who already started and are running proftable ecommerce stores: when you were analysing product/market fit, did you start directly by importing the MOQ? or did you just order 1-3 samples and had success at selling those and then decided to order the MOQ?

 

[100k]

Why not do a few sales as a drop shipper and see.

 

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[gulp86]

Why not do a few sales as a drop shipper and see.

Beucase it takes 30+ days for the product to arrive to the customer's address and that would kill conversions since i have to be explicit about that in the slaespage

 

[healthstatus]

Can you buy a dozen off of ebay to get started with?

 

[million$$$smile]

Im not looking to make a profit, just to break even or even lose a little bit of money on every sale to acquire the data i need.

Sounds like you need to just bite the bullet and buy retail and test for the data you need. Sell it online and figure out what works and what doesn't.

It usually takes some money to figure out how to make money...

Spend a little...

Randall

 

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[gulp86]

Sounds like you need to just bite the bullet and buy retail and test for the data you need. Sell it online and figure out what works and what doesn't.

It usually takes some money to figure out how to make money...

Spend a little...

Randall

Yea, coming from an affiliate marketing and paid traffic background, im used to spend money to make money but I was wondering if this is the right path, the one those who are already running profitable ecommerce biz ran at first.

It doesnt make sense (to me) to import 50 pieces just to see if you can sell them online, neither makes sense to me to buy a couple samples and see if you can sell them becuase its too low.

On the other hand, dropshipping is simply a pain in the a$$ for the seller and the customer becuase of the delay between purchase time and time of arrival.

The only logical thing to do for me is to buy one on one retail to fullfill orders until I have the numbers to prove I can generate consistent sales.

Thanks to all