[Progress Thread]: An Importing Journey

[Nomad]

Hi friends,

In an effort to keep myself accountable and to share my learnings with the forum I've decided to track my progress here. I read through the importing threads and the excellent write ups over at startupbros.com and decided to give it a shot.

My aim for this venture was to find a product on Alibaba.com which I could bring into the UK to sell for the following reasons:

• Learn about the importing business
• What kind of hurdles/obstacles does a business in this field encounter?
• Learn the process to set up a company (if successful)
• and of course, profit!

Having trawled through the mind boggling number of goods available, I found something which had the following characteristics:

• It is small
• Inexpensive
• Unusual

I contacted about 5 or 6 different suppliers with a template similar to Amail's (thanks!) and got about three replies. In my email I requested a small quantity of samples to test the product and had a few questions about branding/packaging etc.

After some discussion with the remaining suppliers I settled on one who had excellent communication skills and was willing to send me the samples I needed (this is why it is important to contact many, as either their communication is poor or they won't accommodate your needs).

I paid for the samples via PayPal (I also specifically asked about this in the email) and eagerly awaited their arrival :icon_super:

The samples arrived and were pretty good - I gave out a couple free ones to some friends to 'chum the waters' (Chumming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) which resulted in sales from curious people and others who liked the product.

I bought 15 of the products for about $2-3 each and sold them for £5-6 ($7.70-9.30) - A fair profit I thought although similar products are selling for more than this so some more testing is in order.

So since then, I've had a consultation with an accountant about creating a limited company to frame my importing purchases and set up various accounts to receive money/pay import tax etc and been developing a website to sell the product from.

Some observations/questions/takeaways:

• Maybe a product with higher re-sell value would be better (less volume for the same/higher profit)
• Is it better to have a 'generic' company and have the various imported products under this main umbrella or a separate company for each one?
• I have learnt quite a bit about this area just by diving in so any further products I order should be more straight forward the second time around.

I'd be happy to answer any questions except for what the product is - I think the barrier to entry is not that high so I'd rather keep it quiet for the time being; maybe ride the wave then get out (even though it's probably chump change).

Also, I'd be appreciative of any advice of people more experienced than myself.

Thanks.

 

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[Amail]

I'd suggest flying under the radar at first. Stay lean. Don't spend money on business entities until you need to. Be stingey with your profits, keep as much as you can so you can buy more product. Keeping overhead expenses low from the outset not only makes it easier to grow the business, it teaches you good fiscal discipline for when the business is bigger.

Good job - keep it up!