Most of you probably don’t know this, but one of the very first profitable businesses I ran was an importing company. From the age of 13 til the age of 16, I imported a whole bunch of random stuff and sold it on various websites. It was really difficult when I was getting started, partially due to my lack of experience, and partially due to the fact that there was nobody there to help me.
My friend Devan Earle is thinking about getting into the import arbitrage business and mentioned it to me last night.
A couple hundred dollars worth of imports…
Our conversation got so in depth that I decided to turn it into a blog post.
So this is basically going to be an A-Z guide on what I would do, step by step, if I was going to start over again at importing products from Asia and selling them online. I’ll also include some insights on what made me choose these steps. If you plan on trying this out, I would suggest bookmarking this blog post and referencing it in the future. I am planning on it being a complete guide and will be continually adding to it based on questions I get from readers.
I encourage you to go through step by step and not jump around, as I put it in this order for a specific reason. This is the order I would do things in, and the order that I learned them in.
I will also tell you the story of my rise and fall in the importing industry – or at least the interesting parts 
Note – I have since written a follow up to this post called “Step-by-Step Guide on How To Find A Profitable Product To Sell”
Knowing What to Avoid and the Basics
Don’t be like this guy…
You have to understand going into this business that it is a risky one. Dealing with Asian businesses is very, very different than dealing with American ones. If you go into this not knowing that there is a lot of risk involved, you will probably end up with $1,000 worth of iPhone 2 knockoffs in your garage, or $1,000 worth of nothing at all…
That being said – if you are careful, understand what you’re doing, and know what to avoid, you can make a KILLING with a relatively small amount of work.
Understand what you are doing
As with any other project you are trying, make sure you have a really clear understanding of what you’re going to be doing before going into it. Like I said above, if you aren’t careful, it is really easy to end up with a hilariously absurd amount of worthless product you will never sell. I still have a box of worthless imported crap I was never able to sell, I should probably throw that out…
What you are trying to do here is this -
- Find a good product – I always hate when this is the first step of something I am reading, but unfortunately it is here too. Luckily, picking niches for this is pretty easy and quick, and doesnt involve pouring through monotonous keyword data.
- Find a good supplier – There are a handful of great suppliers in every niche. It really takes some digging to find them (along with a little luck), but there are some things you can do to make sure you avoid the scams and increase your odds at finding an awesome supplier.
- Sell and build – After you have a good product, and a good supplier, you just have to start selling it. If it were me, I would leverage existing sales channels (eBay, Amazon, etc) to both sell my product, and build up my own recurring customer base. So that is what I am going to focus on.
Things not to do
- Don’t buy in bulk from a factory until you have their samples in your hands and you LOVE them.
- Don’t let any supplier convince you they can’t ship single samples, they are trying to scam you.
- Don’t pay with any other method but PayPal for the first 6 months with your supplier. This eliminates a ton of risk.
- Don’t buy from a company that won’t accept PayPal. What it really means is that they had a PayPal, and it was shut down due to complaints.
- Don’t buy counterfeit crap. Not that there isn’t money to be made there, it is just a bad business to build.
- Don’t buy a lot of inventory in the beginning. I started off buying 1-5 units at a time until I built up the money to reinvest into inventory.
- Don’t give these suppliers your personal email. The email will be effectively nuked and unusable for years, trust me…
Step 1 – Finding a Good Product and Potential Suppliers
This is really going to be the most important part of all of this. This is where you find the opportunities and start developing relationships.
I will tell you how to find good products and good suppliers, but first let me tell you how I initially broke through and succeeded with this method.
When I first got started, I went right to counterfeit purses, shoes, and P90x’s. I made a KILLING selling these through Craigslist, Amazon, and eBay, but quickly decided to get away from them. I didn’t want to build a business on foundations of questionable legality, and you shouldn’t either. I handed these businesses off to my friends – one of which made something like $60,000 in 3 months JUST selling P90x’s on Craigslist and hand delivering them around NYC.
The other friend was making around the same amount with shirts and shoes, but got cocky and soon found all of the trademark owners coming after him (like coming to his house in black tinted cars watching him and his family after him). He ended up paying out a sizable settlement, right around the industry standard of 3x earnings. Needless to say, he had to liquidate all the fancy toys he bought with his earnings.
And that is why you should avoid counterfeit designer crap. I won’t say it won’t make you money, because I know it will. But it is like dealing drugs, you are building a business that is contrary to the law, and it will end up biting you. Bad…
After I got out of that market, I found I could source competitive Katana swords and sell them on eBay for an unreasonable markup. However, I soon figured out that high ticket items required a lot more capital and are inherently riskier to sell after getting a few returns and bad shipments, so I got out of that and into knives, airsoft guns, mace, and other self defense equipment. I found there was profit to be made on these when looking around for places to sell my swords.
Airsoft guns quickly became my bread and butter. Right after I found my supplier I listed on eBay and immediately started selling 15-30 airsoft guns a day, easily undercutting all my competition and still coming away with a clean $10-20 profit per sale. And best of all, I didnt even touch the product after a while. I finally found an AWESOME supplier who handled all the returns for me with no questions asked, gave me a generous payment structure, and handled all shipping. It was a dream supplier.
Your goal is to find a dream supplier for ANY product you are making money on, because then you can focus on growing the sales of your business rather than on customer service and shipping.
It isn’t easy, but if you follow my advice below you will greatly increase your odds of finding a great supplier and product.
Where and how to find suppliers
Your best friend in the importing business is AliBaba. I have used it for every single product I have ever imported. I use it for my own businesses, I use it for clients, and I know a ton of people that use it. It is an awesome resource.
Don’t fall into the traps of Doba, WorldWideBrand, Volusion, or whatever other scam solutions are out there to find suppliers. I made the mistake of trying all of these when I first got started, and just ended up wasting hundreds of dollars for little to no value. Just stay away from these, trust me.
With AliBaba, you will be looking at only Gold members. I don’t care how awesome of a deal you get from a non-gold member, or how many factory certifications they have, you DON’T buy from non-gold members. Just following this rule will help you to avoid 98% of the scams and bad suppliers. Any other certifications or whatever are just icing on the cake.
You really want to find a supplier that will do cheap samples, offers PayPal payments (even at an increased rate, use PayPal), and seems to respond to your communications quickly and effectively.
Open up AliBaba for now, as you will be jumping back to it frequently while researching product to know if you can make a profit.
Where and how to find products
There are a few limits on what kinds of items you want to sell -
- It needs to be small and light - Trust me on this, you don’t want to deal with the headaches that come with shipping furniture or kitchen appliances around the world. You want something that is going to be cheap to ship around, because shipping is going to eat your profit margins alive.
- It needs to be a simple item - What I mean by this is you want something that is simple to manufacture and has a relatively high margin of error. Most of these factories are not going to have the highest quality standards in the world, so the greater the margin of error you can put up with while keeping your customers happy the better. Competitive katana swords did not have a great margin for error before customers started noticing, as they were vigorously slicing sh*t with them all day (slicing rolled up Tatami Mats to be specific).
- Keep it in the $10-200 range - In my experience, it becomes very capital intensive and much riskier if you are selling items any higher than this. Higher ticket items are usually harder to ship, require higher quality control, and really magnify your mistakes when first starting out in importing. I have yet to find success outside of that price range, so I cant suggest you take any chances in it, but of course use your own judgement.
- Don’t sell what you buy - Devan made a great point when I was speaking with him that you can’t sell items that you buy. Most of us buy electronics, clothes, food, and other essentials. I can tell you right now that you are not going to compete in any of those markets. You really have to niche down in this and find a nice little nook for you to sit in.
- Don’t go seasonal - You want to find items that have a consistent base of buyers. I am sure there is a bunch of money to be made in selling Christmas stuff and winter clothes from Asia, but it is going to be extremely seasonal, and you are probably going to end up with a ton of worthless inventory.
What I would do is go onto a few sites and browse around -
- Alibaba – You should have this open already, but I often look around AliBaba to see what items are being promoted and check around the sites below to see what kind of margins I could get. For instance, right now there is a 4 year Gold company (online now!) selling LED Light Bulbs for $2.65/unit. Even better, they do Escrow, and have onsite inspections from Alibaba. I can quickly go over to Amazon and see these same bulbs selling for $9.50 – 11.99, a VERY healthy margin! And that’s just the first thing I looked at! There is a niche right there.
- eBay – Check out the completed listings on eBay to see what kind of prices you can consistently sell items for. I often use eBay auction descriptions also to gain some knowledge on a product if I see it is the exact same. Prices are the main thing here though, you get a really reliable indicator of demand. You have to click on the side bar menu to get to completed listings, here is a picture.
- Amazon – I go to this page and check out all of the different tabs for “Movers & Shakers” and whatnot. I click around the categories and drill down to find things I think may not have a lot of importers in already. Again, typically weird items, like LED bulbs, skateboard parts, and katanas do well, so I try to find weird things that catch my eye and compare them against stuff on Alibaba.
- Other tools – mySimon Top Searches, Shopzilla Top Searches, Kaboodle Hot Picks
Indentify & Mail Key Suppliers
Now that we have a product, we can start sorting through suppliers and contacting the ones that look promising.
All I would do is -
- Search for LED light bulb in Alibaba with the correct filters – You should have already been doing this before to check your product costs in the previous steps. At this point though, we want to switch to searching for “Suppliers” rather than “Products”, as seen in the picture below. I typically start with filtering by “Gold Supplier” and adding “Onsite Checked”, “Assessed Supplier”, and “Escrow” in that order until I am down to 20-30 suppliers. If there are still a ton, that is fine. Just try to find some way to narrow it down to the very best and take the 20-30 top ones.
- Contact the good ones – Now that you have a list of the prime suppliers for your product, you want to contact them and get some additional information. I usually just ask about their MOQ (Minumum Order Quantity), payment and shipping policies, sample policy, and a price list or product spec sheet. They usually have all of this on hand. IMPORTANT – Don’t use your personal email for this stuff, as it will be spammed into oblivion for years! Asia is not quite as serious about their emails as we are
- Converse, get a feel for things - Now see who messages you back and how serious it seems they are taking your business. Keep in mind that they are competing for your business at this point, and have no idea if you are looking to put in a $100 order or a $10,000 order. Their customer service at this point is a good indicator of where it will be in the future. Don’t be afraid to haggle and engaging in some price warring, they are much more used to that in China. It isn’t uncommon to see an item start at $200 and be sold for $20 in a Chinese tourist market. I could write a whole post on price negotiation, but the main thing with this is you have to low-ball your first counter offer to anchor the price possibility window at a lower level. You should get by fine with that.
- Samples! – Ah, finally….the fun part! Now we get to put in some small orders to get samples shipped directly to us. I usually get samples from 2-5 suppliers I am considering, but never just one. SERIOUSLY go over these samples when you get them. Also take note of shipping times, costs, damage, etc. Put the items through some stress, check every last nook and cranny of them. Think about how customers will be using them and push the item harder. You need something that is going to stand up if you are going to put your name behind it, so find something to be proud about selling.
The minimum order they list is generally not concrete, and is most of the time their average or desired order size. There is no way to know for sure without messaging the suppliers directly, which is why I go for 15-30 initially.
In my experience, Chinese factories will go through many hoops to work with you on order sizes, unless they are a MASSIVE factory that only ships via sea. If they use normal air shipping at all, they shouldnt mind sending out even a single item via air (which is what they do with samples anyways).
Again, with some items it will be different than other. For instance I looked into selling LED lighting that attaches to the sides of buildings, and the margins looked great, but the MOQ ended up being somewhere around $5,000 of lights due to the purpose of the item (to run down entire high rise buildings). I skipped over that one.
Another option is AliExpress.com, Alibaba’s site for smaller orders. You will generally get better prices for the same amount on Alibaba if you are willing to put in the effort to communicate with suppliers, but AliExpress is always an option.
Step 2 – Selling Your Product Through Existing Sales Channels
Step 3 – SCALE!
After I had my airsoft guns up on eBay and Amazon, all I had to do was keep track of inventory and shipping. Being 15 at this time, I was ecstatic.
I slowly started to add more products to eBay and Amazon, started sending out promotional materials with my shipments, began advertising, and started a brand name behind my business. My 20 order per day average quickly swelled to 30, 40, 50 sales per day.
Keep in mind that NONE of this would be possible if I didn’t find an awesome supplier in the first place. If you’re reading REALLY closely you’ll notice that I was 15 now, and it took a full 2 years of many mistakes and marginal success before I got to this point. Hopefully from reading this article, you can skip most of those mistakes and get right to the success.
I didn’t really know what I was doing and was kind of just throwing money at things and seeing what works. It was an awesome learning experience for me, and I learned a ton about what works and what doesn’t work in marketing and growing online sales.
Here is the stuff that I did to scale up my sales that will probably work for you -
- Advertising with Amazon and eBay – I always made a solid return with these advertising programs, specifically Amazon.
- Listing yourself on other sales channels – I eventually made an eCommerce store so that my products could be listen through the primitive versions of Google Shopping, Bing Shopping, and every other shopping venue I could find online. If I could put my items up and sell through them, I did. And each new channel gave me a little bit of growth for free.
- Brand yourself – The days of branding yourself as “GreatAirsoftCompany.com” are long gone. You have to find a good brand name that resonates with the crowd you are selling to, and it will exponentially reward you over time. You can read this post to see how I decide on brand names.
- Aim for recurring revenue – I started seeing solid growth from including coupons and promotional materials in each shipment. Eventually, I set up an email and SMS subscription that would send them deals and updates on airsoft items. I also set up a monthly subscription for airsoft pellets, which I couldn’t sell on eBay due to very small margins. The key here is to focus on siphoning off buyers from the pre-existing sales channels into your own lists and databases. That way, you can market to them for free on demand, rather than having no way to contact them after their first order.
- PPC Advertising – Advertising outside of where I was selling never worked for me very well on this, however I was also very young and didn’t know much about running PPC campaigns. If you are already good with PPC, then try it. If not, I wouldnt even try until you have some money to lose.
- Social Media – Just isnt going to work for importing. MAYBE you can find a way to do this if you are a really, really good social media marketer, but 99% of people are not going to get any sales from social media with this.
- Pretty much anything I didn’t mention above – If I didn’t mention it above, I didn’t make enough money with it to remember it. I would stick to just the things I know work, which are littered all over this article.
- Negotiate better terms with your supplier – Once my supplier knows I am a valuable contact who will make him solid, easy money day in and day out, I am his golden boy. Now you can start to negotiate prices and shipping terms. I usually try to get some price cuts, but my main thing is getting the factory to drop ship (generally through a US office or distributor). If the factory can ship to my customers for me and handle returns, my business is next to automated. This is where I got with the airsoft stuff, and I loved it. A true “4 Hour Workweek“.
- Start outsourcing the processes – If you cant get your factory to drop ship to customers for you, you are going to want to get rid of that aspect of your business somehow. You will be making enough money by now to hire somebody to do the shipping for you locally. Try to get somebody local (a friend or family member) to start, as it is much easier, safer, and cheaper to manage a friend than an employee. Hire a VA to send the orders to your friend, keep your listings running smoothly, respond to customers immediately, and order inventory.
The Fall of My Empire
At this point, there was very little that could go wrong. Short of some horrible unforeseen event taking place, I had a steady stream of automated income coming in – one of the first ones I had ever built.
Then there was a horrible unforeseen event…
I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but the Chinese ports suddenly stopped shipping airsoft guns out. For over 3 months, I couldnt get any airsoft guns out of China.
I know it was more than 3 months, because that is when I was forced to throw in the towel.
I searched around for a replacement supplier from anywhere I could, but the prices had just skyrocketed. On top of that, I had a bunch of orders I couldn’t fill and angry customers…
With many new projects sprouting up, and being only 16 at the time, I refunded everybody and moved on…
I did make enough money to invest elsewhere, most of which was lost on other ventures. I learned more than I did in my entire schooling career with this business, and I hope I communicated everything well enough to expedite your learning curve.
The only thing to do now, if you haven’t been this entire time already, is TAKE ACTION! If this strategy intrigues you, get out there and at least try to put this stuff into action. Make it happen!
Please comment below if you have any problems, questions, or suggestions with any part of this – I will be responding to everything immediately for the next couple of days.
Good luck, and talk to you below!
Note – I have since written a follow up to this post called “Step-by-Step Guide on How To Find A Profitable Product To Sell”
292 comments… add one
Amazing article! Really enjoyed it, thanks a lot
Glad you enjoyed it Lamine, thanks for reading!
Really enjoyed the article. Thanks for your insight!
Thanks a lot Matt!
Hey awsome article! I have a few questions.
1. How could you tell if a product is really selling on ebay? Is there a history somewhere or are you just using common sense?
2. You suggest in the begging looking for suppliers who will sell only 5-10 products. It seems a lot of suppliers have very large minimums. Are we just looking for the gems? Or am I missing some sort of haggling thing?
Again thank you for sharing your experience! I wish more people were like you.
- Z
Hey Zak –
1. I should add a picture in the blog post, but in eBay there is an option to only view completed listings. Then you can quickly go through and see which products are selling at what prices, and at what price they stop selling, as well as frequency.
2. I answered this for somebody else on Reddit, so I am just going to paste that response here if it is alright –
“The minimum order they list is generally not concrete, and is most of the time their average or desired order size. There is no way to know for sure without messaging the suppliers directly, which is why I go for 15-30 initially.
In my experience, Chinese factories will go through many hoops to work with you on order sizes, unless they are a MASSIVE factory that only ships via sea. If they use normal air shipping at all, they shouldnt mind sending out even a single item via air (which is what they do with samples anyways).
Again, with some items it will be different than other. For instance I looked into selling LED lighting that attaches to the sides of buildings, and the margins looked great, but the MOQ ended up being somewhere around $5,000 of lights due to the purpose of the item (to run down entire high rise buildings). I skipped over that one.
Another option is AliExpress.com, Alibaba’s site for smaller orders. You will generally get better prices for the same amount on Alibaba if you are willing to put in the effort to communicate with suppliers, but AliExpress is always an option.”
Thanks a lot for reading Zak, and let me know if there are any other questions you have!
I really enjoyed the article. What was your experience with getting the merchandise through customs? Were your orders always by air or did you dabble with larger container shipments?
Thanks a lot for reading Alex. I never had much trouble with customs (until they banned airsoft shipments temporarily). The supplier usually dealt with the customs when sending them out, and I only sold domestically after I got it. Any good factory/distributor is going to be going through customs enough to know how to get through smoothly. Even when I was doing the counterfeit goods, I never had an issue with customs (and then there was a real risk of big losses!). I think most Asian suppliers will be able to handle this with no issues for you.
Back in the day I always ordered by air, and never wanted to deal with FOB sea shipments. Really though, it is not too difficult to import a container, you just hire a trucking company at the port to bring it to your warehouse or whatever. Nowadays I import via air and sea depending on the size of the order, and work with clients that ship full containers in regularly. Unloading and storing the product efficiently is usually the bigger problem at this point.
Hope that helps!
So I actually took a step forward last night and found a decent product for a low price, did the comparison on amazon on ebay and found a good margin. When I contacted the company in China, they told me their FOB price was to their port and that I am responsible for paying for the shipping price – understandable. He quoted a fedex rate (~$360) from China to Louisiana (I’m in New Orleans) which added about $6 per piece, which still gains me a margine of about $15 a piece.
Now my question. When using these express carriers, are their quotes typically adding in the customs tariffs? Or will there be another unexpected charge when they arrive in country?
Thanks again!!
-alex
Awesome to hear you are taking action Alex, seems like you are moving quick!
Don’t forget to order some samples before you start buying in bulk. Just make sure they are sending via EMS, TNT, DHL, UPS, FedEx, etc to your house and you shouldnt have any issues. The samples will likely be sent the same way your future orders will be sent, so getting the sample is good to try that out as well.
I haven’t really run into any additional fees when shipping, the supplier has almost always taken care of shipping flawlessly for me. I am sure there may be some exceptions, so I would ask your supplier before they ship. But really, I think you’ll be safe unless you’re importing something really strange, like food or plants or iron ore or something
Keep me updated on your progress, and feel free to hit me up with anything I can do to help you!
Will
I too decided to get the ball rolling…
However I just think there’s more to this.
Last week friend of mine, who is 16, had federal agents at his house because he bought 60 iPhone cases on alibaba and didn’t pay some sort of tax. I’m talking swat team.
I think you just flew under the radar and based on the items you ordered they probably assumed the items were for your personal use.
What do you think?
Hi Paul,
Interesting situation, I’ve never heard of anything like that happening. Other than what I mentioned in the article, but that was due to intellectual property infringement.
I don’t think I flew under the radar or anything, I’ve never heard of anybody getting into any tax issues. Even if you did, it would take quite a bit for the IRS to jump straight to that. Maybe there is more to the story?
Thinking about this a little deeper, I could see this happening if you imported something like food, plants, or something similar. With these you can run into regulatory issues, but I guess this has nothing to do with the IRS. Even so, you would get a letter and possibly interviewed (worst case would be a fine) – can’t imagine the IRS or a SWAT team for anything related with importing (other than the reasons I mentioned).
Will,
Great article. Really cleared up a lot of the questions I had. It makes the process really straight forward from here on out. I guess finding that nice product niche just comes down to some hard work and diligence. Well who woulda thunk?
I guess I still have to remaining points off the top you could address here or in another post. One reservation I have with the above process is I guess it just seems to good to be true – if it’s as simple as finding the right product, won’t other people already have identified the right niche? Maybe I’m just shooting myself in the foot before I get off the ground but I just can’t imagine that there’s so many easy loopholes left to exploit. Or is it just a matter of becoming yet another seller of a popular product? Sure, 29 people already sell fluorescent bulbs to customers in the US over eBay, but since 3000 are bought everyday, some of that business is bound to trickle over to number 30.
Also, why do you think we shouldn’t buy and sell that which interests us? Isn’t the first rule of business sell what you know? Why couldn’t a guy make money off of clothes or small electronics? Surely there’s an exception to this suggestion.
Otherwise keep up the good work. I’d love to see you continue this theme in your posts with even more specific information. You could even try to get back into the game and make some cash and document the whole thing. Make an even more step by step guide (this post is pretty damn good start though.)
Thanks,
Devan
Hey Devan,
Glad you liked the article, I was worried it might have grown too lengthy.
I think you are correct on most of your thoughts about product/niche selection. I had the same reservations when I was getting started with this and honestly I think they really took a toll on how quickly I found success with it. There are products out there, they are just hiding in places nobody thinks of. You basically want to jump back a forth from the “hot product” tools I posted (ebay completed listings, amazon, etc) to Alibaba and see if you can find something with a good $10+ markup. Find a few of these and look around the ebay and amazon listings to see how many sellers there are, how consistent the sellers are, if all the items are being bought up immediately, if most of them are just sitting there with no interest, etc.
If you do this for an hour or two, you should start finding at least a couple products with $10-20 markup potential. When I went and did it how I described it, I found 2 or 3 decent products in the first 20 minutes, so I know there are some still out there.
The reason you can undercut in some markets is because you have no overhead. In airsoft for example, all my competition were running brick-and-mortar stores with inventory and employees and rent and utilities. I was sitting at home in my underwear in front of my computer instead of going to school, and getting the same prices they were (and eventually better). I am sure there are more reasons than this, but I think this is the main one (I’ll probably add this point to the article)
It is also good to find a market like you described, with ultra-high volume and few sellers. Amazon is great for this, and I will probably post soon how I still sell some things like this on Amazon on the side. Easy income really.
I believe that you have to be passionate about your business 110%, totally agree with you there. If you wanted to create a fashion line, you’d better have a hell of a lot of passion, you’ll need that and some more.
However in this specific case, when we are basically engaging in arbitrage, I think it is best to focus almost completely on the margins. The only reason I did this was to make money on the side, and that required me focusing purely on margins.
If you want to start a brand behind your imports though, you definitely want to pick something you love and can do for years to come, and you definitely don’t want to just focus on the margins. My friend Kevin at SKAR Audio technically started out running an import business, but eventually became passionate about it and expanded it out into the SKAR brand, now selling over $100k of product per month. He turned his imports into a real brand and real business, and it required an incredible amount of work and passion. Much more so than me sitting around on my computer
Also, I am sure there are some electronics and especially clothing pieces out there that you can make money on, I just haven’t in the past so I can’t really vouch for them comfortably. I can tell you though, be extra extra careful with electronics, as people get burned in that niche much more than any other.
Great idea on getting back into the game too, maybe I will record a live case study! I love talking with you man, every time we talk we build up some amazingly valuable content and ideas!
Thanks a lot for everything Devan, talk to you later
This article really hit home for me, literally. I work at the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach which are the busiest ports in the USA. I see these ships come and go every day, and I have stood by and worked with containers 1000′s of times. When people ask me, “Do you know what’s in them?” my reply is, “nope.” It’s not my job to know; it’s my job to move them around the yard.
I followed the advice in your article, and I came across a product with a good $10-15 markup. It seems to sell well on Ebay (1-2 a day) and Amazon only has 1 seller. I’m going to continue to follow your advice and go through with it trying to sell it myself, but first I am going to get my hands on some samples.
So awesome to hear you are taking action Raymond, nothing makes me happier. I think you should definitely get some samples on that product, and congratulations on finding a prime product opportunity so quickly. Makes me think I gave decent advice
I would love to help you on your way to success and feature your story on the blog, email me if you are interested!
Either way though, feel free to hit me up in the future with any questions, problems, or concerns.
Congrats again on your initial success!
Dear Sir,
I m very very interested doing anything in anywhere
please give me the chance
Hey Dev,
Thanks for reading. Not sure what you mean by this, could you elaborate a bit?
Wow, excellent article! I’m so inspired right now. I’m a student and business owner already, but I’ve been looking for new business opportunities. I love online retail (my current business is an online vintage store), and I want to suppliment my income with other sources.
I’m really excited to look into this, and your post was incredibly detailed, so that will definitely help in getting started. Many thanks!
Cheers,
Dani
Thanks a lot for the kind words Dani, I am glad you got some value out of it. If you are already running an online store, you will probably find great success with importing. The more you know about getting products up and selling, along with marketing them on the back end for recurring revenue, the more potential the importing opportunity has. Good luck, and please let me know if there is anything I can help with!
I do have one question to start with. When comparing items on Amazon’s best sellers list and Alibaba, is it important to find the same brands? For example, if I found a nail dotting pen by Shany Cosmetics on Amazon, is it important to try to find the same manufacturer on Alibaba? I don’t even know if that is possible (I’m pretty new to Alibaba, so I’m trying to familiarize myself with it). Can I just find a comparable nail dotting pen and try to sell it?
Thanks!
Hey Dani,
It really depends on the product, but it would be prime if you could find the same nail dotting pens that are selling on amazon, because then you can list your items directly on the sellers page for a product that is already selling itself. However, you could easily take a different brand of nail dotting pens and sell them on eBay or any other channel, because you know people are buying a similar item on Amazon. Then it just comes down to positioning your pens well.
In the light bulb example, I found the exact bulbs that were selling for a very healthy markup. That is ideal, but even if it were a different brand, light bulbs are pretty generic and people likely buy all sorts of different kinds all over the place. It would be safe to say I could even make a new listing with new bulbs and spend a small amount on advertising the listings and come away with a very healthy profit.
I hope that answers those questions for you, let me know if you have any other questions.
By the way, read your blog and loved it! Left a comment also
Good luck to you,
Will
Will,
A lot of informative stuff in this article! As far as taxes/tariffs go, did you run into any implications or astronomical expense, or was the burden of taxation borne by the supplier mostly? Also, at what point did you feel comfortable suggesting the product be drop shipped? Ideally, I would like to find a product in the 20-40 USD range that I could realize a pre-tax margin of 75% and also something that is more defensive and less vulnerable to macroeconomiic conditions both domestically and abroad. Any suggestions would greatly be appreciated. Thanks!
Thanks so much for reading Chris.
With the smaller orders (under a pallet’s worth), my suppliers generally shipped by air and most of the importing/shipping expenses were built into my product cost and taken care of by the supplier/shipping company.
I wish I remembered how it exactly came about (I could probably go way back in my emails and find out), but from memory I think I started sending my supplier just straight SKU, quantity, and address for them to tally up and send to me. I was just copy and pasting them from my internal excel spreadsheet I was keeping because I was getting lazy with it. After about a month of that, my supplier mentioned to me that he has a US distributor that they use to ship single orders to customers in the US, and that he could get me set up within that process if I wanted. I of course accepted and my job became a hell of a lot easier.
I also wish I had more advice on how to know when to ask for drop shipping, and maybe I will go back into it and do a live case study or something to find out. But, just speaking from what I know certainly works, I had to develop a great relationship with them before we had the mutual trust built up for that to be a possibility.
As for the products that you are looking for, you are describing a dream products. Not that it is impossible to find, but it is going to take a bit of trial and error and work before you find a perfect product. To meet the specifications you mentioned, I would guess staple items (forks, underwear, lighters, lint rollers, weird stuff like that), maybe some toys (like those big inflatable transparent balls people can get in and run around in on water), and maybe some hobby items (RC airplane parts, RC drift car wheels, etc). Again, it is always going to be some weird product you’d never think of that turns out to be your bread and butter, you really just have to get out there and start looking around. I won’t lie, it takes some time (though much less with this article).
Hope that helps, and dont hesitate to hit me up with additional questions!
Thanks!
interesting article, wrong use of the ‘lazy college senior’ meme
Sorry Rick
I really enjoyed this! But, the end of your blog is a business ending crash! Was it simply because of the product? Or, did the market go away, did the suppliers go away? And, if it was the suppliers, what’s to prevent any other product having the same fate?
Thanks a lot for reading it! I tried to cover it a bit in the article, but what happened to me was kind of a rare fluke. The Chinese and American Customs were having some dispute about weapons and weapon look-a-likes, so airsoft guns got piled into it along with my knives and other things I was selling less of. China started holding all of those at their ports and not letting them go for whatever reason it was (there wasnt much news or anything about this, just people talking within the industry). It ended up being 3-6 months before any of these items were smoothly going through both customs again, and by that time I had lost a lot of the value in what I had built. I could have gone back into it or changed products, but being 16 I decided to do other things
Hope that helps!
Great read thanks a ton,
I’ve been thinking for a while that I should find a way to start importing something (I just felt like that could be good money in it). But, really had no idea where to start. This article was exactly what I needed. Thanks so much. I’m definitely going to be giving this a try. Plan on hearing from me. If I am able to contribute back at all let me know. Thanks.
Hey Chase, thanks a lot for reading. It is awesome to hear you will be taking action on this – feel free to email me any time with anything I can help with. After you are a success, I’d love to feature you on the blog!
Looking forward to hearing from you soon,
Will
Great post, I really enjoyed reading it. I am intrigued that you made a business mainly by building connections over the internet. These are great times we live in.
You spoke about how you look for niche products to sell in the amazon best sellers list. I am wondering if you could expand on that. What criteria do you look for in a potential product? Do you import generic items of brand name popular things?
Thanks for reading Bryan. The internet is an absolutely brilliant tool, great times indeed
I think you can take the product selection any way you’d like. I wish I could be more specific with it, but it is really just an exploration process for me when I do it. I know a friend who makes a ton of money selling generic razor blade replacements, so I know that is a possibility. I’ve also heard people mention they’d found opportunity in skateboard hardware, car floor mats…it is a really diverse group.
I think I will be sending a video of me doing some niche product selection out via email in the next couple of days – look out for that, and feel free to ask any other questions.
Near the end of the article you guys said about automating the sales by having the supplier ship the product directly to the client.
My question is, since they will be sending the products from Asia, wouldn’t it take like a month to arrive to the customers? People can get mad inpatient and start throwing rocks at you.
Hey John,
My supplier had set me up with a US distributor of theirs (I think I mentioned in the article) to drop ship for me. I was working with the supplier for a while before we worked out that arrangement. I tried dropshipping from China very early on, but all packages will arrive with a ton of Chinese on them and take about 6-9 days, so that wasnt an option. You’re exactly right, they did start throwing rocks lol
I have seen some people have success in finding US suppliers from the get go to to dropship for them, but many more have success through small bulk orders at first and building from there. The dropship thing was a great thing I kind of fell into, but it is not easy to find a company that will trust you enough to take your returns and whatnot.
Hope that helps!
Since you bring up the Chinese writing – when you find a product do you specify what you want on the product box/package in terms of language/design/brand/logo/etc? Or do you simply pass on what they have already created?
If you want to customize any aspects of the product, you are going to have to pay extra. Most factories will work with you to build anything you want really, even a completely new product if they can do it, and they will help you with many aspects of it. But, it will cost more, the MOQ will be higher, it will be more complicated, and increasingly so with each customization.
If you are going down that route, you are likely building a brand.
What do you guys think of auctioning imports?
Could you clarify? I’m not sure I understand…
Incredibly well written and informative article. Everyone thinking of starting an import business should read this!
Thanks a lot for reading!
If you did eBay, did you run into any issues with low feedback in the beginning?
For example, if one starts with a fresh email account, does it take long before someone actually buys one of your items?
I ask this because I never buy anything on ebay unless I see lots and lots of good feedback (200+)
It was surprisingly easy to get started with very few feedback, that was one of my concerns though. If you are really worried, you can either a) sell some small things b) buy some stuff or c) buy an account with feedback. I’d recommend them in that order if you find it a problem.
Thanks for reading!
Hey Will,
I have a question for you.
What if I don’t want to sell in Amazon, eBay etc and instead, I want to sell directly to a company let’s say… some kind of office supplies they buy every month or something like that.
How can I find out how much are they currently spending on an item and how much of it are they spending each month, so I can make a proposal?
Best regards,
John Saracena
Hey John
Thanks a lot for taking the time out to read and comment on this.
You can certainly build a good business that way, and many have. To be honest, I don’t have a whole lot of experience in pursuing contracts like this, but I can tell you from marketing that when I first started out I would stalk my competition to find out what they were getting away with charging. If I were going to go into what you are describing, I would probably do a similar thing.
The best way to get pricing knowledge is to call up your top 10 competitors and act like your perfect customer and take notes on how they are selling you. The more deeply you can analyze every single word, the better. Everything down to the lingo, the rebuttals, pricing, customer expectations and service…you can leverage the knowledge of people who have made many mistakes to get to where they are (in terms of what decisions they have made on business processes).
Hope this helps, if not let me know and I can go deeper!
Will
Hey Will,
Brilliant article. You really got me thinking about things and I really appreciate it! The big problem like everyone else is niche hunting. Are there any websites / white papers that you can recommend reading. Don’t mind paying. Cheers
James
Hey James,
Thanks a lot for your kind words, I am really glad to hear you liked it!
I will be putting together a video tonight to further explain the niche selection process. It will be free, I will probably be sending it via email to our email subscribers! Keep on the look out.
I know the feeling, that everybody else is niche hunting. I always felt that before I began finding a few good niches. They are tough to find, but as long as there are more buyers than entrepreneurs I think we can still find great niches. Two or three people have emailed me since writing this with niches I could only dream of coming up with – I am seriously excited and proud for them. One girl found a product she can mark up 1000% right off the bat and has plans to build a brand with custom products and everything – all in one night! Seriously exciting stuff, I know you can do it!
Hit me up if you need any help or anything,
Will
Hi Will,
Did you already send out this video? I just signed up for your mailing list today and didn’t want to miss it.
Thanks!
Hey Bugsey,
Luckily, I have been making everybody wait way too long for that video, so you didn’t miss it yet. Hoping to get it out tonight!
Will
Hi Will,
So in regards to you purchasing the goods from China wholesalers, I’m a little confused. Did you purchase shipments and store them at distributors? Or did you get them to act as drop shippers, where someone would purchase an item and they would ship it? Wouldn’t that make the time delays for the customer getting it too long? If they have to ship from China – one at a time…plus how much would that cost the buyer?? I’ve got a feeling I’ve got the wrong end of the stick!
James
Hey James,
I think I have you under two emails on these comments – but I’ll answer all of them!
By the way, love the Pedal Juice company – great idea.
I started out importing in light bulk, slowly increasing as I made more money. I was just storing and shipping out of my house at the time.
After a certain point it began to be a real burden on me, all the shipping and storage, so I began to search around for some alternative.
I asked my contact at our Chinese supplier if he knew of any options, and he told me that with how long I have been with him and how much product I was moving for them, he would try to work something out. He came back with the drop ship arrangement where their largest distributor in the US would package and ship our items for us, as well as take care of returns. On top of all of that, it was much cheaper this way as we could piggy back on their UPS discounts and bulk shipping.
Like I said in the article, I don’t think that dropshipping is as great as everybody says it is because it is tough to find. You have to develop strong relationships with the suppliers before they go out of their way to help you like that, they need to know you are going to move product and you’re going to move a lot of it, the shipping is just holding you back.
Hope that helps!
Will
Thanks Will,
We have 2.0 version coming hopefully soon
.
I’m liking the readers comments and your replies just as much as the article
.
Great article, i remember my self back in 2004 when i ordered some of the chinese players ( some kinda Ipods) with flash memory of 256MB. I am from eastern europe and by that time this was kinda SF, super new. I sold the 2 players fast. Due to lack of cash i never purchased again. But this is a real business , i will do import more great stuff or will start a dropship business online. Thanks for the info and sharing though.
Thanks a lot for taking the time out to read and comment. The MP3 player market was a huge opportunity in 2004, I remember seeing some people making unreasonable amounts of money. I tried to get in there also, but electronics are a tough market for a 14 year old haha.
Too bad you couldn’t keep going with that, I am sure you would have made some good money. At least now you know that there is money there for the future
Hope to hear from you more in the future,
Will
Hey,
New to your blog and this is a very encouraging article for anyone young “hustler”. Especially in high school or college. I just had a question about Phone number. When you contacted the suppliers via voice. How did you do it?
Hey Daniel, thanks a lot for checking us out.
Glad to hear you found some value in the article. I usually didn’t need a phone number to contact suppliers. In fact, I barely ever even talked to my suppliers. They love skype and email over there.
But if you need voice, like I said they love skype.
Hope that helps, and hope to see more from you in the future!
Thanks,
Will
Let’s say you found a very innovative product. The profit potential is there: $10 – $20 per sale. It’s small. It’s cheap. It has a low minimum order.
However, it’s not currently widely available on either Amazon or Ebay, except in extremely small instances (only one, brand name product available on Amazon). So in other words, there is no proven demand.
What do you do?
That’s either a blowout hit or a dud, it depends on the product. I gotta wonder though – how did you come to the profit potential if it isnt widely available?
Love your site by the way!
Good question. I guesstimated with a significant margin of error.
However, I just finished up a chat with the supplier and turns out I jumped the gun on the interpretation of their description. So it seems that this one is a dud.
Thanks for the compliment. I just use it as a web card. I like the startupbros.com design to! Btw, found you via Reddit!
No worries, keep looking! A lot of redditors have been emailing me telling me about some niches they found that are better than anything I ever found! They are still out there.
I would really like to get a personal site like yours, a web card – gotta add that to my list
Will,
The issue of branding has me stumped, I was hoping you could expand on this. As I search for products being sold on Ebay/Amazon it’s becoming increasingly clear that many of the products that sell are branded products. Is there a trick to finding products that sell without being branded? Maybe certain niches where brand name means less (or nothing at all)? Your LED light example seems to be less reliant on branding, at least on ebay where I’m finding thousands of non branded light bulbs.
Can you tell me would a typical Ebay/Amazon listing for one of your airsoft guns looked like, as an example? What would the description say about the gun? The maker? The supplier?
The alternative to selling a non branded product is, of course, branding your product but my impression is, to do this right, requires a fair amount of extra work. You’d certainly have to create a credible website at the very least and I imagine there would much more to it than simply creating a brand name for yourself. Can you give more detail on this process?
I appreciate any help/insight you might have. Thanks for the article.
Best,
Chris
Hey Chris,
Thanks a lot for taking the time to read and comment!
The reason airsoft guns worked were because nobody cares about the brand. People go on to buy a cool airsoft gun, not look for a brand name airsoft gun. Brand name airsoft guns are a completely separate niche, and I couldnt have dreamed of competing there. You have to find an area where the brand doesnt matter.
My listings would look like this – http://www.ebay.com/itm/ZM51-Spring-Powered-Bolt-Action-Airsoft-Sniper-Rifle-415-FPS-/200812917116?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2ec161f17c
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi Will,
Great article.
1)
I’d like to ask how can one figure out how many units of item X are currently being sold each weak or each month (ball park figure)?
I mean… is there any way you can know, BEFORE entering a market, that there are currently being sold 15-30 airsoft guns (or whatever) each weak ?
I’m interested in knowing or predicting the current volume of sales before choosing a product to sell. Is there a way to do it?
2 )
What about offline… is there any way you can know how many of product X does a certain store or retail chain sell every month?
Thanks!
- Tom
Hi Tom,
Thanks a lot for commenting.
1) I just count how many are sold in a given week on eBay, that will usually let you know the exact amount. Short of that you can watch Amazon pages to see if listings pop up and drop off, but eBay is going to be best for volume predictions as you can see that data. Amazon usually has a “#1,202 in X Category” indicator too, so you can at least compare items with Amazon too.
2) It’s gunna be much tougher to get the offline data for that, at least not without paying for it.
Hope this helps, feel free to ask more!
Will
Wow! Long post! You wrote some fascinating information. I prefer to deal with information products. Actually, I am trying to sell art, but I produce it myself. Perhaps in the future, if I build up, then I’ll start trying to sell physical products like you that I import from overseas. Entrepreneurship is quite a wonderful thing! Thanks for posting this.
Hey Michael,
Thanks for reading. I also love infoproducts, working on creating a few currently
Great luck with your art, unfortunately I don’t have much experience outside of marketing a few musicians.
Love your writings!
Will
Fantastic breakdown of the importing business. There’s a ton of money to be made there, but there’s also some important things you need to watch out for. Thanks for explaining your experience in such a simple way (and pointing out some things others of us may have missed)!
Hey Matt,
Thanks a lot for reading and taking the time to comment, glad you enjoyed the content.
By the way – I loved your article on Twinkies. Just one of the things I am kicking myself over for not getting into this month, including that Powerball Facebook Picture hoax and just buying a Powerball ticket and posting it to client FB pages saying “winnings to be shares with all that share!” or something. Three marketing fumbles in less than a month – and I call myself a marketer?!
Congrats on hitting the top of /r/entrepreneur with it too, I saw you up there at the same time as us!
Hope to hear more from you in the future,
Will
Great read, really appreciate you sharing your experiences and lessons learned.
Does reselling in this manner require time to gain sales volume or is that mainly a factor of the quality of product/supplier you find? Is there a point where you would outgrow Ebay or Amazon or is this not a valid concern?
Thanks a lot for reading and taking the time out to comment Sam.
It takes time, but the first limiting factor is the supplier, and it can be tough the first time. It is really up to you if you want to outgrow those channels, you can build a business completely outside of those using other channels, and also leverage those channels to bring in recurring revenue. It is just if you decide to grow these ways, or just want a good side business.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hey Will,
Great article, thanks for taking the time to lay everything out step by step – you rock! Can you comment on what traditional sample policies entail? One supplier I contacted said the sample is free, I just have to pay $30 shipping. Another said that because they have to make the sample, it would cost $70 ($40 for the sample, $30 for shipping). This seem way out of line, since the unit price they quoted for 100 pcs is $5.50/pc. They did say that the sample price (less shipping) would be credited towards my first order, but still seems like way too much.
Is this normal operating procedure or should I steer clear? (FYI – they are a 1st year Gold Supplier and have had an Onsite Check).
Thanks!
Glenn
Hey Glenn,
Thanks a lot for reading the article and taking the time out to comment.
That is usually how it goes, as it is pretty expensive to fly a box over the pacific. You can check shipping prices yourself on the UPS/EMS websites, but if multiple companies are quoting the same price I would guess that is the correct cost. It does sound like you have two pretty good suppliers to deal with though, it is usually tough to find a factory that gives free samples or credits them towards your next order!
Unfortunately though, single item shipping is a bit expensive from what we are used to seeing here. It gets marginally much cheaper as you ship bigger (like your supplier said)
Hope this helps, and congrats on taking action!
Will
Thanks Will. I’m not so much concerned about the shipping cost – $30 sounds more than reasonable to ship a small box halfway around the world. My bigger concern is with the 2nd supplier, who is basically charging $40 for manufacturing a sample that probably costs them $5 at the most.
Forgot to mention, they also said “We never use paypal, our payment way is westernunion and banktransfer”. Is this a show stopper given that they are a Gold Supplier?
Yea, the factory that doesn’t accept Escrow or PayPal I would avoid. I also don’t like the fact that they are charging $40 for a knife, I didn’t realize that on your first comment. Since they credit it towards future orders, I normally would think they are just trying to give samples only to serious suppliers. But since they aren’t using a payment method that protects the buyer in any way, I would probably avoid…
Hope this helps,
Will
That was incredible. You could make a book with that information or at least a short ebook. Definitely one of the most informative posts I have ever read.
Hey Nikolai, thanks a lot for reading and taking the time out to comment! Funny you mention that – we were just talking about extending it out into a book tonight! Maybe we will
P.S. – Love ThirdMinds!
That’s awesome! Very happy to hear you’re thinking of pushing forward with that idea. A post gushing with so much needed information deserves its own platform. Thanks for the TM love as well!
P.S. Nikolai – Book it is! Sometime this year
Will
Awesome post bro! I have been importing from China for a while and my importing empire is starting to take off now
Hello,
Great article! Couple of questions…
If we aren’t supposed to focus on things that we know and buy, how are we supposed to be able to find a niche that will work aside from just randomly guessing and picking products trying to find something that will work? We are really struggling to find a product that we can make work.
Also, is there any way to estimate shipping costs on products (as in when the factory ships to us)? Without knowing shipping costs it seems like it would be hard to figure out whether a product will work or not.
Thanks!
Hi Bob,
Thanks a lot for reading the article and taking the time out to comment.
I’ll be posting a follow up post tomorrow on niche selection for everybody. If you have issues after that post, email me with more questions and I will help you out!
Thanks,
Will
I’ve been doing a few hours of searching over the past couple days and having trouble finding products, too. I’ve been having trouble finding things that the market isn’t already saturated with. I would think a key is to find a unique value proposition of some sort… bunching products together in a certain way, or branding a line of similar products… but I have been finding many things on Alibaba that are either identical or very similar to a bunch of products on Ebay. Maybe I’m looking at the wrong categories of products?
I am in the middle of writing an awesome Step-by-Step on finding a good product – it should be up by Saturday.
Most of the products I make money on are exactly the same on Alibaba and eBay. I use the pictures and information from my supplier a lot of the time.
Unique packaging or positioning helps, but then you are creating a different type of business than just a simple side importing business.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hey Will,
Great article. It definitely gave me some motivation.
I just have a few questions, I’m new to this, so if any questions seem commonsensical, pardon me.
How did you handle your returns, prior to drop shipping? Would you keep extra stock on hand, in between shipments from oversees, just in case? Also were there points where the cost to return it to China was more than the product, itself, and you just ate your loss? Or would you wait for a couple returns and then ship all at once?
Additionally, did you have to do anything as far as applying for a fictitious business name? This may fall under the branding aspect, but I’m not 100% sure.
Thanks!
George
Hi George,
Thanks a lot for reading and taking the time out to comment. I am glad the article gave you some motivation
Prior to dropshipping I just handled returns myself. People could ship back to me and I would either refund them or send them a new item depending on the situation. So yes, I pretty much just took the losses and factored them into my costs. I usually had a refund rate of around 2-3%
You may want to file for an LLC once you start making some sustainable cash flow for tax purposes.
Hope this helps!
Will
Hi Will,
This is a great article, although I do have a question which I hope you can help with:
I live in the Southeast Asia region, Singapore. So my concern is the shipping cost. To ship a package overseas would most probably kill my profit margin. (There’s not much option here, since Singapore is a small country) That, coupled with the additional shipping from my supplier, might not be enough to justify the effort that comes with it.
I’d appreciate your input on this.
Thanks!
Stanley
Hi Stanley,
Thanks a lot for reading!
Yea, it may be tough to ship to the US from Singapore. There may be some opportunities selling to buyers in your area, maybe look into that.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hey Will,
You mentioned sending shipments including coupons and such for your product. My question to you is how you were giving these coupons given you were selling through another website.
Dan
Hi Dan,
Thanks a lot for taking the time out to read and comment. By the time I started sending out in-box promo, I already had my own ecommerce store set up that I could set up coupons through. Like I said, the purpose of the in box promo is to get ebay and amazon buyers information so you can market to them for free in the future – that is how you really start growing!
Hope this helps,
Will
Hey Will,
Also, I was curious how you set up these deals and the SMS subscriptions.
Dan
The SMS subscriptions were set up through a texting service, but now you can use Twilio and Wordpress plugins to do much more powerful things. Email me at will [at] startupbros.com if you need the SMS marketing plugin I use nowadays for my consulting clients.
Thanks again,
Will
What sort of liability are we at as sellers of items? Like, for example, if I sold little ball magnets and a toddler swallowed them and got sick or something, could they sue? If so, what exactly would happen?
Also, I’m a little weary of buying anything from China due to my fears that it may have been made with lead or some other toxic/potentially harmful chemical. Are these fears reasonable? If someone does get lead poisoning, or the product breaks and causes harm, am I liable or is the company in China liable?
Let me lead by saying that I am definitely not a lawyer – but here is my guess from my experience.
In a case like this, the seller would likely be named in the lawsuit, but the primary liability will still lie with the manufacturer. Even so, if you are behind an LLC your personal assets are safe.
Hope this helps,
Will
Thank you! On another note, can a minor apply for an LLC? If so, how do I go about doing that? Just go talk to my bank?
There wasn’t an age limit when I was under 18, it depends on your State but I doubt it will be an issue. You either need to do it through LegalZoom or google “File an LLC in (whatever State)” and you should find a way to do it online cheaper through your State, but it will take a little more research/legwork to get through the process on the clunky State websites…
Hope this helps,
Will
Wow, great article and very informative. Thank you for writing it.
I’ve started comparing items on the Amazon best seller list and trying to find suppliers at Ali Baba.
I’ve found one item that I could sell for a considerable markup, but I’m afraid I might be dealing with counterfeits. How can I tell for sure that the item I’m buying isn’t counterfeit and that the American company will not come after me?
Hey Richard,
Thanks a lot for reading and commenting!
It is tough for me to know whether or not your specific item is prone to counterfeiters or might put you at legal risk without actually knowing what the product is. If it is a recognizable trademark, you probably want to avoid it.
Also, look on eBay/Amazon and see how the climate is there with sellers – do a lot of people say “Genuine” “Not Counterfeit” “Real” etc? If so, then it is obviously a problem for that product, and is probably prone to counterfeiters.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hey Will.
I was going to drop you a message on Reddit but I stopped here as well.
On your recommend I bought The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss (the new revision) and it is a darn good read/listen. It made me laugh in a few spots because not only do we have some similar ideas but he also used a couple of sayings I am a bit infamous for around work (easier to get forgiveness than permission).
Thanks again.
Hey there,
Glad to see you commented here, as Reddit banned my account for no real reason they can tell me…
Awesome to hear you bought 4-Hour Workweek, it is definitely one of my top 10 books for entrepreneurs. I know the feeling about having similar ideas – I used to get people telling me I was stealing ideas from 4HWW before I had even read it. That’s what convinced me to buy it
Let me know how you enjoy it,
Will
Hey Will,
When you were first starting out, how did you deal with the crazy high shipping prices? I don’t have a lot of money to put into this at this time, so I’ve been looking at items with free shipping. Is a good idea?
Also, what would I do if I just want to buy a few samples of a product? I’ve been in contact with the seller and he has agreed to it, but would the payment be done outside of Alibaba since they may not sell just one item on the site?
Hey Adam,
The shipping prices are always going to be high coming across the Pacific, just something you have to account for. I don’t think you’ll find any factories willing to send samples with free shipping, but maybe you can.
The sellers are used to people buying samples. Just make sure your payments are protected in some way, either through Paypal or Escrow.
Hope this helps,
Will
You are SO AWESOME. A definite inspiration to me. I haven’t gotten this excited about something for awhile. If I’m ever in Florida, I’m going to buy you dinner.
Haha thanks a lot! Looking forward to dinner and drinks
Love your blog by the way, good stuff!
Will
Hey Will,
Thanks for the great read! Today, I was buying a sample from China (gold supplier) for 8$ + 25$ shipping (they only do FOB). They asked me for my DHL account number.
I haven’t replied yet, because I don’t have a DHL account (and the 25$ seemed like a rip off, as I constantly buy personal items from china with free international shipping since they’re labeled as gifts).
What’s the best way to handle shipping? Should I use DHL or FedEx, or something else to handle the FOB and EXW etc?
Thanks,
Summit
Hey Summit,
Thanks for commenting, and sorry about the delay – was out of town!
They like to ship onto other people’s shipping account. I think they will still ship themselves if you don’t have a shipping account though, just ask them.
$25 is actually the low end of sample shipping costs in my experience, at least if you are shipping to the US. I usually pay from $25-45 for the first sample shipments. Not sure how they could do free shipping unless it is baked into the unit cost.
Honestly, I usually work with the supplier a lot to set up shipping terms that work for both of us. What works for you is going to be different from others, as everybody is shipping different items with different shapes and sizes and regulations, and they all want to do different things with them (store in garage, closet, warehouse). You really have to work with the supplier to figure out what is going to work best.
Hope this helps!
Will
I think i may try Social Media Advertising but only because that’s what i work in.
Hey, there is definitely money there too!
Why does Alibaba have such bad reviews? Lots of people saying there a scam? I was really excited about a legit place to buy from until i seen the bad reviews
Have you ever had a bad experience with them?
Hey Bud,
Like I said in the article, it is really easy to get scammed if you don’t know what you’re doing and aren’t careful! Make sure you talk to Gold suppliers and use PayPal/Escrow to protect yourself.
Hope this helps,
Will
Why does alibaba have such bad reviews?i was excited about purchasing until i read about all the people that got scammed, have you had any issues with them or Chinese maufactureres?
Hi Bud,
There are a ton of scammers, middle men, and terrible suppliers on Alibaba. You have to be really careful, you can lose a lot of money (and I know people who have!)
Just be sure to have all the filters I mentioned above on, and make sure you use Escrow or Paypal so you can reverse/dispute the order if things go sour.
Hope this helps,
Will
Will,
First off, congratulations to your success in importing at such a young age. I am a 22 year old college student and just now seeing some of the potential in the import/export business. I have a couple of questions I hope you don’t mind answering.
Living in a small apartment with a roommate, I don’t have the ability to store much product. Do you feel that there are any suppliers out there that will drop ship for me with no prior relationship to me? I did not even realize this was an option until reading your article, so thank you.
I would also like some advice from you about a product I am interested in importing. What do you think of this http://www.amazon.com/Bronze-Finish-Power-Outlets-Rectangular/dp/B00427T4KY/ref=sr_1_60?ie=UTF8&qid=1358460321&sr=8-60&keywords=lamp+with+power+outlet. The margins are incredible. Doing ebay/amazon searches do not return many results for the lamps and I am not sure if that is a good or a bad thing. There seems to be little retail competitors, but maybe also few customers? I know it is something I would want in my home though.
Just one more question if you don’t mind. Do you feel that an LLC would be a good way to legitimize your import/export company?
Thanks for taking the time to write such an informative article. I look forward to hearing from you.
Nathan
Nathan,
Thanks a lot for reading and commenting!
It is going to be extremely hard to find a supplier that will drop ship for anybody that hits them up out of the blue. They generally want some sort of relationship built up first. My first couple years I was only importing a few boxes few of stuff and never ran into storage issues, but of course I don’t know how much room you have.
Lamps are going to be really, really tough to sell unless you have a list of people buying lamps to advertise to. You need to niche down a lot, just selling a random lamp is going to be really inconsistent and tough. I would assume there is no consistent base of buyers for the specific lamp you are referring to, meaning you will have to build up that base of buyers, which costs a lot of money!
I’d find a different product.
I think I mention in the article that I never file for an LLC until I know that my business is going to be around for a long time. That’s just me, you could do it whenever you want though.
Hope this helps,
Will
So, please correct me if I am mistaken, you made a lot of money with only one product (the airsoft guns) sourced through alibaba, right?
I understand that the regulations killed that product However what is preventing you of doing the exact same thing but with another product?
Is it harder now with ebay? Do you consider ebay the best way to sell those products ? What about flee markets… Is it possible to make even more money there?
Thanks in advance.
Martin
Hi Martin,
I think I replied to you on some forums, but here is my response from there –
I didn’t continue with it at the time just because I was young and didn’t feel like doing it anymore. My goal in life is $1bn and didn’t need the money, so I went down a different path that I thought would get me closer to that.
I think it is probably a little bit harder now, but I also think that we will be looking back at it in 5 years saying “It was so easy back then!”. I never tried Flea Markets, but I did almost try selling to flea market merchants as a supplier to them. Never got around to it before the ban though.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi
I just want to say thank you.
Very good article !
Saïdou Wane
Thanks a lot Saïdou, glad you liked it! Be sure to read the follow up as well
Thanks for the informative article Will!
How much capital would someone new to this business need to get started? You mentioned that you started at age 13, but with the high MOQs and costly samples, it feels like I would need at least a grand, unless I opted for AliExpress and significantly smaller margins.
Hi Marvin,
Make sure you read my follow up post to this, I think it will answer a lot of these questions.
If not, comment on that one and I’ll get back to you much quicker than I got back to this one!
Thanks,
Will
Hi Will,
I recently started dropshipping items like so http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Coal-Model-of-the-Famous-Titanic-small-Brilliant-Coal-Ship-model-made-with-Coa-/120851813197?pt=UK_Collectables_Nautical&hash=item1c2354534d
now as you can see this is the cheapest of these items on ebay at the current time at £12.99 + £3.75 postage.
but these items cost me £6.00 + £2.90 postage to customer.
so i’m wondering how much would be best to undercut the current cheapest person on ebay?
Thanks for reading
Hi Tezza,
I’d undercut him by $1 for as long as you can!
Congrats on getting started and finding a supplier that will dropship.
Good luck,
Will
Amazing article Will! My dad will be retiring in a few months and I was planning to get him into the dropshipping business and I am really glad I bumped into this rather elaborate post. I am going to share with my dad and hopefully start a dropshipping business. Thanks a lot again!
Thanks a lot Sanjay! Hope you and your dad can extract a lot of value out of these posts! By the time you guys get started, we might even have a few more posts/courses/coaching/books/whoknows out! We are looking at expanding that side of our business.
Hope to hear from you in the future,
Will
P.S. – Say “Hi” to your Dad for me
Hi Will!
Good stuff! I’m a 22 year-old recent graduate working in the marketing field. I have a load of student debt, and I’ve been trying to find a way to make some extra cash, and I think this might be a possibility!
I have a few quick questions:
1. Can you explain your system for packaging and mailing out the airsoft guns, (when business was busy and before you outsourced it to another person)? I have a third bedroom in my apartment in which neither my room mate or myself use, it’d be perfect to set up a little ‘mailroom’.
2. How much time a week were you devoting to this project? I know it’s going to be different for everyone, but in your experience did it feel like a full-time job?
Thanks again, Will!
Nick
Hi Nick,
Thanks for commenting – glad you liked the article! Definitely a good way to make some extra cash as long as you are smart/careful about it.
1. Yep, that would be perfect. I usually just piled stuff up in a room, until eventually moving to a table in the garage. An extra room would be more than enough to make some extra cash.
2. Of course it didn’t feel like a full-time job because I wanted to do it, but I was probably spending around 5-50 hours per week on this. Pretty wide spread, but it’s just up to you. There are no hours in entrepreneurship and nobody cares what you do or don’t do, it’s all on your internal desire to grow. You can spend 2 hours a week on it or 100 hours a week on it.
Hope this helps Nick!
Thanks,
Will
Hey Will,
First off I just wanted to say this is an awesome site that will hopefully allow me and others like me to gain some valiable business knowledge and get our feet wet in our own businesses!
I have found a few specific niches that I am exploring and should be getting samples of in the near future.
I have a few questions for you though.
1. I have found a product that I want to start selling. Through my research I have found another very well-known company selling this exact product with huge margins. However this company has already branded this product as their own. If I import this product and if everything works out start branding it myself, are there any legal issues that could arise? Can I brand a product that has already been branded?
2. Have you ever run into any patent issues? Let’s say I want to sell pens that have LED’s on the end of them that light up when you write (not my actual product). There are other companies selling pens like this but I haven’t been able to find a patent on the concept of these pens but that doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist. What can I do to protect myself so that if I am successful with this product and build a brand and a company around it I don’t get a cease and desist letter in a few years?
I have about a million other questions but I’m trying to figure out as much as I can on my own. It would be awesome to be able to sit down and pick your brain for a few hours. Lol
Thanks again Will,
-Kris
Hey Kris,
Thanks for the compliment – glad you got some value out of the site!
1. It really depends on the product. If the product is patented then you’ll probably run into issues at some point, but otherwise you are just printing your logo onto a product.
2. I don’t there is much of a legal risk with these types of products, just avoid trademarked brands. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a solid patent for something as generic as that. I’ve never gotten a cease & desist for selling anything, but I know a few people that have – and it always copyright infringement. In terms of limiting your liability I’d just recommend the standard – be behind an LLC and have your financials separate.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hey Will, first I would like to thank you for putting your experience into one post for free while this could have honestly been made into an ebook and sold for well over $100. I’m about half way through this post and I had some questions.
I’m 14 years old right now and I found out about the importing business not to long ago. I originally had plans to buy apple earphones in bulk and sell them at my school (as there were way to many top competitors on ebay) however I thought that selling 100 earphones at school might get out of hand and I would get in trouble one way or another.
Since then I have lost interest in the whole idea of buying in bulk however once I read this I was encouraged to get into it. I had a few concerns first. I noticed that you said you started when you were only 13 years old. How did you have the money to even start to buy the items in bulk? And if not in bulk and only like 5-15 units, you were buying airsoft guns, which aren’t cheap.
Also, how would you recommend I build up some capital to start testing products. I have around $120 to start off with right now, I just don’t feel this is enough to really get into the swing of things.
Thanks again for everything,
Devin
Hey Devin, thanks a lot for commenting and for your kind words.
It’s never too early to start learning what you’ll need to learn to be an entrepreneur, good to hear you’re getting in so early (you won’t regret it!). Sounds like you were onto something with the Apple earphones, if it were me I would have sold them and worried about getting in trouble later
Again, I screwed around with some other products before I found my airsoft supplier which I used to fund a lot of this. Even with the airsoft though, I started by ordering 1, then 3, then 5, then 8, then 10, then 15 and so on until I worked out the dropshipping deal with that supplier. It is possible to start with less capital, it is just going to mean less growth (in all businesses).
Like I said in the article, I’d like $500 of padding to test for a good product. To get to there, you’ll have to make some quick cash. I know when I was 14 I found some quick ways to make cash at school selling candy, soda, or whatever else I could get away with (wallets, purses, sunglasses, headphones, etc). You have a massive market of buyers walking around you every day at school, the sooner you realize that the sooner you can profit off of them. It becomes especially profitable in college
Hope this helps!
Will
Hey Will
This has been a great read for me. A friend passed this link to me when I told him I was working in imports in Argentina. I am possibly older than I would like (26), and my mindset has changed in the passed year. I am a science and engineering background and always had the employee mentality before I moved to Argentina.
Anyway, not to get off track. I work in purchasing with my company, and eventually my boss wants to send me to China to learn how to purchase and deal with the providers. After reading your blog, I had ideas of using your advice to do something similar, but with a trusted friend who lives in the US (since I can´t do anything from here).
I was wondering if you think it would be better for me to wait to go to China and do reconnaissance before making any moves, or if you think this is something that can be accomplished simply by following your advice.
Thanks!
Hey Nick,
Glad to hear you enjoyed the article – and tell you friend I said thanks for sharing!
The good news is we may all be older than we would like
You can of course do some prospecting online before you go to China. How would you know who to visit anyways?
I have a friend whose supplier flies him out to China and Vegas once a year just to build their relationship and grow their companies together. This started off as a simple Alibaba thing as well, but has obviously progressed.
I think it is good to do your recon online. Once you find a good product and are ready to start buying in bulk, then it may be time to fly over to work out some deals.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hey will thanks for replying to my comment above, is it possible to reach you by skype in anyway. I know you don’t want to give it out to everybody on here however if you could send me an email that would be great.
Like I said in the previous comment — I’m only 14 and don’t have much start up capital. I did however find a GREAT product that I could start buying and making a decent profit I sold my whole inventory. I’ve already emailed the supplier about some samples and I’m just waiting to hear back from them. I wanted to go over this product with you though first just to see if you think it would sell well.
Thanks again for all the time you put into this website,
Devin
No problem Devin! You can email me at will startupbros.com
Hi Will,
I really appreciate you taking the time to write this article it was very informative and sparked an interest! I was looking to start importing and found a few products that I think have potential, but I had a few questions first.
Since these are being imported in can we get in trouble because they have a brand name on it?
When you email suppliers inquiring about samples should you offer to pay for the sample or will they just send you them?
Have you ever used something like Terapeak.com to research Ebay sales?
Thanks,
Alex
No problem Alex, I appreciate you taking the time out to comment! Good to hear you already got started.
Yes you can get in trouble if you import products that have trademarks on them or are patented. If the company that owns the intellectual property decides to sue you, they will have a good chance of winning.
Your supplier will usually require you to pay for the shipping costs of your sample products. It is pretty rare to find a supplier that gives free samples.
I’ve used Terapeak and will actually be featuring it in a future post.
Hope this helps, and be sure to read the follow up to this post.
Will
Wow Will I have to say its a little humbling to glean such valuable insite from a guy less than half my age!!! but your article was terrific!!! I made many of the same mistakes and am currently sitting on a garage full of running gear that i have sold out of the popular sizes
so i was thinking i was faced with a descision to order $5000 (minimum qty) do you think I could negotiate a lesser minimum order??
thanks!
-Chris
Thanks a lot for your kind words Chris! There is something to be learned from everybody
I don’t see why they wouldn’t allow a lower MOQ, especially if you lie a bit and act like you are bigger than you are. I have almost always found a way.
Good luck getting rid of those sizes!
Will
I hardly blink my eyes reading your amazing article, full of inspiration and motivational words, Although I normally buy men and women’s t-shirt from Aliexpress and sold them off locally in my Country. I did make profit but very very little.
I wanna try ebay, amazon and those selling channels maybe I should start something else on them. But my problem is that I am from Nigeria in West Africa, the cost of shipping the product to my buyers is what is killing me, how do I go about it? I don’t know those that can help with dropshipping or what to do
Thanks for your kind words Sam! I have to imagine this business is a little tougher in Nigeria, but not impossible! I haven’t been to Africa (yet!), but there have got to be some things that are profitable to buy and sell there. If not, maybe think about something like affiliate marketing or something.
I’ll tell you what though, I have to imagine entrepreneurs and internet marketers living in Nigeria are pretty comfortable. Congratulations on being a good track.
Hope this helped,
Will
Hi it’s jason from BHW,
Please explain one thing only…
For example I want to sell knifes. First step is to pay the supplier for example 100 knifes and then what…Do I import all 100 knifes and then ship all around the world to each customer or the supplier ships the knifes to each individual customer???
-I dont understand the entire process…
Thanks!
Hi Jason,
Thanks for commenting! You are describing two different concepts, importing and dropshipping. It is up to you if you’d like to import or drop ship, but I’ll tell you that it’s pretty tough to find a factory that will do dropshipping for you without a long history. I see that you’re in the area of Serbia, so I’m not exactly sure if there is a local Amazon/eBay/Craigslist that you could sell on. It’s going to be tough for you to sell and ship internationally though due to shipping costs.
Hope this helps, and feel free to respond with any other questions!
Will
Are you still selling products on ebay as of now WIll?
Yes! I stopped for a long time, but I’ve been doing some light importing since this post was made. Had to make sure I knew what I was talking about
Hope this helps,
Will
Hey,
I enjoyed reading your article. However, i been trying to do this online business for so long but still could NOT do a single legal transaction on ebay or amazon other than selling brand name stuff in my house. I did the brand name importing from CHINA. ITs not a good idea!! I learned that lesson. so i am heading in the right direction, right? I guess its a rite of passage. haha. Can someone point me towards a niche or a item that i can sell on for profit from ALIBABA. I been there but can not find a item to sell for profit. I did many many hours of searching. It seems like someone on ebay or amazon is already marking it up so low it would be impossible to make a profit. I’m losing my hope that ebay/amazon could reallyl be a profitable business in 2013. Thanks.
Hey Joe,
Glad to hear you enjoyed the article! Yea, like I said in my article I also went down a similar path. Sounds to me like you’re on the right path. Branded counterfeits are always going to make people a ton of money, it’s just very risky. I hope you saw my 2nd article on how to pick a profitable product, I put a TON of work into that one. It should do a lot to help you in finding products. If not, I have another article on the way that will describe a few other ways to find products.
Keep in mind what you’re looking for too. If you go out looking for a profitable niche to operate in, you’re not going to find much. If you go out looking for a high-margin product, you’ll have a much better chance.
Hope this helps, and I’ll also be responding to your other comment now too so hopefully those two responses help!
Thanks,
Will
thanks for the info. I would like to make a few suggestions to improve this blog. 1) make the site mobile friendly. some of us use our phones to access the site. 2) I probably spent at least 3 hrs last night on alibaba but can’t decide on a product. found some radios but looks like China seller kill it already. how about you make a page that provides something like item of the day that we could sell for profit. You could make the page paid subscription. and maybe allow members to post. no one wants to share items but I think we could all profit from each other since the market is unlimited. what do you think?
Joe – You’re the man! Thanks a ton for the thoughtful feedback, those are all great ideas (and I didn’t even know we were having mobile issues). I’m definitely going to take both of those things and add it to my list – now I just need more than 24 hours in a day
Hey Guys,
Regarding the advertising route you took with Amazon, was it there PPC version? And if so, did you have to set up a ecommerce site for that?
Thanks,
Omar
I am struggling with finding a niche product to sell here in the uk with low startup, can you help will? your writeup has been amazing
Hey Dan,
Sorry to hear you’re struggling with the product selection phase. If you’re having trouble, check out my follow up to this post that deals specifically with how to select a profitable product. Here is the link – http://www.startupbros.com/step-by-step-guide-on-how-to-find-a-profitable-product-to-sell/
Comment there and let me know if you still have trouble.
Also – I’m working on a new post going deeper into the data on product selection, that should be out late March!
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi Dan,
I just finished using a uk dropshipper due to family life but in the last 6 months there has only been 1 other seller and he is totally overpriced email me for more information.
t_clegg@yahoo.com
Thanks for the help Terence!
Dan – feel free to hit up Terence, he’s a good guy!
yes. I think a lot of us need a lot of help to get out feet wet. I don’t mean we spoon feed anyone. but I think members should post products that sell well. don’t give away your cash cow but lead us in a way that we can find our own cash cow. point out some niches or if possible products. will, I think you should add another of my recommendation. Maybe make a page that shows what a seller needs to do to achieve a certain goal. let’s say for example I want to make 1000 dollars a month. how many hours should I spend. how many products should I sell etc. where should I get my products from. same for if someone wants to do 500 a month. or 10000 month. thanks.
Hey Joe,
Thanks again for the great ideas – that’s all good stuff. It sounds like you want a community and some tools for importers, definitely something I’ll be keeping in mind moving forward. Like I’ve said, I think in late March we will focus on importing a lot, and may even write a book or create a course
We’ll see what happens, thanks for the great feedback!
Will
Will,
This was a fascinating article. You are very generous with your trade secrets. Are you still selling imported products from China or are you into other businesses?
Thank you.
Greg Moore
Greater NYC
Hi Greg,
Thanks for commenting, and glad to hear you enjoyed the article.
I still do some light importing, but now most of my time goes to running StartupBros and my marketing agency.
There is definitely still money to be made though, some of the readers of this article are already making money and now focused on growth.
Thanks again,
Will
Great information
I have been following this blog since December.
I finally got my feet in the water. LOL
I have found a Niche Market.
I have two suppliers from Alibaba sending me Samples.
It took me a while to sort out good suppliers and get a good price.
Most were trying to sell to me @ close to retail.
I would check target Niche product resale price on Ebay
and I would be buying at a loss.
I’ll keep you up dated on the progress.
They have already sent me the tracking numbers
one gave me sample Free . I just paid for shipping.
The other I paid for samples and shipping.
Both were paid with Pay Pal.
One thing I found out was that when you place a
product request or make an offer on Alibaba
You get a lot of offers in your email.
But most are not coming from Alibaba Suppliers
So Pay Attention.
All of these wanted Payment by TT,MoneyGram,Western Union.
By reading this Blog I knew not to deal with them.
But I wanted to see how the scam worked.
Here is How It Goes:
They send you a picture of the product you wanted.
They offer you a very low price.A Great Price
I agreed to the price.
Then they ask you which of the 3 payments you prefer
So I told them TT (BANK TRANSFER)
They sent me an Invoice. It had their Bank information,
and their so called business address.
Here is where I caught them.
I googled their addres. It came up another business name.
This business name and address was on Alibaba.
So I emailed that business told them that this company was
requesting payment from me using their address.
I asked do they know them or were they working together.
They emailed me back and stated they did not know or have any
dealings with that company.
Next scam: The fake Company name was on the Invoice
But the Benificiary of the Money transfer was a
persons private account and not a Business.
Next Scam: Website
Their Website are Great.
I Verified their website@ http://www.scamadviser.com/
This site gives the history of the website: how old,owner,country and Complaints
They supplier told me they had been in business over 5 years
This site gave a negative rating on the Suppliers.
Also showed me that their website and Domain name was just started
Jan 2013
So I emailed them back and presented these findings very nicely
and the never contacted me again.
So as Will says only pay Using Pay Pal
starting out and only deal with Alibaba suppliers.
Sandra
Hi Sandra,
Awesome to hear you’re getting your feet wet with it, and thanks for your continued support!
If you’ve already ordered some samples from Alibaba, then you’re well on your way. Sounds like you’ve figured out how to filter out the bad suppliers and find the good ones, especially the one willing to send free samples (always a positive sign!).
Yes, I hope you took my advice and grabbed a new email before starting. Whatever email you use on Alibaba will be spammed for years to come…
Great insights on how the scams work, maybe I will take that and turn it into a blog post
Keep me updated on your progress!
Thanks,
Will
Sir very good article and honestly it was exactly what I was looking for this evening. I decided to create my own website to install my store sport. I invested 3 nights to talk and chat with China and about a werk planning everything related to the project.
When you say copies are like selling drugs it scare me because almost everything is copy in China, so can you tell me and describe me a little more about the risk of selling online copies in my own site and in another hand what happen if I buy something that is suppose to be original like nike shoes, I mean how can I recocognize an original product? if so what’s the bad thing around my business if I am not even sure if is original or not.
Please help me to clear this topic in my business plan.
Regards,
DP
Hi Dan,
Happy to help!
In the US, the brands stay very vigilant against counterfeits. Furthermore, it is illegal in many cases. If your product is in any way trademarked it will not be real. You can’t buy Nike shoes from anybody but Nike. Of course, the people selling them are probably producing the shoes themselves (in some cases) – but you’ll still be sued and prosecuted if you sell them.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hello!
So i am very interested in starting this, however I have a question regarding the shipping costs before pulling the trigger. I am looking to order a product which is
costing me $1.70/unit for 50 pieces and the shipping is costing me 198$ on top.
Also the supplier is 4th year gold supplier with escrow.
Hello Preet,
There’s no way for me to come to any conclusions with that information. Shipping costs are dependent on many variables and are going to be different for every product. Why don’t you just go to the UPS or DHL site and estimate the shipping cost? It’s a very simple thing to do.
Hope this helps,
Will
We are working in China providing everything from sourcing to quality control to shipping to mainly german SMI companies. I have to disagree with the point that gold suppliers are always the way to go. We have worked with gold suppliers and there is really not much that makes them so golden to work with compared to other factories. More over you can often find better factories on chinese trade shows. Many factories are not listed on Alibaba simply because they have another approach to generating sales than replying thousands of emails every day with mostly zero sales. If you have found the right product I advise you to go to china and buy a larger quantity right away. Why this approach? If you play your cards right you will be in the middle of a supply chain management dillemma before you know it. So you might as well figure out how to safely buy larger quantities right from the start.
If you are not standing on the factory floor in China and taking care of business here, forget about scaling your business. Bigger and “more professional” suppliers use the same cheap tricks to sell inferior quality if they see an oportunity to do so. One oportunity is definately if you are just ordering by email and have no staff on the ground in China. Never go with “it’s gonna be allright” attitude because it will break your neck.
Hi Yannick,
Thanks a lot for jumping in with your insights.
It sounds like you deal in much higher volume than what this method is intended for. I agree with most of your points, but for higher volume buyers. Obviously people struggling in the US won’t be able to spend a couple months jumping around from factory to factory in China. They don’t need to either, they are just trying to make some quick arbitrage cash.
If you want to scale up and start taking containers in and things like that, then it’s time to start visiting factories and negotiating deals. Always have the end in mind – if this is what you want to do, then this method isn’t for you. In the articles I speak about how scaling is a different story, this is good for side income. Most of the principles apply in scale, but scaling to the level you’re speaking of would be a different article entirely.
Thanks again,
Will
Awesome post, thanks a lot! I just made my first purchase on Alibaba with your help. Hopefully everything goes smoothly!
Awesome Isaia, congratulations on taking the first steps! Definitely keep me updated and feel free to throw questions over!
Talk soon,
Will
Hi Will,
My samples arrived.
I checked them out.
They all fuction as they should.
I made my choice about which supplier to use.
I also was able to talk the price down some more.
I am going to place them on amazon amd ebay.
Will keep you posted.
Sandra
Awesome Sandra, so far so good! Sounds like you are well on your way and things are working out. Keep me updated when those samples sell!
Hi Will,
I just set up my DHL Import/Export Shipping Account.
Sandra
Keep moving forward Sandra!
Thank you very much for all the information, i have a question :
I have writen to several suppliers And in return i recieved a lot of mails from different suppliers who i cant find on alibaba.com ,,, are they scammers? What can i do to the legal suppliers answer to me?
Thanks
Greeting from chile
Greetings Diego!
No problem, thanks for commenting!
Yes, like I said in the article I always set up a new email address. Your email gets leaked or sold or stolen pretty quickly, and will soon be spammed to death by scammers. Ignore anything coming in your email directly, just deal through Alibaba or whatever shipping site you want.
If you want to take the risk though, just make sure you’re behind PayPal or Escrow and you’ll be fine.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi Will,
When you say protect yourself with escrow, do you mean for any orders (large or small), or just for sample orders?
I am running into some suppliers who have the “Escrow” designation on Alibaba, but will only do accept paypal for sample orders, not bigger ones.
Red flag?
Thanks
Hi Cort,
I usually try to use escrow, paypal, or whatever form of financial protection for the first 3-6 months of working with a new importer. I start with the first sample order, I’ll almost never buy something without financial protection on that order. The thing to realize is that any time you aren’t using a third-party to protect the transaction, you’re taking on risk. It’s ultimately up to you when you feel it isn’t risky any more to buy from your supplier using Western Union or a Bank Wire or whatever.
Escrow and PayPal essentially perform the same financial protection function. Either one of them will do what they can to protect you in the case of a bad supplier (or worse). So, no red flag there
Hope this helps,
Will
Hello, 3 days ago I bought 3 watches at total of 22$ with free shipping, watches are 5-8$ each and searching on internet for the exemples i found selling at 150% from their price and there arent many seling them. Also i found that some of the models aint even listed on sale
so i guess that its my time to strike now.
The watches where send 1 day ago, now i have to wait 3 weeks with Chine Air Post Mail. The VAT taxes are 7$ for all.. i live in Europe in a country where VAT taxes are 24%… but goods under 10 Euro dont have to pay taxes and goods under 150 euro dont pay border taxes. Waiting to see what i get.
I forgot to say that i ordered from Aliexpress.
I remember doing playboy watches this way. I was buying 3 for £10 and then was selling for £10 each good luck with your find.
I guess the watch market has a lot of opportunity in it!
Hi Silviu,
Awesome to hear you’ve already got your samples in the mail! Great to hear that you found a way around the VAT taxes, those are brutal and nearly kill this method…
Keep me updated on how you do!
Good luck,
Will
Hey! Can you give me advice on marketing tips? By the way since starting my importing business I have only ever dropped shipped to my customers. That’s after as you have said finding a solid supplier. No inventory, less hassle more money!
Hey Gage,
I can try to answer any questions you have, and also do coaching/consulting for people who request it. Throw me an email and we’ll talk!
Congrats on your success so far, keep it up!
Talk soon,
Will
First off I just want to say this is the best single piece of literature I have read on this subject. It is so difficult to find real information. Here’s my issue:
I have been communicating with a 3-year gold star, inspected supplier from China (via alibaba.com). She says I need to either:
1. order a 20 foot container of their stuff and pay for freight.
2. for smaller amounts – order through their US contact who gets it directly from them (problem is the contact is an Amish guy in Ohio and works off of a communal fax machine that he checks daily.) She is insisting that he is the greatest guy ever and that his credit is so good and that’s why he is able to work directly with China.
First of all, if I were to order a container, how on earth does that process work? I’m in San Diego, so at least I’m close to a port.
Is it normal to be asked to deal with a distributor that is Amish and uses FAX? I’m laughing as I’m typing this.
Please have a go at this.
Hi Anne,
Thanks a lot for your kind words! Glad to hear you got value out of the article.
I already responded to your email, so I’m just going to copy and paste it here for future readers.
Sounds like a strange situation to be in, though definitely not the worst problem to have. It’s good that you’re already seeing some success.
It does make sense that the US contact would be able to supply you for cheaper, since they are probably buying many full containers worth per year. Honestly, that’s a similar situation to how I ended up with my airsoft dropshipper.
I don’t want to say go for it if you’re uncomfortable, so make sure you use caution. But if it were me, just from what you were telling me, I’d probably try to figure it out with that Amish guy. I’d imagine once you get the ordering process figured out you guys won’t even have to talk all that often.
Hope this helps, and keep me updated!
Will
Will I need to get an importing/exporting license?
Hi Victoria,
Honestly, it depends on where you live. Some States/Countries will require an importing/exporting license, but most States in the U.S. don’t (as far as I know).
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi Will
I have a Quick update.
I had a small problem with the samples.
But lucky I paid attention to your advice.
In my excitment I forgot to check 1 detail
of a function that the samples were to perform.
Right before I was to place my Larger order
I caught the mistake.
I informed the supplier that they did
not send the sample I wanted.
They said they were sorry,
and admitted @ this time
they did not have my requested item in stock.
Since I paid with Pay Pal
and it was their mistake,
they refunded all my money.
they will contact me when they get the right product
that I requested.
Lesson learned.
Check products and all functions completely.
Thanks Will,
Sandra
Hi Sandra,
Sorry to hear about the hiccup, but definitely glad to hear that you took my advice and used PayPal! It could have been much more than a hiccup
Looks like you just ended up with some free stuff, and the assurance that your supplier will stand behind their mistakes.
Keep me updated,
Will
Hello, here is my suggestion:
Go and buy from Aliexpress and have the benefit of the Buyer Protection + the Free Shipping in 99,99% from all the products. If you’re using Alibaba, check for the Escrow mark near each supplier, if they dont have it, dont buy from them !
Hi Silviu,
AliExpress is certainly an option, especially for importing samples. I think if you go the extra mile with Alibaba though, you can find better margins. Like I said in the article, being able to sift through and find suppliers is an early competitive advantage. Anybody can buy something on AliExpress, those products are much more saturated for importing. But again, lots of suppliers like to put some small items on AliExpress along with their main importing profile on Alibaba.
And definitely agree with you there – financial protection or no sale! It’s a must when importing from China…
Thanks for the input!
Will
Great advice. I am over in the UK and am desperately trying to get hold of LCD/LED TV’s. The problem, is not the supplier but the cost of getting them from China to the UK. Any advice?
Thankyou
Darren
A way round shipping cost is to buy in bulk as many surpliers will offer discounted shipping on bulk orders this may not be an option with your product but its worth asking.
Hi Darren,
Ouch, importing LCD/LED TV’s to the UK would probably cost a fortune due to your tax system over there. VAT and Importing Tax will both hit you I believe, but I’m not sure. Definitely look into that.
Other than that, I also tried to get LED/LCD TV’s imported once – it didn’t turn out well. The cost of entry is EXTREMELY high. To compete, you’d need to buy 50-100 TV’s minimum – and even then you’d still barely be scraping by. The electronics market is typically pretty tough.
But hey, if you find a way you find a way…I just couldn’t
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi Will,
Because of your advice, i am thinking of jumping into the import business. I been doing a lot of work since i read your blog a couple of months ago. Here is what i have so far and please advise on what you think i should do moving forward. I am going into to clothing/garment importing from Asia (not China). I see a lot of powersellers on ebay selling women clothing for cheap prices. For example, a basic cotton top for like $5.99 and up. These guys are selling thousands of these per month. My supplier whom i verified through a friend that lives in the country is offering me the same clothes for like $1.99 or less. Most are less than 90% of the selling price on ebay. I can kill this market/niche.
My question and concern is this. I would have to buy a lot. possibly $10,000 to buy all supplies just to get started. I would need to buy tops, jeans, dress, shorts etc. Would i be able to sell this and will buyers buy from me if i am cheaper and better quality? only negative i have is, i would be a new seller. Those powersellers are like 10 years old accounts. Can i compete? I will go on a marketing craze and try to dominate the niche. What do you think?
Hi Joe,
Good to hear you got some extra motivation from reading the article!
That’s what this method is for! Buy some samples batches and test them out. There is no way to know if it will work without testing. In fact, there is tons of stuff you won’t even know you have to know that will be revealed by selling sample units.
I definitely wouldn’t just jump in and buy $10,000 worth of a product though, especially in the fashion niche (as I have never understood it well).
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi Will,
Great post.
Have you tried importing in Bulk to resell in Bulk?
For instance you import 1000 t-shirts for $0.50 and you sell 200 t-shirt lots for $1.50 each? etc
Hi David,
Thanks for reading. I was buying in bulk at one point, but eventually moved over to dropshipping. The only exposure I have to it now is with a few clients.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi Will,
Thanks so much for this post. I’ve been researching for weeks, even paying for a useless webinar. And this was exactly what I was looking for.
I have two questions.. The first concerns volume. On your chart you list volume as low or high, etc. Can you give me some idea of what a low or high volume number actually is? How many units have to be selling per week on ebay for it to be considered high or low? What are the numbers I am looking for? And how can I tell exactly how many units are being sold on ebay? Just going through the listings and manually counting?
And how do I tell if something is a knock off on Alibaba? For example, Im looking at the “Fibit Wireless Activity and Sleep Monitor” on Amazon. Then I search for the product on Alibaba, and come up with the “Fitbi Sleep Monitor”.. notice the missing “t”. Does that indicate a knock off? Could this land me in trouble? Something to avoid?
Again, thanks so much for the great information. Definitely has me on my way.
Hi Cort,
Glad to hear my article could help!
I’m not sure if you saw my follow-up to this article – http://www.startupbros.com/step-by-step-guide-on-how-to-find-a-profitable-product-to-sell/
In that article, I go in deep detail on product selection.
To answer your question though, high and low don’t really mean anything. They’re just relative to other products you’re looking at. It’s a comparative exercise.
If this is uncomfortable for you, you can also use Terapeak to pull real data from eBay. Very awesome tool, and it has a free trial.
That fitbit is definitely a counterfeit. Buying any trademarked product will put you at legal risk. You won’t be able to buy most trademarked goods in bulk.
Hope this helps, feel free to respond back after going through everything!
Talk soon,
Will
Thanks Will, Terapeak definitely gives me the data I was looking for.
Im just a little hazy on what is trademarked and what isn’t on ailbaba. Is there ever an instance where you legally buy and import trademarked items from a manufacturer?
What about OEM? Something to avoid?
Thanks!
Awesome to hear that Cort, glad it helped.
There are some situations where you can import trademarked goods, but you’ll probably be working directly with the trademark holder or their distributor. In most cases on Alibaba, people sell copies of trademarked goods.
Now, will you get in trouble for this? That’s an entirely different question. Some companies go after everything, and some don’t even care. Do some research, because it’s very case by case.
On your last question – I suppose you could say a lot of what you import will be made by OEM factories anyways.
Hope this helps,
Will
I just wanted to say, I contacted my friend and spoke with him about the “SWAT” incident I mentioned way above, it turns out he was importing FAKE “otter boxes” Apparently they take that kinda of thing very very seriously. Just thought I would add this, and I see someone asking about this very topic so I thought I would reply down here. Like you said with knock off designer crap. You will make money but its not worth it, I wouldn’t import something that’s a knock off or fake intended to be sold as a name brand item.
Hey again Paul – thanks a lot for giving us the update! Yea, that’s what got my other friend in trouble as well (but with fake brand name shoes). Glad to hear we’re all on the same page again (though sorry for them…)
Morning from the UK
This site has been very helpful in me completing my first order. It has been delivered and sold at a 40% Margin within a week. Naturally, I am not going to share the product information over the www as this would be fool hardy but I am going to give some advice on choosing your product.
I have no idea why people are looking for “Niche” products. Even if the market place is saturated with the item of what you wish to sell it means that is
1. Very popular
2. Very profitable
3. Very Marketable
Did the guys at Burger King think “Hmmmm, we’ve no chance in this Market place with McDonald’s” Or did Microsoft concede to Apple?
My point is, if you believe in your product then turn it into a company, create a logo, offer a top class service and go dance with the Wolves. 99% of the small business market place discovered nothing new. They emulated what others are doing and have done and made it there own.
Anyway guys, it’s just a point of view. Good luck:)
Hey Darren – Goodnight from the US
Glad to hear this article helped show you how to make some money! Sounds like you’re well on your way in the importing game.
Completely agree with you there, some people are scared off by competition. People have to be more confident in their ability to compete, and see competition as validation of a market/product. The balance of supply and demand and opportunity for differentiation are much more important.
Again, awesome that you already made some money with your first imports. Be sure to keep me updated on your progress!
Thanks for sharing,
Will
Thanks Will, terpeak is a big help.
Am I wrong in saying that the majority of the stuff on alibaba is trademarked or a knock-off? Everything seems to be stamped with a brand.. How do I build my own brand that way?
Can you talk a little bit about OEM and how it pertains to importers?
You’re the man.. Really appreciate all the help for the noobs!
No problem Cort, glad it helped!
Everything Gage said seems spot on, so I’ll leave it at that…
Thanks,
Will
Hey cort smith.
OEM – Original Equipment Manufacturer…. Which means you can create a brand with a pretty little logo and ask the manufacturer to put it on your products with hardly no extra cost, many manufacturers will accept OEM and the best thing is that when you create a brand of products you can sell the brand for a lot of money.
Referring to alibaba.com that there are a lot of generic designs and if you want to avoid buying knock off products, all you have to do is ask the manufacturer and in my experience they will tell you if it has a logo on already.
Thanks !
Hey Gage, thanks for your response. So Im generally safe from trademark infringement if Im buying OEM?
IMPROVE YOU MARKT WHEN SELLING ON EBAY.
For all importers selling on ebay, I take it if your from the UK you will use http://www.ebay.CO.UK
To expand your market over seas please use http://www.ebay.COM for the U.S market
And http://www.ebay.COM.AU for the Australian market.
Please contact if you would like to learn more about drop shipping ( getting the product from the manufacturer to the customer with out you seeing it but seeing the money.)
Thanks!
Cort Smith….
Yeh you should have the OK. I would double check the product you have isn’t patent protected like the iphone lol but most likely it will not be.
Thanks.
Thanks for the help Gage!
Hey will, was wondering if I could write an article on here about drop shipping and how it works and how you can run a profitable business from it ?
Cheers!
Hey Gage,
We haven’t accepted any guest posts yet, but throw me an email and we’ll see if we can work something out!
Thanks again for the help above,
Will
Hi Will, this is a very rich source of information from someone who seems to be genuinely altruistic. I get this vibe that you want everyone to prosper. Keeping in mind that information is one of the most sought after assets of our time, you really do a good job with freely disseminating it. I can see a lot of people charging money for just 30% of what you tell us in this article and I consider myself lucky to have found it all for free. I just wish all of us were this generous with ”insider information”. A lot of what you say here may be considered trade secrets by many people (which is sad). I have a lot of admiration and respect for people who unselfishly give others such important information. I believe in Karma and I know that the universe is gonna reward you for this.
That said, I’ve wanted to sell stuff over the internet for so long. But, just like others have said in the comments, I’m still looking for ”that right product”. I stay in Norway, I’m a new resident in this country and everything seems to be totally different from what I’m used to, so it’s hard to pin down people’s consuming habits here. Nonetheless, I’ve always believed that things that target demographics like women, children and teens have the potential make ridiculous amounts of money. I’m considering jewellery, lingerie and toys. But even then, I have to figure out which ones exactly.
Thanks for having a big heart. May the universe pour its rewards on you..:)
Hi Solo,
Thanks a lot for checking out the article and for your kind words! You’re right that I want to help everybody to prosper, I’m glad my writing gives off that positive vibe. The more people I can help prosper, the more prosperous I become. Seems like we agree on that – what comes around goes around! I’ve met some incredible people through running StartupBros!
I’m assuming you saw my follow-up article Step-by-Step Guide on How To Find A Profitable Product To Sell – If not, that will definitely help in product selection.
In Norway you’ll have to be careful to avoid the taxes as much as you can. If you get hit by VAT tax it will kill your margins. There are ways around it, but I’m not too familiar as I’ve never done business in Europe.
You’re right about that – women spend the money! A lot of readers have been making good money with jewelry, but I’ve never made money there. It seems it’s all about finding a good sales channel, as most jewelers are selling everywhere they can already. But my readers that have found an unsaturated sales channels have been making easy money there.
Hope this helps! That follow-up should help a lot, if not check out Terapeak (eBay’s own analytics – freaking AWESOME for product research/selection phase). If neither of those work throw me an email!
Talk to you later,
Will
Will,
Of course i did read the follow up article. How could I miss that? You are right about the VAT issues in Norway. Taxes are some what exorbitant here due to the welfare policies and all that. I have to look into that, inform myself and know how to deal with it.
I have been seriously thinking and researching about the choice of the product for the last two days. I think I have made up my mind already. I want to get your opinion about it. Let me know if I can drop you a line in your email…) Thanks man.
Awesome. Yea, my opinion is that the EU tax system is out of control. In fact, I think the US tax system is out of control. But, I try to leave my opinion out of it and just tell you that you need to find a way around VAT tax
I know there are ways, as some readers have told me they have figured it out. It’s out there.
Congrats on taking action – for sure feel free to drop me an email any time!
Talk later
Hi Will,
Can you expound on how to forecast/mitigate the “other” costs involved?
As I understand it:
The supplier will be able to provide information on VAT.
The supplier may have a preferred shipping partner, but this can be negotiated.
Import taxes can be determined using an HS code.
Insurance is optional (recommended?)
Anything else I’m missing?
What seems to kill the margins on the items I’ve looked at are the shipping fees being quoted by the suppliers. I’d really like a bit of guidance here if you can elaborate on how to keep these fees “reasonable”.
Thanks!
Hi Jason,
Thanks for reading and commenting. It seems like you understand the additional costs, but…
-Your supplier might not be able to provide information on VAT, but it is worth asking them. I think I mentioned talking to supplier to see if they know ways around VAT. VAT kills this method, it might as well be required to get around VAT tax. You will probably have to do your own research on that though.
-Your supplier will prefer to ship FOB (Free On Board), which means the liability is transferred once they hand it to your shipping company. They will want you to have your own UPS/FedEx/DHS/EMS/TNT/whatever courier account for this reason. It also eliminates any potential for them overcharging you on shipping. If you don’t have a courier account, then you can usually get them to ship it through their account. The bigger the factory, the less they will like doing this.
-Yes import taxes can be determined by HS Codes, but the tax system will be very different from country to country. In most countries the cost of this isn’t too meaningful (unless you import food, drinks, plants, animals, or natural resources)
-Insurance is optional yes. This is through your courier company though (liability is with them at FOB point). It’s the same concept as insuring domestic packages (at this scale).
-Sounds like you have everything figured out. Just make sure you test your product correctly. Watch for returns, shipping materials, fees, all that good stuff.
Hope this helps!
Will
Definitely a great article 10/10! Thank you!
Thanks a lot Chris, I appreciate it!
Hi Will,
Needless to say this has been a session full of learning….thanks a ton for the same…
I am not a resident of US, live in India.
Quite interested in importing stuff from China and re-exporting the same to US.
Not sure about the overheads for the same and on the face of it, this looks like a business heavily loaded with overheads (largely shipping) and may not work for most of the products. Also, the transit time for cargo is also my worry, since I would need to ensure the product reaches customers without much delays, which means I will have to maintain sizable inventory.
These are just few of my apprehensions as of now. I am in the very start, currently finding out the process, cost and time taken for the Import as well as the re-export.
Would be glad to get your view point on this situation.
Thanks
SM
Hi SM,
No problem, awesome to hear you got some value out of the article. Happy to hear it.
You’re going to have a tough time importing from China to India and then back to US. You can do it if you play a middle man/trade agent role, but I think your overhead will be too high to compete selling straight to consumers (like you said).
A lot of people play that trade agent role and middle man US importers though. In fact, a lot of this article is about how to avoid dealing with middle men and go straight to the source. But there is definitely money in there.
As you said, I think your shipping costs will be too high and too long to compete in consumer markets. I think you’d do better finding good products and selling them to US importers.
But either way, your overhead will be much higher that way.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi SM,
I have found recent inspiration to start importing products from China and to sell them online. I am still a bit overwhelmed with the amount of information I found on this page. taking it one step a time.
I have been benefiting from all the comments and am getting closer to order some samples. I saw your post and reminded me the days of Me trying to import Indian/Pakistani Mangoes to US which wasn’t a big success due to tons of regulations involved. Anyways, I think you rather be better off sending your product directly to US from China and then sell it online.
I will be setting myself up with some warehouse space and shipping arrangements. Let me know if you want to split the cost with me and have your items directly shipped here in New York.
you can contact me at anwarratoltraders at gmail dot com
Thanks,
Yasir
P.S. Great Blog Will. I’m still absorbing information. I will definitely come up with questions later.
Hi Yasir,
Awesome to hear you’re taking action! One step at a time
Sorry to hear you had trouble importing before. I mentioned in the article, food regulations are a huge hassle. Can’t imagine having to deal with that!
Thanks for checking out the blog, and definitely feel free to post questions!
Talk later,
Will
Hi Will,
Thanks for all excellent information you’re providing! I really appreciate it! I have a question for you if you’d be so kind enough to give it a read. I have a potential supplier who is willing to ship me a sample through Fedex. I’m concerned because he wants to use Paypal only for the sample transaction and not for a large quantity order. Does this sound normal to you?
Thanks!
Hi Childes,
No problem, just glad to see you’re moving forward with everything! Many suppliers don’t like using PayPal for bigger orders due to the increased fees, but if you cover the fees he shouldn’t have an issue with this. Either way, it would probably be hard to find a supplier who wouldn’t take a large bulk order through PayPal if he has a working account!
It is possible that the factory doesn’t have PayPal, and that the employee is doing this for you through his personal account. But, it is also possible that it is a scammer doing the same. Just be careful, try to get to the bottom of things without damaging the relationship, and don’t send them unprotected money until you trust them 110%!
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi Will,
This is really an excellent article.
I live in Australia & am currently negotiating 2 models of products in China, only 10 pcs each model for a start ship directly to amazon.com (USA) via DHL without me seeing the products. I know that I would probably have only $4 of margins on each pc but that’s fine with me, just to keep this importing business going.
What can you advise for me because I won’t be seeing the goods and amazon.com is big on customer service. If there are defects, my sellers name will be jeopardized and since the goods will be shipped via DHL, do you think the shipment will be hassle free without me needing to pay for additional customs duties, tariffs and other taxes?
Thanks for your help.
Hi Maria,
Thanks for reading and commenting, glad you liked it!
Let me know how that works out for you, dropshipping direct from China to US buyers has never worked for me. There are so many things to keep in mind. There is really no way you can do this without getting samples first. Chinese factories usually package their orders with whatever random crap they can find. There will be Chinese characters all over it, and US buyers hate that. You also won’t be able to get in front of any problems, and shipping time will be 7+ days in many cases.
It’s probably possible to dropship direct from China to a US buyer, but it didn’t work for me years ago. Maybe if you tell the US buyers they are coming from a Chinese factory it will work.
You could maybe also work this out somehow with Amazon fulfillment, but that’s probably going to take a lot more work.
Hope this helps, sorry it probably wasn’t what you were hoping for :-\
Will
Thanks Will for that reply.
Oh well, everyone has different experience, I suppose. I did put on Shipping & Returns and on Warranty pages that goods come from China. Probably, buyers understood that because they still bought on my website. I didn’t see the products at all because they were directly shipped to USA. I am just hoping that the goods are good and they are what the buyers expect them to be.
Regarding fulfillment by amazon, I will just plunge on it because it seems to be a good business model for this age where capital/investment is limited.
Anyway, thanks for your posts because they will help me in starting up an import business.
No problem Maria, I hope I’m wrong! Like I said, if the buyers know that it is coming from China, then it’s a little bit different. If they bought on your own website, then I wouldn’t be too worried about it!
In most cases the products will be good enough quality, I just don’t like doing anything without seeing samples first.
Let me know how it goes, and keep me updated on how your grow your importing business in the future!
Good luck,
Will
Thanks Will.
I am actually reading & following your post on http://www.startupbros.com/step-by-step-guide-on-how-to-find-a-profitable-product-to-sell/#/
When the supplier quoted the 20 pcs. of samples via DhL, I would lose $3.60 for each piece because there is still amazon fulfillment fees that I had to consider. The supplier suggested sea freight as this would be way cheaper.
Do you have experience in sea or air freight offered by shipping companies via alibaba.com?
My idea is to buy all product samples (each box maybe will have 5 to 10 kilos) then ship them together using the sea or air freight offered by these companies?
Great informative article. Did you ever have to pay import duties when importing through channels such as AliExpress?
Thanks Natasha, glad to hear you liked it! I’ve never used AliExpress, but I’d imagine it’s pretty much the same. The shipping companies should charge you for the duties/taxes, and your supplier should know which products will be taxed going into the US. Also, many factories will mislabel their goods to avoid you duties and taxes. So talk to your supplier and your courier and they should know
For exemple in my country East Europe I have to pay 24% VAT if the order is above 10 Euros and VAT and Border Taxes if the order is above 150 Euros but I manage to bypas the taxes almost everytime now, as I as the supplier to send separate packages below the 150E, and as gifts with 3$ value. I started to order from Aliexpress because of the Free Shipping. Thanks for the wonderful informations here Will. You saved a student here
Awesome Silvero, thanks for the input – that’s super helpful. I couldn’t even count how many people email me struggling with VAT tax, I always feel bad I can’t give them good advice!
Thanks!
You’re welcome Will, I manage to sell at 170-300% profit
Yay I am so Happy !!!! Thanks !! (i sell vintage watches)
Awesome to hear! Can’t ask for more than a 300% profit
Keep me updated, really glad to hear about your success. Shoot me an email, maybe we can feature your story on the blog!
Talk soon,
Will
I will shoot you with a detailed email about my story
I am earning a constant profit of up to 260% 
Congrats on finding an awesome product Silvero!
I am keeping an eye everyday here on replies:)
Glad to have you around, thanks for the help
Hi Will,
I’m having a similar problem where the cheapest air freight is costing me around $3.5/kilo and causing a huge impact on the price per unit since what I’m importing is a bit heavy. 1.5kg/unit.
Is there any of your articles on receiving good imported by sea. I have no experience with sea freight and just assume that getting freight forwarder or broker would just add a lot of cost and will cut the margins short.
Please advise where we can find a guide on importing by sea. I’m in New York and am sure there are a lot of people in NY importing by sea sharing containers.
Thanks,
Yasir.
P.S. Thanks for your earlier comment.
Hi Yasir,
Sorry to hear you’re having trouble with shipping the weight of your product. Like I said in the article, importing heavier products is tough to do profitably.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any articles about importing via sea freight. I have a little bit of experience with it, but not much. I don’t know anybody who has used a forwarder or broker (depending on your definition of broker). I have a few clients who import a ton of product, I could ask them specific questions for you if you want.
Couldn’t tell you where to find an article on importing by sea, sounds like a quick Google away though.
Good luck,
Will
Thank you so much for this! I’ve been looking for products to sell for about a month now and everything I come up with is already being sold for a low profit margin. And everything I end up looking at is low cost items. For my first product, should I really try and stick to the $10 and over thing you said? I keep getting stuck on the £2 and £3 things (I’m in the UK). That makes me worried that I wouldn’t be able to undercut prices easily and could also be very easily undercut right out of the market.
Hi Rachel,
Thanks for commenting! Awesome to hear you’re already taking action and looking for products to import.
Honestly, if you can make money on it, then take it! Don’t worry about the cost if the margins are there and there are no issues with shipping or whatever. It’s tough to find a product to import, but keep at it!
Hope this helps,
Will
I’m not even sure how I ended up on your page but I was very frustrated when I was clicking my way through the internet, not even knowing what I was really searching for. Coming across your article enlightened my hope that there might be a way to start a business like the one you are describing here. I live in the “boondocks” in Wyoming and hope that this would be something I could do from home after I was laid off a few months ago. Very nice and informative article!!!
Thanks for putting in all the effort.
Hey Christine,
I’m not sure how you ended up here either, but I’m glad you did!
Good to hear you got some value from these articles. Hope our future posts can be even more helpful
Hi Will
Just felt like I was reading a story . “TAKE ACTION” . Thats what i wasnt doing until now.
Thanks Will
Viv
Hi Viv,
Awesome to hear! I think taking action is the key to success at anything, as you know if you’ve read this article
If you just keep taking action, you literally can’t fail! Just keep moving…
Will
Will,
The depth in this series you’re doing on Importing from China is superb. This really has inspired me as to the possibilities. Registering with Alibaba now. Keep up the good work!
Ian
Ian,
Awesome to hear, glad the articles could help! Let me know how it goes.
Thanks,
Will
Will, I used your simple letter with a few tweaks to make it specific to the products I was interested and got tons of responses. I targeted 3 different product types at basically three different price points – low, medium, high.
I am now working with the suppliers and making sure that I can make payments through PayPal with Escrow, even for samples.
You were definitely right about the email address you use, so think it’s worth reiterating for folks. CREATE A DESIGNATED EMAIL for the products in question. It will also help you as I used one email and now I am sifting through tons of junk mails trying to find the relevant ones for that product. All the suppliers names are very similar and it’s hard to discern otherwise. It’s all good, and I think I’m making progress towards finding a supplier to go with.
Thanks again, will report back with progress/questions!
Common frens, Grow up.
This is just a shit! Dont take me wrong. Cant you see that even Chinese are there on eBay and Amazon. Do you think them fool. They will sell those products that you are going to sell @ better bucks hmm!! Got something.
Dont windup with all your investments..
There will always be opportunity out there Sanjog, the environment just changes. You can read through these comments and see numerous people making money with this, and many more on forums and elsewhere. It’s definitely possible to make money importing from China, it’s just getting harder. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no longer importing things from China. I think there are better opportunities out there for me personally. However, I know a fair deal about importing products from China, so that’s what I wrote about here
The people who have been making money with this method have been making around $500-1500/week in profit after the first month. So there is definitely opportunity there, it’s just getting a little tougher to do it consistently with how quick the market changes. Great entrepreneurs know that change breeds opportunity, you just have to find and leverage it.
Hey Will,
I am from India n I really wanted to start an Import business. First of all I wud say you r doing a pretty gud job on clarifying doubts people have on their mind in this blog. Keep up the good work. I have started doing some research on Alibaba.com and found products like dirt bike helmets and pc accessories like mouse etc would be having some decent profit if imported to India at the price mentioned by the supplier(yet not sure cause i haven’t been to import business). Then I came up with a lot of websites n even forums of Alibaba revealing that Alibaba.com has a huge scamsters around there in the name of suppliers. I am really confused if i could take my next step on import business. It would be very nice of you if you guide me on how to make my next move. I would like to stay in touch with you.
Hi Saravana,
Awesome, glad to hear the article helped put you one step closer to your goal
There is probably some potential for importing from China to India. And those products may even work well. The key is, as it seems you’ve figured out, where do you sell those products? It’s key to find a product with high potential, import some samples of those products, sell those samples, and see what happens. That way, you minimize your risk and find out the true potential of a product quickly.
Hope this helps,
Will
P.S. – Not sure if you’ve read this, but if not – http://www.startupbros.com/step-by-step-guide-on-how-to-find-a-profitable-product-to-sell/
Hey Will,
Firstly, thanks for the great article, it has definitely taught me alot.
My question is this. Say you have a product already, now the problem is who would want to buy something from someone on ebay with a new sellers account containing zero feedback?
Everyone has to start from zero, Andrew! Make some trustworthy product pages and ship your product sooner than you say you will. Once you get the first few you’re off to the races.
Hey Andrew,
Thanks for reading, glad to hear you could pull some value out of it
Nobody will ever buy anything from somebody with zero feedback, and there is no way to solve this issue! Sorry, should have mentioned that if you don’t have established accounts on eBay and Amazon that you, in fact, can never sell anything on those platforms!
I’m kidding of course
The truth is this is a VERY small issue, and if you’re going to pursue the importing business it’s one of the smallest issues you’ll ever have. Can you really not think of any way to get some feedback? Come on now, you’re smarter than that!
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi amazing article,
I’m 14 years old and obsessed with making a profit.
I currently sell iPhone covers on eBay, but it isn’t doing as well as I wanted it to
I would be very great full just if you gave me some advice on expanding my little business. I know I’m young and not fully experienced. But could you give me a few ideas. For example the supplier , most profitable products at the moment.
Kind regards
Harry
Hi Harry!!
How about you buy iPhone chargers, screen protectors, iPhone headphones ect …. And sell them as a pack like an iPhone starter pack??
Always here to help
Gage!
Not a bad idea! Gage always drops in with some good advice
Hope all is well!
Hey Harry,
Thanks, glad you liked it!
Yea, iPhone covers are a tough market. It’s good that you’re taking action though, especially at such a young age! You’re right around the age I got started at
I’m not sure on the most profitable products to import from China right now. I have a little bit of an idea for the US market, but definitely not for the UK. Sorry :-\
The best advice I could give you is to try reading the other post – Step-by-Step Guide on How To Find A Profitable Product To Sell
After you read that, if you still want more – try out Terapeak. That’s eBay’s data analytics tool, it will dig into what’s selling on eBay and why like you wouldn’t believe! It’s got a 7 day free trial, so make sure to cancel on day 6 if you don’t want to spend money.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi Will,
Very interesting article, definitly the best around and I am going to try out this.
But I have a few question for you first
It is probably because i’m new to the website but this is getting really frustrating, I have been trying to check Alibaba and surprisingly almost no suppliers or products show their prices. Does this mean I have to contact everytime the supplier, that would be time consuming.
How can you fastly see the prices on alibaba?
Also another question to which I’m very curious about,
The way you described everything seems like you can get huge profits out of this.
Worse it goes with 10 orders per day you get a 100$ profit a day, thats way more a normal worker would get.
If this worked so well when you was only 15, I can imagine how it could work so good now with all the experience you have.
So here is my question, If your techniques works so good why are you here writing articles revealing your secret methods instead of being out there making tons of money for yourself.
Don’t get me wrong i highly appreciate what you are doing, I’m just very skeptical when it comes to online money making techniques
Thanks alot for your help and assistance, and for your amazing information
Daniel,
I found that as Will mentioned, there are some suppliers that respond very quickly on Alibaba. My additional tips based on the queries I submitted and the quality of responses follow:
Have a notepad/Word Doc open and copy the draft letter and change a few things to make it specifically related to the products you’re inquiring about. Also in your Word Doc, have a custom title you create for the message. After filtering the suppliers as mentioned, pick your top 20 or 30 and click on the Contact button and then when the message pops up you paste in your custom title, custom letter, and hit send. It takes less than 2 minutes per Supplier. Changing the title helps you stand out, b/c it prepopulates a generic message title that many people probably don’t change.
I did 30 suppliers for one product type in less than an hour. And I had responses in less than 12 hours pouring in. You do need to sift through some of the spam as once your email is out there you’ll start to get emails from suppliers selling $150 iPad mini’s and all kinds of other (obviously counterfeit or real but don’t have the rights to sell) so you have to resist the temptation!
Regarding the why share vs. do, it’s obvious — these guys have been around the block and want to help people. They’ve done some of this low level stuff and it’s concrete advice for people who want to work, but it is that — work. You will be marketing the hell out of your products, tracking orders, interfacing with customers, and shipping all kinds of products. Unless you can afford to outsource some of that you will be busy. And while it’s good activity that can certainly bring profits, it’s work that anyone can do vs. them leading people by providing the know how and attracting a following. The Age of hoarding ideas and charging boatloads of money for access to content is over. Sharing ideas, delivering great content, and creating community around a common goal/niche is where we’ve arrived. And they are offering something you don’t see all that often–a fresh and honest perspective that will sometimes kick you in the teeth and make you think
There are many great folks out there sharing great ideas – like Pat Flynn or Michael Hyatt, but I just like that Will and Kyle don’t BS and are not all “fluffy”. Sorry for the long response… and Startupbros keep up the great work!!
Ian
Hey Ian,
Thanks for those extra tips, and for the help in the comments
Definitely takes some time to send out the emails, but not that much. As I’m sure you know, that time is nothing compared to the time spent in product research.
I don’t think I could have put that second part of your answer any better, so I’m glad you did! I’m glad you get the impression we’re not fluffy and all “anyone can do it!”. I didn’t think this article gave off the “Get Rich Quick!” feeling. As you know, I’m all about putting in some work and building a real business…none of that silver bullet stuff
Thanks again for the comment,
Will
Hi Daniel,
Glad to hear you liked the article! Hope you do try it out, I always love people taking action
Everything Ian said is pretty much spot on (thanks Ian!), so I’ll keep it short…
Yea, you’ll have to contact suppliers each time. That’s why I included a section on that with my email templates and workflow to do it in the article.
Ian has it right above. I don’t use this method any more, and I’m not planning on it. And I don’t really want to make importing products from China my specialization as an entrepreneur, so that’s why you don’t see me trying to sell you importing products. I just have some experience, and the purpose of StartupBros is to help entrepreneurs learn from my experiences as an entrepreneur
There’s an unlimited number of ways to make money. Like Ian said, it’s not about hoarding ideas. I can’t implement every idea I have. Some I implement, some I save, some I share, and some I throw away.
Moreover, I’ve met some incredible people through this article. I basically converted my experience into new connections that will actually help my career grow (since again, I’m no longer importing products from China). I think that’s better than throwing it on some sales page and trying to sell it to everybody.
Hope this answers your questions
Good luck on your venture, keep us updated!
Will
Great experience and well written….what better than real life experience.
Soon I will start on my own and your article was a real great read.
Deep.
Thanks a lot Deep, glad to hear you liked it. Hope my article can be of value to you when you start importing products from China yourself
Hi Will,
As everyone has said on here already, great article and a really valuable resource to anyone who has been considering this type of thing for a while! Its very kind of you to take the time to reply to everyone’s comments too.
I wanted to ask a couple of brief questions about shipping bigger items. as you mention in your article to generally stay away from these. I am looking at bringing in Bicycles from China/Taiwan to the UK.
1) Are there any major pitfalls you are aware of with bigger items (Damage, weight restrictions, time etc)?
2) Suppliers I have spoken to so far seem to recommend going for a 20HQ or a 40HQ container (depending on quantity) but quote anywhere from 900 USD to 6200 USD, any reason for this fluctuation?
3) FOB pricing has confused me, even after looking it up all over the place? Am I generally right in saying that is the cost of getting it to the port (e.g. Shanghai), then shipping and what happens once it arrives is down to me?
4) I have contacted around 20 suppliers but only heard back from a couple and had to chase most by chat. Then many of them have not actually got my email. Is it common for most emails to get lost when using the automatic contact boxes?
5) For payment terms, how much is generally paid up front and at what point is the remainder released from Escrow?
Think thats all for now! Thanks again for the article.
Alex
Hi Alex,
Awesome to hear you found the article valuable, thanks! Responding to comments is the least I can do, this is a LONG article to get through!
I’ve never imported anything from China larger than I can hold. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, or that you can’t make money doing it. I just didn’t…
Like I said in the articles, it’s just riskier to import bigger items. Due to the increased shipping costs, every error is much more expensive for you. There are a lot of other things to wrap your head around, but I wouldn’t know since I haven’t imported large products…
FOB stands for Free On Board. It’s referring to liability, the supplier is free of the liability of the product after it’s boarded onto your transport (free of liability on boarding). It basically means that if the product is lost, damaged, or destroyed during shipping – they are not liable. This is why shipping insurance is there for.
Some suppliers are harder to get in touch with than others. Some markets don’t take Alibaba inquiries as seriously. It’s different for every market. Every supplier will also have certain mediums they respond to better than others as well. I’d just keep looking around and following up.
Everything goes into Escrow, and you release it all at once. Some suppliers will want 10% up front or something like that. There are also payment terms like Net 30, definitely go with that if you can convince your supplier.
Also, with you talking about importing containers, this is all pretty variable. Like I said, I haven’t done huge items like bikes. It may be that some of this information is wrong for that market, so make sure you do your own research (as I’m sure you will)
Good luck!
Will
This is really great information. Do you guys offer any type of paid consulting/coaching for things like verifying the supplier, picking niches etc?
Glad you liked it Rob! I do a LOT of consulting/coaching for people importing products from China. I don’t verify the supplier and verify niches though, I just help walk people through it and help them learn to do it. Give a man a fish, teach a man to fish…you know
this is really a awesome article, great job will. you show us transparent process of importing from china and how to sell them. we cant find this kind of useful article at zero cost in todays world. thanks alot.
i am from india. and i know many manufactures who are looking to export their products to foreign countries. this manufacturers are basically of plastic industries, textile industries, kitchen ware products, and from many more. so pls suggest me that in which country i can easily get importers of these products. i want to do this business as middle man or export agent. thanks alot in advance.
Thanks a lot Jignesh, glad to hear you liked it!
Just look at the comments! Seems like a lot of people from the EU, USA, and Australia really want to start importing products from China or India! As in any business, the trick is how to sell it
Good luck
Will
I found this article very interesting and encouraging, just the right kind for a beginner looking to start business. the suggestions were very honest and practical. I would wish he also provides some tips on e-business tie up and some do’s and don’t.
Awesome, glad you found the articles encouraging! Hope you can get some value out of them on your journey to the top
Hi, I’m 14 and I want to get started in this business. I want to know how much you invested to get things rolling in the beginning. Thanks
Hi Stone,
Awesome that you’re getting started so young, keep it up! I probably lost $300-500 before I started making money with this, but I had to figure it out myself. But, you still need to be very careful when importing products from China
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi Will,
Do you know anything about iOffer? I’ve seen some good deals there that would provide good margins on ebay and Amazon. I was looking at designer sunglasses specifically.
Thanks in advance!
Rich
Hi Rich,
I’ve had some success with iOffer before, but not a whole lot. With the small amount of traffic iOffer gets, you can only scale it so high. It’s definitely something to look into, and I know you can make money there with products you import from China/Asia. But, I don’t think you can build a business exclusively off of that sales channel. You’re probably going to want to branch out eventually, either way you grow.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi Will,
Thanx for the great article.
I am in the UK and have been trying to find out for some time now how to go about setting up a little buying and selling side line to supplement and maybe eventually replace the income from my full time job.
I went to my local ‘car boot’ sale last week (not sure if you have them in the USA) and there was this guy selling new plain boxed electrical items from China from the back of his car. I watched him sell the entire contents in less than half an hour! After seeing this it renewed by enthusiasm to try and do something for myself and now your excellent article has pointed me in the right direction.
Off to Alibaba right now.
Andrea
Hi Andrea,
No problem, glad you liked it – Hope it can help you in replacing your full time job!
We don’t have those in the US, at least not established meetups
There is a whole economy of people making a living selling imported products from China, but with the internet you can really scale it up! Just make sure it’s all legal, of course…
Good luck,
Will
Will,
Thanks for sharing that information. That is where I am now. Trying to cut out the middleman and import from China. I have a indoor market booth and see great potential if I can get the right products.
Hi Will (sweet name!),
Glad you liked it! Congrats on your success so far, importing your products from China could definitely help you grow. I don’t think I mentioned it, but when I was importing the fashion accessories, I tried to sell to Flea Market Booth Owners. Had some limited success, but face-to-face sales is tough when you’re under 16
Good luck,
Will
Hi Will,
Thanks for sharing your secrets on this blog. I would like more detailed information on shipping. I contacted a supplier a few months back about importing a product that wasn’t large but but could be very heavy (up to 55lbs per piece) so the only viable shipping method was sea freight. They quoted me FOB shipping and said that I would have to find my own shipper and take care of my own logistics. Is this how most suppliers operate? I went through the motions of looking into finding shippers for my product and started with the usual suspects like UPS, FEDEX and DHL. I was told by these shippers that I would have to find a customs broker to get my items through customs or I could hire a their own internal customs brokerage division but this was a seperate fee from shipping. Have you ever shipped anything via Sea Freight? If so what has been your experience with this (From sourcing shippers, truckers, figuring our U.S. tarrifs on the stuff you want to import, etc.)? How does the entire process work step by step from getting the products out the factory door to my own door step?
Thanks!
Hi Benny,
No problem, glad you got some value out of them! Yea, when you’re importing heavy products from overseas, shipping is a much different game…
When importing something unusually heavy or large, you’ll usually have to set up your own shipping courier, and further ensure that all regulations are taken care of.
Your research was correct. You’ll probably have to find a customs broker. I know from friends that UPS is good, but I have no idea on the fees or how they compare to anybody else. I’ve never personally imported anything like that, I’ve only dealt with friends/clients that have. Of the people I know who ship via Sea Freight, it’s about half and half. Smaller importers tend to use UPS/FedEx/DHL, while larger (and more frequent) importers use their own broker. Of course, I only know a few people that do that, so take that last bit with a grain of salt.
Although, maybe it’s time for me to get a guest post! A step-by-step guide for importing products from China via Sea Freight would be very valuable, and certainly answer many questions!
Until then, I hope this helps…
Thanks,
Will
Hi Will,
Thanks for the great article, it has been an immense help in getting started.
I had a quick question for you, our main goal in the end is to have drop shipping to our customers however we are currently in the first talks with one of our suppliers where they say that once we place our order there will be a 30-35day production time to complete. From what I can tell, this factory creates on the spot vs carrying inventory. Which does not hint towards the potential to drop ship. Do you think it is still possible to have drop shipping in the future with them? Should I breach the subject with them due to this concern this early in our relationship or should I give it a go anyways?
Thanks!
Hi Nick,
Thanks for commenting, glad to hear the article could help!
It’s possible to have a drop shipping relationship with anybody, it matters how you want to do it. You should really talk to suppliers, especially since drop shipping is often not advertised. It’s also very much on a supplier-by-supplier basis, and less of a product-by-product basis.
I definitely think it’s ok to ask about it though. If you want to grow into that, then find the perfect supplier that will grow with you. You may have to negotiate a custom deal, as most supplier won’t just up and agree to start drop shipping (unless they’re made to dropship). But, keep looking, they’re out there!
Hope this helps,
Will
haha its like we lived parallel lives.. Im up in Canada and I was a part of the massive airsoft flood back in the days.. I was the same age as you, at the time airsoft was borderline illegal to buy in Canada so I would have the guns shipped to US addresses and break them down there and drive them back over the border and reassemble to sell locally.. haha it was great.
TBH.. I still don’t work, my friends always ask me about it but I ask why? Let your brain do the work.. not your body. Very good read.. Maybe we can even collaborate! Cheers
Haha, awesome JJ! I’m sure you were making even more than I was in Canada. I could never figure out how to ship into Canada. I’m sure you made a killing as a small time smuggler though
Yes, I agree with you there. When posting this article on importing, I didn’t think it would be as popular as it was. You’ll always be able to make money importing products from China, but I think there are much more lucrative ways to attain success now. But again, it depends how you want to build your life.
Thanks for the input JJ!