This post is a follow-up to How You Can Make Big Money Importing From China – The Rise and Fall of My Empire…
In my last post, I showed you all how you can create your own importing business on the side. I got an overwhelming amount of positive feedback and great questions from that article, and I can’t explain how much I appreciate it – thank you all!
But ultimately, my last article did not go far enough in showing you how to get started…
Where I Failed
Though my last article did help a lot of people, I got a TON of questions from readers asking how to find a good product to sell. Out of all of the questions I got, 90% of them must have been asking for help with some part of the product selection and buying process.
What this means is that I failed to explain this part of the process well enough in my last post; which is terrible, because that is the most important part!
Though I answered everybody’s questions as well as I could, there were undoubtedly many confused people who did not have the time to email me or comment.
I decided to put all the responses I sent to fellow entrepreneurs together and craft them into a (hopefully) beautiful Step-by-Step guide, which you should all know by now I love.
So without further ado, here is the Step-by-Step Guide on How To Find a Profitable Product To Sell…
Step 1: Prepare – What’s a Good Product?
If you haven’t read my previous post on importing, I would highly suggest doing that before going any further, as it really ties the whole concept together.
After you’ve done that, you can move on…
…
Done? Alright.
Now what we have to do is understand what I actually mean when I say “product”
I talked to one person who asked me if I thought he would make money if he sold towels…
That is not what I meant when I said product! So let me explain…
What’s a product?
When I first started my importing business, that “big niche” kind of thinking caused me to lose money hand over fist.
Every “niche” I tried I lost money in. Samples were causing me a fortune and it seemed that the only way out was to quit.
In a desperation move, I started only buying products I was selling consistently and making money on. What I discovered was that there was no profitable “niche” per se, but many profitable products!
You see, you need to be looking for a single profitable product to sell, not a profitable product niche to operate in. If you are looking for a profitable product niche, you are never going to be looking for the right thing. You are going to be completely overwhelmed from the beginning looking at mountains of data that are not at all relevant to what you’re trying to do.
The one exception to this is if you want to create a brand and branch out. But even then, you probably still want to start with one product, the one that will be your most profitable.
If you are trying to make some nice easy side income for yourself, then you don’t need to worry about branding or branching out into new products yet. All you need to worry about is finding a single profitable product to sell, and selling it.
What makes a good product?
Now that you know you are only looking for one single product to sell, you need to know a few things about what qualifies a product to be “good”.
There is a specific sweet spot that you should be looking for.
I would suggest you read over the following list a couple of times before moving forward, and really grasp all these points and why I put them there.
Good products are…
- Small and light enough to be easily picked up - The bigger and heavier it is, the more it costs to ship both in and out (not to mention any returns and storage). I’ve never tried dealing with any product I can’t easily pick up, so I can’t suggest you do…
- Specific, niche products (usually) - Again, you aren’t going to be selling things like “Necklaces” or even “Clock Necklaces”. You want to find one specific product, like “Silver Owl Pendant Clock Necklace”.
- Selling to consumers for $10-200 - I am sure there is plenty of money to be made in products over this range, but it is going to take a lot of capital to get started. You can certainly try, just know it’s just going to be riskier. Most items under $10 are even tougher, as most markets don’t have enough volume to create any sizable revenue. Furthermore, any markets that do have volume under $10 are typically going to be run by big importers who can work on low margins.
- Consistent stream of buyers - You want something that is going to sell consistently all year long and for the foreseeable future. So don’t get into iPhone 2 cases just because you got a great price – that product will have an ever decreasing base of buyers. You also don’t want to get into super seasonal stuff, like Halloween Costumes or Christmas Ornaments
- Selling for twice as much as your buy price - I would not even look at a product with less than a 100% markup, which is a 50% margin. That means if I cant double the price, I am not looking at it. I suggest you use your worst estimates here, which I’ll explain further below.
Bad products are…
- Mechanical and demand high quality standards and great warranties - Hoping this one is self-explanatory, but you definitely don’t want to be dealing with things like table saws, hydraulic lifts, and manufacturing machinery. That is just a headache waiting to happen (probably much worse than a headache though…)
- Sold at Wal-Mart or Best Buy - If you are thinking about a product that is being imported by GIANT retailers, you are missing the point. We are trying to find a single deep-niche item with consistent buyers that we can undercut the current selling prices on. This is the best way to reduce risk.
- Fragile and require perfect shipping practices - Not a headache, but a nightmare waiting to happen.
- Have multiple “Powersellers” already selling large volume - If you are thinking about doing something like headphones, you don’t want to pick the headphones that have 10 powersellers who sell thousands of units a month already. These are businesses built to run on eBay, and you won’t be able to compete with them. You need to find products that don’t have a ton of sellers, but the ones there are selling consistently. Don’t let a little competition discourage you, but also don’t try to start selling socks and be able to compete with the 20 companies on eBay already selling 20,000 socks a month factory direct. You gotta get more out of the box.
- Trademarked and will get you sued – Don’t buy anything with any trademark on it. This means counterfeit purses and wallets, as well as Snoopy and Twilight toys. Anything with big US trademarks on it won’t get you too far.
Note that these are just my recommendations based on how I wanted my importing business to run. I am sure there is money to be made in products that break every rule set above, but I can only help readers with what I know works from my experiences.
Even when I was making a fortune importing airsoft guns, there were only a couple of products I made good money on. I could only make money on metal gearbox electric rifles and bolt action sniper rifles. I tried multiple times to get into accessories, pistols, tactical gear – pretty much everything I could think of. I could only compete on eBay and Amazon with a few specific products, and I made a KILLING with just those.
Notice that even the products I didn’t have success with fit perfectly into all of my requirements I listed above. The list above is just a framework to guide your thinking, a set of filters to run your ideas through before researching to save time.
You will still have to get your hands dirty with some data to know what products might actually make you money, so let me attempt to show you how I do it…
Step 2: Research – How To Find Good Products
Now that you know what makes a good product and have something to guide your thinking, let’s start our search.
Tools you’ll need
- Alibaba - Your new best friend. This is where you will find product listings from overseas suppliers. At this point you are using it to check prices. You’ll be using it more after you find some good products, but for now we’re just checking price.
- eBay - The best place I have found to get an idea of what products are selling for. Right now you’ll be using eBay to get an idea of the volume and price point we could sell the product you’re researching.
- Amazon - Another great place to see what products are selling for and if you can compete with them. I put eBay above this because eBay gives me a better idea of what percentage of the product listings are selling and at what price. Amazon is also awesome for browsing around and coming up with ideas to research and expand on.
- Etsy - I actually never sold on Etsy, but I have had at least 20 people email me with products they found selling on Etsy for $20+ more than they could get them on Alibaba. I think Etsy is still relatively untapped by importers and thus a good place to look into if you’re using this method.
- This spreadsheet I made for you - This is a simple spreadsheet I use to keep track of different products I find while on my search, and I suggest you do the same. I usually try to find 5-10 good products before pulling the trigger on samples. You’ll see 5 niches I found for this post on there for examples.
Open up all of these links, because you’ll be jumping around all of them in your search.
Things to keep in mind while searching
- Alibaba search filters - When searching for products or suppliers on Alibaba, always make sure you have the “Gold Supplier” button checked. This will save you from most of the low quality suppliers and scammers.
- eBay search filters - When searching for products on eBay, always make sure you have the “Completed Listings” button checked. This will allow you to see what prices things are selling at and how frequently they are selling.
- What you’re looking for – You’re looking for good products that you can mark up at least 100% in your worst estimates. Don’t forget what makes a good product and what makes a bad product with the list in Step 1. If you find a product that fits all the characteristics of a good product, and you’re able to mark it up 100% in your worst estimates, then add it to the list. By “worst estimate”, I mean using the worst case scenario buying and selling prices in your calculations.
Start searching…
Unfortunately, it is tough for me to describe exactly how I find products, because it is such a loose process (and it should be for you too).
Just so you can see how loose this process is for me, here is my search history while I was searching for the products I listed in the spreadsheet you should have opened above. I also marked the products that ended up being possible winners…
Belt buckle, Bottle opener belt buckle, Las Vegas belt buckle, Texas belt buckle, Military riot helmets, Children’s toothbrush holder, Picture cube, Photography light box, Photography mini studio kits, Survival Cards, Folding credit card survival knife, Knife, Steak knife, Stainless steel serrated steak knife, Vintage, Cat magnets, Super magnets, Magnet putty, Glow in the dark magnetic super space putty, Hair scissors, Baby bath, Bath sets, Mineral bath salts, Lighter, Blowtorch lighter, Windproof lighter, Kids instruments, Jewelry scale, Gold testing kit, Party lights, Incense holder, Novelty toy, Shock toy, Hiking boots, Wedding decor, Decorative pillows, Guitar picks, Vintage lighting, Pet bedding, Pet toys, Umbrella storage, Umbrella cover, Hair apron umbrella
As you can see, there is not a whole lot of sense to be made out of that. I found good niches, but the path to them is always pretty hard to understand.
Here are some of the ways I came up with ideas for things to search during my process…
- Looking at random objects around me and trying to think of some spin (belt buckle, kids instruments, guitar picks)
- Thinking of things that have been trending up in recent years (photography light box, survival cards, vintage)
- Thinking of little impulse buys people consistently buy (cat magnets, incense holder, novelty toy, shock toy, pet toys)
- Randomly clicking around eBay/Amazon/Etsy (picture cube, lighter, party lights, decorative pillows, wedding decor)
- Thinking of something randomly while looking at search results (pretty much everything else)
If you are still having trouble coming up with random product ideas, you can also look at any of these for inspiration – Amazon Best Sellers, Amazon Movers & Shakers, mySimon Top Searches, Shopzilla Top Searches, Kaboodle Hot Picks
It took me about 90 minutes to go through the above process and find 5 possible products, averaging just under 20 minutes per product. You should expect it to take a little over that if you don’t have much experience with this.
Once you have a few products on your spreadsheet, take a second to really think about each product and compare them against the things I’ve said above.
Will you product have a high refund rate? Will it be expensive to ship? Will it only be bought 1 month of the year? Will people expect it to work flawless for years on end? Will people expect great customer support and education?
These are all things we want to avoid with this particular method, and now is the time to double check and be sure you don’t have any bad products on your list.
Once you have decided on 2-5 products to try out, you get to find suppliers and buy samples (the fun part!)
Step 3: Buy – How To Find and Test Suppliers
Now we are going to search for and contact 3-10 good suppliers for each of our products.
A lot of the people that messaged me with questions were intimidated by contacting sales representatives – don’t be!
They are there for no other reason than to answer your questions, so please feel free to ask the suppliers you contact anything! I assure you they have heard it all.
Before you start
I would suggest making an alternate email address before contacting any suppliers, and making sure that you run all Alibaba communications through that inbox. If you don’t, then expect to be spammed with random product offering for the next 2-5 years from everybody you contact.
Finding & Contacting Suppliers
Here is what I would do, using “Stainless steel serrated steak knife” as an example.
- Search for your product on Alibaba with the correct filters – At this point we will want to switch our search settings and look for “Suppliers” rather than “Products” and search for our product. Start by filtering by “Gold Suppliers” (which you already should have checked), and keep clicking “Onsite Checked”, “Assessed Supplier”, and “Escrow” until you are down to 10-20 suppliers. If there is still a lot after that, that’s fine. Just try to find a way to narrow it down the the very best with 10-20 you can contact.
- Write a generic message asking for the information you need – Now just write a generic message that you’ll be sending to each supplier in Notepad or something. Here is the one I will be sending for this example – I suggest stealing this one and adding anything you might need or want to know. This means anything specific about your product, or anything you are confused about and want to know more about.
Hello,I am starting a company and may be needing a large supply of Stainless Steel Serrated Steak Knives. Could you send me your price list for these Stainless Steel Serrated Steak Knives, along with any shipping and payment information you can give me. Also, could we work something out regarding a sample being sent to me? Products will be going to Florida, USA. And what would the MOQ be after the samples?
Thanks,
Will - Send generic messages to suppliers – Now just go down the list of suppliers and click “Contact Suppliers”. Copy & paste your message into the box, send it, and wait for the responses. You should start seeing replies within a couple of hours.
- Decide on which suppliers to buy samples from – Within 24 hours you should have replies from most of the suppliers you emailed. You probably only want to deal with the ones that email back quickly. At this point, you will want to “dry-run” each supplier and get a feel for how it is to do business with their company. Most of your communication from here will be through email or Alibaba messaging. Your first response from them will likely contain a few price sheets, product specs, as well as responses to your questions. As you are trying to message at least 5-10 suppliers, you should get a good idea of the high/low prices for your product. This information combined with your gut feeling on the supplier through talking with them should get you down to 2-3 suppliers you like well enough to buy samples from and test to see if you can actually make money.
- Buy samples - Like I said above, through your conversations with the suppliers you contact you should whittle it down to 2-3 suppliers you are comfortable doing business with and want to buy samples from. This usually happens through email as well – You’ll tell them what products you want sent to what address, they’ll tell you how much it will cost and where to send the money, you send the money and tell them that it’s sent. Expect the shipping alone on your sample to cost $25-45. I would only do business with companies that take orders through PayPal or Escrow. Any other way than that and you are risking being scammed and have absolutely no financial protection in your order.
- Sit and wait for your samples to arrive – It will usually take 7-20 days for your order to arrive. This part sucks.
Additional questions I got on this step…
Are the details on the product listings such as Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) concrete?
The minimum order suppliers list on Alibaba is generally not concrete, and most of the time represents their average or desired order size. There is no way to know for sure without messaging the suppliers directly, which is why I message 10-20 initially.
In my experience, overseas 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 shouldn’t mind sending out even a single item via air (which is what they do with samples anyways).
Again, some items will be different than others. 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 get much better prices on Alibaba if you are willing to put in the effort to communicate with suppliers, but AliExpress is always an option.
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?
Just make sure they are sending via EMS, TNT, DHL, UPS, FedEx, etc to your house and you shouldn’t 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 via air, 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 
When comparing items on selling sites and Alibaba, is it important to find the same brands? Does it need to be the same manufacturer? Can I just find a comparable product and try to sell it?
It really depends on the product, but it would be prime if you could find the same exact products that are selling already, 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 the same product and sell them on eBay or any other channel, because you know people are buying a similar item. Then it just comes down to positioning your product 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.
Is there a trick to finding products that sell without being branded? Maybe certain niches where brand name means less (or nothing at all)?
The reason airsoft guns worked were because nobody cares about the brand. People go on to buy a cool airsoft gun for themselves or their kids, 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.
Is there a way to know the exact current volume of sales before choosing a product to sell?
I just count how many are sold in a given week on eBay, that will usually let you know a ballpark amount. Take note of the ratio of sold vs unsold listings for your product. 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.
How much to buy at first
How should I negotiate with my supplier? How did you?
It really depends on your relationship with your supplier. You will usually find yourself talking with one person 95% of the time, so you will slowly become friends with them. It is a weird relationship, you both know that business is cut throat, but you are partners in it and will help each other as far as you can. Asian business is really different than in the US.
Whenever I negotiated prices with a supplier, it was very informal and very laid back. I would usually just email them along with my normal email saying something along the lines of “I have another factory offering me this product at $0.50 per unit lower than you, I may have to move to them for this specific product”, or “If you can give me $0.50 off per unit, I can sell X number of units more for you per month”, or “I am starting to do a lot more volume with you, do you think we could talk about lowering the product or shipping prices in order to account for these recent bulk orders”.
Sort of contrary to popular belief, they are extremely friendly, and will genuinely try to help you as long as they are making something on the other end. They really believe in Karma over there, that helping you may help you help them in the future, so why wouldn’t they?
I also haggled a lot on specific orders, so I would sometimes email or skyped him saying hey, I have an order lined up for 5 of this item, but they want it at this price. If you can give me this price on these, I can sell them right away. This worked really well for me to feel out what the actual cost of sale was for the factory and something to work towards.
How does escrow work?
The Alibaba Escrow service (or whatever service you want to use) consists of you sending the payment for your order to a third party (Alibaba in this case) who will hold the money until you tell them that you have received the order and it is to your satisfaction. At that point, they release the funds to the seller. If you arent satisfied with the order, you can basically dispute the transaction and get a refund. It may a little bit safer than PayPal, but normally I still try to use PayPal anyways.
How long does it take to find a good supplier?
Now, I could probably find a good supplier in a day or two, just because I know what to look out for now (most of which is included in the post). To find a perfect supplier like my airsoft supplier is a little more difficult, and requires some time and luck. You usually have to work with a few good suppliers to find a perfect one. Really, I don’t know how much of it is “finding” one as opposed to just developing a great relationship with a great factory. I often forget that many people over there are just as entrepreneurial and ambitious as I am, if not more. Find a great factory, and work with them to build your business. Once you have constant cash coming in, they will really start to help you out, because helping you increase your sales also increases theirs.
Step 4: Sell – How To Sell Your Product
Once you finally have your hands on your samples, deeply examine them and see how they are.
Is the quality what you expected? Do any areas look cheap? Are there any things that are missing? Does anything look like it will fall apart after some heavy use? Is the packaging quality up to par? Is there anything at all that would cause a customer to not be happy with this if he ordered it from you?
These are all things you need to ask yourself. If you decide that your samples are at least high enough quality to sell (most products don’t need to be perfect), then I still recommend doing one more thing before you start buying in bulk…
The importance of testing the waters
I once thought I had an awesome niche in a certain type of bed cover. I bought my samples and got up to this point in the guide, impressed with the quality of the sample bed covers.
But instead of testing the waters and listing/selling my samples online, I immediately put in a bulk order…
A few weeks later I got my huge box full of 100 sets of bed covers. I jumped on my computer excited as ever and then started listing my bed covers…
I immediately sold 5 on the first night and shipped them out the following day. I thought I hit a gold mine.
After a week of solid sales, I started getting feedback from customers. It was HORRIBLE! Every single piece of feedback was basically hate mail.
Turns out the colors on my bed covers were running in the wash and not only ruining the designs, but in some cases more of the customers clothes.
I immediately stopped selling the covers, but not before the damage was done. I took a huge hit on my eBay feedback that would have gotten most accounts banned; as well as a hit on my bank account and pride when I had to throw away over 75 bed covers and refund all customers.
That is how I learned to always sell your samples first before putting in a bulk order, and I strongly suggest that you limit your risk and do the same.
How to sell your samples
This part should be pretty easy for you, but here is a quick overview to help.
- List your product on eBay, Amazon, and/or Etsy – You’re going to want to set up a sellers account if you don’t have one, and then list you samples. The way I do this on is just looking at the “Completed Listings” for my product that have sold the most in the past couple months, and then rewriting their copy. On Amazon it is even simpler than that, you just list a price and quantity. You usually won’t make a profit on your samples, you are only selling them to test everything out. Don’t get hung up on this part too much, just get your products up and selling and wait to see if you make sales. If you aren’t making sales, start comparing your item to ones that are and figure out why they aren’t.
- Ship out orders – Obviously if you start getting orders you are going to want to send out your samples. All you have to do is take it to the post office or whatever with the product and address.
- Wait and evaluate – You should soon enough start getting some feedback on your products. If you get good feedback, awesome! If you get back feedback or refund requests, not good. If you had to drop your price below what you thought you could sell at, maybe not good. If you didn’t sell anything and still have your samples, definitely not good. You guys will know if you want to move forward or not.
Additional questions I got on this step…
How do you handle returns and warranty?
Unfortunately, you’ll have to eat the costs on any returns at this point. Ideally you want to find a product that doesn’t have a huge return rate or high demands on quality in general. If you did that correctly, you should never run into any issues with returns outside of a 1-2% refund rate. But yes, you do have to eat the cost on all refunds and returns, and I suggest you do so happily to keep your eBay/Amazon/Etsy feedback scores high.
If one starts with a fresh email account on eBay/Amazon, does it take long before someone actually buys one of your items?
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.
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?
My listings would look like this
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?
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.
Step 5: Grow – How To Move Forward & Other Questions
So at this point you should know a huge amount about whether or not you’d like to move forward with this. You should have all of the data you need to know exactly how much money you can make, exactly how many units of your product you should buy on your first bulk order, and which supplier you’d like to work with moving forward.
Growing from here is really up to you. There is no limit on how large or how small an importing business can be.
I have a friend who started out selling car audio sub woofers just like I describe here. He started selling 2-3 units per week on eBay.
Within a couple months he had expanded out to Amazon and started putting his own brand name on the sub woofers he was ordering.
Within a year he had a website for his brand and began bringing in more and more products to sell. He also began thinking of ways to turn Amazon and eBay customers into recurring revenue by signing them up for his email list and social media profiles.
Now, not even 2 years since he started, he is set to clear $700,000 of revenue for 2012 at just 20 years old.
He started out with this simple concept and decided that he wanted to build it out into his own brand. That is definitely one way you could go!
Of course this also takes MUCH more time and energy to build. If you want to build this up and still keep it as a side business, there are ways to do that as well.
Here are just a few of the ways you can grow your importing business from here -
- Listing yourself on other existing sales channels – Make sure you have all of your products listed on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and any other places you can get sales from.
- Build your own sales channel – It is becoming easier and easier for anybody to create an eCommerce store and start building their own sales channel. Even if you don’t want to build your own brand, there are many benefits, such as listing your products through Google and Bing Shopping Ads.
- Advertising on existing sales channels – I had a lot of success advertising my product listings on Amazon and eBay, and I am sure you can do the same.
- Take on new products – As you sell more of your product you will have more feedback and money to play with. You’ll be able to test new products and start bringing in new things to sell.
- Brand yourself – Branding takes a lot, and obviously goes far beyond the scope of this post, but you can certainly build out your importing company into a brand like I described above. You can see how I pick brand names here.
- Recurring revenue – The best way to make money in any business is recurring revenue. You can start thinking about putting promotional materials in boxes, starting an email newsletter, monthly subscription packs, and things like that. The more people you can siphon from eBay, Amazon, Etsy, Google, or whatever into your contact databases (email, mail, etc), the better.
- Getting better prices from your supplier – As your volume starts to pick up with your supplier your bargaining power will grow with it. Don’t be afraid to ask for small discounts here or there once you have some volume going.
- Outsourcing parts of the process – Once you are making 10 or 20 orders a day, you will probably start getting sick of shipping things out constantly. Outsourcing this to a friend or employee of some sort is an obvious way to free up time to grow your business. Hiring a VA to keep track of your inventory and respond to customers immediately may be a good investment as well.
Here are things that probably won’t work -
- PPC Advertising – I have not had much success with Adwords/FB PPC with this method. If you know what you’re doing go ahead and try, but I know what I’m doing and don’t find it worth my time.
- Social Media – Just isn’t going to work for importing unless you are trying to build a brand or something. Social is good for brands, not for eBay/Amazon sellers. Again, different if you are building a brand.
- Pretty much anything I didn’t mention above – If I didn’t mention it in the “working” section, then it didn’t work for me.
Other questions I received…
There were a few questions that I received that didn’t really fit into any of the above steps, but I did want to include them anyways. Here they are -
What was your experience with getting the merchandise through customs? Were your orders always by air or did you dabble with larger container shipments?
I never had much trouble with customs. 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. There are also a few extra fees involved, but again your supplier will know them, so just ask them.
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.
What are the hilarious boxes of useless stuff you still own?
I have a box of a bunch of purses and wallets taking up space in my closet. I have a pair of these ridiculous transparent gangster shoes (BAPES or soemthing) that I got sent instead of a sample I ordered. I have tons of airsoft stuff still laying around, more T-Shirts than I will ever be able to use, and probably more…
When to start advertising?
What do you think about the viability of this in a smaller international market like Australia?
I think this will work in smaller markets, but even more interestingly I think those markets may have more opportunities. Everybody is in the US markets, there have got to be some under utilized sites for different countries.
There might also be products that don’t sell very well in the US and do in Australia, which would probably increase your margins greatly. There have got to be some products that are Australia specific that might be awesome niches.
Shipping and imports might eat you, but in Australia I think you will actually get everything a lot cheaper than we do in the US (not sure though). I know Australia and China have been playing nice, and are obviously very close to each other, so it might be significantly cheaper.
Obviously, treat it with caution as my experience is in the US market and could be wrong because of that, but I think you should definitely look into it.
I live in Europe and anything outside of the free market is typically charged VAT as it comes in – how did you deal with this?
I definitely didn’t need to deal with VAT tax here in the US, and I would hate it if I did. Honestly, it probably won’t kill the method entirely, but it is going to limit your niches a bit more. You’re gunna have to find a really, really good niche, and probably on a small item with few parts to avoid a high VAT fee.
Why should we avoid WWB/Doba?
I think in some cases WWB/Doba can give you some good contacts, and it may have changed since I was a member. In my specific experience with them, I couldn’t find any items that I could make a significant margin on. I remember going through tons and tons and tons of data to find the most profitable items I could sell via eBay and Amazon and couldn’t find a single item to make money on. Coupled in with the cost of membership I couldn’t see myself ever making it worth the money, but again I was 14-16 years old at the time and may have been missing some vital points – but that is my experience with it.
Why didn’t you move to other products when you were younger?
I guess I don’t really remember why I didn’t start exploring other niches at that time. My best guess is that I was 16 and scatterbrained and wanted to try something new and exciting. I also got picked up on a professional paintball team right around that time also, so that took up most of my time for a few years…
Do you still find suppliers on Alibaba and sell items?
I still use Alibaba to find suppliers for me and my clients for whatever we need. Some of my recent imports have been yearbook-style books, branded promo materials (pins, bags, shirts, posters, etc.), and industry specific tools (think hair cutting shears, bartender items, things like that).
How do you find dropshippers?
Dropshippers are a little bit tougher to find than bulk distributors, because they need to trust you as well as you trusting them. I think it is really best to build a relationship through small bulk orders before moving into dropshipping. A great site for finding dropshippers is WholesaleCentral.com – but the best dropshippers are found through your existing suppliers.
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.
How do you do taxes on this? Say you’re self employed and keep good records?
Yea, I never had many tax issues with it. Given I was 15/16, I was using my parents accountant to do it, and just gave them my records basically.
On shipping, do you buy a bulk order of boxes and print off labels or whatever?
Yep, that is exactly what I did. Add in a tape gun and packing peanut dispenser and you’re golden.
Additional Questions?
I tried to go as far as I could without getting boring in this blog post, and I may have even failed at that.
However, if you are still having any issues with any part of this process, feel free to contact me and I will do what I can to help you.
As many of our readers already know, I typically answer all questions with a couple of hours, and try to do as much as I can to help you succeed.
You can contact me by commenting below or emailing me at Will at StartupBros dot Com
Awesome Blogpost!
Really a lot of great content in this and your previous post.
I actually started importing just a few days before finding your post which is kind of funny! I agree on everything you say!
For now i don’t have any more questions… just wanted to say thank you for the great articles! I will be following your blog in the future that’s for sure.
BTW i think you forget to post an image in your article if i am not mistake:
After the quote:
“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?”
There is nothing related to your listing.
regards Peter
Hi Peter,
Thanks a lot for reading and taking the time out to comment!
Glad to hear another importer agrees with the ritual I’ve formed
I did forget to post that link – I knew I was forgetting a link somewhere. Thanks for telling me, I am going to add it right away.
Thanks again for everything,
Will
Once again, amazing blog post! I’m sure many people appreciate what you’re doing Will, keep it up!
I think you forgot to insert an image (or link) at the part where you’re talking about how your listings look like.
Hi Lamine,
Thanks a lot for reading and taking the time out to comment again, the only thing better than feedback is consistent feedback
Thanks for letting me know, just added the link now!
Hope you got some value out of this one Lamine, and I’ll try to keep up the good work.
Will
Thank you so much for all the info….really good of you to share…
Thanks for reading and commenting MissKeda
Keep up the good work, man. Thanks for another great post.
Thanks a lot Brian, hope it helped!
This post is pure awesomeness. I’m a web developer that suck at marketing, and this kind of post is really usefull. Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed guide.
Thanks a lot for reading! Glad I could help
Hi Will,
This is a really great article! Thank you for sharing such valuable knowledge on how to start this daunting process.
No problem Robert, hope it helps you get through it
Great article, one question…What percentage of return did you shoot for before giving a product a pass or a go?
Hey Marco, I recognize your name from the Adwords Coupon I sent you, hope it helps
My goal was to stay under a 2% return rate, but anything over 5% would be unacceptable to me.
Hope this helps,
Will
How can I tell if a certain product is selling well/poorly on Amazon?
Hey Isaiah,
Though you can’t see the exact amount sold in any given period, you can try to look at how quickly prices are changing, the “Bestsellers” number of the product (#x,xxx bestseller in x category), or …that may be it. It is a bit tougher to get an idea of volume on Amazon, that’s why I recommend eBay for that phase.
Hope this helps,
Will
Thanks. Great advice. But I would buy thru AliExpress, I’d avoid AliBaba, I’ve heard that AE’s escrow is far far safer than AB’s.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for the advice!
This was awesome, truly powerful information and I have to thank you for sharing!
One Question:
How do you deal with force majeure? Especially with the turmoil in China and any unlikely weather disasters?
Thanks
Thanks a lot for your kind words Bar!
Good question, I have never had any issues like that, so I am not sure how it would be handled in an air order. I want to say when shipping by air there may be some sort of insurance by the shipping company, but I am really not sure.
Really good question though, I will have to look into it. Thank god I never had any issues like that! I have had some issues with container shipments, but never something like a ship sinking or any complete loss. I will definitely have to look into it.
Hope the rest of the article helped,
Will
Great post outlining this method. Does eBay have to many of these’niche sellers’ or are new niche products emerging rapidly enough for new comers to make a buck with this technique?
Thanks you all the info
Shout out from your home 813
Hi Ryan,
New products are coming up all the time, and there are millions of great niches out there. I cant believe all the great niches people have been finding!
Thanks a lot for reading!
Will
P.S. – I’m in 727
Thought I read one of you guys were from tampa. … O well
I’m in Palm Harbor – quick drive away
I looked up airsoft guns on Alibaba but there were no listings.
Hey Stephen,
China made airsoft guns illegal, so they now need to be smuggled out of the country and are much more expensive to produce. Factories definitely don’t want to attract attention by listing illegal items on Alibaba. If you search for something an airsoft factory would legally produce, like airsoft clips, airsoft parts, bbs, accessories, etc – you should find some factories. My bet is they just don’t openly advertise the “weapon look-a-likes” (that is what is illegal in China).
My supplier is still going strong, I just put in some orders with him last week to test the waters again. Same exact guy as years ago!
Hope this helps, not really sure if you had a question or what…
Will
How do you find out if they sell actual airsoft guns? It seems like they wouldn’t just go around telling anyone who messages them. Or would they?
I would just ask them, I am honestly not sure exactly how it works now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issues_in_airsoft#China
Haha yeah it was essentially a question. So just link up with a supplier that sells airsoft products and ask them if they have any guns available?
I know you said airsoft accessories didn’t sell well for you. Did you try selling CO2 cartridges and if so what were your results?
Thanks for answering my question so quickly.
No problem Stephen, thanks for replying so quick
I never tried doing CO2 cartridges, I am really not sure how they would do. I never got into any of the gas powered stuff.
I can tell you though, it is going to be tough to compete with me if I get back into it, my supplier for airsoft rocks
Good luck,
Will
Quick question: How did you identify the worth of an airsoft gun? I’m looking at a few manufacturers’ catalogs and most of the guns just have pictures and not model numbers that you could identify on eBay/Amazon. So how did you estimate the value?
Hey Isaiah –
If by value you meant your cost of goods (inventory), then you need to ask your supplier.
Hope this helps,
Will
I know you didn’t really do much yourself as far as taxes go, but what about the setup like obtaining a resale certificate or anything? Did you need to do anything like that? What about charging for sales tax for your state (if applicable). Or did you literally just keep all records and hope for the best when it came to tax time? Thanks!
Hey Teddi,
Sorry I missed your comment somehow. Never again!
I didn’t have a resale certificate until after a good year after starting this. I don’t see any use in dropping money on bureaucratic formalities until I know that it is going to be advantageous to me. After a year I had built up a good amount of cash flow and it was obvious that I would be continuing to operate the business for the foreseeable future. At that point, I filed for an LLC and Sales & Use Tax license.
My LLC for that was filed in Nevada, so I got a Resale Certificate in NV and collected & paid sales tax for orders from NV. That was the extent of it though.
If you keep your records in order any accountant will be able to do it for a few hundred bucks.
Don’t stress the bureaucratic crap so much – it is just there to steal your time and money.
Hope this helps,
Will
P.S. – The only way I would stress this stuff is if you live in one of the really anti-business States like Cali or NY. If I lived there, I would probably get an LLC before doing anything for any business.
If I find a supplier that is “Gold”, “Onsite Checked”, and “Escrow”, but NOT an “Assessed Supplier” is this a deal-breaker? What does “Assessed Supplier” mean?
Hey Joe,
Not being an Assessed Supplier is NOT a deal breaker for me. The only deal breakers for me are if they are not gold members, or if they do not take PayPal/Escrow. Assessed Supplier I believe means that they paid for a third party to come in and inspect their factory, a little expensive, and somewhat rare still. Gold + Paypal/Escrow is my minimum, everything else is a bonus
Hope this helps,
Will
Thanks, Will!
Great article! Do you have any advice for a broke college kid? This seems really awesome but I’m worried it would take make me forever to save up enough to get started. Any advice on low start up costs?
Hey Max,
Thanks a lot for reading + commenting!
The way that I wrote this out is basically my “bootstrap” method for this. $500 would be a good starting amount with this method, but you could even go lower.
If you don’t have $500, walk outside! College is a massive pool of hungry buyers with other people’s money! Easy money to be made all over the place.
Hope this helps,
Will
This is a great follow up post Will. I’m gonna read back through it a second time; lot’s of good details. I have a good idea of a product I’m working on with a friend – I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m glad I could be a inspiration for your first importing post which has BLOWN UP. Keep up the good work!
Hey Devan, glad you like the follow up as well! Definitely keep me updated on the new project (you know my email). Hard to believe that simple email you sent out started all this! Cloud Atlas or what?
How many samples do you recommend we buy?
And has anybody ordered anything yet?
Hi Stephen,
Thanks a lot for commenting.
I would recommend you buy 1-2 samples from 2-5 factories per item. Obviously if you are thinking of importing something like jelly bracelets you’ll want more than 1-2 units, so use your judgement depending on whatever product you’re looking at.
A lot of readers have already bought samples, I have probably heard from 20-30 people that are waiting on their first batch of sample orders as we speak. I am sure there are many more who didn’t email me!
Hope this helps,
Will
Who did you set your courier account up with?
UPS, but now I am with FedEx. They switch their rates around a lot, so just see what you want to do.
Hey
You say revenue.. but can you give us an idea how much profit he made?
THX!
“”"”I have a friend who started out selling car audio sub woofers just like I describe here. He started selling 2-3 units per week on eBay.
Within a couple months he had expanded out to Amazon and started putting his own brand name on the sub woofers he was ordering.
Within a year he had a website for his brand and began bringing in more and more products to sell. He also began thinking of ways to turn Amazon and eBay customers into recurring revenue by signing them up for his email list and social media profiles.
Now, not even 2 years since he started, he is set to clear $700,000 of revenue for 2012 at just 20 years old.”"”
Hi,
Thanks a lot for reading/commenting.
I believe he works on around a 40-50% gross margin, but we will be having him in for a podcast interview within the next couple weeks and I’ll be sure to ask him for his latest numbers.
Of course, how much of that goes into his pocket? Not a whole lot right now, because it is all being reinvested (he still has 100% equity). He could take money out or take on investors and take money off the table, but he doesn’t want to. Equity is always better than cash if you’re confident in your ability to grow the company.
Hope this helps,
Will
tl;dr – 40-50% gross margin
Thanks for the interesting article, I’m really enjoying looking around for products to sell, still nervous about spending my money on something that won’t sell though. What kind of percentage for sales should I be looking for on items (on eBay), as in percentage of listings that sell. And what constitutes high, medium and low volume.
Thanks
Hey Aaron,
Sorry about the delay on the response, I was out of town for the holidays.
I would also be nervous about spending money on items that won’t sell! That’s why I go through this process to test each product and each supplier to make sure everything runs smoothly before I start buying in bulk.
It really depends on your item, but I’d say anywhere over 75% not selling is too much. You’re looking for volume too, so look for listings with multiple items. Some will be selling a couple units, others hundreds. Once you start comparing items you’ll start to get an idea of averages and how to compare them.
Hope this helps,
Will
Do you check the rate on shipping through your courier or do you have the supplier do that for you?
I usually just let the supplier deal with all of it. If I feel inclined to I’ll check shipping prices to make sure I’m not getting ripped off, but it is really rare I have ever been slighted on shipping price.
Hope this helps Stephen, and thanks for commenting!
Great post once again Will. You are inspiring a new generation of young import entrepreneurs.
Have a happy holiday and enjoy the weather down there in Florida.
Heres to a great 2013 with new opportunities!!
Hey there Alex,
Sorry for the delay on the response, hope you had a great Christmas
Thanks a lot for reading, I’m glad you liked it
Let’s kill it in 2013!
Will
Hey another question!
So when you search the top sold products on Amazon. How do you really know what you are looking for. I mean, I’ve found some products I can import for a good price, but all those products seem to be sold by tons of people on eBay. How do you personally, tell what is being imported and what isn’t by other people, and what you can actually sell, and whats over saturated.
Thanks again for the great article!
Hey Zak,
That’s what this article is supposed to be – How I personally tell what is being imported and what I can actually sell!
There is no way to be sure without taking a risk and trying, that is business.
This is the exact process I use to test products to see if it is profitable for me to move forward with them.
Every product is different. Airsoft guns I was importing an exact make and model and killing it, but with the knives example I could import any decent quality knife and kill it.
Hope this helps,
Will
How do you keep shipping costs down on pretty small products? It seems like even with a product like a 24 pack of batteries, the shipping would cost at least $5. I know that this can’t be the case for all sellers because some products with free shipping would cost more to ship than they are selling it for.
Hey again Isaiah,
For very high volume sellers, they likely work out bulk deals with UPS/Fedex as well as have their entire company streamlined for these types of shipments. That is why I suggest not trying to compete with things priced lower than $10-20. Batteries are also generally a high volume low margin market, the type I’d suggest not going into. You want a higher margin.
Hope this helps,
Will
This is a great article! Extraordinarily informative and probably the best source for advice on finding products to import!
I fully agree on the advice to only buy from suppliers that accept PayPal and Escrow. Does anyone else find it odd that many vendors “lose” their PayPal accounts right before you’re ready to place an order with them?
Thanks a lot for reading! Glad you liked it. I don’t have much of that specifically, but I’m sure it happens. Gotta avoid those scams.
I am guessing the best way to counteract that is to buy in bulk once you know you have a sellable product.
Exactly right, thanks
Should we be negotiating with the suppliers? If so, how much wiggle room is there usually? What percentage of their initial asking price should we be starting at ? And thanks again for another great article!
You can and should negotiate with them, but know that you don’t have much to bargain with at first. At best you can bluff. Once you start buying a lot, you become more valuable and reliable to them, and they will work with you more. It is much easier to negotiate your costs down when you are already buying a lot consistently.
Hope this helps,
Will
Great article, one question though: If you are using Aliexpress with free shipping do you still need a 100% markup on the product? It seems to me that you could be profitable even with much slimmer margins.
Hey Edward, thanks for commenting. You could be profitable with slimmer margins, but it leaves less room for growth, scale, unexpected events, taxes, etc.
I like the 100% markup minimum, but I’ve gotten by on less.
Hi –
I am a newcomer to your site but I wanted to start off by telling you how I am thoroughly blown away by the content in this article and the top 10 on your site. I already added your blog to my RSS reader and someday soon I will definitely be reading some more back posts! You offer so much value here and I am really grateful and excited to have found you!
Now on to my question – I am looking at products on alibaba and eBay and I think I have a couple of good ones that might be viable – but they look to be low volume. Does that matter starting out? On one product, there isn’t even a relatively good match at all (I suspect it is an untapped market) but the ones that are there do sell consistently, just not often…I think because the ones that are there suck. And on the other one, the volume is more like 30 sales over about 3 weeks across all buyers. Do you ever throw out a product because it’s just not selling (enough)?
Again thanks so much for the article!
Hi Olivia,
Thanks so much for reaching out with your kind words, I really appreciate it! Glad you like our content, and I would love to hear how you think we are doing in the future. Somebody has got to keep me up to quality!
I don’t necessarily discount an item like the ones you’re describing, but it does discourage me. Ultimately, it comes down to risk. It is much riskier to import something that is not already selling more, and it will require more time, money, and effort to get selling steadily. But, in the long run, it may pay off. Again, it is just riskier.
Hope this helps,
Will
Ok, So I listed my product on ebay and it has been about 4 days. At this point should I assume my product is a dud?
It depends… are similar products with better descriptions selling? Are your listings getting views but no bites? You may be able to just change your description and make some sales. It just depends on your problem.
Could I send you a link to it?
Definitely – send it to either of us via email and we can check it out. Will [at] startupbros
Not necessarily a dud, but it definitely isn’t a good sign. You will have to try to figure out why it isn’t selling and move from there. It may be the price, it may be the headlines/titles, it might be any number of things. Definitely not as ideal as hitting it right away, but I would encourage you to drop prices until you sell your samples so you can make some money back and see what price things start moving at.
Hope this helps,
Will
Great article guys!
You said somewhere that one way you try to figure out how good a product is, is by looking at how many of that exact product was sold on Ebay that week using the completed-section. When I go to the completed-listings I can see how much the items sold for… but not how many were sold. Where do I look to determine this??
Hi Sean,
If you click on the sold auctions, you will sometimes see that they were selling multiple pieces under one listing. It will say something like “xx sold” or something near the price/quantity information.
Apart from that, you should be able to get a good idea of the price that your item sells at and what percentage of them sell just by looking at the completed listings results page.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hey Will, thanks for taking the time to sit down and write this follow-up to your previous post. Just wondering, but could you elaborate on your record-keeping for tax purposes? You mentioned handing over your records to your parents accountant, just wondering what your system for that was. Once again, thanks for the content! I found you guys a month ago and have definitely been pushing your blog on my friends.
Hey Chase,
Thanks a lot for commenting, and for helping spread our content around! Really appreciate the help!
I handed over all my transaction data pretty much. This means report printouts from Amazon, eBay, PayPal, credit cards, banks, etc. Pretty much just put these things together and handed it to them (and obviously there were a few more things they needed as they went through that I got for them).
Not all too far off from how I do my taxes now, except now I use some creativity
Hope this helps!
Will
Thanks Will! Keep doing your thing.
-Chase
Hi Will,
Can you give me a quick step-by-step for finding the percentage of completed sales on ebay? Thanks, and thanks even more for writing these articles.
Hi Adam,
Unfortunately I don’t really have a system for finding out the exact percentages, I just kind of relate them to the other products I am looking at and see if more or less are selling that others. You can get a good idea of what price your item starts selling at, or if your item is the kind of item that no matter the price is only bought a few times per month. Ideally you’ll be looking at 20+ products, so after a while you should get an idea of the “sales volume ranking” of each compared to the others…
Hope this helps,
Will
Hello,
I am a consistent reader of your blog, and i was inspired so i created a eCommerce website called thetabletmarketplace.com, which launched today. Given that it is a marketplace, it is nothing without traffic from buyers and sellersI was curious if you could check it out and maybe give me tips on marketing and or give me a shoutout. thanks.
Hey Dan,
That is awesome! Congrats on the quick execution!
The site looks great. Like you said, the tough part is getting people there. You will have to spend some money to get people in and hope you have the back end system built up to retain enough people to turn your investment into a return. If you want to bounce some ideas around email me!
Hope this helps, and good luck with the venture.
Will
What’s your email address?
Will [at] startupbros
Hi Will! I absolutely LOVE this blog. This has given me great motivation because I have been thinking about starting to sell things.** Just saying ahead of time, I am a complete newbie in this business and would love your help!** What I’m stuck on and trust me, I have been google searching and trying to find a solution to this but have not yet found one. I found some great products at Alibaba and would love to order them but they do FOB shipping which I have come to an understanding of the term. But what I’m wondering is, what do I do? Do i pay them the FOB price and then also have to pay for shipping and customs? If so, who do I pay it to? The supplier or the shipping company? How do I know the products has been transferred to me? It’s just alot of tedious things that I don’t know what to do and how to deal with. I guess what I need is directions on what to do after let’s say I buy the products from them using FOB shipping.
** As stated above, I am a complete newbie to the trading business but would love to start!
Hi Bao,
If it is FOB shipping, you’ll need to give them a FedEx/UPS account to charge the shipping to (that would be easiest). Or you can ask them to ship for you for the first couple orders, and they probably will. Just ask them, they want to help you get samples as soon as possible
Hope this helps,
Will
What do you think about bundling a couple unique products together as a “kit”? I feel like you’d be able to charge higher margins
Hey Alex,
I think that is a great idea! I once did a Fake ID creation kit with everything needed all sourced from China. It is obviously more complex, but definitely a viable option!
Good luck,
Will
I found a product that fits all of your criteria. 50% margin. Niche market where brands aren’t a focus. It seems as if one a day has been selling on ebay. However it appears that ALL of the sales of this specific kind of product (there are plenty of variations but none that are consistently selling daily (certain size and color) are being sold by ONE ebay seller.
What has been your experience in this type of scenario. Is this guy consistently selling because he’s the only one selling this product, or (he has a ton of positive feedback) is it because he has built some loyalty with his customers. When you enter into a competition with other sellers, have you run into scenarios where you compete for lower bids and price each other out of your niche market?
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Hey Dan,
That is a tricky situation. From what you told me, I’d have to guess that the one seller is either loving his single seller status and bring in all the sales – or he is operating on an extremely thin margin and has priced everybody else out.
Unfortunately, the only way to know for sure it to buy some samples and try to see what happens. Short of that, you just have to compare and contrast the product options you have come up with. If you aren’t comfortable enough to try the samples out, then just find another product. They’re out there (as you’ve tasted).
Hope this helps,
Will
Will, thanks for the info and the read. I will definitely refer to this when I want to startup my drop shipping business.
Thanks Isaiah, good luck to you when you start it up!
Another great and informative post from you guys! Keep up the good BROS!
Thanks for another great post, and I look forward to learning more in the future.
Thanks a lot Rand! Keep up the great stuff at welltraveledmile.com!
Amazing, simply amazing. You have inspired me to get started and I will pick a product ASAP. Would you recommend me to stick with one and only one product when starting or should I diversify and try to look for a winner with many different products?
Hey David, thanks a lot for reading – glad you liked it! I would try to find one good product and sell that one, because you’ll be able to scale it up and bring your cost per unit down quicker.
Good luck!
ey bro i love you (no homo) your such a good person for posting all this info respect people realy need this.
Hey Roy – Thanks a lot! Glad it helps
Will
Such an awesome post. Thank you so much for detailed explanations.
What do you think about glass products? Do you think they worth the risk if there is a good opportunity?
Best regards.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for commenting, glad you liked it!
There may be some glass products that are good, but I have always considered them too risky. Lot’s of shipping risk!
Hope this helps,
Will
Hello Will,
Great article! What do you think about selling products with my location being independent? I hope to travel anywhere and simultaneously conduct business as long I have super-fast internet and phone service. I would maintain a PO Box somewhere in the states and meet with clients every so often.
Best,
NOLAMAN
Hi Nolaman,
It is certainly possible, but it sounds like you’ll definitely need a dropshipping supplier! If you could get one, you would just need some steady online sales – you could travel wherever you wanted!
Hope this helps,
Will
what is your opinion on using terapeak to search for products to sell?
Funny you should mention that, I was just talking to my friend Jim yesterday about Terapeak! I think Terapeak is an awesome way to get great data during your research phase. Even better, they have a free 7 day trial
I’ll probably add this into the post (or a future one)
Great post Will! I have imported a couple of products very similar to how you recommend here. None of them really took off like I had hoped, but I learned a ton in the process. My question is in regards to shipping. The samples I order were sent via UPS, but it cost something like $105 and it weighed less than 2 pounds. It arrived in two days, so it was definitely shipped express. The only other option I was aware of was FOB. What is this shipping method you mention that is $25-45 and takes 7-20 days? Is there a method that allows for UPS or another similar carrier to handle the pickup in China, the customs at the port, and the transporting from the port to my house that I’m not aware of?
Also, a little advice I learned the hard way for your readers. I used my own UPS account for samples and used PayPal for payment for protection. If you ever file a dispute with PayPal (like I did), you can’t get the shipping refunded if you pay for that separately. Plus, the manufacturers usually have a better price than you if you’re just starting, so it might even be cheaper to pay the manufacturer for shipping and keep it all in the PayPal payment
Again, great post!
Thanks Austin! FOB (free on board) just means the liability transfers to you once they drop it off at your designated shipping port. I want to say you didn’t have to go Express – you can usually give them your UPS/FedEx account number and they will ship it whatever way you want through your account. They just don’t want the liability. There are also companies that manage shipping and customs in China and act as a third party, but they are massively expensive and generally don’t do much you couldn’t do yourself (at this scale at least).
You say in the 2nd paragraph that they did use your UPS account, so that is weird they shipped it express. I’m not sure why they would have without approval, maybe some misunderstanding? Or maybe the item was shaped strangely? Fragile? Something? Lol…
Good advice on keeping the shipping costs protected as well.
Thanks again for commenting!
Will
Hi Will,
Thanks for the write up – very educational. When contacting the people on AliBaba – do you ever just write and say ” Hi blah blah, Can you do product XYZ for $XX/unit, shipped to my address “? I just find that often the products look good, can be priced well, and then shipping makes it hardly worth my time – so I almost want to start with a low-ball offer…
Does that make sense? Thoughts?
Thanks
Thanks for commenting Guy, glad you enjoyed the article. You could definitely go around messaging suppliers with low ball offers, but obviously I don’t think that’s the best route. Try it out though, action is better than my advice!
Will
Hi Will,
I found that it worked with filtering out the guys that weren’t really interested in shipping under 500 MOQ.
I love that people say 1000 MOQ, but you say ” I can do 10 for the first order after the sample” and they’re like “Ok”, haha.
Found that it’s easier to negotiate on MOQ than price. They dont move on price very much.
Again, thanks for the article, Im a new eBay store now with a few imported products, and importing new bits and pieces as I find them, along with a separate eCommerce website, a bit of branding and we’ll see how it goes.
Fastlane all the way, right?
Cheers.
Hi Guy,
Interesting filter technique – an ironic one. You’re probably right about it though!
I’ve found the same thing. Chinese factories tend to work on low margins, so they can’t budge too much on price. MOQ is just a matter of somebody having to do something different, like pack an order in a smaller box. Inefficient for the company, but much less “do-able”.
Awesome to hear you’re moving on both eBay and your own store – let me know how it goes.
Keep me updated,
Will
Hi Will,
Thank you for your great insight on this topic! I have a question regarding your competition when researching a product on ebay…When you are considering a potential product, when or at what number of sellers do you decide that there is too much competition?
I fear this may be a case-by-case basis, but regardless let us know if you have any opinions on how you personally would go about evaluating this. Thanks Will and keep up the great work!
Hi Michelle,
Yea, your fear is correct. It is really case-by-case, but you are really trying to compare and get a feel for different products. I never really quantify anything when comparing sales volume via ebay, it is more rough estimates and gut feelings based on the data I can get.
If you want a premium option, a few readers have been using Terapeak.com to dig down and quantify sales data – maybe try that. They have a free trial.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hell Will I wanted to know if you recieved my email and if you could help me. Thanks in advance
Hi Luis, I think I responded to you today – let me know if I didn’t. Thanks for reaching out!
Now when it comes to branding, how can you brand something that isn’t yours? What I mean by that is, if i have a supplier of say paintball guns, how can I put my brand on that if there are 10 other people importing the same product? Am I trying to sell the brand name at that point?
Right on the spot Keon, branding is just branding. You’d start by setting up a private label manufacturing deal to put your logo/design on it. From there, if successful, you could start to discuss custom products from the factory, but it becomes more expensive as you’ll need to pay for huge runs of products. Private label manufacturing is a great way to get started in it, I have a friend who started private label with a factory and now that factory runs specifically for his company. It is much more expensive/risky to build a brand though!
Great Post!
Do you know if there is a Terapeak version for Amazon?
Thank you,
Omar
Hey Omar,
I’m not sure if there is or not, I’ll look into it though. You would think there is someone out there…
If you find one, let me know – I’ll do the same!
Thanks,
Will
Hi Mitchell,
This is great info. i can’t believe your giving away free secrets that are REAL!!. The only difference between me (and others trying to do this business) and you is that you already did it. You found that product. I am still looking. I know if i get that first one, it will give me the confidence to go all out and be successful. I have a question. I have a friend overseas (GIANT ASIA MARKET). He is a factory owner. Manufactures clothing for the big boys walmart, gap, burberry etc. A few times he tells me the brands will cancel a order after the production for whatever reason, maybe the buttons were pointing the wrong way or whatever but the difference is small. He tells me foreign importer not the orginal brands (Americans, THATS US) buy this clothing. This are called stock lot. How are they legally importing this brands? For example, a Disney character little mermaid may have a red tail instead of regular blue. can they do this? is it legal.
Hi again Joe
Glad to see you liked this one too! Keep me updated on if my writing is improving or declining, I need more reader coaching!
It looks like you understand pretty well that you’re looking for a product rather than a niche. You just need one product to get things started, then use those profits to expand into your niche or whatever.
I can’t really speak to the legality of that arrangement, especially since it sounds like it is more of a case-by-case basis sort of thing. I’m sure factories do this for smaller, non-trademarked things all the time as well. Definitely something to explore for you, even more so since you have the personal connection to that supplier. In my experience, personal connections get the best prices most of the time!
Hope this helps, and sorry I don’t know much about that specific question.
Thanks,
Will
Hey Will, I love the blog! Thanks for taking the time to not only provide this information, but answer questions as well.
I know that you did not used Etsy to sell, but do you know if there is a “completed listings” option similar to eBay? I am trying to gauge the demand for a product!
Awesome Ben, thanks for reaching out! I’m not sure if there is a way to see that data in Etsy, but I have to imagine there is some way. I’m working on another follow up about product selection and finding better data, so I’ll definitely take your advice and look into it for that.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hey guys,
Was doing my product research and was very interested in the Etsy marketplace. I ran into this site which you gives you the top sellers on etsy…http://craftcount.com/
Hopefully it helps you guys out. Im having a hard time finding good products myself :-/ but best of luck to you.
P.S. Im interested in a potential partnership with someone whos serious and wants to create something special and of course make some mula $$$. feel free to contact me. Thanks again will!
Hey George,
Awesome resource – thanks so much for posting it here! Tons of people have been asking me for a tool like that, so I can’t thank you enough.
Good luck with the newest venture, I’m working on some more follow up material that will hopefully continue to help!
Talk soon,
Will
Hey George, email me at Omar 1487 @ icloud.com
I’m going overseas soon, let me know what you had in mind.
For some reason on my ipad I cannot stay signed in, so I can’t rack up any points haha. Has this happened to anybody else? The only option I have is to input my email, but this will re register me rather than sign in.
Hey Omar – I’ll take a look at that, it definitely shouldn’t be giving you issues! Thanks for letting me know, I’ll keep you updated
I’d like to say that if you two wrote a book I’d buy it lol. I guess it’s a little early in your entrepreneurial careers for that but the amount of information you guys are providing is amazing, I’d pay for it lol. Now I’ve emailed some prospective suppliers on some products I’m interested in and I have a few questions.
I’ve gone through all the comments and I see you’ve advised those of us living in anti business states to LLC. I live in NYC unfortunately lol, next January I’ll be moving to FL(no income tax woot!) Should I LLC or first test the waters?
I was thinking of ordering a little more than 1 or 2 samples, I want to about order4-5 or maybe even 10 and sell 3-4 of them to guage interest. I was wondering your thoughts on this. I think this could save me money in the long run if the samples tank as opposed to ordering 1 sample, falling in love and then ordering 100.
I know I asked something alongs these lines already but do you guys have any advice on branding/packaging. I’d like my brand to resonate with the consumer, ordered something generic like HID bulbs for my car and I honestly can’t remember the name on them. Did you guys custom package your products?
Hey Keon, thanks for commenting – Funny you should mention that, I think Kyle is getting the first print of the first StartupBros book – “Self Made U”. We’re also thinking of doing a book on importing, but we’ll see…
Awesome to hear you’ve already gotten started and began contacting suppliers. Weird coincidence, I’ll be in NYC this weekend (and obviously we live in FL). Sounds like a lot of reasons to grab a drink!
I typically test the waters for a few months before filing for an LLC, just because it gets annoying keeping up with LLCs if you have 5 or 6 failed ideas in a year
Another option is to just start an LLC for yourself and file a DBA for each new company, but again I’d try to get this done in Nevada, Wyoming, Delaware, or maybe FL/TX. We’re in FL for StartupBros, they’re not too bad for small companies.
Yea, the more samples the merrier honestly. Obviously there is more risk, but it seems like you understand that (and also understand the risk in not having 5-10 samples).
Our packaging wasn’t customized in any way, but you could definitely start a brand. It’s just a different route, more risk and potentially more reward. Branding is tough, a little more than I could talk about in these comments – I’m thinking that might be my next blog post topic though!
Thanks again for commenting,
Will
Yessir! Book’s launching at SXSW
Can’t wait to show everyone!!
Will,
The information on this topic and the China topic is great stuff!
I have a few questions:
1) Do you need to have a website to promote your products?
2) Do you choose products that are geared toward women or men? Which tends to sell the best?
3) So you choose products based more on margin than on popularity?
Thanks,
Michael
Hi Michael,
Thanks for commenting – glad to hear you liked the article.
1) You don’t need to have a website to promote your own products, but that is one way you can expand after you max out Amazon, eBay, or Etsy. Obviously, your own website will take more time. I think it’s good to get the cash flow and validation from the existing sales channels before trying to create your own.
2) I don’t really try to choose a product that is good for one or the other specifically, it is more based on the numbers I can buy and sell it at. Women spend way more money than Men on consumer goods though, so it might be that those sell well. But again, I think it’s so different from product to product that this is almost a dangerous question to answer, really the data is all that matters.
3) Definitely. If I’m not making money on a product, then it’s popularity would only scale up my problems
Hope this helps,
Will
hi will
I got a question for you. found a product on alibaba.com. but I see that on eBay there are two powersellers with more than 100000 feedback selling it. my buying price is good
. I could beat them by a few cents. and still make a decent profit. do you think this is a good idea. should I go for it. thanks.
Hey Joe,
There are very, very few cases where I would compete for a few cents per sale. I need at least a few bucks per sale. Profit margin is everything in importing.
Hope this helps,
Will
will.
I would like to send you a private email about another product I been looking at and maybe go for a big purchase. I just need your feedback. did all the research. looks promising but afraid to pull the trigger. what’s your email. thanks.
Hi Will,
Great blog it has really motivated me into trying to start a little part time ebay business on the side. I have an idea of a product that is fairly small in terms of competition on ebay, however the margins may be quite small and I’m worried that if I dive into it i might end up losing money. The prices i’ve been looking at on alibaba range from 2-20 dollars. However on ebay they are selling for around £8-10. I might be able to get a good deal on alibaba that allows for a good profit margin but do you think its a good idea going through with it or do you think its too risky?.
Mat
Hi Mat,
Happy to help, and glad you liked the article! I think risk and reward are proportional, and the only way to find out the truth is risk. There’s no way for me to know more than you about your specific product’s market at this point.
Those margins seem fine if you can buy them at the low end. Buying for $2 and selling for $8 works well, but you have a huge spread for your cost estimate. Again, I’d assume the only way to find your true costs will be to buy samples.
The key is to compare a LOT of products to know which ones to take the risk on. The more you compare, the better your odds.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi Will,
Thanks for your reply.
I have continued my research into my product yet not placed an order for any samples. I’m in the UK and one thing that puts me off is the import tax. By the time I add import tax, packaging, delivery etc im worried that the margins might be very small. The product I have found and considered is selling at around 100 a day for top sellers and have an average of 3000 sold.
Your advice is much appreciated
Mat
The import tax and VAT taxes completely kill this method (and a lot of other ones). Such a shame.
Many readers have been telling me that you are exempt from the import tax if your items are under $10, or something…Maybe something to look into.
But your concern is definitely legitimate!
Keep me updated,
Will
Great information that you’re giving away here. I very much appreciate you sharing all your knowledge.
I’ve read both of your posts on this topic and I’m stoked to move ahead. Somewhere you mentioned the real money to be made is by getting my customers info, like email address, so that I can directly market to them. Exactly how do you do go about doing this? I know on eBay that when you use their messaging system it hides your email and I believe it strips out any email addresses and URL’s. Assuming etsy works the same way. All I can figure is to include something in the package when you ship the product to them.
I have already bought a domain name and partially built a website around the product I plan to sell hoping to eventually sell directly to my customers and cut out ebay, etsy… listing fees.
Hi Tony,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting, appreciate the kind words!
I’ll probably be writing a post in the next month or two specifically on that subject. It will deal with scaling up the importing business and how to build a brand with a recurring revenue stream. To get to that point though, you will need to have a product that you’re ready to scale up; a good problem to have but a tough one to get to.
Yes, that’s the easiest way to do it though. Product packaging can be a great promotion medium. Think of what would make you give a company your email – maybe a “go here for a discount” or even “go here for a free thank you gift”. Same principles as an email optin online.
Hope this helps,
Will
Great follow up Post to the previous-definitely answered a lot of the questions I still had lingering.
I’m working on some ideas now and thanks to this post, my research over possibilities has been made much easier. Also, thanks for the tip on the site for drop shippers- Becoming fully automated is ideally where I’d like to end up with a business like this.
I’ve been browsing your site for the last couple days and it really is helping me get this thing off the ground- still at my full-time job during the day but dedicating my free time to building my business on the side (and reading your blog while at work, of course!)
Looking forward to more great posts like this one, thanks again!
-Jamie
No problem Jamie, glad to hear that this post fulfilled it’s purpose
Let us know if there is anything else we can do to help you get started! And by the way, if you have trouble with product selection moving forward – you may want to try out Terapeak. It’s eBay’s analytics tool, and it’s got a free trial
Thanks for reading,
Will
Hello Will,
Thanks for your great article! It’s been a very helpful reference guide for my ecommerce endeavor! I have a question about branding. I’ve been reading through the comments and there is one talking about private label manufacturing. Is there a reliable company you could recommend to me?
Thanks!
Hello Childes,
Thanks a lot for reading and commenting, glad to hear it’s been useful for you.
Pretty much any industry will have private label manufacturing. It is just a little more expensive, and the MOQs are much higher. Just ask in your emails to suppliers if they offer private label manufacturing, and you shouldn’t have any trouble. If you can’t find anybody, it may take some searching. It’s going to be different for every product.
Unfortunately, I’ve never done any private label manufacturing, so I have exactly zero contacts for it
Hope this helps,
Will
Thanks a lot Will for this Awesome Post! I am bookmarking your site for my reference. You will definitely help me in starting up an import business.
As I said in your previous post, I live in Australia and will be selling the product at amazon.com. You mentioned Australia in the post but the problem is I don’t wan’t to handle packing, storing, shipping & customer service because I don’t have a warehouse, so, amazon.com is my only option. I am trying to set up a Delaware LLC so that a US Bank Account for the company could be opened because amazon.com accepts Bank Account opened in a US Bank.
I hope my import business will prosper with your guide on your site.
Hi again Maria
Glad to hear you liked this one as well – hope it helped.
You don’t need a warehouse to play the small time importing game. Just grab some samples and start selling! Don’t overthink.
Good luck,
Will
Hey Will,
Thank you for your awesome posts. Would you be able to give some useful pointers on importing from China (shipping, import taxes etc)?
Ed
Hey Ed,
No problem, thanks for reading! Glad you liked them.
I’m guessing you saw my other article that was linked in the post above – that’s just about all of the tips I have for importing from China!
If you have any specific questions though, feel free to ask.
Hope this helps,
Will
Thanks Will, the info is really helpful. I am looking for a good product to sell as well. Just one quick question, I read what you said about the volume on ebay, but what is a good ratio that you would find the volume to have a decent amount of volume? Also, how can you tell if the competition is too tough, because I saw some products with thousands of listing on ebay? Thank you for your time answering my questions.
Tan.
No problem Tan, glad you found the importing articles helpful
I’ve answered this question in a few other comments in your look around a bit. There is no right or wrong number, it’s a relative comparison based on hours of your own research.
If you want to skip all that, you can try the free trial over at Terapeak. That’s eBay’s analytics tool, it will actually show you the number of sales for your product over time, and even the ratio between sold and unsold listings over time. That will save some time when looking for products to import.
Competition is too tough if you can’t sell into it!
Hope this helps,
Will
Hey Will, thanks for sharing your knowledge on this topic – something that a lot of people are not willing to share. I was looking into importing micro fiber cleaning cloths a few years ago, long before they became readily available everywhere. I found a couple suppliers on Alibaba but decided not to proceed because I did not know if they would sell. There was certainly no step-by-step guide like what you have provided. It would have helped me a lot. Thanks for your effort in putting this guide together and keep up the good work.
Hey Simon, glad to hear you found the articles helpful! I guess it’s too bad that they weren’t written a few years earlier. I have to assume there was money to be made importing microfiber clothes when it was blowing up. Too bad, but at least there’s always another product!
Hey Will,
I enjoyed reading your blog. I could not stop reading it. I’m just starting my first online business and have a few questions.
The manufacturer has a warranty on there products, should I advertise to my customers about the warranty? It seems to me that it could be a lot of work. With returns, exchanges etc.. I don’t mind doing it for my customers but I don’t want to be left hanging with the bill when the manufacturer doesn’t want to exchange for a new item. The manufacturer told me that any defective item will be replaced in the next order. Any advise on this subject?
Would it be better to sell a bunch of items or just a few that you know will sell regularly? I’m just starting so I don’t have the funds to buy a lot of products. So I was thinking about just buying a few items in bulk and slowly add one or two new products as my business grows. Or just buy a variety of items in less quantity?
Again Awesome blog. Thank You
Rija
Hi Rija,
Thanks for reading, glad to hear you enjoyed it!
When I was importing from China, my suppliers would always replace defective items. I advertised that any defective items would be replaced, but nothing more. I think most buyers expect that kind of service now, so most don’t even think to look for it. They just assume that a defective item would be replaced. Moreover, you’d want to, or else they might give you bad feedback!
In this article, I explain that it’s always better to sell one product you know will move, rather than trying a whole bunch of different products or a product niche. You’re describing the method in this article, so obviously I agree and think it’s a good idea
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi Will,
I’ve been looking for a way to make money online for a long time now. A person I know from work mentioned he knew a guy who sells on Amazon and is doing very well. That started me on the path of looking into the process and I found your page via google. I’ve been doing some research and I have a product in mind and a supplier lined up. My concern is: It almost seems too easy. Is there more to this than meets they eye? Is there any hidden cost such as tariffs or a customs tax that I’ll get hit with later on? I’ve really been enjoying your posts here and I thank you in advance for your feedback!
Rich
Hi Rich,
Awesome to hear you’re getting starting, and even more awesome that you checked out our site!
It’s just like anything else I suppose. It looks incredibly easy, then turns out to be incredibly difficult, and then back to incredibly easy. It’s a pretty simple business to run, and quite literally anybody could run it. However, most things are like that. If you want actual results and real growth, you’ll need a concrete understanding so you can think in abstract ways about whatever task you’re mastering. So, it’s simple, but there’s a lot of variables that you can learn.
You’ll have to pay the IRS their typical fee for the privilege of being their loyal subject. There are some duties and tariffs on some items, but they are few and far between. Most of the time, your supplier or shipping courier will be able to help you with those things. If not, it’s just a short Google away, but it’s always going to depend on what product you’re importing.
Hope this all helps!
Will
Thanks for the reply. You were certainly right about the incoming spam to the e mail address that I used. One of the offers is for incredibly cheap iPhones. It looks like an attractive offer but they don’t accept PayPal. I’m assuming this supplier would be one to avoid. Your thoughts?
Thanks,
Rich
No problem! Hope you took my advice and used a separate email account – I’ve had more than a few people regret ignoring that part haha
I would ignore any emails you get into that spam box honestly. Unless you message the supplier first, it usually doesn’t turn out too well. The products will generally be very bad, either completely fake, or non-existent
Hope this helps, be thankful you’re smart and didn’t fall for it
Will
Yes, I used an alternate e mail that I usually use when I expect to be spammed.
Haha, it might even be too much spam for your spam email!
Thanks for a great post. Made things very clear for me
A week ago I finally found my “product”, emailed the text you provided above to 5 suppliers and… only one responded (it’s been 5 days already…).. the one that responded never responded back to my next email.
Am I doing something wrong ? is it typical ? should I resend my email ?
Thanks !!!
Hey Shac,
Awesome to hear this cleared things up for you! Some suppliers can be a little weird with email, just try emailing again. They are usually more reachable via Skype, if you want to try that. If not, on to the next supplier! There are better ones out there
Hope this helps,
Will
Great article! Devoured it whole!
A question about Etsy….I thought they limited their items to things you YOURSELF had made. The only exception being for vintage items (think antique shop stuff), and supplies for crafting (like necklace clasps and earring backs, etc). Can you comment on this restriction?
For example in your Google Spreadsheet you listed the throw pillows, then linked to an Etsy page with throw pillows. I thought that your Alibaba throw pillows would have been rejected by Etsy since you didn’t make them.
Did this rule change?
Here is the link that tells what you can sell: http://www.etsy.com/sell?ref=so_sell
Thanks for any comments you can add.
Hey Jon, glad to hear you liked it! Hope you’re a quick reader
Honestly, I’ve never sold on Etsy. So I wouldn’t know! But, I do know that I have found things selling on Etsy that I can buy from Alibaba. Not sure how it works!
Hope this helps, though I’m sure it didn’t
Will
Thanks for this amazing article, it was fun to read and also very informative! I’ve had some experience on ebay (dropshipping iphone cases) and I was wondering how did you make your ebay listings look that professional? Did you design it yourself or outsource the work?
Hey Eric, glad you found them fun and informative. I figured I beat informative to death, but might be lacking in fun
Hope you had success in your first drop shipping venture. My eBay listings were honestly just swiped from other sellers that were selling well. I know there are places out there that sell templates and things like that. If you’re serious about selling on eBay, that $50 investment would definitely be worth it.
Your sales page doesn’t need to be too beautiful though, very few people would refrain from bidding due to a simple listing. But, you can get people to bid that otherwise wouldn’t with a good listing.
Hope this helps,
Will
Hi Will,
Fantastic article`s, how old are you now if you don`t mind me asking ?
I work in the web industry and also dabble in affiliate marketing, so know only too well how you should keep relaying the message home about product niche research and saleability…
I notice alot of your ebay sales are at $0.01.. ??! Can one assume you are making a loss on the product, but a profit on the postage ?
Cheers
Ben
Hi Ben,
Glad you liked the articles! I’m 22 now, but 23 on Sunday
Yes, I’m sure with your experience you already knew a good amount of the information in the article. Hope you found some new things and reinforced the old…
I’m not selling on eBay any more, I just run my marketing agency and StartupBros now
The people that sell at $0.01 are generally still making a profit somehow though, probably on shipping.
Hope this helps,
Will
Well many happy returns for Sunday Will, don`t party too hard!
You sound like the next Zuckerberg in the making. If ever any of your businesses are floated on the markets, drop me a line as I`m always looking for individuals like yourself to invest in, as you have real drive and belief in what you do.
Haha, thanks Ben! No big plans, just seeing an Orchestra play 2 hours of The Doors with the girlfriend tonight
Thanks for the kind words, we’ll see how I do! Keep me updated on your ventures as well.