It sounds as if your search for good products continues. You are not
alone in this. I have been hanging around the auction sites for a few
years and started selling this past year. I got a peak into one of
those wholesale clubs and at first it looked great. They show what the
product is retailing for and what their price is. It looks great. Some
even show a screenshot of what the product is selling for on Ebay. But
beware. The object may have sold for that amount once or twice, but it
is not the normal selling price. When I got into one of those clubs, I
did research on Ebay for every single product they had listed. Someone
on Ebay was always selling the products much cheaper. A few products
did allow about a $10 profit but by the time you took off your Ebay
and Paypal fees it wasn't worth it. I canceled my membership within
the first three hours.
I am always looking for answers to this question. I am building an
auction resource site to help people run their auction businesses more
profitably at http://auctionsitethrills.com, but the site is new. I
hope to come up with some good answers to this question for my
visitors because I think it is the #1 question in every ebay sellers
mind.
I did find a few random products that I could sell for a profit. But
they were from different sources. I find it is best to study ebay for
a product that is selling well, and then go and try to find a source
for it. Type it in the search engines and visit every wholesale source
that claims to be carrying it. If you check all the sites, you may
find one that is truly offering the product at a rate that you can
compete on Ebay. I have found several pieces of lingerie that were big
sellers on Ebay.
But be careful when selling clothes. You have to allow enough of a
profit margin that if they return it for wrong size and you have to
mail it out again, you will still make money.
Also, there are software sites that promote free software and you just
pay the shipping. The cost per item runs between 5.99 and 7.50. If you
do your ebay research on listings that have closed by using the
advanced search feature, you will find that some of these products
sale for a good price.
But the problem here is that often several people find the good deal
at one time and suddenly the market is crowded. Then the price drops.
When this happens, I usually repack the item with another product or
hold onto it and hope that the market thins out. Not great. Another
thing that you have to be careful of when shopping from these free
software sites is to read the small print. They may show the product
in a box, but the small print will tell you if the product is coming
in a box, a jewel case, or in a sleeve. A sleeve is very hard to sell.
Okay, you must think that I am torturing you with these pitiful
suggestions. So let me move on. There is an ebook that actually has
listings to real wholesalers. It is called the Buy Anything Wholesale
Guide. I have it but I don't have giveaway rights to it. It is very
expensive to buy from the main website, but the seller gives resell
rights to those who buy the book from him. And some of those people
sell the guide on Ebay for just a few dollars. If you decide to buy
it, look at the full listings. Some of the sellers do not offer the
bonuses. You want to purchase from someone who is offering the free
bonuses -"Back Door Suppliers" and the "Dropshipping Tutorial". The
bonuses are very good.
When I purchased this ebook, I accessed the guide and started visiting
some of the links in the book. I stumbled upon some of the usual stuff
that required you to have loads of money to invest. That left me out.
Then there was all those offers to buy returns. I don't even want to
go there. But eventually I came to a site that was a wholesale portal
with links to a ton of overseas wholesalers. I found a wholesale site
that gave me a free membership. I got inside and looked around. There
were name brand products at great prices.
That is as far as I can take you. I didn't pursue it. Why?
Well you could actually get started for about $300 dollars. There was
even a Jimmy Choo purse that they would let you buy a single one for
less than $200. It was selling on Ebay for over $1000. But on one page
of the site, they said all their articles were genuine, no fakes. But
on their faq page, they said they could not be totally sure of that
because they were working with so many factories. The products may be
perfectly fine. I don't know.
I know there are powersellers on Ebay selling fakes every day and they
know it. But there are also people doing it and they don't even
realize it. And how can you be sure until you get the product? And we
are dealing with overseas.
I read a lot of feedback on the different auction sites with sellers
getting bad feedback and buyers getting ripped off. After dealing with
problems on sizing with the lingerie, I didn't want to deal with it.
Also, you must be careful when dealing with designer purses. It is big
business for those who are selling the real ones, the fake ones, and
the products pointing out the fakes. Yes, there is an ebay seller that
is leading quite a crusade to shut down the sellers that are passing
on the fake bags. She sells an ebook on Ebay that helps you see the
differences in the genuines and the fakes. The book is pretty good.
She has a website that you get membership to when you buy the book,
and it has a very active forum. And they are serious about hunting
down people who sell fake purses. So if you decide to sell purses, get
her ebook so you know what you are buying. No, I am not her and I am
not her affiliate. I don't know her either. But I am going to find out
if she has an affiliate program because I will be writing about her
ebook on my auction site.
The only other options I have for you are:
1) Check into local storage units and see when they auction off abandoned stuff.
2) Put out the money to buy a product from one of the big ebay names
to find out their sourcing. John Reese has one, but I know it will not
be cheap. I actually know of six big wheels who have products to help
you out with your ebay business, but James Jones new product that has
just released is the only one I can find an email on. Here is the
link: http://findv.com/x.php?1ih . I am sure I have information on the
other people's courses, but I have received several hundred emails in
the past few days as I participated in a special joint venture and
joined a lot of lists. I will try to find info on the others and list
it on my site for future reference. As for James Jones new product, I
have not purchased it yet. So I can't tell you how well it answers the
#1 question. I do know he interviewed six of the big names, such as
Tim Knox and Skip McGrath and they talked about where they get their
products. And James has sent me some mailings with links to little
videos that have taught me a few interesting tricks. That is all I can
tell you about that.
I did look through several Ebay books that I got from the library to
see what they could offer on the subject. Mostly they said check out
garage sales. One did say to go to local auctions in your city to see
what bargains they have. I have heard of people buying books for a
couple dollars for a box of them. They found rare ones and sold it for
a pretty penny.
Another said to try to make a deal with local wholesalers in your
area, especially if you live in a big city. Even though they usually
don't like to work with the small guy who only has hundreds to spend,
some do have surplus merchandise they want to get rid of.
That special bonus ebook i mentioned earlier - "Back Door Supplier"
has a good suggestion for hooking up with a local merchant to get a
hold of designer goods.
Another great way to get products to sell is using the arbitrage
method which real briefly is searching Ebay for listings that were
poorly posted or misspelled and are receiving few or no bids. You buy
it cheap and then relist it with a great picture and a great listing
and the right keywords. You sell it for a higher price. This is a
really common practice among experienced ebay sellers. Some even go to
other auction sites where the competition is less to get good deals,
and then resell the items on Ebay for a profit. Also you can check out
the auctions where ebayers are selling their merchandise in lots.
Sometimes you can get a really good deal, and then sell the items
individually for a profit. I will try to post more on these subjects
on my web site soon.
I have tons of auction ebooks, but I don't have the rights to give
them away. They must be sold. I do have one though that I can give
away. It is called Ebay:The Inside Story. It is written by a couple of
powersellers. It has a lot of good info about running your ebay
business. Also, in its appendix, it has about 100 tips. Some of those
tips have a few good ideas for finding products to sell. You can have
the book for free. It is written up on my site at
http://auctionsitethrills.com/auctionebooks.html .
I know I have rambled on here, and some of the things I have mentioned
you may definitely not want to try. And that's okay. It's important
for us to learn what not to do too. I will continue to search out
answers for the question "where do we get products to sell?" And as I
come up with new ideas, I will pass them on. |
