Life moves on, surgery went well and recovery has gone pretty well too. Can lift 25lbs now woo hoo!
Business is slower this time of year so prepping for the holiday season is in full swing. Sales are almost identical to 2017s numbers up until this point of the year.
I’m in the process of setting up some new backend funnels that should help capture more revenue per customer (post purchase upsells, etc.) We will see how that goes over the next couple of months.
Happy to hear your surgery went well and you're on a good recovery. I hope your business is as strong as ever and you and your family are living a happy life!
Thanks again to you and everybody else for such an encouraging thread. I dabbled in this business for a few months some 3-4 years ago and was stunned with the success of it, and all mostly thanks to the invaluable amount of relevant information in this post.
Unfortunately, while on the highest point of my modest business I had to drop it. After some moving around I ended up in Australia, but due to some complicated visa conditions I was unable and unwilling to retake the business. However, that has changed recently and, after catching up to the end of this thread, I've decided to start slowly retaking what I had going on back then. Again, thank you.
This doesn't seem to be so easy here in Australia, though. I've been on Terapeak, DHGate, Aliexpress and eBay for the last few days researching and comparing, and I've realized there's an issue here I did not find to the same degree back in the UK - Australia is packed with Chinese retailers based
in Australia.
This is becoming a big source of frustration. Every time I compare products sold on eBay vs their price on DHGate/Aliexpress there is non-worth to negative profit to be made. Everything I look for is being sold on eBay for only slightly higher prices that I can get it on DHG/ALXPRS (
if not the same or lower) with free shipping and the same shipping times I could offer. This, after accounting for free shipping cost, eBay and PayPal fees, amounts to no gain for myself. It seems as if either
(1) the
actual manufacturing warehouses have been moved to Australia to improve their own market by selling directly to customers on eBay, or
(2) they acquire their products at much lower prices from China through their own connections/families/friends and sell at retail prices through those websites that were once considered wholesale.
I don't intend this to be a rant, and I apologize if it sounds as such - I am set to make this work, and I will. I'm curious, however, to see if anyone else here is or has tried to import/resell in Australia, and what are their thoughts on the situation I find myself in.
I have gone through all the "basics" of product research. I'm focusing on looking for several products that don't necessarily sell more than 1-2 a day rather than one product that sells 10 a day, in any niche imaginable, no "bangers" or overcrowded markets, small-medium size, profit margin of about 30-50%, trying to stay away from electronics and all...but everything seems to already be selling on eBay by obvious Chinese accounts at ridiculous prices with local service features (fast shipping, etc). I guess I'm out of practice - hah.
If any of you has any input or advice for a different strategy/approach on such situation, I would love to discuss these!
How's everyone doing with their own businesses? Christmas hitting strong?