[AMA] Importing & wholesaling for resale on eBay.

[Denim Chicken]

1. I currently don't have anything listed on Amazon. I am selling solely on stand alone websites.

2. I just carry a bunch of different brands and different products. IMO a brand doesn't matter unless there is something different about it. To just slap my "brand name" on a product or to leave it as a different random name really doesn't matter.

3. I think because of eBay/Amazon people are used to going to one site and finding a bunch of different items. I try to have 5-10 in each category on my site. I don't think I have any categories that just have one product in them.

4. I think both ways have merit. If I were to have to start from scratch tomorrow I would probably do a lot of things differently. I would start in one category and build a website/eBay/Amazon all around that category. I would carry hundreds of items that were all related. When I was to the point I am now (2-3 million a year in sales) If profits were 1 million on that 3 million in sales the business would sell for approximately 2-3 million. (Obviously there are many variable to that but in general eccommerce businesses seem to be worth 2-3x net profit. I would sell the business. I would then pick a new category and repeat.

Awesome, thanks very helpful. I guess that's a good point, if you have your own store then brand doesn't matter.

 

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[LoadsOfMoney]

Thanks for an awesome thread Ecom Man, I got up to page 17 of thread and skipped forward to see if you are still in business as page 17 goes back to 2014. It is great to see someones business grow so much in 2 years!

Anyhow my question is when should you turn your individual seller account on eBay in to a business account?

One other question where do you get an e-commerce site from? Is there a well known service people use? I can code but do no want to spend days and hours creating and maintaining a site?

I am about to start the process of researching products and then run the gambit of sourcing the products with samples?

Do you still think eBay is the best place to start or should it be Amazon?

Okay so going back to page 17 as this is pure gold!

 

[Ecom man]

Thanks for an awesome thread Ecom Man, I got up to page 17 of thread and skipped forward to see if you are still in business as page 17 goes back to 2014. It is great to see someones business grow so much in 2 years!

Anyhow my question is when should you turn your individual seller account on eBay in to a business account?

One other question where do you get an e-commerce site from? Is there a well known service people use? I can code but do no want to spend days and hours creating and maintaining a site?

I am about to start the process of researching products and then run the gambit of sourcing the products with samples?

Do you still think eBay is the best place to start or should it be Amazon?

Okay so going back to page 17 as this is pure gold!

You don't have to have a business account to start selling on eBay, just get selling. In regards to running an eccommerce site I use shopify. It is simple to set up and pretty inexpensive to run. There are quite a few other competitors to shopify so check them all out and see which works best for you.

If you have never sold online before I would recommend starting on eBay. Learn the ropes, customer service, etc and then start selling on Amazon as well.

 

[LoadsOfMoney]

Thanks I have sold stuff around the house on eBay I have 25 feedback and all of it is good.

 

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[Ecom man]

Thanks I have sold stuff around the house on eBay I have 25 feedback and all of it is good.

You can definitely just start selling on your existing account. I would definitely recommend selling on eBay for 3-6 months before selling on Amazon. IMO many people who are brand new to selling online try too much at once and either get overwhelmed and give up or get banned from Amazon or eBay or both because they cant handle everything at once.

 

[LoadsOfMoney]

Thanks one place to sell would male it easier, I am trying to think of a business name to contact the Chinese suppliers and register a domain. As I guess that is important when dealing with them?

 

[Denim Chicken]

1. I currently don't have anything listed on Amazon. I am selling solely on stand alone websites.

2. I just carry a bunch of different brands and different products. IMO a brand doesn't matter unless there is something different about it. To just slap my "brand name" on a product or to leave it as a different random name really doesn't matter.

3. I think because of eBay/Amazon people are used to going to one site and finding a bunch of different items. I try to have 5-10 in each category on my site. I don't think I have any categories that just have one product in them.

4. I think both ways have merit. If I were to have to start from scratch tomorrow I would probably do a lot of things differently. I would start in one category and build a website/eBay/Amazon all around that category. I would carry hundreds of items that were all related. When I was to the point I am now (2-3 million a year in sales) If profits were 1 million on that 3 million in sales the business would sell for approximately 2-3 million. (Obviously there are many variable to that but in general eccommerce businesses seem to be worth 2-3x net profit. I would sell the business. I would then pick a new category and repeat.

Follow-up question here.

Would you recommend chasing products with margins first and going one by one like you did when you first started? or.. in reference to answer #4 above, would you choose say 20 products in 1 category, order about 10 of each as samples and just launch your store from day one and eventually drop the products that don't convert, while adding new ones?

For example, rather than looking for a product with a margin of 50% and finding say a water bottle, and then if that does well, finding a water bottle holder with good margins, etc. until you fill out the category, what about buying a water bottle and accessories, and items related in that niche and making say a store that carries those goods from the get-co launching a website store over ebay?

The benefit i see to this method is the store looks more legit (if ecommerce, not ebay selling) cause it'd be pretty hard to start with only 1 or 2 products for a ecommerce website. Also, people may pick up low margin or 0 margin goods as fillers.

Thoughts?

 

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[Ecom man]

Follow-up question here.

Would you recommend chasing products with margins first and going one by one like you did when you first started? or.. in reference to answer #4 above, would you choose say 20 products in 1 category, order about 10 of each as samples and just launch your store from day one and eventually drop the products that don't convert, while adding new ones?

For example, rather than looking for a product with a margin of 50% and finding say a water bottle, and then if that does well, finding a water bottle holder with good margins, etc. until you fill out the category, what about buying a water bottle and accessories, and items related in that niche and making say a store that carries those goods from the get-co launching a website store over ebay?

The benefit i see to this method is the store looks more legit (if ecommerce, not ebay selling) cause it'd be pretty hard to start with only 1 or 2 products for a ecommerce website. Also, people may pick up low margin or 0 margin goods as fillers.

Thoughts?

I would order a variety of individual products and start selling them on eBay and see what sells. Once you find one good selling product with good margins then you can build around that product. Without testing and seeing what actually sells in real life you run the risk of setting up a website around one niche that is a bust. I know someone who ordered 20 different products, set up a website, started advertising, and didn't get a single sale. To prevent that run some tests of what you think will sell well and see if it actually will.

 

[TTG SS]

Is most of your website traffic still paid? Or do you have a lot of organic traffic coming through.

It is definitely very interesting how you have transitioned off eBay and onto your own property. That is a huge step!

 

[Ecom man]

Is most of your website traffic still paid? Or do you have a lot of organic traffic coming through.

It is definitely very interesting how you have transitioned off eBay and onto your own property. That is a huge step!

Majority of it paid traffic. I average 50-100 visitors a day from organic traffic, the rest is paid. I am currently running around 900 visitors a day but will obviously go up the closer we get to Christmas.

 

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[LoadsOfMoney]

Are there some golden rules or a formula for selling an item on eBay?

Something like?
No of sellers - No of sellers from China
if no of sellers = n and are power sellers then not viable

I was looking at PS4 carrying cases on Alibaba but then there is so much competition and the prices go up and down like a rollercoaster.

To make it worthwhile I would need to make a least £20 a transaction but will settle for £10 with my training wheels on.

Is Terapeak worth getting for a beginner or would it be better to learn a manual research method?

Thanks

Chris

 

[Ecom man]

Are there some golden rules or a formula for selling an item on eBay?

Something like?
No of sellers - No of sellers from China
if no of sellers = n and are power sellers then not viable

I was looking at PS4 carrying cases on Alibaba but then there is so much competition and the prices go up and down like a rollercoaster.

To make it worthwhile I would need to make a least £20 a transaction but will settle for £10 with my training wheels on.

Is Terapeak worth getting for a beginner or would it be better to learn a manual research method?

Thanks

Chris

I'm afraid there really aren't any golden rules. Ideally you want products that don't have a ton of competition as it drives prices way down in the long time. Terapeak is awesome for locating products/ getting ideas. You can type in really broad keywords and see a huge variety of products and see how many sales they have had in the last month. You can then see how much you can buy those products for and see if there are any margins.

 

[TTG SS]

Would you mind going into basic detail of what your sales funnel looks like? What is your primary advertising channel that you are having success with?

Thanks again for all the fantastic information you have provided the forum!

 

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[LoadsOfMoney]

Thanks I guess it is just do it!

I am often accused of not getting on with things and using reading up or courses as excuses not to just try it.

 

[Ecom man]

Would you mind going into basic detail of what your sales funnel looks like? What is your primary advertising channel that you are having success with?

Thanks again for all the fantastic information you have provided the forum!

I use Adwords and Bing to bring in customers (Facebook and Pinterest on a much smaller scale). I send them directly to the page that has the product on it and where they can buy the item. Nothing fancy or difficult at all. I'm still learning marketing tricks etc so I'm sure I could do far more sales with more knowledge.

 

[Aston_M]

Hi Ecom Man, I have my website set up, in terms of PPC would I want my PPC advert to show for the generic term of the product i.e wooden desk or the exact product name smartstyle beechwood wooden office desk.

All the products I am selling, I charge way above everyone else on eBay and the big name global retail stores, I charge between 10-30% more than all my competitors.

I am getting sales on eBay with my higher prices (I think this is due to good listings i.e right keywords), would I be able to compete on PPC?

Thanks

 

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[Harley]

Been off the site for a while. Been too busy building my 3 small businesses. Great to see this thread is still going strong. I tried this a while ago and went through all the outlined processes. Issue I had and would love any Canadians to chime in on, was the Canada postage rate - We get screwed big time on postage. I found some good quality Fish Grips that were selling well elsewhere and priced right and the weight was low. So, I thought hey these will fit in a padded envelope, not weigh much and therefore ship cheap - Wrong! $12 shipping within Canada, basically ate all my profit. Anyone in Canada having success? I really like the business model, just need to work out the details. Great thread BTW. Cheers

 

[Ecom man]

Hi Ecom Man, I have my website set up, in terms of PPC would I want my PPC advert to show for the generic term of the product i.e wooden desk or the exact product name smartstyle beechwood wooden office desk.

All the products I am selling, I charge way above everyone else on eBay and the big name global retail stores, I charge between 10-30% more than all my competitors.

I am getting sales on eBay with my higher prices (I think this is due to good listings i.e right keywords), would I be able to compete on PPC?

Thanks

I would try it for many different keywords. You can test and see what your conversion rate is on each keyword and they adjust your bids accordingly. be sure and set up conversion tracking on your site so you can see what keywords are converting and at what cost per conversion. Another cool feature in Adwords is looking at search terms that actually convert. So in your example of the broad keyword wooden desk if someone searches for oak wooden desk and they make a purchase you can then add oak wooden desk as a new keyword and then adjust your bids for that keyword.

 

[Aston_M]

I would try it for many different keywords. You can test and see what your conversion rate is on each keyword and they adjust your bids accordingly. be sure and set up conversion tracking on your site so you can see what keywords are converting and at what cost per conversion. Another cool feature in Adwords is looking at search terms that actually convert. So in your example of the broad keyword wooden desk if someone searches for oak wooden desk and they make a purchase you can then add oak wooden desk as a new keyword and then adjust your bids for that keyword.

In terms of the budget for PPC, for example if I make £30 profit on my item, would you allocate £10 to PPC for that item? Or do you say I'll allocate £XXXX per month to my PPC budget?

Thanks for the advice.

 

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[jmomcc]

Been off the site for a while. Been too busy building my 3 small businesses. Great to see this thread is still going strong. I tried this a while ago and went through all the outlined processes. Issue I had and would love any Canadians to chime in on, was the Canada postage rate - We get screwed big time on postage. I found some good quality Fish Grips that were selling well elsewhere and priced right and the weight was low. So, I thought hey these will fit in a padded envelope, not weigh much and therefore ship cheap - Wrong! $12 shipping within Canada, basically ate all my profit. Anyone in Canada having success? I really like the business model, just need to work out the details. Great thread BTW. Cheers

I'd love to know this too.

 

[Ecom man]

In terms of the budget for PPC, for example if I make £30 profit on my item, would you allocate £10 to PPC for that item? Or do you say I'll allocate £XXXX per month to my PPC budget?

Thanks for the advice.

I try to keep my cost per conversion below 20% of the total sale price from January- October. In November and December it goes way down to 5-7%. If your margin can't support that much than find your sweet spot. You can still bring in customers with lower bids just not as many.

 

[Denim Chicken]

For your products, do you do any keyword research on google? Because that kind of plays a part in the costs and also the # of clicks or searches a month. Or do you find that if things sell on ebay for testing, you just go for it despite the adwords projections?

I got started but used a slightly different variation. Instead of ordering 20 test units on Aliexpress, I set up a shopify store and used the oberlo app which directly connects to Aliexpress. So my site has products that are "dropshipped". Easy and costs not much to test, I dont have to hold inventory and wait 15 days to get them and package them all up. I used this method to test ads on fb, engagement, target audience and do price point research so far. If the price point I test at works then great. If its not profitable for aliexpress, I'll consider importing for better margins.

The problem I have is this.. I found my target audience and with FB ads, I got a good amount of engagement. My photos are top notch and on IG Ive received over 300 likes on my sponsored post of my product in the past 2 days. Not many comments. However, the CTR is not that high and when people click on to my website, they bounce at 80% and i have yet to see a single sale or add to cart. My site's design is really good, the pictures and branding is good. So I lowered the price even more. Either this is a product that people only like looking at, or something else is going on.

Any advice?

 

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[Ecom man]

For your products, do you do any keyword research on google? Because that kind of plays a part in the costs and also the # of clicks or searches a month. Or do you find that if things sell on ebay for testing, you just go for it despite the adwords projections?

I got started but used a slightly different variation. Instead of ordering 20 test units on Aliexpress, I set up a shopify store and used the oberlo app which directly connects to Aliexpress. So my site has products that are "dropshipped". Easy and costs not much to test, I dont have to hold inventory and wait 15 days to get them and package them all up. I used this method to test ads on fb, engagement, target audience and do price point research so far. If the price point I test at works then great. If its not profitable for aliexpress, I'll consider importing for better margins.

The problem I have is this.. I found my target audience and with FB ads, I got a good amount of engagement. My photos are top notch and on IG Ive received over 300 likes on my sponsored post of my product in the past 2 days. Not many comments. However, the CTR is not that high and when people click on to my website, they bounce at 80% and i have yet to see a single sale or add to cart. My site's design is really good, the pictures and branding is good. So I lowered the price even more. Either this is a product that people only like looking at, or something else is going on.

Any advice?

I wouldn't buy from any website that takes 15-30 days to receive the product. That is my guess on why you haven't got any sales. Without further info it is hard to know exactly what the issue is.

 

[Denim Chicken]

I wouldn't buy from any website that takes 15-30 days to receive the product. That is my guess on why you haven't got any sales. Without further info it is hard to know exactly what the issue is.

I think the product i was selling just didnt have enough demand. Its a cool idea but there's no real need for it. And it costs more than a traditional standard product. Thought a specific niche might like it so I tested it. IG likes were great, over 450 likes on instagram but only 1 sale. I ended up killing all campaigns.

Shipping is 7-15 days actually with epacket. But my initial plan was to stock inventory and drive costs down and ship from here if the market shows demand for the product. It didn't..

but might have been because of the advertising method. FB/IG is catered to impulse cheap buys, not really easy to sell utilitarian things on fb.

 

[Ecom man]

I think the product i was selling just didnt have enough demand. Its a cool idea but there's no real need for it. And it costs more than a traditional standard product. Thought a specific niche might like it so I tested it. IG likes were great, over 450 likes on instagram but only 1 sale. I ended up killing all campaigns.

Shipping is 7-15 days actually with epacket. But my initial plan was to stock inventory and drive costs down and ship from here if the market shows demand for the product. It didn't..

but might have been because of the advertising method. FB/IG is catered to impulse cheap buys, not really easy to sell utilitarian things on fb.

Have you checked eBay to see if there is any demand for the product?

 

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[Denim Chicken]

Have you checked eBay to see if there is any demand for the product?

I did after my 1st day of ads. I thought FB ads would be easier to get people to buy due to them being targeted but I guess not. I'm thinking a marketplace like ebay or amazon is easier.

When I searched on ebay through the sold/complete listings, there were some but they were all between $8-14 dollars. Some used, some skinnier and not good quality than mine.

Assuming they were all the same, how much volume did you say is indicative of good demand? I'm also using google keywords and jungle scout now and if there isn't any on amazon that's making money I figure it's a bust since I read a 1/3 of all product searches are on amazon.

My product only has 1 listing on AZ, at $15, making 1 sale a day. I chose something narrow and obscure to avoid competition but may have gone into something with no demand which is worse lol

 

[Ecom man]

I did after my 1st day of ads. I thought FB ads would be easier to get people to buy due to them being targeted but I guess not. I'm thinking a marketplace like ebay or amazon is easier.

When I searched on ebay through the sold/complete listings, there were some but they were all between $8-14 dollars. Some used, some skinnier and not good quality than mine.

Assuming they were all the same, how much volume did you say is indicative of good demand? I'm also using google keywords and jungle scout now and if there isn't any on amazon that's making money I figure it's a bust since I read a 1/3 of all product searches are on amazon.

My product only has 1 listing on AZ, at $15, making 1 sale a day. I chose something narrow and obscure to avoid competition but may have gone into something with no demand which is worse lol

If selling on your own site the more eBay demand the better the sales will be for you. If selling on eBay I try to keep the number of other sellers to a minimum for obvious reasons. I don't really have any set rules for over X number of sales I carry it and under I don't. I currently have about 150 different products and average 50 sales a day right now. On average I sell 10 of each item a month. (Obviously some sell less and some more but that's the general average) If I am profiting $20 per item (again some are less, some are more) than on average I profit $200 per item I carry. At $200 profit per item and 150 items that's 30k a month profit during the regular year (January-October).

 

[Denim Chicken]

If selling on your own site the more eBay demand the better the sales will be for you. If selling on eBay I try to keep the number of other sellers to a minimum for obvious reasons. I don't really have any set rules for over X number of sales I carry it and under I don't. I currently have about 150 different products and average 50 sales a day right now. On average I sell 10 of each item a month. (Obviously some sell less and some more but that's the general average) If I am profiting $20 per item (again some are less, some are more) than on average I profit $200 per item I carry. At $200 profit per item and 150 items that's 30k a month profit during the regular year (January-October).

Thanks. Im rethinking my strategy, I turned off my fb ads. Is there any advice you have when it comes to marketing and google PPC? If there's a lot of sellers on ebay I'm thinking that while there's significant demand, most of the keywords to drive traffic for those items would be expensive or heavily competitive.

 

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[Ecom man]

Thanks. Im rethinking my strategy, I turned off my fb ads. Is there any advice you have when it comes to marketing and google PPC? If there's a lot of sellers on ebay I'm thinking that while there's significant demand, most of the keywords to drive traffic for those items would be expensive or heavily competitive.

The majority of the seller on eBay are on there cause it's easy and because you only pay if the item sells. There really isn't much correlation between the amount of sellers on eBay and the bids being higher that I have seen. The best way to do it would be test out keywords at certain bids and see what happens. I average 20-30 cents a click for most of my items and get around a 3% conversion rate. You can start with the bids super low and raise them gradually as you get conversion data or just pick an arbitrary cost per click and then adjust from there.

 

[Denim Chicken]

The majority of the seller on eBay are on there cause it's easy and because you only pay if the item sells. There really isn't much correlation between the amount of sellers on eBay and the bids being higher that I have seen. The best way to do it would be test out keywords at certain bids and see what happens. I average 20-30 cents a click for most of my items and get around a 3% conversion rate. You can start with the bids super low and raise them gradually as you get conversion data or just pick an arbitrary cost per click and then adjust from there.

Thanks. I had shut down my fb ads but i had some traffic coming about 20 visitors a day. And I couldn't figure out why or where. Until I signed into my adwords express account (apparently express is separate from adwords sneaky bastards). Saw a charge for $40 and it had been running for 6 days. It resulted in 1 sale and 1 abandoned cart. No profit, actually the sale was for $20 so I'm in the red but kind of good that it ran without me knowing because I have some data and it was my first time using adwords. Time to search new products..