buying from online wholesale and selling ebay/etc

homerjh

Looking online i have seen some wholesalers that seem to be selling 'lots' of x bits of fashion/costume jewellery for £150 but a value of £1700+

however doing maths, if only half sell (say 150 out of 300) for £3 each (and the postage/etc is covered by the buyer) then that will be £450, so essentially £300 up from the initial outlay.

take £100 for setup of website and the like then initially for an outlay of £150 it could then pretty much pay for its own setup and then for future stock just buy more of the like, so could buy a different 'lot' of jewellery with the remaining initial profit.

so would this idea be a goer and a possability or has it been tried before by someone else without success?

Space is an issue so it would need to be a smaller items to be able to keep them stored n the back room !

jumbojuice

i would recommend seeing if the wholesalers sell themselves on ebay - if not, question whether there is demand for the stuff - if they do - there is competition that will always be able to undercut you - and even better, if they do - you can see how much each item typically goes for and do the maths from there!

mum2one

Totally agree with Jumbojuice, if there is that much profit in it, why arent they sell it themsleves..........they could of already sold 10 sets, so that would be 10 other ebayers ur going against.

If it sounds to gd to be true, penny to the pound its to gd to be true!! x

soolin

The basic premis is wrong.

Firstly ignore the RRP suggested by a wholesale, selling a batch of jewellery for £150 probably means jewellery is only worth about £300. You need to sell it all to break even and at a huge mark up.

Even in the original post you have overlooked all the fees etc. If you sell say on ebay you have listing fees for all the items, including th eones that don't sell so that loss has to be taken from the profit. Then you have FVfs and paypal fees. You also need to have a contingency fund for returned items, lost items or ones returned just under the distance selling regulations. You are obviously trading (hence DRSs applying) so you will then pay tax and national insurance on the profit (if any) .

You'd be lucky to even look to break even.

Still on the example of jewelery, remember what you are up again. The teenage girls that frequent my house (I have sons) visit places like Primark and buy basket loads of costume jewellery for a pound or two a piece, they wear it a few times and then buy more. At Christmas they were buying diamante tiaras for instance at £2 a go and black 'jet' goth choker necklaces at around £3.

Your ebay stuff needs to compete with that but you have the problem of postage as well. So if you need to charge £1 postage to cover your actual postage and secure wrapping then you have nothing left for the item cost as you are staring at a £1 disadvantage. Add to that the fact you even pay paypal fees on the postage element and you begin to see the problems here.

virtexpne

I haven't been on this site for a few months so apologises if something like that has already been posted!

One of the most obvious ways to up income outside of normal work hours is too sell stuff on ebay. I've already turned the house upside to shift everything I don't need/no longer use and made a couple of hunderd quid from it, but I want something more long term and more sustainable.

I'm considering setting up an ebay shop and to do so need a decent list of wholesalers (in anything) to buy in bulk cheap so I can move them on for a tidy profit.

Firstly does anybody else do this - any tips/advice?

And secondly and perhaps most importantly - can anyone recommend any good wholesalers to buy from?

durham_girl

You're probably better off asking on the ebay board.

The only thing is, nobody is going to tell you their suppliers. They will all have worked hard to get their business off the ground and by telling you they would be creating competition for themselves, which nobody in their right mind would do.

That said, I wish you good luck

Antispam

This was posted just below your thread

buying from online wholesale and selling ebay/etc

DKLS

Not sure what sector you are in, so this may not be relevant. You have just missed the latest Spring Fair, but register for the next one, and there is a shed load of wholesalers all in the same place.

Money_maker

Took me months of internet trawling to get a decent number of contacts for wholesalers.
You can find what you need but it does take time.

Bigun28

Depending on what you are buying, there are a lot in certain areas of London and Manchester that I've found and dealt with in the past. You will need to buy in bulk, and you will also need to know your market. It it's fashion items you can make a 'big killing' with the right things, but the trend can move very quickly and you could suddenly end up with a load of 'dead' stock.

As said before, no-one is really going to tell you where to go or what to sell unless they want to open up competition for themselves. Do your homework and research and you can find the wholesalers. There are magazines available that can help you.

The only tip I can give is to try and work back through the wholesalers to find the actual importers. If they will deal with you (some will) then you cut out the middle man (the wholesaler) and maximise your profits. Tricky, but it can be done.

Poppy9

You are not going to have the turnover on ebay for £3 pieces of jewellery plus postage as that end of the market will use fashion shops which are forever having 75% off sales on their costume jewellery. Just checkout Debenhams, Wallis, Dorothy Perkins, Claires etc.

My OH used to be a jeweller but he didn't sell non precious metals. His cheaper range was silver amber which was all the rage at the time. He found he could buy this extremely cheap by going to direct to Poland rather than via a wholesaler. He had to sell it quickly though as it was a passing trend. There was a lot of competition in this area at the time but by pricing right, displaying well and offering nice packaging at Xmas he sold about 95% of it. On Ebay it's hard to offer the extras. At Xmas you might do better to offer free gift wrap and a nice box as men hate wrapping presents but then you have to build this into your price and still look like good value.