Wholesaller recommendations and EBay shop advice please!

Macready08

Hi
!
I’m looking for help. I currently have a lot of spare time and a small amount of extra money to invest. My plan is to open an EBay shop and see if I can make myself a wee bit more money while having fun with my own mini business.

The problem is however, being new to this and inexperienced I can’t seem to find a reputable, safe, cheap and honest wholesaler or an alternative where I can pick up stock to sell on.

Every place I seem to find a good deal on fails on the reviews when I look it up.

If anyone has any suggestions, wisdom or past experiences they can share with me it would be much appreciated!

Thanks and sorry if this is in the wrong section.

Stuar

Crowqueen

Few people will give you their contacts here and allow you to set up in business in direct competition with them.

However, my tip would be to start in an area you know something about - I am a stamp collector and if I thought I could make a decent living at eBay selling that is the market I would go into, for example - and buy stock in that area. You will have the advantage of knowing your market as a consumer (always a good idea as a seller), knowing what people are looking for when they buy, knowing the sort of prices they are prepared to pay, and knowing the best places to buy bulk stock.

Macready08

Oh yes I understand that people won't give away the tricks of there trade, so to speak just point me in the direction where I won't get ripped off or sent fault/fake goods.

I was seriously looking at buying a palet or return/clearance electrics from marthill.co.uk but I seen a topic on these forums that doset paint a very good picture.

So right now I'm a bit lost for direction.

!

Macready08

Also if anyone could spare and past experiences with dropshing it would be appreciated thanks!

soolin

Macready08 wrote: »

Also if anyone could spare and past experiences with dropshing it would be appreciated thanks!

I will give advice on drop shipping and that is 'don't'

Putting your business in the hands of a third party is a bad idea, buyers now demand almost perfection from their sellers, so the moment your drop shipper fails to despatch same day, or runs out of stock it isn't them that gets the blame, it is you. Many business sellers expect to ship daily and I think you would be hard pressed to find a drop shipper prepared to do that for you.

Then factor in losses and damage, plus all the returns due to a simple change of mind- and unless you are returning a very high profit margin you will soon be out of pocket. One of our regulars on here nearly had their business collapse a few Christmases ago as drop shipper just stopped shipping due to a problem with stock, and forgot to mention it to the seller for a few days- by which time the feedback was being trashed.

Unless you cna build up a real relationship with a drop shipper, ie go visit them and actually work out a business model that suits you then it might be better to stick with physically holding stock until you get established. However, don't use any easily found wholesaler as everyone else can find them too- search out something unique that doesn't advertise on the net.

I am currently importing items to resell, my profit margins are not high but I only sell when i physically have stock in hand. The sites I buy from have all offered me wholesale deals- but those wholesale prices are dearer than my end price on ebay.

Macready08

Thanks Soolin, you have totaly put me off dropshipping and rules that out. As for your recomendation on wholesalers I assme I should forget about awnything I find on google. Perhaps the yellow pages or somthing like that would be a good rout to go down?

hopeless_case_2

i bought from alibaba and checked the company out stock arrived fine it was slow at first but its gone mad this week and i need to re-order.Be prepared to learn as you go you must be careful on ali but there are legit people out there

RoscoeFoley

I am too in the same position. I am just starting out selling on ebay (I have 100% feedback as a buyer and I have sold a few items too). I have been looking at the Alibaba site and also have spoken to several companies on there. I tried using that site 4-5 years ago and got a bit wary as they were asking for western union transfers, safe to say I did it once and then lost all confidence in them, but still recieved items. I now feel a lot safer using Alibaba as most companies use PP which is a huge relief. I plan to place my first order in the next couple of days.

hopeless_case_2

hi maybe try ali express where you can order less quantity but they will probs cost you more per unit but it will get you started. Good luck.

hopeless_case_2

just had a thought when you find a company you want to do business with google them putting the word scammer or scam after the name it should give you an idea of wether the company is legit,its hard to do the first time but once you find a good company you will be set.

Oliver14

hopeless_case wrote: »

just had a thought when you find a company you want to do business with google them putting the word scammer or scam after the name it should give you an idea of wether the company is legit,its hard to do the first time but once you find a good company you will be set.

Most good wholesalers aren't on the internet. So not sure how useful that advice is.