where do you buy from

nmealey

I'm wanting to srll mp3 players on e-bay, but I cant find a source for them cheaper than they are on sale from hong kong on ebay - any advice

soolin

I don't think you will get any real answer to your question on here. If anyone did know a cheap source of anything we would likely keep it to ourselves so that we could make our own profits on ebay. The one thing we all want is a cheap, safe supply or items that go for a really good price on ebay, until then we all rush around trying this or that in small quantities to see what sells and what doesn't.

All I can suggest you do is hunt out manufacturers or something that might be able to help. Don't touch drop shippers though as you end up doing all the work and taking all the risks for them.

Soo

nmealey

cheers soo

Tojo_Ralph

Finding the goods should not be too much of an issue if you want to buy in bulk, but as a seller, you might come up against a mentality issue with regard to bidders.

Some info here.....

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=40813

Hintza

I had the same thought you had and approached manufacturers in the far east through a business forum. I must have had over 100 replies.

The result was that the price I could buy them for plus all my fees to Ebay/PayPal plus VAT and duty and the cost of inevitable returns, meant that it was barely viable. The only way to make it work was pile it high sell it cheap and I doubt at the end of the day you would make much more than £5 (if you were lucky).

The way it works so well from Hong Kong is they ramp postage and keep goods cheap thereby getting around the VAT. You would have to buy in such quantities that this would be impossible.

To make this work I think tou would have to buy a container full.

I have a friend who took the plunge (unrelated goods) but shifts a lot of the stuff to the company he works for and sell to retail outlets and plays around selling seconds on ebay. But he went to China to sort the deal out and anything less than a container they were not interested.

gerryco

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

biblejohn

nmealey wrote:

I'm wanting to srll mp3 players on e-bay, but I cant find a source for them cheaper than they are on sale from hong kong on ebay - any advice

So why do you want to sell mp3 players then and not something else?

Buying & selling is all about finding something which people want to buy but you can buy it cheaper than they can and so you can sell it to them for a profit.

The problem is that there are only so many things you can sell and on ebay especially the competition is huge from millions of people all trying to do the same thing.

Ive bought and sold stuff all my life to make extra pocket money and its extreemly hard to find a regular cheap supplier.

Ive bought stuff in the past from manufactorers directly. The electronic items i used to buy I got at the "trade" price, which usually was 25% cheaper than the retail and then I had to buy them in bulk. In order to encourage people to buy from me (a 1 man band) rather than an established major shop, I usually had to sell at 10% less then retail, so id make 15% profit. Then, if you want to take credit card transactions you`d expect to knock another 5% of that, leaving 10% profit.

When I then started to advertise in magazines, that alone cost about 90quid a shot, which instantly wiped out weeks of profit. But, it was a catch22 in that you needed to advertise in the hope you`d get customers.

In the end I just couldnt compete with some of the major resellers of the products i specialised in. Even though I was one of the first resellers of the products the big boys just came in and took all my potential customers.

nmealey

The reason I was interested in MP3 players was that ther is a healthy demand for them however on e-bay a majority of sellers offer tham "cheap" with a compulsory £14 delivery & £5 insurance. If I couls source in the UK and sell from the UK it would be cheaper and (i would be) more reliable than the competition.

biblejohn

nmealey wrote:

The reason I was interested in MP3 players was that ther is a healthy demand for them however on e-bay a majority of sellers offer tham "cheap" with a compulsory £14 delivery & £5 insurance. If I couls source in the UK and sell from the UK it would be cheaper and (i would be) more reliable than the competition.

Good idea, but you`d have to buy literally thousands of them in bulk in order to be able to resell them cheaper than people can buy them from any of the online retailers or on ebay. The risk then is being able to shift them before the price drops even more.

The last electricical item I sold on ebay, i was buying at £15 and was selling on ebay for £40. Nice bit of profit, so I bought about 50 of them in bulk. Problem was other people soon realised the same as me and within 2 weeks the resell price on ebay had dropped to £20 and ive still got 30 of them in my "store room". Now im barely shifting 1 a week.

Darren21

Poser of the day......

I get them free....anyone can get them free
They sell on ebay for around £8-10 each...
I've made £250 (after ebay & paypal fees) in the last 2 months selling them...............

.......................................................whoever wins the riddle gets the chance to earn free money!

stavros_2

Darren21 wrote:

Poser of the day......

I get them free....anyone can get them free
They sell on ebay for around £8-10 each...
I've made £250 (after ebay & paypal fees) in the last 2 months selling them...............

.......................................................whoever wins the riddle gets the chance to earn free money!

candy from a baby? :cool: