Business Advice | Wholesale | Imports

millwalll

Hi All,

I am planing to start my first small business and had some question about obtaining stock.

I have found a number of websites that will provide me wholesale goods on the items I want to sell, however I am a bit unsure on what the best approach is.

The UK companies can provide me stock but the price I pay sometimes means there is very little profit or no profit at all. I understand if I buy more volume I would get a better price but at the moment I want to start off small. I don't really want to buy 10,000 of one item. I am looking at more 50 - 100 of a particular line.

Buying from other countries gives me a better profit margin as the products appear to be cheaper. However I am a bit worried this may be untrue. The reason for thinking this is once I take shipping and import taxes into account. Also as many deal in dollas the price will depend on the exchange rate. I assume this would squeeze the profit margin down.

The other thing I am worried about is important standards like CE. I assume buying from the UK products would meet standards like CE. If I buy from other countries would they meet this standard.

As the last thing I would want to do it buy something that is unsafe.

Would I be better off to buy from the UK as I am dealing with smaller amounts of stock?

Then hopefully if I grow I can then buy bigger amounts from other countries?

any advice in this area would be appreciated.

Thanks
James

lincroft1710

Can you realistically "grow" the business? Why would I buy from you rather a larger, better known competitor? Could I easily find your website or premises?

Is there no way you could buy one or two items from abroad to check on quality/safety issues? Buying poor quality products will not help your business.

fishybusiness

I say stop before you commit your money to this.

It has been done a million times over, no USP, no new ideas just imported goods to make profit.

You've already identified profit issues, and selling in volume to allow you to buy in volume just puts you in a circle of 'how many do I need to sell to make a profit', and then finding the platform(s) to facilitate this.

Unless you have a very good USP I think it is a road to nowhere.

millwalll

The main market place will be ebay as I already have a lot of positive feedback on that site. I understand its quite a saturated market place but hoping with my positive feedback I have that it will get me buyers.

This is not really a long term business it mainly to learn some stuff and try a few ideas I have out before I start my main business idea.

just asking for advice as learning curve really.

fishybusiness

hoping with my positive feedback I have that it will get me buyers.

Not a chance, ebay is perhaps the worst marketplace to cut your teeth on.

Google 'race to the bottom ebay'.

If your USP is your postive feedback you will fail, you really need a solid niche market product or product range, not just imported goods.

If you have one, great, you'll make some money until someone else sees your product(s) and finds your supplier, then you have competition, and off you go on your race to the bottom.

Very blunt advice I know, but really? It's been done a million times already.

martindow

Assuming that the products are what you are expecting, prices that are cheap at the factory gate in China will be a lot more once you've paid to transport them around the world and paid customs fees and VAT on entering the UK.



It is almost impossible to compete on price. Where you can have an edge is selling things where you know your range of items inside out and can give knowledgeable and authoritative advice. You need to start from your interests and expertise. If you do decide to go ahead do lots of research and do it on a small scale using money you could afford to use if it all goes wrong (as many start up businesses do).

LushesFaith

Amazon fba or Amazon marketplace or ebay could work. Plus your own website or social media.
There are some companies in the UK who will let you buy smaller orders. Just depends on what it is.

Just try it and see. Some products the international vendors also sell on amazon and ebay too. However being a British located business is a usp that some people like.

go for it

seatbeltnoob

I have made money in the past on ebay. I don't do it any more as I got tired of doing this to make a living and wanted something better. I much prefer to work for bigger jobs with higher profit per sale than ebay. It is definately profitable if you are happy with the mediocrity of managing inventory, looking for things to sell and listing items and packing your items. This is basically what you do day in day out and can get boring.



You have to be smart with what you import and sell, dont follow the herd, look at typical sales price and look at alibaba suppliers and see if you can get the landed cost down to a fraction of what the typical sales price is.


My products were a complete mix bag, LED lighting strips, watch straps, snap frames etc. Do not buy from UK suppliers, there wont be any margin in it for you. You need to import from China and sell direct to public to make a decent living because the ebay fees, paypal fees, courier costs really reduce your margins so you need to have all the margins you can get.


My goal is to get products that sell for 4x their landed cost is, in order to make a decent return for myself.


I do like shop fittings and other bulk items where you will get your 1-2 qty order with customers buying 50+ in one lot. You can make £30-£40 profit on each order which is nice.


Not interested in selling iphone screen protectors making 20p profit on each one - even if the volumes are good. That's a LOT of screen protectors to make £100 profit.

bris

Depends on what you want to sell. Electronics forget it, gadgets forget it, mobile accessories forget it. Ebay, forget it in fact any online market place forget it.


The sad fact is the Chines control the market places now with every product you can think of with very little profit and shipment is free.


You need to be importing thousands of a single product to get the price down to a level you can make a small profit on.