I often receive emails from people asking me how to get started with selling online – particularly where to actually find the products to resell! I always notice an increase in these kind of questions at the top-end of a new year, as we are now, . Of course that’s only natural – a new year often kick starts us in to making changes.
So, this week, I thought I’d tell you a little about ‘finding products to sell’!
When it comes to finding potential products, the world really is your oyster. There are bargains to be found in different locations that you can purchase and resell for a profit; you just need to know where to look! Any purchasing opportunity is a chance to sell online, but to maximise your income streams, some options for sourcing stock are always going to be better than others.
Today I’m going to run through just a few ideas that you may have considered before. You don’t need to limit yourself to these few suggestions, but if you’re stumped when it comes to knowing how to find products to sell online then these ideas will hopefully give you a push in the right direction.
You can make your own product
If you’re a creative person you might like to consider making your own product rather than purchasing something to resell. It could be a painting, it could be a mobile phone case or it could be baby clothes – it could be pretty much anything at all really!
There are multiple options when it comes to selling something that you’ve handcrafted as well. eBay features categories specifically for handcrafted goodies, or alternatively you could look into an ecommerce site that’s set up purely to deal with homemade items such as Etsy.com.
If you aren’t particularly crafty, how about picking an interest of yours and creating an eBook about it to sell through your own website? eBooks are huge business these days, and you can even consider listing them on Amazon’s main site or their Kindle store.
You can import your stock from overseas
You’ve probably noticed that lots of everyday items are made in China. The high street chains that we buy our goods from are in fact just middle men who sell on the stock that their factory in China manufactures. But what if you could cut out the middle man altogether, and instead deal directly with the supplier yourself to pick up some incredible bargains? It’s never been easier to contact individuals all around the globe, so the door to trading overseas really is wide open.
I know that you might be nervous about importing goods from another country, but there is lots of useful information available online about dealing with exactly this scenario that will guide you through the process of finding an exporter, placing an order and selling on your stock. A really good place to start is to look at the information available on the Alibaba website here.
Alibaba features a long list of Chinese exporters in a vast range of different categories. You can search by either specific products or by company, so you can soon find a few prospective exporters to help produce the products you really want.
Alternatively you’ll find ‘jargon free’ articles, tips and information plus suppliers on my own Source Report membership site. If you haven’t joined yet, – my special trial offer is still open!
You can look for liquidation sales
These days we live in a difficult financial climate – something made obvious by the large high street chains we’ve seen closed down in recent months. Although it’s sad to see recognisable names vanish from the high street, savvy sellers like you and I can make some great profits by being on hand to take some of the shops’ leftover stock.
For example, when the well-known Woolworths closed its doors they sold everything, from leftover stock to the filing cabinets in the offices behind the shop front. If you get in at the right time you can pay next to nothing for some high quality bits and pieces to resell online.
You’ll need to stay on top of current events to really take advantage of these big closing down sales, though sometimes you may just get lucky and happen to walk past a local shop that’s shutting its doors and getting rid of any last items. Be careful though, sometimes even in a shop’s last moments the deals aren’t as great as you might believe.
When buying away from your computer it’s harder to compare prices right away, so go in with an idea of what the types of products that you’re after are worth rather than buying up everything and later realising that some of the stock won’t sell.
You can buy online – and resell online
Another option for finding products to sell online is actually to buy from other online sellers in the first place. But buy from where? Well, anywhere that’s cheaper than the price you might be able to resell the stock for! This requires a bit of patience and research is definitely the key here, for example you may be able to find an item on eBay that will sell for a profit over on Amazon, or vice versa.
I received an email from a Source Report member just this week telling me that she has been doing this for a little while and always makes a profit. In fact this is what I call ‘finding and flipping’ which is a whole new strategy on it’s own!
But there are a multitude of online retail outlets that will have goods on a limited time sale that could earn you some extra money so it’s worth having a good old browse around the web.
Buying online and then reselling online is actually a great strategy especially when it comes to eBay, because there is always a choice assortment of products listed at auction that include misspellings, no photographs, poor descriptions or that end at unearthly hours that you can snap up for an incredible price and sell on for a profit.
Just a tip – it’s worth having two eBay accounts if you’re considering this strategy, one for buying and one for selling, but with that in place there’s nothing stopping you from snapping up a bargain.
No matter which method you end up using to find products to sell online, the most important piece of advice I can give you is to always be aware of the real value of your item. Look at other websites where the item, or one similar to it, is for sale to get an idea of the amount of money you might be able to make from it.
Remember: it’s not a bargain if you can’t sell it on for a profit!
Be careful where you spend your money and you’ll soon be maximising your earning potential.